Breathless

Below is a short story without a title. It was written to be read aloud, preferably by someone with a largish lung-capacity. It was inspired by the picture which precedes it, and so in a rather heavy- handed manner clocks in at exactly 1000 words.

The chances of fossilisation are ridiculously small, especially for a land dwelling mammal. Without a convenient pool of soft sediment to keel over and die in there is a greater than 99% chance that you will just dissolve down into nothingness within a few millennia. Normally nothing of our physical selves will remain for any future generations to find. I run this by Fizel and he thinks for a minute and then says: tough shit and I just glare at him because I’ve made it clear that I’m only half way through a monologue and this is the kind of remark that might stop a lesser raconteur stone dead. I rack up the glare to say ‘tough shit to you too’ and carry on with the story because I’m about to sell Fizel a ten bag and if he wants my drugs he can damn well wait until I’ve finished talking. I run over the basic process of fossilization and explain how in special cases large collections of bones can become fossilized after some catastrophic event like Pompeii or maybe the Burgess shale although of course he doesn’t have a clue what either of these things are. I make sure it’s all laid out before I reach the point- so how do you think civilization is going to end? He thinks again, his bushy eyebrows knitting together and for a second I think he’s going to bring out some religious story because he’s an on-again off-again Muslim and likes to drop it into conversation when he’s more on than off and I don’t really have a problem with that but it’s going to be another massive stumbling block for my rapidly developing narrative and I don’t want to have to manoeuvre around his religious beliefs just to finish a story I’m starting to lose interest in anyway but eventually he shrugs and just says: war, and I nod and smile and say: exactly. If human civilization eventually ends it’s going to be through some catastrophic event - nuclear destruction, a self-sustaining rapid climate shift, some kind of devastating retro virus. We’re all going to go at the same time, geologically speaking, so for one thing that’s a greater number of bodies hitting the ground at the same time - means more bones. Also there’s probably going to be some kind of disaster effect like at Pompeii that means more bones are going to be preserved, nuclear winter for instance: all those people die choking in radioactive ash, like those savages on the Bikini atolls. That’d do for a layer of soft sediment, and everything else is dying at the same time so you’ve got ground cover and no cycle of decomposition, not to mention all the people that would shuffle off in sealed environments that have never existed before now so the estimates could go up hugely! It doesn’t have to be a massive increase, there’s enough of us around and that number is only going to increase in the near future so if it goes up as high as say a percent that’s still what? I get the calculator on my phone because I haven’t got a clue and I can’t remember how many noughts there are in a billion anyway but I say with triumph 60 million and spread my arms. So loads of us will make it into the fossil record- it could be you or me if the world ends soon enough and when some wise alien species excavates our ravaged globe it could be us they dig up and put in glass boxes for their children to look at. Fizel waits for a sufficient time to pass to make it look like he’s actually considered this and then says ‘sound’ and looks expectantly at me and I sigh and say fine and motion for him to give me the tenner and then I gulp down the last of my pint and indicated the plastic tobacco poach that has sat between us all this time and he grins and puts it in the pocket of his stupid puffer coat that makes him look like a drug dealer then he makes some excuse and gets up to leave and surprises me by turning around before he’s taken two steps and says wouldn’t it be funny if we got fossilized together and the aliens would wonder what the fuck we were about and come up with some history shit even though all we were doing is shotting weed and I smile and say it’s a nice thought already wishing he’d get out of my hair. And then on the bus later I think about what he said and think that he’s probably right, how when the end comes most of us will be at work or sat on buses like I am and the people pressed into the fossil record next to us will probably be total strangers and anyone who finds us will perhaps never suspect as much. Then I catch the scent of the girl sat in front and it doesn’t smell of anything specific, not coconut or flowers just the way girls smell when their hair is clean. Then when I get home the front door is open and the whole place stinks of cigarettes and Mattie is sat in front of the television in his school uniform looking bored because you’ve forgotten to take him to school and when I ask him if he’s hungry he leaps right up so you’ve obviously forgotten to feed him and that he can’t reach into the fridge by himself and it takes me a while to find you because you’re always in the last room I check and this time it’s mine and you don’t even hide the fact that you’ve been going through my stuff for funds and I think of the girl on the bus and how her hair smelled and I think that there are worse things than being fossilized next to total strangers.

Botheration

I've written a short piece to be read aloud that I thought I'd share with you. Unfortunately I've left it on the bally university computers. You can read it Thursday, folks.

Love affairs, spinerips and explosions

My apologies for the late post, I’ve got my job at Waterstone’s back and coupled with my writing course I’m basically working a six day week. Having said that, I should still find the energy to lumber you with my self-indulgent attempts at wit and comment- I’m just being a bit pathetic. Although if you’ve been paying attention to the blog thus far this shouldn’t come as a major surprise.

I’ve started playing Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 2 in strictly rationed bursts. Rationed, partly because it belongs to my long-suffering and ever-tolerant housemate and I’m already a massive drain on his time and possessions (and, although he doesn’t know it, all the good food out of his part of the fridge) but MOSTLY because my love affair with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 1 got a little… intense. ‘Hanging around in the car park of her job’ or ‘four hundred page letters written in blood’ intense. I got over it (with the help of a 12-step programme) but it didn’t do wonders for my undergraduate degree or my interpersonal relationships.

It wasn’t exactly a new problem either. When it comes to computer games, I am the addict’s addict. Before inexorable and intrusive things like deadlines, bills and council tax started to hammer spitefully at my door, I used to spend hours playing up to the stereotype of my generation. I wasn’t even that good at games, I just had more than my fair share of bloody mindedness and less than my fair share of proper mates. Sigh.

I also treated video games as a true competition; I dislike losing in any circumstances, and video games allowed my to pick my battles a bit. When, at age 9, the final boss on Spider-Man VS. The Kingpin proved too much of a challenge for my tiny thumbs, I put it aside. But I didn’t forget. Instead I waited six years for my motor skills to reach their peak, took the Mega Drive down from the shelf, blew the dust off it, and then rained down pixillated fury on the my digital adversary.

Having an interest in video games and relatively lax parents meant that, like many of my close friends, I was exposed to a high level of simulated violence at a young age. I stress simulated in order to establish the proper context. In Final Fight you would punch, kick and suplex your never-ending enemies (who all for some reason looked like members of Public Image Ltd.) until they kicked the virtual bucket, uttering a touching woeful scream and then disappearing. In an episode of Tom and Jerry that has stuck with me through the years, Tom restrains the local dog with a sturdy rope and, while the dog strains and barks in an effort to escape, smashes all his teeth out with a baseball bat.

I’m being unfair on Tom and Jerry, certainly. They and other classic cartoons of their ilk adhere strictly to the laws of cartoon physics, which establish an easily understood set of parameters relating to violence and its effects. Video games used to operate under a similar set of parameters- it quite clearly wasn’t ‘real’ as the same bad guys appeared each time. And also (and this should not be discounted) the whole thing looked like crap. Up until about five minutes ago most computer renderings of fisticuffs looked like the work of impressionist artists whose chosen medium was Lego.

As graphical accuracy improved, the level of violence seemed to increase. This doesn’t strike me as unlikely; violence can sometimes be a direct partner to excitement, as action films have long demonstrated. The urge to blow things up in video games had always been present, submerged under poor rendering. I’m sure game designers would have been ripping people’s heads of and attaching guns to chainsaws from the very start had the tools been available.

In the last five years or so it has been argued that video games depict reality with such accuracy as to be as direct an influence on people as reality itself. I’m not going to explore this. Really, I’m not. Video games come out of the telly, and you make them go by wiggling your fingers and thumbs. You can’t play them in a power cut, and in them you get to be a racecar driver or an interstellar soldier or a world champion martial artist, whereas in real life you just go to school and watch The Apprentice and your favourite cereal is Wheetos. If you get computer games confused with real life then you are deluded or otherwise mentally handicapped.

An argument I will give more credence to is that accurate depiction or not, people are influenced by what they see. This one is backed up with a lot more in the way of scientific investigation. We learn from what we see and, as social animals, we learn especially from the actions of other people, whether they be real or imagined. Panic journalism and selfish political agendas normally overtake the argument, which leads to it being wildly inflated. Just because in GTA you can have sex with a prostitute, and then run her over with your car to get the money back, doesn’t mean your twelve year old is going to start doing it (he probably can’t even drive).

However, some of the logic is apparent. For example, fairy tales teach children lessons about fear, love, justice and self-sacrifice, and it doesn’t matter that even a child could tell them apart from reality for their lessons to influence.

The idea that children might be influenced by violent video games enough to commit violent acts is therefore a compelling one. And yet… I spent my tweens learning the button combination to make Sub-Zero rip peoples’ spines out, and I have never (successfully) ripped out a real person’s spine. In Call of Duty I shoot on sight. Or maybe grenade on sight. Or stab on sight. But when I bumped into someone on campus today as they unexpectedly rounded a corner I did not frantically thrust my combat knife into their sternum; instead I said, “I’m awfully sorry, pardon me,” and let them brush past. (They just glared at me. I wish I had stabbed them).

