Pure Imagination

I have no shame.
After watching Mock the Week (which, by the way, is fast becoming the televisual highlight of my week) and seeing Frankie Boyle mention finding a fanfic of himself and Hugh Dennis, I just had to go trawling the internet to try find it, didn't I? Oh, dear. I've always found RPF a bit weird, anyway. Pretty well written though this is, I still do.

But if you're into that kind of thing or just want to see the proof of rule #34...

edit: the emoticon mood thingy for "geeky" has stolen Frankie Boyle's glasses!

edit 2: on a totally unrelated note, ~~I HATE YOU, HORMONES~~

Current Mood: geeky
Current Music: Cobra Starship - Snakes on a Plane (Bring it)

Well, not posted for a while. Or actually checked my flist - if I've missed anything really important, feel free to whack me upside the head. I've finally got wireless internet at home, so I'm pretty much living in my bedroom at the moment. Which is very warm and sunny and smells of my collection of bath smellies. I have to stop spending so much at Lush. Especially when I always have showers...

Not much to say, really. My life is, of course, incredibly exciting </sarcasm>. Went and saw the latest LYO offering (Carmina Burana was excellent. Nightingale was... well. Yeah. Looked lovely). Met up with

to_overload last week and went for n00dles, which was nice. And finally handed over birthday presents, shamefully late. Also managed to grow my nails, so I'm now wearing sparkly green varnish and bright blue on my left ring finger (mum thinks I'm being strange). However, I've just bought a guitar, and the longer fingernails present a slight problem. S'weird typing and playing piano with them because they click and catch slightly.

Also added to my collection of ear piercings. Went into town last thursday and came away with a shiny new ( conch piercing: )
Strange experience - and my first needle piercing (I know. Helix with a gun is naughty). 14 gauge/1.6mm silver labret stud. Not particularly painful until a day or so later, surprisingly. ...Took mum two hours to notice, and she wasn't best pleased. So, the next ones I get will be kept as secret from her as I can...* I thought it looked like a lot, three on each ear, but seeing side on photos, my ears look like they need more metal in them. I'm thinking a couple of low conch piercings and maybe a rook in the right one, but they're notorious for healing badly and things.

Really can't wait till I can go back to Durham. If I'd managed to get a house there, I'd never have left. Oh, and till summer's either over or cools down. I am slowly melting. meeeeeeltinggg....

*...That doesn't mean I'm getting nipple or genital piercings.

Current Mood: hot and sleepy
Current Music: Starship - Nothing's Gonna Stop Us

In the midst of all the hectic partying after exams (read: trying to get a lie in and watching online TV), I thought I should probably actually post something here.
Summer Ball was good, even if I had to get up at 8 to set up the sound equipment, and even if I got no sleep after the survivors' photo at 5am. It's Trevstock on wednesday, so I'll be up setting up the PA equipment again. Apparently University College (a fair distance away) complain about the nois we cause in the evening, so that should be fun.
My new favourite activity is getting really fucked off at a.) loud, chavvy Southern accents and b.) the Christian Union's stash. That has the logo declaring "Know Truth" and a quotation from John 3:16 on the back, telling me that I shall know the truth and it shall set me free. Personally, I find it offensive to be told that by not believing in the one true God, I am living a lie and need evangelising. Hell, even a lot of Christians think the CU is weird. Also, the stash acronym for "Christian Union New Testament Study"?* Think about it.
I am now eating almonds, drinking tea, and wasting time while I wait for Doctor Who to come on.

I also have another hole in my ear. When it's healed, I want to enlarge it to an 18 gauge curved barbell. ALso thinking about an 18/16G ring in the lobe of each ear. But that might be a bit much.

( Photo! )

*I am not making this up. They also had a "Rescue Week" where they talk about God and try to convert/beat down the Heathen. The previous CU society got banned for having an event in their week that was "pray out the gay".

