Mysterymeatonline's Blog

If the [neo Nazi]haircut fits, wear it.

mysterymeatonline — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 20:22:34 +0000

I haven’t updated in a long time I know. Of course, I am tremendously busy, but also nothing has really got my goat in a while, so I haven’t felt the need – or inspiration – to update/appear on Jeremy Kyle. But then this evening I logged on to Facebook. Which in itself is nothing unusual. But tonight the stupidity of humanity shocked even me – and I’m a massive cynic.

I am bored of typing so I shall let my Microsoft Paint editing skills do the talking.

I feel I should put this in to some sort of context for those of you with eyesight so ravaged by your giant LCD screens that you can’t read the text. This is the friend of a “friend” (a colleague I’ve not worked with since 2007, and seen only once since, unintentionally) who thinks that a) racism is funny, b) her Facebook profile is the perfect forum for this excellent, informed racist debate, c) using dictionaries and spell checkers is akin to witchcraft.

But for christ’s sake. Making “jokes” so terrible that even the drunk lady doesn’t get them? Maybe it’s because his atrocious spelling completely eradicates any meaning from what he’s saying. OR MAYBE… Just maybe, he’s a clever Nazi-in-disguise. If you misspell ‘race hate’ maybe it ceases to be hate at all. Maybe it becomes hatw instead and that’s okay? This guy’s a genius! A raze-hatibg geniud!

Fatwe. A fatwe. Even Google didn’t know what this means!!

It’s time to Brand myself!

mysterymeatonline — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 10:01:47 +0000

Having to hear about other people’s dreams is on a par with having to hear about their problems. Little is more woefully dull or achingly banal. With that in mind dear friends, I had the most excellent dream last night! I was hanging out with my friend Russell Brand and trying to embarrass him with my lewd and crass behaviour. It seemed so totally real and awesome. Perhaps I should point out he was only my dream-friend, and he is not my friend in real life (although I did meet him once while accompanied with a ladyfriend, at which time RB offered to pay money to sleep with us both, but that’s another story).

It was all thanks to my finishing Mr ‘pulled down my trousers and pants’ Brand’s autobiography on the train yesterday. Well I say autobiography, I mean, tabloid fantasy fiction. It’s the sort of book you can’t put down, but also wouldn’t want any of your friends to catch you reading; you know, you hide it in a porn magazine that itself has been hidden in yesterday’s Mail. That you’ve decorated with cartoons of Taylor Hanson and Katie Price. Suffice it to say, it’s a guilty pleasure. Oh but what a pleasure! Tales of debauchery and vice and glorified debaucherous vice! The sorts of anecdotes that will live on long after Brand has gone to his grave.

So why did I have that dream? Now I am not a qualified therapist (although I was forced to read some Freud at university) so I am not going to harp on about a slumbering exploration of some neonatal urge to have relations with my own great grandfather and kill my first born. No. I think I can comfortably assert the basic feeling commanding my nocturnal narrative last night: jealousy. A giant, sweating, orgrish green-eyed dream monster of my own design. I want to live a life of rock n’ roll excess. Well, I suppose I have. A bit. What I really want is to be paid money to write the story of my life: all my weird jumbled toddler memories, all the horrible teachers, all the idiotic things I did at school, and all the subversive friends I have kept. I could fill a book with this stuff!

But in order to write an autobiography that anybody wants to read (refer to sentence one of this entry), you first need to be someone who people want to listen to. Ergo, you must first be famous. I am sure I could achieve notoriety if people did learn of the remarkable stories of my life, by reading them in my own ‘booky wook’ (don’t sue me Russell). It’s a bit chicken and egg really. Perhaps I need to get me on a tv quiz show, or failing that, a reality show. Or I should become some famous person’s housekeeper. I am not great at ironing, but boy! just let me get started on helping to proof your memoirs. Sigh. Quick-fix answers on a postcard please. Preferably ones without photos of gargantuan-haired Essex dandies on.

