Pseudo-Intellectual Business

I’ve just discovered a link between two things I love to rant about. Actually I’m kicking myself for not spotting it before. The more I think about it, the more obvious it is.

The link I have made is this: People who use Business Bullshit are in fact a breed of pseudo-intellectual.

Regular readers will know that I love to bait pseudo-intellectuals and expose them for what they are – bullshit merchants who know several big words and like to quote philosophy in order to make themselves  appear better than everybody else. The truth is, of course, that they blind people with their vocabulary because ultimately they don’t actually say anything that makes any sense.

My favourite pseudo-intellectuals are people who stand in front of vomit stains in contemporary art museums and try to impress upon anybody who is willing to lend an ear that the piece of shit in front of them is something more than the shallow mess it actually is.

Another breed is the hipster who dresses like a nerd just to be different and “writes random poetry to express himself”, poetry that is truly awful and meaningless, I hasten to add.

It’s no real leap of logic to discover that a new breed of pseudo-intellectual lives in the upper echelons of high management and bombards his staff with weird business argon that nobody understands, and that his peers pretend to understand.

I am disappointed with myself because this type of pseudo-intellectual has been with me my entire working life. I have found myself in meetings with people from various companies, all trying to impress upon everybody else how important and intelligent they are,  while speaking utter jibberish to bamboozle us all.

In their eyes, their peers are thinking “Wow! This guy really knows what he is talking about. We must do business with him.”

The truth is rather sad. People actually think “What in the name of all that is Holy is this ballbag talking about? It makes no bloody sense.”

Such verbal diarrhoea is responsible for many a rant from yours truly but, more importantly, inspired Scott Adams, then a disgruntled employee, to create the now massively famous Dilbert cartoon series.

At this point, I have to add that some of my work colleagues have said in the past that I bear a striking resemblance to Dilbert – judge for yourself.

Dilbert

Plastic Mancunian

I have never met Scott Adams so their theory is nonsense.

Anyway, here are a couple of typical Dilbert cartoons that illustrate the point.

The idea of setting up a buzzword bingo card has appealed to me for years but the problem is that business bullshit is an evolving beast with new terms popping out of the bull with alarming frequency.  This means that lowly employees like me would have to keep on top of these new terms and this is a full time job that I don’t have time to pursue.

Here are a few new ones:

“I want to jump on your radar!”

“Thought leaders”

“Idea sherpa”

“Punch a puppy”

“Thought shower”

These are terms that make me want to cringe with embarrassment.

Many years ago, there was a comedy show called Drop the Dead Donkey in the UK that had a character called Gus Hedges who basically used bullshit to communicate with his staff. Some of the terms he used were laughable – and now over 20 years later, the terms he used actually sound more believable.

Here are some of his best lines:

“We've got to downsize our sloppiness overload, Joy. Am I making myself clear?”

“There is just something I'd like to pop into your percolator, see if it comes out brown.”

“I'm setting you free. Free to roam the high seas of enterprise as the buccaneers of our broadcasting future.”

“I'm in major cellular rejuvenation mode, fast-tracking my way to eternal biological viability.”

“I think we have a slight togetherness shortfall here.”

“You see, when it comes to sexual interfacing with the female gender group, I've always been caution-orientated due to ongoing problems of an adaptive nature regarding the gooiness factor on the physical front.”

“Jill, could you come for a brief scuba in my think tank?”

“We're merely running our bulletins through the cappuccino machine of innovation, see if it comes out frothy.”

“Just a thought I wanted to pop into your fishbowl to see if it blows bubbles.”

“Problems are just the pregnant mothers of solutions.”

The good thing about Gus Hedges is that he is totally fictional. Sadly, there thousands upon  thousands of pseudo-intellectual managers who seem to have adopted him as a role model. Some pseudo–intellectuals like to quote philosophers; other like to quote Gus Hedges.

To conclude, I found a business bullshit generator that may act as inspiration for any pseudo-intellectuals desperate to climb the corporate ladder with no talent other than their use of meaningless vocabulary.

Here’s a couple I generated:

Synergistically streamline enterprise-wide collaboration and idea-sharing

Compellingly envisioneer standardized "outside the box" thinking

Uniquely reinvent sticky vortals

Have a go yourself – follow this link.

Progressive Thoughts - Day 1

I thought I would start the New Year, as I did five years ago, with a daily series of posts. It will also help me to forget all of the weirdness that happened in 2016, a memorable year, but for all the wrong reasons.

Anyway, enough of that! We are now in the year 2017 and this year will hopefully be much better.

Five years ago, I chose to select a pop song every day in January and talk about where and how it featured in my life at the time.

This time, I am not going to do that exactly. Instead, I am going to endeavour to introduce you to the world of Progressive Rock, my favourite music genre. I can hear you groan, dear reader, as you think “Why? What the hell IS Progressive Rock anyway?”

Don’t be despondent. My aim is to pour forth my thoughts on a number of subjects inspired by the music that you will hopefully give a little go. To be honest, Progressive Rock in itself is a weird genre because many people claim to have never heard of it, but when I mention the bands and artists, they say “Oh yeah! I never knew they were Progressive Rock!”

Take Genesis, for example. They are one of the most famous members of this elite group of artists. You will hear from them in a few days.

I want to start where it all began, way back in 1977. The very first record I ever bought was a Progressive Rock masterpiece: Fanfare For The Common Man by Emerson, Lake and Palmer. I guess the genre appealed to me even back then.

Here it is:

I’ve always regarded myself as a common man. There’s nothing that special about me, really. If you were to meet me you hopefully not think I’m an okay kind of guy. I like to think I’m a nice person and would never knowingly upset anybody.

Yes I rant about people and things but if I genuinely don’t like somebody, I simply avoid them – for their sake as well as mine. I can’t bring myself to be nasty even to so-called foes; it’s just not in my nature.

To be fair, I would prefer to listen to a song called "Fanfare For The Nice Guy" because ultimately I think that nice guys don’t always win. Nasty people exploit and use nice guys – I have been a victim of that in the past when I was a naïve youngster. Such experiences have made me cynical and that is one of my weakness and something I can’t do anything about.

I like to think that I am a good judge of character and when I meet somebody who I think has a hidden agenda, I nod and smile but am very wary of their motives. I’ve met quite a few people like this, mainly through work and usually socially.