The difference, obviously, is that I know that ripping people’s spines out is morally wrong (as well as frightfully rude). The fact that I have attempted it in fiction and enjoyed it is not enough to make me experiment with it in reality.

I have been sufficiently socialised to accept the ‘right’ way of acting in society. I have a moral code implanted in me that overrides all else. I do not want to cause suffering in real people because society has taught me that it is wrong to do so. I can cause in video games if I feel like it precisely because I know it is not real suffering (although that isn’t my normal intention- unless it’s the suffering of my friends as I grind them into paste).

The children most likely influenced by violent imagery are those that lack ‘adequate’ socialisation. If they do not have people to show them the right way to act, they may draw inference from what they see instead. And, if the morals and norms of society are not properly ingrained, just telling them otherwise isn’t going to help. If most of your parenting was done by an Xbox, other people telling you how to act will end up as just that- a set of commands you can choose to ignore.

The problem with this argument is that is identifies those who are vulnerable as those most likely to be negatively affected by violent imagery games and other media. And well, people who are labelled as vulnerable are just that. Obviously they need stronger guidance, closer watching. Removing a single set of influencing risk factors isn’t going to make very much difference. There are more than enough examples of violence and moral skulduggery in real life for them to copy.

So if (God forbid) children ever end up in my care I’ll be more worried about they time they spend on the computer than what they do while they’re there. Except in regards to the Internet, obviously. That invention is a bringer of malice and sin and anyone who uses it is a lily-livered wanksock. You there, you reading this- how do you sleep at night?

A short post about photographs

I’m not an ugly guy. Let’s be honest, I’m not exactly Brad Pitt either, but I rate myself a cautious 6.5 on the Completely Arbitrary Aesthetic Assessment Apparatus (patent pending). I might increase that to a giddy 7.5 if I’m wearing nice clothes or the light is especially bad. I wish I could say that looks do not matter- but as long as they do I feel blessed to be of average attractiveness. I am all too aware of the alternatives, dear and soon-to-be-horrified reader.

The technological revolution of the late nineteenth century exposed a shameful secret about a small but significant fraction of the populace. These people looked just like everybody else, had similar features and so on, and generally passed unnoticed in the crowd. Some were even considered pleasant to look at, perhaps even handsome. It was only the new art of photography that exposed these charlatans to the rest of the world. While they appeared to be of regular appearance when in motion, the still image revealed their true, hideous visages.

Families and friends would be shocked at the change, disgusted by the very images they had sought to take, to keep and treasure. These ‘unphotogenic’ people would become the scourge of the captured image, ruining portraits and crowd scenes alike with their deformed, gargoyle-like countenances. I know this story all too well because… I am unphotogenic.

I mean, really. Is it too much to ask for a printed image to accurately represent the face I see in the mirror each morning? OK, I’m no Adonis, that much we’ve identified. But am I truly the shiny-faced balloon man that I see in my new Facebook photos every Sunday morning? I have been told on more than one occasion that I have a nice smile. Were those kind words spoken in truth, or were they really a horrified reaction to the manic cartoon character grin that I seem to consistently sport? I know my eyes point in the same direction in real life, so why can’t they manage it in pictures?

In order that this pain might be minimised in future I hereby present a list of classic errors made by those that would have their image immortalised. Heed my words, and may the secret uggos among you forever remain a secret.

1.Hush your gums. If you aren’t smiling, keep your flippin’ mouth shut. In a photograph no one wants to see any of the following: your tonsils, your epiglottis, your fillings, your chewed gum, the lipstick on your teeth.

2.Try and face front. I have only a passing acquaintance with the back of my head. I would probably be able to pick it out of a police line-up, but I don’t have a collection of photos devoted solely to it. At least, I didn’t, until people started taking photos of me in public. Now I have a huge public collection of pictures of my head from all angles, none of them flattering.

3.Stay still. Some of the most famous images of the 20th century are of bodies in motion, of dancers, sportsmen and soldiers. You are none of these people. Getting photographed will expose your movements as what they really are- a collection of stop-start jerks and flailing limbs. If you are being photographed while dancing, multiply this by a reasonable figure. Say… a million.

4.Time your pose. SmilesmilesmileBLINKsmilesmilesmilesmileRELAXsmilesmile. Guess when the flash went off?

5.Blow your nose. Yet another snap ruined because you’ve got a sugar frosting of ketamine around your nostril. Makes you really wish you hadn’t accepted your mother’s friend request, doesn’t it?

6.Concentrate. Normally it doesn’t take much of a conscious effort to keep you features aligned. Unfortunately, photographs and alcohol go together like… well, like photographs and alcohol. It will take mental fortitude to keep your features from melting like Morph under a hairdryer.

7.If you ain’t got it, fake it. You should have at least one ‘go-to’ pose for when the camera appears. This is your last bastion of control, with which to deflect the harsh light of photo-reality. Chaps, just make a gun with your fingers and point it at the camera. Ladies, put one finger to your lips and look beatifically into the sky. Come on people, work with me here.

8.Know when to quit. Maybe this will be the one. Maybe this will be that new profile picture I’ve been waiting for. Maybe this will be my next Christmas card. Maybe this will be the one my girlfriend likes. Maybe… oh, who am I kidding. Maybe I should just face the other way. Sigh. One more for the back-of-the-head collection.

Annulus

Here's a story for your delectation. It's called 'Annulus' and it's about... actually I have no idea what it's about. It's got a bit of sex in though. Thoughts to verbalslapstick@gmail.com. Enjoy!

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AZC6fkPHcTeWZDRicnZjMl8xaGtoc2ZoaGM&hl=en

Mo' money, fewer problems

I am growing a moustache to raise money for prostate cancer research. The 'stache won't be doing the fundraising itself, obviously, that is left to you good people and the fine folks at Movember. You can sponsor me here, should you wish, or why not sign up yourself, and change the face of men's health by growing something on yours. Go on, do good- don't shave.

Laughing at the man in the mirror

Last Friday night I sat down with several friends in a living room lit by candles to watch TV medium Derek Acorah contact the spirit of recently deceased King of Pop Michael Jackson. Now that sentence reads like the opening splash panel of a Transmetropolitan comic, but that is genuinely what I did with my Friday- my housemates were keen to watch it and I thought it worth it just to remain in their company.

This sort of thing is so far removed from my normal viewing habits that it might as well have been Ricky Tomlinson presenting an episode of America’s Next Top Model where the contestants have to show off jetpack flightsuits designed by chimps. If it isn’t The Wire or Buffy I’m not really interested. I would much rather have watched something else, while secretly hoping that THAT show would be interrupted by an emergency news broadcast detailing the shocking Michael Jackson led outbreak of zombie celebrities. But I had enough cynicism and Pringles to get me through the most painful televisual encounter, so I sucked it up.

I would like to say that I spent the whole two hours indulgently but sarcastically mocking the show and my friends desire to watch it, and well… I did, really. I spent two hours laughing- mostly at the witticisms of my friends but partly at the ludicrous nature of the whole situation. Hearing Acorah mumble his way through an unconvincing séance in his faint Scouse brogue while June Sarpong phoned in surprise was unintentionally hilarious.

When I started planning this blog post in my head, this is about where I began a diatribe against ‘mediums,’ Sky Television for publicising them, and the public for being taken in by their cynical, oily remit.

I got about half way through sketching it out before I noticed a vague feeling itching at my psyche, a sort of toothache of the soul. It wasn’t much to begin with, but the more I planned it out the uneasier I felt. I recognised it quickly, because I’d felt it before, when I was planning another blog post. It was self-disgust.

Ages ago I started to write a blog post about the Jeremy Kyle show, which I had begun to watch occasionally in the company of a female friend. I criticised Kyle, obviously (because he’s a tedious, self-important grief vampire with a gimlet eye and possibly no soul), and then I began to criticise the people who watched the show.

I got quite a long way into it before I realised that my narrative voice had begun to resemble some freakish amalgamation of every Daily Mail commentator ever. This was something of a shock to me, as not only do I prefer The Guardian, I also hate the Daily Mail so much that I occasionally reverse the top copy on the stack in newsagents so that people might be spared the inescapably primal fear inspired by its headlines. Most of the posts on verbal slapstick describe my attempt to draw some pithy life message out of a fairly mundane event, so I was perturbed by how quickly my content devolved into a simple, savage invective against a group of people I knew absolutely sod all about.

I realised I was doing it again with this séance thingy. I was preparing a tirade against a group of people who I considered inferior because they did not share my views: that mediums are either deluded or shameless exploiters of grief and uncertainty, and that there is no afterlife that we can comprehend and that even if there is why the hell would people who had made it there give a crap about a subsection of British society who were watching Sky1 on a Friday night?