Whats for dinner tonight ma? Deep fried Siouxsie burger darling. (We live in the Midlands after all)

mysterymeatonline — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 10:16:22 +0000

Picture, if you will, this scene:

The year is 2004. Blair’s government is forcing tripe down our throats and tubbies with mildly profane surnames are on our radios and televisual boxes. I am living a utopian dream in a ground floor flat in proletarian West Yorkshire, studying for my undergraduate degree and working in a bar that smells like the bastard offspring of dog urine and red bull. Gin costs sixty pence a go. It doesn’t get much better than this.

Then one dreary, gin-reeking afternoon my Post-colonialism tutor took time away from “socialising” with the female students to announce it was time to select our dissertation topics. Oh the joy! At the time, my university chums consisted of a lesbian policewoman and a trio we affectionately (if unimaginatively) nicknamed ‘The Blondes’. L.P settled on an analysis of crime fiction, while The Blondes… well, god knows. Cultural Inscriptions in September issues of Heat Magazine? I jest.

I opted (for reasons that made more sense at the time) to write about drug use in literature, comparing nineteenth and twentieth century language, syntax and unadulterated hedonism. There were highs (ahem) and lows during my penmanship, as I battled to ignore my most hated book-then-film as, while it has assisted in the perfecting of my Glasgow dialect, it makes me feel plain dirty inside. I endeavoured to research as thoroughly as possible – even, at some points, doing a bit of reading. Some time passed, during which some stuff probably happened. I can’t remember, I was in the library for like, the whole time. And soon the time came for our first dissertation meetings.

Now, being at university was (I imagine) a lot like living in Russia in the 1920s. People were given attention in the order that their surname appeared in the alphabet and it was bloody cold all the time. Being an abecedarian early-riser, I scarcely had time to give the flaxen foursome a quick run-through of my oration, before I was called to deliver my proposal to my polygamous mentor. At once, he hailed me as the H&M-wearing De Quincey of our era. Elated, I skipped from his orifac.. er, office, beaming widely at the next snot-nosed, Discipline and Punish-wielding toff in line, and trotted the familiar path to the ‘library’.

Approximately two months and a lot of super noodles later, I was nearing the completion of the opus. My wrist was aching, my bank account empty and my parents despairing. L.P had perpetually red eyes – in part from burning the midnight oil, but mainly on account of the splashback from her faulty CS gas aerosol – and two of the viking princesses had enrolled on teacher training courses, preempting the misery of results day.

“But what of the third?”, I hear* down the internet. Well, dear reader, draw yourself some more ale, kick off your imitation Ugg boots, and gather round the fire. Not got time? Very well.

PLAGIARISM.

Motherflipping plagiarism.

She couldn’t even spell the word, let alone make time to look it up on her [yet-to-be-invented] iPhone dictionary app. And then, to make this already heinous act worse, it was my plague she rism-ed! Same books, same concept, near-identical title. To say I was irked would be like calling George W Bush a ‘daft old stick’.

I was Christian Bale meets a conjoined twin comprising Jules Winnfield and Steve Martin inquiring after a rental car meets Naomi Campbell. On her period. After a three-week PCP and Stella Artois bender. While listening to David Blaine’s forthcoming spoken-word Enya covers album.

It was a time in my life I would rather forget. Or rather, have completely forgotten about. Until now.

It seems another casual acquaintance has taken out a mortgage at the Sexy International Bank of Mystery Meat Brothers Plc. But, like my will-never-regain-the-full-use-of-her-legs-again friend, the attempt was second-rate! The list is incomplete! Research went out the window! Instead of shovelling super-size Maccas products into their middle-class muzzles while laughing like imbeciles at videos of keyboard hamster (or some other internet zeitgeist) they should’ve been in the library. Fools! The list is incomplete! The gristliest, heartiest, most artery-blocking score was omitted! Oh well, I’m sure they’ll do better next time. Well, when they think of a more original topic perhaps.

Just remember kids: Meat is my angle. Get yer own.

*I have 56k dial-up modem in my left Eustachian Tube.

It’s flippin’ ama-zine

mysterymeatonline — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 13:41:25 +0000

While training as a journalist I wrote a feature on zine culture. I have yet to make a zine (other than some very minor contributions to collaborate projects) but I enjoy being part of this DIY culture, in which creative minds can flourish.

