Greetings blogs akimbo,
Last week, my rapid descent into beige, tedious, baggy eyed, overworked, underwhelmed adulthood occupied my thoughts. I was driven half to distraction until I managed get hold of myself (not like that, you pervert), drink a warm coco, wrap a soothing blanket around myself and honk on some crack. All of which settled me right down.
Despite finding my inner peace (down the side of the sofa, with some loose change and a lighter) I've been pondering anew my perspective on the world as I get older, grumpier and more likely to push somebodies eyes back into their sockets with a spoon until it makes a pleasing 'pop' just for stealing the last of the office milk. If my perception of the world has altered towards the end of my twenties, imagine what I'm going to be like in my 60's or my 70's? Or my 80's? Actually, that shouldn't be a problem, mainly due to the record breaking amount of rum that I've "disappeared" in my life probably claiming my liver way before then, or the fact that, if I'm still stuck on this evil, rancid and bitter planet after 80 years, I'll have probably become a foam mouthed, bum wiping, lunatic who spends his days chatting up curtains or milking candles, rather than repositioning my world view.
Recently, the magic eyed, pork pie faced, dead man walking Prime Minister, announced a government initiative to encourage pensioners to stay in their homes for longer after retirement. The free home care they will receive isn't going to be paid for my magic wood fairies or a car boot sale in Westminster, but by 'death tax', which provided the Daily Mail with plenty to rabble rouse over for a few days, while their readers beat their fists on the table before wondering if it will be 'final salary' death or if they can fiddle it.
I'm anticipating the elderly finally realising the potential of the numerical advantage they are gaining over the young. By the time I'm 60, over half of the population will be over 50, meaning that, so long as we avoid the Third World War (Iran's working on it...), or a global pandemic of 'ant flu' or the like, the balance of democratic power wont be held by YouTube baiting, Skins watching, street talking politicians, but ones who might have to stop patronising us long enough to let us hear the silence when anyone asks about their policies. There'll be no political mileage to be had from going on the futuristic equivalent of Piers Morgan's chat show, pretending to be a regular guy, or from peering out at us from leering campaign posters looking like the teacher you had at school who desperately wanted to be 'cool' but came across as a borderline paedophile.
Suddenly, pensioners will be the ones taking to the streets in rage, organising protests, forgetting what they were upset about, then remembering again... but was it last Thursday? No it was definitely today we were meeting up, but is Henry coming? Is Henry coming? No he's bad. He's on his way out. What about that one... you know... her... with the leg... her.... oh you know, her son was in the forces, lost his sight after some kids threw a Mars bar out of a taxi and caught him right between the eyes when he was walking his dog... . The streets will be like 28 days later, only with more convincing zombies and the whiff of urine and Vicks.
The day will come when the generation after us will be sat watching documentaries called "I love the 2000's" hosted by Ant and Dec from Bath chairs and a totally unchanged Simon Cowel (forever youthful on account of his pact with the devil) reminding us of the ridiculous days when the world had fuel and light and heat, before Brighton was lost under the waves, when Countdown wasn't prime time television and the national dish wasn't Werther's Originals.
I for one can't wait for old age, when the shackles of social awkwardness and grace are replaced by petty theft, making people give you their seat and sporting a natty moustache. If you push on through to about 70, you're on borrowed time and you can finally give in to drink, drugs and wigs without fear of recrimination:
"What's for breakfast?"
"KEBABS"
It's going to be a wall to wall festival of vice followed by a snooze, then throwing bricks at the local youths, lowering the suspension on your mobility scooter and snorting a line in time for Antiques Roadshow. This carries on every day until your liver disintegrates inside you like a Wicked Witch in a thunderstorm and you are immortalised forever as a low-res, black and white Jpeg staring up from an 'Order of Service'.
For me, the biggest thrill will be finally being able to ramble on and on, semi-sensically to anyone who'll listen for as long as I can keep drivelling on and have words rattling around in my brain capsule. If only I some forum in which I could do that now, oh, how my life would be complete...
Byelids xx
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
Sunday, 7 February 2010
Age and Not Consenting
Hello my blog game hunters,
It might amaze you to learn that I am actually a real person and not just the fifth monkey along on my row of primates, eternally bashing out golden blog nuggets for my readers (both) to peck over like the evil, callous brutes that you clearly are. I am not an animal, I am a real living boy with thoughts and feelings and dribble and pus and all the other redeeming features of mankind. You know; boredom, antipathy, murderous midnight bloodlust and a fondness for Wagon Wheels.
