Tidying up is never fun. There are many forms of procastrination, you can do things that are less tiresome like washing up, alligator wrestling, or visiting people that you have nothing better than mild indifference towards. You could just say, Hell with it, and watch TV whilst eating microwave meals and scratching your danglies. The downside is that you know, eventually, that things will get so bad that you'll be reduced to living in self-made post-apocalyptic squalor, complete with freezing urchins living under newspapers and rats picking at last night's pizza. Then comes the snapping point, where you realise things have got so bad that you begin to have nightmares about tentacles reaching out from under the bed, wrapping their oily tendrils around your arms and ribcage and crushing you against the mattress. That's the point I'm at now.
My bedroom is a testament to the amount of useless clutter a human being can reasonably gather in six months, compounded by a somewhat cavalier attitude to vermin and an unwillingness to throw almost anything away. I once found a chip butty under the computer desk, green with mould and tough as old boot nails. It had lingered, forgotten, growing in strength, until it was finally discovered just prior to metamorphosing into an interdimensional monster with a taste for human flesh. Such is price we have to pay for laziness.
So I began to clean today, somewhat reluctantly, discovering crushed bourbon creams, cruel spiked plastic frames and newspapers that I've hoarded for no discernible reason other than to, quite possibly, build a cocoon by tearing them into strips and stick them together using my own saliva. There are wires, hundreds and hundreds of wires which perform no function, kept in a box so that they can one day be used on electrical equipment that has long since been thrown away. There is, among other things, a broken Master System, a copy of the New King James Bible, a hot glue gun, sellotape, some candles, a fake rose, an "ANZAC special" of the war-comic "Commando" - which isn't mine, and postcards from France inside paper bag from Canada. There are five other draws which presumably house similar objects.
The floor is somewhere underneath the plates and clothes which must cover it, although I've not got any evidence for this hypothesis. It is loosely based on the concept of gravity, but I'm not sure such laws apply anymore. The room has become a pit of despair. It is a cave. The nest of some vast, predatory bird which was long thought extinct, but continues to live a miserable and lonely existence, bringing dark meats to nourish its skeletal offspring. There are things that live under the bed and hiss quietly during the night in dead languages that might never have been spoken by human beings. It is enough to give someone an almost sociopathic attitude to cleanliness.
So I've employed in desperation a scorched earth policy. The room has been divided to one square foot portions, and I am slowly churning my way through the detritus. It isn't tidying anymore. It has become purging. I've got to head back to the flat and initiate part II of the plan, which involves cleansing the walls and carpet with a flame-thrower before the priest arrives to perform an exorcism. After that, there is a break for coffee. Then using some rubber gloves, a hacksaw and some bin bags I'll scoop up whatever is left of the priest just before the second one arrives to - hopefully - succeed where the first inevitably failed.
The best part about this senseless all day tidying binge is that, in under a week the room will look exactly like it did before, and this whole sorry act will have to be repeated again. And again. And again. It is the age old struggle of man vs life, against which there can be no victory, only a lifetime servitude to cleaning up your own mess.
Monday 31 January 2011
Saturday 29 January 2011
The American Dream
The greatest thing about watching twenty-four hour rolling news is that it lets you watch the collapse of the world without interruption. Recently, BBC News 24 has regressed back to Roman times, offering the viewer an experience that is not dissimilar to front row seat at the Christian's vs Lions Cup Final.
So, if you have not been watching the news recently, you won't know that the Arab world is beginning to come apart at the seams. There as been an alleged "Jasmin Revolution" in Tunisia, unrest in Yemen and a few other nations, but the big one is Egypt, where things have gone distinctly ploin-shaped for President Mubarak.
Basically, in a teapot, Egypt is in a very bad way. On a scale of "how-bad-is-it" - when the police abandon the city of Suez, you are led to believe that things could probably be going better for Mubarak. He did respond by firing his entire government, which seems to be rather missing the point. The army is on the streets, at the moment, caught in a weird limbo where they don't really want to do anything that will result in people being shot, even if the end result is President Mubarak being torn apart by a pack of angry jackals.
Anyway, forget that guy. There is another Barrak who has a massive headache over the whole crisis, and that is Barrak Obama, the President of the United States of America, which also goes by a variety of pseudonyms such as "Land of the Free", "Land of Opportunity", "The New World" and other nauseatingly optimistic projections. And the thing you have to remember about America is that it is more than just a state. America is an ideology.
There is a set of criteria that all people possess, and is espoused by what it is to "be American". To be American is to live in a land of meritocracy and unparalleled freedom. It is to be a keeper of peace and a defender of the weak. Everyone wants to be an American, secretly. America left behind a decadent old Europe and became a shining beacon of hope. An exemplar of democracy. A bastion of liberty.
Flowery language aside, this is where the problem comes for Barrak Obama. America loves democracy. It really does. It can't get enough of democracy, or at least the sort of warped version of democracy that exists in most 'Western' nations. It exports democracy, either in the form of cultural hegemony, economic and diplomatic pressure, or occasionally, by bombing the shit out of people to guarantee their freedom - because "inside every Gook there is an American, trying to get out".
