Author Archives: Raph Shirley

About Raph Shirley

I have been creating strange material for the internet for over twenty years. A kind of failed artist yet I refuse to stop.

Why I Blog

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Exclusive reader offer! Download your free pirate copy of Jessie J’s Absurdist Price Tag pop song here now! Right click. Save as. It’s what she would have wanted.

Was that joke worth 99p considering that it is eight months and two days past its sell by date?

And now to a discussion of the important question of the day: why does Raph Shirley give his writings out for free when he could probably sell it for a shed? ‘It’s not about the money.’ I jus’ wanna make the world happier, more informed, and a better place for all. ‘Why is everybody so serious?’

‘I love life.’ – Will Smith, star of Hancock.

‘I don’t need your money.’ It just seems like all the mainstream bloggers are doin’ it for the wrong reasons. ‘Am I the only one gettin’ tired?’ All I need is a key board and six pack o’ Tesco value to blow your mind. That is how I will achieve the level of blogging attained by Genuine Thriving. And all without even the most basic grasp of good prose style.

‘We get on a treadmill together, two things: You’re gettin’ off first, or I’m gonna die! It’s that simple.’ – Will Smith, star of Hancock.

No, but seriously, why do I blog?

  1.  Sheer plagiarism. Blogging is the ideal sphere for passing off other people’s ideas as your own.
  2. Beauty.  I don’t need to be surrounded by sexy women offering me love 24 hours a day. I am, but I don’t need to be. I just take a look through past blogs, that’s more beauty than any normal man could handle mate. Allow me to introduce, Truth, Beauty, Beauty, Truth.
  3. Truth. I believe in it. End of.
  4. Changin’ the world. A: in August 2011 my blog received 78 hits from 3 countries, and only 44 of them were from my home. B: I rule your dreams.

‘I want the world to be a better place because I was here’ – Will Smith, star of Hancock.

When I sit down to write a blog post, I don’t think ‘right, now lets produce another masterpiece of insight for the grateful masses’. I don’t think. Period. I watch this Will Smith video:

I recommend watching it through.

cu,

‘The universe is not a thing that is gonna push us around’ – Will Smith, star of Hancock, while orbiting the sun.

‘True greatness…’ – Will Smith, star of Hancock, while promoting Hancock.

‘I study the patterns of the universe’ – Will Smith, star of Hancock.

‘There’s a flow to the universe that I’ve learned to… you know… to just go with it’ – Will Smith, star of Hancock.

‘You can’t be scared to die for the truth. The truth is the only thing that’s ever gonna be constant’ – Will Smith, star of Hancock and Wild Wild West.

An apology

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I’ve written so much brilliant blogs these days exposing the wrongs of the great (err hello, not so great) and good (err hello, bad). But, I’m like, sometimes I need to step back back and say hold on there, you’re a cool guy with an excellent blog and everything but what about your (my) failings (from their (hypothetical man who is better than me) perspective). Seriously, I do have them! No, but in seriousness there are some things I have done on this blog that would shock you to the very core.

As you will know I was head boy at Eton and the next year the headmaster had to come out to the school gates cos I wouldn’t leave and kept watching it with binoculars and still, like, leaving comments on their website and stuff, and I was like, “can I stay forever” and then it got genuinely embarrassing. I was in floods of tears and I was like ‘nooooo’ and the new first year boys were arriving with their parents. It really was embarrassing.

Well, I’m sorry to say that it was me who last week updated the school wikipedia entry to say that King Henry VI was a stupid idiot and that Anthony Little MA is a stupid idiot. And I’m sorry that it was me too. So, soooo sorry. Bear in mind that I’m thirty now! I left twelve years ago!

For this (‘that’?), I am sorry. I did it because I believe that to be a great man one must somehow be involved with something great even if one doth become but a minor nuisance to said great thing.

I, apologise

Hi fi sci fi. Why? Because it rhymes and rhyme is equal to reason.

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Hello, welcome to my zine. I believe that sci-fi, or more properly science-fi, can teach us about the human experience of the human condition, and aliens and cool spaceships too. That is why I have created this cool weblog (to share my stories). I wrote this story in 2005 during my emotional period (because all my pets died on the same day because my uncle had a funny five minutes and shot them all). I hope that you can enjoy it and that some good can come of that difficult time. Please enjoy…

The Search for the Left Edge

The key is in the circle of 8s. The key is in your heart. I’ve never spoken with more emotion.

Part I: The real map of the world.

In what sense is the world round? Because some guy sails one way and comes back the other way? Is it not possible that the man from the other way is merely an exact copy of the man going the other other way?

Every time I went ‘around the world’ I noticed slight but fundamental changes in the nature of the place. My mother seemed slightly more irate in every new version. I knew it was not the same but a replica. I continued to search for one half of the two mysteries: what is left and what is right?


Figure 1. Have you ever noticed how the floor is flat yet they still try to pretend the world is round. They lie. This is a more accurate map of the world. The two problems are the poles and the photos from space. All explorers are lie tellers. This map uses the now outmoded and deeply offensive name Birrel Quarrel instead of Birrel Quabble.

