April 2013.
Just spent an hour wafting through some of old posts I made on my other blogs. When taken together they represent a rather unique freeze frame of my life, which seems to be comprised of 1) trips to Denmark 2) essay writing 3) reading and 4) complaining, which strikes me as a rather accurate rundown of my endeavours these past eight or nine years. Fitting, then, that I am sat here trying to put the finishing touches to the next chapter of my doctoral thesis. When I used to blog fairly regularly I would comment on what I was reading at the time, but one of the big differences between then and now is that while I tend to read a lot more in terms of research, I seldom get to explore new authors that do not fit within said research. It's a matter of making the best use of the time available and while I do dip in and out of new finds every now and again, it's not the same when you know that there's a 400 page tome that needs to be dealt with.

Having said that I have just started reading Kant for some reason. Now, of course, everyone should read Kant, or so I have been told, but I came the realisation that I really am missing out by not at least trying to familiarise myself with Special K. So the elves at Amazon have sent me a couple of books which are sitting downstairs by the sofa. You need to find the right spot to really appreciate a good read. I read in bed, but I tend to read generally quite easy stuff then so that it doesn't keep me awake. When I'm in my nerd cave I focus on texts for research purposes, but the sofa is special. The light is good, you can lie back and read propped-up on a cushion with a glass of something and the cat sleeps across the way which is always a nice little distraction. 

Just when you thought that George Lucas had wrung the last drop of life from the Star Wars franchise he ups the ante once more and re-re-re-releases the whole saga in blu-ray, complete with the usual plethora of unnecessary edits and insertions. Apparently, in the dramatic finale of Return of the Jedi when Vader throws the emperor down into the abyss, Lucas has now inserted a loud "Noooooooooooooooooo!" and doubtless he has meddled yet again with what used to be, at least for me, a precious part of my childhood.

Now, I didn't mind the prequels and think everybody was over the moon when Lucas announced that he was reutrning to the franchise, but who would have guessed that he would also break the sacred seal and start playing around with the original film? First we had Han Solo's famous under-the-table gunshot at the start of New Hope in which he blasts another trader with a sneaky blindside, being total re-made so that Solo merely responds to an attempt on his life! Then we had all the awful Jabba-The-Hut inserts and new animation which simply look awful and add almost nothing to the story. Worst still is all the needless re-rendering of skyline and backdrop which violently clashes with the original film. In short he took something that was wonderful and fucked it...hard. Not content to make a mockery of Indian Jones he his now relentless altering and subverting his sci-fi masterpiece. Leave it alone George!

So this is the start of a new blog examining whatever new information enters my life over the next year (or so). Books, films, odd conversations, kitchen utensils, habits, addictions, distractions and abstractions will playout on this space and will stand as a testament to either the total lack of anything truly fascinating in my life or the simple pleasures (and irritations) to be had from the ordinary day-to-day.

First off let me start by introducing you to one of the "characters" that has chosen to inhabit my lifespace - my neighbour. We (my partner and I) only moved into our new rental property (the entire concept of house ownership is frankly too sureal to contemplate) a year ago after being driven out of our previous home by a loud and obnoxious neighbour. Not only was the new house bigger, homelier and cheaper, but it also promised a considerable upgrade in the neighbour department so all seemed well. That was until I discovered some of my neighbour's peculiar habits.
The first of these strange addictions manifested itself around Christmas time, and it's a habit that this enthusiastically embraced by my own mother - nocturnal vacuuming. Quite what posesses a person to start pushing the vac round at 3am is a mystery to me and one would normally rationalise such behaviour as belonging to some kind of obsessive compulsive or insomniac. However, whenever I see this sociopath in the daytime they always look well rested and chipper, which leads me to assume that this is more of a hobby than a medical condition.

Now, a few simply instructions to the newly initiated. To get the most out of your nocturnal hoovering you need to wait until the weekend when people are generally more tired and in need of their rest, and then clearly the best time would around 5am on a Sunday. Perfect. As you hoover your home with what should ideally be the oldest and loudest Cold War model of vacuum you can find at the local tip, be sure to clatter into every solid structure in the vancinity, namely skirtingboards, chairs and cupboard plinths. If at all possible you should whistle tunelessly throughout the endeavour, only by doing so can you maximise the aural rape you are dealing out to your neighbours and your own sickening pleasure.

The worst thing about NV is you never know when it will strike and you can only hope that you will deep, deep in sleep when it occurs to be able to wake you from your slumber. But more often than not the high-pitched sqealing of the vacuum penetrates your subconscious and you burst awake from some terrible Freudian nightmare about someone drilling holes in your teeth with a Black and Decker cordless drill. The noise isn't uncomfortably loud like party music thumping through a wall, it is the tonal equivalent of someone repeatedly tapping you on the forehead while grinning like a idiot. Sooner or later you will crack and will be left with no other alternative than screaming long strings of expletives through the wall at your inconsiderate neighbour.