Year: 2002

I got some great spam today – it was for naked girlie videos and pictures. It said that it had pictures of young naive girls that had somehow become captured by the evil porn business. It occurred to me that this was both the most highly self-referential porn I’d ever heard of, and also explains why people don’t really do anything about those who are being exploited by the porn industry and who really wouldn’t want to do it otherwise. It’s because the people who watch the porn don’t really want to believe that these people are doing it for a career. They want to believe that they started naive and were drawn in and corrupted by the horros of an evil industry. I think it must make it seem more sexy.

We take a brief break from stories of Tom’s weekend in Norfolk to suggest that you go and check that Yahoo haven’t signed you up for an infinity of spam missives. They had me, and I don’t recall agreeing to it…

So I’m in the car with my brother talking to him about my mother and father and I say to him that basically my mother’s a bit weird sometimes because you never know what’s going to make her irritable. It’s like sometimes she’s campaigning for an argument. And my brother kind of nods and laughs which with most other people would mean that they agreed, but with my little brother generally means that he’s not really listening properly. And then we get home and my mother cooks this amazing meal which she calls ‘Jamie Oliver Chicken’ and afterwards my father looks incredibly happy and satisfied and says, “We don’t often eat quite that well of an evening! Thank you darling!” And then for no reason at all my mother goes completely insane and we all stare at her dumbfounded.

So I’m standing in the kitchen with my mother and the BBC suddenly switches over to report on the Queen Mother finally kicking the bucket. And we’re both drawn towards the TV for a moment, and the atmosphere suddenly becomes slightly tense – like when you hear a friend on the phone and it’s suddenly obvious that something bad has happened at the other end of the line because your friend’s mood has suddenly changed from face-making to actually interested and worried. And then I say, “About bloody time, frankly!” And my mother bursts out laughing and then looks suddenly serious and then says “I hope that doesn’t mean they’ll cancel Casualty….” I mean come on – the woman’s only been alive this long because she drained 2/3rds of the revenue of the National Health service and because they fed her the blood of teenage virgins mixed with gin four times a day.

So my family have all gone to bed and the clocks have changed and I look up out of the window of my bedroom where I’m typing away in complete darkness with my shirt off and my iPod playing Air and when I do I see that the moon’s yellow through the mist.

And suddenly it’s Saturday and I haven’t posted for days.

Barbelith and work are occupying most of my waking hours at the moment, so I’ll just apologise to the world if you’re feeling neglected. Perhaps I can ease your pain with a list of all the ways that you can incorrectly spell Britney Spears.

Announcing the relaunch of The Barbelith Underground – now with happy sparkly colours, a completely rebuilt back-end courtesy of Cal Henderson and a raft of mostly-functioning new techniques in community self-management that I might write up if I get a moment… Let’s just check they work though first…

Fun with a lesbian (sorry, L’espion) camera in and around the office as taken by Mr Matt Biddulph of makeashorterlink infamy: See if you can spot me…

Tremendous news: Popbitch godhead mooted to take over The Face magazine!