So it might surprise you still further to learn that I am approaching the business end of my twenties and starting to wonder what I have learnt over my years on this hideous green ball called Earth. There's the obvious things that we all learn like bullying the weak, the best price of cheap vodka and that the secret of comedy is turning a calculator upside down so that it says 'BOOBS', but what else? What is it that makes a man?
Sitting on the train the other day, I realised that my hands were pretty cold, so I tucked them snugly under my knees to try to get the blood flowing again. I've done this since I was little, but looking around the train at the other male passengers, I noticed that I couldn't imagine any one of them doing likewise. They were all MEN. Grisly, dispassionate, Paul Smith underpanted, leather walleted, laptop snuggling, hair lipped MEN. Should I be like them and stop humming along with my iPod to Squeeze? Should I start wearing clothes like they have been loosely arranged on a mannequin made of angles? Should I pluck things, or grow a chiseled jaw, or wear boots? Do I want to?
The Bible (...no, me neither, I just found it on Google) says "when I became a man I put away childish things". I didn't get this at first, because it didn't contain a dick or fart joke, but I'm pretty sure it's saying "Grow up you big twat". Problem is that I'm not exactly sure I know what that means.
I read magazines telling me that the latest hotshots in business are all nano foetuses sloshing back white wine and being kooky while I imagine lining up cross hairs over their dispassionate Ray Ban wearing visages. The fashions are made up of jeans hanging off the arses of arses, band T-shirts and funny hats. They're all worn by people ten years younger than me and ten times better looking. I'm getting so old that I can't imagine sleeping with people off Hollyoaks anymore, because they are too young to remember the 90's and should bloody well put some clothes on before they catch a chill. I'm much more likely to be found lamenting the decline of music since The Cure rather than rating the popularity of some new young thing (that said and regardless of anything you may think, I can assure you that N-Dubs are, at best, repugnant mentally deficient tossbowls. Listening to their music, their voices or even their names makes me drift off into a dreamy fantasy where I force feed them insect repellent until they vomit up their own thoraxes).
Rather than it just being 'culture' (i.e. because I am youth) it's suddenly 'youth culture' (i.e. because I frigging well am not) and suddenly I am aware that the gravy train has departed with me still waking up in the bed of the Travelodge trying to find my watch. But despite my confusion and feelings of inferiority, many of my peers seem to have it all figured out and danced effortlessly into their late twenties, picking up wives, children, divorces, another couple of wives and a selection of fine cheeses from around the globe, while I'm still picking my bum and trying to remember what I was doing on millennium eve.
Back on the train, I chanced to look at the other men who I was silently sharing my carriage with. Through the mask of civility I noticed the twinkling glimpse of despair in all of them. I noticed the bags under the eyes of the man in his suit and tie, the loose skin under the neck, the sweat dripping from his temple as he struggled to tap something intelligible into his laptop before he arrived at the big board meeting, where all the suits would flop their laptops out onto the table and compare sizes.
I suppose that there is an imagined status that goes with MEN of a certain age, but you know what, I'm perfectly happy being a man who knows the value of warm hands and Squeeze without having to flop anything out on a table. You never know where it's been.
Takecareloveyoubye xx
It might amaze you to learn that I am actually a real person and not just the fifth monkey along on my row of primates, eternally bashing out golden blog nuggets for my readers (both) to peck over like the evil, callous brutes that you clearly are. I am not an animal, I am a real living boy with thoughts and feelings and dribble and pus and all the other redeeming features of mankind. You know; boredom, antipathy, murderous midnight bloodlust and a fondness for Wagon Wheels.
So it might surprise you still further to learn that I am approaching the business end of my twenties and starting to wonder what I have learnt over my years on this hideous green ball called Earth. There's the obvious things that we all learn like bullying the weak, the best price of cheap vodka and that the secret of comedy is turning a calculator upside down so that it says 'BOOBS', but what else? What is it that makes a man?
Sitting on the train the other day, I realised that my hands were pretty cold, so I tucked them snugly under my knees to try to get the blood flowing again. I've done this since I was little, but looking around the train at the other male passengers, I noticed that I couldn't imagine any one of them doing likewise. They were all MEN. Grisly, dispassionate, Paul Smith underpanted, leather walleted, laptop snuggling, hair lipped MEN. Should I be like them and stop humming along with my iPod to Squeeze? Should I start wearing clothes like they have been loosely arranged on a mannequin made of angles? Should I pluck things, or grow a chiseled jaw, or wear boots? Do I want to?