Here is the sexy exciting unabridged article, for which I was marked an A grade. Auto-trumpeteering over.

The internet is awash with advertisements for printing your own book, with first-hand testimonials from smiling housewives who have traded in their ironing board for a Ferrari thanks to the gift of self-publishing. Yet in reality, self-publishing brings neither fame, fortune or fast cars. It is about getting your words out there, words written for pleasure, for the love of writing. And where self-publishing is concerned, no medium is so synonymous with passion, pleasure and art-for-art’s sake, as the zine.

What the hell is a zine? Well, a zine is a mini-magazine, both semantically and physically. They are often written about an individual theme, topic, or issue, or serveral of these. The topics are as varied as people’s imaginations – meaning they can be about pretty offbeat and eccentric things, to say the least. Like stamp collecting? Well, yes. But also about broader topics: cookery, social issues, musical genres… You name it. Zines are often political in nature too, uniting people from around the world who align themselves with less traditional or mainstream social views. Consequently, they are often liberal and left-wing at heart, so share the same values of community and shared experience of anarchists, socialists… zapatistas… you name it.

As a result, people will often get together and collaborate on zines. They might do this to enhance the breadth and depth of the topic they are writing on; they might do this to cover different viewpoints on an event. They often do it to celebrate the experiences of life, the passions of individuals united by a common theme. Many zines will be produced by just one person, so can take on an air of personal autobiography (these are termed perzines by those in the know) or document fanatical attraction to a particular thing, usually a band or other deserving idol, in fanzines.

Conceptually, making a zine allows a thinking, feeling individial to write about whatever the ruddy hell they like, without fear of censorship or harsh criticism, and share their loves, hates and musings with like-minded people. You can express your thoughts just as you wish, even if ‘how you wish’ means that you want your political manifesto to be framed with pictures of kittens riding bicycles. Anything goes.

Consequently, zines are the perfect outlet for those who want to write for pleasure. Now, before you assume that zines are the sort of thing produced by 20-year-old Iron Maiden fans in their bedrooms at their parents’ houses, think again. Zines have come a long way from their ‘nerdy’ sci-fi fanzine origins, yet they remain a relatively unknown, uncharted mode of self-publishing.

Back in 1890, a group of amateur printers formed Britain’s first Amateur Press Association (APA) as a way to enable writers living around the country to document their love – or hate – of common interests by producing articles and commentary. These were then sent to a Central Mailer, which would then collate and publish their work, before distributing it to members of a group mailing list. In the days before internet chatrooms, this publishing revolution gave people of different ages, from a variety of backgrounds a chance to air their opinions in an interactive forum.

The idea of APAs had been conceived in America around a decade or so before and the idea proved popular with fans of science fiction writing, who, by the late 1930s started to form their own APAs, offering their critiques of the genre and authors’ work to be shared within their community and sub-culture. As typewriters became more ubiquitous in the average household, this concept evolved, and by the 1970s, the explosion of underground punk music acted as a sort of compost for the format, allowing for a metamorphosis-style blossoming into the self-published fanzine medium. Zines were a personal, angsty independent media form, perfect for enabling the voice of a pissed-off, unconventional and downright punk age to fill in the gaps that mainstream publishing failed to acknowledge.

Zines continued to grow underground, like a literary fungus, spread through the 1980s by the Heavy Metal scene, reclaimed by feminists in the Riot Grrrl movement of the 90s. Then that brings us to the ‘noughties’, the present-day, where zines are as popular as they ever were. Yet, with the exception of Dazed and Confused, which started out as a small self-published zine, you won’t find them on the shelves in Sainsburys next to Heat and Esquire. This might seem surprising to some; given their diverse history surely they are just as valid a publishing format as any found in bookshops? And this would be a fair question, but neglects to acknowledge the essence of zines themselves, the whole point of them. To uncover what that is, one must first look at what a zine really is.