I have been searching for the left edge for ten years. I have sailed by banana boat. I have flown by banana plane. I have eaten an orange. At 5am on January 1st 2012 I found it. I found the land of Birrel Quabble and the left edge.

Part II: Birrel Quabble; The Land Outside Reason.


Figure 2. The inside of Birrel Quabble. This imagery is heavily influenced by the Shirley Pet Massacre and the nightmares that preceded and proceeded it.

The return journey was a nightmare.

My thoughts are with you at this sad time. The sadness of realising the truths my stories reveal.

Edinburgh DVD on sale now

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My 2011 Edinburgh show, Philosophical Investigations, is now available on DVD for the incredible price of 10 pounds. I have made DVD cases out of left over flyers and then burnt a PDF of the script on to an Intenso 4.70 Gb DVD-R disc using the Sonic RecordNow! software on my Toshiba Satellite Pro.

I am releasing a limited run of 1000. This is your chance to own a piece of performance art history. I have also thrown in a pirate mp3 of Jessie J’s absurd Price Tag song.

My fans are the most important thing to me. P&P £2.50.

Good night,

Edinburgh 2011 summary

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The 2011 smash flop, Philosophical Investigations, has today come to an end.


Figure 1. Conventional cameras can not capture the sublime performance of Raph Shirley.

The show of which The Telegraph said nothing at all, the show nominated for under 1 awards, the five star masterpiece (five one star reviews from audience comment website edfringe.com) has finished with a faintly audible plop.


Figure 2. Raph Shirley sensitively discussing the role of Islam in the West.

Highlights

  • For me the highlight has to be an extremely angry man yelling ‘call me soft of mind again and I’ll knock your fucking head off’. If that’s not the reaction every comedian wants I don’t know what is.
  • Or perhaps the show performed to three silent octogenarians?
  • What of the various people who found it ‘deeply offensive’? Including the American lady who kindly inquired ‘Have you been doing this for long?’.

Whatever your favourite moment is, remember:

‘Any logically coherent doctrine will always be painful to current prejudices’ – Bertrand Russell.

Edinburgh 2012 is in the making and promises to be even more confusing to audiences everywhere.

Be ready,

Warning – everything below this point is written in earnest. The lack of irony and cynicism may make you want to vomit. Please proceed with caution.

Thank you very much to Peter Buckley-Hill, everyone involved with organising PBH’s Free Fringe 2011, and the kind staff at Rush Bar who helped me throughout the festival.

Cheers,

Raph Shirley, Edinburgh, August 2011.

Edinburgh preview on 13th July 2011

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Hello good people,

I am doing a preview of my Edinburgh show, Philosophical Investigations, at The Invisible Dot in Camden, London.

  • 13 July 2011
  • 8pm
  • The show is free of cost

You can email info@theinvisibledot.com to reserve a seat.

Your humble jester,

Venue details: www.theinvisibledot.com

Show details: www.raphshirley.com/shows/2011/philosophical-investigations/

The campaign

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After months of art directors and copywriters, secretaries and assistants, marketing executives and what have you (all of whom played by me) the advertisng campaign is finally here. In the end we decided to skip the TV spots and billboards and go with just flyers and word of mouth in the end.

Cheers,

A tribute to Bobby Crispy

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Bobby Crispy has a good forename, a great surname, and a better website. Yeah, it is that good. http://bobsguitarlessons.yolasite.com/ contains videos of his free guitar lessons, as well as other cool stuff like sci-fi stories. This guy really knows how to do an excellent website. I can learn a lot from him.

You might like to watch him play one of the manifold impressively difficult songs on the site. However, my personal favourite thing to do (favourite of all things including non Bobby-related things (I categorize the world into Bobby and non-Bobby related)) is to watch him play scales extremely fast because I enjoy witnessing the application of virtuosity to something utterly futile.

He knows it’s kinda informal but he’s just doing it for fun.

Bobby you are a beautiful beautiful man.

Love from,

Philosophical Investigations

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A MESSAGE FROM RAPH


Dear friends and/or enemies etc,

There is a NEWS FLASH. I am taking a show to Edinburgh. I, as in raphshirley.com live, a.k.a. Raph Shirley.

It is called Philosophical Investigations and will be on at Rush bar every day at 3pm, 6-27 August inclusive. Come.

There is also a brand new/completely-professional-looking section of The Website dedicated to it. See it.

Do take care,

D.A.D. X

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Dad And Dangerous. We are all only too familiar with the problem of problem youths being problematic. Well, DAD X couldn’t take it no more. He has therefore gone well and truly berserk.

Love from

xxx

CYBORG R.A.T. 9 Gaming Mouse

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Hardcore gamers like myself have long debated that great quandary; is there such a thing as the perfect gaming mouse? Well, I’m sorry to say to the doubters (not mentioning any names SexyPete99) this IS it:

Figure 1. The CYBORG R.A.T. 9 Gaming Mouse, £84.99. Taken from benchmarkreviews.com.

Whether committing acts of violent murder in It’s Genuinely A Crime: Las Vegas or worser [sic] travesties such as spell checking “Lady Gargar” (not mentioning any names SexyPete99) this mouse gives you all the support you need.

