Coastalblog

Coverage of the possible serial killings in Suffolk has afforded me a certain grim amusement over the last couple of days. The manner in which it's been reported is akin to a breathless schoolgirl informing her mum that Johnny's asked her to the formal. "But Mum, he's murdering hookers!"

Seriously, it's just so fucking overexcitable. From the slew of maps and graphics to the tediously ineivitable tagging of the killer(s) as the "Ipswich Ripper" (which seems wildly innapropriate given that the only method of death of which we've so far been informed has been asphyxiation). The tabloids (and, sadly, the Independent) have collectively wanked thremselves into a frenzy over a story which I cannot help but point out is, at it's very essence, the story of five dead women. Retreat to first principles. Killing. People. Is. Wrong.

Except they're not being defined as people, are they? the victims are being defined as prostitutes, as ludicrous a display of semantics as if five men were killed, all of whom played badminton in their spare time and it was trumpeted that the killer had an aversion to shuttlecocks. Certainly the killer(s) is/are targeting streetwalkers, but why do they have to be defined in the press as such? They are women. Dead women. Just doing a job.

Aha, but it's somehow, intangibly, their fault, isn't it? Women eh? Wandering around with their legs and their breasts, allowing us to look at them, they should all be locked up. Eh? This is the crux of the problem, a culture which sees no problem in the Lynx advert mentioned below likewise sees no problem in stigmatising some of the most vulnerable members of society. The old sex as commodity line is sold time and time again but it's one way traffic. Prostitution is the less publically acceptable face of male sexuality. Whilst it's fine and dandy to gaze at FHM's glossy High Street Honeys, or have a swift J Arthur on your lunchbreak to "Nikki and Dawn: together for the first time!" in Nuts or whatever and it's fine and dandy to be a High Street Honey or Nikki or Dawn the slightly more honest physical paradigm interface is well, not to be discussed.

Personally I don't know that one can exist without the other. I do suspect that in our hypersexualised society it's impossible to have a rational debate about our attitudes towards the opposite sex as the pitch has been so impossibly queered (pun unintended). The one thing I do know is that the press and public attitude towards these poor murdered girls stinks to high heaven.

The chap in charge of the web services for Merchant Taylor's boys school is a gigantic monkey faced buffoon. I mean really. He's about eight feet tall, has a face like a monkey and is an absolute, copper-bottomed buffoon.

In less clicquey news this evening I heard someone say, entirely straight faced "all I have is my pride. And my guitars" nearly fell off me stool for laughing.

I never thought it would happen, I never in my most fevered imaginings dreamed it COULD happen. But happen it has. An advert has come along featuring a character more revolting, more nauseating, more dreams of extreme violence creating than that kid in the Frosties ad whon chirped relentlessly on about how they were gonna taste great. You know the one, that whitebread grinning fucking robot who reminded you of nothing so much as the evil football hero at primary school who made it his personal mission to make your life hell. He's number two now.

That Lynx ad. The FHM wet dream of an impressive number of glossy, bikini clad godesses scrambling to be the first to reach that goon on the beach. Yes. Him.

Leaving aside the terrifying intellectual poverty of the premise itself there's just something about his gormlessly lustful expression which causes every muscle in my body to tense, except those engaged in moving my head and eyes as I instinctively look round for something to hit him with. And those strange contortions of his arms and torso as he stares bug-eyed at the hordes of incoming beauties. Ther Lynx ad tells me this: we live in the twenty first century, every day jaw-dropping scientific advances are made, the sum of human culture grows ever stronger as musicians and artists add to the millenia's accretions of work affirming our humanity, our spark of the divine. To be human is to have limitless potential, it is to create, to discover, to advance. But it's still more desirable to be trampled to death by women with big tits as a direct result of spraying some cheap noxious chemicals on your scrawny frame. Humanity needs to take a long hard look at itself

There's nothing quite like the smug feeling you get after completing some strenuous physical exercise, the sure knowledge that you've done yourself a power of good, the even better knowledge that you won't have to do it again today, the brilliant realisation that you can go for a guilt-free pint. There's nothing to top it.

Unless you happen to have also finished all your christmas shopping on the same day for that double-smug goodness, that is.

Aw yeah.

