Man on radio (approximately, you're going to have to trust me to give the jist fairly accurately): "It's very good that Susan Boyle went on the programme and displayed her talent, and impressed a good number of people. It really improved the image of people with learning disabilities. However, once she became famous we needed to take more care of how we treated her, and show more understanding of her condition."

( susan boyle, societal role, liberalism/utilitarianism, on the road, blah, self-indulgent shit )</div>

I try not to fall into a naturalistic fallacy. I like to think I am not that stupid. But I do know that as we stray from stable biological/sociological conformations the stress we come under doubles and redoubles. A happy society of peoples will be in harmony with their material nature - not that we can hope to understand this soon. Yet another argument against design: who would design a race of creatures that could never be made happy?

Sometimes it takes a lot to fall in love with a song.

Sometimes it doesn't.

Grinding down the same pathways day after day sets the mind, defines it and grinds it into a submission. It's hard to believe anything exists outside that. As the fibres our thoughts weave across deaden, their properties are stabilised and no branching off is possible. I've reached a point where it's impossible to conceive of any branching off taking place, ever.

( A few of my thoughts about The One AM Radio - This Too Will Pass )

And, back to "You Can Still Run," when he refers to the situation as a "tightening knot", this too is exact. With a week to go 'til exams, that is where I am, at the centre of a tightening knot. I quite fancy being one of his characters; happy in a blissful, broken, sleepy, sad way. I only fear that I lack their resolve, or their creator's wisdom.

Take pity on my examiners, not me. Right-click-view-image if you want to zoom in.

Strange numbness in my fourth finger on my left hand. Possible explanations include leprosy and numerous other things. I'm guessing it's leprosy.

Sometimes when you allow your mind to roam it will pick up a tantalising fragment of a song, a few bars, an intro or a particular turn of expression in a long-forgotten chorus. I imagine most people beat their head against the wall from time to time trying to remember when they heard that. If the expression is from a novel or a poem it's far harder to place. Films are maybe a little easier. I stress I'm talking about my own rememberances, not the snippets others recall. Often it takes ages to find these things again, sometimes we just give up (not often, for me), and ultimately the answer is rarely the source of joy that we imagine it will be.

Anyway. Lately I had such an instance and resolved it within 30 seconds. It was from Islands' album Return to the Sea. I am very pleased - this is far superior to the usual struggling.

In fact, lately I've been grasping these fragments far quicker than usual. I doubt my memory is improving, however. It is far more likely that the things I know have been streamlined, so I've discarded much of the more annoying ephemera.

I'm getting that unsettled feeling again. Everything inside me is too real - I'm being weighed down and pulled on by the fearful depth of existence, and I can't hold it back. It would be better if it were outside me, better still if it existed less. It halts me before I can reach that productive rhythm and toys with me if I try to beat it back with meditation. It's going to be over soon, but there's no way of knowing in advance if it will strengthen or diminish me. I'm awaiting an execution, but wearing my sunday best, just in case.

We've been here before, many times. There's a rich modern history with no heritage before it. There's a loathing we can acknowledge as special. There's nothing but fear, hope and their embodiments in memory. It's hard to believe we would put ourselves through this again, but impossible to imagine how we could drag ourselves out of this game. Every year we will have something to prove or to defend, every year we will be threatened again.

This is the bizarre fear that has accompanied Liverpool's ascendence in European games, and latterly in the league. There is a great deal more to lose as a contender than there is for an outsider. There is more to be afraid of, terror that glories of the past are becoming distant and diminished and that in their place remain only victories by most hated foe.

Garcia's goal was nearly 4 years ago; it doesn't feel like 4 years. Eidur Gudjohnsen's volley is there every time I close my eyes. Sometimes when I'm panicking I lower my eyelids and it goes in. It has been difficult to forget about last year, too. I don't remember the goals Chelsea scored, more the bizarre dissonance I feel, the profound fireworks that fail to go off in my head, the non-event. And most of all the loathing, unsettling, pressing sensation that was there before the game, and which I won't be able to expel for at least a fortnight.