So what’s with the design? Well, the look of zines is pretty distinctive – most are comprised of photocopied pages stapled or sewn together, sometimes with a coloured paper front cover. They usually feature images – illustrations, scribbles or collage-style photographs – and artistically set pages. The images will be broken up with blocks of text, sometimes wonky, sometimes reading left to right, but never to a uniform or universal template. These tiny works of art can be bought online from sites like Etsy, or specialist community sites like wemakezines. As they are commonly aimed at music fans they can sometimes be sniffed out in indie record shops, or at specialist fayres and festivals dedicated to self-publishing or do-it-yourself culture. Zinesters love to trade their work with other people, but when they do have to talk cold hard cash, prices range from a few pence to several pounds for thicker, more arty-style publications. The money they raise is usually just enough to cover production costs – zines are essentially a not-for-profit art form.

Mujinga, a Brighton-based zine maker and fan, explains: “There are a few vague interlocking concepts which together loosely define what a zine is.”

“For me a zine is normally A5, although you do of course get weirdly shaped ones or A4 or A6 or A7. A zine is normally photocopied although it could be handmade or drawn or potato stamped or whatever. Normally less than 100 copies are made.”

So after you’ve gone to the trouble of making and photocopying your zine, what will make anyone read it? Zine fan Ellie says: “I think everyone must have slightly different reasons - I read them for a couple of different reasons depending on the zine.”

“I read punk zines to find out about new bands and records, I read perzines and gender/feminism related zines because of shared interests – I like reading other people’s opinions of stuff I like.”

The appeal of zines lies largely, as Mujinga explains, in a united sense of “common interest”. This topic is much-debated in US zine documentary, $100 and a T-shirt, in which artist Brad Adkins describes zine culture as being about people who are fanatical about something, coming together and talking about it. In $100 and a T-shirt, Brad says: “If they don’t publish some kind of document about what their eclectic taste is, they might not ever meet the people that have the similar eclectic tastes.”

For the fans and writers of zines, there is more to them than simply reading about a band you like, or a political ideology that you sympathise with. There is a complete sub-culture that has arisen from the DIY aesthetic that is at the heart of zines. And this culture love to make things, swap things, share their skills and encourage other members to flourish creatively: Brighton Zine Fest, for example, was host to workshops on everything from making a zine to screenprinting to vegan cooking. Based on this, it might be safe to conclude that the sense of community inherent in zine culture is as important as the art form itself. Ellie agrees. “I like [zine culture] because it brings a sense of unity to the punk scene I care about, but outside of that it creates a sense of unity across cultures and countries.”

“I really like feeling like someone’s written me a letter or something when I read a zine – I like that personal connection you get, and reading something by someone who would never have got their voice heard if the mainstream was all we had.”

So it seems that zines are as much about culture and community as they are about content. And while many people turn to zine writing to avoid censorship, many do it for the self-expression. Mujinga sums this up well: “I just get this feeling, often around the full moon, that I have to create something, so then I sit down and crank out a zine – most of the time I then feel better. Otherwise my head might explode.”

What a week it’s been for the media. Quick, let’s join the Moir witch-hunt before my torch goes out!

mysterymeatonline — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 20:01:22 +0000

After getting soaked by torrential rain in Bolougne, my trainers have started to pong a bit. I have been wearing them all week but have only just found time to notice the odour. This does explain why the cat has stopped breathing and the pot plants have been spontaneously combusting.

This however, is not my fault. I have been incredibly distracted this week, on account of Jan Moir, Satan’s upstairs correspondent. Or so we have been made to believe, by a “HEAVILY ORCHESTRATED INTERNET CAMPAIGN”. This phrase was used by Moir in her follow-up statement. Aka the latest apology statement made by a ‘journalist’ to not feature the word sorry nor offer any hint of remorse. But that’s okay Jan, you had nothing to feel bad about. Had Stephen Gately lived you would be able to offer your apology in court, where your money could do the talking for you.

It would probably say “SORRY FOR SOUNDING HOMOPHOBIC AND APPEARING TO SLAG OFF THE DEAD. I PROBABLY WOULDN’T DO IT AGAIN, ALTHOUGH I HAVE WON A LOT OF MEDIA ATTENTION FOR ME AND THE DAILY MAIL OVER THIS – SO, WELL, LET’S NEVER SAY NEVER, HEY?”

