6th November 2014

Woman’s hour

I failed to get out of bed in time to have breakfast with my flatmate today.  The-not-being-able-to-get-out-of-bed thing is a slippery slope.  I’ve definitely been getting up later the last few days.  In fairness, I was on the internet absurdly until 2 last night.  A cocktail of buzzfeeds and even lesser sites that I have little to show for.  Lesser than buzzfeed?  Jaysus. 

I almost got sucked into it again this morning… luckily I came downstairs in time for Woman’s Hour.  I cleaned the kitchen listening to Marion Keyes talking about depression.  She was very helpful.  I had previously written her off as a writer of chick lit – I maybe read Sushi For Beginners 10 years ago – she was in a mental pile marked ‘not someone with something I need to hear’.  Bad isn’t it?  She is just as complex as anyone.  I am ashamed at my arrogance for having judged her as shallow, particularly given my own vacuous feasting last night on unpalatable internet slop.  One ‘news’ article didn’t seem to know who Glenda Jackson was and bemoaned her lack of twitter.  Who gives a shit?!?

There is something peculiarly poisonous about internet on handheld devices.  It is a buffet where nothing is particularly satisfying, but it’s just stimulating enough to keep you at the trough.  There is basic enough psychology to it. 

BF Skinner, the daddy of rats in mazes, worked on conditioning.  In one set of experiments, rats in boxes would press a lever for food rewards.  If the number of presses before a reward is dispensed is predictable (always 1, always 10, always 200), then rats learn to only press the lever when they want food.  However, when the number of presses required is variable (sometimes 1, sometimes 10, sometimes 200), rats press the lever a whole lot more.  They also take longer to stop pressing the lever when rewards are over.  Rewards on the internet are similarly unpredictable – sometimes you’ll have a facebook like or an email, or if you’re cruising articles sometimes you’ll find one that is genuinely worth noting.  Most of the time you’re just pressing that lever waiting.  Maybe a declaration is in order.  I am not a fucking rat.  I am going to remind myself of this every time I reach for my phone unnecessarily, or get distracted when trying to do something worthwhile.  Fucking internet.

5th November 2014

I am still sad.   It is tiring. 

Some days you just don’t know what you’re doing with your life.  There is a fear it may be being wasted.  That you are surely not fulfilling some abstract potential.  Maybe you’re not where you should be because of some character flaw.  You are a bad person.  This shadowy concern is of course nonsense as it is completely paradoxical.  You cannot ‘fail to reach personal potential because of personal flaws’, because your personal potential is precisely limited by your flaws.  You have in fact already fulfilled your potential, completely.  Well done.  Now go back to bed and let the mould gather in unwashed mugs.  You’re welcome.

…

…

That was comforting for about 20 seconds, but once your back in bed a whole load of other questions tumble.  Chiefly, if you have indeed fulfilled your potential, if this really is the highest you can achieve, why did you think you were capable of more?  And is it so bad?  Let’s play with this.

Why did you think you were capable of more?  A handful of reasons.  You know what success looks like.  You see it all the time, both in fantasy and reality.  It doesn’t look that different to you.  You also tick a lot, maybe all of the boxes in privilege top trumps – gender, race, sexuality, class, education – so either you’re really bad at playing your hand, or there are other more invisible categories on the trump cards.

Is it so bad?  Well you’ve got your health (mostly).  You live better than most of the kings of history every time you have a hot shower.  You make your own living which is an achievement.  And there are countless people going through much more stressful situations.  Although, the misery of others is scarcely a source of comfort – “you should be happy, because somewhere, a stranger is being assaulted” don’t fly.

Yesterday you spoke to a neighbour, a mum whose 16 year old daughter had just had just had a baby.  The daughter had post natal depression and kept running away from home.  The mum was managing her social worker’s confusing bureaucracy, worrying about when to get police involved whilst also looking after the rest of her kids.  You have less to worry about than her.

Apart from the addition of a social worker and financial hardship, this situation is not dissimilar to that of a celebrity you once met.  Success as fame does not protect against all types of human difficulty.  Is it true success?  Ha.  Maybe you do not know after all what success looks like.  Maybe more of it is fantasy than you think.  Trinkets are scant insulation if you havn’t got to grips with the important stuff, whatever that is.  Whilst this may be enlightening in some ways, you still are not really closer to knowing what you’re doing with your life.  You do at least know a little more of what you don’t know.  Sweet.