I'm a tad concerned that before I leave this town, Nottingham will dissolve itself in a churning pool of bile, collapsing under the weight of all its own violence. Saturday nights these past few years have always been full of all the writhing, overriding passions that fill us all week long, in their least inhibited, most riveting form. But now, it seems like it's heading into meltdown, overflowing beyond the lady who turned down your advances or the chap that stood on your foot. I don't have any statistics to back this up, just a few slices of anecdotal evidence. One from last night at the Arts Organization: a chap insisted that he was going to rain death upon me, my family and the friends I was with if I looked at him again. He was maybe not this eloquent, actually. I was a little surprised.

Well, maybe our eyes had met once or twice that evening. I don't really remember his face that well, ironically. But I picked out a clue from his eyes, which were fierce, true, but also a bit scared. It seems notable to me that fierce though he was, eager that he seemed for a confrontation, he didn't want it really. He wanted a cheap submission, a simple affirmation. He was stupid but still scared. I can understand that, drawing on my experience from the last couple of months: I, too, know how it feels when you've ingested a bit too much coke.

(This makes me chuckle, as earlier in the day in "the cage" we taught a new friend with not too much english the phrase "free refills." It seemed significant at the time.)

Ah, well, we were getting ready to leave anyway. Not for the first time recently, I find myself thinking about the difference between my motivations and those of others. There's such a raft of psychological questions involved when we think about how we spend our leisure time. It seems like it should be a pure expression of who-we-want-to-be, only who-we-actually-are creeps in there. There's a strange dark attraction to a destructive night out, although to me I think this has always been largely voyeuristic.

As it happens I was drinking alcohol last night. And this morning I remembered something about alcohol, how it can interfere with your sleep and cause you to wake up too soon, all hot and resigned to a tired day. That you have to get up, because water will taste so good on your fermenting tongue and plus, you can't be comfy 'til you've visited the loo.

But without that I wouldn't have lain back in bed, awake and over-warm and played a game where you close your eyes and try to pinpoint the provenance of every sound you can hear. It's best to play this early on a warm Sunday morning with the curtains open, feeling the brightness of a clear sky on your face, and having hardly to strain at all; nothing but birdsong until 7am and tyres start to hiss past.

Last year I was meant to go see Why? on my birthday. Stupid mumps, stupid contagious diseases. Stupid rescheduled tours. I'm not bitter, I promise. I fully buy into the Harlem Shakes' mantra: This will be a better year. Y'see, I like Why? a lot, and I think Alopecia was an excellent album (although it didn't crack my top 20, which is I'm sure what the boys were aiming for when they were in the studio).

But a gig's no album, and Why? are no Sonic Youth. Check the release date on SY's next album.

Now we're the other side of midnight, the date is the 27th of March 2009.

My dissertation deadline is 27th April. 11000 words in 31 days, count them (I actually have roughly half the word count but would barely count 10% of it as finished product).

It's actually quite exciting. I basically have 2 months to make it all count, and tomorrow is day 1.

I have been sober for a long time. It suits me and I'm happy enough. I don't miss alcohol particularly, and I don't have any particular desire to go back to it. Especially because the transition back will be hugely self-referential, need explaining, maybe as much as my abstinence has provoked. But I probably will, in as healthy a manner as I can muster. Only for enjoyment's sake though. This was the aim, maybe? To remove the idea of function most of us youngsters attach to drinking?

Highsoc gig tonight: Nadja. This is going to be amazing. Doom-drone from a band that are really globally significant! One of my hopes with highsoc was to put on some gigs that really did mean something, and I think this could be one of those, alongside Grouper, Wave Machines and others. I'm preparing for it to be spectacular and loud. I'm very happy.

Many of my acquaintances have begun blogging. It's a flurry of activity which is fascinating, not least because face-communication has some unwritten rule of ironically poor spelling and grammar and stupid capitalization. So it's nice to glimpse more formal or deliberate writing styles (and inevitably judge? naha). Inevitably we will all fall by the way-side but it's a little period of interest nonetheless. I'm putting more complete 'pieces' on my Blogger account and more fleeting snatches of myself here. Who knows, maybe some bad poetry too?