I don’t think Moir is homophobic. I think she is a wonderful, articulate woman with an intricate knowledge of post-mortem procedures, large following in the gay community plus an interest in fairy tales. Her article just raised one small question which the internet has yet to answer for me. Here, I shall quote it ver batim to see if it makes any more sense taken out of context:

“Another real sadness about Gately’s death is that it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships.”

What is this happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships? My mother never read me Myths and Legends of the Gay Community as a child. And I am pretty sure that when they were introduced in 2004, Civil Partnerships were not marketed as a fantastical, impossible and everlasting dream that was within the grasp of previously unhappy homosexual couples? Perhaps I missed something.

Also: isn’t all sadness real?

But I have nothing more to say about this whole debacle than couldn’t better be phrased by Brooker, so over to him.

EDIT! As always, a great article on journalism.co.uk about the whole affair.

Other exciting media stories this week include the Carter-Ruck, “to gag or not to be allowed to gag” debate slash victory for journalists. Go team! Also, the news that a reporters met with a documentary maker to discuss buying private medical information about celebrities? Oh journalists, I thought we had more integrit… Oh wait, no I didn’t. I will be watching Starsuckers though. Right after I finish reading Confessions of a Fake Sheik.

These stories have all raised fantastic media ethics questions though. Moir-haters are currently camped outside the PCC headquarters (I imagine it looks a bit like the Batcave/Wayne Manor) screaming for blood; Fleet Street is still in the pub celebrating NoGag 2009 and the Starsuckers documentary maker is clearing the mantlepiece and taking his tux for a pre-awards show dry-clean.

Or so I would like to think.

In reality it was just another media week, but it felt quite exciting and out of the ordinary nonetheless. Perhaps it is the interactive nature of today’s news platforms – audiences can comment, react and spout bile with an immediacy no other audience could before. Either way, I rate it up there with The Guardian’s coverage of the death of Ian Tomlinson and the MPs’ expenses story breaking.

Roll on another week!

Stuff that some people somewhere (might possibly) like.

mysterymeatonline — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 10:18:47 +0000

When I was a child, growing up in the wild, treeless plains of the Serengeti, I would watch people being led in to the street to be hanged for not being able to “tahlk propah”. Now I am older, wiser, with a larger portfolio of credit card debt, I find that this childhood experience has blossomed in to a fully-fledged mistrust of anyone that uses expressions such as things, wotsitsname, or stuff.

And now I hear (with my eye-ears, courtesy of The Guardian) that some Canadians (yes, I said CANADIANS) have become famous doing just this.

Syrup-guzzlers Christian and Myles have thoughtfully complied a list of people, items, hobbies and lifestyle choices favoured by the modern caucasian. You know, because social commentary is, like, so in right now. Their list, published online in blog medium, was chanced upon* by a publisher and – bing bang bong (terms which will perhaps feature as future items on the list), fame came a’knocking.

And, since the English language is composed of just seventy-three words, choosing a noun which concisely and accurately grouped this miscellaneous matter into an accessible concept was tricky. But while Roget wept, this pair of hosers settled on, Stuff white people like.

Now, I acknowledge that this appellation is intentionally vague, thus offering a further critique of our time, in a sort of post-modern social commentary sort of way. But I don’t like it. Or rather, I am jealous of the success and five minutes they have earned themselves and now, since it is what the internet was invented for, I am flaming them.

So, while I am breaking into a canter on my high horse, perhaps I could suggest another item for said list.

#130: Using unnecessarily ambiguous words.

E.g, stuff.

As in, “Oi Shazmay, ’ave you got thingie’s work stuff in your motor?”

Sometimes a vague word (almost exclusively limited to “thing”) or group of words (i.e a metaphor) acts as a viable substitute for something taboo, illegal or disgusting, should one wish to, say, avoid arrest or embarrassing an elderly relative. THIS IS THE ONLY INSTANCE IN WHICH IT IS ACCEPTABLE.

As in, “John can you get me five of those things before I go to Big Chill”, or “Grandma, Dad’s been having a bit of a thing with Deborah your cleaning woman”.

Naturally there are, in my opinion, far worse crimes against vocabulary. However, until Big Media reports on a three-legged cat getting famous of the back of its popular podcast, Gobbledegook, I will keep schtum.

Bon weekend!