4th November 2014

Sometimes we are just sad.

There is recent article on the guardian website called ’10 easy steps to happier living’.  It’s quite bouncy, nurturing and contains good advice like ‘exercise’, ‘look after others’ and ‘have goals’.  No shit.   Whilst I think all their points are sound advice and not that hard to do (you should do them), when it comes to happiness and sadness, one thing the tone of this self-help list is not making room for is the complexity of happiness and sadness.  Sometimes, we are just sad.  Really fucking sad.  There is so much sad stuff happening (poverty, broken dreams, human cruelty) it would be unnatural not to be affected by it.  But, we should be OK with that.

If you are drawn to read a list telling you ways to be happier, you are probably a little bit sad.  Whilst, I’d like to reiterate that I think it’s a positive list full of good advice, there is also a forced optimism to it that I usually associate with people trying to sell me shit.  It contributes to a culture that we should put a brave face on things, or that if we are sad there is something our life is missing.  I think just a little more nuance to it would allow those who are a sad a little more dignity.   Being able to admit that you are sad and having other people do the same might make you feel a bit less lonely and, oddly, is probably also an important step to happier living.  In fact, I might even put it at number 1. 

Step 1 to happiness is to be sad.  Really fucking sad.  Put on some sad music and look at a sad picture.  Sob until you make weird noises and the snot flows and then you can feel the sunshine and know that beside the tears on your cheeks there are tiny rainbows, you beautiful, sad freak.

The rough and tumble of twenty-something life

I recently visited my old university town.  Its coming up to 7 years since I left – it was nice, although full of a lot more children than I remember.  My girlfriend asked if I thought we could pass for students to the other students.  No.  We look like nearly-30 year olds looked to you when you were 19.  Like grown ups.

I’m sure grown ups when I was 19 had it a lot more sorted.  They had proper jobs with dull suits, they owned cars and were going giddy inflating property prices. Thanks guys.  At the end of the 90s houses only cost a fiver.  Now you can barely get a sandwich for that.  Still I’m happier now.  All this unemployment has given me time to think, to develop a sage like wisdom by 28.  You cannot put a price on that, although neither does it get you a sandwich.

I remember visiting uni a year after I left.  That time I was pretty sad.  It was like visiting an ex.  You thought it had been a mutual decision to split up, but a year later you realise you’re still in love with them.  By devastating contrast, they’ve completely moved on.  There is some new guy, a jock called Tim who thinks downing pints of sick is hilarious, wearing flip flops and tracksuit bottoms is acceptable and he uses the word ‘banter’ to thinly veil misogyny.  Tim is a dick.  Your ex seems to think this is fine though and has no idea who you are… Excuse me?

7 years is easier - you’ve met someone new too.  Someone with a career, savings, someone who has travelled.  Your uni however is still making the same mistakes. In fact uni’s problems get worse.  The recession has taken away most interesting shops in the centre, leaving surely more Sainsbury’s Locals than necessary. They’ve ‘regenerated’ the part of town that used to be cool too, opening a Costa, a Subway and now everywhere is doing deals for JaegerBombs.

Anyway.

Of course, just like meeting an ex, you’re only going to present your best bits – sure you rode a storm, but now you’re stronger than you ever were!  You’re classy too.  No JaegerBombs, you drink Martini Espressos. 

Late that evening, my sage like wisdom was unexpectedly holding court, and I was dispensing advice to these teenly undergraduates.   Their faces were so fresh and hopeful.  Maybe I had had a martini espresso too many (turns out they are just JaegerBombs for yuppies), so I couldn’t help delivering the harsh honesty.  In the first year after I finished my degree, I made 5000 cups of tea.  5000.  I worked it out once, probably whilst making tea.  I had a degree in philosophy – of course I made tea.  I didn’t just make tea though, I flyered too.  I filed.  I painted house boats.  I worked in bars.  I worked in night clubs.  I did all these things because… life gets hard… guys OK?!? (I really may have had too many martinis) But, you find a way *hiccup*, you know?  And there’s all this tax, which no one explained… And you live with people, and you cook nice dinners together… who wants another drink??... and people can actually cook now.  I had to fix a tap recently.  It’s nice, even when you find yourself sobbing over cereal thinking WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING, because people lookgfershemanOHMYGOD I LOVE THIS SONG…

And with that I got up dancing.  That was one thing I had definitely got getter at since I was at uni.  All that bar work.  No more of that ‘ironic dancing’, a decade of clubbing has made me snakehips McGhie. 

