Pay attention. This is very important.

It may have a great deal to do with the fact that being in public--which by contemporary definition means you're kind of just hanging out with a whole bunch of people about whom you've not got the feintest idea--is fucking weird; maybe it's the recession; or maybe it was that Pirrelli-inspired non-brand vacuum packed salami we ate. But anyway, when on a recent train journey it occured to us that signs are possibly the most perplexing signifiers on earth.

Maybe it's that they're so aware that they're meant to be saying something, whatever it is, and that the people who write them are--to recycle a commonly-held truism--are some of those people who fear public speaking over death itself. If we can put that much faith in this truism then it would go someway to explaining the logic behind the death-public-speaking conundra evident in this sign seen on said train journey:


We don't want to say, like some German guys did from Frankfurt, that this sign is no doubt just the one sole force stopping us all leaping from the train doors, leaning into the whooshing air and wontonly decapitating ourslves on passing trains. We also don't want to get all Daily Mail and shake our fists at our socialisedhomonannystate.

Rather, that signs are weird ---> weird can be pretty funny ---> funny is good ---> we like the internet. Let's bask:

Well said.

Enough said.

No comment.

Ever present dangers.

Serenaders be warned.

Always, always climb on the mutha' fucking rocks.

(Thanks to Nick Holmes and tumblr)

"I am just an unhappy user"

Setting aside the ironies inclusive in any online complaint about the information age, we wanted to address how, despite our own graceful presence online, the internet is more often than not an utter bastard. To wit: one of our friends has a paraplegic laptop that doddles along through its ageing years with the speed, veracity and enthusiasm of a gout-ridden slug.

Despite this it brings them a strange calm, a patience with the world of technological “advancement”. They smugly imagine themselves above those who imagine themselves driving down the straight path to the wonderful world of Snow Leotard OS, OS XXX, or whatever it is. This week we heard a story from them. Maybe it can bring some answers in this sea of information. Here it be, as we can remember it being told (sincere apologies for any misquotations):

‘So, one fine day… who am I kidding? It was muggy, grey, and to be honest full of box-ticking obligatory to-dos. Anyway, on said not-fine day, I was trying to rid my Toshiba of some unneeded programs and what have you, to get my beloved ol’ codger into some sort of fitness. An anti-spyware program that doesn’t even load up due to the now over-aforementioned problems of the computer was the first up against the wall. So, “Uninstall Spybot” I click. “Why?” it asks. This is a bit of weird enquiry. But never mind. I notice, adjacent to this, a suggested reply: “I am just an unhappy user”.

A section comment below allocates the space to air one’s grievances, explain one’s reasons, and maybe, just maybe, point out that it’s not actually me, but in fact it IS you, yes YOU, you ruin my life with your bullshit, I hate you and I want you gone. You — the virus killer — have become the virus in my life, now be gone you about-turning, ironic fuck!

And what’s this: “I am just an unhappy user”? What the fuck is that supposed to mean? How can you blandly suggest such a widely encompassing response, so casually summating the whole essence of my beautiful, magnificent being by virtue of my simple request to ‘Add or Remove Program’ from my personal, not-at-all-parent-bought, laptop computer?

And “just”? I am not just anything. For all you know I could be an Olympic athlete with ADHD! A selfless Wall Street trader who one day offers up his life to save a downtrodden Trotskyite tramp! A totalitarian dictator who knows of course his violent racism is a macabre manifestation of a virulent Oedipus complex., but who, in spite of this, still believes that it IS all the fault of those darned scum with darker dermal pigmentation!

“Unhappy”?

“User”?

Of course I’m unhappy. I know I’m a user. Yes, I’ll “Cancel” the uninstall process. Are you happy now? Remember the breathing technique, you think. Focus on the breath. Breathing is happening. Breathing is happening. You are OK. You are rising above the doldrums of the technological age. You are transcendent. You are at one.’

Welcome Back to The Mansion From The Mansion

Yes, it has been a while. Everyone gets a summer right? What have we been up to? you're no doubt not really asking. Well, as a picture paints a thousand words then here's about 8,000:

So, anyway, we'll be back on your screens in the coming days, as we were all those months ago. We're sorry we were gone. We'll change, change back to the same thing we were. Forward to the past!