The Virtual Rambler

Number forty five : 20^th February 2014

More Or Less

True to its acquisitive nature , greed has functioned under many guises , from avaritia (the root of all evil said St. Paul) to “having or desiring more than what is required of a man in order to keep his back straight” (the Islamic formulation). However , in that never-never land politicians call the real world , to be dispossessed is to be a failure. The pessimistic E.M.Cioran wrote that “the man who has tendencies toward an inner quest will set failure above any success , he will even seek it out. This is because failure reveals us to ourselves , whereas success distances us from what is most inward in ourselves.” By making this point it could be said that the writer is parading a discernment superior to that of the hoi-poloi , with their commonplace view of worldly success as a legitimate and laudable human endeavour. Contemporaries reported that there were so many citizens of the late Roman Empire who wanted to become hermits , they had to join a long waiting-list for potential retreats. During a period in nineteenth century Paris , fights broke out among the swarms of painters jostling for positions on the banks of the Seine. These precedents crowd into mind when I think of the legions of young musicians filling the cellar-bars and down-town pubs of every city in the land nowadays , many of them playing in bands , others working behind the bar. Contact with some of them on social media leads you to a magna carta of forthcoming gigs and a labyrinth of links to fellow hopefuls. There are video posts without number and an epic roll-call of forthcoming album launches. Such prodigality induces that same prolonged sigh brought about by other acquaintances proudly enumerating the thousands of tracks available on their ipod , while others’ shelves groan under a mighty weight of DVD box-sets of films and T.V. series. With a rebel yell they cried “More , more , more !”

Considered musically , the early 1950s through which I grew up were a parlous affair , exemplified by Sunday afternoon's popular Billy Cotton Bandshow. By contrast , the first wave of rock n' rollers sounded to teenage ears like Siberian shamen bringing excitement and mystery to a moribund culture. Owing to a restrictive edict of the Musician's Union , the BBC was only allowed a minimal amount of weekly “needle-time” and most of this was devoted to the recordings of home-grown crooners and balladeers. To hear Little Richard or Chuck Berry , you had to tune into the often-fading signals of night-time Radio Luxembourg or you paid visits to the fairgrounds that soon embraced the raucous records of the day as a natural soundtrack for their waltzer and dodgem rides. Here were posturing youth , bright flashing lights , things going fast and spinning around … and loud , loud music. What a perfect stage the fairground provided for teenage shinnanikins , with the threat of male violence and the potential for casual sex lurking in its shadows. At its pulsating , brightly-coloured heart , the fairground held the secrets of all future Youth Culture. Its love of frivolity , backbeat music and unadulterated pleasure , its obsession with appearances and its deluded notion that you could easily escape the square , grown-up world and its conventions by listening to a rocking little record.

The origins of writing are lost in time but there is strong evidence to suggest that writing (engraved on clay tablets in Sumeria) developed from the needs of complex bureaucracies to monitor and effect their multiple administrations : the requisition of taxes , conscription of armed forces , details of trade. So writing grew out of the dry compost of bureaucracy. It was an ally of good order. In later monastery scriptoriums , the quill pen followed the adoption of parchment or vellum in producing illuminated copies of the Bible. A divine order. Using paper (first manufactured in China before Christ) the printing press and other mechanical means of mass production multiplied once-singular works a hundred fold. As for our own era , its wanton superfluity of technological playthings and their banks of digital memory expand exponentially , just as the number of glutton-gods did in ancient times. Woe betide the wayfaring stranger who ventures abroad on an average Saturday in the U.K. After Business-friendly government saw fit to extend operational opportunities for pubs throughout the land , the Alcohol industry gratefully responded with Student Nights , Mad Bull Offers , Karaoke Nights and Vodka Slammer Deals. The subsequent Cossack behaviour across the extended opening hours led to city and village centre hullabaloos on the scale of VE Day , every day. There’s half-undressed girls shrieking and foul-mouthed youths brawling , public urinating and vomiting , bottles flying through the air. Behind the closed curtains of stay-at-homes , the choice of a hundred T.V. channels’ advertising schedules , punctuated every now and again by ‘popular’ program formats. More quiz or ‘reality’ shows , more sport , more cooking , canal or train journeys here , there and everywhere , yet more sport , some clinical pathology and more documentaries about the Nazis. Order has given way , as it always must , to chaos.


Wig

Archive

Virtual rambler #1 – Posturing, 9^th March 2010
Virtual rambler #2 – Managerialism, 17^th March 2010
Virtual rambler #3 – Nostalgia, 27^th March 2010
Virtual rambler #4 – The Alpha Male, 13^th April 2010
Virtual rambler #5 – General Elections, 3^rd May 2010
Virtual rambler #6 – The Leisure Industry, 15^th May 2010
Virtual rambler #7 – Guide to The World Cup, 15^th June 2010
Virtual rambler #8 – Human Nature, 12^th July 2010
Virtual rambler #9 – Communities, 13^th August 2010
Virtual rambler #10 – Worlds Apart, 6^th October 2010
Virtual rambler #11 – Dawdling, 22^nd November 2010
Virtual rambler #12 – ELVIS, 24^th December 2010
Virtual rambler #13 – Transience, 4^th February 2011
Virtual rambler #14 – Regional Accents, 15^th April 2011
Virtual rambler #15 – The Afterlife, 21^st July 2011
Virtual rambler #16 – Bizspeak, 27^th August 2011
Virtual rambler #17 – Night Walks, 3^rd October 2011
Virtual rambler #18 – Bob Dylan and Charles Dickens, 8^th November 2011
Virtual rambler #19 – Another Nutty Professor, 16^th December 2011
Virtual rambler #20 – Customer Choice, 16^th January 2012
Virtual rambler #21 – Wearing Shorts, 18^th February 2012
Virtual rambler #22 – A Brief History of Progress, 17^th March 2012
Virtual rambler #23 – The Myth of Sisyphus, 16^th April 2012
Virtual rambler #24 – Natural History, 20^th May 2012
Virtual rambler #25 – European Self Importance, 26^th June 2012
Virtual rambler #26 – Sweet Dreams, 25^th July 2012
Virtual rambler #27 – Excess, 17^th August 2012
Virtual rambler #28 – In Denial, 20^th September 2012
Virtual rambler #29 – The Way, 21^st October 2012
Virtual rambler #30 – On Rambling, 14^th November 2012
Virtual rambler #31 – Gazing Into The Abyss, 18^th December 2012
Virtual rambler #32 – Intellectual Gloom, 25^th January 2013
Virtual rambler #33 – Great Human Achievements, 20^th February 2013
Virtual rambler #34 – Autobiography, 20^th March 2013
Virtual rambler #35 – Your Good Health, 21^st April 2013
Virtual rambler #36 – Deconstruction, 20^th May 2013
Virtual rambler #37 – My Home Town, 19^th June 2013
Virtual rambler #38 – Ancient History, 21^st July 2013
Virtual rambler #39 – Possessions, 20^th August 2013
Virtual rambler #40 – Sporting Stoics, 20^th September 2013
Virtual rambler #41 – Free Time, 20^th October 2013
Virtual rambler #42 – Ewan Don't Allow, 20^th November 2013
Virtual rambler #43 – A Literary Nexus, 20^th December 2013
Virtual rambler #44 – Taking Liberties, 16^th January 2014