The Reading List (Part II)

Continued on from the last post. A day later than I was supposed to. Nevermind.

John Rawls – A Theory of Justice

Rawls is another of the dozens of dull, unremarkable authors I was forced at gunpoint to study at university, and the second to make the list on the basis that his book was actually really good. A Theory of Justice creates a theoretical position for the nature or value of justice and acts as an advocate of increased social justice globally. His thought experiment, lifted from another dusty academic, is that of the Original Position and the Veil of Ignorance. Which really makes you think about the world, if you do it right.

The experiment runs like this. You have to try and forget everything you know about yourself and the world in general. You are only some sentient blob, floating in the darkness of space. You know you will be born, at some point, into some world. You don’t know where, or when. You have no idea if you will be male or female, if you will be gay, straight, bi or trans. You do not know what country or culture you will be born into. You have no idea if your parents will be rich or poor within that society. You know nothing about the prevailing disposition of the world socially, politically, economically, culturally, sexually, religiously or any other 'lly that springs to mind.

Knowing your creation is inevitable, but ultimately nothing else, Rawls invites you to craft a world to be born into, essentially. Would you want a world with enormous divisions between rich and poor? Would you want a world that discriminates and hates certain members based on a pointless set of ancient prejudices?

"Man, I hope its choked full of racists. That'd be sweet."

The notion is that because all humans are generally rational people, we would seek to create the best possibility for ourselves, rather heap all the good things in one place and pray to god that you’re born there, which is currently First World, white, male in the ‘how good do you have it’ stakes. It is a constant reminder as to why people should endeavour to create and propagate social justice and egalitarianism. I’ve had some great – and by that I mean fucking horrendous – discussions with people who, because of their own good fortune, are more than happy to continue the way things are because basically, it sucks to be someone else and that’s life, I’m afraid.

Rawls misses the boat on one thing is that he uses it to advocate liberalism and generally tinker with liberal democracy, which kind of stops short of where I’d like it to go, which is Anarchism or Anarcho-Communism, to be a little less vague. But that’s obviously because I’m a filthy idealist. Better to let the fuckers starve.

Alan Moore – Watchmen

Alan Moore’s Watchmen is probably my favourite book of the moment. It isn’t the believable and memorable characters it has in spades. It isn’t the exploration of war, sexual fetishes, violence, or the hazy line between fascism and mob justice. For me the best part of Moore’s work is the way it unpacks Machiavelli’s The Prince with the a cold hard backhand of rationalized mass murder.

Different threads come together throughout Watchmen, forming the big reveal you see at the end. Without wanting to give too much away, it is precisely this ending that makes the book as good as it is. You’d have to read it, but it fits very well with my somewhat depressing view of political morality. You’re faced with the classic ticking time-bomb scenario and the brutal horror that lurks beneath the philosophy of utilitarianism. Watchmen gives me chills, and not in a nice way.

Utilitarianism, maximising the greatest good for the greatest number, is the way in which any sane contemporary government operates. Albeit with the strings pulled by consumerism, mass media and false consciousness. It is what makes sense in a disarming, happy way. We want people to be happy, right? And we want the most people to be happy and safe and free for the least discomfort. Generally this manifests in harmless things like the smoking ban. Some people lose, but generally everyone is better off. But occasionally, it is used to determine not the maximum amount of utility gained, but to find a solution where the minimum amount is lost. Everyone loses, but fewer people lose more.

So if there is a ticking bomb in a city of thousands, do you torture a few people to find out where it is and prevent massive loss of life? If an aircraft is hijacked over the capital, do you shoot it down to stop another 9/11? What is three hundred lives, unfortunate and horrible as it is, compared to three thousand?

If The Dispossessed gave me a realistic enough articulation of Anarchism, albeit set in the future in a heavily contrived scenario, and if The Left Hand of Darkness caused me to re-examine the way I looked at gender, then Moore's Watchmen smashed my naive childish hopes and reduced me to a pseudo-philosophical vegetable stewing in a mire of cynical loathing. Some poetic license may have been involved in the last sentence.

