An unhurried thread about Rhodri Marsden's blog, "Do Yo Come Here Often?"

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Who here reads it? What do you think of it?

http://rhodri.livejournal.com/

― slick cleaning, Wednesday, 10 August 2005 09:44 (twenty years ago)

and his point is?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 10 August 2005 09:52 (twenty years ago)

i read it, i love it.
he seems really happy and really low key

― anthony easton (anthony), Wednesday, 10 August 2005 09:53 (twenty years ago)

i quite like his band

― jimmy glass (electricsound), Wednesday, 10 August 2005 09:54 (twenty years ago)

sleep-inducing.

― N_RQ, Wednesday, 10 August 2005 09:58 (twenty years ago)

You are jealous.

― Kite Hanger, Wednesday, 10 August 2005 09:59 (twenty years ago)

what of?

― N_RQ, Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:00 (twenty years ago)

I like it, he is usually very funny, and I love the speech bubble photos

― cuspidorian (cuspidorian), Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:00 (twenty years ago)

no, just bored. it's studium blogging. all very well that he's having a reasonably nice life, but in reader terms it's not really going anywhere, is it?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:01 (twenty years ago)

And you're jealous, too; of someone who can write well and without being spiteful.

― Kite Hanger, Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:02 (twenty years ago)

Someone just pointed me here. Obviously I'm terrified that people will say that I'm a wanker.

The 'blog' certainly doesn't have any point, anyway. Imagine if I thought that it did. That certainly would make me a wanker.

― Rhodri (rhodri), Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:03 (twenty years ago)

but in reader terms it's not really going anywhere, is it?

Welcome to livejournal!

s-post, Hello Rhodri!

― Britain's Jauntiest Shepherd (Alan), Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:04 (twenty years ago)

no 'fence, but why is having a point wankerish?

― N_RQ, Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:04 (twenty years ago)

X-post even.

― Britain's Jauntiest Shepherd (Alan), Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:04 (twenty years ago)

it's probably lush if you know the guy doing it.

― N_RQ, Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:05 (twenty years ago)

Hey I'm an NHS manager on a super-crazy high salary with a book coming out! What have I got to be jealous of?

Seriously though, it's the "Mr Bailey, Grocer" school of writing. There has to be a story, a hook for the reader.

As I say, it's wonderful that you're enjoying life at the moment; unfortunately for you I get my aesthetic kicks from reading about fucked-up and abandoned/argumentative lives. It's a life and death thing.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:06 (twenty years ago)

which band was he in?
there is a hook, there is something reassuring about the everyday banality--about having everything kind of sorted.

― anthony easton (anthony), Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:07 (twenty years ago)

But really seriously, though, people need to stop this kneejerk accusation of jealousy whenever anyone disagrees with them. Some people seem to have difficulty accepting that there are other people in this world who might just not like them.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:08 (twenty years ago)

This paragraph has just had me roffling:

It's unclear exactly how many virgins supposedly await Islamic martyrs in paradise. It might be 70, or 72, depending on, er, which website you look on. Maybe the Koran would be a better bet for getting hold of the answer. But anyway, you wouldn't really worry about the extra 2, would you, you'd be pretty busy attending to the needs of the first 70 – and you'd probably lose count of all the virgins after about a dozen or so, in any case. Of course I'm guessing, this isn't something that I've had personal experience of. Although I know a bloke called Steve who almost did. Quite some night, that was. I also can't help feeling that rather than blow yourself to bits, if you put a bit of bloody effort in, you could probably find that number of virgins in, I dunno, Hounslow or somewhere. You might have to wine and dine them a bit, but there certainly wouldn't be anywhere near as much carnage.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:10 (twenty years ago)

Wasn't Rhodri Marsden a friend of John Peel's, I seem to remember? A sort of child prodigy, I heard, always ringing up the station with facts about bands.

― Lonely Lids, Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:10 (twenty years ago)

Having a point isn't wankerish, of course, but imagining that there's a 'point' about blogging your own mundane activities certainly is.

I dunno, I've had a pretty boring couple of months. I'll do my best to get beaten up by teenage girls on a bus this weekend to provide a bit of entertainment.

― Rhodri (rhodri), Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:10 (twenty years ago)

I never did get around to posting on that "What's your kinkiest perversion?" thread, did I?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:11 (twenty years ago)

but if you're blogging, you are already saying 'read me! i am interesting!' aka 'i have a point', nicht war?