Oh yes,

An excerpt from World of Warcraft online voice chat system:

Me: ‘Why did you buy industrial whisky…you idiot’

SexyPete99: ‘pardon’

beat

Me: ‘I said why did you buy industrial whisky…you idiot’

Stupid nonce

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Swizzled in the swiller,
Brushelled with a buzzer,
Splish splashelled and bathed,
That’s the bloody shower over with!

And in a waze he filled his trouser,
With fleshy leggo pegs.
It took forth owls and still not done,
To be ready for the meeting.

Ten peeples peeped at powerpeep,
And of the frothy thquarters,
Superintendent Ben asked,
What is a krackerjangerang?

Jizzle jobble did bobble unbalanced,
Till tippled off it did,
Into the black, doleful void,
Oh shit.

The early Shirley (logical foundations of the weblog)

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Life is tough when you’re a white, male, heterosexual, old Etonian like me. My constant struggle against prejudice has, however, yielded philosophical insight. What follows is a translation (from Eton slang) of my [cod] philosophical investigations. Please do not be so intimidated as to think you might not understand this profound exposition of the truth. Remember, I am but a mere great intellectual.

Raph Shirley, Vienna, 2011

1 This statement exists.

    1.1 I just done a fart.
      1.1.1 It stinks.
    1.2 Can we say that the statement and the fart are connected? Is there a connexion?

2 I am embarrassed by the word fart.

    2.1 I am embarrassed by the fart.
      2.1.1 Remember that it stinks.
    2.2 It stinks less now.
    2.3 Has the statement dissipated with time in the same way? Does it still exist?

3 Yes.

    3.1 What was it again?
    3.2 In picturing the fart in a dance with the statement, may we come to dance too, with fart?

4 (Poo poos and bums and wee wees. Willys etc.)

5 One remembers great literature and asks: Is Raph Shirley so great a mind that his bodily functions might be comparable to, say, War and Peace?

      5.0.1 Yes?
      5.0.2 Yes.

6 I am forced to remember a dream I had when I was ten, in which I asked ‘does God exist, my massive mind?’.

    6.1 At 6am I arose, and said ‘My understanding of the situation is so far in excess of the current discourse between the morons Dawkins, Hitchens, Pope, Williams etc, that to engage them in debate would be to whore myself to them; to lower my self from on high to meet with these silly demons; to masturbate.’.

7 The TV section of a newspaper.

    7.1 An admission of inferiority.
    7.2 Like a husband permitting his wife’s infidelity; buying her the prophylactics.
    7.3 Yet our choice of paper is determined largely by their TV section layout and aesthetic preferences.
      7.3.1 Jesus shat!

Yours, ever humble and meek, yet wise and everlasting,

James Bond (asexual gay Lord and master of sexy epigrams)

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This post is dedicated to Sirs Isaac Newton and Bobby Charlton (They don’t make them like they used to).

Figure 1. Sir Bobby Charlton, “A Football Man”.

Bond had just graduated from Oxford with a massive degree, inferior in magnitude only to his perception of it. The careers office recommended the civil service but little did they know that he was not going to be civil, and even less servile was he going to be.

MI6 it was then.

One evening, while Bond was composing bizarre introductions and engineering contrary opinions regarding the correct serving of cocktails, he got his (phone) call to arms. M told him by text to go to Darlington and get the train timetable off of some guy working for Great North Eastern as a test.

Those of a nervous disposition should look away now. Even the most hardened reader, used to the frank, honest, and often uncompromising style of this weblog, may find the graphic homosexual pornography that follows too much to bear, and… hardened might also refer to the state of male genitalia during sexual arousal. I must also apologise for breaking one of my own rules of sex scene writing that one should always include a pathetic fallacy but never a pathetic phallus.

It drizzled. The antiquated Bond was obviously a huge homophobe but his first assignment was to get the train times from this fat controller by any means necessary. He was going to have to be a gay Lord.

Against my better judgement I am still amused by the phrase gay Lord.

Bond lay still, ruined. He pondered the etymology of the word gay and wondered where it might go next. A desperate mixture of blood and semen dribbled from his anus to the bed, beating a primal rhythm, syncopated with the pitter-patter of rain on the window of this northern motel. This seemed to suggest that gay might describe a new school of linguistics? A homophobic teenage boy? (e.g. look at those gays studying Nuts magazine and learning misogyny) An ecstatic metaphorical explosion?

The next joke is set in the year 2000.

Bond hated political correctness and whenever it was mentioned would say “I believe one is incorrect to take the correct approach to anything. 1+1=2! That is mathematical correctness gone mad!” in his usual nonsensical idiomatic style. He did not play by any rules, and certainly not the rules of formal logic. He was extremely proud of this personal brand of cod philosophy and, now, it led him to a choice. Should he remain a low level spy in the hope of future promotion to heterosexual humiliation in more expensive hotel rooms, or should he stop being such a Top Gear type, car fan, and arse?

Right there, right now, he decided to change his life and become a professor of language, right where our story began…

Figure 2. Professor James Bond, professor of syntax and philology at the University of Oxford.

It shows how personal decisions can impact real lives. Real people. Real lives.

Thanks in advance,