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Alanis Morissette - Not the Doctor

So the exams are over. No idea how they went, but I think I've at least passed all of them! Just finishing off an essay (harmonic analysis of Chopin's Prelude in F# minor. FUN.), hoping to hand it in tomorrow, then I've got a ticket for the 16:52 from Durham to Leeds on monday. I'm off home for a week while the majority of people finish their exams because I don't really want to be around when everyone's being stressed and no one wants to go out. There's free Revolver at the end of the exams, then we've got Trevs day, Trevstock (big live music event on the back lawn) and a group of us are planning to go to Newcastle for a day trip when it's Trevs on Tour, because we don't really want to go to Alton Towers.
Also just got an email from the Durham Opera Ensemble to tell me I've got the part of Cupid in a production of Orpheus in the Underworld.

I'm in my room surfing the net while writing an essay, drinking hot chocolate, eating almonds and listening to Carnival of the Animals. The Swan still makes me want to cry.

And I am so glad I'm here.

Current Mood: relaxed
Current Music: Yey. Pretty 'cello music!

A short rant*
Dear all (specifically, certain science students who shall remain nameless)

Music is not a cop out subject. It is not easy.

Music, while an arts subject, requires mastery of more than one discipline, and can be rigorously academic. Music is another language. Musical clouds, aleatoric counterpoint, isorhythm, musique concrète. A musician has, to some degree, be a performer; a composer; a mathematician; an historian; an essayist; a philosopher; a scientist. In the Middle Ages, music was classed as a science. Analyse any work from that period, particularly motets and sacred music, and it is possible to reduce these works entirely to mathematical proportions. A motet such as Dunstaple's Ave Maria Sanctissima decreases in each section by a factor of three. Yes, this was largely because three was a sacred number representative of the core beliefs of Christianity, but to write a work deliberately expressing complex number series and proportions, to analyse it, you would need a good grasp of mathematics.
Acoustics and tuning is wholly based on science. Musicians have always known the overtone series and the frequencies at which certain intervals resonate. The perfect fourth, fifth and octave have the fewest possible frequencies, are the most stable sounds, and therefore form the basis of consonant Western harmony.

Hands up how many of you scientists need to know about Divine Proportion, the Golden Section? Biologists, certainly - it crops up in nature in thistles, nautilus shells. But it also appears with surprising frequency in music. Bartók, a composer with a great interest in science and nature, wrote entire works based around the Fibonacci series and its relationship to the Golden Section. What you thought was a bloody awful, dissonant piece of "music" is actually based on pure mathematics and the natural world.

I could have done almost any of your subjects. How many of you could do mine? A lot of you play instruments, but could you perform to grade 8 standard for half an hour, do a three-hour harmony exam, write a 3,000 word analytical essay on Gorecki and write a film score in the style of mature Lutoslawski?

No love,

Me.

*...That turned into a mini-essay.

Current Mood: pissed off
Current Music: Ockeghem - Ma Bouche Rit

Woah. Just looked at my homepage on Livejournal and realised I've not updated for three weeks. Ok, so there's not really benn much happening, but...
So. Am in D block now, living with third years and finalists. I know them all, so it doesn't really bother me that I'm not with my freshers group or anything. I now have a sewing machine, so I've been being creative. I've made Russell the Gay Octopus (yeah, one of the lads named him), altered a dress I got at a charity shop, and made myself a kilt for the Burns Night formal that's coming up.
Been trying to sort housing for next year. Not going well. A girl in my rowing crew asked me if I wanted to live with her and another girl, and the other girl was going to find one or two more people for the house we wanted. Three weeks after this got sorted, the girl who asked me came and said the other girl (Christ. Hard to describe people to other people without names) had asked a group of three lads, so there's now not enough room for me, and I have to find people to live with as well as finding a house. Great.

I've been starting and deleting this entry for a week now, because I don't want to go all angsty and make people's friends lists even more depressing. But what the hell... I've finally had a counselling appointment, after I ended up in someone's room at one in the morning crying and he organised an appointment for me. It's probably a good idea, but I only got the appointment on tuesday because someone cancelled, so I have no idea how long the waiting list for a regular appointment will be. Could be next week, could be next term. Went back to the doctor's for a medication review, and pretty much got told by the doctor that he didn't think I was depressed, but he'll give me another couple of months' supply of fluoxetine anyway. Which... makes no sense. I've gotten far too good at pretending I'm fine to people. So yeah.
Everything's just back to how it was when I started university. At the moment, it's worse.