For example, at a wedding I went to once, I met a guy who bored me senseless for about an hour, telling me how wonderful he was and how rich he was. He asked me about what I had done, but his sole purpose was one-upmanship; to basically tell me that he had done something better or something more successful. Whenever I mentioned the exploits of friends I knew, he claimed to have friends who were better than them, more famous than them or had made a bigger mess of something.

At the end of the conversation, he wanted to keep in touch – why, I don’t know because compared to his person he claimed to be, I was just a plebeian non-entity. Perhaps he thought that I would become one his army of fans and he would be able to claim that he had common men as friends.

I haven’t seen him since – and I am glad.

Most of the people I meet, I genuinely like, which tells me that most people are fine, most people are nice guys and girls and we’re all common people with normal everyday lives.

I am sure you are too, dear reader, because I like you all too – unless you are a pseudo-intellectual or a keyboard warrior, in which case I shall reserve judgement until I meet you in person.

Stop Feeling Guilty

Today I’m going to talk about a subject that really irks me and has made me rant a lot over the years.

The idea comes from a comedian called Dave Gorman, a very funny and clever man. On his latest show, called “Modern Life Is Goodish”, he discusses the term "guilty pleasure”, used by just about everybody, myself included, to describe something that you really like but that you feel guilty about. In fact, I have written a couple of posts about my own musical guilty pleasures that took some doing because, in it, I mentioned songs that I felt embarrassed about. These songs are in my musical collection and I love them, despite people laughing at me or deriding me because of them.

I’ve also discussed the pseudo-intellectual, a person who mocks people like me for not appreciating high-brow items across a variety of disciplines. These people utter complete bullshit and show faux-emotion with feigned enthusiasm about their subject matter, dismissing normal everyday folks for being too thick to appreciate where they are coming from.

There are lots of examples.

Imagine a conversation between such a person (PS) and myself.

PS: I’m currently reading “Dystopian Attitudes To Philosophy” by the renowned philosopher Archibald St-John-Smythe, a professor of applied philosophy at Oxford University. It was reviewed very positively in The Sunday Times last week by the acclaimed critic Theodore Rymplethrope. It is a fascinated read. What are you currently reading?

PM: I’m reading “Alien Immortal”, a science fiction novel by Dirk Prawn. It’s not well known and is about an alien invasion in the near future just when …

PS: Let me stop you right there. That’s your guilty pleasure. It has to be because otherwise you would be ashamed to admit to reading cheap nonsense like that! You need to challenge yourself cerebrally and a cheesy sci-fi novel is no way to do that!

PM: Pardon?

PS: St-John-Smythe discusses the possibility of the existence of an alternative reality, where we are canine beings being held captive as pets by super-intelligent felines and the relevance of this alternate concept to the thought paradigms … Where are you going?

PM: To read my cheesy science fiction book. It’s more interesting than talking to you.

Do you see what I mean? There are certain people who deem themselves to be far superior to the likes of me who say that I should be utterly ashamed about my choice of book, movie or music, my hobbies, the art I like to look at and my lifestyle choices.

If it has not been positively reviewed by a well-respected critic in a high brow newspaper then it is simply a guilty pleasure that you should feel ashamed about admitting to loving.

These are the kind of people who will read anything by Salman Rushdie and criticise those of who don’t as beneath molluscs on the evolutionary scale. They try to make me feel guilty about reading a cheesy horror story over a book that is critically acclaimed by a famous book critic.

I started a Salman Rushdie book once then put it down - it was absolutely dreadful.

These people try to make me feel guilty about choosing to watch a Superhero movie over an Oscar-winning snooze-fest.

They try to make me feel guilty about choosing to watch The Big Bang Theory over a documentary about the evolution of contemporary art in Western Europe in the 20th century.

They simply cannot understand why I would choose to buy a progressive metal CD instead of a critically acclaimed CD by a singer-songwriter that gets a five star review in a high brow newspaper and is advertised on television as “the greatest album you will hear this year”.

I say this; never ever answer the question “what is your guilty pleasure?” with anything other than:

“I don’t have any guilty pleasures!”

The truth is they are simply “pleasures” and there is absolutely nothing to feel guilty about.

Why should you feel guilty?

Is it possibly because you are effectively admitting to being guilty of dumbing down and are too ashamed to admit that you are an avid fan of the latest soap opera and much prefer it to a critically acclaimed series about how opera music changed the style of classic music in the last two hundred years?

It is nobody’s business but my own whether I choose to “dumb down” and watch tacky television.

I like what I like and I don’t care whether it is considered stupid, immature or dreadful by the pseudo-intellectual or those who think they are superior in some way to us all.

By way of research, I just asked Mr Google to tell me about “guilty pleasures” and one of the first things I found was an article with the title “Celebrity Guilty Pleasures Prove Stars Are Just Like Us!”

How dare they? How bloody DARE they imply that so-called celebrities are somehow above the rest of us. It’s almost as if the tabloids and newspapers are implying that in order to evolve, you need to become famous. And when you are famous, the way you connect with the plebeian class (i.e. the rest of us) is by letting your guard down and admitting that you have guilty pleasures in common with them.

One of the so-called celebrities actually surprised me with his answer to the question. It was Russell Brand. He said:

 “I don’t have guilty pleasures. If something gives you pleasure, don’t feel guilty about it as long as you’re not harming anybody else!”

I totally agree with that.

To summarise, dear reader, my message to you is this:

Stop feeling guilty!

The Madness of Art

I read something on the internet last week and I didn’t initially know how to react. It is about a painting.

Here’s a summary of what I read:

The painting by Nua On, who made his debut In November 2013 following several years of development of his special painting style, begins as bold medium length strokes in many directions and has progressed to incorporate dabs of paint, using a sensuous colour palette of Winsor Violet, Lavender and Silver.

The painting was for sale at the princely sum of almost 500 American Dollars and with it, you get a Certificate of Authenticity together with a biography of the artist and a photograph.

Now when I read this, I thought the words were describing a budding new artist, trained to master his or her art and trying to make a living selling their so-called masterpiece to gullible pseudo-intellectuals. The painting itself was dreadful, a mishmash of daubs that would have had contemporary art critics, wetting themselves with glee and uttering nonsensical sentences to describe what was going through the artist’s head as the brush strokes were applied with words like:

Nua On demonstrates the inner conflict of the mind perfectly, fusing irony and metaphysics in a manner that represents the love affair of souls, destined to meet but finding themselves travelling apart in an ethereal medium of flame and liquid with only their thoughts of the emptiness of atomic division to hint at their ultimate purpose. As Socrates once said: Be as you wish to seem. I cannot elucidate these feelings more humbly.