And so if you kill millions to save billions, you did the right thing, didn’t you?*

Ursula Le Guin – The Wind’s Twelve Quarters

Generally speaking, The Wind's Twelve Quarters is a decent collection of Science Fiction stories that doesn't dwell too much on the science. Nor is it the kind of trashy sci-fi associated with fanboys writing poor Star Wars offerings to Mary-Sue their way into Princess Leia's armoured bodice. It is much deeper than that. And while all of the stories in the book are good in their own right, one in particular stands out, and that is The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

"The room is about three paces long and two wide: a mere broom closet or disused tool room. In the room, a child is sitting. It could be a boy or a girl. It looks about six, but actually is nearly ten. It is feeble-minded. Perhaps it was born defective, or perhaps it has become imbecile through fear, malnutrition, and neglect...  ...but the child, who has not always lived in the tool room, and can remember sunlight and its mother's voice, sometimes speaks. "I will be good, " it says. "Please let me out. I will be good!" ... ...The child used to scream for help at night, and cry a good deal, but now it only makes a kind of whining... It is so thin there are no calves to its legs; its belly protrudes; it lives on a half-bowl of corn meal and grease a day. It is naked. Its buttocks and thighs are a mass of festered sores, as it sits in its own excrement continually.

They all know it is there, all the people of Omelas. Some of them have come to see it, others are content merely to know it is there. They all know that it has to be there. Some of them understand why, and some do not, but they all understand that their happiness, the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendships, the health of their children, the wisdom of their scholars, the skill of their makers, even the abundance of their harvest and the kindly weathers of their skies, depend wholly on this child's abominable misery."

I first encountered The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas during a lecture on Political Morality at University, and like Watchmen, it was soul crushingly powerful. It is an extreme, contrived and ultimately unrealistic and overly simplistic view of things - that one child's continued torment and suffering is directly related to the good of the entire city.

But it strikes a deeper chord on two levels.

First, there is the temptation to see the citizens as horrible monsters, living out perfect lives on the back of one persons unending suffering. As I said, this is unrealistic and too simplistic. Omelas is a metaphor, reality is subtle. Then it creeps up on you. The news reels off a list of far off wars, natural disasters, corrupt dictatorships and impoverished millions. Charity adds run, begging for money to help improve conditions of someone, somewhere else. And you tune out, turn off the TV and go to bed. Tomorrow you have to go to work, or visit a sick relative. Perhaps a friend is feeling down over a breakup. Maybe you can't go out at the weekend because you're skint. We are not like the people in Omelas. Our lives are not perfect.

Imperfection is almost an excuse. We are not directly responsible for the suffering of others. We're just privileged to live where we are. We did not choose this life, and we do not perpetuate this world any more than the next door neighbour. We are innocent, we have our conscience. We know that what happens elsewhere is horrible. We are powerless. And so, by a series of excuses, by an unwillingness to accept our own role, we abscond any responsibility. The people of Omelas are monsters. Evil dictators, corrupt bankers and exploitative corporations are the wrongdoers. We are not. Our innocence is guaranteed. Inaction is not the same as guilt.

It's been a few years since I properly studied politics. I read through lecture notes last night and marvelled how I'd managed to write such in depth, well thought out complete bullshit in high academic language. So maybe there's an answer, but until someone tells it to me, the second problem is that I get a headache. We can postulate utopias. We can hypothesise on alternatives. We can demand change, but can we argue with "the greatest good for the greatest number"? Acting in that manner makes winners and it makes losers. Can we, in good conscience, remake the world to be the way we want it, and call it fair and just, and escape the charge of utilitarianism?  Shall we wish people away, because they stand in the way of progress? After all, we are creating a better world. We're stopping injustice, we are standing against oppression, bigotry, starvation, poverty. All that good stuff. But can we act without causing suffering? Can you truly create a world where no one loses?

The Wind's Twelve Quarters is a good book in of itself. I often find myself reading back through the pages. Semly's Necklace, Winter's King, Nine Lives, Vaster Than Empires... they're all pretty good. It is an enjoyable read, and I read some of it again last night when the introduction to Brave New World was too time consuming to bother with. There is only one story in the entire book I don't read anymore, because it used to keep me up at night.

* That's what I tell myself.

The Reading List

For the sake of excessive length, this is a two-part post. Sue me. And happy Mayday, everyone.

I went to the library today, which in itself is unusual. Halifax Central Library, while staffed by wonderful people*, is unfortunately frequented by less than wonderful people. People who talk loudly, people who use their phone. People who leave me red-faced with rage over breaches of the social etiquette. People, I am reliably informed, who urinate in the lift and masturbate in the toilet.

To clarify, this is not a toilet.

Those people.

The kind of people best described as dregs of humanity. The bit in the bottom of the glass that’s gone flat and is full of spit and broken promises.

I don’t want to sound elitist, but libraries are for people like me, who generally appreciate the idea of a book, even if reading is one of those things that has become an annual tradition. They’re definitely not a social club for the worst members of society to congregate and do whatever illiterate peasants do when trapped in libraries. It must be horrible, surrounded by all of that knowledge and only able to gibber incomprehensively. Something I have yet to discover is what percentage of the screaming, phone wielding teenagers who fuck around on the top floor can actually read. And I am yet to fathom what they actually do there all day, and if they actually know where they are.