My views don’t really matter (although they are, of course, completely correct). I can express them however I want, but it’s not really cricket to criticise those that do not share them, especially in light of the following:

Did anyone that watched the show really believe that Acorah was channelling the spirit of Jackson? Really? That if the ultimate question about life and our existence, that which has baffled scientists and theologians for millennia, had been answered by the appearance of a dead man’s spirit live on national television, and the world’s most popular entertainer and possibly most recognised figure in the history of mankind was communicating with us from the afterlife in front of our very eyes, June Sarpong would interrupt to let us know we had to go to commercials? Was an advert about Stargate Universe and one for a Glade plug-in THAT much more important than the undiscovered country beyond the veil?

Sod it. Maybe people do believe in that sort of afterlife. It’s not like I can construct an argument based on proof to go against theirs. And why shouldn’t they? It’s a cold ol’ world out there. The markets are recovering at a snail’s pace, the planet is heating up, the twins stay on X Factor every week. Whether belief in the afterlife is comforting or not, it certainly brings some extra enjoyment to a Sky1 special.

Everyone has a few guilty pleasures. The séance show turned out to be one of mine. So it seems a little hypocritical to make fun of those that might have enjoyed it for more direct reasons. From now on, no media is safe, but its audience is off limits. I get enough self-disgust from my substance abuse, thank you very much.

flaw

We partly define our reality by its flaws, by its inconsistencies and their effect on our own suffering. As we struggle for satisfaction and fulfilment, it seems obvious that the hurdles on the way to said satisfaction should be part of the framework we use to measure truth and what is real.

Remember in The Matrix where Smith tells Neo about the first matrix construct, in which reality was designed to simulate humanity’s idea of perfection? The people held within the construct could not process a reality that filled their every want, and their minds rejected it, leading to their death. (If you don’t remember the scene you could always go and watch it, but to be honest I’ve pretty much spoiled it for you now.)

This is an extreme example of the cliché ‘too good to be true.’ Something or someone who appears too close to accepted ideas about perfection is deemed suspicious, potentially false. An offer or transaction without a sense of balance, without some caveat of loss to weigh against the gain, is rendered fundamentally suspect.

Obviously this concept extends to our attempts to render reality. When we create a facsimile of the real it has to include facsimile faults, or something appears… off. Fictional characters need fictional flaws to be convincing, unless their perfection is a conceptual part of the story. My buddy Nash has, as always, explored this concept to humorous effect. Man, I hate that guy.

Flaws need not refer solely to character points. A good old-fashioned injury might easily suffice, at least in part. If you read the introductory chapters of several novels in a row you’ll see what I’m talking about, everyone has a wine coloured birthmark on the back of their neck, or a scar on their chin from falling through a screen door, a slight crook in their finger where they got it caught in a bike chain, different coloured eyes after a head injury as a toddler. Or a… never mind, you can see what I’m driving at.

It’s a good start because physical injuries are easy to envision in comparison to other, less palpable flaws. Readers have a tougher time understanding and relating to, say, a slowly developing inferiority complex than a gammy eye or a chin scar. Unfortunately the need for verisimilitude extends beyond facial disfigurements. In fact, many of us do have a slowly developing inferiority complex or something equally baffling, and so creating a rounded fictional character means taking a swing at that as well.

There are a few easy ways out of this requirement. This first is to include a personality flaw that is the mental equivalent of a physical injury- one that is easily graspable and has effects that are immediately obvious. These faults are often most obvious in genre fiction, where a character can be as much a plot solving device as they are dynamic creations in their own right. For example, several famous fictional detectives have foibles that are easily explained and can be consistently transplanted from one tale to the next. In most cases these fatal flaws are nothing more than vaguely antisocial vices: alcoholism, drug use etc. Huh, I think I just referred to alcoholism as a ‘vaguely antisocial’ phenomenon, I’m sorry about that. But in most cases the problems faced by Rebus, Holmes et al are not the socially crippling addictions and psychological problems faced by proper people. Phillip Marlowe drank too much fine scotch while playing chess- he never woke up in a bus station covered in his own sick.

The second way to create believable characters with believable flaws is to simply pick one that seems truthful or relevant and then tell the reader as much.

“Johnny was a handsome twenty five year old with a creeping inferiority complex and a scar in his eyebrow left from when he had ploughed through a glass coffee table as a toddler.”

That covers all the bases, but it feels a little forced, doesn’t it? Well actually I made sure that paragraph sucked to prove a point, and because I’m a horrible human being, but I think the theory stands.

If you attend a creative writing class for any length of time, someone will eventually bring out the old favourite: ‘show don’t tell.’ This refers to the belief that good writing does not rely on telling the reader what is happening, telling them what to think, what conclusions to draw. Instead good writing should simply describe, show the reader what is happening, and if the quality of the prose is high enough then your intention might shine through.

So in order to provide a plausible demonstration of a character’s flaws, a writer has to rely on their actions. If your protagonist is a stifling egomaniac then he’ll have to act like one. Or more importantly, if you WANT your protagonist to BE a stifling egomaniac then you’ll have to MAKE him act like one. On the other hand, if you keep making your character act like a stifling egomaniac then that is how the reader will see him, regardless of what you intended.

So really there are no flaws, only flawed actions. A bit like real life, which obviously is what we’re trying to emulate. To be honest, I forget what I was going for here. I’m a forgetful guy. As I just demonstrated, hey wait, THAT was it.

Fight

You might have already decided, having spared a glance at the unexplainably tiny mugshot that rests on the top right of this page, that I am not really the fighting type. Perhaps it is the lovely pink tassels on my hoodie. Perhaps it is the fetching blue fingerless mittens. Perhaps it is the fact that it is clearly the middle of a cold night, and I am eating an iced lolly with apparent enjoyment.

You would be correct in your supposition. I am strictly a lover, rather than a fighter. (And how!)

Despite the aforementioned rages, I like to think I have a long fuse, especially against human provocation. It takes a fair bit for people to piss me off, a lot more in fact than is required by inanimate objects like low coffee tables and tins falling off shelves. This means that I am unlikely to respond with violence to all but the most hearty smack talk.

This makes me sound like some kind of pacifist Zen master, who fears to tread the path of anger lest the ancient kung-fu dragon imprisoned in my soul once again ventures forth to punish evildoers by kicking them in the face until they fall over. What it really means is: I am an abject coward. Like, totally. I’m frightened of everything, especially getting kicked in the face until I fall over.

I am, therefore, not going to be starting any fights, unless they are the sorts of fights where you hide until your assailant has given up and gone to watch a movie or started making toast, and then you wallop them over the head with a half brick. Now I know Hollywood exaggerates everything but I’m pretty sure that if those sorts of encounters counted as legitimate scraps we would have been told by now. The only time I’m going to get into a proper fight is after I’ve exhausted all my other options. These include but are not limited to:

1. Running.
2. Hiding.
3. Paying someone else to fight on my behalf.
4. Asking to work off my incurred debt to my assailant, perhaps by becoming their valet or PA.
5. Getting on my knees and begging them not to hit me.

This ought to mean that I manage, through a combination of sheer cowardly custarding and patience, to avoid getting in a rumble at all. Not so, and why? Because I’m the sort of guy people love to fight. On the face of it, it seems obvious: I’m an obnoxious bad dancer with a sharp tongue, who spills his pint a lot. But that isn’t the real reason. People want to fight me because I am a coward.

Nash has, as always, made this point before, and accurately described the sort of person that takes part in nightly street brawls. I would, if I may, like to explore the concept a little further, to demonstrate that not only is violence against others reprehensible, but also a big sack of bullshit.

The masculine culture of fighting in public operates under some pretty fuzzy logic. We are taught from a young age that hitting people isn’t nice, no seriously Billy stop that or you will get SUCH A SMACK. No weekend warrior, despite their level of intoxication, really thinks that clobbering another person is all fine and dandy. The actual act, therefore, requires some pretty hefty rationalisation to make it palatable.

Fighting is seen as a competition, or a means to settle disagreements. Two men enter, one man leaves upright. It brings to mind the epic wrestling bouts of the Olympian Greeks, or perhaps the gladiatorial contests of the Romans. Maybe even the seconded duals involving sword and pistol partaken in by Jacobean gentlemen to settle arguments and pay debts of honour. Well, it brings them to my mind, but I doubt a significant fraction of these recreational rumblers paid close attention in history lessons.

The point I’d like to make is that the fights I see in and out of clubs, in train stations and house parties, the sort I can sense arriving like the electricity in the air before a thunderstorm, aren’t a competition of any sort, and settle no arguments. Perhaps if the gladiatorial aspect was stronger one might claim that they were battles of honour and perhaps the occasional few are. But I can say in all honesty that I have never seen a fight in which none of the following took place:

a) One participant was significantly larger, more aggressive or better armed than another.
b) There was a discrepancy in numbers, i.e. one poor bastard was outnumbered.
c) The fight was begun instantly and without warning, to the shock of one party.

The last one is one I see most often. You upset another young man through some minor or imagined slight, and they nut you before you can assess the situation. The next morning they tell their friends about the sarky cunt that started on them, and how they sorted him out. I’ve been shoved, punched and headbutted without warning. I have NEVER been challenged to a fight.