He moves like liquid silk.

He has all the moves.

He looks so great right now.

He has had too many martinis, and he slips and twists his ankle.  My ankles aren’t what they used to be.

I go from guru to crumpled uncle, decrepit and past it.  The one youth not too embarrassed to chat to me helps me up.  In my self loathing fantasy, she has a fashion-app-start up already because all kids are tech savvy business freaks, riding some social media wave that I just failed to catch.  Actually, no.  She has no idea what she wants to do, and is still wide eyed at the world that awaits her.  My girlfriends eyes are rolling however. 

Suddenly, I realise exactly how I’ve grown up.  I may still have no idea what I want, but as I limp to chair blabbing about making 2000 coffees too, in 7 years I have at least learnt a lot about what I don’t want to do.  Pow?

Rejected By Sunday Times Style

Tomorrow, I've somehow managed to get a piece in Sunday Times Style.  I know?  It's a piece about a man's perspective on whether attitudes towards courtship have changed.

This is what I first wrote, which was totally panned.  However, it was later picked up by this blog.

Nostalgia fest.  Get ready.
___________________________________

Macy’s was a popular nightspot – frankly the place to be.  It was above a bowling alley every Friday on an edge of town trading estate in Nottingham.  They did foam parties and at the end of the night, you would stickily walk to your parent’s car.  Often by 9pm, the sun had not even started to go down.  We were 13 and the party was shamelessly referred to as a ‘nappy night’.

The ritual of courtship at these nights was not subtle.  On seeing someone you liked, you would tell a friend who’s job it was to see if they liked you back.  There was no discussion, instead they would immediately go over to ask the recipient of your affection “will you get off with my mate?”.  You were then inspected.  We later worked out that at this point a second friend was helpful so you could fake a conversation – otherwise you were left standing awkwardly, a mess of hair gel and lynx, as you awaited the verdict.  Like Tinder you would try and look your best, unlike Tinder you had to witness your rejection.  It builds character.

The goal of these nights was always to kiss as many people as possible.  On the drive home, we would compare notes and numbers – I think my PB was 5.  Nobody ever beat Lee Taylor’s 32.  He eventually contracted glandular fever. 

I do not recall there being a difference of approach between the genders.  Maybe girls were more selective, but certainly they were as likely to approach someone they liked, no stigma attached.  Hey – it was 1998, Geri hadn’t quit the band and ‘girl power’ was ringing loudly in our ears.

Friends just a few years older tell me that when they were at school, there were definitely more ‘traditionally’ defined gender roles to courting.  Julie who would have been 13 in 1989 tells me you were basically Madonna if a girl asked out a boy.   Raunchy.  However, she never went to a nappy night, being more a of a village hall sort of girl.  Perhaps I am just more cosmopolitan.

These days, I find people a little bit backward if they think women should wait to be chased.  I was recently performing at a speed-dating night and one of the other acts booked was an academic doing a talk on ‘The Psychology of Attraction’ (it was a science themed speed dating night).  He was awful.

After spending a long time clearing his throat, the lecturer began his talk by describing women as some sort of uncatalogued species, not yet fully understood and best approached with caution.  He certainly did not betray much field experience.  It then turned out he had not finished clearing his throat at all, and the rest of his talk to the aghast audience was almost endless phlegmy noises done unapologetically noisily down a mic, punctuated by what seemed to be tips from “The Game”.

“HARRUMPHHYAGUUAUAHSHSANANAHUH… Negging involves hurting women with back handed compliments so you can then build up their confidence e.g. “They’re nice nails, are they fake?”.”

No wonder women would stop ‘waiting to be chased’ with the creeps like this dropping clumsy insults to try and manipulate them into bed, instead of just talking to them.