I imagine that the naïve pseudo-intellectuals will rush to buy this mess at the bargain price offered and spend hours reading the inspirational story of the artist while gazing into his eyes on the photograph and struggling to contain their orgasmic urges.

But there is something I haven’t told you about this painting, dear reader.

It is special.

The artist looks like this:

I swear I am not making this up, 

Nua On is a fucking elephant!! 

I wonder whether the poor creature signed the back of the painting by dipping it’s enormous foot in a bucket of paint and slopping it onto the canvas.

I know that I have basically said that the painting is utter shit but, having been dragged around the Tate Modern in both Liverpool and London, I can safely say that it is actually better than some of the garbage hanging on the walls in those museums that was painted by human beings.

This is yet another example of how mad the art world has become. Everybody likes art but now what seems to have happened is that these nutcases are thinking even more outside the box in their quest to appear intelligent and cultured, praising pictures painted by other species and, presumably, trying to get into the heads of the giant wrinkly pachyderms that painted them.

To those pseudo-intellectual fuckwits, I have this to say.

IT’S AN ELEPHANT! 

IT’S A BLOODY ELEPHANT! 

THE POOR CREATURE WANTS TO USE HIS TRUNK FOR FEEDING HIMSELF, GIVING HIMSELF A SHOWER AND SNIFFING HIS OWN BALLS. 

HE DOES NOT WANT A CRUEL PERSON EXPLOITING HIM BY MAKING HIM HOLD A PAINTBRUSH SO THAT YOU CAN  PONTIFICATE ABOUT WHAT THE UNFORTUNATE ANIMAL WAS THINKING WHEN  HE WAS FORCED TO COVER A PIECE OF PAPER WITH PAINT. 

YOU ARE A BLOODY IDIOT!

The people behind this enterprise are really clever and I am amazed that there are pseudo-intellectuals actually thick enough to be conned into buying this shit.

There is always somebody out there trying to exploit stupidity and, to me, this is just another example.

It’s crazy. But it’s worse than that! Paintings by other creatures are available to buy.

I kid you not!

So what other these other animals paint?

I promise that I am not making this up. 

You can buy paintings by turtles, tortoises, snakes, skinks, cheetahs, tigers, jaguars, gorillas, orangutans, chimps, grasshoppers, worms, millipedes, sea lions, penguins, rhinos, hippos, dolphins and whales.

In the case of the smaller creatures that cannot hold a brush, they have to have their bodies or at least parts of their bodies, dipped in paint before making then slither or crawl along the canvas.

I would love to see what happens if a tiger suddenly objected to being forced to paint.

YOU WANT ME TO DO WHAT???????????

It also makes me wonder about copyright. Surely a painting is owned by the artist, not the person that is forcing the poor creature to apply paint to canvas in such a humiliating way. Could Nua On challenge me if I were to reproduce his art on my blog? No doubt there is a lawyer out there who would try to take me court, saying that his elephant rights are being violated and exploited by a ruthless blogger.

The more I delve into the world of contemporary art, the more amazed I am about how absurd it is. They never cease to amaze me with new conceptual ideas for the pseudo-intellectual community to preach about.

The madness of art is exploding exponentially.

Still, at least if you are a philosopher, you can be happy in the knowledge that your wise words will be taken completely out of context by a moron trying by using them to describe the thoughts of an elephant as he splashed paint onto a big slice of paper.

I’m not a philosopher by any means but I am thinking about starting my own contemplative genre of that discipline, dedicating my own words to help pseudo-intellectuals to gush over artwork created by humans and animals alike.

Taking this a step further, I might actually consider being the agent for my cats, encouraging them to dabble in the world of modern art so that I can exploit pseudo-intellectuals and make myself - er sorry - my cats very rich.

That may not be such a good idea because either the cats would rip my hands off or, more likely, Mrs PM would beat me to a pulp.

So, Nua On, you are safe from the challenge of cat art for now. But I will write a few quotes for the pseudo-intellectuals to use to describe your work. 

I can’t wait to read your biography!

The Meaning of Life - Paint It Black

In 2013, I watched a funny programme starring Karl Pilkington called The Moaning of Life, where he travelled the world seeking inspiration for the meaning of life in key areas, such as happiness, kids and death.

Karl Pilkington is a straight talking funny man whose perception of life in general is rather weird, so weird in fact that he is genuinely funny. The show inspired me to write about the meaning of life from my own perspective mirroring the subjects tackled by Karl.

This is the man at is weirdest best - simply trying to promote the book accompanying the first series:

See what I mean? He can't even talk about his book without flying off at weird tangents.

Anyway, now he’s back with a second series where he continues to give us his view of life with new subjects. Again I have decided to join in and offer my views on the same subject.

The first post discusses something that I have mentioned before (and ranted about):

Art

Regular readers may consider me to be an unsophisticated barbarian when it comes to the arts, mainly because I have written a few posts about my views on contemporary art, the people who produce this art and the people who claim to understand and appreciate it.

These people are wrong.

It’s true that I am a stubborn old git but my opinions on art are just my own. While I may mock the pieces of crap that hang on the walls of museums of contemporary art, I genuinely have praise for paintings and sculptures that, in my opinion, say something to the world.

For example, I love paintings of real things,, such as landscapes, oceans, storms and sunsets, particularly if these images have been captured in the past. I find that they give me an insight into life back then and I can imagine the painter sitting in the English countryside, using his skill to capture a specific moment in time for future generations to enjoy.

Here’s an example or two by J.M.W.Turner:

These are fantastic paintings.

I feel rather sorry for J.M.W. Turner to be honest because, sadly, his name has been used (or should I say abused) in modern times. His name has been given to an annual contemporary art competition that genuinely makes me wonder about the sanity and intelligence of certain elements of my nation. 

The Turner Prize is awarded to a so-called visionary young artist (under the age of 50 – so its ageist as well) for their new works of art.

However, the art is utter nonsense. In fact, it’s worse than that – it’s absolutely shit!

