Beauty Is Truth

The Romans had a term for it, in vino veritas, "in wine [there is] truth", which, to a certain extent, I agree with.

Though only to an extent.

I know that it’s an aphorism which some people put quite a lot of credence in, but I really don’t.

(To whit, don’t trust anything I say when I’m drunk. Not a single word. It’s invariable untrue and profoundly pointless. This goes doubly for any bets, 10 pence or otherwise, I might make. Stop taking advantage of me).

For instance, my cousin Linley reckons that when people are drunk they are their honest truthful authentic selves, just ‘with the volume turned up.’

And there might be something to that, in that all of us, to greater and lesser extents maintain certain facades which we rarely, if ever let drop. However, those facades, no matter how practiced and expert we are in maintaining them, become more and more difficult to keep up when we’re drunk.

And when those barriers fall it might be that what we’re left with is authenticity. Which is to say truth and the lack of mitigation and mediation in and of that truth.

I can see how that would be a reasonable hypothesis, and it does make some sense  – but what it doesn’t take account of is the fact that without our barriers and facades what’s left underneath is a jumbled incoherent mish mash of any number of unaligned, undefined, unmediated, uncogitated (if it’s a word), illogical neurosis’, emotions, character traits and fears.

That’s not authenticity. That’s chaos. Authenticity is considered. It’s built carefully over the course of a lifetime through the thousands of things we do and think everyday. In other words then, authenticity lies in being the person you want and try to be. Not necessarily the person you are in nature or in essence.

I suppose the question revolves around what you consider truth to be.

Anyway, that’s just something I was thinking about. Jump in with your thoughts.

Spurs

I’ve written before about watching Spurs in big games in the pub when Jude’s there. But she really does make me laugh.

Obviously last night was absolutely huge so emotions were running quite high, although it was far less busy than I expected it to be for such a big game.

In fact there was just a nice regulars crowd in watching it, Daryl and Jude, two of their friends, Adam and his cousin Chris (who himself was going pretty mental for most of the game), myself, Gareth, Lucy (from the Kings Head) and her dad, Casey watching from behind the bar and some random people down the end.

But it was really nice for all that - or indeed, because of that.

What made me laugh though was Jude’s constant verbal obsession with the size of Ibrahimovic’s nose.

At one point this image of Ibrahimovic got a close up.

And Jude mutters dismissively to herself, “what’s he praying for, a smaller nose?”

And the whole pub just cracked up for about five minutes.

Obit

I think that  this is a really rather beautifully written piece about the death of the traditional English pub.

This is particularly wonderful:

“Drama suits pubs. They are places for pushing limits, and not just in the sense of jars and fists. A pub is where Prince Hal first tested his mettle for Crécy and Agincourt, and where the knee-high David Copperfield, on the run, confidently ordered a glass of “the Genuine Stunning”. Pubs are where the first workers’ associations met to demand higher wages, and where (at the Crown and Anchor in the Strand) proper electoral reform was first floated. “The Communist Manifesto” was jotted down, locals claim, at the Flask in Highgate, where Karl Marx was a regular. Pepys went to pubs to sing, as much as to drink. In pubs normal wariness is suspended in favour of live and let live, of free speech and free space. The words “Free House” carry on the theme, somehow, in ways a corporatised pub and a constrained landlord cannot. Americans have their guns; but the Briton has always had pubs, liberty glowing in thousands of small corners, as his weapon to beat back tyranny. John Bull lives there. When pubs are swallowed up, or die, something very much more than a beer-shop perishes with them.”

(I wish I could write like that).

I know it’s long, but really, it’s well worth the read. Go on, for me.

 

John the Revelator

I am, you see, a naturally garrulous chap.

(For garrulous, you may of course prefer to substitute tedious and/or dry)

Or at least under my own terms, that is. I like nothing more than to sit at the bar and have a chat over the course of a long Saturday afternoon, unless of course the person I’m talking to is someone that I really don’t want to talk to. In which case there’s nothing I hate more than having a chat over a long Saturday afternoon.

But on Saturday (in a moment of drunken reverie) I realised that it’s likely that more often than not I’m probably the person that other people get a bit fed up talking to[1]. But do so anyway because 1. I’m there, and 2. I’m quite a nice person and they don’t want to offend me.

And I feel bad about it. Or at least I do now that I think about it.

But I suppose I can take some comfort that feeling guilt at least means I’m not a psychopath.

(Hey, it’s better than nothing)

Of course this drunken epiphany occurred to me at 11pm, and anything I think at 11pm on a Saturday night is either wrong, preposterous, illegal, preposterously illegal, steeped in dark and bloody thoughts of primal vengeance, or just plain, flat out dumb.

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[1] Which isn’t to say they think I’m a horrible person or anything. Just that I’m a bit drunk, repetitive and boring.

Self Inflicted

I’ve gone and shot myself in the foot here haven’t I. Metaphorically speaking that is. I mean I really have gone and done it now.

As you know, I’ve taken the last couple of Friday’s off in a row now, which means that I’ve been able to fully throw myself into Thursday drinking safe in the knowledge that I won’t have to get up to go to work on the Friday morning.

And it’s been great.

As I’ve always said, as long as the scum are absent, Thursday is always the best day of the week, and knowing that the most strenuous thing I have to do the next day is waking up at 12pm and popping out to Waterstones and for something to eat, makes it all the better.

The problem is though (the metaphorical shooting in my metaphorical foot) is that now I’ve gone and spoiled Thursdays for myself.

I can’t get this Friday off for work reasons, and I find myself now thinking, ‘well, what’s the point of going out on Thursday if I can’t properly enjoy it? I might as well just go home.’

(Or the Kings Head).

I’ve gone and ruined what was the best night of the week for myself.

And the worst thing is that I did it to myself. It’s entirely self-inflicted, for before then, how could I miss that which I’d never known.

Why couldn’t I just be happy with what I had? Why did I have to try and make my life just a little more enjoyable?

Oh false economy. Oh Duplicitous outcome.

Why did I twist when I should have stuck?

Taps Conversations #2

Oh those Taps conversations; those erudite exercised late evening Taps contemplations of the soul and the human condition.

Last night Sean and Tom spent a quite inordinate amount of time discussing whether they’d rather be called a cunt or a wanker. Eventually, after a great deal of tightly focused and highly concentrated thought and debate, reaching the conclusion that they’d rather be called a cunt, because you can, apparently, respect a cunt while you can’t respect a wanker.

However, it was also established (in an addendum to the original discussion) that being called a wanker was better than being called a twat (but worse than being called an arsehole).

And so now you know.

The next time someone calls you a cunt you can reply, ‘well at least I’m not a wanker.’

(In this regard the Taps is like Sesame Street for grown ups. A place where you can learn all sorts of useful socialisation lessons).

Under Pressure

Have you missed me?

(Oh, don’t lie, of course you haven’t)

Anyway guys, many apologies for the lapse in posting these last few days which has been partly been due to being on leave, but also because of lots of pressures at work.

Hopefully, normal service will (all being well) resume tomorrow.

I promise that I won’t abandon you again.

(Well, unless I can get this Friday off as leave again anyway. In which case you lot are all dumped).