Cataggeddon

I have a cat. That's not to say it's my cat, especially when it has been naughty. It is a cat, that happens to live in my house. Which is not to say it's my house, it's just where I live. All that clarified, I've got a problem with  my unbalanced feline housemate. The issue I have is that he is completely and utterly psychotic. And not in an adorable way, like Gogo from Kill Bill.

A trip to the vet revealed that the cat may be prone to violent and unprovoked rages, involving biting and scratching. It seems to have an inability to feel pain and is only afraid of vaccum cleaners. At its worst, the demented animal flies into a vicious whirlwind of carnage, which has included smashing vases, knocking over flaming candles, and mauling anyone caught nearby. Specifically, on the flesh. It knows which bits are flesh, and deliberately goes for them.

Other hobbies include noiselessly breaking wind behind you, before looking disgusted and going to sit with the girlfriend and joining in the accusing stares. Odie also enjoys eating grease, butter, garlic, bread, tomato soup, pasta, and chicken curry. He is not in favour of onions. When not sleeping, he contents himself with tearing ornaments off the Christmas tree while watching for a reaction.

"Male tabby. Bengal father. Six weeks old."

We should have been tipped off at the time of buying him that, basically, dear Odie might not be all there. Particularly when he hurtled flat-out into a wall, stunning himself and staggering around in a cartoon-daze. But of course, we were stupid. We laughed. Isn't he adorable? With his tiny dagger-like teeth and complete lack of depth perception. He's trying to bite us, what a sweetie.

It's been three months of agaonizing torture. It is not easy living with a cat who has the personality of Alex from A Clockwork Orange. He is prone to bouts of hyper-violence, and if anyone knows anything about hyper-violence, it is quantifiably worse than ultra-violence, which is fairly bad. He also has a... thing... for my girlfriend's dressing gown, and will contentedly chew on it while gently massaging any part of her body trapped underneath. This will go on for hours. If disturbed, he becomes aggressive.

They say back in Leeds he killed three other cats. And two police officers.

It's a cautionary tale about being careful what you wish for. Or basically, making sure you're always good because Karma is pretty vengeful. I don't know what I've done, but I've been 'blessed' with a cat that has proven psychological disorders and a propensity towards extreme outbusts of harrowing ferociousness. Corrective therapy, training, and limited use of electrode-torture haven't made any discernable impact on calming him down. Even neutering him hasn't worked - although assuming that chopping off the man-parts of the cat would calm him down was pretty unrealsitic in my opinion. I know I certainly wouldn't be impressed.

If anything happens to me, you're going to have to nuke the site from orbit.

It's the only way to be sure.

He's watching me now. Cats have a unique way of conveying disgust and utter, inhuman contempt towards other living creatures. It's frightening.

Cloudy Surface

This is the final installment of my thoughts on Black Mirror, which are neither intelligent nor informative. The observationalists out there will notice that the post URL is 'The Van Gogh Method'. I can explain this, but I'm not going to.

Black Mirror: The Entire History of You

I won't go into massive detail about 'The Entire History of You', which I thought was the weakest of the three. You can view it on 4OD at the moment, or catch up with the plot in wikipedia. Summarizing, the episode is set in an alternative reality where people have microchips in their neck that record everything they do. In the end, the protagonist ends up relieving certain scenes from a party he attended, eventually causing him to become a collosal but vindicated tool and end his relationship over an affair he deciphered from his partner's bodylanguage.

The episode finishes with him removing the chip because he's upset. Moral is that presumably we aren't supposed to know everything all the time, and a selective memory is quite liberating.

Why it wasn't interesting

Perhaps, being Charlie Brooker, people expected something a little more philosophical or funny. I suppose I did. But The Entire History of You isn't particularly funny or philosophical. It has no deeper merit than just being a piece of TV. Maybe it was unfair to think of it that way.

There are several problems with The Entire History of You are, in my opinion.

Number One: It does not account for when people are convinced they're right, or about particular conversations they've had, or pretty much anything. It doesn't highlight anything much about being able to record everything all the time. It's almost patronising its opinion of memory. Yes Charlie, we're not supposed to know everything. Cheers for that. It would never be useful to introspectively look at how much of a tool you've been back in the day. It'd never be useful at all. It would just cause pointless conflict.