My friend Polly (13 in 2001, early Britney Spears fan) tells me I am definitely wrong.  On the dating app Tinder she is definitely warey of being the first to initiate conversations as it is against the rules.   Although she does miss the fact that before you can speak to people, you’ve already ‘swiped right’ to say that you like them.  Tinder is a bit like that friend at Macy’s but only comes back with the good news.  Nevertheless, I have apparently been oblivious to this sexual etiquette, probably because I am more concerned with the ebb and flow of my own desirability, trying to look cool while I wait to see who likes me – can I afford dinner in that restaurant?  Is that person funnier?  Is this confident act working…  I am not really bothered about the rules, I just want to like someone who likes me back.

Existential Crisis

A not uncommon feeling in adult life is 'what the hell am I doing?'

Its a funny moment, pregnant with nothingness, like when a fridge stops humming.

I assume everyone has this feeling (the existential questioning, I mean, though I hope you know the fridge thing too). The existential querying thing is pretty profound and probably worth addressing as its a foundation for everything else you're doing.

I was wondering why its not addressed more in school, but it kind of is, in art and literature, theatre and music, it's just mostly people don't tell you that these are actually important tools you're developing.

I'd like to think about this more, but I've got to go to work... 

Wait a sec... !!

Daily Fail

I'm getting a bit blood lusty to see Dacre fall, but then perhaps this desire for circus is something I should keep in check.

The Mail plays to the meanest of people's spirits - some deep part of the lizard brain that has no ability to consider a bigger picture, only to flinch aggressively.  Having this jeering turned back on him, pelting him with the same shallow,

rotten tomato cries of 'hypocrisy', seems a fitting treatment for Dacre, but really anyone with any interest in the papers has known the fella as a shitty bully for years.  Its not really news is it?

The more harrowing thought is the sort of complacency where we're happy just to watch this circus.  The popularity of the paper represents worrying deep-rooted vales in the hearts of many people.  They're not changing quickly with one man suddenly in the spotlight.

The Mail drummed up 42'000 complaints for Sachsgate, and while some presenters lost their jobs, it didn't really change any values, did it?  The media is as awash with crassness and insensitivity, probably more so.  Similarly, there is now all sorts of outcry for this latest story, 10s of 1000s stating their support of Ed Milliband, and there is questioning as to whether Dacre will weather the storm.  It doesn't really feel like a victory, when its the same sort of pettiness underlying it all.

It my be entertaining to see The Mail be put through the mill, but the real victory would be to win on my own terms, and see Dacre passionately singing celebrations of the harvest whilst dancing with a gay, Polish, single-parent, gypsy... hang on, that also sounds a bit circusy.  Dammit.

Note To Self

Note to self

Hello little posh boy, you can brag with a smile,
How youve just moved, just off the murder mile,
Be proud of your gap year, building wells, building schools,
And you brought back those fabrics,
So random, well cool!
Now you sit in new cafes, tea and broiche 5 pounds,
Youre right next to an estate, but youve no common ground,
Youre like Marie Antoinette, youre the one eating cake,
Ignorant to what might put your neighbours on the take,
Gentrify the jungle, will
It help? i doubt it?
Stop fetishising poverty, and do something about it,
Its the same with the brands which you deride to be funny,
But when they ask you to work, youre all 'show me the money'.
You bite the hand that feeds you, just not hard enough.
You sorta leave a bite mark just to show them that your tough
Stop.
Your principals are all talk.
Do some ethics exercise, get the strength to do the walk.

A poem about a drunk man arguing with the moon

Im not what you might call a conspiracy wanker,
But i had an idea as I left The Hope n' Anchor,
I may have been drinking, my thinking be muddy,
As I question the veracity of our celestial buddy,
Oh moon oh moon don't you think it quite mental,
How many of your features I'm s'posed to think coincedental,

Number 1 of your tricks, of your lies from the skies,
Is the fact that you appear the same size,
As the bright one from day time, numero uno, the sun,
Such incedent in our solar system there is only one,
Between sun, moon and planet, this relationships a loner,
Its a gift - we can see, when you pass, the corona.

(Hiccup!)