Yeah. Sorry. This is why I don't often do posts like this.

Current Music: Dar Williams - As Cool As I Am

Never. Ever. Let anyone rope you into a Centurion.
I let a group of third years get me into it. At least I didn't actually pay.

A Centurion is a shot of beer (we did Carlsberg. Fizzy piss) every minute for 100 minutes. It worked out at around 7 pints, but it's not really the alcohol content, it's the sheer volume of liquid, and it's fizzy as well. Of the seven of us doing it, only one lad dropped out early. One of the others was drinking whisy as well. And kept coming on to me. But he paid for my drinks outside of the centurion, so I'm not complaining too much...
Then had the most pointless night out ever, which basically ended up with a group of us going into town and me and one of the lads being separated from the rest of them, so we walked backwards and forwards debating whether to go to Loveshack, realised we didn't know where the others were, exactly, and got a taxi back to Trevs.

Still got up and to my nine am this morning, though.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Fairport Convention - Matty Groves

I'm nineteen.
And not nearly as drunk as I should be.
Still pretty drunk, though. Two apple sourz and lemonade, two Morals Manglers, and one cherry sourz and lemonade. Adds up to around 14 units. My sense of touch has gone slightly. And I was dancing and flirting. But still not drunk enough - I can still touch type.
Was going to go out, then decided not to. I actually have to get up in the morning. Catching a train to Wakefield, then going to Speech Day. Don't want to do that when I'm still drunk...

Also,

notsoliljames, so close.

Concert tonight. Performing the Machaut mass and a piece by a modern composer called Tarik O'Reagan. Don't want to do it, can't be arsed. And I'll miss the DUCK slave auction, which could be amusing. But one of the Orlando Consort, the early music ensemble we're performing with, is a proper male alto. Which is frightening yet also pretty cool. And their bass is incredibly low. Sung bass E flats are now one of my favourite notes.
I have had a DUCK hit out on me so far. I was sat in dinner dreading the music starting - I was sure I was going to get soaked or hit with a fish. I actually got the Milk Tray ninja, which was one of the lads dressed in black running around the hall doing somersaults and failing to crawl under chairs, then presenting me with a box of Milk Tray and running away. Which was nice. But now I'm just expecting fish all the time.

I also took out a hit (pre emptive or otherwise) on the lad I paid to have waxed last night. It's a nice one, where the object of the hit gets presented with a rose by one of the lads wearing a DJ, to a soundtrack of romantic music.

If you don't hear from me after this weekend, assume Andy Crossland's gone ahead and killed me.

Current Mood: devious
Current Music: Stuff. Noise. Thing.

So tonight was "Hold the Bar". And yes, leg waxing was a challenge that you could pay for. For £1, you bought someone a pint of water they had to down. £3, eating a whole chilli. A small one. £5, leg waxing. £10, drink a blended Trevs meal (two people did this, and kept it down. Bloody impressive) and also for £10, having your legs epilated. You could also make up challenges, as long as you paid money to DUCK.

So.
Best five pounds I've spent, even if I coppered up and used my washing machine money to buy it.

I bought a waxing.
But not his legs.
Happy trail and chest.

Oh, yes.

Andy's going to kill me.

Current Mood: mischievous
Current Music: Lady in Red, Who the fuck put that on the jukebox?!

Today has been such a non-day.
Woke up at seven, felt pretty awake. Then thought "Fuck it. I don't actually need to get up until ten" and went back to sleep.
Had a one to one meeting with one of the lecturers about some essays we'd done, and I'm apparently doing fine and have a clear, mature essay style. Really? I just use long words.
Went to get my hair cut after, because it was getting too long and on my nerves. It's extremely short now. Like, really shorter than most boys'. Like, half a centimetre long at the back in places. Then went to the Gates Shopping Centre to buy chocolate because I keep sitting in my room and really fancying something sweet with a cup of tea. Bought a big bag of mis-shapes for 99p. Then when I came back, a girl in my music set and I demolished them over several cups of tea.
Today has really been me coming up with ever more inventive ways to avoid doing the harmony exercises I've been set. Three examples of fourth species counterpoint. Joy.

