It's All Greek to Me!

When one is terminally unemployed, it seems wise to find interesting and practical ways to fill one's time.  Develop a new skill, say, or do something to help get that next interview.  I already volunteer at Oxfam, and I have great fun doing it.  However, I felt as though something was missing in my time-usage.  Something important that I couldn't quite put my finger on.  And then it hit me: I wasn't transcribing any Ancient Greek.

Fortuately, the fine fellows and females of Oxford University have been able to fill just such a gap.  Recently, they launched ancientlives.org, a website onto which they uploaded  tons of recently discovered Greek texts.  In terms of thousands of years old text, that's about as hot off the press as you can get.  I'm not sure I'm getting across the giddiness I get at the idea that these texts are previously untranslated.

Pictured:  My idea of a "fun night in"

There is, of course, a rather significant snag - I can't speak a word of Greek, ancient or otherwise.  Any other time, this would make me quite the usless drudge in a project dedicated to translating the stuff, but not here.  See, the researchers have created a special interface wherein all you have to do is identify the symbols, and the pattern you create gets entered into a database somewhere in the ether, which proper Greek-speaking researchers can access later on.

I hope that gives you some scale of the project - there are so many of these texts that the researchers are asking for volunteers who don't even understand the things to help them.  This is an entirely original idea on their part, but I still feel like I might be making some kind of a difference in joining in.

 

I might not understand it, but I can still enjoy it, dammit!

 Ok, so I can see that the appeal of trudging through all this unreadable text might not be instantly apparent to some of you, but here's some news.  Some of the texts found with the ones online have already been translated.  Amongst them are new poems by Sappho, and fragments of unknown Sophocles plays.  Even more amazing, a new story about Jesus has been discovered, written in 300 AD.  Just to clarify, that doesn't happen every other day.  Whilst there'll doubtless be lots of shopping lists and bills in the mix, maybe there's an undiscovered treasure.  If there is, someone's got to find it, and who wants to pass up that chance?

 

Shopping list?  It's clearly a lost Aescylus monologue about groceries!

This project's going to be around for a while, it seems.  If it goes well, the people behind it have promised to release another 200,000 or so texts on to the site.  Two hundred thousand.  That's a lot.  I don't know about you, but even if I can't understand it in its current form, it'd be pretty exciting to be a part of such a monumental undertaking.  This looks set to be the Classics' equivalent of the public submissions to the first OED: a little messy at first, but fundamentally changing the way things are done.  Who knows?  Maybe we'll see more projects like this in the future.  I, for one, look forward to the prospect!

TTFN!

Blues Reviews - Hugh Laurie's Debut Album

It's been some weeks since I've done anything to the blog.  It's unacceptable, and I apologise wholeheatredly.  Things have a habit of getting in the way, but that doesn't mean ideas don't stop coming.  As such, there's a nice backlog of stuff to write about.  Huzzah!

Let's start with an irrefutable fact: Hugh Laurie is awesome - the very definition of awesome.  He's been a national rowing champion, a comic genius, a novelist and a medical-telly miracle, now the highest paid drama actor in the US.  For us mere mortals, to achieve any one of those things would be more than satisfactory.  Laurie's done them all.  Even better, that's not the end of it.  In May this year, he released his debut blues album, Let Them Talk.  For most people, that's a massive career break.  For Hugh Laurie, it's another tick on the List of Casual Excellence.

 

If he put his mind to it, he could solve climate change before breakfast

 This is all very well and good, you might say, but isn't Laurie a former Eton student, and a Cambridge graduate?  What kind of blues can you write with that background?  You've made a valid point, astute reader - Laurie just doesn't seem the sort of person who could sing from the soul about the harder knocks of life.  Indeed, it's hard to think of anyone less suitable outside of the Royals, am I right?

Perhaps.  But this isn't exactly a project from out of the blue (pun intended).  Laurie is a self-declared, lifelong blues fan, and he's always been keen to have a go at an album himself.  If that makes it sound like enthusiasm alone fueled the project (aside from a fat load of cash), allow me to correct you in bullet point form:

     - Laurie's played the piano since he was six

     - He also plays the drums, guitar, harmonica and saxophone

     - He sings and plays keyboard for "Band from TV"

     - He guested on Meat Loaf's 2010 album "If I Can't Have You"

 

Obligatory image contradiction

So there's a musical history there.  A pretty good one for someone who generally qualifies as a "rather busy chap".  But does it pay off in the album?  Why yes, yes it does.  The whole opens with a cover of St. James Infirmary, most famously performed by Louis Armstrong, which is itself introduced by a virtuoso piano solo from Laurie.  From the outset, he's out to prove that he can connect with the blues, in spite of what you might think at first.