This fact alone would cause me no strife,
Even though it so happens on the planet with life,
Id think it just quirky, some fun, a bit eccentric,
A reason for us to get Antropocentric,
But there is more of those quirks you crater faced creature,
Here is another loony lunar feature,

28 days with our planet is the length of your dance,
AND the time of your own rotation?this can't just be chance?!?
You've something to hide or you'd turn us your cheek,
Don't you know what you'd inherit if you'd just be so meek?
You treat us with mocking, with scorn, with derision,
You say 'tidal locking'? Its engineered precision!

What's the truth moon? Nazi base? Alien nation?
And what is your link to the tides of menstruation?
I may not be clear moon, I may start to splutter,
Thats partly because I just tripped in the gutter,
I'm a drunkard who gripes with someone so far,
It might not have happened if I'd gone to The Star,
Perhaps I've been gobby, ensconced in libation?
But you wobble too, its name is libration,

Just one last question dear moon, if you've nothing to hide,
Please tell me why its called your dark side?

A-level results.

With A-level results out today, and the surrounding excitement, it got me thinking.  Success.  In any conventionally measurable sense of the word (income, career prospects, home-owning?!?), many people are doing much better than I am.  Most of these more successful people would have had poorer A-level results than me*, significantly poorer A-level results or no A-level results at all.  Of course, I may be an exception to the pattern, and better A-level results may usually mean you’re more likely to achieve more highly later in life, not guarantee it.   However, I actually suspect that there is a rather low threshold, after which it is hard to predict what the relative success of a 3A student might be vs a 3C student.  A better predictor of later life success is probably what school you went to, which is in turn indicative of your social background painting a rather worrying picture of social mobility.  I guess my questions are why is there so much emphasis and stress placed on the results of A-level examinations and are any other important qualities being overshadowed?

The first answer to why A-levels are stressed as important is because they determine access to further education - most significantly what university you go to.  This again just seems to be moving on the problem to the next set of qualifications – out of me and my siblings, one didn’t go to university, one went to a former polytechnic and one went to one of the highest ranked universities in the country.   Again by conventional measures, comparing their relative successes, the latter (me) is in the weakest position.  Again, I may be an outlier, and of course some degrees undoubtedly indicate a higher chance of later success than others, but again I doubt they are as strong a predictor as a social background.  For me the answer that A-levels matter because they determine your university place just expands the question to why is such a great emphasis placed on qualifications in general?  Highly regarded qualifications may predict later success, but both are far more strongly predicted again by social background (here is an article on this - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/social-class-determines-childs-success-934240.html).  High qualifications then seem to be more back-slapping for the already financially and culturally well-off.

One of the cruelest punchlines of formal education is that if you’re doing it to get ‘a good job’, excluding vocational callings such as medicine, law, architecture or research, after years of cramming information into your skull, you end up just starting again.  I made 5000 cups of tea in my first year of employment!  I didn’t need a medical sciences degree to do this – I might have started this at 16 and then been 6 years of experience further ahead of my university leaver piers at 22 going into the same work.  Even in vocational degrees, I imagine there is a large amount of theory baggage that never really gets used in the practical side of work.  This is hardly a new argument.  Does all this education then have any worth?  Of course it does. Exam results just aren’t always very good at reflecting this value. 

Whether its education or success, we often focus on the qualities which are easily measurable (exam results, money, etc.) and can miss other valuable qualities which are harder to quantify.  Education has tremendous value in its own right - the development of conceptual abilities, the sense of endeavor, the pleasure of being part of the massive conversation of human understanding.  Being too focused on exam results alone risks stamping out this endeavor all together.  All that work.  Done now. 

No conclusion. 

Go and make the tea.

*since you ask AAAAa, but yeah, one was General Studies.

Sunshine on a rainy day

I love the rain. I was just in the park and a beautiful monsoon reduced everybody to sodden wrecks. It happened so quickly there was nothing you could do. I have never seen so many beaming smiles in the rain - it was as if everyone had given up hope and then realised, oh it doesnt really matter. As my relief grin was subsiding, the sun came out. It could never have looked that good without the rain.