CAVEAT EMPTOR: Coastalblog would like to point out that he's about to discuss something of which his knowledge is scanty, but that's largely the point.

As I age the one thing which is a source of constant surprise to me is the Internet. Not in and of itself, I've been a fan and avid consumer of its manifold treasures for many a long year now. But I'm struggling to adjust to its pervasiveness now. I'm part of the last generation who can remember a pre-internet age. A childhood without messenger, christmases having to write multiple thankyou letters rather than one standard thank-you email.

I was, at the time, reasonably ahead of the game in understanding the net, its potential and its usefulness. But now I have to hold my hand up and admit that I am woefully off the pace. I feel like I felt several years ago when I realised that I didn't care as much about music as I used to, that I wasn't keeping remotely up to date with anything remotely resembling the bleeding edge. I was mildly surprised to discover that I wasn't arsed; that I was thinking to myself y'know, maybe I'd be better off actually listening to the (admittedly terrifying) amount of CDs I already have (I'm about six years behind as currently stands, I say, that Magnetic Fields album is awfully good isn't it?). I am officially behind the times. Coastalblog, bless it, is the Triumph Herald of the blog world, but it'll do for me. The whole idea of MySpace baffles me (why not go to the pub?), whilst I understand the appeal of YouTube and Flickr I simply don't have the time to really immerse myself in them to find the good stuff. Second Life strikes me as just plain weird.

The point of this post I suppose is simply that the web has moved on from its cosy beginnings and is now a point of reference for a large proportion of the world, and it seems oddly all-enveloping too me. I always saw it as a tool rather than an extension of life, and this outlook puts me firmly on the old side of the technological fence (not that I'm unhappy to be there). I don't mind knocking around on ILX for a couple of hours if there's something interesting to discuss. It's nice to keep up with people's blogs, but the majority of my friends will be in the pub in a couple of hours. I can talk to them there (this may tie in to the fact that I'm not much of a texter, either). I feel guilty about not reading all the professionally relevant journals out there but there's only so much information you can take in. I barely have enough time to lead a life in the actual world, let alone the virtual one. Frankly, I don't know how kids today do it. God I'm getting old.

Now, I am the first to admit that I am possibly not the snappiest dresser. I'm fond of a good suit, and partial to a well-tailored shirt. But most of the time you'll find me in jeans and a scabby indie band tour t-shirt circa the early nineties. Frankly it's a miracle that any woman's looked at me twice. The fact that one saw fit to marry me is right up there with loaves and fishes (Breaded haddock, incidentally. Has to be).

In amongst my selection of scabby indie band tour t-shirts of the early nineties is a Kingmaker t-shirt. The Eat Yourself Whole tour, to be precise. Not that it matters because not a huge amount of people gave a monkeys at the time, which was fourteen years ago. So it follows tghat even fewer people would give said monkeys now.

Apart from those Shadowy figures behind the new Will Ferrell vehicle something or other. I've no idea what the film's called, I'm aware that the plot is some Kaufman-lite MacGuffin about an author writing somebody elses life. So far, so basic (But, crucially, not to somebody on coke, for whom it BLOWS THEIR MIND = entertainment industry. Enjoy). What I do know is that the trailer features a song by Kingmaker called Ten Years Asleep, which I bought on cassingle (younger readers - look it up) many maany maaaany years ago in a record shop in Cornwall.

Maybe I'm not making it clear.

KINGMAKER are on the soundtrack to a NEW HOLLYWOOD MOVIE. This is approximately as likely as the SONG YOU RECORDED WHEN YOU WERE FIFTEEN ABOUT THAT GIRL YOU LIKE WHO WORKS IN STARBUCKS, YOU KNOW, THE ONE THAT RHYMES "ALONE" WITH "MOCHACINNO" appearing on the soundtrack of a NEW HOLLYWOOD MOVIE,possibly starring BILLY BOB THORNTON, or maybe KIRSTEN DUNST as a girl who LOOKS ALL INNOCENT BUT IS PROBABLY QUITE DIRTY and she's FISTING HERSELF to your PISS-POOR PIECE OF SIXTH FORM SHIT. This is ODD.

I mean seriously. Kingmaker? Is the Ride rock opera (probably entitled Making Judy Smile) next? I've said it before and I'll say it again. These are the End Times.