And Another One.

Monsieur Axl, with these cartoons you are really spoiling us!

Another Cartoon.

Look, here's another one I found.

A Cartoon.

I just found this cartoon I did a couple of years ago and it made me laugh.

Do you like it?

I Just Had A Daydream...

...that the door of the library I'm in just opened and a massive wave of blood just came like that scene with the lift from 'The Shining'. This wave of blood just knocked everything over and submerged all the computers and I climbed a bookcase coz I didn't want to drown in fucking blood.
I reckon drowning in blood would be a pretty unpleasant way to go. I mean, it would be so thick and the taste of that much blood would probably be pretty horrific. I think if had to drown I would much rather drown in water than in something thicker like blood, treacle, or even worse, wet concrete.
You can't even swim it wet concrete! That would definitely be the worst thing to drown in. That or shit. Human shit. Or animal shit. Actually, which would be worse to drown in? Imagine a swimming pool full of shit that you were about to drown in. Would you rather it were human or animal? I genuinely don't know which would be worse.
I think I need to get out of here. This place is fucking messing with my head.

Here's Something I've Learned Today.

If your dinner consists of a load of prawn crackers and nothing else, you will get gut pains and really bad gas.

Just so you know.

How To Make People Come To Your Church.

Has today's modern and 'enlightened' (i.e. heathen) society lead to a decrease in people attending your local church services? Want to win back the increasingly disillusioned public? Well, why not take a leaf out of the churches in St Clements, and put up some quirky posters!

Just take a look at the kind of thing you could be doing!

Got some spare puns lying around?

Heck, don't just leave them there gathering dust, put them to good use!

Everyone loves sport, right?

Use that to your advantage!

Here's some clever wordplay that proves that those old sporting terms are more versatile than you might have thought.

Woah there! What's this?

Yeah, okay, see everything needs fuel of some kind to function, right?

Well, why is your soul any different?

I think you will agree that this has certainly given you something to think about, huh?

I bet that because of these amazing posters, the St Clements churches are full to the flipping brim with worshipers now. Quite frankly I don't know how I'm here typing this when my local church is just a short walk away with regularly inspiring nuggets such as these.

Axl's Thoughts On The Book 'Pride & Prejudice & Zombies'.

As I was walking to college today, I walked past Borders and in their window was a poster displaying some of their 'Books Of The Year'. On this poster was the book 'Pride & Prejudice & Zombies'. Now, my initial reaction was something along the lines of 'Oh my God, what the fuck is that doing on a 'Books Of The Year' list? For fuck's sake, that's ridiculous,' but then I started thinking.

See, I was listening to my iPod, and the Four Tet remix of 'Volcano' by Anti-Pop Consortium had just finished playing. I would say that this is one of my favourite songs of the year.

But it's a remix.

This got me thinking.

What's inherently wrong with 'Pride & Prejudice & Zombies'?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but PP&Z is the book 'Pride & Prejudice' with some extra zombie scenes written into it, therefore putting the overall work into a different context. You could say it's someone remixing literature. That's what someone does when they remix a song after all, they change the context of it, writing new parts into it and therefore changing the overall effect. Okay, that is simplifying the remix process somewhat, but that is essentially what it is, right?

So what's wrong with remixing literature?

What is actually wrong with that?

Coz I haven't read it, I was making snap judgements on it based on what it is, and yet, thinking about it, I can see no reason to not like what it is. Sure, if I read it and thought it was trashy and stupid then fine, but I can see no problem with what PP&Z is doing.

NOW, someone out there is going to be thinking something along the lines of, 'But Axl, a remix of a song is totally different because the people involved in the song have specifically asked for their song to be remixed. With PP&Z, someone has just taken an out of copyright text and messed around with it. Jane Austin has had NO say in this whatsoever. It's being promoted as something new when in fact it's just a gimmick designed to make money, not an exercise in recontextualisation at all,' as indeed those are arguments against this book that I have heard and read before.

Well, this won't be very popular, but I reckon that unless you have read the book, you're not in a position to make that judgement. Fine, you can know the idea and decide that it's not for you, or that you don't think it's something you would enjoy, we all make those decisions all the time, but I don't believe that as an idea and a concept, it is something that can be written off.

Look at Baz Luhrmann's 'Romeo + Juliet'. The audacity of taking that play and putting it in modern times and re-writing very small elements of it (e.g. guns instead of swords, Romeo going to the Capulet party off his tits, etc), places it in a new setting and context and completely alters the work. Reaction? Trepidation and scepticism at first, but on seeing it most people agree that it is a very good film, and a pretty brave one too. Slightly garish in places yes, but come on, that's a really good film right there, and an adaptation that Shakespeare had nothing whatsoever to do with.

Also there are many, many things that get done in music with JS Bach, Mozart, and many other classical composers out of copyright music that is a complete bastardisation of the original works being repackaged and jigged about with, including things like 'The Well Tempered Synthesiser', JS Bach's 'The Well Tempered Clavier' played on synths, and 'Bach To Africa', selected JS Bach pieces played with African percussion accompaniment.

This is just a small selection of reworkings, rewritings and yes, recontextualisings of works that happens all the bloody time. Why novels should be the sacred cow among the arts I really don't know.

'Pride & Prejudice & Zombies'? The more I think about it, the more I'm surprised it hasn't happened before, and that this kind of thing doesn't happen more often.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes.

Hey all.

Due to the ridiculous amount of spam I've been getting as comments on my blog recently, I have unfortunately decided that word verification and comment approval is now necessary. Don't worry, all your 'Oh Axl, don't be such a massive douche,' and 'Oh LOL Axl!!1!' comments will still all go up, I just need to weed out the stupid amount of 'miley cyrus nude miley cyrus nude miley cyrus nude' & 'hasjkhwud free xp3 hkjsHGDUI' etc etc type stuff that I've been getting.

I will only not approve of spam. Everything else will be approved, so keep commenting!

KTHXBAI

A Question I Ask Myself Every Time I Walk Into Town.

What the fuck is the point of this?

Seriously, these have to be the most pointless double yellow lines ever.

Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me About Growing Up/Getting Older.

If I ever have kids, I'm going to make sure my kids know all of these things so they don't come to them as as much of a shock as they have come to me. I want them to be prepared for this shit.

* Watching your hair get gradually more grey as your life goes on is one of the most depressing things ever.

* Spots don't magically stop appearing on you when you reach 20.

* There will come a time in your life where you find that sometimes urinating takes actual physical effort. Not always, but sometimes.

* Almost every mistake you make will haunt you for the rest of your life. (However, I will add the point that when things are going well for you, some of them will haunt you a lot less.)

* Work can be just as unpleasant an experience as school sometimes, in every way.

* When you grow up, you still won't have all the answers.

I had more in my head earlier. If I remember them, I'll add them later.

However there are also a couple of things that I will make sure I point out to them.

* No matter what anyone tells you, your school days are not necessarily going to be the best days of your life. Not at all.

* You will almost certainly actually have very very little in life to be afraid of, no matter what anyone tells you.

If I had known all this in advance, I would be a much better person, and much more capable of dealing with the world than I am.