Operation Don’t Die: Update.

So, it’s been about four months since I declared my intention to not be such a bloater, and, mostly, progress is still slowly being made. A couple of stones have been lost (not sure exactly how much), resulting in less hideous chin and less bulbous belly, and the positive comments continue come my way. Hurrah! I did tweak it recently, because it got rather boring – I now give myself the weekends off. So the progress has slowed, but is still being made. No longer king of the toads. More like a prince. There is still work to be done though – I’m aiming for at least a minor functionary.

Why Obama’s win is important, even though little will change.

I suppose the first point to address here is that I live in the UK, so I don’t have any business expressing an opinion on an election that I wasn’t eligible to vote in. But, one, this blog is mine, so I write whatever happens to fall into my head, and two, and, much as many of us wish it wasn’t so, things that happen over there do have quite far-reaching international consequences. So there.

Now, the thing about the US election, is that, in many respects, it doesn’t matter who wins. Not even a little bit. The US (and the UK, to be fair) operates under a system that is closer to an elective oligarchy than it is to a democracy. Although, on the face of it, Democrats and Republicans appear to be bitter rivals, there is collusion to retain power in the form of that unchangeable two party system. The Pres isn’t about to change the corporate love-in that is US politics, nor will he alter the foreign policies or military stance. None of those in power will acknowledge that the American Dream, in its original form, is incompatible with a world with finite resources and a population of 7 billion. Climate policy is unlikely to change. Now, at the risk of being a pot shouting racial slurs at a kettle, I am aware that UK politics, and indeed the politics of many countries continue to act and plan as though social and economic systems built on constant growth are endlessly sustainable, but America is quite a lot bigger than most of those other countries, including my own fair homeland.

But, Obama’s win does matter. It is a good thing, for a number of reasons. One of the parties wants to force women to have their rapist’s baby. America chose the one that doesn’t. One of the candidates posthumously converts dead atheist loved ones to his own religion, violating one of the most sacred cornerstones of the very concept of freedom; that of freedom of religion. America chose the one that doesn’t. On the subject of religious freedom, one of the parties would like to dissolve the separation of church and state that helps prevent religious persecution. America chose the one that doesn’t. One of the parties will not even acknowledge climate change is something that exists. America chose the one that does. One of the candidates thinks 40% of the people he would like to represent are parasites feeding off a too-generous state. America chose the candidate that is able to respond to a person communicating in sign language without missing a beat. One of the parties wants dying people who cannot afford healthcare or health insurance (assuming they could even get cover for pre-existing conditions, which they often can’t) to hurry up and die already. America chose the party that is working towards providing healthcare for everyone. One of the parties wants to stop or at least reduce teaching the sciences in general and evolution in particular in an attempt to keep the population as dumb as possible. America chose the party that isn’t afraid of educating people, even if it means they start questioning the conflicts arising between what their religion tells them and what we now know about our Universe.

While I get the cynicism in respect of the illusion of choice (the same illusion exists here as well), the differences noted above are important. What is more important is the choice reflects an underlying feeling in the US; the feeling that the GOP, the tea-party and Donald Trump (by the way, Mr T – ‘unprecedented’ and ‘like never before’ mean the same thing) do not represent the way they feel. I’m no fool, I know the Republicans will gain power again sooner rather than later, but for the moment, there is reason to be positive.

In the long run, the most useful thing anyone can do, either here or there, in my opinion, is to attempt to effect change at a local level while still partaking in the voting charade that goes on at a national level. But I’d be surprised if even that ever begins to change things.

The horror, the horror...

It’s begun. My eldest daughter is five, and the bollocky, over-sexed, unoriginal pit of fecal aural matter that is our current pop scene is now starting to exert influence on her. She was jumping on our bed, the words “I am Jessie Jay Jay” coming from her mouth. She’s a big Toy Story watcher, so I hoped she might be referring to the cowgirl doll voiced by Joan Cusack in the films. Alas, when I asked her who, she said “Jessie J daddy, she’s a dancer and she dances every day”.

Hearing that sparked an odd kind of horror inside me, in which my mind’s eye showed me my daughter in a ridiculously tight outfit thrusting her crotch in the direction of Brian May’s guitar. Clearly, things are unlikely to ever get that bad, but I suspect I’m not far away from the JLS or One Direction phase, or whatever unshaven ken dolls styled and auto-tuned for the screaming masses they have by then. A band once cleverly prophesied that Pop Will Eat Itself. Pop is no longer eating itself, but is now feasting on its own cannibalised regurgitated vomit and calling it X-Factor.