― N_RQ, Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:12 (twenty years ago)

― Clinton, Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:12 (twenty years ago)

No. You should.

(xpost to marcello)

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:13 (twenty years ago)

(xpost)

If you want. The world's not a nursery; neither is ILx. Some people will like you and others will not. It's like that and that's the way it is. Deal with it. I have to.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:14 (twenty years ago)

It's just a time consuming hobby, for when I'm not writing other stuff. I'm probably saying "read me, I can be moderarely amusing on a good day", but of course there's no point.

― Rhodri (rhodri), Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:15 (twenty years ago)

You need to be a little more like Momus. Do some informed ranting now and then. It will boost your circulation figures!

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:17 (twenty years ago)

that's a very depressing worldview rhodri!

― N_RQ, Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:17 (twenty years ago)

i like it, but then i think people writing about stuff/their "uneventful" life is a good thing, i don't want to read about fucked up and argumentative lives...

― CarsmileSteve (CarsmileSteve), Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:19 (twenty years ago)

It's not a worldview, it's me trying to tell you that I'm not making a big deal out of posting some words on the internet every day.

― Rhodri (rhodri), Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:20 (twenty years ago)

that doesn't imply a worldview?

― N_RQ, Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:21 (twenty years ago)

Hey Steve, it takes every kinda people to make the world go round!

But seriously R, why would you squander precious time posting words on the internet very day if it weren't a "big deal"? If you had the run of a film studio, wouldn't you want to make the greatest film ever? Shouldn't it be the same with something even as humble as blogging?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:21 (twenty years ago)

Otherwise you might as well just write a diary, and unless your name is Kenneth Tynan or Kenneth Williams I'm not too interested in reading other people's diaries.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:22 (twenty years ago)

that doesn't imply a worldview?

Er, no.

― Rhodri (rhodri), Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:23 (twenty years ago)

Kenneth Williams ended his diaries with exactly the question you posed upthread, Marcello.

― slick cleaning, Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:23 (twenty years ago)

"Everything is so shit, I really can't see ... the stomach trouble combines to torture me - oh - what's the bloody point?"

― slick cleaning, Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:25 (twenty years ago)

this is just me, saying that posting words about mundane stuff on the internet implies a worldview, assumes a relation between reader and writer. it's no biggie.

― N_RQ, Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:26 (twenty years ago)

Think I don't know the last words of the KW diaries? My whole life at the moment is an ongoing battle not to end up like that (or like Ian MacDonald). That's what compels me.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:28 (twenty years ago)

Are you as talanted as KW?

― slick cleaning, Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:29 (twenty years ago)

tal*e*nted

― slick cleaning, Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:30 (twenty years ago)

who are all the anons on this thread? it feels a bit like a set-up. i just don't get the blog anyway, but obviously i'm todally jealous according to someone anonymous.

― N_RQ, Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:32 (twenty years ago)

i just don't get the blog anyway

I dunno who started the thread. I just got a comment on the blog linking to the page. It's all a bit embarrassing, really, isn't it.

― Rhodri (rhodri), Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:34 (twenty years ago)

you could do a post on 'my awkward ilx encounter'.

― N_RQ, Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:36 (twenty years ago)

You need to be a little more like Momus.

I love Nick dearly, but it's my aim to be the diametric opposite of him at all times.

― Rhodri (rhodri), Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:36 (twenty years ago)

I think I am as talented in my sphere of life as KW was in his.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:37 (twenty years ago)

you could do a post on 'my awkward ilx encounter'.

Well, y'know, hang on, I've got "my first driving lesson" and "what I'm having for lunch" to get done first. One thing at a time, eh.

― Rhodri (rhodri), Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:37 (twenty years ago)

Rhodi
i am sure that in england you are famous--and you remind me of the diaries of Tyan, except with the guilt about spanking.

how are you famous?

ALSO YOU ARE FUCKING AWESOME!!
dont let grumpypuss take that away from you.

― anthony easton (anthony), Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:37 (twenty years ago)

see, that's what i mean? tynan's spanking guilt is his punctum! it's what got me to read him in the first place!

― grumpypuss (nostudium), Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:39 (twenty years ago)

tynan's spanking was much more boring then the redeeming power of banality in rhodi.