The problem for Obama results from a clash between American idealism and and American realpolitik. Idealism demands that democracy is a good thing, and whilst Egyptian democracy would just be a sham imitation of American awesomeness, it is good and right and progressive. Realpolitik demands that American doesn't say or do anything that would be construed as taking a side, especially since Egypt is a key actor in the Middle East and a crucial American ally.
"America, said Robert Malley, a Middle East expert at the International Crisis Group, is in an impossible hole. “Every time we open our mouth, it runs a risk of hurting the objective we’re pursuing,” he said. “The more we appear to be backing the regimes we’ve been backing for decades, the more we place ourselves on the wrong side of history and the more we alienate the constituencies who could be coming to power.”
But, Mr. Malley added, “the more we side with the protesters, the more we’re hurting the existing relationships and appearing to be fickle.” For instance, the Obama administration’s latest distancing of itself from Mr. Mubarak may not go over well. “It’s not clear to me that the protesters will take seriously expressions of solidarity from a country that’s been backing autocratic regimes,”"
From the NYT
Indeed, the best America can seem to muster is a "deep concern" for Egypt, which translated for non-politico's reads more like "a mild disinterest in stuff that is happening somewhere else", although that is not strictly true. However, I'd be more tempted to cut the cheap rhetoric and call out all this fence sitting for what it is. President Mubarak has a "deep concern", albeit that he may be dismembered by angry proles, while the Saudi King also has a "deep concern" and is looking rather nervously at his own minions and deciding he'd probably better speak up for his old mate before everything goes South for him as well.
So what's happening in Egypt, curiously, is much closer to an American Nightmare than an idealist's dream. There are going to be some big winners and some big losers, and for America, any outcome is going to be a bad one.
So, if you have not been watching the news recently, you won't know that the Arab world is beginning to come apart at the seams. There as been an alleged "Jasmin Revolution" in Tunisia, unrest in Yemen and a few other nations, but the big one is Egypt, where things have gone distinctly ploin-shaped for President Mubarak.
 | |
| Next they'll go for the eyes. |
Basically, in a teapot, Egypt is in a very bad way. On a scale of "how-bad-is-it" - when the police abandon the city of Suez, you are led to believe that things could probably be going better for Mubarak. He did respond by firing his entire government, which seems to be rather missing the point. The army is on the streets, at the moment, caught in a weird limbo where they don't really want to do anything that will result in people being shot, even if the end result is President Mubarak being torn apart by a pack of angry jackals.
Anyway, forget that guy. There is another Barrak who has a massive headache over the whole crisis, and that is Barrak Obama, the President of the United States of America, which also goes by a variety of pseudonyms such as "Land of the Free", "Land of Opportunity", "The New World" and other nauseatingly optimistic projections. And the thing you have to remember about America is that it is more than just a state. America is an ideology.
There is a set of criteria that all people possess, and is espoused by what it is to "be American". To be American is to live in a land of meritocracy and unparalleled freedom. It is to be a keeper of peace and a defender of the weak. Everyone wants to be an American, secretly. America left behind a decadent old Europe and became a shining beacon of hope. An exemplar of democracy. A bastion of liberty.
 | |
| There are no words. Except "intensely creepy". |
Flowery language aside, this is where the problem comes for Barrak Obama. America loves democracy. It really does. It can't get enough of democracy, or at least the sort of warped version of democracy that exists in most 'Western' nations. It exports democracy, either in the form of cultural hegemony, economic and diplomatic pressure, or occasionally, by bombing the shit out of people to guarantee their freedom - because "inside every Gook there is an American, trying to get out".
 | |||
| Democracy. Too much of a good thing. |
"America, said Robert Malley, a Middle East expert at the International Crisis Group, is in an impossible hole. “Every time we open our mouth, it runs a risk of hurting the objective we’re pursuing,” he said. “The more we appear to be backing the regimes we’ve been backing for decades, the more we place ourselves on the wrong side of history and the more we alienate the constituencies who could be coming to power.”
But, Mr. Malley added, “the more we side with the protesters, the more we’re hurting the existing relationships and appearing to be fickle.” For instance, the Obama administration’s latest distancing of itself from Mr. Mubarak may not go over well. “It’s not clear to me that the protesters will take seriously expressions of solidarity from a country that’s been backing autocratic regimes,”"
From the NYT
Indeed, the best America can seem to muster is a "deep concern" for Egypt, which translated for non-politico's reads more like "a mild disinterest in stuff that is happening somewhere else", although that is not strictly true. However, I'd be more tempted to cut the cheap rhetoric and call out all this fence sitting for what it is. President Mubarak has a "deep concern", albeit that he may be dismembered by angry proles, while the Saudi King also has a "deep concern" and is looking rather nervously at his own minions and deciding he'd probably better speak up for his old mate before everything goes South for him as well.
So what's happening in Egypt, curiously, is much closer to an American Nightmare than an idealist's dream. There are going to be some big winners and some big losers, and for America, any outcome is going to be a bad one.