Is it odd that I’m feeling more confident about handling the drink, sex and drugs phase than I am about the incoming being-fed-this-putrid-ear-shit-and-brainwashed-into-thinking-it-has-any-fucking-value-whatsoever phase? Wish me luck.

But is it art?

Not really. But maybe, in a way. I’ve had conversations before about whether cinema is really art. Well, yes, it absolutely is. Sure, when presented with Transformers: Dark of the Moon it is harder to contend this. But, what about ‘real’ art? For every tortured Van Gogh masterpiece, there is a light switch or unmade bed. Now, I'm not here to tell you that that kind of modern art isn't art, but I am contending that film has as much right, perhaps more, to be called art. Cinema is another form of storytelling, and storytelling is an art form, whether it is in the form of a book, graphic novel, concept album, or simply told around a campfire. If you don’t agree are you really trying to tell me that Tracey Emin is an artist, and yet Terrence Malik is not? Then you are nuts.

But games? Now we’re on to rockier ground. Roger Ebert would say no. There are many others who might tell you yes. Me? As usual, I’m kind of on the fence. Ingenious? Definitely, whether classic or modern – Pong, Pac Man, Tetris, Sonic, Street Fighter, Resident Evil, Mass Effect, Bioshock, L.A. Noire... on and on the list goes. But art? Stories in games now have a much more cinematic feel, and as mentioned, I believe story-telling is a genuine art form. And some of the concept art and graphical touches are simply phenomenal (just two of many, many examples are shown below). But the stories and the design, which are art, is in service of the creation of an addictive diversion, which is not. So is art employed in the service of something which is not art still art? Perhaps some things man was never meant to know.

Concept art for Gears of War.

Concept art for Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

Operation Don’t Die: Update.

Still fat. But maybe not quite as fat. One colleague referred to me as ‘trimmer’, and more than one family member has commented favourably. Also started up the swimming and the walking again this week. It might actually be working. Might have to have a weekend off soon, though – feeling the wine withdrawal.

Some things hurt my brain.

Philosophy sucks. It hurts my head and finds annoying and unfair ways to win arguments. Arguments are won by being right. Being right is proven by being backed up by facts. Without breaking a sweat, philosophy can tell you that no fact is certain and that there is no possible way to prove you are not merely a brain in a jar being fed electrical signals. Or that some god created everything in the universe exactly the way it is five minutes ago. There is no comeback. However, instead of serving as a reminder not to make too many assumptions about your world, I find it just prevents me from winning arguments, although this might be due to my inability to debate orally in real time. Facts, no matter how irrefutable, become unstable. The certainty that the Earth orbits the Sun melts away a little, because that might be what the nameless scientists want the brain in the jar to think (I do wonder, however, why people who subscribe to this way of thinking don't leave for work via their bedroom windows, if not for the fact that they know they will fall and likely break something).

But that way madness lies, and it is no way to win an argument. The Earth does revolve around the Sun. It is irrefutable, and there should be nothing more than a minor concession to the vanishingly small possibility that we are brains in jars or the butt of a joke played by a bored omnipotent being. It pays to look at my atheism the same way – I don’t know for an utter certainty that one of the vast myriad of gods dreamt up in our history is actually real, but I find the possibility of me being a brain in a jar much more likely.

Sometimes, particularly online, this way of thinking, of disregarding the value of things we know to be true, has a more damaging consequence than annoying me. It creates an environment where a fact is relegated to the status of mere opinion. Where people who simply have a big mouth can command as much attention as genuine experts on a vast variety of subjects and issues. Worse, where those with an agenda are able to take misunderstandings in respect of things we know to be true (yes, yes, unless we’re all brains in jars or whatever) and deliberately use them to foster denial and mistrust and cause conflict. It is that time again, where I sigh wearily, bring out my tin drum and bang on, once again, about two areas in particular where this kind of thing happens: climate change and evolution.

A recent Koch-funded study defied skeptic/denier expectations, confirming that the data in relation to climate change (that it is happening, and that human activity is responsible for much of it) was not only accurate but that the IPCC may have in fact underestimated the effect in some respects. This year polar ice melt is at a record-breaking high. Do you think that this will have anything but a negligible effect on those determined to deny the fact of climate change? Or the Koch brothers themselves? Not bloody likely.

