An Ungraspable Phantom

O Dive custos – Elegy on the Death of Queen Mary O dive custos auriacae domus Et spes labantis certior imperi; O rebus adversis vocande, O superum decus in secundis! Seu te fluentem pronus ad Isida In vota fervens Oxonidum chorus, Seu te precantur, quos remoti Unda lavat properata Cami, Descende caelo non ita creditas Visurus aedes praesidiis tuis, Descende visurus penates Caesaris, et penetrale sacrum. Maria musis flebilis occidit, Maria, gentis deliciae brevis; O flete Mariam! flete, Camoenae! O flete, Divae, dea moriente. O God, guardian of the House of Orange, and surer hope of fleeting power, O you who should be invoked in adversity, O divine ornament in prosperity – whether the eager choir of Oxford by the river Isis calls on you in prayer of they who are washed by the swift stream of the distant Cam – come down from heaven to visit with your help the palace not thus entruste...

Marvel's latest and greatest cinematic effort finally gives us something to chew on: meaningful [spoilers] I'm not sure if the hype is real.  Is his really the greatest spectacle movie  ever ?  Or is it the greatest  contender  for the greatest spectacle movie  ever ?  Let's get to it. Picking up a little after the end of the first  Guardians  film (Baby Groot is no longer reliant on his pot, but is still tiny and freezes when Drax looks at him in the opening setpiece), we find our titular heroes engaged by a society of body paint enthusiasts to defend a  blue screen  platform from an "interdimensional creature hellbent on starting the plot".  Just how do they do so much against blue screens?  I'd corpse immediately, but I suppose that's why I'm an office clerk and not a professional actor; there's a scene later in the film where our heroes stare in wonderment at at the extra-terrestrial baroque decor of their surroundin...

Well, it's been a little while now, three weeks or so?  So much for "It's Tuesday so I must write". It struck me that one of the problems that developed with my previous effort, to the point that it became the neck-bound millstone that sunk it, was the unending dourness, like I'd tried to effect some gritty reboot and just lost the point.  I mean, there are some difficult truths that I have to grasp and deal with which I choose to discuss online as a means of cathartic release, but it's easy to get into a dead end, and then it's very difficult for me to escape that gravitational pull.  I should  be doing more writing (just like I should  keep my room tidy, I guess...), and this is supposed to be part of it. Another problem is the wide range of tone... But I should just get on with it, I suppose.  I can't exactly post my beautiful programme notes alongside thinly-veiled rants against the idiocracy of office life after all, so eventually I'll set...

Hello again everyone, and thanks for tuning it to another episode of bad mental health management! Write what you know.  What you live, what you can relate to, and what your truth is!  Right?  Right?!  Huh.  I don't know, I sometimes feel like I'm flogging a dead horse sometimes with posts like these, but you know, it's Tuesday and I need to write something.  I think what I'd like to focus on this morning is being afraid .  Obviously this is some kind post about anxiety.  I have that (what seems to me) standard high-functioning autism problem to be afflicted by mental health problems but have the wherewithal to see that it isn't entirely rational some or even most of the time, like some kind of intellectual fortitude to know a priori that it's okay and I can leave the house and make a valid contribution to the socio-economic position I have in my working life and be okay and manage... While in fact, my actual experience is feeling completely tra...

After yesterday's "triumphant" return to the self-publishing scene, I thought it was best to capitalise on the momentum gained by such a launch (alright stop laughing). But what is "normal service"?  This April will mark seven years of writing on the internet for free, during which time my anonymity has gradually dwindled, something I'm not entirely sure is either good or bad, or possibly neither?  Maybe it's another pointless worry.  But back to the question, what is "normal"?  I've tried writing lots of things, including recipes and reviews and sequences of haikus, an aborted attempt at fiction and of course, the old stand-by, pieces focused on my depression and why I've never gone through with killing myself.  Perhaps that's where I need to start again? Well, that's an interesting point.  A lot of my current woes are based on employment... And the fact that all that sitting around drinking beer seems to be catching up wit...

Sub Main() MessageBox("Hello World") End Sub "Hello World" Well, it's about time I got back to it.  A month ago I tried to restart my blogging life, and now I'm going to try again.  I suppose I was preoccupied with the tone of the work, trying too hard to make it a space where I could talk about work while also complaining about work while also showcasing my own work and I just don't think that's particularly great.  In an effort to capture all sides of my life rather than the curated versions that are the fashion, only showing the best and brightest while shrinking away from the lesser, I over reached and fell into a nadir from which no writing escapes.  Back to basics, eh? I think I know how to go this time.   Think  so.  I hope you'll bear with me as I once again build up a portfolio of anti-CV and bad poems and basic recipes and films and CDs and train journeys and obsessing over tiny details.  You know, like the good...