Friday 21 January 2011
The Flavourless Abyss
So, at a general loss for anything particularly important to write about, I'm going to wax lyrical about food you should never eat and why. There you go, direct and to the point. I will undoubtedly do this again, but at the moment, it is purely going to be Couscous, because the post is lengthy. The following post is generally true, but as with all memories and stories, some things change or are lost in the retelling. Some poetic license may be employed, but by the large, this is how I remember it:
Basically, couscous is a morally degrading, reprehensible food without any redeeming factors. It is usually almost flavourless, despite the best efforts of whoever is cooking it, it just absorbs spices and sauces like a void. It has the texture of sand, which seems to stem largely from it's unquie resemblence to grains of rice that have been meticulously chopped in half, one at a time, by impoverished chinese workers on a production line. My hatred for this poor excuse for grub stems almost - but not entirely - exclusively from one of the most bizarre experiences I've had. And between fundie-school, gay cottaging, mercenary cockroach hunter, surrealist hangovers and five years retail, I've had some really bizarre experiences.
So imagine for one moment that you are a left-wing University student, interested in pretty much anything from Class Struggle though to Environmentalism and along to Queer Theory. Now imagine you have a general predisposition to dislike couscous based on texture and flavour already. And I mean dislike, not hate. Hate comes later.
So you are invited to attend a demonstration by two Argentinian lesbians on Post-Pornography, during which I believe the general idea was to subvert the act of observing sex from being a social taboo enjoyed by teenagers furtively glancing at the top shelf and lonely men who sit in windowless boxes into something, well, not that. I'm not great with sexual politics but the general idea was (and is) that pornography is bad, but there are ways of making it good. Cue a Post Pornography Performance involving food, tea and coffee, a tarpaulin and two fisting lesbians who ejaculate onto the audience at the same time the poetry that they are reciting reaches a climax.
Alright, recap.
Two Argentinian lesbians have travelled to the UK for various reasons, one of which involves fisting each other whilst reciting poetry in English and Spanish with the eventual goal of squirting bodily fluid onto the audience. Food is provided.
Yeah.
Now, I was naturally curious. It has later been suggested that I merely went to watch the spectacle of two fisting lesbians. This is not case. Not only are there enough enthusiastic amatures in town to keep me busy until the stars themselves go cold and die, there is plenty of it on the internet. If I want fisting lesbians for any sort of gratification, I can go online and undoubtedly find some very easily. No, believe me or not, the spectacle of two fisting lesbians performing poetry in front of Leeds University staff and students before ejactulating onto the two front rows was more than enough to pique my curiousity without any particular lustful desires. So, donning my leather jacket - for it's waterproofing - and resolving to sit somewhere near the back, I set off.
When I arrived, I was greeted by two friends of mine who knew the scene a little better than me. About twenty of us were crammed into a room, the tarp was down, the lesbians were in place. The stage was set.
Only the time never came, no pun intended.
Turns out the fisting lesbians were not comfortable with ejaculating onto the audience due to the presence of two Argentinian journalists, who had, as far as I am aware, travelled to the UK with these girls with the express intention of reporting back to Argentina just how weird left-wing people are. Thus, they did not feel it was appropriate to give them what they wanted. So we got poetry instead. Funny as this may sound, but I'm actually quite relieved, being possessed of something similar to the feeling you get in school when everyone plays a prank on the teacher. To see it come off would be great, but to get caught in the act would result in banishment or death. The best result is that everyone settles down, a nice time is had by all, and no one gets squirted with lady-juice.
So the poetry rumbles on, and I'm not really getting all of it. After a brief spell, my friend drifts through an open door and beckons. Cautiously, I left the seat and entered. Inside was a simple kitchen, lined with tea, coffee, and as promised, food. I make a cup of tea and begin to cast my eyes over the delicacies.
Now, the first thing people might notice about left-wing events, at risk of being stereotypical, is that they almost always include purely vegetarian or vegan choices. I remain convinced that I'm the only carnivore at any event. So I wasn't too suprised not to find pork ribs or roasted steak, but instead, a vat of yellow couscous.
I've tried to like couscous, I really have. But there is something about it that just makes it unlikeable. You would cross the road to avoid it, or twitch the curtains if it loitered outside. People would make jokes about it when it wasn't around. Couscous would be last to be picked for the team.
I begin to nibble cautiously. The poetry continues outside.
Suddenly, the door is flung open and in walks an older man, round face and belly, grey hair, Queen's English and too much enthusiasm. He's come all the way from York to see some pretty graphic poetry, but far from being disappointed, he's far too cheerful. And he is blocking the door.
"Hello!" He bellows, "I'm Ron, how are you doing?" We shake hands. Ron begins to shovel food into his mouth with all the conviction and enthusiasm of someone who hasn't eaten for eight days. During the course of the conversation, Ron expresses just how much he is delighted by the performance and turnout. Nervous attempts to disengage from the now impending disaster that will be this conversation are politely ignored. He advances, cutting off my retreat, wegding me into a corner as he begins to make tea.
"I'm a little disappointed that they didn't do the whole performance," he admits, flecks of couscous going everywhere, "but I can't say that I blame them."
"No." It's about all I can manage.