Anyway, long story short, it was a trap. I tried to print something off the computer and it cost a ridiculous amount of money because I hit print three times and ended up with the same sheet over and over and over again. Mea Culpa. To make myself feel better, I decided to get a book out, since the last one was so delicious I ate all of it. Then I thought, you know what, I’ll get two. Because I can always put the other one in the freezer when I get home.

Something went wrong, and I returned home with not two books, but eight. Five of which I had sent some hapless sod into the bowels of Hell to retrieve. She returned, staggering under a weight of ancient crumbling paper with a distinctive hunch associated with people who snivel and say ‘Yeth mathter!’. After depositing them on the desk, she retreated, bowing and squinting in the bright sunlight, obviously overcome by my passion for reading. In Calderdale, someone who reads more than twice a year is generally either a scientist or holy man.

So I figured today I would do a list of authors and their books that have helped shape me into the twisted bile-filled meatsack you all know. I decided on 7 Authors because it is more than six and less than eight, and it stops me revealing the boundaries of my cultural famine. Anyway, there is nothing better to write about at the moment.*

Charlie Brooker – The Hell of It All

Charlie’s hate fuelled diatribe is what inspired me to write A Clockwork Lemon, because it’s really easy to get angry about stuff, and fairly easy to remain funny while doing it. I know I’ll probably have a heart attack at 28 because you bastards feed on my anti-social warblings, but it’ll be worth it because then I’ll  be able to chase you through your nightmares.

The Hell of It All is a collection of Brooker’s Guardian articles between 2007 and 2009, if memory serves. No, I don’t have it with me. And yes, he is funnier than me. Go fuck yourself.

The thousand yard stare of someone who has eaten too much hate.

Terry Pratchett – Going Postal

Famous for his Discworld series, I refrained from reading any Pratchett until I was 24 because I heard about him when I was a super-serious twelve-year old and figured that anyone recommending a book to a twelve year old is probably a fool trying to get me to read the extended edition of The Very Hungry Catapillar. I couldn’t have been further from the truth.

I like Pratchett. His stories are good, and while they can be a bit silly sometimes, he has a great way of approaching topics and phrasing things. Recently, I finished The Fifth Elephant, in which the line ‘he was so far out of his depth the fish had lights on their noses’ had me in stitches for about ten minutes. And no, that is not sad.

I’ve read maybe a dozen Pratchett books now, but far and away my favourite is Going Postal, a story about a professional con-man who gets offered a second chance at life – to work for the city council restoring the postal service. It’s a great book, and features one of my favourite exchanges of all time, in which the benevolent tyrant Vetinari philosophically discusses the nature of Angels with the man he’s just had hung.

Judith Butler – Precarious Life

I first read Butler in my final year of university. The full title is ‘Precarious Life, Politics and the Power of Mourning’, which is guaranteed to get you some eye boggling stares on the train and make that dickhead reading the Da Vinci Code put his book away and gaze politely out of the window, with is a resounding victory for literature everywhere. Precarious Life is a book of political philosophy, about identity creation and loss. I read it specifically in relation to global terrorism but Bulter’s theories are more applicable to everyday social interaction between human beings. 

I’d like to go on, but it’s a political theory book and there isn’t really much more to it than that. If you like political philosophy, check it out. If you don’t, give it a miss. It’ll only be wasted on your tiny brain.

Neil Gaiman – The Sandman

The first of two graphic novel authors I really appreciate. I’ll dispense with any myths about graphic novels right now, in the least geeky way possible without making me sound like an overenthusiastic fanboy. Graphic novels are not comics. They are books with lots of pictures. While there is horrendous amount of trashy, badly written superhero X versus Y books out there featuring copious amounts of blood and tits, this does not invalidate the genre.

Gaiman has wrote a lot of stuff, and you’re more than likely going to be familiar with some of it. But the Sandman series is an easy favourite, despite the awesomeness of American Gods. The Sandman tells the story of Dream, an anthropomorphic manifestation of dreaming. Woven throughout the ten part series are his interactions with a series of reoccurring characters, exploring gender, sexuality, morality, ethics and of course, his big sister Death.

*Even if a few of them today looked suicidal.

* Politics having recently become such a giant pantomime that it has rendered parody a pointless medium.

Shipping Off to Boston

I have decided to flee the country. That's right, I'm going to Canada, as soon as I get a visa. I'm in the process, so hopefully it will be in the next few months after I get back from Download.

