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The Virtual Rambler
Number forty five : 20th February 2014
More Or Less
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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
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Archive
Virtual rambler #1 – Posturing,
9th March 2010
Virtual rambler #2 –
Managerialism, 17th March 2010
Virtual rambler #3 – Nostalgia,
27th March 2010
Virtual rambler #4 – The Alpha
Male, 13th April 2010
Virtual rambler #5 – General
Elections, 3rd May 2010
Virtual rambler #6 – The Leisure
Industry, 15th May 2010
Virtual rambler #7 – Guide to
The World Cup, 15th June 2010
Virtual rambler #8 – Human
Nature, 12th July 2010
Virtual rambler #9 –
Communities, 13th August 2010
Virtual rambler #10 – Worlds
Apart, 6th October 2010
Virtual rambler #11 – Dawdling,
22nd November 2010
Virtual rambler #12 – ELVIS,
24th December 2010
Virtual rambler #13 –
Transience, 4th February 2011
Virtual rambler #14 – Regional
Accents, 15th April 2011
Virtual rambler #15 – The
Afterlife, 21st July 2011
Virtual rambler #16 – Bizspeak,
27th August 2011
Virtual rambler #17 – Night
Walks, 3rd October 2011
Virtual rambler #18 – Bob Dylan
and Charles Dickens, 8th November 2011
Virtual rambler #19 – Another
Nutty Professor, 16th December 2011
Virtual rambler #20 – Customer
Choice, 16th January 2012
Virtual rambler #21 – Wearing
Shorts, 18th February 2012
Virtual rambler #22 – A Brief
History of Progress, 17th March 2012
Virtual rambler #23 – The Myth
of Sisyphus, 16th April 2012
Virtual rambler #24 – Natural
History, 20th May 2012
Virtual rambler #25 – European
Self Importance, 26th June 2012
Virtual rambler #26 – Sweet
Dreams, 25th July 2012
Virtual rambler #27 – Excess,
17th August 2012
Virtual rambler #28 – In Denial,
20th September 2012
Virtual rambler #29 – The Way,
21st October 2012
Virtual rambler #30 – On
Rambling, 14th November 2012
Virtual rambler #31 – Gazing
Into The Abyss, 18th December 2012
Virtual rambler #32 –
Intellectual Gloom, 25th January 2013
Virtual rambler #33 – Great
Human Achievements, 20th February 2013
Virtual rambler #34 –
Autobiography, 20th March 2013
Virtual rambler #35 – Your Good
Health, 21st April 2013
Virtual rambler #36 –
Deconstruction, 20th May 2013
Virtual rambler #37 – My Home
Town, 19th June 2013
Virtual rambler #38 – Ancient
History, 21st July 2013
Virtual rambler #39 –
Possessions, 20th August 2013
Virtual rambler #40 – Sporting
Stoics, 20th September 2013
Virtual rambler #41 – Free Time,
20th October 2013
Virtual rambler #42 – Ewan Don't
Allow, 20th November 2013
Virtual rambler #43 – A Literary
Nexus, 20th December 2013
Virtual rambler #44 – Taking
Liberties, 16th January 2014
Virtual rambler #45 – More or
Less, 20th February 2014
Virtual rambler #46 – Under
Control, 20th March 2014
Virtual rambler #47 – Waiting,
20th April 2014
Virtual rambler #48 – They Rose
Without Trace, 20th May 2014
Virtual rambler #49 – Bigger
Impression , Smaller Footprint, 20th June 2014
Virtual rambler #50 –
Terpsichorean Instrumentations, 18th July 2014
Virtual rambler #51 – Socially
Mediated, 19th August 2014
Virtual rambler #52 – Rambling Into The Sunset, 20th September 2014
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