A new word I have begun using: Masochismo - for those situations where we all feel we must compete for the most extreme disadvantages, workloads, physical pain. Also, Fauxk, as coined by my friend ACH, to describe "folk" music with no actual folk heritage. And sclogosphere, to describe the increasingly-meta science blogging contingent on the net. If any of these catch on, shoot me (this goes without saying).

I have had my first exposure to My Super-Sweet 16. It's the most fantastically gaudy and awful show, really. A nasty twisted core of absurd capitalism runs all the way through it. I suppose it makes me feel tired and rather distant from general 'Western culture'. Not that I've ever found myself complaining about that in the past. Is this meant to be watched wholly ironically? Or can the values presented be taken by some at face value. I don't know which idea nauseates me more.

There are a lot of reasons I love Ray Allen aka Jesus Shuttleworth. Some time before the playoffs I'll probably mention a few of them. But here's one more I can add to the list, from this article by J.A. Adande on ESPN.com:"This all started on Christmas Day, at the Celtics-Lakers game, when I walked into the visitors' locker room at Staples Center and asked Boston's Ray Allen what he'd been reading lately. (In 17 years of covering the NBA, that's the first time I've asked such a question; then again, Allen is the only player I've ever seen reading books before games.)"

There you have it. That's my Ray Ray.

Rafa has signed a contract up to 2014. 2014! How big is that number?!? If you'd asked me about the year 2014 when I was ten (1996, if it matters) I would have confidently told you it was a year that would not come to pass because by then the sun would long before have crashed into the seas and obliterated everything.

This is a pivotal point in football history. For me anyhow. Alternate history is interesting but you rarely sense the potential at the time quite so much as I think you can here. Liverpool are a team on the brink. Great in Europe, passable in the league. Financially sketchy, needing a new stadium. Only a couple of years left until the super-human axis of Gerrard and Carragher has faded. Competent in every position, world-class in, it seems, relatively few.

Rafa's a very very good manager, potentially a great one, who bemuses me more than anyone on earth. His decision-making is astonishing and totally unpredictable. He's got a very cautious approach. I'm certainly in two minds as to whether one of his Liverpool teams could ever win the league. I anticipate his teams will always punch well above their weight in Europe, which is quite something, but there's no doubt about it, we need something in the league. And it niggles that maybe we can't get that with this man - we'll always suffer those killer home draws against Stoke and West Ham.

The future of Liverpool football club could hinge on this story. If I had to make the decision, would I keep Rafael Benitez? I love Rafa. I don't have full confidence in him, but maybe I couldn't enjoy this club so much if I did. There's a perfect natural imperfection to Rafa. It might be a case of hope against hope. But I think Liverpool will win a title under Rafa (I have to believe: I don't think many players in the Premiership need titles under their belts more than Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher). Maybe it's better to believe than to know.

The title race alive? It's been on life support for a while now, and only an almighty collapse by United could let Liverpool back in now, I have to feel. But nevertheless, it was a particular joy to me to watch Liverpool score 4 at Old Trafford; I had a football match of my own at 2 (my final appearance for Biochemsoc) so I missed most of the second half. But watching the highlights last night could scarcely have made me happier.

I've seen a number of sub-par performances by players in red shirts this season, but standing high atop the lot of them has to be our overweight, under-paced, incredibly mediocre £8 million pound left-back Andreas Dossena. I'm definitely not the only one to have failed to take  a shine to Dossena. But I just feel like noting, he's scored the 4th goal in wins over Real Madrid and Manchester United within the same week. This must be pretty rare. They were also his first two goals for the club.

Particularly enjoyed the MOTD montage of Wayne Rooney having an off-day. And the praise for Sami Hyypia, who is simply exceptional. I've become inordinately fond of a number of players down the years but I think Sami is the only one who could ever rival Steve McManaman (a childhood favourite so virtually impossible to displace).

Facebook and Pitchfork both change their layouts in the same week, leaving me cursing the ever-shifting cyber-sands on which I live. Only a couple of weeks ago the way ESPN.com presented their NBA coverage was subtly altered. To be honest, in my ongoing effort to prevent the threatened dialysis of my existence into an online world and a real one, this isn't a bad thing. The disorientation might send me hurtling into the daylight, rubbing my eyes and ready to find things that matter.