The response to this has been somewhat underwhelming. I expected people to drop to their knees, screaming in denial with tears pouring down their faces. 'No, why did he have to leave us?' 'He was still so young!' and the classic, 'How will we ever cope without you, Stevie?' What actually happened ranged from between a shrug to the over enthusiastic 'it'll be great!' and 'go, get out and never come back!' which gives me a sneaking suspicion that condeming me to the frozen north was the plan all along.

There are several reasons why I've decided to go, as if anyone needed an excuse to leave this god-forsaken cultural wilderness inhabited by prehistoric brutes and pretentious yuppies. The two formost reasons are listed below.

1) Morally Ambiguious Weather

The sky above England is a derranged schitzophrenic psychopath. This is scientifically true.

It snowed last week. In April. It snowed heavily, and it struck just as I was leaving for work. It wasn't the blistering cold, the wet feet or the fact I turned up at work looking like a Yeti and raging twice as much. I'm upset because of the fact that it had specifically chosen that particular day in April, the one day I have a reason to leave my dark and soiled lair, just to fuck me over. It is like the heavens themselves have transformed into a raging hormonal teenager, scorching us maniacally with blistering desert heat one minute whilst pelting us with rain, hail, snow, melancholia and angst the next. This interruption of mauradering arctic blasts was wedged between two days of glorious sunshine, the kind of weather than means I'll be attending a barbeque on Saturday. Again, this is in April, a month with precious few redeeming qualities.

I told this to someone and they pointed out, not unjustly, that it snows a lot in Canada and goes 22 below. This is true, but what is also true is that it is predictable. You expect a little snow in the Land of Always Winter, and the three day summer is quite beautiful to behold. It's not for warmer climes I'm moving. It is for the comfort of having weather you are genuinely prepared for.

2) Everything I Ever Cared About Has Become an Obscene Pantomime

That was a bit extreme.

Recently, the second thing that made me come to the academic conclusion of 'fuck this for a game of soliders' is the way that somewhere, at some point in history, everything stopped mattering and became a hyper-real Punch and Judy show. It's almost like I'm trapped in a waking nightmare. I did, at one point, study politics on the slightly naive assumption that people are generally decent and that everything could be better once I'd done a bit of research and ironed out all of the kinks. A kind of masocistic optimism, I suppose. I was an happy-go-lucky idealist once upon a time, but this has long been in decline from the moment I realized that people are pretty horrible, not taking things seriously and that ultimately, a benevolent god would smite us from the very earth itself.

Politically, this has come to a head over Pastygate. I'm not sure if it's called Pastygate, but it is a phrase that someone, somewhere would coin. And in a free and fair society, that person would have been laced by machine gun fire infront of their kids.

The pasty row blew up a few weeks ago when the Tories tried to slap VAT on bakery products, which caused a moral outrage and panic buying of sausage rolls. What should have been a rather innocuous price hike accompanied by big business grumbling to itself became a national spectacle. The whole premise, right from the off, was the assumption that something as ridiculous as a steak bake was suddenly critically important to us as a nation. The trouble is, that without going too in depth, it was really fucking stupid. I've long been of the assumption that politicans are laughing at us, but really - Pastygate?

I mean. Really?

It's like anything on the Horror Channel. How can you not realize he's the sociopath?

Cameron desperately defended his policy by defaulting to his 'man of the people' routine, inisiting that he had eaten one of these 'so-called pastry sandwiches' and enjoyed the oozing goodness inside. Miliband went a step further and bought some sausage rolls. Newspapers tried to outdo each other with coverage of the unfolding scandal and how they could imaginatively shoehorn pastry related jokes into their headlines. The entire debacle was like watching the last 20 minutes of Downfall, where a bunch of serious Nazi officers get drunk and then shoot themselves in the face.

Somewhere, while David struggled to remember when he bought his last pasty, thousands of people lost their jobs as Game went into administration. People died while their incapacity benefits were reassessed. Everyone agreed it had been a fantastic piece of theatre. There was a roll on the snare drum, followed by curtains.

So yeah, I'm leaving Britain for as long as legally possible, or until everyone has given up pretending and descended into rampant hedonism, casual bouts of excessive violence and cannibalism.

Darkest Darkness

This is part one in a ‘much abused words’ update. In which I get annoyed about much abused words, obviously, while pretending people care.

 What this world is sorely lacking is an abundance of horror, misery, and generally upsetting things. We need a balance, something to cut through all the unicorns and rainbows like a ray of utterly black sunshine. Blacker than black. Forever.

Now, really, I don’t honestly believe that. The world is not made of daisies and cupcakes and adorable round-eyed deer, and I don’t have a problem with viewing the grittier, grim side of affairs. Indeed, scientists are now claiming that I am a futuristic robot designed to herald the apocalypse by thriving on human misery. What I have a problem with is abuse of the word ‘dark’. I hate it. Darkly.