― anthony easton (anthony), Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:40 (twenty years ago)

i bet he didn't find the spanking boring!

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:41 (twenty years ago)

why is banality redeeming? i get enough of that at home.

― N_RQ, Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:42 (twenty years ago)

where's your blog then?

― Britain's Jauntiest Shepherd (Alan), Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:45 (twenty years ago)

i abandoned it, but it does exist.

― N_RQ, Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:46 (twenty years ago)

If you mean talented at "being yourself", isn't everyone talented in this sphere? If you mean in the sphere of your writing, you haven't convinced me.

― cleaning slick, Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:47 (twenty years ago)

banality is redeeming, becaue it allows us to live well feed, warm, etc--its about acheiving equllibrum.

not anyone needs chaos.

― anthony easton (anthony), Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:50 (twenty years ago)

banality is not equilibrium. chaos and banality are the two extremes, perhaps, and you need the tension between them. or, i do. iow, for me the actiuon *is* the juice.

― N_RQ, Wednesday, 10 August 2005 10:51 (twenty years ago)

I love Nick dearly, but it's my aim to be the diametric opposite of him at all times.

I feel exactly the same way! I read Rhodri almost daily (in fact yesterday I wasted a considerable amount of time making a sound file of myself saying "Hello" because he asked everybody to do it, then decided it was undignified and didn't post it) and often find it screamingly funny. But I think Rhodri and I have diametric temperaments. I know it's more complex than "English", but I find Rhodri just very, very English. He's grumpy and self-righteously self-deprecating, just muddling through, very pragmatic, almost pretentiously unpretentious (cf the remarks above about how he'd be a wanker if he thought there was any point to his blog).

Rhodri must have an almost scarily flamboyant inner Frenchman, I feel, bound and gagged in the basement of his being, quoting muffled scraps of Debord as Rhodri's inner guards kick the shit out of him.

― Momus (Momus), Wednesday, 10 August 2005 11:02 (twenty years ago)

If you mean talented at "being yourself", isn't everyone talented in this sphere? If you mean in the sphere of your writing, you haven't convinced me.

-- cleaning slick (s...), August 10th, 2005.

As Robert Wyatt said to the producer of TOTP in November 1974: "Like I fucking care."

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 10 August 2005 11:03 (twenty years ago)

As Robert Wyatt said to the producer of TOTP in November 1974: "Like I fucking care."

Oh, glorious. What was that in response to?

― Rhodri (rhodri), Wednesday, 10 August 2005 11:06 (twenty years ago)

That was after the producer tried to convince him that sitting in a wheelchair would put off viewers and that he should sit in a wicker chair instead. RW gave him a nuclear meltdown of a verbal blast, mimed grumpily throughout his performance, at the end of which he was told by the producer that he'd never come back on the programme again. The above was his response.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 10 August 2005 11:08 (twenty years ago)

Rhodri must have an almost scarily flamboyant inner Frenchman, bound and gagged in the basement of his being, quoting muffled scraps of Debord as Rhodri's inner guards kick the shit out of him

Thanks, Nick. Another one for the back of the dustjacket.

― Rhodri (rhodri), Wednesday, 10 August 2005 11:11 (twenty years ago)

Rhodri and I can be heard discussing blogging on Radio Ulster's Arts Extra Show (mp3, 7 mins.)

― Momus (Momus), Wednesday, 10 August 2005 11:15 (twenty years ago)

"Like I fucking care." That's not what Robert Wyatt said to the producer of TOTP. And I think you do care.

― slick cleaning, Wednesday, 10 August 2005 13:22 (twenty years ago)

This is quite correct. What Wyatt actually said to Robin Nash after the latter told him "You'll never work on this programme again," was "Do I look like I fucking care?"

How fortunate we are to have vigilant monitors on ILx to point out these minor errors.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 11 August 2005 05:02 (twenty years ago)

Robert Wyatt lives not very far from me - well, 15 miles away, which is "not very far" for this area. I'm always tempted to try to ~~stalk~~ meet him, just by hanging around in the pubs near his house.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Thursday, 11 August 2005 07:53 (twenty years ago)

Someone just pointed me here. Obviously I'm terrified that people will say that I'm a wanker.
The 'blog' certainly doesn't have any point, anyway. Imagine if I thought that it did. That certainly would make me a wanker.