The myth of ‘talking it outside’ is exactly that, existing only in BBC1 soaps and romantic comedies. People that are regularly involved in fights are bullies, sorry chaps. You don’t start a fight you can’t win, and so you don’t start a fight you aren’t certain you can win. Unfortunately, well… I look like a fight you can win. Maybe I should change my profile picture.

Story: 'Crossroads'

A new short story which can be found at:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AZMsaF3qj2kKZG01a25rNV8xZnJzOXI4Z2Q&hl=en

It's called 'Crossroads.' If you liked the last one I wrote then.. well, actually this one is nothing like the previous one. So, if you hated 'The Stooge,' maybe you should give it a try. If you like my stuff- or pretend to like my stuff because you're a good friend and that's what good friends do (and your constant support is much appreciated, don't ever change), then give it a go too.

I tried to make it a bit... actually, creepy is too strong a word, I didn't really get what I was going for. Still, it's a little different from stuff I've done before.

Same deal as before, double space it to make it easier to read. You could even print the damn thing if you feel like it, as it's only a few thousand words, which works out at about six pages.

Any comments can be addressed to verbalslapstick@googlemail.com. I promise this email address works correctly this time, I fluffed the original one by spelling it incorrectly.

Thank you to anyone that reads it, and thank you to everyone that stops by here. You're all smashing people.

What'll we do tonight, brain?

I wish I used my brain more. A common lament, I suspect, but I mean it in a sense beyond the immediate. Obviously I do still wish I were more thoughtful and considering in my actions, more capable of logical or complex thought processes. I wish I pondered the consequences of my doings to a greater extent, to thereby avoid the unfortunate mishaps that seem to plague my adventures (unwise sexual encounters, I’m talking to you).

I wish I were smarter, definitely. But, like being taller (or, indeed, a baller) or having better eyesight, wishing for extra cranial capacity is unlikely to get me anywhere. I can certainly try and find more things to put in my brain, and this is an endeavour that will hopefully fill my entire life.

But what I really wish is that my brain would give me a little more say about what goes on aboard the good ship JP. It seems to me like I don’t get enough say in the matter.

Your brain is the most complex machine humanity has ever encountered. Abstract thought is all very impressive but what you ought to be really grateful for is all those sublime reactions that keep your body ticking away, all of which your brain takes care of at no extra charge. Regulating temperature, blood concentration, insulin and glucose levels, the rates at which your organs function, your metabolic rate and the hormones that control your emotions, urges and desires. We think ‘run’ and your brain begins to balance the systems to maximise our running output, as well as sending countless electrical signals to the relevant muscles to get us up to speed. Your brain does a whole load of shit without you even having to ask.

Your brain keeps your body working as best it can within preset parameters, a concept known as homeostasis. Consider the myriad systems it is in control of. Consider the thousands of impulses needed every second just to direct these systems. Now imagine trying to control them all through direct thought. If we were in complete control of our bodies, we’d burn our minds out in no time, struggling to cope under the immense pressure of just staying alive. Good ol’ brain, then.

Still, sometimes it’s difficult not to feel a little hard done by. The knowledge that some clinical depression is caused by chemical imbalances in the brain makes it seem like Mr. Thinky up there is holding out on us. We could be happy, if our brain felt like making us so, only it doesn’t. We don’t have to be fat; our brain could just jiggle the hypothalamus around so we didn’t feel quite so hungry. The possibilities are endless.

For me, it would have to be sleep. Insomnia may have a genetic component; it seems likely, as it appears to run in my family. My father struggles with it, and my youngest brother also. As disorders go it ain’t so bad, but it’s not a huge amount of fun either. It is even harder to swallow when I lie awake thinking that blissful oblivion is just a few hormones away.

Imagine if we could work on a more cooperative basis with our brains. When we thought it was time to go to sleep, we could just tell the brain it was so, and off we’d go together. Everybody gets what they need. An ideal system.

Of course it can’t work like that. Machines do not work that way, and at the level we are talking about your brain is just that: a machine. As far as I am concerned it is probably for the best, as I doubt I am really the man to be left in charge.

My brain does a lot for me, that we have already established. And how do I repay its kindness? I poison it with drugs and alcohol. I feed it more than what it needs of some things, and starve it from all the rest. I go without sleep, and then complain when its rhythms are upset. Homeostasis matters not a jot to me, I smash through the brain’s delicate systems in search of selfish hedonism.

So I can’t really complain. If I’m going to do Ecstasy, I only have myself to blame when I can’t get warm for hours at a time. When I’m drunk and constantly need a pee, I can feel my brain prissily stating:

“It isn’t MY fault. Everything was going fine until YOU got involved. Now look at us, not enough serotonin to go around, and I can’t get your bloody heartbeat to slow down. Yes, I KNOW you need a pee, you’ve ingested five pints of fluid. No you can’t have any more hormones, they’ve all gone. Well you shouldn’t have demanded them all at once, should you? And for fuck’s sake would you put that cigarette out? Can’t I leave you for five seconds without you deliberately ingesting a toxin? Was all that basic danger recognition we learnt as a toddler a complete waste of time? Honestly, I don’t know why I bothered dragging you down from the trees.”

So maybe it’s best that my brain does all the really challenging stuff itself, and leaves the idle musings to me. And maybe I should treat the old guy a tad better than I do. But I really would like some sleep now. Pretty, pretty please?

In other news

I have the internets! Dear old internet, full of Java and html and... other technical sounding things. To be honest, I am much refreshed by my little spell off the grid, although a little disconcerted by how difficult it makes your life. Email has become the preferred mode of communication for every aspect of my university's staff, and it's been a stressful three weeks without it. I'm kidding, of course, I've just missed the porn.

But the portal is now open, and I can resume hawking my cerebral spittle into the big copper chamber pot of Blogger. Doesn't that sound wonderful?

In other news, I took on my dishwasher and lost. In the aftermath I've decided to shelve plans for my novel and begin a new project based on our turbulent relationship, and how we finally found other partners (I say, 'found other partners,' in Dishie's case it means 'found her way into the skip). Provisional title: Suds and the City. Excerpt below. See ya'll next week, and let's get some regularity round here!

dishwasher

“Work!” I bellowed, giving the dishwasher a resounding thump.

The dishwasher failed to comply.

“Work, you bastard!” I iterated, opening the dishwasher door and slamming it shut again.

The dishwasher rumbled thoughtfully, as if processing my request. Then it fell silent again.

“Why won’t you work? Why is everything so hard?” I asked, my voice trembling.

The dishwasher refrained from answering either question. The second of these, admittedly, was a little unfair, and I wasn’t really expecting an answer.

“…,” I said, and opened the door again. I pressed a few of the buttons, waited for the beeping to subside, and then closed the door again.

“…,” said the dishwasher.

I decided to change my tactics.

“…Please work?” I asked, in as servile a voice as I was able.

With lordly composure the dishwasher surveyed my harried face, my rumpled clothes. Its adamantine face remained unmoved, and it kept its peace.

There was silence for a time.

“I hate you,” I said softly. Perhaps it did not wish to encourage me, or was disappointed in my shallow conduct. Whatever the case the dishwasher decided to keep silent.

“I… I spoke to my step-mum earlier,” I continued quietly. I did not wish to speak, but it had to be said. Things could not carry on the way they were.

“She said… she said that it’ll cost an awful lot to get a guy out to look at you, and with all the money we’re spending on the bathroom…”

I waited. Nothing. I began to grow angry, left here in stillness.

“She said we should just get another!” I blurted. “I can just buy one and she’ll refund me!”

It studied me. I began to realise that it did not take me seriously. The threat had gone practically unnoticed.

“It shouldn’t finish like this. It doesn’t… it doesn’t have to be this way.”

The dishwasher clunked. It was a final exclamation on everything that had happened. There was nothing left to say.

Email

Contact at verbalslapstick@googlemail.com. I promise that it works now. It turns out that a: I can't spell 'Slapstick,' and b: I'm rubbish at making new email addresses anyway. Should all be taken care of now.

Interlude: in which a favoured interest comes to an end, and the writer has a brief think

On September 11th one of my favourite things on the Internet, the webcomic Scarygoround, will come to an end. *EDIT* Obviously the delay in publishing this post means that it is ALREADY over. Head to the site to read the hundreds of comments from wellwishers and fans remarking on its end.

I know my ol’ pal Nash is a Scarygoround fan, which ought to tell you everything you need about its quality. Scarygoround describes the very funny, slightly macabre and proudly odd exploits of possibly insane English rose Shelly Winters, the lives and loves of her friends, and the adolescent adventures occurring at the local secondary school Tackleford Grammar. It has been on the links tab on this blog since I started doing it. It’s just to the right, just over there. Go on, off you go, I shall wait.

I’m not as upset as I might be because John Allison, the man responsible for Scarygoround (and its spiritual prequel Bobbins) will be starting a new project on the very same website. I am eager to see what the new direction entails. I have a lot of faith in Mr. Allison, as he has been making me happy (in a quiet sort of way) for a few years now.