Three legs good, G8 bad

3 legs good, G8 bad

My table was wobbly at breakfast today. As I went to stuff napkins under one of the feet, I thought of a solution to this common cafe problem. You might have wobbly tables at home, but because they dont move as often, once youve fixed the problem you can leave. Cafe tables get moved more regularly for cleaning and different sized parties etc. Small imperfections in floors and tables mean that its hard to line up the four points of contact on a table with the floor and you'll often end up with a wobble. If cafe tables were designed to stand with only three points of contact, even on the most uneven floors they wouldnt wobble at all.

Why aren't cafe tables normally made with three points of contact? Perhaps its because cafe-table-makers are quite removed from where their tables end up... They don't come into contact with wobbly cafe tables enough for it to even be thought of as a problem. Even stranger is that they could save 25% on the cost of legs, so its in their interest to make three-legged tables.

Its not hard to understand how being detached from the environment your making solutions for means that you might miss problems that need solving - you may even miss solutions that are in your own interest to carry out. It seems odd then that the G8 is meeting to solve, amongst other things, poverty in Africa without any representation from African states.

Obviously, its tasteless to declare yourself a representative of the poor when you stink of cash, but youre also risking missing some pretty simple solutions, and with the G8 these are solutions that could help billions of people. Or we could just spend another century stuffing napkins under the unnecessary forth table leg of food supply management.

http://m.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/17/bono-africans-stealing-voice-poor

Unexpected Delay

"The train will be held at the station whilst we try and get a trespasser off the track in Croydon" says the announcer. The train heaves a collective sigh. Oh those vital minutes of having to sit here, instead of somewhere else whilst you play with your phone and ignore people.

The couple opposite me are sharing the Mail on Sunday. Even off their phones there isnt much warmth between them - it sort of feels like they're together just to take it turns carrying the bags and to split the price of the Mail. They even have their own grapes. Their grapes are privatised. Who doesn't share grapes? Anyway, their occasional conversation is about Thatcher. Mainly they exchange rhetorical contempt for anyone criticising her in the wake of her death.

"These disgusting death parties - speak no ill of the dead!" broods the ruddy hubby.

"Completely compassionless loony left" comes an indignant reply, "and selfish!"

It is interupted by the announcer again. "It looks like we may be delayed a little longer than expected, the trespasser has sadly been struck by a train and killed."

With no time for reflection, and a sudden u-turn on of-dead-ill-speaking, ruddy hubby huffs "some people are just selfish idiots."

Yes. Yes they are.

A proposal for massage recipients

A PROPOSAL

If you've ever given a massage, you've probably been told at some point that you're good at them. Massages usually feel quite good, even at the most amateur level. For some people, however, this praise can lead to over confidence. People can come to believe that 'I'm the sort of person that is good at massage', even in the face of powerful evidence to the contrary.

"Ouch don't do that. You're hurting my neck"
"No Im not. Im the sort of person that is good at massage"

They will even try and prove that it is your neck nerves that are wrong, not their skilled fingers...

(Strained) "Please stop"
"Listen, if your neck is hurting, you're not letting me do it right"

Their belief in their massage skills is fundamental, and like a zealot, they are pretty hard to argue with when it comes to core beliefs.

Eventually you will make your escape, but you may lose your friend and probably the use of half your face. To protect against this I propose that all massage praise is in future realistically calibrated.

"That was a good massage in a way that many people would be capable of. I nevertheless appreciate your attention"

For example.

Incidentally, the best massage I ever got was off a 6' 5" Polish scaffolder called Joe. It was like he was rubbing my soul. He was not in the least bit noisy about his skills, but people who he had touched were positively, off the radar, 'best massage ever!' evangelical. It would seem that recipient testimony is a far better indicator than the boasts of a potential incapacitator.

Remember. Be accurate with your massage praise.

Massage zealots may already be lost, but lets hope that some shoulder muscles may still be saved.

Some thoughts on the atheists

“What about the dinosaurs?!?” cried the atheist stand-up, as if creation stories are the only question religion attempts to answer.

Whilst I do not deny the unhelpful impact religious institutions have on some aspects of society, from distrusting pork, prawns and homosexuals, to harbouring institutionalised paedophilia, there is also only so much you can learn about the human heart by dissecting a frog.