With a consistent mixture of classic covers and original songs, I think Laurie does a pretty convincing job, too.  Of course he was never going to have the soul and drive of the blues legends, but it's important to remember that 1) The album's more a tribute to the blues tradition than anything else and 2) This isn't even his day job.  Anyone who's seen 5 seconds of House knew the accent wouldn't be a barrier, and after that the passion for the genre just flows throughout.

The contrast!  It's just too weird!

Let Them Talk succeeds, then, in overcoming some rather drastic cultural boundaries, leaving in its wake raw talent and a passion for blues.  I can't confess to be an expert myself, but I know what I like, and I like what I hear.  For me, it's one of those albums that gets better with every listen, and it was pretty good the first time round.  For those of you still unconvinced, here's a little cover number.

TTFN!

He's Pynchon My Admiration!

I finished reading Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 about a week ago, truth be told.  Since then, I've been working my head around what happened.  It's not the longest book in the world - at 45,000 words it hardly qualifies as a novel - but it's certainly one of the most gripping and mysterious I've ever read.

For those of you who don't know much about Thomas Pynchon... join the club.  Nobody does.  He's books are published quietly, without much advertising or warning, and nobody's even got a photograph of him since the 60s.  In other words, he's done a pretty good job of making sure everyone pays attention to the books, not the author.  Ironically, it did earn him a cameo on The Simpsons - one of the two times he's made any kind of public vocal appearance.

With that paper bag, I'm amazed nobody's spotted him in the street.

Anyway, on with the novel(la).  It begins when Oedipa Maas, the female protagonist, is asked to execute the will of a recently deceased ex-lover, Pierce Inverarity (read what you will into these names, by the way).  Naturally, there are certain things that stand out as odd in Inverarity's will, and Oedipa is lead down a dark path of conspiracies and treachery, spanning centuries, mapping the intricacies of San Narcisso in eerie detail.

Does that sound creepy?  It isn't - it's hilarious.  In fact, Dr. Hilarius is a character in it.  What does this lurking conspiracy conspire to do?  Assassinate world leaders?  Act as a front for our reptile overlords?  Nah, they're an underground postal system, obviously.  As you might have guessed by now, the plot isn't the only surreal element to the book - the characters are pretty quirky too.  Be prepared for mad directors, ex-Nazi doctors, and moping, mop-haired, teenage imitations of the Beatles, called The Paranoids.

 Say, they sound familiar (minus the Naziness)...

Don't be fooled, mind.  This doesn't take away from the impact of the book at all.  Pynchon's satire is refreshing and welcome, like a drinks stop on a marathon.  Besides, if Catch-22 taught me anything, it's that the best stories about madness drive the characters, not to mention the reader, insane with it.  Everyone and everything in the book has a frantic uncertainty about it, as if they're desperate to put themselves forward as "most important clue", or "best tangential scene", and while that might sound like it spells everything out for you, it really doesn't.

See, uncertainty really is at the heart of this book.  Oedipa discovers about this secret postal organisation, the more she doubts its existance.  Moreover, as a character, Oedipa develops in such away that I couldn't help but find her doubts justifiable - there's a very good chance she's making up the whole thing to piece together her life, which is slowly falling to bits around her, or it's all a laugh-from-beyond-the-grave from Inverarity, or a multitude of other things.

 In other words, imagine rubbing salt into the part of your brain that deals with satisfying conclusions.

 So Pynchon leaves us to draw our own conclusions, and it doesn't feel like a cop-out.  Actually, the opposite's true for me, and I found myself thinking long and hard about the reliability of Oedipa as an investigative mind, because I'm unemployed and desperately lonely.  I even came to the interesting conclusion that all the critical conclusions I've read are wrong.  See, Pynchon offers a series of potential explanations at the end of the book, but I reckon they're to mislead you.  The real solution?  Yes, Oedipa's paranoid and quite probably mad, but she's not the only one.  In fact, the whole secret organisation is sustained by people on the edge, people like Oedipa who half hope it exists and, in doing so, create it.  It's the unspoken yet crucial character in Wainwright's play (invented by Pynchon, watched by Oedipa), a tentative escape from social convention.

Either that, or I've fallen into Pynchon's trap.  After all, that's essentially a recreation of Oedipa's journey - hesitantly stringing together clues to make sense of something nonsensical.  Maybe the silly character names are there just to taunt us, and remind us of that?  In any case, it speaks volumes of the nature of our need for a cohesive plot, well and truly keeping the book in your mind long after you've finished reading it.  So get out there: solve Pynchon's little puzzle if you can, but keep in mind that there might not even be a puzzle in the first place...

TTFN!

P.S.  "Things of the Now!" will be updated shortly after this goes live!

Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed...