Allow me to clarify.

The word “dark”, “darkness” etcetera can be used to describe what time of day it is. It can also be used as a metaphor for the more disturbing side of the human condition, such as the book, “Heart of Darkness”. This is just fine. What it is not, though, is an excuse for poorly written diatribe churned out by people who want to write brooding Gothic pseudo religious horror but lack talent, narrative and a vague idea of what they’re doing.

In this scenario, saying that a play, song, story, artwork, interpretive dance, or post-Armageddon survival guide is “dark” is incorrect. It is not dark, it is shit. Don't even get me started by saying it's designed to shock and horrify and make you think. I hate the term 'it's designed to make you think'. I do think, you patronising pseudo intellectual. Proof of my continued existence hints at electrical impulses in the brain*. To classify this drivel as thought provoking, brain-jarring tactics would be like categorising  flashers, murderers and the American invasion of Iraq and Rick Ashley as 'shock artists'.

“Latest offering to the Tate Modern, entitled ‘Holy Shit, That’s Dark’.”*

Since I’m, you know, such a well regarded, successful middle class writer, I move in the circles of up and coming new poet laureates who challenge the genre, and subsequently do have a few particular pieces in mind when I’m writing this, but for the sake of good taste I won’t bother to specify exactly what they are. Suffice to say, they’re pretty terrible. Instead I will use a few examples not so close to home, which will spare me the risk of being ostracised by pretentious arseholes whose company I secretly crave.

Anal Cunt

Yes, they are a band. Yes, they are called ‘Anal Cunt’. They’re called Anal Cunt, presumably because it is grossly offensive, and people like being offended. This is quite a successful marketing strategy, as it draws attention away from just how shockingly bad they are. Dark doesn’t even being to describe the sound or style. A glowing teenager at some music festival proudly told me. “They like, rape women because they’re, like, brutal. It’s so cool. Their music is just so hardcore.” I won’t lie, I’m not a saint. The compulsion to stab him in the face was probably stronger than it had been all weekend by this point, but unfortunately I was drunk and would have, at best, only been able to gouge him with a tent peg. If a job is worth doing, it’s worth doing right. So I didn’t do it. Sorry humanity. Another one got away.

I assume this picture was taken when they were not flaying kittens. Because they're brutal.

The Skin I Live In

A dark film. This showed in a local cinema and was really dark, because the auditorium lights were off. The Skin I Live In might have some deeper contextual meaning, and may expand the human mind philosophically in a way I cannot even contemplate. What I do know is that “Oh, it’s dark”, said one viewer. And it should be, with “at least six rapes”* and multiple flayings, The Skin I Live In is somewhere about a doctor attempting to create durable human tissue after his wife burns to disfigureation/death. I don’t know, because unlike Anal Cunt, I was spared watching it by simply not going in. The speed at which the audience left ashen faced was enough to tell me that if I want 103 minutes of non-stop torture scenes, then that’s the film for my wedding.

I have since actually had a chance to research 'The Skin I Live In'. Apparently it's quite good. Perhaps a better offering would have been James Cameron's Galaxy of Terror, apparently a dry-run for Alien featuring a woman raped to death by an giant sex-crazed maggot.

I can only speculate.

Frankie Boyle

Frankie Boyle should need no introduction. Anyone who has seen Mock the Week will notice his absence has severed to raise the humour bar from the sewer and into the gutter. Someone I know postulated that Frankie is merely a character played by... Frankie, I think... and this character is designed to be offensive.

Whatever his reasons, Frankie Boyle does not make for dark comedy. He makes for racist comedy, sexist comedy, and whatever other ists you want to throw out there. His entire act seems to thrive on nervous laughter and crossing the boundaries of taste. And because I wouldn't be me without putting something intellectual out there, here's a nicely written humour article by someone fed up with rape jokes.

I admit, there are some jokes in bad taste I do laugh at. This blog does attempt to go for the grimmer side of humour. But still, I think there is a certain boundary - perhaps relative, but I doubt that - and there's definitely a danger to referring to Frankie in a human tense.

Sa' I unsefrum Glasgow an I dun it in China?

So there you have it, three examples of ‘dark’, gone wrong. Now we’re ready to attempt to create something dark and grim and brooding. Something that’ll show everyone just how much of a tortured creative soul you are. This can be achieved in a few easy steps.

1)      Be unkempt, dark and brooding.

You are at your best when you look your worse. Actively try for that windswept, mad woodsman hair and five o’clock shadow. Everyone knows talent is intrinsically linked to just how bad you look. Dress in dark clothes. Fill your house full of serious books about dark things. Drink red wine. Drink it from a goblet.