Jesus’ ‘sermon on the mount’, a live track from his excellent first album ‘the new testament’, is a pretty right on message of love, forgiveness and social harmony. However, just as Malcolm McClaren and Vivienne Westwood (any many more in their wake) seized upon the revolutionary punk movement to sell records and clothes (albeit excellently cut – damn that girl knows a woman’s body!), so too was Jesus’ anti-establishment message appropriated by the mainstream. Punk was dead by the Nicene Creed 325AD.

But if this stuff has been being said for so long, why is it so frequently missed? Other than the fact that most people work too much to ever have any time to think about this stuff, we often find it hard to separate the fine wheat from ubiquitous chaf.

Athiests might throw out a ‘Jesus’ baby*, with the ‘I’m the son of god’ bathwater. David Icke talks a lot about stopping brutality in the world, famine and saving the economy, but he also says the Queen is a lizard… as well as straying frequently into anti-Semitism. John Lennon wrote ‘Imagine’. He also worked with Paul McCartney.

Sometimes I hesitate to say I’m an atheist, because other atheists are so annoying. Maybe this is how those people feel when they won’t say they’re feminist because they don’t like dungarees. Of course those people are very foolish. To not say you’re feminist, you might as well say that you are pro-bigotry. But back to ‘some atheists’ - an enthusiastic defence of rationalism overlooks the fact that we are not totally rational. If my girlfriend is seeing her ex for coffee, my rational response is ‘I’m sure he is a great guy, he certainly has a great taste in women’, but my gut’s response, and the one I feel altogether more vividly, is a desire to grind his face into an abrasive surface, be sick and hope he fails in everything he ever does again. I do what my head says, but still feel what my gut says, and maybe religion can answer my guts questions. Besides, atheists who criticise dogma, just do it so dogmatically!

Preech over. Testify.

*Jesus baby NOT Baby Jesus

A discussion on honesty

People put up a lot of fronting, don’t they? A lot of facades… but there’s other stuff on Grand Designs too.

People pick on hip hop or chav culture for fronting, and they have a real hatred for it, but its no different really to middle class fronting, things like letters about Grace’s Grade 7 flute and how everything is fine.

Everything isn’t fine. Your husband’s never home and your eldest is a drug abuser.

Of course, drug abuse is a funny phrase. Usually if you’re abusing something, the thing is the subject of abuse.
(mimes punching a shrub) “Take that cocaine!!” said the man punching a bush.

Does Cocaine grow on bushes? I don’t know where cocaine comes from. Probably shouldn’t put stuff in your body if you don’t know where it comes from… like 98% of the food we eat.

It should be called drug ‘misuse’ because that would imply that drugs can also sometimes be just used too. Except cocaine. I think if you’re taking cocaine, you’re probably misusing cocaine. No-one has ever been enlightened by cocaine, unless it was by the sun shining out of their arse.
Not to bang on about cocaine (Charlie, have you had some cocaine?), but top quality cocaine smells a bit of petrol because petrol is used to get it out of the leaves. With shitty smelling cocaine that doesn’t smell of petrol, whilst its good to know you’re not snorting petrol, you’re probably also not snorting cocaine either.

An argument to re-establish the Danelaw

I am tired of suffering at the hands of English imperialism - You might not be able to tell by my accent, so brutal has been the eroding of my culture, but I am in fact a native of the Danelaw and have had enough of the imperialism of Wessex! 

Our once proud land has been robbed of its heritage, coal and gravy and enslaved by a 1000 year enslaught of corrupt governments, false religions and The National Lottery.

I have not come to your capital to fight though, but as a merchant of peace. I fear for you and see not the honesty in your trades of ‘brand manangement’ (Ccbrandchch Managechment in my native dane – literally ‘font whisperer’) and think you may be humbled by our noble trades of sheepherdessing, hill climbing and bingo calling.

During an economic climate of massive unemployment in my homeland, I have marvelled at your ability to create committees-full of jobs to promote hair-dryers and digital television (Cchdgdchhd in my native dane – literally ‘soufflé’) amongst Wessexian counterparts.

I’m calling for a ban on Wessexism in the work place, and a devolved parliament for the Danelaw.

cCchhcGgdgdgdghgdhdh (Dane for ‘Who’s with me’?)