And as for the big E, the very same applies. The fact of evolution is very hard to deny without sounding like a fool. The culprit is usually either a mind enslaved to an outdated religious doctrine, or a determination to stick to a hastily made conclusion and neglecting to look any further. The old erroneous conclusions resurface again and again – if we evolved from apes, why are there still apes, if every living thing on the planet is linked by evolution, why have we never found evidence of a 'crocoduck', why are there no transitional fossils. The first two illustrate the same fundamental misunderstanding of the very concept of the theory – no one living complex species of animal in existence on the planet today evolved from another living complex species of animal in existence on the planet today; they all shared a common ancestor. The third point illustrates the lack of interest in confirming one's own conclusions – there are literally thousands of transitional fossils (fish to reptile). Thousands (reptile to mammal, reptile to bird). Some further reading gives a number of examples of human evolution, too, if you can be arsed to check before talking shite about 'missing links'.

Keeping in mind the philosophy bit, there is, obviously, like every fact, a chance that evolution could be wrong. About as much chance that the Earth doesn’t revolve around the Sun. About as much that all of physics is wrong. The theory of evolution is as sound as the theory of gravity, and like all scientific theories, it started as an idea based on observation. Over 200 years, further observation and testing has established a solid theory that explains, beautifully, the biological state of the world today. Maybe the philosophical brain in a jar approach isn’t responsible for the deliberate and wilful misunderstanding of facts and scientific theories, but it ain’t half an annoying way to bring an argument to a stalemate.

Operation Don’t Die.

I might well be coming off like some kind of Bridget Jones here, but I’m a bit of a fat bastard. I don’t exactly belong in a freak show, but more than one chin is too many, you know? During a recent home movie shot by my parents there is a shot of me sitting in our garden and I look like the king of the toads. Big belly, bulbous chin. Basically, a chubby cunt.

Back when I worked in retail, I was a little overweight, but with a stock room up a flight of stairs and delivery bay down a flight of stairs and a frequently broken lift, I was pretty active, almost every day. Often I would work until 11pm, skipping the evening meal. On the run-up to Christmas I would do 80-hour weeks. About six years ago, the company I worked for went under and, as I had just got married, I scrabbled to get a job as quickly as possible. I’ve worked in offices ever since, and the large amount of sitting I do has seen me chub up.

This isn’t the first time I’ve noticed this, and some time ago I started Operation Don’t Die, figuring if I lost some weight and became a little more active, I might live to see my kids turn 30. To be honest, ODD has so far turned out to be less than successful, the biggest piece of evidence for this being the fact that I am still a fat twat. So, I figured if I made ODD a part of this blog, in the public eye, so to speak, it might pressure me to make more of an effort. Never know – worth a try, right?

Last time it involved eating half the number of sandwiches at lunch, replacing fat crisps with French Fries, and reducing the amount of wine, bread, and general crap I stuff down my gob. Along with that, there was an increase in the amount of walking I do and even going swimming on Monday and Tuesday lunch times. It kind of worked, for a while. Too much work meant the swimming was soon sacrificed, but I have no choice but to keep up the brisk walking, only having one car and a wife who works miles away. Of course, that’s probably not enough, but, if you’ll indulge a cliché, we all have to start somewhere. I’ll let you know how I get on. Whether you want me to or not.

“But they changed it.”

It’s all about the difference. The difference between a book and a movie. Sometimes when a book is adapted into a film I can get annoyed. Sometimes I get annoyed at other people who insist every last detail of the book they love should remain intact. Books can do great things. They can give you a character that is, in a way, uniquely yours, since how you interpret that character; the way they look, the way they sound, the way they walk and a load of other things is in your head. In someone else’s head it will be a little different. Sure, there are descriptions, but they often merely inform how a character is in your head, rather than acting as a complete immutable definition. The same goes for landscapes, architecture and many other things.

Films do something different. They show you, definitively, what that character looks like, how they sound, how they move, what that location looks like, or the internal layout of that building. Books allow you the freedom to create your own picture in your imagination. Films are more visual. They tell you what that picture looks like. There are other differences. Books often give you an insight into the innermost thoughts of a character. They can present an internal dialogue to tell you what the character thinks, and their motivation for their actions. Films give you a chance to apply your own take to the internal workings of character’s minds, using clues given by the actor’s performance.

What this boils down to is that they are very different ways to tell a story. When a book is adapted into a film, it is impossible not to account for this. There are, however, right and wrong ways to do this. If you understand the differences between the two, you could change a myriad of things, even the ending, and still adapt a book successfully. One example: Stardust. Neil Gaiman’s original story has quite a melancholic ending, which suits the story rather wonderfully. Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman’s film version retains much that made Gaiman’s original such a joy, but it is mostly lighter in tone, and a brighter happier ending suits it better.