Mr. Allison’s reasons for finishing the comic are ones I can broadly support. He believes, as do I, that nothing can be extended forever without becoming diluted- that returning time and again to the same characters, the same formulas, is bound to run them dry, and taint the memory of what made them special in the first place.

He also has issues of readership to worry about. Scarygoround is how Mr. Allison makes his living; selling prints, commissioned artwork and merchandise related to the comic. It is therefore in more than just his creative interest that people read his work. Only a small fraction of those who view the comic actually buy the stuff that is on offer, and so if Mr. Allison is to stay in caviar Toblerone’s and keep up the payments on his rocket car, he needs to keep the number of readers as high as he possibly can.

Web comics rarely generate a sustained amount of publicity. This is not to say that people who enjoy them lose interest, but simply that people tend to get on at the ground floor or not at all. For a long running comic like Scarygoround it can be difficult to convince new readers to start without alienating the old. In print comics (and here I refer to the funnybooks, not the 'every day' comics you find in newspapers) a lull in the narrative that allows new readers to get on board without a lot of prior knowledge is called a ‘jumping on point.’ Because most long running comic books change writers and artists all the time their readers are quite used to peaks and troughs in the story. They are also used to continuity flying all over the place.

Web comics, on the other hand, have less room to work with. It is hard for artists to keep writing in start points without getting on the nerves of established readers, especially when the narrative only moves forward in daily increments.

So John Allison is hoping that the fans from Scarygoround will stick with him through the change, and that the new project will provide an opportunity for some new people to ride the bus.

Reading his thoughts on the necessity of attracting new readership, I had a short think about my own. I rest under no illusions; I know full well that Verbal Slapstick attracts only a few readers, mostly saintly and perspicacious friends who are generous in their support. I am grateful for their interest in what is essentially a vanity project. So far this endeavour has filled all my wants- it gives me a chance to write a bit, and think a bit, and provides a small audience for some of my other writing. A couple of people have read the last short story I wrote, which increases my general circulation by, I think, 200%.

Do I want more people to read this? Of course I do. It’s lovely to think people like what I write (and by extension, me) enough to swing past this part of the interwebs with any regularity. But I’m not in a situation like John Allison, in which I rely on my readers to provide part of my income. There is no need for me to reach any more readers, save to massage my own ego.

On the other hand, it would be nice to have more people commenting on the blog, especially anyone with ideas on what to talk about next. Also, the more people look at Verbal Slapstick, the more free criticism I get for my other scribblings. So perhaps I might start plugging this blog a little more. Would anybody mind? And if not, could they suggest ways in which I might go about it?

Sorry for this sudden bout of introspection. If you feel like some whimsy instead, I strongly suggest you give Scarygoround a try. The fact that it’s reached its end should not put you off. In fact, it strikes me as the perfect time to begin.

Notes on crashing your car

Moving home is always stressful, but I like to distil all the worry and menial labour that comes with trading domiciles into one super-woeful trip. By the time I’m finished packing the car resembles one of those impossibly difficult 3D jigsaw puzzles that menopausal women buy for adolescents at Christmas. This is not only a time saver, it also provides opportunity for a Viking funeral should you crash on the way to the new house. If ya gotta go, you may as well go surrounded by all your stuff, I say.

What it really means is that driving requires a little more care. Things that would normally not present much of a problem, something like a particularly sharp bend or a spot of sudden braking, now become more interesting challenges. Too much swerve on the corner and suddenly you’ve got half a leather office chair in your lap. Lots of people drive like they were taking part in a rally, but to my knowledge no rally racers fill the back of the car with mirrors and frying pans before setting off.

This all makes me a bit nervous, because I consider myself quite a careful driver. That statement sounds reprehensibly self-righteous, but it is born out of hard lessons and deep disappointment. A couple of years ago I had my first car crash, and since then I have been much more careful on the roads. You might think that this is a case of shutting the stable door when there’s an elephant in the room, or whatever the phrase is, and you’d be right. But if we learnt the lesson before we made the mistake, the mistake would not have been made. Probably.

If you tell someone that you have been in a car crash, they will immediately say: “Are you all right?” This, society teaches us, is the correct response to any tale of physical misfortune. Unless you are telling the story from a wheelchair or in a full neck-brace they can probably see that you look fine, but the statement has an implication of sympathy that is also required. (If you were telling the story from a wheelchair they presumably would have noticed, and begun the conversation with “Are you all right?” To which you would have replied, “Nah, I was in a car crash.”)

The conversation will then continue with further questioning, as your companion attempts to discover the particulars of your unhappy accident. At some stage in the proceedings enough of a picture will have been painted to allow the apportion of blame. This is the crucial step in the whole process, as it determines what course the rest of the conversation will run. If blame rests fully or partially with the driver being quizzed, then broad sympathy of the ‘what a bugger for you, on the other hand, it could have been much worse’ kind is in order. If blame can be completely attached to parties not present, then sympathy coupled with outrage is on the menu instead.

Here’s the thing though. It’s ALWAYS your fault, buddy. Let’s have a look at some of the most fundamental requirements of driving a car:

Number 1: You’re supposed to arrive at some sort of destination. This is the purpose for which cars were, in fact, designed. If you just drive around and around until you run out of petrol and have to stop you are technically driving, but it’s not really what the manufacturer intended.

Number 2: You aren’t supposed to hit anything. Anything at all. Ever.

So having a car crash contravenes at least these laws, and probably more besides. In fact there’s a pretty solid argument that’s says while involved in one, you aren’t really driving at all. You’re crashing, aren’t you.

No one likes to be blamed for anything, and for men in particular crashing your car is a basic failing. As previously mentioned driving is a masculine activity, and failing to drive effectively makes you look like a big sissy girl. And so most tales of automotive accident told by men allow for a certain amount of wiggle room, and other men respect that. Few blokes just come out and say. “I didn’t mean to crash into him… but then I crashed into him.”

My accident was the result of some scary driving from someone else (see, wiggle room). As I was pootling home one autumn evening someone overtook on the blind bend in front of me, nearly hitting the car immediately ahead of mine. The person ahead drove on for a few seconds and then suddenly emergency-stopped, which threw me completely off. My final thoughts ran something like this:

“Cor, that was close. Could’ve caused a nasty acci—OH MY COCKING CHRIST I’M GOING TO CRASH MY CAR!!”

I was not afraid; I can say that with absolute conviction. Instead I was angry, luminously angry at the world and myself. I knew in a split second that my little Italian car would be a write-off. It had crumple zones. Not just lines of weakness, or areas where crumpling might potentially take place- whole zones, dedicated solely to providing maximum crumplage. It was destined to fold up like a Ferrero Rocher in a lorry driver’s back pocket. I swore, fluently and eloquently, and then got out to see if the other driver was ok.

Police called, car moved, details taken, I did what everybody does after a stressful situation: I called me mum.

*CLICK*
“Hello?”
“Hi Mum, it’s me.”
“Hello, you. What’s up?”
“I’ve been in a crash, Mum.”
“Oooh, no! Was it an accident?”

(Only my mother needs to confirm that I am not intentionally ramming people with my car.)

“Yes, Mum.”
“Hmm… was it your fault?”
“No, see, there was this guy overtaking coming the other way…”

Wiggle room, see? What, you thought just because I wrote it I was exempt? Who am I, Jesus?

The signal is down

I know, I know, it's another post explaining that there is no post. But it's not my fault this time I swear! I'm writing this on a purloined iPhone as my new house has no internet connection and they won't let me back in the university library yet. FML. There are two shiny blog posts waiting patiently on my laptop, all buffed and shined for their big day on the interwebs. If it doesn't look like I'm getting a connection this week I'll pop them on a memory stick and go round someone else's house or something. In the meantime, talk amongst yourselves, or go and read Nash's blog, you know that's REALLY what you want to read.

It's flatpacked with goodness!

Next week I am moving out. Warm, fuzzy Norwich calls me back for at least one more year, and so I am gathering my belongings and headin’ out East. This means I can finally escape from the tyrannically benign regime of my parents (how DARE they cook all my meals and give me lifts everywhere) and be my own man again. The next blog post will therefore be written in the smoking crater that was once my new living room, surrounded by a fallout of empty takeaways and bottle caps.

The best thing about moving into a completely new place, even better than the possibility you’ll move in next to a sex-starved thirty something millionaire businesswomen, is flatpack furniture. Yes, the humble flatpack provides the most complete satisfaction a man without missing hands can enjoy.

Unpacking flat pack furniture (or ‘flacking’ to the more experienced) is a manly art, right up there with urban warfare and driving a digger. It combines some of them most masculine activities from start to finish:

1. Driving to get the furniture. While driving itself can be viewed as a masculine enterprise (especially if you lean into the corners and make nneeeooow noises), it is the furniture store itself that provides a rarely visited environment for manly skills. Aside from the expected heavy lifting you may also be placed in charge of a large and unwieldy trolley, giving you the opportunity to powerslide a grossly overloaded vehicle through the populated intersections between aisles. Again, nneeeooow noises can be deployed for maximum drama.