Looking to find things to blog about, I've come up with a bit of an idea.  There's some technical wizardry I've been poking around with that allows me to create multiple pages, and I think I know how to do it.  Eventually, I'll get round to adding links to the blogs of all the lovely people I know, but there's something else I'd like to do first.

Starting today, I'll be updating a page called "Things of the Now".  Ambiguous?  Yes.  It'll just be something that's on my mind at the moment - a film clip, a song, a quote, maybe several things at once.  Anyhow, I see it as a good way of adding new things regularly (note how I haven't said "daily"!), and gives a little insight into my present mindset which, in a very hedonistic way, is what this blog is all about.  So let's get this thing kicked off.  There should be a shiny (note: it's not actually shiny) link appearing at the top of the page very shortly, if it's not there already.

TTFN!

Man Seeks Job: Has Experience With Cobras

As a student, it's pretty much a given that I'm strapped for cash.  As an English student, it's also likely to stay that way indefinitely, so it's pretty darn important I'm earning cash, and now.  The thing is, I'm finding that easier said than done. Employment being hard to come by around these parts, I've been thinking outside the box to try and make me some money.  Once you leave the box, though, you find yourself in some pretty scary company if you don't keep your wits about you.  I nearly didn't.  Take heed, fellow vagabonds and jobseekers - this information might save you a lot of time.

Trying to avoide another unemployed summer, I started looking online for the sorts of work you won't find on signs in shop windows.  Turns out, there're vacancies for telesales people spread around the Brighton area - some of them within my reach!  Regardless of their time or experience requirements, I fired up the ol' C.V. and set to work praying.  It was a shot in the dark, but within 24 hours, I had an interview with Blackcode Advertising!  Huzzah!

 I love you, Alexander Graham Bell!

Once that initial excitment had died down, practicalities came to mind.  Having sent of so many C.V.'s off at once, I had no idea what the company did, or how they did it.  Was it even a telesales company?  I was pretty sure it was a telesales company.  I've watched enough Dragon's Den and Apprentice to know that "not doing your homework" costs you dearly, so I got stuck in, and by that I mean I typed the company name into Google.

Naturally, I came across the company website, which is this one.  Not too bad to look at initially, I thought, but a little generic.  Still, they seemed professional looking.  Now, I couldn't find out how exactly I'd be fitting into such a smooth-looking corporate enterprise, but it looked like it paid well!

 It doesn't matter how, just so long as Her Majesty visits my bank account...

Then, though, I saw their "trademark personal advertising approach".  It's something called the "Human Commercial".  Was that what I'd signed up to?  Was I about to have a Nike tick tattooed into the back of my head?  Why couldn't I get any more information from them?  Things were looking dodgy, so I went to the library to do some serious research.

Just kidding, I used Google again.

This turned up a bunch of blogs like this one, which point to a general experience of 100% commission-based, door-to-door misery (there was one very detailed blog I can't find anymore - the poor girl went to an interview, and it sounded awful).  This basically boils down to one simple rule: you don't sell, you don't get paid.

Worse still, it seemed to highlight a parent company, running similar operations all over the country.  It'd explain why Blackcode's website only gave the profiles of two rather young looking executives - they're the only ones there.  No, this rabbit hole goes much deeper than Blackcode.  Everything leads back to the equally ominous-sounding Cobra Group.

 Which, y'know, can only end well...

If the fact that this whole thing now sounds like a cartel of James Bond-esque villains, just Google them.  The first page is filled with stories of scams and underpayment.  They're out to build up small fronts for the business, hire as many door-to-door people as possible, apparently regardless of the viability of continuing the individual company they create.  In short, it's a scam.  I'd be working for peanuts if I was lucky, and, needless to say, I wasn't too enthused.

The next day, I phoned Blackcode back.  I was planning on casually building up the conversation to asking about their involvement with Cobra Group, and how they felt about their recruitment technique (netting everyone who so much as mentions a contact number to them).  It was going to be the next Frost/Nixon.  Unfortunately, British politeness and petrification got in the way, and I simply ended up asking if the job was entirely commission based.  When I was told it was, I declined my interview, and haven't heard from them since.

 Pictured: My intimidation potential

So that's that.  A lot to read, I know, but it needs to be out there.  The Cobra Group are running this all over the UK, and it's not exactly illegal, but not exactly nice.  I wouldn't wish unpaid door-to-door sales on my worst enemy, and anyone who reads this blog has got to count as a friend.  So watch out when jobs seeking, but don't let this disillusion you entirely!  I'm sure there are still plenty of honest jobs out there*!

TTFN!

*N.B.  If you actually find an honest job, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD TELL ME WHERE I CAN DO THE SAME!

Photos courtesy of jumpinjimminyjava, Jenny Thompson (coincidence!), Laertes, and wallyg, all rights reserved, etc. etc.