Number Two: The majority of the episode is just a guy living the day before. If people had this ability, all they'd do is watch their own stuff over and over again, thus leading to the collapse of civilised society. Or something.

Number Three: While highlighting issues with insurance, it makes no mention on it's uses or abuses for academia, crime, copywrite - watching that same movie over and over again. Coulda done Charlie, but didn't. The character spends an entire episode warning us of the dangers of over thinking without elaborating on how this works. But, I hear you cry, this didn't happen in other episodes either, and you liked them. Yeah, selective memory there...

Number Four: People relieve their lives over and over again anyway, with faulty memories, over thinking and general douchebaggery. People still accuse other people of various perceived and imagined crimes. The Entire History of You just highlights the dangers of over thinking and being able to instantly relive things from before, but the guy himself is vindicated anyway. It then makes an emotional point about him not wanting to remember. Lots of people are haunted by bad memories. They don't end when you destroy the CCTV. It's a poorly made, badly articulated issues.

And the Winner is...

My favourite Black Mirror episode has to be a toss up between the first two. They were good in their own way. A cop out, yeah, I suppose. As a series, I'm confused. I can't decide if it was blind, insane genius or malicious scriptwriting. Was it over-expectation or underwhelming television? I suppose it would be worth watching, if you don't mind adverts and have three hours to kill.

Six out of ten, if I had to rate it. It certainly did not live up to my expectations of Mr. Brooker, nor the whirlwind of interest on Facebook.

Self Criticism

This is the second instalment looking at Black Mirror. Recently, Facebook status' have be rammed with OMGCharlie Brooker updates. And since social networking is the one of the only important things in the entire world, it'd be rude not to. Again, may contain spoilers.

Black Mirror: Fifteen Million Merits

Fifteen Million Merits is the second instalment of Charlie Brooker's 'Black Mirror' series. The premise of Black Mirror is to warp, subvert, and add a sprinkle of surrealism to things that are already in the public consciousness. Probably for the purposes of entertainment. Probably. It might have a more philosophical slant, or it might just be Charlie's way of playing a massive joke on everyone. And unfortunately, that's what the Fifteen Million Merits feels like. It's not unenjoyable, it just hits a certain nerve.

Fifteen Million Merits is set in some sort of high tech facility, presumably in the future. It is implied that the entire world lives in these sort of places, reduced to app-buying, TV watching drones without tangible personal possessions. Each person has their own room, complete with wall to wall visuals that are a bit like telescreens from 1984. They have a certain amount of 'merits', earned by pedalling on bikes for hours a day. 

These merits are exchanged for anything - new clothes for their X-Box/Wii style avatar, skipping TV commercials, food, toothpaste ect. If someone was to earn 15 million merits - apparently about 6 months hard work - they could spend it all on a ticket to audition on the show 'Hot Shots'.The first section of Fifteen Million Merits basically tells you all this, without a great deal of plot going on. 

The lead character - Bing - begins to fall for new girl Abi when he hears singing. Inspired by her voice, friendliness and general aura of being too good for this sinful earth. Using his entire collection of merits - including those passed to him from a dead relative - he pays for her to have a ticket to sing on Hot Shots. Unfortunately, it all goes wrong. She is described as a good but average singer, but instead offered a slot on the rolling porn channel called Wraithgirls. While thousands of Wii avatars chant "Do it! Do it! Do it!", and a harsh speech from the judges, Abi breaks down crying while Bing screams from the sidelines.

Bing, depressed after Abi's departure, does not put much effort into pedalling. His merits, already diminished after buying the golden ticket, dwindle to nothing. Suddenly he is locked in his room and beset by adverts for Wraithgirls, featuring Abi. With not enough merits to skip the pornvertising, he is forced to watch her perform. As he screams to be let out he shatters a TV monitor, leaving jagged glass on the floor.

In the final part of Fifteen Million Merits, Bing busts his sorry ass to earn back his merits. He steals leftover food, consumes less of just about everything, and in a quick montage he manages to get enough wealth to apply for a trial on Hot Shots. He practises dancing in his cell, and finally goes to the audition, taking the jagged glass with him.