This week I have been realising that death isn't just natural, it's important. We can't function, with our constant need to begin, without also a way for things to end.

I had a dream last night that I think was about cancer. This afternoon I realised the significance (on an airy, melodramatic, pop-literature level) of what lecturers have been telling me for 18 months: cancer is not an invader that comes from the outside, it is as much a part of us as the marrow in our bones and the fear in our hearts. It is the lethal end point of a lifetime of errors. It comes about because we can reset our genome to factory settings no more easily than we could our consciousness.

The other day, when we finished playing football (we rip teams apart; sometimes we're just too good for them to play with us. Nothing makes me happier than playing with the core of the Nazgul when we so thoroughly overwhelm other teams. Not least because it's never what our opponents are expecting when they size us up beforehand. We look like neeks, not athletes.) I realised that there was blood on my arm. I didn't know if it was mine or not. And it made me worry, which was stupid really. I hadn't noticed at all. When we first started playing powerleague, every week I'd trip or slip and tear off the same scab from my right knee, I'd come back with blood all down my right leg. I used to wear it as a badge of pride. I don't feel quite so bold about it now.

I don't know if my course is swallowing my world-view whole. In a lot of ways I never let it dominate enough. But I find myself thinking about different diseases the whole time. I don't want to embrace my end just yet. Not yet.

Jade Goody got a mention from one of my lecturers yesterday. I don't expect that to shock you, even less if I reveal the module is Advanced Biochemistry of Cancer.

Like most things, the case of Jade Goody produces in me an enormous conflict. I (we) do enjoy having such unprecedented access into the lives of celebrities - some natural instinct of mine finds this really very satisfying. And this goes toe-to-toe with my more acceptable feeling on the matter - that it's a terrible time in someone's life for them to be shamelessly exploited, and that frankly, I've seen enough.

But I think we miss the real tragedy regarding Jade Goody, one that has little to do with cancer. In order to be projected that large in all of our minds, the media had to make her two-dimensional. And since we first encountered her, all we've seen is a sequence of heavily doctored snapshots. Every time in our relentless character study, we lose the extra dimension that makes human beings interesting, because we must relegate every public figure to their role. How else could we report on them?

We don't know Jade Goody. We know some things about her, and we see how they fit into her roles as loveable everywoman, out-of-control celebrity, callous racist, questionable mother, brave victim. It's doubtful we ever saw Jade Goody through these characters. And it's unrealistic, of course, for us to understand public figures completely. But value and compassion stem from fuller comprehension, and identity is important - we have only to look at the way people carefully build up representations of themselves online now technology allows them to. How appalling it must be to have some bastardized version of yourself smeared across the front of the Daily Mail.

One tragedy is that a human life we scrutinised so intently could be represented so misshapenly. The real tragedy is that so many would sooner have that than nothing at all.

We all understand the cup-tie rule. We have done for a good long time. If you've played in the knock-out competition for one team, you can't join another team and play in the same competition for them. We've long talked about a player's transfer value changing because they've tied themself to their club in Europe, and at the beginning of the season when a player marches out for their club in the Champions League or UEFA cup qualifiers we take that as a hint they're staying put.

So why, Arsene, when we all understand that, are you whining about it now?

Rafa Benitez is continually letting me down here, I'm sure. He's guilty of a fair amount of myopia himself. But Wenger really has an extreme case of blindness - he's reknowned for never having seen the incident. To an Arsenal fan he must be the messiah - he really has worked miracles at the club. But to everyone else, he's the most extraordinarily boorish whinger.

It can be taken as a general rule that if someone only complains about something when it affects them, it's hard for the rest of us to really get behind their argument. Wenger very rarely does himself any favours in this regard.

The cup-tie rule does seem a bit archaic, but I personally think it makes sense now more than ever. The teams that are in the running beyond the January transfer window already have such an unfair financial advantage it doesn't seem appropriate to allow them to sign and play the most talented players who failed to get beyond the Champions League group stages. But I won't hide it, I'm mainly against Wenger here. He just effortlessly hits the right tone to wind us all up.

So, it turns out it's easier to stop telling lies than it is to start saying things that are true (Maybe I'll feel less cryptic tomorrow).