2. Driving back with the furniture. Driving again, but this time, driving under adverse conditions. On the United Nations scale of Invention and Improvisation Under Adverse Conditions, fitting 50 square meters of wooden and metal surfaces into a 2 square meter Peugeot rates just under repairing your tank under concentrated artillery fire. Your friends or significant other, now jammed into the passenger footwell under 30 kilos of mdf, will surely agree, as will the policeman who pulls you over for having 2 meters of metal piping sticking out of your open boot, secured with a single frayed bungee cord. “Yes sir, extremely original use of folding down the seats. You’re practically in the A-Team.”

3. Assembly. You are the mighty creator! From chaos, you have made order, stopping only for a cup if tea every fifteen minutes and that brief period when you realised you’d put the first bit together backwards! The assembling of flatpack furniture gives the illusion of concentrated mental and physical effort, whereas all you are really doing is re-assembling an object that someone else has designed and then deconstructed in the simplest way. The instructions on furniture from IKEA are simple enough not to require words; instead they rely on the same visual code used by Lego, with an androgynous jelly-baby man standing by looking purposeful. You’re basically putting together a giant Lego kit, except hopefully it won’t smash to pieces if you put any weight on it.

4. Unnecessary tool deployment. OK, so technically all it needs is the Allen key that was provided in the box. Still, it’s better to be prepared, which fully justifies you lugging every power tool you own round to you mum’s, just in case. And if it needs a screwdriver, why not use an electric one? It’s a timesaver, not just an excuse to hold something that looks a bit like a laser gun and makes exciting noises when you squeeze the trigger.

5. Acceptance of thanks. Some people do not enjoy the construction of flatpack furniture. These poor, uninitiated souls are normally female, and must NEVER be allowed to do so, lest they discover its joys and realise there is absolutely no skill to it, and that there was really no need to invite you over and make you all those sandwiches. In the meantime you can simply accept their thanks with noble composure, and a look that quietly says ‘financial compensation would normally be expected for the type of service I have just provided, but I have let it slide because I am that sort of man.’

Flatpack furniture is much maligned as being lower quality than your standard, pre-assembled stuff. But I put together an extendable dining table and chairs last week and let me tell you, whoever designed that table was a tupping genius. Despite involving sliding parts and pivots in the actual build, it was so easy to assemble that even your common or garden ignoramus like myself could put it together. And as I sat on my new chairs, contemplating how hideous the sofa in my new living room is, I felt the stirrings of pride warming my buttocks. And I’ve still got a coffee table to go. All is right with the world.

The Stooge/ notes on writing

I finished a short story. It's called The Stooge, and it's not very good. I am not fishing for compliments with this, there IS an awful lot wrong with this story. Firstly it is very over-long and needs some savage editing. I do my best work when I'm tidying things up- so much so that the initial writing of a story is often only a framework, a necessary hump to get over before I can start the more enjoyable work (for me) of some polishing. This story was also an exercise in starting and finishing something against a deadline, even if it was something that worked best only as an idea (truth be told, I got bored of writing this early on. I do that a lot). But I set myself a task and I finished it, so a big shiny medal for me, and a story to read for you:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AbGepPqkfWHSZGhxZ2RrNmRfMWd2bnE1NGRo&hl=en

If I were you (and boy, do I ever wish), I would copy and paste it into MS Word, and then block it and double space it. It'll mess up the speech a bit, but never mind.

Notes on the names: I only make up names for characters that have an ongoing significance for me. When I'm doing a writing exercise, I just unashamedly thieve them from other sources. 'Stephen Katz' was the pseudonym of Bill Bryson's funny but slightly unbalanced travel companion in 'Neither Here Nor There,' an excellent and well paced travelogue. Most of the other names are comic book characters (I do that a lot too). Try and spot them all... if you're some sort of obsessive.

If you have any thoughts on the story, email me at verbalslaptick@gmail.com and let me know. One thing, I need help with plotting, sentence structure and characterisation- proof reading is not required. This piece is probably FULL of mistakes, but I only finished it five minutes ago and can't be bothered to read over it, so I don't consider it a big deal.

In other news, I'll try and get a post done in the middle of the week, to say thanks for waiting on me.

A week off (sort of)

No post this week, unless something really witty strikes me (unlikely) because I’ve got a short story on the boil, and I need a kick up the arse to finish it. So the plan is: finish it this week, then plonk it somewhere on the interwebs so you can read it, if you feel like it. Hopefully stating my intentions will encourage me to finish it and stop fannying around. It’ll only be 15,000(ish) words long, but I need a bit of encouragement and structure to get my writing in gear before my MA starts.

Nostalgia

I had my first Harry Potter conversation a little while ago. And it was good. I sat down with a few friends and had a long reminisce about key points of the series, favourite moments, stupid names of spells and that sort of thing.

I suspect I need to clarify this with yet another disappointing knock to my street cred: I really liked the Harry Potter series. They were great kids books. I doubt very much that I’d have bothered reading them if I’d encountered them as an adult, but I was eleven when I read the first one (so there!) and Harry Potter aged much as I did- same year in school and all that.

Admittedly his schooldays were a lot more interesting: nighttime wanderings and lost uncles and broomstick rides. Whereas mine consisted largely of long breakfasts at the local Tesco’s, scheming on girls and trying to avoid being exposed as a wuss in P.E. (Never get near the ball, shout a lot, try and partner with people noticeably shitter than you.)

I hadn’t really thought much about the Harry Potter books since I finished the last one. By then I was on the cusp of adulthood (and what a long and ever receding cusp that seems to be), and the plot holes seemed a little wider than they had before, but I had enough affection for the characters to carry me through. Say what you like about ol’ J.K. but she can certainly hurry a plot along, and she’s got a nice flair for ramping up the tension in big set pieces. (Mrs. Rowling, if you are reading and wish to reward me for this plug, I would like a million pounds, or whatever you earn in interest in a four hour period. Whichever is greater.)

I don’t watch the films, because they’re rubbish. So not only is there nothing to remind me of the books unless I choose to read them again, there’s also nothing to take the shine off. Harry Potter will remain where he belongs, well in the realms of nostalgia.

Dara O’Briain once said that “Nostalgia is just heroin for old people,” and I can see his point. Just because the present is difficult (and I’m not denying it is), doesn’t mean the past was much better. A return to ‘past values’ is naïve- if the values are worthwhile to implement NOW then they ought to be, and crucially shouldn’t have been allowed to slip in the first place. If you miss the best bits of yesterday than bloody well live like it was then instead of now, and set yourself as an example to others.

The nostalgia I’m on about refers to the collective remembrance of a shared experience. It is, by implication, positive (negative memories inspire reminiscence of a different sort). This does not mean, however, that there is any real desire to have the past back, is there?

Perhaps you are familiar with, or have even taken part, in the following conversation. It is oft overheard in pubs and living rooms, anywhere where 15- 25 year olds can associate with added alcohol. It runs like so:

Person 1: Do you remember [TV show from childhood]?

Person 2: Oh God, yeah. [catchphrase from show]!

Person 3: Did you have the toys as well?

Person 1 : Yeah, I had the [generic merchandising item].

Person 2: I was never allowed to have them. My mum said they were too expensive.

Person 1: Did they get banned at your primary school eventually?

Person 3: Oh, yeah.

Person 2: I can still sing the theme song!

[Persons 2 and 3 sing the theme song in its entirety, Person 1 looks vaguely embarrassed]

Person 1 (after sufficient time has elapsed): What about [TV show from childhood]?

Person 2: Haha, yeah!

All: [Catchphrase from show]!

This scintillating dialogue can go on for up to an hour as its participants bathe in the balmy waters of childhood. Channel 4 have made essentially a whole industry out of its ‘100 Greatest such-and-such’ programmes, that appeal to our collective history and the fact there is fuck all else to watch on a Sunday night.

Let’s be clear: something doesn’t have to be very good to be remembered fondly. It just has to tug the right strings, for whatever reason. I used to love Power Rangers. If I watched it with fresh eyes I’m sure I’d see it for what it really is: a pile of cynical, consumerist wank designed to prey on the aggression of small boys and translate it into huge sums of cash. But I can still remember all their names.

The collection of texts grows ever broader. I give it ten years before a major television channel plays ‘100 Greatest Video Games’ to a prime time audience. By then there will be few twenty-something males who haven’t been directly influenced by computer games. I can already spark off a twenty-minute pub natter about The Legend of Zelda.

So what will people don the rose tinted spectacles for in future? Will people in 2050 talk fondly of mobile phones (obsolete now video links are beamed directly into one’s eyes) or cars (replaced by mobile sofas piloted by robotic baboons)?

More importantly, will people still be talking about Harry Potter? An interesting thing about the conversation transcribed above is that it seems to be generation specific. No one fifteen years my junior will remember Thundercats the way I do. If I try and show it to them, they’ll think it’s shit. It’s OK. It was shit. I’ve listened to my dad talk starry-eyed about Trump Town but I can say with utmost certainty that no one born today or after will ever give a shit about Windy Miller. It’s OK. He was rubbish as well.