The Turner Prize shows everything that is wrong with art. These days, it has been captured and held captive by the pseudo-intellectual brigade, who refuse to accept genuine art because, in their words:

“It’s been done before!”

I could vomit in a bucket, throw the contents onto a canvas, empty the contents of a filthy cat litter tray on top of that, spread it around with a garden rake, throw in a few packets of cat food for good measure, leave it to dry and then hang it up on a wall with the title “Cat Chores Gone Wrong” and I am sure that some pillock out there in the world of contemporary art would start gushing over it, claiming it to be:

“The most exciting cosmic, trans-species interactive amalgamation in the myriad multiverses”.

I might just do that, actually!

But of course, art is really any form and while I may mock a pseudo-intellectual, I am certain that he has his reasons for spouting pseudo-philosophical crap about a vomit stain hanging on a wall.

I find beauty in many other art forms, such as music, video and the wonders of Mother Nature. To be perfectly honest, I prefer photography to painting, simply because when a camera captures an image, it is real. In the minute moment that a camera clicks, a picture of a moment is preserved, whether it is a moment of beauty or tragedy. 

For me, like a Turner landscape, we have captured a moment in time that can be preserved for our future generations to enjoy, contemplate or simply fantasize about. 

I would love a person from two hundred years in the future to see a photograph that I had taken and just spend a few moments trying to imagine what was going on at the time. 

Another art form that is close to my heart is music. Music is personal and, like a photograph, can have a special meaning for a person. I still maintain that a catalogue of personal music can act as a unique time machine for a person. Whenever I hear certain songs, my mind searches my memory banks for a specific moment, selects it and brings into my thoughts so that I can relive what is probably a cherished memory, either of a specific instance or a special month or year.

In that respect, music gives meaning to life and the good thing about music is that, like a fantastic statue, a beautiful photograph or an oil painting of an ancient landscape, we can think about our lives, past lives, history and the future all at the same time.

I’m not sure that a vomit stain hanging in the Tate Gallery would have such a profound effect.

I’ll leave you with two songs from my vast collection that are very special to me for reasons that I may elaborate on in future posts:

How about you, dear reader. 

Are you a fan of art?

What art do you enjoy?

Do you think that a lot of contemporary art is rubbish?

What does "art" mean to you?

The Poet

I was tempted to call this post Poetry is Rubbish.

The truth is that generally I find what’s known as serious poetry genuinely is rubbish, a sort of pseudo-intellectual bullshit similar to contemporary art.

Contemporary artists use paint, bricks, unmade beds or in some cases absolutely nothing to appeal to pseudo-intellectuals, inspiring them to wax lyrical about what the painting says to them, using quotes from philosophers and basically talking nonsense to make themselves seem to be more clever than the rest of us.

Some poets do exactly the same – but with words instead of weird materials.

When I was at school, my English teacher forced me to write a critical essay comparing two poems about horses. I read them both and didn’t understand a bloody word. I didn’t trust my English teacher, a man who had forced me to read The Mayor of Casterbridge (arguably the worst book I have ever read) and hailed William Shakespeare as a kind of modern genius (read my post Shakespeare is Rubbish  for my thoughts on the bard).

I was tempted to write the shortest critical essay ever:

The poems are both about horses and they are both rubbish.

Instead, I pretended to be a pseudo-intellectual and wrote a load of old horseshit (pardon the pun). Guess what? I got a good grade and that essay helped me to pass my O-Level English Literature. Incidentally, I had to write essays about William Shakespeare’s plays and The Mayor of Casterbridge as well.

My only conclusion is that all you have to do succeed in English Literature is pretend to be a pseudo-intellectual.

I stand by this.

In fact, I once wrote a poem on this very blog. The poem was proof that anybody can devolve into a pseudo-intellectual and, with the aid of a dictionary and thesaurus, can come up with any old rubbish.

Here for your pleasure (or otherwise) that poem entitled The Loquacious Figment:

I contemplated the torso of a despondent galactic masterpiece

And my heart thanked my voracious sight.

I hastened my swiftness, disoriented by my awareness

Yet somehow did not submit to fright.

It’s utter garbage. Don’t let anybody tell you any different. It took me about two minutes to write.

If there is anybody who thinks it is good, then let me know and I will write an entire book filled with this kind of nonsense and – perhaps – make some money out of it.

Yeah right!!!!

Anyway, you are probably wondering why I decided not to call this post Poetry is Rubbish. The truth is that there are poems out there that I actually quite like. These are usually silly limericks, puerile nonsense and, most importantly of all, the works of terrific songwriters.

Songs are simply poems put to music and I have some terrific thought-provoking songs in my collection that can stand alone as poetry.

Here are some examples of silly little limericks:

A stupid young man from Crewe

Once decided to build a canoe.

When out on the river

He found, with a shiver, 

He’d forgot to use waterproof glue

A funny young fellow named Perkins

Was terribly fond of small gherkins.

One day after tea

He ate ninety three

And pickled his internal workings.

I have also written poetry for a couple of friends on their birthdays. Here’s an example (with the names changed to protect the guilty):

A new decade's upon you; it's your 50th today.

The little hair that you have left will soon be turning grey.

You still play squash and cycle, to cling onto your youth.

But soon your muscles will give way, along with every tooth.

And when your gums are toothless (and chewing is a chore)

The only food you'll manage will be sucked up through a straw.

You take your lady dancing (Mimi is her name)

But believe me, waltzing's tricky when you use a zimmer frame.

Your pension is approaching more quickly than you think.

But forget that for the moment - we'll buy you lots of drink

To wish you HAPPY BIRTHDAY and, if I may be so bold,

To make sure you remember, Bill, that you are VERY OLD.

Now I’m over fifty myself, I think that might have hurt.

Moving on to songs, I think that the words can be almost as powerful as the music itself. In some cases, the words actually elevate a song for me. Here are some examples:

Rush – Nobody’s Hero

Dream Theater – The Answer Lies Within

I can only conclude therefore that poetry is not rubbish, only those pretentious poems seemingly auto-generated from a dictionary.

Well, I feel inspired to write another on for you, dear reader. Picture the scene. I have opened my browser and have begun looking for quotes from celebrated philosophers. I am devolving into a pseudo-intellectual.

I am now an arrogant smartarse who is looking down on the world. My inspiration is complete. In the words of Plato:

“The beginning is the most important part of the work”.

