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.
Updated only when you aren't looking.
Thursday, 27 August 2009
Sunday, 23 August 2009
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.
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.
Sunday, 16 August 2009
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.
Sunday, 9 August 2009
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 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.
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.
Sunday, 2 August 2009
"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.
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.
Tuesday, 28 July 2009
"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.
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.
Sunday, 19 July 2009
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.
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.
Wednesday, 15 July 2009
All about the Benjamins
I’m skint. Bust. Stony- broke. Without adequate funds. Rollin’ without the chedda. I can hear you reaching for your wallets, ready to donate your own cash to alleviate my plight, but you needn’t worry. I have a place to live rent free, and most of my meals supplied, and there’s a big stack of books in the bookcase. To those of you to whom this sounds a bit familiar, you’ve got it in one: I’ve gone to live with the parentals.
After a good few years living as my own man, moving back in with the folks can be a bit of a shock; I already knew it wasn’t really acceptable to drink the milk straight out of the carton while listening to thrash metal and watching porn in the living room, but darn it all if I hadn’t gotten used to it. Of course living in a house with responsible people has some wonderful, nearly forgotten advantages: it sure is easy to read with light-bulbs in all the fittings, and I can walk around barefoot without contracting any interesting infections from the carpets.
Unfortunately, hanging around reading Wilkie Collins books and eating free food is destined to have a negative effect on my trim figure. I’m going to have to venture abroad at some point and to do that, I’ll need petrol for the car. This can be a bit of a bugger because, as I’m sure you are well aware, society seems to rely on money as an exchange mechanism for goods and services. It seems unlikely that my preferred system, in which I am given anything I like in exchange for a wink and a smile, is going to work on the dour gentleman employed at the petrol station at the bottom of the street. So I’m going to have to get some money from somewhere. Let’s have a look at my options:
1.Earn it. This seems to be the accepted method, but also a challenging one. The job market is hardly crying out for literature graduates with moderate to poor computer skills, and so it looks like it’s going to be scut work for me. Alas, the summer is hardly the time to be getting temporary work, as every other returning student in the country tramps the streets looking for dishwashing and labouring opportunities. On the plus side, it gives me the chance to go into a lot of pubs with the stated reason of seeking employment, but assuming I don’t go hired, a conciliatory pint wouldn’t go amiss. Lets say I can get turned down five times by mid afternoon, and I can go home no longer worried about my lack of employment! Although I’d have to get someone to lend me the money for the beer, as pubs tend not to give it out gratis (I have already explored this). Shit.
2.Nick it. For the increasingly desperate, there is always a life of crime. I may have to wait a while before I start targeting family members, lest the link between my recent arrival and sudden poverty prove too obvious. In the meantime I’ll have to liberate funds from someone less close to home. Burglary seems like a lot of effort, and I’m too feeble to mug even the wobbliest of pensioners. That really only leaves armed robbery- now if I can just find a bank with some money left in it.
3.Borrow it. Despite the recent financial crisis, banks seem only too keen to extend the overdraft of stinking student layabouts like myself. The only problem is they eventually come calling for it back- landing me in a situation much like my current one, only with the threat of jail time.
4.Make someone give it to you. This used to be categorised under similar terms to the aforementioned armed robbery, but is now colloquially know as ‘having an accident that wasn’t your fault,’ or even more colloquially as ‘ripping some poor bastard off.’ No gap in the pavement, badly driven forklift or improperly signposted patch of wet floor shall escape my roving eye and clumsy feet. Failing that, who do I know that I can sue?
5.Find it. Obviously the best solution, but one that requires quite a lot of effort. It is unlikely that I’ll walk round a corner and trip over a mountain of platinum, so it’s sofa diving for me.
6.Marry it. I always fancied being a kept man.
If anybody has any other suggestions I would be happy to hear them. Or you can just stick the check in the post.
After a good few years living as my own man, moving back in with the folks can be a bit of a shock; I already knew it wasn’t really acceptable to drink the milk straight out of the carton while listening to thrash metal and watching porn in the living room, but darn it all if I hadn’t gotten used to it. Of course living in a house with responsible people has some wonderful, nearly forgotten advantages: it sure is easy to read with light-bulbs in all the fittings, and I can walk around barefoot without contracting any interesting infections from the carpets.