After saying in a rather sinister manner that hes an 'Entertainer', Bing dances before a panel of judges. He draws the glass and holds it to his throat, threatening to kill himself unless they let him say his piece. Cue a large rant with gratuitous amounts of swearing, about how unreal and fake life is. Impressed, the judges offer him a job as a commentator twice a week on a streaming feed. The episode ends with Bing in his new job, still talking about how fake and unreal life is. Back in the facility, someone buys a piece of jagged glass for their cartoon avatar to wield.

"So... Abi. Do you have any previous experience in pornography?" "So... Abi. Do you have any previous experience in pornography?"

Fifteen Million Merits is a difficult one. The point about consumerism, reality TV talent shows and technology fused with advertising is well made. Perhaps too well made, to the point of being an obvious slap in the face to today's youth. Substitute cycling on a bike for 7 hours with 'working for Tesco', replace merits with money and you've basically got present day life. People pay real money to buy Microsoft points, that they can then spend in a variety of ways on Xbox live. Some of this includes buying new stuff for your avatar. Your online presence. Your fake self.

But the problem with Fifteen Million Merits for me is not the parallels to real life, but to 1984. And not just the telescreens and the dystopian bleakness. The characters are one dimensional and difficult to connect with. The setting is alien and not explained particularly well. And finally, the sneaking suspicion that we’ve somehow all missed the point. The biggest issue is that Fifteen Million Merits is too clever. Somehow, it’s laughing at the viewer.

The episode illustrates our constant need for distraction, our rampant consumerism, and our insatiable narcissism. During an ad break, I tripped over my own shoes trying to get out of the door for a cigarette, and then the guilt kicked in. I needed to watch Black Mirror. I enjoyed it. I did not want to miss it. That’s the worst point. The bit when you feel really clever, philosophically deconstructing this critique of modern life, and then you realize all the points it makes are self fulfilling. You are being distracted. Every ten to fifteen minutes, you’re bombarded by advertising, and all the while you’re thinking of intelligent things to bring up when you talk about it with your friends.

Somehow, it’s become a weird Catch 22. The thing you are watching is criticising the things that you watch. The things that you do. The things that you are. Somewhere, Charlie Brooker is chuckling to himself.

Through a Mirror Darkly

If you've not been hiding under the bed in a pair of soiled pants, you'll know that Charlie Brooker has released a series of three surreal stories, to the general delight of all. Well, not everyone, I suppose. But is it really as good as legions of starry eyed fans make out? Is it the genius missed by simpletons like myself? Is people's biggest issue the fact that Brooker is a dickhead anyway?

This will contain spoilers. I thought I'd warn you, because I'm definately one of the good-guys...

Black Mirror: The National Anthem


The first in Charlie's 'darkly twisted tales', The National Anthem sees a popular young British princess kidnapped, and the ransomer's demand is that the Prime Minister of the day has sexual intercourse with a pig live on national TV. That's about it, really. It doesn't have much more to it than that. Cue 'race against the clock to save beautiful princess from evil psychopath', where the price of failure means that someone is going to get nasty with a piggy. Long story short, the good guys lose, and the PM bows to public pressure and bumps uglies with the squealer, saving the princess but losing his marriage. Which is understandable, I suppose.

A pig for that? Really?

But is it Art?

I've had people tell me that Brooker's National Anthem is pretty stupid. It is based on an entirely improbable, unbelievable premise that isn't improved by beastiality, if that could potentially make a situation better. It's a fair cop, really, but it misses the point. The National Anthem is clever because it takes a surreal, pointless kidnap request and turns it into something that is hauntingly familiar. Edge of consciousness familiar, but familiar all the same. And it creates a very real, very believable dilemma for the Prime Minister. He is not negotiating for some random British yatchsmen captured off Somalia, but for a princess loved by the nation. He is not making political concessions, handing over huge quantities of cash or releasing terrorists onto the streets. All he has to do is sacrifice his dignity.

And theres the reality in it. It is a pointless ask, but with some very deep, sinister implications. I'm not sure I need to describe in any great detail the ramifications of filming David Cameron taking a pig from behind, and what that would do to national and global politics. I think you could work that out for yourself. The premise is believable. People have done political acts that would appear just as pointless, particularly someone like Abbie Hoffman. Just because it's stupid and crude doesn't automatically make it wrong. The portrayal of popular opinion and the cruelty of the masses is entirely believable. The role of the media and internet is something we've come to expect.