Will Harry Potter stand the test of time? Will people two generations away talk with delight about the series to strangers on trains, prospective lovers, old friends? I certainly hope so, not because my invested interest in the books is so strong, but because it will give me a way to connect with those generations, because I doubt they’ll give two World Bank Hyper cents about The Legend of Zelda. The best thing about art ( do I mean ‘art?’ I don’t know) is that not only does it reach people, it gives them a way to reach other people. THAT is what nostalgia should be- a pathway to a remembrance that we can all share.

Man, these posts are getting pretty sentimental. Right, starting next week, I’m moving into a squat and doing a shitload of 2cb every evening, then being targeted and cynical about everything, including you fucking squares reading this.

I miss jungle fever

So I’m not well. I had been feeling pretty bummed out for a while, but had generally been attributing it to constantly going out and getting wrecked all the time, and was sure I would feel better if I cut myself a little slack. A few weeks and some swollen lymph nodes later I dragged myself to the doctor, who helped himself to some blood and told me I have infectious mononucleosis with a side order of acute tonsillitis. That was actually pretty reassuring because after Googling my symptoms I had convinced myself that I had HIV, so I’ll take glandular fever as a substitute.

The only reason I’m sharing this is to have a good moan about the nature of glandular fever. I’m tired all the time, but not exactly exhausted, although the doctor says no sport. I don’t feel nauseous and the fever seems to be going, but the doctor says no alcohol. And I’m not infectious, except through ‘intimate contact,’ so the doctor says no kissing. And this could go on for months if I don’t take care of myself.

So lets recap: no sport, no booze, no kissing, for at least a month.

Glandular fever is fucking rubbish.

"Who knows, you might LOVE me when I'm angry!"

The Incredible Hulk sure did Hulk out a lot. Which is fair enough, really. You don’t invent one of the worlds most iconic pop culture characters and then leave him out of the comic book. But it meant that the writers had to work pretty hard to get Bruce Banner good and angry. Not that hard, because Banner was the unluckiest, clumsiest fuck ever to grace the art form. He couldn’t go fifteen feet without nearly being run over by a truck or falling down a manhole (In the television show, these both happened in sequence. He was hit by a car and then knocked into a manhole). He was forever being accosted in bars and threatened with violence. Yes, the world fell over itself to make Bruce Banner angry. If you want to see an entire list of the things that made him Hulk out in the TV show you can find it here.

As the decades rolled on it clearly dawned on writers that they wouldn’t have to come up with plot devices to make Banner angry; not if they could just make him into a colossal weenie and let his neuroses do the work. Banner was now an unlucky, clumsy fuck with anger management issues and deep-set feelings of abandonment. He’d be batting below average even if he hadn’t contracted a gamma-activated disease that ruined all his clothes and caused several million dollars worth of damage every time he stubbed his toe. It definitely got difficult to listen to though:

Sidekick: Hey Bruce, we’ve run out of milk. I’m going to the shops. Be careful if you go outside, the army are still looking for you.

Bruce: Why won’t they just leave me alone? God, what have I done to deserve this curse?

Sidekick: Christ Bruce, I’m just going out for fucking milk. You will be FINE watching Sesame Street in your pyjamas till I get back.

Bruce: They’ll never stop looking for me, never. I can’t cope with this pressure! I can’t cope with this—huuurgh… gah!”

Sidekick: Oh for God’s sake, I swear this is-- *SMASH* Argh! My limited edition Dodi and Diana collectors plates!

I can’t remember the exact issue number but I’m pretty sure I’ve transcribed that scene with at least 95% accuracy.

Basically Banner had no need to get angry if going on a five-star whinge was enough to Hulk him out. And seeing as Banner made whinging into a hobby, comic book readers were safe in the knowledge that him making a sad face was guaranteed to lead to a tank being picked up by its barrel and swung through a petrol station.

This was all done in the name of character development, so that the people that read the book could successfully pretend that they weren’t only reading it to see the Hulk pick up two cars and wear them like boxing gloves. In the issues where Banner is the Hulk the entire time the plot can wear a little... thin. There’s an issues from the mid seventies where the Hulk fights his own shadow. For the entire issue. And it’s a draw. (The evil shadow monster is defeated by some automated floodlights. Really)

It was nice of them to bother, and completely unnecessary, because let me tell you this: if I had the Hulk serum pumping through my veins, I’d Hulk out at least four times a day. And I consider myself a relatively placid person. I like to think I have quite a long fuse, especially in my dealings with other people, but even I have a few seconds of incandescent rage a day. About a week ago I bought a copy of the video game Mass Effect. I’ve wanted to play it for ages and, as previously discussed, my Xbox normally just sits gloomily under the telly with nothing to do, so I was kittenish with excitement as I popped the game in and turned it on. I had got about as far as the ‘enter your name’ screen when I noticed the Xbox was making a loud noise, and that I had inadvertently covered the fan port by placing it too close to the wall. I didn’t want it to overheat, so I leant forward and slid the machine forwards. In doing so, I jogged the disc playing inside the machine, irreparably damaging it. Pure, distilled fury shot up through my torso. If my subsequent actions could have matched my anger, my parents would have come home to a house in ruins, with me sitting on the ruined stairs, wearing tattered jeans and a ‘what can you do?’ expression.

Examples today: accidentally deleting the wrong episode of a show I’d Sky+’sd. (That’s the correct way to write that, yeah?) Dropping my laptop charger on my foot on the way down the stairs. Discovering that the automatic address correction on Amazon has sent the new copy of Mass Effect I ordered to the wrong place. Hulk SMASH.

I’m lucky, therefore, that I’m not the Incredible Hulk. I’d be a nightmare to live with (and I’m a hassle even now). But the ease with which I mock Brucie Banner losing his rag means I should be able to see the funny side of my own rages. Which of course I can’t, because there’s NOTHING funny about the world being specifically out to get me. But it makes me wonder which is healthier, to try and suppress those occasional, flashing bouts of wrath or to just let them out quickly and forget about them. Who hasn’t felt better after a good, loud “Oh for FUCK’S SAKE!” Actually there’s an argument that angry behaviour can be self-reinforcing, but it’s my blog and I’ll ignore what I want to, all right?

Maybe the reason I can keep my temper in public is because I lose it so frequently in private. It seems silly to really enjoy losing your cool over a minor thing that can’t be fixed, but all that rage has got to come out somehow. If Bruce Banner had been a real guy, I’m sure he would have been pretty chillaxed in between rampages.

Admittedly I’d have less to get angry about if I wasn’t such a clumsy fuck myself, so I feel like a share a kinship with Dr. Banner. Every time I see him rage out over some minor obstacle I wonder to myself, “Would I have dealt with the same situation so smash stuff up-ingly?” The answer is invariably yes.

So I’m going to let my fury flag fly when I’m angry about small things, that don’t affect anyone but me; so the big problems come around, I hope I can keep my anger in check as much as is appropriate. And if you don’t agree… well then I’ll just have to smash YOU.

"The literary tradition of anonymity goes back to the Bible." - Joe Klein

First, a disclaimer of sorts. I realise that I am coming to the argument discussed below a little late, and that all that is worth saying on the subject has almost certainly been said already. I'm piping up now because I have a question that I want to articulate (I'd like to get it answered too, but I doubt that will happen). I'm also a little tardy because I've been thinking hard about what I want to say here, and I think slow, sometimes.

Night Jack is no more. The anonymous blog maintained by a Lancashire police officer has been removed by its creator, the first blogger to win the Orwell Prize, after The Times 'outed' him earlier this month. His identity was revealed at the end of a court case against The Times, during which the officer was told by the judge that he could have "no reasonable expectation of privacy," because blogging is essentially a public activity instead of a private one. The whole story can be found here.

I hadn't heard of Night Jack's blog until I read about his revealing. I felt a little aggrieved when I discovered the blog had been removed, as I would have been interested to read it. I actually follow another blog about a policeman, The Johnny Law Chronicles, an anonymous account of an American military vet turned copper in a large but unnamed American city. It's pretty macho- Johnny Law is unafraid to break a few heads every now and then, but it provides an interesting perspective on policing that I'd honestly never encountered before. I'm a fairly liberal guy, and my lifestyle generally leads me to see the police as a threat rather than anything else, but it's nice to have my prejudices challenged sometimes. The style is direct but ironic, and so I occasionally find myself sympathising with Johnny as he maces some street punk. It would have been interesting to compare his stuff with a British bobby, and see what different issues come up, and what similarities.

Obviously now the chance is gone. As a blogger myself, I sympathise with the writer, but that doesn't mean I'm necessarily challenging the judges decision. Although I think it's a shame, the judge in question did raise some good points (specifically that it was not "part of the court's function to protect police officers who are, or think they may be, acting in breach of police discipline regulations from coming to the attention of superiors." Part of the reason Night Jack was blogging anonymously is because he knew he couldn't make his comments publicly without being reprimanded).