The Bible (...no, me neither, I just found it on Google) says "when I became a man I put away childish things". I didn't get this at first, because it didn't contain a dick or fart joke, but I'm pretty sure it's saying "Grow up you big twat". Problem is that I'm not exactly sure I know what that means.
I read magazines telling me that the latest hotshots in business are all nano foetuses sloshing back white wine and being kooky while I imagine lining up cross hairs over their dispassionate Ray Ban wearing visages. The fashions are made up of jeans hanging off the arses of arses, band T-shirts and funny hats. They're all worn by people ten years younger than me and ten times better looking. I'm getting so old that I can't imagine sleeping with people off Hollyoaks anymore, because they are too young to remember the 90's and should bloody well put some clothes on before they catch a chill. I'm much more likely to be found lamenting the decline of music since The Cure rather than rating the popularity of some new young thing (that said and regardless of anything you may think, I can assure you that N-Dubs are, at best, repugnant mentally deficient tossbowls. Listening to their music, their voices or even their names makes me drift off into a dreamy fantasy where I force feed them insect repellent until they vomit up their own thoraxes).
Rather than it just being 'culture' (i.e. because I am youth) it's suddenly 'youth culture' (i.e. because I frigging well am not) and suddenly I am aware that the gravy train has departed with me still waking up in the bed of the Travelodge trying to find my watch. But despite my confusion and feelings of inferiority, many of my peers seem to have it all figured out and danced effortlessly into their late twenties, picking up wives, children, divorces, another couple of wives and a selection of fine cheeses from around the globe, while I'm still picking my bum and trying to remember what I was doing on millennium eve.
Back on the train, I chanced to look at the other men who I was silently sharing my carriage with. Through the mask of civility I noticed the twinkling glimpse of despair in all of them. I noticed the bags under the eyes of the man in his suit and tie, the loose skin under the neck, the sweat dripping from his temple as he struggled to tap something intelligible into his laptop before he arrived at the big board meeting, where all the suits would flop their laptops out onto the table and compare sizes.
I suppose that there is an imagined status that goes with MEN of a certain age, but you know what, I'm perfectly happy being a man who knows the value of warm hands and Squeeze without having to flop anything out on a table. You never know where it's been.
Takecareloveyoubye xx
Saturday, 6 February 2010
Iraq - the musical
G'day sport
When I was just a mini-Rich, I remember being the victim of a vicious and unwarranted practical joke that makes my lunch curdle in my stomach just thinking about it. My sister snuck up on me and startled me oh so very bad. I fell backwards onto some pots of paint and knocked the bloody lot right over causing at least twenty minutes worth of trouble. I never claimed revenge for this heinous deed and have been forever haunted by the sight of white gloss. For me, walking into a B&Q starts one of those misty eyed, haunting flashbacks that a murderer on Hollyoaks might see when they look at a hammer. In fact most of my life is like a weak episode of Hollyoaks, only without the hot women, terrible acting or level of intellectual content.
Before you, my loyal supporters, form a posse of fat armed men, armed with pitchfork and shotgun to go round to her house to exact revenge (or give her a dig in the ribs), I must tell you that the experience, the shame, the tidying up; it all taught me a valuable lesson. Keeping your rage and spite inside you is the right thing to do. You need to keep it and hold onto it, until a brain hemorrhage offers its sweet relief. Sure, it makes you more bitter and twisted in the long run and that is important to take forward into adult life - there is no justice, there is no goodness, there is only humiliation, now get over it and get a job, slacker.
Unfortunately, this is a lesson that Clare Short clearly didn't learn at a young age, so this week she attempted to extract the a measure of revenge for the great big practical joke that appears to have been played on the whole country by TB, Hoon the Loon, the Demon Headmaster (Jack Straw) and the entire United States of America (gawd love 'em). Stupid woman.
It feels like the Iraq enquiry has been trundling on for longer than the war itself but this was the first time that one of the real nay-sayers had a chance to unleash their fury, and unleash she did. Shame really that the whole thing has a feeling of 'after the lord mayors show' about it. It's all very well telling us now that the legal basis for the war was not only shoddy but subject to the ever changing moods of Lord Goldenballs, but it's all really a moot point. We went, we killed, we found nothing, we never wanted it at all.