"Are you enjoying yourself? You should be enjoying yourself. From Leeds are you? I'm from York. It's great in Leeds. Very strong community."
I nod. The couscous in my mouth has turned to sand. Maybe it was always sand. I don't know.
"Will you be coming to the performance later?" He continues, butchering some lettuce. "I can't, I'm afraid. Got to catch the train back to York. It promises to be fantastic, though, you know?"
I think I'm frozen.
"Anyway, pretty darn good as it is," he comments. I artfully dogde swipes and grabs at food and milk that are situated behind me, and finally manage to twist round to get to the door.
"Have you tried any couscous?" He asks, "Bloody marvellous stuff, it is. So full of flavour, don't' you think? Here" he hands me a plate, "Have some more. Go on, dig in."
Terrified, I grasp a plate containing mainly lettuce and a big mound of couscous. I spin, grabbing the door, making some excuses and exiting back into the main room. The show is over. One of the girls passes, nodding a greeting. I'm feeling somewhat traumatised. My other friend, who is not trapped in the kitchen with Ron, pops up.
"They're going to do the actual show at a pub tonight, if you want to come?"
I shake my head, slowly, unable to talk because of all the flavourless detrius that is in my mouth.
"Fair enough," He continues, "What have you got there?"
I swallow. It feels like wet sand sliding down the inside of my throat. There is the vaugest promise of eastern spice, before it is lost forever to something that lies between risotto and broken glass.
"Couscous." I reply, holding out the plate, "You can have it."
*From the Website "Cooking with Consciousness". Which is adviseable. Cooking with consciousness is better than cooking whilst unconscious, as it decreases the chance of your kitchen burning down with you inside it.
Tuesday 18 January 2011
Stand and Deliver
It recently occurred to me, whilst seated upon my porcelain throne and preparing to drop the 'big steamy' -that toilet paper is next to useless. Allow me to explain.
Toilet paper has one primary function - to clean the anus. I used anus because it is a fantastic word. However, on a sheet by sheet comparison - taking into account softness, durability, and political ideology, it is actually far more effective to use the Daily Mail, or to accumulate free Metro's on the bus to work every day.
Alright, so the reason I'm writing a blog update on how to wipe your arse is probably confusing a lot of people. Let's return to the bathroom. I'm perched comfortably, trousers adrift, staring at the wall and realizing with a sinking feeling that there might not be enough toilet roll for me to adequately clean myself, and that perhaps a bidet would be a far more economical solution. And since you can't actually eat toilet paper, and it doesn't absorb enough to be Kitchen roll, it is rather a luxury.
Which got me thinking some more.
We live on an island, completely surrounded by a substance that makes up two thirds of our planet's surface and quite regularly falls from the sky. It is also necessary, along with food, air and shelter, for human life. And yet we actually have to pay for water. We have to pay for one of the most abundant - besides oxygen and stupidity - resources that our planet has to offer. Which got me thinking some more.
We have human rights, as outlined by the UN Declaration of Human Rights. As is espoused and championed by our liberal democracy. But when you actually think about it, we do not have the right to life. We have the right to not get killed. The right to life would imply that we had the rights to things necessary on the most basic and fundamental level for human life - water, food, air, shelter.
Now, inflation is now at 3.7%, which means everything costs an obscene amount of money. We have a 20% VAT rate. We get taxed. We then pay National Insurance contributions, and probably towards pensions which will then be denied us by some sort of legal loophole - or more commonly, an evil money grabbing bastard stealing everything.
So we have no right to water. We have no right to food, which is incredibly expensive, but we do have a right to air, because fortunately it is a little difficult to control. We have no right to shelter, certainly, because we have to pay a lot of money for that one. And when we do get shelter, we can't actually leave it, because we're paying so much for the privilege of staying alive that to leave our four walls and go somewhere else would be economically stupid, because we'd just have to keep paying for it.
So we'll reiterate. You pay for water. You pay for food, most of which just occurs naturally and falls from trees. You pay for shelter. You pay for the power to your shelter. You pay for the gas with which to cook the things you've already paid for. You pay to rent a phone line that basically requires next to nothing doing to it. You then pay for a contract - rent, mobile, Internet ect - which you will continue to pay for, for a predetermined amount of time, whether you use these services or not. This is to protect the interests of the people you are paying. How stupid is that? You are legally obliged to keep paying for something you might not want, use, or need, because to not pay for it would leave a huge business - that is absolutely milking you - a trivial amount of money worse off.
Then you get a television. Which you pay a huge amount of money for, so you can better fill your free time with mundane rubbish. But fortunately, you have to actually keep paying for the television. Again and again, year in and year out, as some sort of bizarre tax so that another company can make a bit of money in exchange for what is quite frankly an appalling service. Frustrated, you get in your car, only to realize that you are not only inadvertently destroying the planet by frequent use, but you are forced into paying compulsory insurance based entirely of some random numbers.
I could total a car seven times and not achieve it's worth in insurance premiums. My compulsory insurance, for which I can be thrown in prison for not having, is actually there on the assumption that I will wreck someone else's car, and their car will be really expensive. So unless I purposefully ram a good couple of BMW's and Jags, I'm not really getting anything out of this deal, because I'm forced into paying a lot of money to ensure that if I damage something worth more than me, I can pay for it. So I might as well go ahead and do it, right, or its just a waste of money.