-- Rhodri

Yes, exactly.

I like the fact the blog has no point. That, along with your unscelfconscious appreciation of the other people appears to be the source of the blog's charm. My heart was sorting of smiling along as I read.

― moley, Thursday, 11 August 2005 08:17 (twenty years ago)

::yawns, counts hours to death::

― N_RQ, Thursday, 11 August 2005 08:19 (twenty years ago)

Can someone explain why "wanker" is a pejorative?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 11 August 2005 08:29 (twenty years ago)

http://www.livejournal.com/userpic/9217567/1121187

― a rhodri is for christmas, not for life (Lucretia My Reflection), Thursday, 11 August 2005 08:50 (twenty years ago)

yes well, there's wanking and there's wanking...

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 11 August 2005 10:22 (twenty years ago)

"But seriously R, why would you squander precious time posting words on the internet very day if it weren't a "big deal"?"

You seem to spend a great deal of your own "precious time" posting on ILX, Marcello. Do you consider it a "big deal" or something?

― everything, Thursday, 11 August 2005 16:17 (twenty years ago)

Yes.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 12 August 2005 04:57 (twenty years ago)

I read Rhodri's live journal every day and I love it, he's one of the only decent writers who I look forward to reading. He's incredibly witty, sweet and even sexy, has a very cool sounding girlfriend and and is just a top guy. How anyone could ever have a problem with him is beyond me.

― NM, Friday, 12 August 2005 07:59 (twenty years ago)

I have severe problems with the "decent" component.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 12 August 2005 08:03 (twenty years ago)

Sorry to hear that Marcello. Maybe one day the world will be free from decent writers and your problems will be less severe.

― everything, Friday, 12 August 2005 16:42 (twenty years ago)

"I think I am as talented in my sphere of life as KW was in his."

I reckon the world needs more people like Kenneth Williams but pardon my ignorance: what exactly is your sphere? When I googled your name it lists mostly links to message boards like this one. Are you the Kenneth Williams of the internet?

― ourwulliewallpaper, Friday, 12 August 2005 17:00 (twenty years ago)

Don't bait him Wullie, he will crush you with his Williamsesque wit by calling you a Telegraph Reader.

― everything, Friday, 12 August 2005 17:15 (twenty years ago)

This is a v childish thread.

― Gohn, Monday, 15 August 2005 09:08 (twenty years ago)

Thank heavens for that.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, 15 August 2005 09:23 (twenty years ago)

from a recent rhodri post:

"I continued to fight my battle against slight insomnia by taking a trip to Sainsburys at about 9.15pm last night and buying some Horlicks..."

this has changed my perspective on the blog. i now see it as a one man's struggle to send himself to sleep.

― N_RQ, Monday, 15 August 2005 09:27 (twenty years ago)

This is a v childish thread.

This deserves to be posted on every thread on the board at some point.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Monday, 15 August 2005 17:30 (twenty years ago)

three months pass...

http://www.jnautographs.com/captures3/OliviaNewtonJohn1806.jpg

His new show on Resonance FM is excellent.

― Darv Gastro, Tuesday, 22 November 2005 12:18 (twenty years ago)

three months pass...

Indeed it was. Is he doing anything else on radio, anyone know?

― Deward, Sunday, 26 February 2006 13:30 (twenty years ago)

one month passes...

It says in the Wiki that Rhodri Marsden is now the keyboardist in Scritti Politti. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhodri_Marsden

― flora sketch, Monday, 10 April 2006 09:43 (twenty years ago)

Indeed he is.

― ESTEBAN BUTTEZ~!!! (ESTEBAN BUTTEZ~!!!), Monday, 10 April 2006 10:53 (twenty years ago)

He's no Carcello Marlin! I should be in Scritti Politti! Me, Cacello Marlin!

Again, it's a Tory conspiracy preventing me from being in Scritti Politti. It was started by Thatcher when Green Gartside sold his soul to Thatcherism for a drum machine.

― Carcello Marlin (ESTEBAN BUTTEZ~!!!), Monday, 10 April 2006 10:55 (twenty years ago)

I saw Rhodri in Mothercare three days ago.

― honor, Monday, 10 April 2006 12:50 (twenty years ago)

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