The problem rests with the believability of the characters, not the scenario. The National Anthem coerces an innocent, reluctant, but ultimately heroic Prime Minister into an act of degredation. But unfortunately, that's the least believable part. It wouldn't happen, and somewhere, at the back of your mind, you know it wouldn't.

The final twist is at the end, when the Princess is freed half an hour before the deadline by her captor, who then commits suicide. He is a famous artist, going for one last triumphant exhibition. And here is the second and third problem with The National Anthem.

Princess Susanne, despite being released prior to the deadline, is not discovered until after the PM has done the nasty with a pig. Not for a considerable time afterwards. This is because everyone is indoors watching the broadcast. It wouldn't happen. Would the police hold everything so they could gather round a TV screen? Would not a single member of the public be so repulsed they'd decide to get some shopping done? Would every business in London shut down, leaving post-apocalyptic empty streets? 'Go home lads, take the day off from McDonalds and watch that weird thing that's happening on TV'. No, it wouldn't happen.

And the final problem, rounding back to the beginning. Is it art?

I'm not going to get bogged down in discusing the artistic merit of beastiality, but the wider implications of 'is it art?' that Brooker touches on, but never really explores. No discussion of artistic merit takes place, despite that being the whole point. No scathing criticism of people who enter unmade beds into the Tate. No one looking at a beach made of digestive biscuits and going 'This is fucking ridiculous'. Nothing highlighting the fact that people stare at a collection of empty suitcases and talk about the deeper meaning, and everyone runs with it because they're too frightened of social judgement to act in an non-pretentious intellectual kind of way.

It's a wasted opportunity, but maybe that's the point. Brooker has created a situation whereby a man has to fuck a pig. People will criticise it for being unrealistic, crude and stupid. People will also stare at a mechanical dildo ejaculating into a McDonald's cup and call it genius. Students will write essays about piles of useless junk.

Therein is the biggest problem. The National Anthem shocks, entertains, and leaves people with too much time on their hands weighing up the reality of a situation and blogging about it on the internet. But in doing so, it doesn't get to grips with the point of the story and the whole 'is it art?' idea. In creating a nightmare scenario dreamed up by a crazy artist and then never discussing it, The National Anthem fails to confront itself.

Tonight or Tomorrow will follow Black Mirror: 15 Million Merits, and how in enjoying it and it's criticism of fake society, we kind of missed the point.

Dancing in the Ashes

I was in Habitat the other month, during the closing down sale, filled with some sort of morbid curiosity. I've never really encountered a situation so desperate inside a homeware shop.  People darted in and out with armfuls of cushions, while a van braved some bollards outside to make off with a bed. People were haggling over shelves, and I don't mean the ones you put up at home. I mean the ones inside a shop. The shelves they put things on. Display shelves. Nearby, two urchins rummaged through a box that was turned over to selling Point of Sale plastic display stands. The ones that you slip a sheet of cardboard into to mark 'CLOSING DOWN SALE'.


It was like watching the sack of Rome.

Everything Must Go

Watching the news recently has become an exercise in masochism, with the Doomsday Clock at five to midnight. BBC News used the phrase 'economic Armageddon', a phase so final and definite as to have people actively looking for mushroom clouds. Tesco, the bastion of the highstreet, watched sales slump as the general public decides to live without food. Barretts shoe shop goes into administration, and Thomas Cook look for a bailout. The unemployment figure has reached a point where numbers no longer make any sense and have been usurped by the phrase 'most people'.

So why am I writing this? Is it because I'm magnetically drawn to bad news and enjoy spreading general misery and gloom? Partly. But mainly because I've given up. I have given up so much, I have given up on apathy. What has replaced it is a little bit like sociopathic fascination. Something about the sheer desperation and futility of our current situation has made the entire world into a joke.


Of course, if one man deserved credit for such a hilarious and uncontrolled implosion, it would have to be David Cameron. I've never seen anyone in the world who can manage to look completely serious while kicking a clown in the balls, but David can do that. He has one of those faces.