It's impossible to read all this without identifying similarities with another famous 'outing' of a blogger, again in The Times. Girlwithaonetrackmind was (and is) a sex blogger of some celebrity, whose identity was made public some time ago. Again, I don't wish to debate Girl's right to anonymity (although I would like to state that the conduct of The Times was discouragingly vulgar in this case). What I want to know is, why was her identity revealed?

It seems that there would be two sorts of people: those that had encountered girlwithaonetrackmind, and those that had not. I would posit that those who had some familiarity with Girl's blog would have an interest in her continued anonymity. It is easy to appreciate why she wanted to remain anonymous- she was posting about her sex life on the Internet. Those that enjoyed her blog were probably a bit saddened when her identity was made known, or were at least sympathetic. The other group of people are those who hadn't a clue there even was a blog called girlwithaonetrackmind. How, exactly would they be interested in her 'outing?' Someone they'd never heard of was revealed to be... (dun dun duuuunnnnnn) some else they'd never heard of. Extra! Extra! Reeeadalaboudit!

The situation with Night Jack is similar. He turned out to be a copper nobody had ever heard of. If an anonymous blogger is revealed, do they really become any less anonymous? They remain an unknown face in the crowd. Let's face it, we won't hear about them further in the print media. The 'outing' is the big deal, newspapers don't care about their further blogging.

So who actually gave a crap? How many members of Joe Public would have definitively said: "Yes, I really want to know the identity of such and such a blogger."

Why, then, is this considered newsworthy? I've got one reason, at least in Girl's case: she was (and is) blogging about SEX. In this country at least, anything remotely to do with SEX is considered news. She wasn't just a blogger, she was a SEX blogger, and that's what made it OK to put her mum's name in the article.

If that seems a little childish, don't worry, because it really is. Putting the word SEX in the title of a story shouldn't guarantee interest, but it does, even for me. Attitudes towards sexual relations in this country have made any mention of them feel faintly illicit, and anything illicit is interesting. That doesn't mean the news story actually has any merit to it.

The point I'm making (in a slightly roundabout way) is that journalism is supposed to relate to either what people want to read about, or what, in the journalist's opinion, they ought to read about. Does 'outing' an anonymous blogger really count as either? Or are the newspapers making their own 'news,' and expecting us to like it? This is no a blanket comment- I'm using the blogging thing as a specific example. Plenty of people want to know about Katie and Peters' relationship, and that's cool with me. But there seems to be a fair few news stories that pander to no-ones' interest, and moreover, have no real positive reason for existing, other than to fill up space (and in the case of girlwithoneonetrackmind, let's be honest, letting a young freelance journalist get her foot in the door).

If we allow the newspapers to print anything and class it as news, then the quality of journalism in general can only suffer. What exactly we ought to do about this I'm sure I don't know. But we could start with writing a letter or two- not to criticise a story on its moral grounds (although sure, you could do that if you feel like it), but to demonstrate when you do not believe it is worth reading about. Journalists might have to work a bit harder (or crowbar SEX into more articles), but we'd have more information that is relevant or instructive, rather than something transient- who among those whose first encounter with Night Jack was the article in the newspaper can remember what his name was now?

If any of you lovely people has an opinion on this it'd be a pleasure to read it. Also, links to any other articles that discuss the points I've made would be appreciated. Ta.

*Edit. Some people have already commented on this blog post, and have expressed some interesting opinions. I'm just letting you know as I don't get a lot of comments so I doubt many people check them.

Drink, drank, drunk.

There are some pretty good reasons for imbibing alcohol.(i) A few drinks can make you surprisingly eloquent, and increase your confidence in otherwise daunting social situations. It can lower your inhibitions, especially those related to low self-esteem. It can inspire a sense of closeness and camaraderie in otherwise disparate persons. It can make you feel good. It makes things funnier. It can be a lot of fun.

Drinking to excess is a different story. As well as coming with a list of side effects that far outweigh the aforementioned positives, getting completely woozled also cancels said positives entirely. A few drinks can make your more eloquent. Getting totally potted will not continue the trend. If this were true, pubs would be stuffed with angelically articulate winos, slurring their way through sonnets like a shitfaced Billy Shakespeare. This, clearly, is not the case. All the positives of drinking are removed by taking it too far. Having enough Dutch courage to finally go up to the girl you’ve been eyeing up is useless if all you can manage is to spray spit down her dress and eventually fall over. Getting completely winkled is generally accepted to be a BAD IDEA, unless you have a particular fondness for vomiting, or accidentally peeing on your shoes.

All the solid reasons for getting trampolined(ii) have a darker undercurrent. Drinking to forget, drinking to keep out the cold etc. all are effective solutions to a particular problem, but none are much fun, and it’s a shame that anyone has to deploy them.

And yet, getting kaboomed has evolved into a national pastime. This is normally the point when I would employ a series of statistics to illustrate my point, but it really isn’t necessary. Our reliance on the ol’ sauce is trumpeted from every media outlet almost every day. It recently emerged that 1 in 6 deaths (damn, there it is) in Scotland can be linked to alcohol (although let’s be clear: these are broadly defined ‘links,’ including things like some cancers that can be exacerbated by excessive alcohol consumption. It is NOT to be inferred that 1 in 6 Scots are drinking themselves to death).

So howcumzit? Everybody who has ever got truly buffaloed has experienced the negative effects. If you aren’t drinking heavily with an aim in mind, why are you doing it at all?

The first reason is obvious: alcohol can be freakin’ dee-licious. After a decade of hard work and practice I have developed a fondness for lager simply as a preferred beverage. After a tough day of loafing, nothing is more satisfying than a pint of something premium strength and Eastern European. It’s like a manly handshake and a nice big hug all in one frosty glass. I could easily spend an evening drinking lager ‘cause it’s nice, with getting babooned(iii) an unavoidable side effect.(iv)

Alcohol also has a detrimental influence on one’s rationality. If you’re a little bit drunk, getting a little bit more drunk can seem like a smashing idea. You know when you’re sober that it’s unlikely to improve things, but the logical parts of your brain use booze as an excuse to take some paid holiday, right when you could use them the most. Getting attenbouroughedv might never have been your aim, but before you know it you’re howling ‘Build Me Up Buttercup’ at the back of a cab driver’s head.

These aren’t bad excuses, but they do not explain what has become known as ‘drink culture.’ Getting peterboroughed has become an end in itself; one now drinks simply to become intoxicated. It is not due to a failure in rationality (except in the most obvious sense) as we begin consuming with the express aim of getting carpeted. It can also no longer be blamed on how scrummy alcoholic beverages are, as a significant proportion of drinkers now imbibe potions simply for their alcoholic content, rather than their taste. Admit it, sambuca tastes like Satan’s sandy bumhole. Any drink you have to immolate before you swallow probably wasn’t much cop to start with.

This is not an entirely new phenomenon. How much plonk you can keep down has been a manly competition since time immemorial. The days of quaffing Vikings are over, but competitive drinking still exists. Not everybody plays, however, and yet the streets are still full every evening with the tragically (or comically) din-dinsed.(vi)

I am certainly not immune to this, in fact it’s why this sort of thing is on my mind. Suppose I had had the self-control in the past to control my excessive drinking? How many ladies have I upset, how many friendships have I imperilled? How many regrets do I carry.

I got a bit maudlin there, sorry. I do have a point to make though, or at least a request. Maybe I should ask my readers (that’s right, the pair of you), to think about what it is you want from a night out, and whether you really need to get banjoed to get it. So that when you’ve reached that truly glorious stage of intoxication where you dance like a man possessed, flirt like you took lessons and tell stories to rival the greatest Jacobean raconteur, you could say to your mates: “No thank you, I have reached an adequate stage of consumption, and have no immediate requirement of an alcoholic beverage. Fetch me instead a soft drink of equal or greater deliciousness." Except, well, you might want to paraphrase, or they’ll think you’re a peenarse.

I sound like a bit of a stick-in-the-mud. And I doubt this post will mark a curtailment in my own drinking. I don’t want to impact on anyone’s enjoyment- quite the opposite. I honestly suspect that if we thought a bit harder about how tomatoed we’d like to get, we might be a tiny bit happier. And tiny or not, any increase is worth it, because as we all know:


(vii)

(i) I’m going to do a Michael McIntyre here and see how many innocuous words I can substitute for the adjective ‘drunk.’
(ii) That one’s definitely my favourite.
(iii) I’ve got an animal theme thing going now.
(iv) This does raise the intriguing question: would I drink comparable amounts of non-alcoholic lager if they can make one that doesn’t taste like a tramp’s wee-wee?
(v) It works with proper nouns! Yes!
(vi) That one didn’t work so well, did it?
(vii) If this image doesn’t bring a smile to your face, you need to speak to your doctor about possibly upping your meds. The man responsible is artist, explorer and semi-professional pistol duellist William Elliot, who’s fantastic artwork can be found here.