How to give good lecture

This is how to give 'good lecture' my style. You will not believe how complex the procedure is. First, try and get your lecture in to an afternoon slot, second, plan way ahead in your head and just hope information will fall out on demand. To do this successfully, never determine what you are going to say. Instead, get out of bed rather nervously on the day, feel the fear infront of your nascent powerpoint presentation and calm yourself down by doing so (you must confront the beast) and feel confident that the images will lead you through whatever it is you end up talking about.

Next, go to a local pub for reflection and a pint of stella. Do not concern yourself with any other matters other than the lecture at hand, and even then, possibly try and forget about it. A certain calm may prevail. Then, at least hours before the appointed hour, make your way to the venue via reliable transportation. Make sure you have thought ahead about your 'green room' (pub) close to the venue, there you must sit and observe in minute detail the world around you. See it as a window on the world (I particularly favour The Tottenham on Oxford St when I lecture at the AA, it has a genuine front window on our unfortunate world). Now at this point you will be distracted by the T&A (or other preferences) passing you by, but you must let the snow fall in your head with the aid of a few large ones. Soon enough cometh the hour, and always make sure you are ten minutes early to foresee technical difficulties. Always love the technicians and support staff in charge, partly because you do love them anyway because they support you.

See the students troop in, remember you were just like them a long time ago.

Shut the door.

With luck, and the smiling of the gods, then the magic happens.

Pathetic

That was pathetic. You have to wonder on all the ways England can no longer play football. If we were back in the days of New Labour, I'd have suggested at least 50% of the team should have gone to university, and if the university was any good, and even if it had programs in football, it might have taken the lead weights off their feet, instead of leaving these poor losers to drown in their own self indulgence. Teach them to understand themselves and you might get somewhere.

I'm fed up of watching England play, they are just fucking awful against almost any team, and it represents a kind of atrophy. The search for new ideas, the knowledge of what an idea is (as opposed to an opinion) seems almost lost to this little island. Instead we have corner shop conservatism and a crap football team and Simon fucking Cowell destroying music and it all fits together nicely as rubbish.

We spent a month in Germany this summer, and we only had CNN to watch. Do you realize how many times the UK was mentioned over that period on international media; not once.

How on earth we manage to still have public school boys pontificating in charge is beyond me. YOU ARE IDIOTS!

Up to my neck

I'm drowning in historical information, and I realize that I shall have to base the whole of my Friday lecture on the architecture of the Romans on my understanding of Asterix cartoons. This is not too far from the mark as it turns out, for they are most accurate if read and looked at carefully. A bigger worry is I've arranged to have lunch with an old pal on Thursday, possibly disastrous re: Friday.

Meanwhile I've made trouble for myself by ordering some very handy promotional pencils promoting this blog. I just have to make sure they do not fall in to the wrong hands, so it was a bit stupid to order them in the first place. However these cute little stubby pencils will no doubt become collectors items of some sort and repay my investment with many many followers, since I seem to be stuck on a measly 44. Sam of FAT has about a million and is ranked far too high in whatever crappy rankings these people get themselves ranked in to. I want to make it clear I only want quality followers! (Free pencil if you tap me on the shoulder in the Duke of York or send me an SAE).

The Ancients and Films

I sit in my chair surrounded by books. They multiply with each post, and each demands attention, too much attention (and they are also rather large). So when it comes to compiling lectures, it's sometimes good to get out and get a fresh perspective. Luckily I find the impish Scott on my shoulder in the Misty Mountain:

'The Illiad is basically a snuff movie with a treatise on ethics in the middle' he says.

'They should illustrate CIA torture manuals with Tom and Jerry cartoons' we agree.

'You don't have any decent films on the Ancient Greeks because it's all too bonkers....and it's mostly outdoors and on ships....and often nothing happens for a long time before the carnage begins. It's hard to build a character like Achilles when he spends ninety percent of the story sat on a beach! To make good movies you need interior settings for orgies and whispered plotting, you can't do whispered plotting in the forest or on a beach, interiors encourage such things, so that's why there are lots of Roman films and no Greek ones!'

He's good, he's very good.

X Factor

Cheryl Cole takes three neurotics in to the next round of X Factor. That says it it all, she kicks out the good in favour of the needy (for you can control the needy - it might make you feel better in yourself- and of course we shall all be weeping at their endeavours.) Julie takes credit for this observation. Probably the most sickening program never.

Stirling Prize

Nothing could remind me more of how much I detest the world of architecture than the Stirling Prize. In our household it is a positively incendiary opportunity to rile against the powers that be. However, the most important amusement should be that TOM DICKHOFF (however the hell you spell his name) should buy a bigger size in clothes. I've never seen a man so obviously squeezed in to shirts and jackets at least one size too small, like a primary school kid in Joe Ninety glasses, whose articulation of ideas manages to be both perfunctory and pretentious at the same time. The second is that ZAHA should understand clothing as something more than a bright yellow oversized bin bag worn for effect. No doubt the many awful attendees at this bash conspicuously congratulated Zaha on her appearance. But if you, how should one say, look at little askance at her ascendance, not unlike a balloon, you'd just go 'That is a horrible outfit, and maybe her buildings are horrible too'.

39 Billion...?!

Irish banks have just wind-falled 39 BILLION Euro/quid. It will be a crisis for generations. Meanwhile, will somebody please tell me where the money comes from? Everybody please read Alain Badiou's 'If this Crisis is the Spectacle: Where is the Real' easily available online, and what's more, for once, easy to read, if you want to get as upset as I am.