Seriously, Nick, I don't give a fuck.

This has, of course, been prompted by Cameron's decision to keep us out of anything that would restrict our financial sector and any sort of European Crisis package. Way to go, David, you've killed us all. At least we get to watch it all burn down, laughing like a deranged supervillian. I know that's my plan, anyway.

The Great Escape

 

If there is one thing that British culture can stand back and proudly say, it’s that it fully, utterly and completely destroys the human soul. Anyone who has ever been to an airport can tell you this. They are right up there alongside the most horrific places in the world. A weekend in Mogadishu is probably less stressful than waiting for a flight in Manchester. Anyone who really wants to make a criminal suffer for what they’ve done should forget the penal institution and instead condemn someone to twenty-five years in an airport. Reoffending rates would drop overnight. Suicide rates would probably soar. This is the Hell of Airports.

I was at Manchester Airport recently, this only served to confirm a long standing belief that airports are in many respects, just like prisons. They’re overpopulated. They smell of sweat, flatulence and out of date chilled produce. Inmates are constantly scrutinized by invisible overseers. All objects that could be possibly used in any way to facilitate an escape, riot or suicide were taken from me by a series of increasingly complex security checkpoints. Most subsequently resold at 200% inflation, because they’ve been security cleared, apparently.

Finally, I had to stand with my feet apart, hands on head between two giant machines that alarmingly resemble some sort of radioactive sci-fi time machine or torture device. The notorious body scanners, where strangers get to stare a ghostly representation of my genitals. While this is happening, a tray containing a mobile phone, some rolling tobacco, a sandwich and my belt and shoes is carefully x-rayed by another eagle eyed protector. The sandwich is confiscated, as it has not been cleared for eating in the departure lounge, and may contain dangerous amounts of protein.

"Do what he says, Jim. It's a Meatball Marinara on Wholemeal."

Over the years, I’ve flown more times than I’d particularly care to, and somehow, every visit yields a fresh hell. On one trip, the chain I use to hold my wallet had to be posted back to my house because it was simply too dangerous to be on an aircraft. I’ve been liberated of both headphones and a fork, presumably in case I attempt to hijack the plane using an innocuous eating utensil whilst listening to Jihadi music. I think on my next visit I might just bring a garlic crusher and a spatula to see what they make of it.

It’d probably be lost on them, given that the meat sacks who man the security checkpoints are the kind of unsmiling jobsworth idiots that take wouldn’t let someone leave the country if they carried sharp wit, which undoubtedly could be used to bring down an aircraft. This seems almost unique to British airports, which are staffed by people who undergo vigorous training in the art of being too serious. I can only imagine this involves an hour long documentary connecting a sense of humour to kitten-torture, and a Rorschach test where anyone who gives an answer other than “I see a piece of card with ink splatters on it” fails on the basis of having an imagination. The kind of people who could be replaced by robotic mannequins with cardboard cut out faces, and no one would even notice.

My. Name. Is. John. Put. Your. Shoes. In. The. Box. And. Prepare. To. Be. Exterminated.

Salvaging my things from the tray, minus lighter, fork, headphones, sandwich and dignity, I’m ushered into a giant departure lounge and left alone for hours. Two things always happen at this point. First, you do a lot of pointless standing and walking around, because they somehow always manage to have less seats than people. After that, it’s just a matter of time before you get the creeping realization that airports never seem to be finished, always giving off the impression that they’re only half built. Most of the time is taken up by dodging people brooding about being strapped into a metal coffin and hurled through the air at six hundred miles an hour. There are also shops, at which I can re-buy my lighter, sandwich and headphones. I can also have a plastic spork. 

There are six accepted and twenty-two speculated ways of bringing down an aircraft with a spork.

We are, with the exception of perhaps the US, the only country in the world to place such a paranoid emphasis on the need to control people. Sure, there is never a good time to get blown up, but at least get down from your high horse and admit that you’re pandering to the Mail readers when it comes to passport control. Italy has one of the highest immigration rates in Europe. It’s also warmer, friendlier, and better than the United Kingdom, why wouldn’t you stay there?