Most of the inquiry by Lord Chilcot and his band of Lords (I like to use 'a compliance' of Inquiry members as the collective noun for them) has been spent setting the ground rules for discussion rather than asking the tough questions. The question of the legality of the entire thing was one that couldn't be asked properly for months: "Was it legal?" "The attorney general said it was, therefore it was" said those sitting at the Nuremberg trials... sorry, I meant those being questioned by the inquiry. Well that's helpful. Thanks.
When we finally got to the greatest show on Earth (the appearance of T to the muthafuckin B) every question was asked in a way that was almost... well... sad. Each question had to be proceeded with acceptance of terms, citations of previous testimony and understanding of evidence, so that it played out like the dull bit in the middle of a courtroom drama before the hotshot young lawyer got his chance to wipe his joker grin off his angular grinning visage. Sadly, the hotshot must have missed the bus, or we wouldn't have got "Just to clarify what you said" and various summaries of previous answers substituting for incisive questioning and "you can't handle the truth"
The Artist Formerly Known As Prime Minister got so easily into his stride that he started really enjoying himself and waving his hands about like a rapper trying to catch an invisible fly. At one point he became so confident that he tried to justify the entire war in a soundbite, saying Iraq had the means and desire to restart WMD production if the inspectors left or the terms of the sanctions changed. Fair enough, right? Who wouldn't want to get on board the United States of Britain and Northern Ireland's maim bus? If you thought Iraq could build lots of big old hurt things, you'd want to stop them. in fact, lets go back there with a bit of wood and a chainsaw, root out anyone else who fancies a bit. Lets....
Wait there just a darn tootin' minute.....
So he's saying that if things change, Iraq will build WMD's? So, he wasn't building them at the time?
Ohhhh.
So the sanctions were working?
Ohhhhhhhhhhhh.
So we didn't do good?
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Poo.
Oh well. Come on. Cheer up, it's all over now. Lord Goldsmith was a good 'un too. I liked his style of high quality flip-flopping. "It's legal, it's not, it's legal, it's not". Nice to see the lives of hundreds and thousands of people decided by pulling the petals from a daisy. Don't get enough key decisions made like that. I mean, I decided whether or not to kill those hookers in my basement like that, but that's another story.
So, poor old Clare had to step up and cut through all the legal jargon and definitions of terms to point out how she saw events: "We were in a bit of a lunatic asylum" seemed to sum up how it felt as a member of the general public at the time as well as how it felt inside the cabinet. I liked her zeal: "Blame the French, concoct the legal authority and off we go..". The problem for Clare Short's credibility lies in how she comes across, a bit like a mad aunt at a wedding, railing against the happy couple and mumbling that "It'll never work" whilst at the same time eating plenty of the buffet and drinking the free wine and six months later, smugly tutting when the divorce comes through.
It's true that she didn't resign immediately and it's also true that she remains a politician and, therefore, quite likely to have fashioned a power base constructed on her caricatured opposition to the war without totally showing the courage to match her apparent conviction. Controversy creates profile and for a politician, profile is important to create the illusion of power. Still, she got an ovation from the crowd and perhaps she has laid to rest the rage and anger that she harboured for the Blair administration by getting it off her chest and on the record.
It still doesn't change anything though; the human cost, the poverty, the civil unrest and the political vacuum created by regime change all remain in Iraq. Having destroyed its past and its present, this war threatens the future of a country, an entire region of the world. Suddenly, this huge practical joke that was played on us doesn't seem so funny.
For me, how ever much I secretly rage, the image of that spilt paint still lingers. It simply wont come off the walls.
Byebyeblackbirds xx
When I was just a mini-Rich, I remember being the victim of a vicious and unwarranted practical joke that makes my lunch curdle in my stomach just thinking about it. My sister snuck up on me and startled me oh so very bad. I fell backwards onto some pots of paint and knocked the bloody lot right over causing at least twenty minutes worth of trouble. I never claimed revenge for this heinous deed and have been forever haunted by the sight of white gloss. For me, walking into a B&Q starts one of those misty eyed, haunting flashbacks that a murderer on Hollyoaks might see when they look at a hammer. In fact most of my life is like a weak episode of Hollyoaks, only without the hot women, terrible acting or level of intellectual content.
Before you, my loyal supporters, form a posse of fat armed men, armed with pitchfork and shotgun to go round to her house to exact revenge (or give her a dig in the ribs), I must tell you that the experience, the shame, the tidying up; it all taught me a valuable lesson. Keeping your rage and spite inside you is the right thing to do. You need to keep it and hold onto it, until a brain hemorrhage offers its sweet relief. Sure, it makes you more bitter and twisted in the long run and that is important to take forward into adult life - there is no justice, there is no goodness, there is only humiliation, now get over it and get a job, slacker.