I present to you: The Enigmatic Equation:

The imperceptible formula, cloaked in derangement,

Struggles to reveal its worth.

Yet the analyst blindly persists in frustration

Anticipating its Caesarian birth 

What a load of gibberish. I hope you agree.

Over to you, dear reader.

Do you like poetry?

If so, does all of it make sense to you? Am I just being thick?

Do song lyrics inspire you?

What's Hot and What's Not

Statements like green is the new black make my blood boil. It is a ludicrous thing to say and highlights the worst façades of the fashion industry and other culprits who try to sell their wares to gullible fools and pseudo intellectuals at ridiculously inflated prices.

Magazines like the Style section of The Sunday Times are full of this kind of nonsense, offering, say, a pair of silver shoes at a ridiculous £400 just because they are currently in vogue and drive normally sane people insane because, apparently, they are the new black in the world of footwear.

Needless to say that Style usually goes straight into the recycling without its pages being turned – that is unless Mrs PM gets it first.

Mrs PM is a very sensible person and even she tuts and sighs as she reads the pages of this dreadful waste of ink and paper.

“Why do you read it?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she says. “I usually only skim it and look at the Going Up, Going Down section."

She elaborated telling me that this little note at the side of one of the many pages of garbage, is effectively a filler which indicates what is currently cool and trendy, and what is currently on its way out.

I was slightly curious so I grabbed the most recent copy and had a look.

Here’s what I found.

At the bottom of the pile, rolling out of fashion faster than a mad dog on a ski slope, is The Shareable Coat.

What the flump is a Shareable Coat?

Surely all coats are shareable. I know that I have lent a coat to my lads who are now the same size as me, and also, like the gentleman that I am, draped it over the shoulders of Mrs PM and other female friends when it gets a little chilly. Isn’t that sharing a coat?

No. A Shareable Coat is a big scarf-like thing that two BFFs can share together (apparently BFF means Best Friend Forever but I reckon it stands for Bloody Foolish Females in this case).

You've got too much of the coat!

“What else is on its way out?” I hear you cry.

Well brankles or mankles (bloke ankles/man ankles) are hurtling down the fashion parade. Basically this involves men (or as I prefer to call them dickheads) rolling up their trousers or actually buying trouser that are too short in some cases to expose their manly calves and ankles.  I’m sure that women go crazy for such idiocy.

Really? Is this a good look????

What else? Oh yes – extreme aged steak. A steak is usually hung out for 30 days or so but in this case, the meat is left out for much longer, the longest I managed to find was 459 days.

459 days!

I would have made a pair of shoes out of it.

Do you want to hear the hot stuff? The stuff that is soaring so much that it is sizzling?

First, vinyl booties, which are thigh high multi-coloured skin tight boots that must be incredibly weird to wear. Apparently they simply MUST be Dior vinyl boots (that figures!!).

Before I go on, let me just clarify that these are for women so the chances of me ever wearing them are zero. To be honest, I can’t see Mrs PM wearing them either.

I'll bet it takes about two hours to put them on!

Also rising like a phoenix are canelés, something else I have never heard of. They are French cakes that have been around since the 18th century but, for some reason, are undergoing a resurgence of popularity.

Actually, I could probably eat one of these.

Finally, the most disgusting foodstuff known to man (apart from rhubarb) is right up there claiming a high spot on the hot list. I am talking about Oyster Happy Hours when you can apparently purchase cut price globs of disgusting rubbery seafood in shells and slide them down your gullet with your friends.

YEEEEEEUUUUUUUCCCCHHHHHH!!!!!

There are more items on this list but I can’t bring myself to write about them. One thing they all have in common is that they are almost exclusively consumed or used by slaves to the God of Style, a faceless entity that makes people wishing to be seen as cool make arse out of themselves by either looking ridiculous wearing or eating them.

It makes me laugh, more out of pity than humour.

Like pseudo intellectuals, these style chasers will pretend to love this stuff and will pay a fortune to have it. It’s no surprise to me that London is the centre for this overpriced hogwash, not the whole city, just the cool places, where it’s good to be seen and you can slurp you oysters before trying to chew on a battered old steak and diving into a container of canelés, all the time huddled in a shareable coat with your BFF while admiring the local dickhead mankles.

What a load of crap it all is.

Sadly, dear reader we are all slaves to the God of Style, simply because we have no choice about the style of clothes to wear (unless you want to buy all your clothes from jumble sales) although we do have a choice about what we eat.

Thank goodness we can pick and choose our own food. Give me a decent steak in a reasonably priced restaurant any time.

And please – no bloody oysters.

Do you want to know what I think is hot and what’s not?

Hot – The Plastic Mancunian!

Not hot – The God of Style. He’s like a modern artist and all of his followers are pseudo-intellectuals with more money than sense.

(Note to self: Please no more rants about modern art).

Am I Cultured?

The Sunday Times is a huge British newspaper that is published every Sunday (obviously) and takes approximately a month to read. You need to have worked out at the gym for months to be able to carry the bloody thing home.

And when you get home you open it up and it consists of section upon section of news, business, sport, money, fashion and many other subjects.

One of those magazines is a newspaper in its own right called “Culture”.

I always try to read this magazine – mainly because it has details of what is on TV over the coming week. However, there is a lot more to it than just TV listings.

The “Culture” magazine has articles on the latest books, music, movies, art, ballet, opera – you name it, “Culture” probably covers it.

Nevertheless, the subjects are genuinely more high-brow – or “cultured” if you like.

Take the movie reviews, for example. You may have read my last post about movies, in which I sang the praises of superhero films, comedy films and action thrillers. Such movies barely get a mention in the Sunday Times; the reviewers opt to cover more cultured movies – for example Lincoln, a film I absolutely slated in my previous post.

And this leads me to ask the question – am I cultured? Or am I just a boorish philistine with shallow views who scoffs at profound and deep meaning in books, music and entertainment in general.

You might agree, if you are a regular reader. I have insulted opera, Shakespeare and modern art in this blog and I can imagine that a “cultured” individual, who loves opera and cries whenever he sees a rousing Shakespearean speech while appreciating a vomit stain on the walls of the Tate Gallery, might roll his eyes, shake his head and dismiss my, in his eyes, shallow views on such erudite art forms.

As far as films are concerned, I know what I like and to be honest I don’t really care whether people think I am a philistine for preferring movies that don’t bore me to sleep.

