.. I know about hardcopy, I know about ballpoint pens and I know about pencils. This is written on a laptop It’s 2006, and I am a technophobe I like pencils. I don’t know much about Laptops but .there isn’t a lot I don’t know about Pencils. But then again they’re not that complicated. Ladies and Gentlemen, let’s hear it ..

For “ The Pencil “..

The pencil is a writing or drawing implement consisting of a piece of graphite encased in wood A Cheap and effective tool for writing .. with minimal maintenance required. If they malfunction you don’t have to call a help line in New Delhi .. or drive fifty miles to the nearest pencil centre, or call in a “Pencil Doctor” Who will fix it in three minutes and charge a sum equating to 25% of its original purchase price.

Pencils are light, compact a easy to carry and store They are disposable Bio-degradable and eco friendly They come in all shapes and sizes and colours but they allwork 24 hours a day, seven days a week even if you drop them chew them snap spill beer on them .. or insert up your nose or other bodily orifices. They don’t require batteries and they have no on or off switches and because they don’t have on and off switches they don’t play silly silly tunes every time you switch them on and off which is a great advantage if you’re an undercover Police officer or in Espionage, or even an unassuming poet wishing to make a few discreet observations.

WARNING !. Like all sharp implements it is advisable to keep them out of the hands of children . S.A.S. personnel can kill with a pencil inserted skillfully up the nose .. (Don’t try this at home) and any James Bond fan knows that a single shot firearm can be disguised to resemble its more modern counterpart The Ball point pen “BANG“ .. (Try that with a laptop)
“Ooh take this you horrible terrorist you”.

You can utilise pencils on a variety of mediums or as artists would say mixed media .. including in emergencies skin, white shirt cuffs, preferably your own And of course toilet walls (soft graphite is preferable for this.) I mean when’s the last time you wrote vulgar graffiti on your laptop. Vulgar graffiti received on a laptop in the sterile environment of your home or office does not have quite same cache.

Graphite is the father of Graffiti think about It That’s where the bloody word is derived from Graphite- Grafitti its Latin innit Italian like Spag and spaghetti.

Graphite, Graffiti .. Spag, Spaghetti. Get it ? Eyetie .. Italian Goood …..

Without pencils the worlds toilets will eventually be bereft of Graffiti STOP now to consider the implications of this ....

How many modern day poets, novelists and play-writers honed their skills on the stimulating environment of the school or municipal toilet walls ?

Where would the world be now without the literary meanderings of say Geoffrey Archer .. or .Barbara Cartland or Naomi Campbell .. to name but four ..

Yes .. Pencils can be used on a variety of surfaces but the preferred medium is Paper .. I like paper . Its readily available anywhere for the purpose of writing. In emergencies.there is always some available. Its cheap and plentiful to buy, light to carry its re-cycleable and bio degradable; it never crashes. and can be stored in highly visible files. O.K. you can lose it .. But that is something within your control ..

Computer crashes are not. I’m an Existentialist.I like to make my own disasters.The problem with artificial intelligence is that they have a mind of their own. Pencils don’t .. SO why do we all feel this compulsion for computers. One day in not to distant future there will be a generation of kids who have never used a pencil or for that matter even seen one.

.. Now computers don’t drink alcohol.they don’t have personal problems and they don’t take drugs .. and they don’t contract Alzheimers or get married or divorced and they don’t drive cars .. so there’s no excuse for crashing or losing files except sheer bloody mindedness. So why do we need laptops? .. conspicious consumerism that’s why ..

“Laptops are the product of consumerist culture which propagates the myth that luxury items are essential purchases in order to keep the economy buoyant thus ensuring the survival of the capitalist orgasm (organism”).
( Allan Bissett Boy Racers. P8)

It’s the same with Mobile phones ..

Mobile Phones. Why do we need mobile phones That send photographs and text messages tell you the time Predict your horoscope tell you the football results .. and send bloody e mails and wake you up in the morning make your bloody toast and keep all the telephone numbers of every person you’ve ever known ? Talk about putting all your eggs in one basket .. If you lose ‘em you’re totally knackered ...

Why don’t they make simple phones I don’t want to take photographs of my willy to send half way round the world to some unsuspecting granny in America (oops wrong number). I don’t want to send infantile dyslexic text messages to a person I’m probably meeting in half an hour anyway .. or have left five minutes ago or or a person I would not normally have dreamt of contacting while sitting on a train on the way to work or eating a meal. I remember when mealtimes were sacrosanct .. I don’t want to receive messages or send e.mails while I’m in a restaurant in the cinema in the pub with my friend (if I ever get one) because these are places I go to switch off.

I just want a mobile phone with a simple boring and discreet ring tone .. Max Bygraves perhaps singing “you need ‘ands “ .. and an on and off switch. Nothing more .. Is that too much to ask for ?

They’re on about banning smoking what about passive telephone calls .. in pubs on trains in restaurants and public toilets. No passive telephone conversations in Restaurants in theatres in Poetry readings Café Frugs or Kulture Bralke shows. Switch em OFF Yes you know who you are.

And what about bloody text messages .. William Shakespeare will be turning in his grave in fact he wouldn’t be referred to as that anymore he’d be Wmn Shkspr. I mean forget Americanisms desecrating our language cos we face a vowleless future.

In the future whole novels will be written in dyslexic text and future generations will be christened with voweless names .. Dean will become Dn. Sharon will be Shrn William will be “Wllm” even Vicars will be talking in text .. I chrstn ths chld TRCY and left handers the scourge of all primary school teachers will be non consequential.

That will be sad cos the teachers will have nobody to terrorise.

The list of technological “Sales Triumphs is endless. So why do we feel the need to buy computers mobile phones Digital radio D.V.D etc etc ?

Remember the advent of the C.D,the greatest invention since non stick frying pans ? ... Bloody marvellous they were,we were told that the sound quality is superior convert all your old vinyl into plant pots .. ditch your Hi Fi C.D.s are the future you could drop them on the floor chew them stamp on them spread them with jam or treacle sexual body fluids or even peanut butter then put them in your C.D. player and they would still work.

My arse they do. I share a house with an avid peanut butter eater and I can tell you they ddddddddddon’t. Not even if you toast them first.

.. At least vinyl would still play with a the odd scratch. And now they’re trying to sell us Hi Fi systems again Because the sound is superior.

.. and wot about cable T.V what’s that about ? .. For the last 60 years we’ve been able to receive T.V signals totally wireless .. through the air and then before I‘ve even worked out how THAT works. They’re trying to sell us the modern miracle of Cable T.V ?

You’ve got to have a bloody cable to see anything. Now how is that progress ? We got mobile phones global positioning satellites Portable D.V.D Players I Pods .. but now they’re trying to sell us TVs that need a bloody cable. It wont be long before that last bastion of Luddism .. the poet isn’t reading from scruffy bits of paper anymore but from a bloody laptop. Poets reading from laptops ? Yes. Believe me .. The first laptop poetry reading is imminent .. How sacrosanct is THAT.

Joan of Arc would turn in her grave.

Next weeks lecture will be about .. Skateboards.. Are they a viable means of transport or should we never have never allowed the French to eat all the horses.