Between the Good Times

On Good Times
The months that precede are perched precariously between two periods that I call good times. It is a euphemism, made in the express purpose of granting the undersigned a certain cold comfort and putting off the other people. Good Times, indeed, ha! More like where Bad Commandos go when they die. And Good ones too, for that matter.

These preceding weeks have given me an opportunity to mug, the opportunity to meet up with old schoolmates, to learn something which we only dimly realise would turn out to be useful for many years after we're chucked back into the world of civilians. And, using the time left over, to read and listen to French music. And Tri Yann's 1985 release, Anniverscène, is like no other French music.

What the good times bring is a quite different kind of pleasure. It is good, for example, to be among obsessive fellow trainees who push each other on, and away from shirkers who wake up an hour late in the morning (but they don't get to do that in the Good Times, either). It is good when all you ever worried about was within camp confines, about training, within your practical reach. You read less books. You have to memorise lyrics and sing to yourself when you're bored. Your grammar goes down by a couple of notches but it's still OK. As far as Good Times are concerned, you're prepared for anything.

On the Dictionary of Bullshit
"An essential field guide for all those who want to keep their Bullshit detectors in fighting trim."

It is in this book I understood what my GP tutors meant when they suggested that writing a proper GP essay is not equivalent to writing in my blog and I should refrain from waffling so much i.e. am guilty for pushing metaphors off high cliffs, utilising big words that serve more to decorate than to clarify, etc.

Mainly, the compilation by Nick Webb reveals the individual stockphrases used by politicians and corporate leaders (fair game) to evade responsibility, distract people from pertinent moral issues and generally filling up the white space of public judgement. Apart from that there were also words which have their meanings twisted, their definitions arbitrarily expanded and clichés which are actually vivid expressions that refer to things of the past that people have forgotten about.

The compilation leaves much to be desired, so I find it good that Webb opens it up to readers' contributions. Perhaps I should ask him why "liberal" is a political-bullshit-word while "conservative" isn't, and that I've always thought that the word "tradition" tended to draw flak more than it houses pleasant connotations. Nevertheless, I'm glad I found and read this book, and already I've been testing my newly-primed bullshit detector on the latest issue of TIME. It seems to work pretty well.

I had a go at compiling such stock phrases in a short story some time ago, titled "Political Swearwords". It probably isn't long before I do another one. "Postmodern Swearwords", perhaps? It's not as if the champions of postmodern discourse hasn't churned up their own share of waffle.