Finally, at your wits end, you decide to flee the country. The thing is, you can't actually leave without paying for a piece of paper that says you belong here in the first place. Then, you can't go anywhere without paying a lot of money to be strapped into a metal coffin and hurled across the ocean. So you have to pay to be here, and you have to pay to leave. And if you ever reach Nirvana, you have to pay to stay there too. And not only that, but there are other people who - if you do not pay - are not only empowered, but obliged, to turn up at your house, beat you with clubs, steal you from your friends and family, lock you in a cage, ask a complete stranger in a stupid wig what his professional diagnosis is, and based on his decision, throw you into what is not essentially, but exactly, a dungeon. But that is somehow all right, because somewhere along the line, we all agreed that this was okay, didn't we?
It's enough to want to blow your brains out, except you need to pay for a gun, a bullet, a license, and then some other poor sod has to pay to put you in a box. Once in this box, they then have to pay extra to set fire to your corpse.
I'll write that again.
Someone has to pay to set fire to your corpse.
All this came to me on the toilet. It might seem rather obvious to everyone else. But have you ever wondered why we actually do this? I mean, what is the point? You can work your fingers to the bone, but at no point in life do you ever, ever, ever stop paying for anything. You are nothing more than a unit of consumption.
And on that depressing note, I've got to go to the supermarket to ensure that I definitely eat one meal today. I always think the shopping experience would be so much more enjoyable if everyone dressed in period costumes. The cashiers could look like Dick Turpin, and when it came time to pay, they just produced a handgun and told me what I already knew - that it was going to have to be my money or my life.
Toilet paper has one primary function - to clean the anus. I used anus because it is a fantastic word. However, on a sheet by sheet comparison - taking into account softness, durability, and political ideology, it is actually far more effective to use the Daily Mail, or to accumulate free Metro's on the bus to work every day.
 |
| It's a TRAP! |
Which got me thinking some more.
We live on an island, completely surrounded by a substance that makes up two thirds of our planet's surface and quite regularly falls from the sky. It is also necessary, along with food, air and shelter, for human life. And yet we actually have to pay for water. We have to pay for one of the most abundant - besides oxygen and stupidity - resources that our planet has to offer. Which got me thinking some more.
We have human rights, as outlined by the UN Declaration of Human Rights. As is espoused and championed by our liberal democracy. But when you actually think about it, we do not have the right to life. We have the right to not get killed. The right to life would imply that we had the rights to things necessary on the most basic and fundamental level for human life - water, food, air, shelter.
Now, inflation is now at 3.7%, which means everything costs an obscene amount of money. We have a 20% VAT rate. We get taxed. We then pay National Insurance contributions, and probably towards pensions which will then be denied us by some sort of legal loophole - or more commonly, an evil money grabbing bastard stealing everything.
So we have no right to water. We have no right to food, which is incredibly expensive, but we do have a right to air, because fortunately it is a little difficult to control. We have no right to shelter, certainly, because we have to pay a lot of money for that one. And when we do get shelter, we can't actually leave it, because we're paying so much for the privilege of staying alive that to leave our four walls and go somewhere else would be economically stupid, because we'd just have to keep paying for it.
So we'll reiterate. You pay for water. You pay for food, most of which just occurs naturally and falls from trees. You pay for shelter. You pay for the power to your shelter. You pay for the gas with which to cook the things you've already paid for. You pay to rent a phone line that basically requires next to nothing doing to it. You then pay for a contract - rent, mobile, Internet ect - which you will continue to pay for, for a predetermined amount of time, whether you use these services or not. This is to protect the interests of the people you are paying. How stupid is that? You are legally obliged to keep paying for something you might not want, use, or need, because to not pay for it would leave a huge business - that is absolutely milking you - a trivial amount of money worse off.
Then you get a television. Which you pay a huge amount of money for, so you can better fill your free time with mundane rubbish. But fortunately, you have to actually keep paying for the television. Again and again, year in and year out, as some sort of bizarre tax so that another company can make a bit of money in exchange for what is quite frankly an appalling service. Frustrated, you get in your car, only to realize that you are not only inadvertently destroying the planet by frequent use, but you are forced into paying compulsory insurance based entirely of some random numbers.
I could total a car seven times and not achieve it's worth in insurance premiums. My compulsory insurance, for which I can be thrown in prison for not having, is actually there on the assumption that I will wreck someone else's car, and their car will be really expensive. So unless I purposefully ram a good couple of BMW's and Jags, I'm not really getting anything out of this deal, because I'm forced into paying a lot of money to ensure that if I damage something worth more than me, I can pay for it. So I might as well go ahead and do it, right, or its just a waste of money.
