Screaming into a void...

Sometimes I wonder if my Blog really is as popular as I like to imagine it is. On most of these occasions I slouch into my chair and bury my tear-stained face in my cup of tea and wait for iTunes shuffle to cheer me up. This is by no means a long term solution to such a conundrum.

Are my paltry few readers really worth the quite staggering length of time I spend not writing essays or studying for my degree? My last inspection revealed that my profile had been viewed 304 times.

Most of these were probably me.

I sometimes look at the Internet as an enormous apartment building, a gargantuan architectural phenomenon imbued with the combined eccentricity of billions. No two rooms are the same and the entire community is in a state of anarchy. Socialists and capitalists live next door to one another. Feminists and misogynists share laundry facilities. Angst-ridden pubescent teens chronicle their heartaches while people like myself stagger past in drunken stupors, yelling about Greggs or the economy.

It is a beautiful concept, a rich tapestry of poetry and society, knowledge and smut.

But whereas , say, eBay is enormous, spanning infinite floors of this building and constantly filled to bursting with visitors, I, in my shabby little study, spend my time typing, flanked by piles of dirty mugs. My humble webular abode is as appealing as an art class with Hitler.

My Revised Testament, the crack-baby offspring of my Standard Grade study leave, was extremely popular. It became a bohemian online hangout for my nearest and dearest. It was a place where the walls of the Guestbook reverberated to the intense beat of the discussions held there. If I failed to update regularly I was fiercely reprimanded by my readers!

Those were truly the glory days of my Internet antics, when I was a presence to be reckoned with! The church even posted advertisements on my pages, although I seriously doubt they would have approved of the content. Looking back, it was not well written at all. Its humour was vulgar and relied on shock value. Once the novelty of a mock-Bible wore off it was a fairly empty concept, devoid of flair. Although, on closer inspection...even as recently as 14th November entries have been entered into the Guestbook by DARKTHRUST! As clouds of sweet tasting nostalgia begin to envelop me in their trance-inducing haze, I sigh a little.

Will this ever be as popular as the Revised Testament?

Have I, as an Internet writer, wasted my one chance at greatness on a substanceless turd, the main purpose of which was, let's all wake up and smell the shit on our sheets, an excuse to make Douglas the incestuous villain?

Alas...Perhaps that is the curse of the artist! His most well known work is always his most commercial arse-gravy. When he actually sits down and produces something with taste, with depth, with PASSION, it goes unnoticed.

As I leave you to stew in your own mental juices, your every neuron reeling from the impact of my textual tripe, I have only this to justify my appalling back catalogue of Internet publication:

"The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it immensely."

Jamie

P.S. Note how I capitalised "PASSION". That's technique right there.

"Now is the winter of our discontent..."

Given my usual predilection for light-hearted commentaries on subjects of dizzying insignificance, many readers may be surprised by the next few paragraphs. For the first time since the creation of "In Lamb We Trust" I, the Lamb in whom you trust, am going to deposit some crumbs of emotional contemplation upon the neatly ironed tablecloth of your collective consciousness. I know, I know. It's tacky and unbecoming and cliche, but I think that what will be said must be said.

I urge you to brace yourselves, dear readers. The sheer concentration of feeling in these words would surely be enough to take out the most robust emotional rhinoceros.

So.

What is the deal with Gregg's?

Many are the occasions on which I have ventured into their brightly lit bakeries, seeking refuge from not only the bitter cold of the Edinburgh winter but also from my own hunger. My insides practically scream for the embrace of a warm steak bake or a sausage roll. When they receive, instead of said embrace, the lukewarm grope of a three-hour-old pastry they are understandably upset. My stammered attempts at compromise go oft' unheeded!

"Give me ten minutes and I'll go back to the flat and bung it in the microwave for a while! It'll be fine!"

I can feel them forming their blasted gastric alliance in opposition to what they perceive as my culinary tyranny. My heretical schemes fall on deaf ears and I have no choice but to let my ninety pence meal slide like a gravy-coated leech down my throat. To resist would be to invite an internal mutiny!

When will Gregg's realise the pain and suffering they inflict upon our world, blighted by disease, poverty and corruption as it already is. Why not expend the meagre sum necessary to keep their food warm? Why further intensify our feelings of helplessness? Why deny us one simple pleasure amidst the furious tempest of domestic misery?

I fall 'pon my bloodied knees and beseech you, oh mighty Gods!

Once more my words are denied a sympathetic audience... Yet I maintain my hope. I have a dream, a dream that one day I will order a ham and cheese pasty and it will seer the skin from the roof of my mouth with its purifying heat! I fear though, that this dream's fulfillment will be a long and arduous struggle against economic forces outwith the simple confines of my understanding...

Keep fighting the good fight readers!

Jamie

An Upcoming Confrontation With My Nemesis...

Having only been at University for somewhere in the region of two months I am currently in a state of suspended terror. The impending December exams taunt me fiendishly from the dark, unexplored caverns of the near future and the multitude of very thick books with very thin pages arrayed on my desk seem to be boring into my skull with their dead stares, ravenous for the soft, grey, fleshy (and probably delicious) knowledge within.

What defences do mere mortals such as myself possess to defend themselves against such fell creatures of the academic nether realms?

Well... right now the second movement of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor is doing a pretty good job of taking my mind off it all. Apart from that my only option is to put all my chips on hard work and natural intellectual flair. Yet as I rummage in the back of my mind to find said intellectual flair, what do I find?

...

Ah... That's right... Just a small, dusty pile of dead brain cells. All forensic evidence points towards "death by gross neglect". It seems an essay every few weeks is not enough to maintain the health (or even life...) of your brain. The lesson here? Simple really: Preserve your brains by pickling them in alcohol.

If you'll excuse me, I have some academic ass to kick.

Jamie