Unfortunately, this is a lesson that Clare Short clearly didn't learn at a young age, so this week she attempted to extract the a measure of revenge for the great big practical joke that appears to have been played on the whole country by TB, Hoon the Loon, the Demon Headmaster (Jack Straw) and the entire United States of America (gawd love 'em). Stupid woman.
It feels like the Iraq enquiry has been trundling on for longer than the war itself but this was the first time that one of the real nay-sayers had a chance to unleash their fury, and unleash she did. Shame really that the whole thing has a feeling of 'after the lord mayors show' about it. It's all very well telling us now that the legal basis for the war was not only shoddy but subject to the ever changing moods of Lord Goldenballs, but it's all really a moot point. We went, we killed, we found nothing, we never wanted it at all.
Most of the inquiry by Lord Chilcot and his band of Lords (I like to use 'a compliance' of Inquiry members as the collective noun for them) has been spent setting the ground rules for discussion rather than asking the tough questions. The question of the legality of the entire thing was one that couldn't be asked properly for months: "Was it legal?" "The attorney general said it was, therefore it was" said those sitting at the Nuremberg trials... sorry, I meant those being questioned by the inquiry. Well that's helpful. Thanks.
When we finally got to the greatest show on Earth (the appearance of T to the muthafuckin B) every question was asked in a way that was almost... well... sad. Each question had to be proceeded with acceptance of terms, citations of previous testimony and understanding of evidence, so that it played out like the dull bit in the middle of a courtroom drama before the hotshot young lawyer got his chance to wipe his joker grin off his angular grinning visage. Sadly, the hotshot must have missed the bus, or we wouldn't have got "Just to clarify what you said" and various summaries of previous answers substituting for incisive questioning and "you can't handle the truth"
The Artist Formerly Known As Prime Minister got so easily into his stride that he started really enjoying himself and waving his hands about like a rapper trying to catch an invisible fly. At one point he became so confident that he tried to justify the entire war in a soundbite, saying Iraq had the means and desire to restart WMD production if the inspectors left or the terms of the sanctions changed. Fair enough, right? Who wouldn't want to get on board the United States of Britain and Northern Ireland's maim bus? If you thought Iraq could build lots of big old hurt things, you'd want to stop them. in fact, lets go back there with a bit of wood and a chainsaw, root out anyone else who fancies a bit. Lets....
Wait there just a darn tootin' minute.....
So he's saying that if things change, Iraq will build WMD's? So, he wasn't building them at the time?
Ohhhh.
So the sanctions were working?
Ohhhhhhhhhhhh.
So we didn't do good?
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Poo.
Oh well. Come on. Cheer up, it's all over now. Lord Goldsmith was a good 'un too. I liked his style of high quality flip-flopping. "It's legal, it's not, it's legal, it's not". Nice to see the lives of hundreds and thousands of people decided by pulling the petals from a daisy. Don't get enough key decisions made like that. I mean, I decided whether or not to kill those hookers in my basement like that, but that's another story.
So, poor old Clare had to step up and cut through all the legal jargon and definitions of terms to point out how she saw events: "We were in a bit of a lunatic asylum" seemed to sum up how it felt as a member of the general public at the time as well as how it felt inside the cabinet. I liked her zeal: "Blame the French, concoct the legal authority and off we go..". The problem for Clare Short's credibility lies in how she comes across, a bit like a mad aunt at a wedding, railing against the happy couple and mumbling that "It'll never work" whilst at the same time eating plenty of the buffet and drinking the free wine and six months later, smugly tutting when the divorce comes through.
It's true that she didn't resign immediately and it's also true that she remains a politician and, therefore, quite likely to have fashioned a power base constructed on her caricatured opposition to the war without totally showing the courage to match her apparent conviction. Controversy creates profile and for a politician, profile is important to create the illusion of power. Still, she got an ovation from the crowd and perhaps she has laid to rest the rage and anger that she harboured for the Blair administration by getting it off her chest and on the record.
It still doesn't change anything though; the human cost, the poverty, the civil unrest and the political vacuum created by regime change all remain in Iraq. Having destroyed its past and its present, this war threatens the future of a country, an entire region of the world. Suddenly, this huge practical joke that was played on us doesn't seem so funny.
For me, how ever much I secretly rage, the image of that spilt paint still lingers. It simply wont come off the walls.
Byebyeblackbirds xx
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