Finally, at your wits end, you decide to flee the country. The thing is, you can't actually leave without paying for a piece of paper that says you belong here in the first place. Then, you can't go anywhere without paying a lot of money to be strapped into a metal coffin and hurled across the ocean. So you have to pay to be here, and you have to pay to leave. And if you ever reach Nirvana, you have to pay to stay there too. And not only that, but there are other people who - if you do not pay - are not only empowered, but obliged, to turn up at your house, beat you with clubs, steal you from your friends and family, lock you in a cage, ask a complete stranger in a stupid wig what his professional diagnosis is, and based on his decision, throw you into what is not essentially, but exactly, a dungeon. But that is somehow all right, because somewhere along the line, we all agreed that this was okay, didn't we?
It's enough to want to blow your brains out, except you need to pay for a gun, a bullet, a license, and then some other poor sod has to pay to put you in a box. Once in this box, they then have to pay extra to set fire to your corpse.
I'll write that again.
Someone has to pay to set fire to your corpse.
All this came to me on the toilet. It might seem rather obvious to everyone else. But have you ever wondered why we actually do this? I mean, what is the point? You can work your fingers to the bone, but at no point in life do you ever, ever, ever stop paying for anything. You are nothing more than a unit of consumption.
And on that depressing note, I've got to go to the supermarket to ensure that I definitely eat one meal today. I always think the shopping experience would be so much more enjoyable if everyone dressed in period costumes. The cashiers could look like Dick Turpin, and when it came time to pay, they just produced a handgun and told me what I already knew - that it was going to have to be my money or my life.
Thursday 13 January 2011
In Too Deep
Today's topic, for lack of a better one, is about The Curious Tale of Mr. Kennedy, uncover policeman turned rogue environmental activist.
 | |
| Image courtesy of the Guardian. Environmentalist look courtesy of Police stereotyping. |
Kennedy infiltrated an environmentalist group in 2000, as I am lead to believe, with the exact purpose of I'm-not-really-sure, as most environmental activists I know usually enjoy a good chat over a bowl of cous-cous and some poster making. Perhaps he could inform his superiors of the advantages of buying shares in the tofu industry. I'm not sure. Anyway, seems like the cops left Kennedy out in the cold for a little bit too long, since recently he agreed to testify in the defence of people he was paid to spy on.
Now, either Kennedy is a complete genius, who decided that the best and most ironic way of funding protests would be to get a job as an undercover cop, or maybe he had a gribbly attack of conscience which led him to believe that sending people to jail for saving the earth from catestrophic meltdown was a little excessive. Who know's why Kennedy did exactly what he did, but his promise to testify in the defence of activists led to the collapse of one trial.
However, its not exactly all sunshine and lolipops. Undercover piggy has set up a company or two, some activists claim these companies are to cash in on the knowledge and trust Kennedy gained while infiltrating political groups. In other words, to keep making money out of grassing people up. Kennedy isn't too popular with the police, either, who claim that he has put police lives at risk. This is a rather strong statement, as killing undercover cops is not really a smart thing to do at any point, but you can't help but feel that the majority of the green movement would probably just try to hug him to death. As political activism goes, they're not exactly ETA.
In the massive double helping of oddity, Mark also listed another activist who was undercover in Leeds. That, personally, is a little disconcerting as I was at University in Leeds at the time, but given that I probably never met her and there is nothing illegal about eating soup and complaining about politicians, it seems my own worthlessness has saved me on that one. Lyn Watson is the lady in question, and while the face and name is unfamiliar, the people and places are a little bit disturbingly real.
Wrapping it up, I guess there isn't really a lot to say on the matter. Some cops infiltrated some green groups. More undercover police are out there, going about their business attempting to undermine people's tendancy to do ideologically motivated nice things. I'd like to chalk a couple of experiences and conversations in Leeds up to political paranoia and a sure fire belief that everyone was out to get them because they were so filled with their own self-importance that they actually believed there could be a copper behind every face. I've always been a bit cynical of people's motivations, but police agitators is a little bit hard to swallow. Seeing that they're not particularly far off the mark, I guess the security conscious activists get the last laugh on me.
The metaphorical laugh, that is, because right now, I bet I'm not the only one who isn't smiling.
Friday 7 January 2011
Faith in the System
For those of you who read the papers, or watch BBC News 24 on repeat whilst trying to figure out where their life went wrong, you'll be well aware that David Chaytor, MP for Bury North, has been jailed for 18 months for fiddling his expenses.
Now, on some level we're supposed to feel sorry for David Chaytor. His lawyer has stated that he is a "broken man" who paid a "devastating price" for his dishonesty. A correspondent on BBC News said that his public career was now completely over. That same man said that public cynicism hurt democratic process and hopefully the jailing of Mr. Chaytor would go some way to restoring public confidence in our legislative body.
On the other hand, some could say that Chaytor got what he deserved, or perhaps even less than he deserved. As his sentence is less than four years and not related to violent or sexual crimes, Chaytor could be released in May, having served one third of his pittance in what would no doubt be the nicest jail in the country. There is a tendency amongst some critics of the government process to see all crime as absolute, and everything as black and white. Generally, I fall into this category sometimes, but looking at Chaytor, I find it hard to prescribe an apathetic approach to what he's done. Maybe it is because Chaytor's home is less than twenty miles away in Todmorden, or maybe it is because he is a product of Blair-era Labour, or maybe its simply because of what he's done.