2)      Know nothing about the subject material you are writing.

Everyone knows that you don’t need experience to write dark stuff. In fact, you’re showing your true genius if you write about things you have never experienced or attempted to understand. You are thinking outside the box. If you want to do about child soldiers, make them babies that are physically unable to carry the heavy-duty ordnance you’ve laden them with. Make sure your characters snort weed and inject cocaine.

3)      Conform to boundary pushing cliché’s

Dark isn’t dark without rape, but make sure its gratuitous and badly executed. One rape can undermine the story. Four will make it. Make sure it exists purely as a horrifying senseless act designed purely to stun people without any deeper meaning or context to the rest of the storyline. At least two thirds of your female characters should be raped at some point, and half of those should be prostitutes with trashy names, no personalities, and high boots. Make sure there is abundant drug abuse by people, but make sure you get it wrong. This is paramount. I cannot stress how crucial it is to include stuff like torture, rape and drug abuse. They are the keystones of dark. Just make sure to get it all wrong.

If going for darkly Gothic and/or religious pick Roman Catholicism as an easy target. Maybe the priest could be a coke fuelled rapist? Make sure you reference sin a lot, and include pseudo religious phraseology and setting that has no scriptural basis. Purgatory makes a great setting for dark things, because it’s all dark and religious and stuff.

4)      Watch some stuff.

Anything by Frank Miller contains a lot of violence and tits, so should be a great starting point for your dark epic. Perhaps listening to some serious black metal will help get you in the mood. If your creativity is flagging, borrow as many concepts from stuff that has been done well, and hash it all together badly to disguise the fact that it isn’t original. Perhaps the lead character might be a hooker, like Pretty Woman, only the grim version. Maybe the benevolent god is actually a psychopath - like everything since the invention of religion. Try to convince the audience that they're living in Orwell's 1984, assuming 1984 was a top-shelf magazine featuring Catholic Nazi pornography.

5)      Do academia

Remember this is very different to actual research. Do some academia. Study language, creative writing, drama, music, art, politics and theology. All at once. The bits of paper you receive will bolster your credentials when you finally drop that big gritty turd. If you have studied writing, you must know how to write. If you have studied music, you must know how to play instruments. It all helps.

I hope the guide to ‘dark stuff’ has been helpful to aspiring creative genius’. I'm tempted to write something dark to prove what a tortured genius I am. Maybe it'll be called Sins of the Past Darkness of Lost Purgatory Orphans Raped Screaming In Hell.

It's a working title.

*Although it is true, I'm powered entirely by hate and meat feast pizzas. Brain activity is merely a side effect.
* While stealing this picture from google images, a pop-up exclaimed 'Do some Internet Providers keep you in the dark?'. I raged.
* I no longer move in those circles. Because I'm not dark enough.

With Suspicious Minds

Anyone who had the misfortune of being in Halifax on the 26th of March may have noticed an area around the Town Hall and Princess St cordoned off with a heavy police presence. This had nothing to do with recent disappearances linked to the clawed ape-like 'under-terrors' that dwell in the town's sewers and can be found in the Accapulco on a Friday night. Instead, it was a bomb threat. I use the term 'threat' in the loosest possible sense, because I'm pretty sure it could be classified under urban regeneration.

The bomb was reported by a solider who found it behind the Army Careers Office. Sergeant Darren is quoted as saying "It was a metal cylinder. It was just sat next to the door. We need to be careful with being the army.”  Note the incredulity of it being 'just sat next to the door', instead of bouncing up and down on a Space Hopper like a normal suspicious package. You can probably forgive Darren for being cautious, though, as I imagine he's more than passingly familiar with the dangers commonly associated with high explosives.

Halifaxians, on the other hand, are not. Nearby buildings were evacuated, and hopeful residents gathered at the edges of the police cordon to see if anything were going on. Because witnessing a bomb blast first hand is so much cooler than being miles away, cowering under a table and saying the Lord's Prayer and waiting for the limbs to start raining.

"I don't know about you, Gary, but considering the amount of glass around, I really hope that thing explodes."

The local press have been all over the story, reporting it with the seriousness and professionalism we've come to associate with small-town publications.

UPDATE: SUSPICIOUS PACKAGE IS NOT SUSPICIOUS

I can only speculate that what they intended to say was 'Package is Not A Bomb'. The suspicion wasn't really the most dangerous outcome at the time. People did not let out a collective sigh of relief and say, "We'll, it's definitely a bomb, but at least we know what it is." Classifying it as not suspicious didn't spare the package from being carted off by police.