Unfortunately, hanging around reading Wilkie Collins books and eating free food is destined to have a negative effect on my trim figure. I’m going to have to venture abroad at some point and to do that, I’ll need petrol for the car. This can be a bit of a bugger because, as I’m sure you are well aware, society seems to rely on money as an exchange mechanism for goods and services. It seems unlikely that my preferred system, in which I am given anything I like in exchange for a wink and a smile, is going to work on the dour gentleman employed at the petrol station at the bottom of the street. So I’m going to have to get some money from somewhere. Let’s have a look at my options:
1.Earn it. This seems to be the accepted method, but also a challenging one. The job market is hardly crying out for literature graduates with moderate to poor computer skills, and so it looks like it’s going to be scut work for me. Alas, the summer is hardly the time to be getting temporary work, as every other returning student in the country tramps the streets looking for dishwashing and labouring opportunities. On the plus side, it gives me the chance to go into a lot of pubs with the stated reason of seeking employment, but assuming I don’t go hired, a conciliatory pint wouldn’t go amiss. Lets say I can get turned down five times by mid afternoon, and I can go home no longer worried about my lack of employment! Although I’d have to get someone to lend me the money for the beer, as pubs tend not to give it out gratis (I have already explored this). Shit.
2.Nick it. For the increasingly desperate, there is always a life of crime. I may have to wait a while before I start targeting family members, lest the link between my recent arrival and sudden poverty prove too obvious. In the meantime I’ll have to liberate funds from someone less close to home. Burglary seems like a lot of effort, and I’m too feeble to mug even the wobbliest of pensioners. That really only leaves armed robbery- now if I can just find a bank with some money left in it.
3.Borrow it. Despite the recent financial crisis, banks seem only too keen to extend the overdraft of stinking student layabouts like myself. The only problem is they eventually come calling for it back- landing me in a situation much like my current one, only with the threat of jail time.
4.Make someone give it to you. This used to be categorised under similar terms to the aforementioned armed robbery, but is now colloquially know as ‘having an accident that wasn’t your fault,’ or even more colloquially as ‘ripping some poor bastard off.’ No gap in the pavement, badly driven forklift or improperly signposted patch of wet floor shall escape my roving eye and clumsy feet. Failing that, who do I know that I can sue?
5.Find it. Obviously the best solution, but one that requires quite a lot of effort. It is unlikely that I’ll walk round a corner and trip over a mountain of platinum, so it’s sofa diving for me.
6.Marry it. I always fancied being a kept man.
If anybody has any other suggestions I would be happy to hear them. Or you can just stick the check in the post.
Verbal Slapstick: The Return
My, that was an unexpected absence! My tummy bug turned into the sort of fever-ridden, viral ass-kickin' I haven't had since I was a nipper. It was a thoroughly unpleasant experience, although on the bright side it gave me a chance to lay in bed, dingling a little silver bell to call my mother in with more soup. I haven't had a chance to do that since I learned how to hold a thermometer under my armpit to fake a temperature. Sigh, those were the days.
Being ill sucks, especially when it impacts on your holidays. I have just returned from a two week jaunt to Croatia, where I attended the Garden Festival ('attended' actually sounds a little formal, there wasn't a roll-call or anything). I hadn't really recovered by the time I left, which meant my packing was lacklustre and my organisation shabby. It also meant that my travelling companions had to put up with a nauseous, complaining misanthrope all the way there (actually a mild improvement, when I'm in good health I add 'obnoxious' to the list).
The unfortunate upshot of all this: no blog posts for absolutely ages. To counter this disgusting lapse I aim to lavish you wonderful people with posts in the weeks to come. This Friday I graduate; and in the weeks following I have no job, no exams, and nothing to get in the way of musings and minor witticisms. So let's get started.
Being ill sucks, especially when it impacts on your holidays. I have just returned from a two week jaunt to Croatia, where I attended the Garden Festival ('attended' actually sounds a little formal, there wasn't a roll-call or anything). I hadn't really recovered by the time I left, which meant my packing was lacklustre and my organisation shabby. It also meant that my travelling companions had to put up with a nauseous, complaining misanthrope all the way there (actually a mild improvement, when I'm in good health I add 'obnoxious' to the list).
The unfortunate upshot of all this: no blog posts for absolutely ages. To counter this disgusting lapse I aim to lavish you wonderful people with posts in the weeks to come. This Friday I graduate; and in the weeks following I have no job, no exams, and nothing to get in the way of musings and minor witticisms. So let's get started.
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