David Chaytor defrauded the public for almost twenty-thousand pounds. His defence lawyer (who should probably go for a new career) said that:
"We submit that the sums he received, if he had gone about it transparently, honestly and frankly, he would have been entitled to every penny, if not more than he claimed,"
Basically, the best defence a high-flying city lawyer can come up with is essentially "If he had not broken the law and been caught, he would still be spending public money now, perfectly legally and probably in excess of what he stole."
Oh.
That's okay then.
While it is hard to be angry at a broken man with a ruined career and pending book deal (I'd wager), it is also hard to forgive someone whom so thoroughly lied and cheated. David Chaytor did not do the things he did from ideological motivation. He did not do them because he simply believed in some Machiavellian philosophy of doing evil in the name of the greater good. Chaytor did what he did because he was greedy. Because he was corrupt, and quite simply, because he didn't care. To Chaytor, his constituents were a joke. The people of Britain are a limitless resource into which he could dip, probably from not much more motivation than because he could.
But Mr. Lawyer does have a point.
Chaytor isn't a disease, he is a symptom. He is a product of a hierarchical, authoritarian process built on exploitation, greed, and deceit. Jailing Chaytor, for however long, won't restore my faith. Jailing the other MP's on trial won't win back any favour with me. Remember, these are the stupid ones. They are the ones who broke the law. There are over six hundred MP's who didn't break the law but still continue an inherently unfair system of illegitimate rule.
So maybe jailing Chaytor cheered you up. Maybe it didn't. I guess it doesn't really matter in the end. They're still laughing at us.
 |
| "Would I lie to you?" |
On the other hand, some could say that Chaytor got what he deserved, or perhaps even less than he deserved. As his sentence is less than four years and not related to violent or sexual crimes, Chaytor could be released in May, having served one third of his pittance in what would no doubt be the nicest jail in the country. There is a tendency amongst some critics of the government process to see all crime as absolute, and everything as black and white. Generally, I fall into this category sometimes, but looking at Chaytor, I find it hard to prescribe an apathetic approach to what he's done. Maybe it is because Chaytor's home is less than twenty miles away in Todmorden, or maybe it is because he is a product of Blair-era Labour, or maybe its simply because of what he's done.
David Chaytor defrauded the public for almost twenty-thousand pounds. His defence lawyer (who should probably go for a new career) said that:
"We submit that the sums he received, if he had gone about it transparently, honestly and frankly, he would have been entitled to every penny, if not more than he claimed,"
Basically, the best defence a high-flying city lawyer can come up with is essentially "If he had not broken the law and been caught, he would still be spending public money now, perfectly legally and probably in excess of what he stole."
Oh.
That's okay then.
While it is hard to be angry at a broken man with a ruined career and pending book deal (I'd wager), it is also hard to forgive someone whom so thoroughly lied and cheated. David Chaytor did not do the things he did from ideological motivation. He did not do them because he simply believed in some Machiavellian philosophy of doing evil in the name of the greater good. Chaytor did what he did because he was greedy. Because he was corrupt, and quite simply, because he didn't care. To Chaytor, his constituents were a joke. The people of Britain are a limitless resource into which he could dip, probably from not much more motivation than because he could.
But Mr. Lawyer does have a point.
Chaytor isn't a disease, he is a symptom. He is a product of a hierarchical, authoritarian process built on exploitation, greed, and deceit. Jailing Chaytor, for however long, won't restore my faith. Jailing the other MP's on trial won't win back any favour with me. Remember, these are the stupid ones. They are the ones who broke the law. There are over six hundred MP's who didn't break the law but still continue an inherently unfair system of illegitimate rule.
So maybe jailing Chaytor cheered you up. Maybe it didn't. I guess it doesn't really matter in the end. They're still laughing at us.
Sunday 2 January 2011
Pretty Little Deathmachine
I was recently gifted an electric toothbrush for Christmas. Not because, as you may suppose, the giver simply thought I had appalling oral hygiene, or is some sort of crazy uncle who gives you dubious and probably stolen gifts, but because I actually asked for it.
Now, little do we realize what a bewildering array of electric toothbrushes there are out there today. I always thought the idea of an electric brush was for those who were simply too lazy to move their arms three times a day, but having become old and grumpy and caring a little more about my mandibles, I decided to get in on the action. Having used it a good few times by now, it'd be rude not to talk about electirc toothbrushes.
Oh god yes, I'm actually blogging about toothbrushes.
I have an Oral B. I don't know what kind it is, but it is an Oral B. It whirls. It is shiny and new and white and clean and hums a gentle song of destruction in my hand. It is a weapon in the war on dentistry. Without me, my toothbrush is nothing. Without my toothbrush, I am nothing. I will give my toothbrush a girl's name.*
So, the first problem you notice with an electric toothbrush (Charlene) is that she sounds a little bit like a dentist drill, and she comes with an instruction manual. Apart from the psychological horror of actually putting a violent spinning electrical object in your mouth, instruction manual's usually only mean that you have to put it together yourself, or that something could go horribly wrong. The difference between a broken radio and a broken electric toothbursh is primarily the fact that you happen to be chewing down on one of them and really don't want it to explode and take off your lower jaw, but whatever.