I other news, DUCK* weekend is coming up. Starts with Hold the Bar tomorrow night. Contestants get their names put forward for it, and for the evening have to stand touching the bar while completing challenges. Sounds easy enough. Except they have to drink a pint of water every fifteen minutes, and can only let go of the bar if they win challenges or someone pays for them to be allowed to go to the toilet. And the blokes setting the challenges can be extremely inventive. I think one of them is planning on having leg waxing as a challenge. It is mostly men who end up taking part.

You can also order "hits" on people, for a small fee. There's nice ones, like being sent a rose, or a Cadbury's Milk Tray ninja, who delivers chocolates to you. Then there's the slightly less pleasant ones, like being Tangoed (orange face paint, hair sprayed orange, orange T shirt. Publicly) or being slapped around the face with a fish. And I strongly suspect one of the third years has put that hit out on me. Expect lots of profanity if I'm right about that one.

*Durham University Charities Kommittee.

Current Mood: avoiding work
Current Music: Some irritating person outside whistling

Noe done much. I have three excersises in fourth species counterpoint and two essay plans to do. I also have a DSU brownie to eat.

( Oh, and... )

Current Mood: caffeinated
Current Music: Vienna Teng - Between

Last night was Formal. For "Formal Dinner", read "excuse to get wasted". The food is slightly better than normal Trevs meals, though. And dear god, the chocolate cake was good. There's a great tradition of 2p drinking games, where if someone has their glass off the table and you drop a 2p coin into it, they have to down it. A lad on my table managed to get through most of a bottle of wine before the end of the main course. I stayed on the water, and got very paranoid about drinking.
Afterwards, there was a disco in the college bar (the only time we ever clear all the chairs and have a proper dancefloor, usually). Wandered around drinking. Also good. Spent quite a long time talking to my academic father about music and things. He was very drunk. Just stood smiling at everything... Then the fire alarm went off and we all had to stand outside in the cold for about half an hour.
Went out to Loveshack when the bar closed, with a group of third years. I borrowed a jumper off one of the lads who was being boring and not coming out**. Fell asleep wearing it when I finally got back to college. Couldn't be bothered getting undressed. Martin kept trying to steal my glasses*. Soon stopped when I headbutted him, though.
But yes. Was a good night. I'm shattered now, though. Still managed to get up at half seven for breakfast.

In other news, I feel like I'm getting a cold again. I used to have a great immune system. What's happened to it?!

*A fourth year called Beardy Ed had his glasses stolen off his face in Loveshack the other week. We LOLed. Lots.

**Yes, James. Rowing Guy. I took it back to him this afternoon and he didn't actually remember lending it to me.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Muse - Time is Running Out

I've had an extremely productive day today.
Went to bed around one, ended up being woken up at two, half three, four and five in the morning by loud, drunken people on my landing*, so I got up at six, worked, showered and went to breakfast. No lectures today so I carried on working then went to the boathouse for rowing. Was good, but the wind was getting up so with that and the waves, balancing the boat was next to impossible.
Came back, worked, tidied my room, and finally managed to get a load of washing done. Of the eight machines in college, four are broken and the other four were in use. Which was Annoying.
Anyway. Non-post. I have a Trevs Jazz rehearsal in an hour.

Also, OMG.
Repo: The Genetic Opera
Sounds. Just. OMG. Looks good. In a really possibly crap way. And has Anthony Head as an assassin type bloke who goes to repossess the organs. You really have to read the synopsis...

( Youtube of a trailer thing )

*James, don't expect much sleep this weekend. This landing is very noisy.

Now, that was a shit night out.

We went to Fishtank, because they were having an Indie/Alternative night. Nine of us left college, walked down a very long and very dark shortcut I'd never even noticed in daylight, and eventually found the place up another poorly lit side street. To call it a dive would be an understatement. It even smelled of fish. We spent an hour in there, and we were the only people in. We were going to go to Studio after, but the queues were ridiculous, and most of us really coouldn't be arsed by that time. Then went and got chips from the takeaway opposite the club. Thought "I could really fancy some chips". Then got them, got halfway through and realised I really wasn't enjoying them. And now I'm back at college, there's no one in/up/awake and doing interesting things, so I should probably get an early night. I'm going to try get up for breakfast even when I don't have early lectures. Rowing tomorrow at 11, so if I get up, I can try get some more work done on this Lutoslawski exercise before I go.