The same goes for books and music. Many years ago I was intrigued by the fact that Salman Rushdie had had to go into hiding because of a book he wrote. Somebody offered me the chance to read one of his novels, some years after that. It wasn’t The Satanic Verses, the book that got him into so much trouble. I can’t recall which one it was – I think I have blocked it from my memory.

Why? Because it was awful.

Now I am sure that people regard the books of Mr Rushdie as cultured but I hated my one and only foray into his imagination. The same can be said about other books that are meant to be magnificent works of art and “must reads”. I have tried a few and been completely bored with them.

Does this mean I am a philistine? Does the fact that I would rather read a Stephen King novel make me an uncultured barbarian when it comes to literary (so-called) masterpieces?

As regular readers know, I despise and detest contemporary art and the insipid pseudo-intellectual arguments like “it is breaking new ground” or “it’s not been done before” to justify an absolutely horrific load of shit masquerading as art hanging on the walls of a modern art museum. So-called cultured people fawn over these pieces of excrement describing them in the most colourful words and phrases that in reality mean absolutely nothing.

The fact that I do not believe the words they are using to try to describe what the artist was trying to achieve makes me, in their eyes, an uncivilized savage compared to them.

And what about music?

Such people love the fact that I listen to rock music and sing its praises because it confirms my standing as an uncouth monster that lacks any intelligence or taste.

Except I don’t lack intelligence at all and I love to prove this to pseudo-intellectuals whenever I get the opportunity.

In my view, progressive rock is the new classical music. Such music is technically brilliant and comes from the minds of geniuses. The instrumentation is perfect and the songs are mini symphonies. Take another genre I am currently enthralled by: symphonic rock. Artists such as Nightwish prove that orchestral music and heavy metal can be made to complement each other.

Here is an example which proves that what is essentially a heavy metal band can produce a wide range of musical styles, in this case an instrumental orchestral piece. Even if you hate heavy metal please press play – because this will surprise you and hopefully amaze you:

So am I cultured?

If being cultured means being a pseudo-intellectual making up bullshit about a pile of bricks in the middle of a room – then no!

If being cultured means buying and reading a book by an author who is vastly overrated and only gets reviews in the Sunday Times – then no!

If being cultured means pretending that I like a film like Lincoln because it won Oscars – then no!

If being cultured means not buying the music I love because “heavy metal” is the music of thugs and savages – then no!

If being cultured means raving about Shakespearean actors performing Hamlet in Stratford-upon-Avon – then no!

If being cultured means sipping an expensive wine instead of my favourite pint of bitter – then no!

I hate modern art; I prefer Stephen King novels to boring Sunday Times bestsellers; I love my no-brainer action movies and not boring Oscar winning nonsense; I buy the music I love whether it be heavy metal, pop music, progressive rock or classical symphonies;

And Shakespeare is STILL rubbish!

I personally think that culture is an individual quality. If you are happy with your opera, Shakespeare, Rushdie or even framed vomit-stains on a wall in a museum full of junk masquerading as art – then that’s fine by me. Just as long as you don't pretend to love them just to appear cultured.

I regard myself as cultured – and you are too (unless you are a pseudo-intellectual in which case you are a pretentious arse).

Do you agree, dear reader? 

Do you think I cultured or am I a philistine?

Do you think you are cultured? 

If not, why not?

The Pseudo-Intellectual's New Clothes

I have just read something that has made me rant mercilessly to Mrs PM and the cats. In order to escape me, Mrs PM has left the house and the cats have run to those little hidey holes in the house that are Plastic Mancunian proof (behind their litter trays).

I need to let off steam, so unfortunately, dear reader, you are my metaphorical punch bag to allow me to get this off my chest.

Regular readers will know that I have a big problem with pseudo-intellectuals, particularly those who love contemporary art and accuse me of being an unimaginative moron who lives in a box.

I have posted about such buffoons before (read about it here and here) but yesterday, I read something that takes this to an even more ridiculous level.

There is an exhibition about to start at the Hayward Gallery in London that will “set imaginations on fire”.

I can guess that you might consider this to be an intellectually challenging exhibition featuring the most amazing new pieces of contemporary art that will quite literally blow you away in a cascading and exponentially developing miracle of thought-provoking rapture (sorry about that, dear reader – I stole those words from a pseudo-intellectual who had just looked up the words cascade, exponential, miracle and rapture on a web site about philosophy).

The cost of this exhibition is £8, a paltry sum, I’m sure you will agree, for something that will give your imagination the mental equivalent of a screaming orgasm.

What do you get for your £8?

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

Nada! Nichts! Rien! Niente!

BUGGER ALL!!!

Yes, that’s right; the world of contemporary art has stooped to depths lower than even a total cynic like me could imagine.

They are exhibiting NOTHING!!

Allow me to elaborate.

You will see Invisible Sculpture, a “work” by Andy Warhol; an empty plinth, which, apparently, the man stepped on for a brief moment.

You can also feast your eyes on 1000 Hours of Staring; a blank piece of paper (yes you read that correctly – A BLANK PIECE OF PAPER) that the artist, a certain Mr Tom Friedman, stared at on and off for a period of five years.

The same artist has another exhibit and I’ll bet you can barely contain yourself about this one. It is called Untitled (A Curse) and features an empty space which has supposedly been cursed by a witch. That’s right, dear reader – AN EMPTY SPACE!!

How about an empty room by Yoko Ono, where the viewer is encouraged to “conjure up artwork in their minds”? I’m sorry but the blogging equivalent of that is for me to post something called Nothing and let you, dear reader, imagine more of my inane bullshit. Surely that’s MY job as a blogger.

It sounds like a complete joke – but they are serious – totally and utterly serious.

The director of the gallery has said (and I am not making this up): 

“I think visitors will find that there is plenty to see and experience in this exhibition of invisible art”.

He also added: 

“From the amusing to the philosophical, you will be able to explore an invisible labyrinth that only materialises as you move around it, see an artwork that has been created by the artist staring at it for 1000 hours, walk through an installation designed to evoke the afterlife, and be in the presence of Andy Warhol’s celebrity aura.”

Yes – this pseudo-intellectual mad man actually uttered those words to a national newspaper. And, of course, he had to mention philosophy (what pseudo-intellectual nonsense would be complete without the word philosophy?)