The internet was rife with speculation and over dramatic updates about evacuations, bomb squads and all that lot. Halifax's malnourished tourist trade were quick to jump on this morsel, though. Given you have no reason to ever visit, I suppose you can't really blame them. The Piece Hall tweeted:

"@thepiecehall is been used as an Evacuation point today for the bomb scare on Market Street ... please enjoy the this [sic] wonderful building".

"While this blows over, I know a great cafe on Market Street that does the sweetest cappuccino you will ever drink."

So whether you're waiting for the last chopper out of 'Nam, milling around a medical outpost in a football stadium during a zombie apocalypse, or barricading yourself inside a church crypt as the nukes begin to fall, at least take some time to admire the beautiful architecture. Maybe pick up some souvenirs.

A Man's World

It was International Women's Day yesterday, a day dedicated to raising awareness of gender inequality and congratulating women on the success of their struggle to distinguish themselves from domestic farm animals in the eyes of men everywhere. I'm sure there is a political way to look at it, but I like to assume it's just a patronizing and perverse scheme dreamt up by an insane torturer who congratulates his victims on freeing themselves from his hellish nightmare prison that they wouldn't have been in if it wasn't for him. Kind of like Saw.

International Women's Day also has other meanings, interpretations and rationals, but I won't go into them because feminism has never been my strong point and I don't want to screw up so badly that I end up insulting half of the human race.

The law of unintended consequence being as stringent and unkind as usual, International Women's Day has caused furore on the internet between people who actually know stuff about gender politics, and people who think everything is fine or are wilfully misogynistic neanderthals.

A commonly employed discourse I have seen is the lack of an International Man's Day. This has been championed by disenfranchised men everywhere, who are surprisingly keen on gender inequality when it affects them personally. After all, International Man's Day - which has been held as a daily event since the dawn of time when Adam said to God 'She did it!' - could provide them with yet another day dedicated to being slovenly, eating steak and abusing women the world over.

Well worry no longer, men, because there is an International Man's Day. It was started in 1999 to address the gender inequality of women having their own day and takes place on the 18th of November. Which you could have found out about with a bit of research and assuming self-righteous indignation  had not become the default setting for most people. I digress. Let the beer drinking, meat eating and lewd comments fly.

LOOK UPON MY WORKS YE MIGHTY AND DESPAIR

Reasons to Celebrate Being a Man*

1. My odds of being hired for a job, when competing against female applicants, are probably skewed in my favor. The more prestigious the job, the larger the odds are skewed.

2. If I fail in my job or career, I can feel sure this won’t be seen as a black mark against my entire sex’s capabilities.

3. I am far less likely to face sexual harassment at work than my female co-workers are.

4. If I do the same task as a woman, and if the measurement is at all subjective, chances are people will think I did a better job.

5. If I choose not to have children, my masculinity will not be called into question.

6. If I have children and a career, no one will think I’m selfish for not staying at home.

7. My elected representatives are mostly people of my own sex. The more prestigious and powerful the elected position, the more this is true.

8. When I ask to see "the person in charge," odds are I will face a person of my own sex. The higher-up in the organization the person is, the surer I can be.

9. As a child, chances are I was encouraged to be more active and outgoing than my sisters.

10. As a child, chances are I got more teacher attention than girls who raised their hands just as often.

11. If I’m careless with my financial affairs it won’t be attributed to my sex.

12. If I’m careless with my driving it won’t be attributed to my sex.

13. Even if I sleep with a lot of women, there is no chance that I will be seriously labeled a "slut," nor is there any male counterpart to "slut-bashing."

14. I do not have to worry about the message my wardrobe sends about my sexual availability or my gender conformity.

15. My clothing is typically less expensive and better-constructed than women’s clothing for the same social status. While I have fewer options, my clothes will probably fit better than a woman’s without tailoring.

16. The grooming regimen expected of me is relatively cheap and consumes little time.

17. If I’m not conventionally attractive, the disadvantages are relatively small and easy to ignore.

18. I can be loud with no fear of being called a shrew. I can be aggressive with no fear of being called a bitch.

19. I can be confident that the ordinary language of day-to-day existence will always include my sex. "All men are created equal," mailman, chairman, freshman, etc.

20. My ability to make important decisions and my capability in general will never be questioned depending on what time of the month it is.

21. I will never be expected to change my name upon marriage or questioned if I don’t change my name.

22. The decision to hire me will never be based on assumptions about whether or not I might choose to have a family sometime soon.

23. If I have a wife or live-in girlfriend, chances are we’ll divide up household chores so that she does most of the labor, and in particular the most repetitive and unrewarding tasks.

24. If I have children with a wife or girlfriend, chances are she’ll do most of the childrearing, and in particular the most dirty, repetitive and unrewarding parts of childrearing.

