A funny thing occurred to me. Several years ago, I did an interview for a site called Street Voice UK. Later, someone sent me a message on Facebook asking did I know that the person interviewing me was a far left Nazi, and perhaps I’d like to remove my interview. I said ‘oh, ok’, but that I didn’t mind being interviewed by someone whose views I disagree with. ‘Very well then,’ they said. ‘I’m going to put you on a list’ – or something to that effect. So I guess I’m on a list. Anyway, it’s true, the interviewer is extremely left wing, the variety of radical feminist who doesn’t want trans women to be women. Due to the interview connection, I follow him on Twitter. And I’ve just realised the following. Had I unfollowed him because of his views, I would never have randomly clicked on an interesting-looking YouTube link he posted in a fit of disgust several months ago, and I subsequently would never have met the wonderful person in that YouTube video, who is now my girlfriend (and secretary!).
So…my concluding comment to this chain of events is something along the lines of ‘hah’. And the moral of the story, perhaps, is that sometimes it pays – not only intellectually but even socially – to follow your ideological enemies. You may remember me recounting a similar tale of web-based coincidences, also an amusing interplay of the romantic and the banal but less politically-charged, in the story of how a facebook advert made me meet my boyfriend. And yes, I do have a girlfriend and a boyfriend. I’m greedy like that.
So here’s a video of me and Kim together. Take that, naysayers! Following a TERF got me laid. That’s all I wanted to say really.
My pink polka-dot jumper is sadly no longer with us – although its remains do live on in tiny pieces, for example in the form of some home-made buttons for which I was on the receiving end of cruel teasing from at least one of my siblings (though not as cruel as the teasing I was subjected to over the actual sweater, during its heyday). These photographs from 2013 by Ronnie The Dux Medal are special because you can see here the origin of the item’s demise – the fraying armpit (which, at the time, provided a convenient viewing window for when I wanted to show people my armpit’s first hairstyle involving the presence of hair).
I would simply like to make the following casual comparison observation regarding two different photo composites by different photographers at different times.
In case you’ve ever wondered where some of my stranger image titles/captions in various places around teh web come from, I’ve decided it’s time to let you all know – and I’ve mentioned it before but you may not have gotten that memo – that they don’t come from my deranged imagination fully formed, not at all – they’re only based on the contents of my brain. They are in fact Markov-chain generated, based on one- and two-word units from everything I’ve ever written on Facebook. It’s all thanks to a brilliant piece of software developed by some nerds at Princeton, who created http://www.what-would-i-say.com for the benefit of mankind. It’s great fun, fascinating if you’re into statistics, linguistics or algorithms, and of course a very useful resource for a lazy absurdist.
In July I returned to my childhood neighbourhood of South East London to shoot a quirky rap video with rap duo Ley and Lucky who perform under the name of Team Foul. I’d never acted in a music video for a song with words before, and the brief was quite vague – the plan was to make it up as we went along. It was real novelty, a challenge, and an unusual opportunity. Continue reading
Although I always have a moderately large supply of entertaining things to say and share, I’ve been a terrible blogger from the outset. I’ve wondered why, and entertained various hypotheses about it (extreme laziness, shyness, trauma around written assignments ever since Cambridge?) and I realized that the reason I avoid blogging is due to accumulated guilt about not blogging. Continue reading
To many people, “geek” and “nerd” are synonyms, but in fact they are a little different. Consider the phrase “sports geek” — an occasional substitute for “jock” and perhaps the arch-rival of a “nerd” in high-school folklore. If “geek” and “nerd” are synonyms, then “sports geek” might be an oxymoron. (Furthermore, “sports nerd” either doesn’t compute or means something else.)
In my mind, “geek” and “nerd” are related, but capture different dimensions of an intense dedication to a subject:
geek – An enthusiast of a particular topic or field. Geeks are “collection” oriented, gathering facts and mementos related to their subject of interest. They are obsessed with the newest, coolest, trendiest things that their subject has to offer.
nerd – A studious intellectual, although again of a particular topic or field. Nerds are “achievement” oriented, and focus their efforts on acquiring knowledge and skill over trivia and memorabilia.