The world has gone crazy; totally and utterly crazy. If this is supposed to be the height of intellect in the world then we, as a species, are doomed.

MY CATS HAVE MORE SENSE THAN THESE PEOPLE.

Actually, that’s not true. The people who will undoubtedly flock to this so-called exhibition are the pseudo-intellectual fools. I could get the same experience staring at my wall and unleashing my sick and sordid imagination to picture an epic war occurring on the plaster.

And it wouldn’t cost me a bloody thing.

The traditional story of The Emperor’s New Clothes has never been more relevant to the rubbish that most modern art is. The parallels are there for everybody to see.

I am almost tempted to gate-crash the exhibition and stand there in every room stating the bleeding obvious.

“There is nothing here. There is nothing worth seeing. There is actually nothing to see. This is an empty room.”

Alternatively, I could pay my £8 and walk in totally naked and say “What do you think of my new outfit? It is straight from the imagination of Rene Descartes; it’s called the Invisible Suit”. 

Would they DARE to throw me out?

I could even charge them for their own set of Descartes clothes - £500 a pop. Do you think I’ll get away with it?

I’ll finish with some good news; I have created for you a piece of invisible art that will save you from going to the exhibition. It is in the frame below and it is simply called The Pseudo-Intellectual’s New Clothes.

And it costs exactly what it shows.

NOTHING!!!!

Shakespeare is Rubbish

Am I alone in thinking that William Shakespeare is over-rated? Am I the only one who thinks that most, if not all, of Shakespeare's plays are rubbish?

Sure he wrote some plays at a time when there was probably a serious lack of decent playwrights but to be honest, the things he wrote are not really relevant to our current time.

In fact, when I was at school I distinctly recall reading a Shakespeare play in a book that was 15% introduction, 30% play and 55% explanation of what the hell was going on.

Here is a clip from Blackadder that illustrates my feelings on Mr Shakespeare:



You see, I always had a huge problem with his plays. His tragedies were funny and his comedies weren’t. His plays were written in a form of English that was perfectly acceptable in 1592 but make no sense to an audience of school children in 1975 (when I first encountered him) or later.

English teachers told me that these classic works were leviathans of the literary world that would stand the test of time and that reading and understanding these magnificent works were essential in order to progress in life.

At school I didn’t have the courage to face my teachers and say:

“But they are SHIT!”

Instead I was forced to endure these dreadful and irrelevant plays that bored me to tears. We were forced to sit there and analyse every bloody phrase, every sentence and every nonsensical paragraph in the most stringent manner.

A typical question was “What was Shakespeare trying to say?” and the answer should have been “I don’t bloody well know. I don’t understand it. It is written in a language that has developed into something new over four centuries. It isn’t funny. It is meaningless and it doesn’t make sense. And it is totally and utterly irrelevant. It should stay in the 16th century where it bloody well belongs.”

Shakespeare is as dull as dishwater. If I were to read a play now I would fall asleep before the end of the first act.

One of the plays we had to endure was Twelfth Night, supposedly a comedy. I don’t think anybody laughed. Here is the opening speech:

If music be the food of love, play on;

Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,

The appetite may sicken, and so die.

That strain again! it had a dying fall:

O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound,

That breathes upon a bank of violets,

Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more:

'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.

O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou,

That, notwithstanding thy capacity

Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,

Of what validity and pitch soe'er,

But falls into abatement and low price,

Even in a minute: so full of shapes is fancy

That it alone is high fantastical.


What a load of baloney. I’m sure that when it first played at the Globe theatre, the people who went to see it were mesmerised by Duke Orsino’s splendid delivery. But a twelve year old kid from Walsall? No bloody chance.

We were supposedly speaking learning to speak and write English but Shakespeare’s language is so dated that it makes little sense.

Who says “thou” and “receiveth” and “o’er” and ‘thy” and “soe’er”?

Nobody – apart maybe from a pseudo-intellectual who has his Shakespeare mixed up with his philosophers.

Having suffered Twelfth Night at school we were then expected to write essays that analysed it, essay like:

“Discuss the aspects of love in Twelfth Night”.

I wish I had of written:

“I can’t. I don’t understand it because it is irrelevant. And if this is a comedy then I am a monkey’s uncle. I didn’t laugh once. I’m sure the audience in 1592 rolled in the aisles but I think it is totally and utterly unfunny. If you had asked me to write an essay saying “Twelfth Night is not funny. Discuss.” I might have stood a chance.”

In the end, I wrote several pages of horseshit and scraped a pass.

These days it seems that every actor in the world wants to star in a Shakespeare play. Every single actor falls over themselves to walk on stage roaring to a crowd of people, saying bizarre things like “Hey Nonny Nonny”. The crowd nod in appreciation but probably haven’t a clue what it going on. It would appear that playing the lead in a play like Hamlet seems to be the pinnacle of achievement for an actor, particularly if it is in Stratford-upon-Avon.

I would dearly love to stand up and shout “For goodness sake – speak ENGLISH!”

I would love to continue to barrack pseudo-intellectuals in this post, those who appreciate this nonsense in order to be recognised as culture vultures, but there are people who are genuinely moved by Shakespeare.

I had a discussion once with a woman who told me that she cried when she read Henry V’s rousing speech to his soldiers just before the battle of Agincourt. Here is Kenneth Branagh, a fine actor, giving his all:



I must admit that it is an awe inspiring piece of acting and Kenneth Branagh delivers it with gusto. Without necessarily understanding what he is saying, I can get the gist. If we are going to witness this in a modern film, why not simply modernise it? Instead of:

And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,

From this day to the ending of the world,

But we in it shall be remembered-

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

For he to-day that sheds his blood with me

Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,

This day shall gentle his condition;

And gentlemen in England now-a-bed

Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.


why not say something like:

And from today until the end of time on this day, the feast of St Crispin, everybody will remember how you, my brothers, my band of brave warriors, shed your blood with me. And you are my brothers, make no mistake. And those men, asleep in England, will curse themselves for not being here on this momentous occasion; may they hang their heads in shame that they did not fight with us in this glorious battle on St Crispin’s day.

Okay – so I’m not Shakespeare and certainly could not write a modern day equivalent, but I am absolutely sure that a decent writer could capture the passion of that inspiring speech and leave the audience captivated, instead of thinking, “Well, he sounded brilliant but what the heck was he talking about?”