25. If I have children with a wife or girlfriend, and it turns out that one of us needs to make career sacrifices to raise the kids, chances are we’ll both assume the career sacrificed should be hers.

26. Magazines, billboards, television, movies, pornography, and virtually all of media are filled with images of scantily-clad women intended to appeal to me sexually. Such images of men exist, but are rarer.

28. On average, I am not interrupted by women as often as women are interrupted by men.

Doesn't that just make you proud of all we've accomplished?

*This was based on Peggy McIntosh's article on white privilege and taken as a PDF from MIT here. I was originally going to use statistics but given I'd found them on Facebook I couldn't verify them. So I started looking into male privilege, gender inequality and patriarchy and the amount of raw data from certifiable sources is so much that I wouldn't know which aspect to possibly begin with. Everything from box office gross for female made films right through to domestic violence, education and sexual abuse. So I settled for the above.

If any male readers are feeling pretty bad right now, don't panic. The first four articles I found by googling 'feminism statistics about men' came up with 'Feminism Exposed' ,'Feminist Myths', 'The Feminist Fantasy of Male Privilege' and 'The Problem with Feminism'. So I wouldn't worry, there are counter-arguments out there. Doubtlessly penned by someone so intelligent they've resorted to dragging their man-knuckles on the floor because defying the inexorable embrace of gravity is like spitting in the face of god.

Personal Exorcism

Originally written sometime in the middle of Saturday night.

I have not updated my blog recently. There are many reasons for this, which range from inebriation and laziness to just a general lack of funny. As David Mitchell said, it is hard to make a joke out of people getting machine-gunned in Syria.

Anyone who knows me relatively well - no, not you, drunk guy in the pub - will know that recently I've fallen on hard times. To be more accurate, hard times have fallen on me. I won't go into specifics. Specifics are boring, self indulgent and pretty bleak from where I'm standing. Suffice to say, I'm currently writing this on a notepad, sat on an unmade bed illuminated by a heat-lamp in my roommates VIV.

Soon my pet. Soon I will feed you the world.

In order to cope with the recent 'shit rolls downhill' events of the past two weeks, I have embarked on a purge of all the crap that has hung around me like thrice cursed albatross.

It has almost been emotional. Almost soul cleansing.

Get the Hell off me, bird.

I'm clearing my 'this stuff might be important later in life' file of all the random detritus it has accumulated in preparation for some serious abuse of the shredder at work tomorrow. It is a testament to the amount of crap a human being can accumulate in just seven years of adulthood. There are five year old phone bills addressed to my sister from a company I no longer use for a phone that no longer exists in this universe or any parallel planes of existence. There are papers from a union I am no longer in, and there is guidebook to a small ruined abbey in southern Ireland. And thousands upon thousands of bank statements.

There are scraps of stuff I wrote years ago and never finished. A welcome pack to a job I haven't done in years. There is a pamphlet on how to pay your TV license, how to fill in your tax returns for financial year 06-07, a stack of A4 envelopes. There is also letter to my university POLIS department telling them that I had reached mental terminal velocity, understood perfectly the dark face of humanity, and had to take some time off my course with an unfortunate bout of reality induced insanity that crushes the human soul.

There are also cards.  Christmas cards, Birthday cards, Valentines Day cards, Good Luck cards, Get Well cards, Happy Anniversary Cards - why do they sound like Happy Adversity cards? - Sorry You're Leaving cards and We-Are-Unbelievably-Sorry-We-Inadvertently-Crushed-Your-Youthful-Exuberance-And-I-Hope-The-Mind-Snapping-Horror-Of-The-Human-Condition-Is-Bearable-And-The-Drugs-Work cards. I've kept them because, well, everyone knows that cards are special. They hold memories, and without memory, where would we be?

I was going to go into them. The initial draft turned rapidly into a vortex of despair, though, whereby I start apologising to well-wishers I haven't seen in years for not living up to their throwaway cardboard crucifixes. And besides, they're my memories, not yours. So I won't write the last one-hundred words of this blog how they appear in my notepad.

If you're looking for the humour, I'm afraid it's gallows humour for today. And if you're looking for a conclusion, here it is. Its 3am. I have two stacks of paper on my bedroom floor. Tomorrow, or rather, today, one of them will be forced into the whirling blades of forgetfulness courtesy of work. The rest will stay, in case I need them. And you always have a reason to keep something, right? That little thing you just casually chucked in the bin is definitely going to bite you in the ass one day, so hang on to it.

It's always the little things that catch you out. Like the noticing, for no particular reason, that only the cards from one person are addressed to Stevie. No one calls me Stevie. And only one person I know in the entire world dots her I's with a tiny circle instead of a period.