Cheryl

So I raise myself from my afternoon slumbers. I have afternoon slumbers these days. I'm not sure I like them but they happen anyway.

Something is nagging away at me about last night, because I'm embarrassed I spent the whole evening in front of XFactor and Cheryl Cole. Cheryl Cole in particular bothers me a lot, for I can't work out what she does, other than being a simpering sentimental sobbing celebrity who may represent some new and awful representation of woman kind. This girl is certainly no Joan of Arc. There is also something rather nasty about the 'born to perform' child and sobbing mother routine that accompanies the somewhat unfortunate things that have beset Cheryl recently (and of course is endemic to the formula of X Factor itself) I think it might be characterized as the fear of the real.

I mean, if you marry a footballer in a wedding dress that cost £100.000 you should know what you are in for- you shouldn't come over as duped. If you are truly beset by personal troubles, why agree to be interviewed by that infernal piece of nastiness Piers Morgan? It is possible that Cheryl Cole realizes that her party piece, her living, is breaking down for the media.

I say this as somebody who will cry at almost anything, but I wouldn't want to be doing it for a living.

Nigella

It is clear 'Nigella Kitchen' is porn. Nigella Kitchen becomes a thing, not even an apostrophe to help her out of it. He did advertising, she does kitchen porn- perfect- cause and effect, perfect symbiosis for our age. But it's porn none the less. I have no problem with porn, it's just strange that now it's become food.

All wrong

I tried to watch the news, I really did. However I simply do not understand something basic to the blasted 'spending review'; that is why is it that the poorest get to suffer at all? I just don't get it. Take the money back from those who benefited in the first place, not some poor bastard on incapacity benefit after four heart attacks. It all smacks of the whip, just as it always has in Conservative politics.

So I raised myself from my chair, poured myself a large one, and put on the Foos nice and loud. Good looking ladies can come by all they like and try and convince me that I must vote for their highly suspect character over another highly suspect character in the Hackney mayoral elections that they should have never had in the first place anyway and I imagine them naked. Times like these indeed.

So I guess I'll make some Keith Richards Shepherds Pie.

My response to Hackney Council

I am writing with specific regard to the 'gentlemans venues' (silly name) which have existed for generations. The White Horse in particular is a very well run establishment where I cannot fathom any reason for it's closure. I would like to ask the council exactly WHAT it feels is wrong about the situation of the dancers and the customers in The White Horse? As an academic who has written about these issues over many years and might see beyond petty opinion: if you sell your body to work everyday just like you, what is the difference if somebody sells their body as 'spectacle'? I don't think the council is acting rationally. If you do not act rationally, it is just opinion. The White Horse in particular is not in a residential neighborhood, and in twenty years of enjoying it, writing books which include it, I have never found it anything but an oasis of peace and calm. As Marshall McLuhan said 'They are wearing us'. If anybody is exploited here, it is me, and I have the right to be exploited like all consumers, just like you are. Paul Davies. Senior Lecturer. LSBU

Perfect afternoon

Right now I'm blasting out the Stones film 'Ladies and Gentlemen' from Texas 1972 pretty loud. It's the afternoon, it's Tuesday. I'm drinking whisky. The blinds are down. I compile tomorrows AA lecture. Life does not get much better than this.

No it really is a fucking fantastic film. There are very few moments in life when you know you have the thing, whatever it is, in your hand, and I tell you, the Stones certainly did right then; Mick and Keith exchanging wry grins (Mick Taylor doing all the fiddly bits) and Keef just driving the whole thing like a fucking truck. It's a wonderful thing to behold after all this time, like finding some long lost treasure in the Amazon (sic), which of course it is. Nothing like a little afternoon's time traveling, it beats the bullshit for sure.

Oh and if anybody needs a job out there, and can speak Chinese, and maybe office manage a bit for a small OK firm in South London not a heavy deal etc (PT). Contact me.

Relief...but

Today I experienced just about the best thing that can happen to folks like me. I ran in to my 'line manager' in the lift and she did not say 'I want to have a chat with you about.....' It could have been that she was eating a sandwich at the time. However, the joy that overcame me was considerable; She just said, 'very good thanks' amidst sandwich eating. So.. she doesn't want to 'talk to me about....' I positively leapt out of the university and caught the bus to The White Horse.

Now The White Horse is under threat from the neo nazi nursery school that is Hackney Licensing. Their no doubt worthier than thou focus groups have decided that girls taking their clothes off artfully for money is a very bad thing and will screw up all our morals. I can think of many jobs in the area which might screw up our morals more than taking your clothes off artfully (like banking) but because the council are a bunch of non-thinkers and the council may ride on a high tide of non thinking, it may come to pass in January that Hackney ban such performance in their little precious lovely stupid neighbourhood where apparently no rationality exists. I feel almost sorry for the stupid bastards, because I have thought, lectured and written long and hard about striptease in London and Las Vegas and just about anywhere else, and found this activity GENUINE (good word don't you think!)

So, since all of you are over 18 years of age and in search of adventure, pop on down to the White Horse on Shoreditch High St and see what you think- boy or girl (girls very welcome)

It's bar prices, there is no entry charge, but you must put a pound in the pot for each dance.

This is a cultural issue, suddenly under threat from those who couldn't tell culture from....

You can make your view clear to Hackney Council by going to this link www.hackney.gov.uk/licensing.html

Fear of Depths

I feel for the last guy say at the bottom of that Chilean mine. His mind must have been spinning, what with his dependence on block and tackle on the equivalent of a trip to the moon. No wonder they are celebrating. I watched the miners surfacing, and noticed the conspicuous boot of one of the rig men supporting some guiding wheel or another right on the steel edge of the hole rim. Crikey! You wouldn't get me within 20ft of a hole like that for fear of dropping in! As for the half hour ride up, I can hardly think about it. Fear of heights clearly equals fear of depths.