Their version of passport control is a single bored looking man waving me through a barrier with a smile and not so much as a glance at my little red permission slip. Compare that to England, where the even the cashier in Boots asked me what flight I was due to depart on, and then punched it into her terminal. No doubt to alert the cabin crew to be wary of a young man armed with a moderately spicy chicken wrap, and to authorize the use of live ammunition should I attempt to board with it. I had more banter with the guy on the metal detectors in Naples than I did combining every interaction in Manchester airport. And he had a gun, which, if anything, makes him harder to get on with.

My advice that that you shouldn’t leave the country. And if you do, make sure you never come back.

The Will of the People

I'm not saying there is a direct link between people who hang around expensive cars all day and fascism, but I'm not saying there isn't. If anything, the evidence supports my hypothesis. Max Mosley's Nazi sex dungeon and Prince Harry's unfortunate fancy dress disaster being two that spring to mind. The most recent example is Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkeson's social faux pas in which he advocates the execution of public sector workers.

Nice car, right? You're probably a fascist.

The post isn't really about Jeremy, anyway. I could talk about how my opinion of him has fallen so low its actually started burrowing, but I'm not going to. I'm going to talk about our love affair with fascism.

We're not unused to the idea of fascism, realistically speaking. National hero and all round good-guy Winston Churchill advocated gassing Ethiopians, sterilising the mentally infirm and preventing the fire-brigade from putting out a fire that killed some Latvian anarchists. "I thought it better to let the house burn down rather than spend good British lives in rescuing those ferocious rascals." Contrary to popular opinion, he did not send the army after strikers, apparently. Because he's good like that.

Blunkett asked the police to machine-gun rioting prisoners, the Daily Mail published 'Hurrah for the Blackshirts", the police rack up an impressive tally of 'acidental police-related deaths' and the EDL rampage through towns and cities without anyone with influence taking a step back and saying 'hang on a minute, these guys are nuts'. Fascism, we're acquainted with it.

I think there must be an unwritten law somewhere that the longer you talk to people, the chance of them revealing themselves to be closeted Nazi's increases to definite. Everyone has a fascism boundary, the crossing of which plunges us into an even more dystopian world that the one we've already got. So, since we live in a democratic free society, I guess we are compelled to give the people what they want. I'm not advocating fascism, I'm advocating a lesson in 'being careful what you wish for'.

After all, everyone's opinion of fascism seems to be 'It's great, but so long as it doesn't affect me', or the NIMBY approach. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept of supreme evil, but supreme evil being what it is, I guess it's hard to fathom. So here we go, Jeremy, shoot all the strikers you want. Just make sure you do it yourself. Explain to their tearful families why you unfortunately had no choice. Tell them you were just following orders. Return to your wife and kids and explain how many people you've killed today, and why you've done it.

Expand to wider society. Deport everyone not white - since this is what people like 'Tram Lady'* want, and then inflict untold suffering on the remaining population. Cut the hands off thieves* and watch bankers frantically try to type with their noses. Sterilise the 'mentally frail', which will include a good percentage of the population. I'm not even talking about the poor, or the general population of faceless generic drones. I'm talking about Beethoven, Lincoln, Newton and van Gogh, and ironically, Winston Churchill. I'm talking about children with Down Syndrome. Send the van for them. It's fascism, happening right now. It's in your living room.

This is what you wanted, right?

Castrate sex offenders like the 11 year old kid who got his 14 year old girlfriend pregnant. Machine gun prisoners, like Aung San Suu Kyi. This is what you wanted asked for. How about we round up kids who play truant. Lets use dogs and helicopters to chase children. Cut payments to the 2.62 million people on benefits - including you, when you lose your job. Let them starve. This is what we're after. This is the utopia we're building.

Fascism: By popular demand

I've met a lot of people in the last few days who have no sympathy with the Public Sector. The news coverage spreads tales of cancelled operations, chaos and shut schools. Parents being forced to spend time with their children. Absolute carnage. The end of days. I think any future arguments with disagreeable people who dislike Public Sector Workers and their 'golden pensions' can be solved by my immediate theft of their personal belongings. Maybe take a huge slug of their pint, pull the chair out from under them, or steal their handbag. When they protest, flatly refuse to give it them back. After all, they don't deserve it...


* More on her later
* This medieval gem was offered by a local PC when they visited my store for shoplifting.