Anyway, me and Charlene were in the bathroom, getting a little fresh. I began to oil her up with some mint-flavoured gunge, working it onto the bristles. I then began to gently caress her buttons. She was turned on.
Immediately, toothpaste when flying in all directions, like an idiot throwing a tomato into an open blender. It sprayed all across my face, up the walls and onto the ceiling. Clearly she was a feisty piece of work, absolutely humming and ready to go. She was a wild thing and needed taming. I would do it. I had to gently bring her back down, re-apply the paste, and then slip her into my mouth before pressing anymore buttons. So, staring at my quivering and exicted reflection in the bathroom mirror, I was ready to go.
For anyone who has not brushed their teeth with an electric toothbrush before, you never forget your first time. Charlene bucked violently in my hands. The brush hummed to life, and the immediate sensation was like having my teeth sandblasted by particularly careless workmen. Anyway, the motion was good. We went back and forth for some time, intimately exploring every inch of my mouth. Finally I could take no more. I felt a tightening in my jaw, took a few deep and frantic breaths, and then pulled Charlene out. She slowly turned down, utterly spent.
Then I began to violently spit huge amounts of blood into the sink.
The thing about electric toothbrushes is that they are more like the S.A.S than my dearest sweetheart Charlene. They are invasive and instrusive, quickly in and out of a situation leaving nothing but carnage in their wake. They are hard and relentless. They are cold, professional, mechanical, caluclated killers. And even the names sound dangerous. A few days ago, I would have said that the Philips Sonicare X6902 or the Braun Pulsonic Wireless were types of high-yield laser-guided bombs. I was also not aware you could get a toothbrush to cost two hundred pounds.
So please, if you do ever decide to get an electric toothbrush in the future. Be mindful that they are perfectly capable of destroying you at any minute in a rotary whilrwind of carnage.
*Not only for the Full Metal Jacket reference, but because it would make the following post a little more interesting.
Now, little do we realize what a bewildering array of electric toothbrushes there are out there today. I always thought the idea of an electric brush was for those who were simply too lazy to move their arms three times a day, but having become old and grumpy and caring a little more about my mandibles, I decided to get in on the action. Having used it a good few times by now, it'd be rude not to talk about electirc toothbrushes.
Oh god yes, I'm actually blogging about toothbrushes.
I have an Oral B. I don't know what kind it is, but it is an Oral B. It whirls. It is shiny and new and white and clean and hums a gentle song of destruction in my hand. It is a weapon in the war on dentistry. Without me, my toothbrush is nothing. Without my toothbrush, I am nothing. I will give my toothbrush a girl's name.*
So, the first problem you notice with an electric toothbrush (Charlene) is that she sounds a little bit like a dentist drill, and she comes with an instruction manual. Apart from the psychological horror of actually putting a violent spinning electrical object in your mouth, instruction manual's usually only mean that you have to put it together yourself, or that something could go horribly wrong. The difference between a broken radio and a broken electric toothbursh is primarily the fact that you happen to be chewing down on one of them and really don't want it to explode and take off your lower jaw, but whatever.
Anyway, me and Charlene were in the bathroom, getting a little fresh. I began to oil her up with some mint-flavoured gunge, working it onto the bristles. I then began to gently caress her buttons. She was turned on.
Immediately, toothpaste when flying in all directions, like an idiot throwing a tomato into an open blender. It sprayed all across my face, up the walls and onto the ceiling. Clearly she was a feisty piece of work, absolutely humming and ready to go. She was a wild thing and needed taming. I would do it. I had to gently bring her back down, re-apply the paste, and then slip her into my mouth before pressing anymore buttons. So, staring at my quivering and exicted reflection in the bathroom mirror, I was ready to go.
For anyone who has not brushed their teeth with an electric toothbrush before, you never forget your first time. Charlene bucked violently in my hands. The brush hummed to life, and the immediate sensation was like having my teeth sandblasted by particularly careless workmen. Anyway, the motion was good. We went back and forth for some time, intimately exploring every inch of my mouth. Finally I could take no more. I felt a tightening in my jaw, took a few deep and frantic breaths, and then pulled Charlene out. She slowly turned down, utterly spent.
Then I began to violently spit huge amounts of blood into the sink.
The thing about electric toothbrushes is that they are more like the S.A.S than my dearest sweetheart Charlene. They are invasive and instrusive, quickly in and out of a situation leaving nothing but carnage in their wake. They are hard and relentless. They are cold, professional, mechanical, caluclated killers. And even the names sound dangerous. A few days ago, I would have said that the Philips Sonicare X6902 or the Braun Pulsonic Wireless were types of high-yield laser-guided bombs. I was also not aware you could get a toothbrush to cost two hundred pounds.
So please, if you do ever decide to get an electric toothbrush in the future. Be mindful that they are perfectly capable of destroying you at any minute in a rotary whilrwind of carnage.
*Not only for the Full Metal Jacket reference, but because it would make the following post a little more interesting.
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