*Presumably porn is something Whitey** likes and thus , might be something he might Google while bored. Hence, one might assume its being included on the list – combined with the magic and wonderment of SEO – meant Hardie Grant ‘discovered’ the next best thing.

**Yes, I have been reading Michael Moore books of late, in case you were wondering.

Hangin’ With Mr Greenslade

mysterymeatonline — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 09:14:00 +0000

We’ve all heard this one: A man walks into a bar. Ok, not a bar; a daily regional newspaper. The man is Roy Greenslade. The “bar” is subjected to a thorough deconstruction from the media messiah and cries all over its circulation figures.

In truth Roy Greenslade came to visit my journalism class and delivered a lecture in the form of a Q&A session. It was pretty good, the Prophet spoke well, although he neglected to divluge any autobiographical nuggets (we were hoping for sex, subs and swingin 60s syntax) but it was interesting nonetheless.

And now, for your reading pleasure, are my thoughts on his oration.

Mobile phone companies have long been telling us the future is bright; and for them, Roy Greenslade agrees, it undoubtedly is. Speaking today at Brighton-based Media training company, The Journalist Works, Greenslade discussed how mobile phones and other news platforms will one day take the place of regional newspapers, as advertising revenue dries up. He said: “It’s really about profound cultural changes and the development of the media.”

“The rivers of gold have silted up.”

But Greenslade was also quick to point out that as the technologies develop during the digital revolution, journalism, as a public service activity, remained more essential than the platform. He said: “Journalism will always exist and always be necessary.” Speaking on the shift from print to online news, Greenslade maintained that it was crucial to protect the brand by continuing to build online audiences. From looking at the comments section of Greenslade’s Guardian blog, it is clear that he practises what he preaches: encouraging reader participation will allow journalists to survive the developments of the digital revolution, while remaining savvy and truth-seeking.
Greenslade gives The Guardian’s unveiling of the events surrounding the death of Ian Tomlinson as a clear-cut example of how ‘citizen journalism’ participates in the telling of news in the modern day.

Gone are the days of “Secular Priest” journalists who dictated how news was distributed and consumed, but as, Greenslade explained: “People are able to challenge what we do.”

He similarly feels that a multiplicity of voices is crucial between big media corporations and not just among those who consume their news products. Discussing the BBC’s failed attempt to expand their regional news outlets, Greenslade said that he felt that a plurality of voice, plus diversity of ownership were important to the delivery of news. A supporter of the internet as a medium to enable a multiplicity of voices, he has recently spoken out against big media as one news voice. However, despite being a supporter of ‘alternative news’ platforms such as Guido Fawkes’ blog, he admitted that big media plays an important role in being able to challenge the power and authority of the government. In view of the Damian McBride smear scandal one can see the Greenslade has a point: being able to hold the government to account without fear of financial ruin is a price that “new start-ups” could seldom afford.

But Greenslade’s advice to new writers?

“Assess your source” he said,speaking from experience as editor of The Mirror when they slammed Arthur Scargil for embellishing trade union fund amid the minors’ strike. Greenslade went on to say while there are no stories without sources, as a writer it is crucial you question why a source has chosen to confide in you.

Disclaimer: this post is not affiliated with a hit ABC television show from the nineties.

Pleased to meat you

mysterymeatonline — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 18:38:51 +0000

There sure is a lot of stuff in this world. There is also a lot of meat in this world. Ergo, some stuff is made of meat – even when it goes against nature itself.

One day, while at work, I happened to see a photo of a magnificent galleon. Made of meat. Of course. I felt a little sick - I was a vegetarian at the time. But it struck a chord somewhere within me, somewhere meaty and full of iron. And I felt compelled to seek out more meat not-meat products. So I did. I found a website even more enthusiastic about meat not-meat than me!

Looking at the meat ship makes me want to set sail on the seven meats. I would like to be a meat pirate or first-meat, with a wooden meat leg and meat parrot adorning my shoulder, whose name would be something like pork chop, or gristle. For more delicious* meat not-meats simply view the comments below. Why not add your own? Good wholesome meaty fun.

*and by delicious I of course mean gruesome and stomach-turning. Bon appetit!