Of course, my productive plan will never actually happen, but I can at least pretend to have good intentions...

Current Mood: bored
Current Music: Erasure - A Little Respect

Just got back from Revolver, the Indie night at the Student Union. Was very good. I danced. Possibly looked like a pillock. Don't really care. :D
There was another room with dance music on and a UV light. Before we went out, we got a UV pen that one of the lads had and drew on ourselves. I've got "TREVS" on my left arm, swirly patterns al over both forearms, treble clefs on my hand, arm and face and the opening bars of Beethoven's Fifth on my left forearm. Oh, yeah.

And now... My feet hurt and I should go to bed.

Current Mood: boogie
Current Music: The Killers - Bones

So the Durham Opera Ensemble is performing Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel this year. Had an email about auditions. "Take along a song or aria to perform. There will also be tests of aural skill and range"

Oh, yeah. And then "there will also be a simple dance audition".

WHAT. Dancers don't have to sing unless they want to, but the fact there's anaudition implies we'll have to have some degree of dancing ability beyond the great JC's choreography for the Youth Opera.

Fuck.

I. Love. Early music.
Had a lecture on analysis and perception this afternoon, and we were looking at a Gloria by Pycard. It's a tenor motet for two tenors and two (male) altos, and it's just gorgeous. I love the harmonies and sound and cross rhythms and just everything. It nearly had the War Requiem Effect on me in the lecture. As soon as I find out the login name for the University's Naxos online, I know how I'll be spending my nights.

I have just eaten a scone. It was hexagonal. I think the Trevs architecture is doing strange things to my food.

*Listening to the In Paradisum from Britten's War Requiem in an A level music lesson, I started crying. It's just a gorgeous piece of music. There's a lot of music I love, but less that's so beautiful it can move me to tears. It seems to be the early and early 20th century/neoclassical stuff that does it. I wonder if it's the purity of tone and more fluid tonality that does it. *shrug*

Current Mood: music-y
Current Music: Currently? Kaiser Chiefs. Oh My God. Bit of a change...

By far the best (and most amusing) way to watch a film is to gaffer tape a bedsheet to someone's wardrobe and link up a projector to your laptop. The creases make everyone's face look really strange. You get some great head shapes.
I went to D2 landing to finally get my stuff back off Andy (no pornographic content on my camera, also a lot less of my schnapps than there was when I left it on monday night). Ended up sat talking to him and watching "amusingly edited" videos of interviews he did at the landing party, then one of the other lads came and asked if we wanted to watch a film. So we went downstairs to his room, projector and bedsheet in hand, and watched Signs and took the piss out of it. Andy, being an engineer and having yet another 9am lecture, went off to bed early. With my stuff still in his room. I will get it back at some point. Maybe before he graduates.

Current Mood: blah
Current Music: Regina Spektor - On the Radio

I am ridiculously drunk. Like, the most drunk I hav ever been to date. But I can still touch type.
Went to a landing party that was pretty much lots of third years and me. We made a "Morals Mangler"* in a recyling bin. It contained two bottled of Robinson's Squash, four litres of lemonade, two bottles of vodka and one bottle of Malibu. Tasted like slightly too strong squash. Thanks to the extremely inventive drinking games, my clean T shirt now has "Mangler" and beer on it. This is annoying.

My camera, cardigan and bottle of apple schnapps have been left in the room of the lad I slept on the bed of last night. He went to bed early. I wrote him a very formal, very drunk note to say I would like them back, the camera without any pornographic content on it, please.

I can't quite hear or feel completely clearly.

And I have lectures at 10 am.

*The Morals Mangler is a special college cocktail with vodka, passoa, bacardi, smirnoff ice and lemonade in it. We made our own version in a recycling bin. I really hope they washed it out...

Current Mood: drunk
Current Music: Nightwish - Sleeping Sun

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