I’d like to finish with a reference to Macbeth. Now, bizarrely, this play is known as The Scottish Play rather than Macbeth because, apparently the play is cursed. The fact that it features witches and witchcraft may contribute to this but I suspect that it is an absolute load of nonsense. It has been used to real comedic effect in one of my favourite comedy shows: Blackadder the Third:



Personally I am not superstitious at all and if I were to star in Macbeth I would gladly say “Macbeth” repeatedly all the time just to irritate any pillocks who thought that mentioning the name would bring bad luck.

I would also try to sneak in a “Hey Nonny Nonny” and at the end I would ask the audience whether they understood a single word I had said.

If you like Shakespeare, dear reader, I would be happy to hear from you; perhaps you can explain why I should change my mind about his works.

In the meantime, enjoy a quote from the great man that some of you may think rather apt when reading this post:

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.

The Pseudo-Intellectual

I talk crap sometimes.

What do you mean “I know”?

I may talk crap, but there is one thing I can definitely say with my hand on my heart – I am not a pseudo-intellectual. Why? Because when I am wrong and when I am stupid, I openly admit it. Furthermore, I don’t try to impress people with ideas that are not my own and I try my best not to use words that have been hastily looked up in a dictionary to impress people.

What is a pseudo-intellectual then?

I’ve mentioned them in this blog before. In my view, a pseudo-intellectual is somebody who tries to act and speak as if they are cultured, intelligent and understand everything about everything, usually using words and phrases that are not used in everyday speech. And of course, they are not intellectual at all. Worse, they actually look down on people like me.

The finest examples of pseudo-intellectuals are found in the art world but they exist everywhere.

Next time you are in a contemporary art gallery try and spot them; it’s easy.

Firstly they are dressed in a weird way and walk around with a crafted intelligent expression that, to the untrained eye, makes them look weird and eccentric but, in their eyes, they are intelligence personified.

The good news is that you can expose them quite easily.

When you see such a person staring intently at a totally irrelevant piece of art just stand next to them and ask the simple question:

“What does it say to you?”

In their mind they will immediately start up the bullshit generator, searching out phrases that they have remembered to express their supposedly intellectual opinions. You will hear something like:

“It speaks to me on a kinetic level; the energy of the piece distorts the magnificence of everything else, almost in a primeval, carnivorous vortex of cybernetic passion. It arouses me.”

Resist the temptation to say “What on earth are you talking about?”

You could expose them easily enough by asking “Do you even know what kinetic means? And what is a carnivorous vortex when it’s at home?”

Or you could have some fun.

Pretend to be thick yet fascinated by their bullshit – and they simply get worse. For example, they will start to quote philosophers.

“Wow! You know your stuff, my friend! You’re so clever!”

“Yes, wasn’t it Hippocrates who said What is a friend? A friend is a single soul dwelling in two bodies! It’s so apt, don’t you think?”

The more you praise them the worse they get.

Others look to culture and embrace opera, ballet and other such dreadful pursuits. I once went to an opera to see what all the fuss was about – it was bloody awful.

It went something like this:

Opera Singer 1: I’m going to kill her.

Opera Singer 2: No, don’t kill her.

Opera Singer 1: I’m going to kill her.

Opera Singer 2: No, don’t kill her.

Opera Singer 1: I’m going to kill her.

Opera Singer 2: No, don’t kill her.

Opera Singer 1: Yes I must and I will.

Opera Singer 2: No you won’t.

Opera Singer 1: Yes I will.

Opera Singer 2: No you won’t.

I felt like screaming “For the sake of my sanity – just make your bloody mind up!!”

I have no doubt that if I had, a pseudo-intellectual would have rounded on me and started quoting philosophy to prove I am a cultureless dolt.

I’ve had arguments with these people on a couple of occasions. They assume that I am totally stupid simply because the pursuits I choose to embrace are not, in their view, intellectually stimulating. They, of course, are wrong.

Now I hate to blow my own trumpet, but I regard myself as a pretty intelligent bloke. I have a degree and I work in IT so there must be some intellect in that skull of mine. My problem is that I am slightly geeky, a little nerdy, somewhat weird and very opinionated. And that winds pseudo-intellectuals up very easily.

Take for example the subject of music.

Pseudo–intellectuals regard rock music as the spawn of Satan himself. They assume that because I am a fan of rock guitar that I have no taste and therefore should not be allowed to comment on music.

I have had debates with genuinely clever people about our musical differences and in those cases we have a fun chat, agreeing on some things and disagreeing on others. However, the pseudo–intellectual whose clichéd view of rock is that only devil worshippers love it have absolutely no clue.

They do not acknowledge the genius of guitarists like Joe Satriani, the song writing skills of Rush and Dream Theater, the intelligence of bands like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden.

To them, intellectuals only like classical music and opera – and anything else is followed by brainless idiots. In their eyes, I like rock ergo I am thick.

When it comes to art, the same thing applies – I don’t understand why somebody would pay a million pounds for a canvas that has random bits of vomit splashed around on it and they assume that I am thick because of that.

Movies and books are another area where the pseudo-intellectual thrives. They choose only to read books that are reviewed in the Sunday Times, saying that anything else is beneath them. The fact that most of these books are dreadful anyway is irrelevant.

It’s the same with films. Somebody, a pseudo-intellectual, once recommended that I watch the film “Eyes Wide Shut”. “You’ll love it,” he said. “It is the epitome of post-modern erotica and Kubrick’s finest work to date. It penetrates your psyche on a subtle intellectual level that transcends the abnormal odyssey of the perverted masses.”

I should have known. His review of it should have made alarm bells ring in my head. I should have said “What on Earth are you talking about you babbling bullshitter?”

I was foolish. I watched it.

And I can tell you now that my review of the film is simple. Here it is – brace yourself.

IT IS SHIT!

So beware the pseudo-intellectual folks. Beware the person who uses a hundred words when one will do. Beware the person who criticises your musical taste because you don’t listen to Bach. Beware the buffoon who tries to quote Aristotle to you. Beware the person who chuckles when standing in front of a pile of cat’s puke on a canvas and says “You simply don’t get it because you simply can’t grasp the concept of retro-physical potential in an academic vacuum that procreates despondency while at the same time expanding personal karma in a futuristic yet nihilistic orgy of barbaric crescendo.”

And most of all – beware anybody who tells you that this piece of crap below, that I produced for a previous post, is in fact art.