… in a way Thatcher was so omnipotent; so omnipresent, so omni-everything that all opinion was redundant.… I suppose, that if you opposed Thatcher’s ideas it was likely because of their lack of compassion, which is really just a word for love. If love is something you cherish, it is hard to glean much joy from death, even in one’s enemies.
Russell Brand, being heaps astute in his reflection piece on Margaret Thatcher (‘Russel Brand on Margaret Thatcher’, The Guardian, 9 April 2013).
WHAT HAS THIS GOT TO DO ABOUT MY CHOICE TO READ THIS ARTICLE ON PARKING IN THE PARLIAMENTARY TRIANGLE? THIS IS THE INTERNET AND YOU ARE BIG BROTHER AND WHY CAN’T YOU RECOMMEND ME SHIT I ACTUALLY WANT TO READ? I SUPPOSE I’LL JUST GO BACK TO WORK. CANBERRA TIMES, YOU ARE THE WORST.
so there’s this person I know. and I want to like them. but they pretend to know about everything in that way that kids do when they start university. like, because, when you learn that much that quick, you can’t quite properly comprehend that there’s so much more to know. and that wouldn’t matter, except that they are condescending in a way that implies incredible disrespect. and—as I’m a lady and he’s a dude—sometimes seems patently sexist. and he doesn’t seem to get—or even consider—that I’m five years older than him, and—despite my size and sex and penchant for saying ‘totally’ and ‘like’ and ‘I don’t do numbers’—I’m actually pretty fucking smart. and that I read well, and have read widely, and sometimes books that he thinks are obscure. and that, occasionally, I might know the same things he knows and—OH, WOW—even some things he doesn’t know.
I mean. yes. sexuality is a thing. but reality is also a thing. and ‘laws’ of sexuality are just not a thing.
I don’t mean that it can’t be straightforward or clearly defined or whatever, only that this isn’t a question with a correct answer that you can be graded on. it’s comforting to know that Billy Bragg was singing about this in the early nineties. but also, like, terrifying that a lot of people still don’t get it.
Recently, this talented dude I know put on an art show/house party to exhibit the series of photographs—80 black and white studio portraits—that he’d developed for his honours project. They’re direct and beautiful and all those things they ought to be, except—OH, HEY—one of them is me.
