Raves

Posted on 30 Nov 2007 at 16:41

 

Gallery

Resisting all attempts to be brainwashed by kooky cults, Mel Croucher resolves to clear his desk and his desktop without clearing his mind or his bank account.

How cluttered is your system's desktop? If it's anything like mine, the image on your monitor is strewn with multicoloured icons that look like pavement-vomit. As for the physical desktop on which my monitor sits, I can hardly remember the leather-tooled dignity beneath the pile of rubbish that has colonised its surface.

It is traditional to make New Year's resolutions at this time of year, and I'm determined not to break mine. My promise is simple: I will keep my desktops clear, because a clear desktop is the sign of a clear conscience, and I fancy a clear conscience for a change.

To tell you the truth, my original resolution was to cut all trivia out of these Rants & Raves, but I have fallen at the first hurdle, as I ask you the following trivial question: what links John Travolta, Frank Zappa and the Poet Laureate? Give up? The answer is the word 'Clear'.

This trivial story begins in 1977, when Saturday Night Fever was released and John Travolta shot to international stardom, becoming the most famous member of a techno-religious cult known as the Church of Scientology. One of the cult's brainwashing techniques was (and probably still is) to plug a gullible sap in to an electronic box of tricks and flick a dial to reveal how much Bad Stuff was in their brain. Then they told the gullible sap that the best way to get rid of their Bad Stuff was to give lots of money to the Church of Scientology. When they had got a good squeeze of money, the electronic box of tricks said the sap was 'Clear'. That is to say their bank account had been cleared out along with their intelligence.

It seemed to me that suckers who fell for this sort of hokum were responsible for the wealth and evil power of all churches since Zeus was a lad. And a man who shared this opinion was Frank Zappa, the greatest composer of the 20th century. As soon as Travolta used his new superstardom to proselytise Scientology, Zappa set to work on his opera Joe's Garage, in which a moron joins a spoof Church of Appliantology, wherein members shove electronic devices up their own arses in order to become Clear. I resolved to work with Frank Zappa from that moment on.

Motion sickness

Let's fast-forward several years, to where I found myself auditing Zappa's online empire. I was in a London hotel having coffee and figs with his wife and a brace of his exquisitely named kids, when word arrived that a new Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion, had been appointed. The link between these strands in my narrative is that not only had I registered the Poet Laureate's internet domain name that same morning, but I also have photographic evidence of his desktop, which is the inspiration for my New Year's resolution. You see, the Poet Laureate is the ultimate candidate for being Clear. His desktop consists of a sheet of polished glass, through which he can see his own legs crossing and uncrossing as he works. There is nothing on this desktop other than a silver laptop computer, and I have a feeling that when the lid is raised there is nothing but another sheet of transparent glass inside. So join me in my resolution to achieve a clear desktop, and thus a clear conscience. Here is my very own 10-Step Recovery Program:

Step 1: Take everything that is not a computer off your desk and put it in a box labelled Dead Important. I'm including paperwork, photos, underwear, cats, crucifixes, buns, everything. Any items that belong to the person who used your desk before you should go at the bottom.