For the screen, stories generally have to be simplified or changed in some way to make them more accessible to a wider audience. That’s not an insult to film, it is a simple and obvious (to most people) truth. Examples? Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Jurassic Park to name just three. Occasionally, the changes made vastly improve on the source material (The Godfather, The Shining.) Sometimes a valiant attempt is made that just doesn’t come together (The Lovely Bones, Dune.) Sometimes, the changes undermine everything about it and nothing can help it to recover (step forward, The Golden Compass.)  Some would argue Watchmen falls into this category, but I’ve neither seen nor read it, and have heard too many differences of opinion to be convinced either way.

By now, you’re probably wondering what the point of this entry is (none – have you not read this blog before?). Over the years, I’ve had many a conversation, debate and argument of the merits of films, books and the differences between them. Since this blog is a bit of a sounding board for me to make my thoughts and opinions known (or at the very least, to allow me to organise them), what better place for me to air this opinion? The two franchises that come up the most in these debates with both friends and colleagues are Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings (infer what that says about me and the people I converse with what you will). I would always find myself in defence of the film versions. Potter, under the guidance of author J. K. Rowling, trims the unnecessary sub plots to squeeze the plots into the running times. Seeing as the decisions are largely made or approved by the original architect of the series, the changes are fairly easy to justify.

Rings, on the other hand, is very different. The original author is dead. Only one person on the entire production ever met him (Christopher Lee). Some major changes have been made. Frodo is much younger. The Scouring of the Shire and Tom Bombadil are cut completely. Elves join the humans at Helm’s Deep. Faramir has a very different arc, taking Frodo and Sam to Osgiliath. This has annoyed a great many people. Every change, in my opinion, is justifiable and in fact, a film that stuck closer to the novel would have suffered. Scouring happens after Sauron is gone. To have the decoy still posing a threat after the destruction of the main villain wouldn’t work. In the book it has the effect of bringing into stark relief that even the rural paradise of The Shire doesn’t escape the War of the Ring untouched. The film accomplishes this in The Two Towers with a line of dialogue spoken by Merry: “The fires of Isengard will spread, and the woods of Tuckborough and Buckland will burn. There won’t be a Shire.” The Tom Bombadil part is frankly the dullest part of the books so I was quite pleased it was cut. With Helm’s Deep, Jackson and co accomplish what is essentially a master-class in building up tension in the run up to a climactic battle set piece, and the arrival of the small Elvish army to join the small human army to take on the huge army of Uruk-Hai is a perfectly judged moment – the book loses nothing from not having it; the film gains a wonderful, perfectly cinematic moment. The Faramir change is a little thornier, because it involves a small amount of criticism of Tolkien’s work. Faramir in the books is a bit one-dimensional. A bit boring. Apparently, the only guy in Middle Earth who can resist the power of the ring without breaking a sweat. There’s barely an arc, no real character development – hell, he’s barely even a character at all. He is so perfect, I think, to illustrate firstly the big difference between him and his brother Boromir, and secondly to suggest there is strength left in men, giving a reason to hope. The films change this. He isn’t so perfect. He is still clearly not his brother, but here he must earn his strength; he can only let the ring go when he begins to understand what it does. Removing Faramir’s nonchalant disregard for the ring and Tom Bombadil altogether, the film-makers have made the ring that much more potent – there is not a single soul in the films who is immune to its effects. This works better for the films, where there are fewer opportunities for depth of subtlety afforded the book.

So, don’t automatically groan when the adaptation of your favourite novel makes some changes. Consider the audience and see if those changes are made for a good reason or not. Or, you know, tell me why I'm wrong.

The Hunger Games: Why do we love misery?

Like most sensible people, I love to read.  While I’d give anything a go, if you’re familiar with some of these entries you’ll know the stuff I read the most: Stephen Donaldson, Brandon Sanderson and similar.  The bigger, more involved and more complex the better.  Give me huge, over-reaching themes set against backdrops of wars, politicking and struggles for the very soul of humanity, that feature huge casts of varied characters.  Give me Martin, give me Jordan, give me Herbert and give me Tolkien.  Let me get lost in detailed worlds and hundreds of thousands, no, millions of words.  But give me something else as well.  Give me hope.  Give me a reason to root.  Give me a happy ending.  Or, if not happy, exactly, then something to make the emotional investment worthwhile.  Basically, what this amounts to, is that I do not like them to be too realistic.

If someone accused me of being a pessimist, I’d be hard pushed to deny it with any level of credibility.  While our species is capable of some of the most incredibly wondrous and beautiful things, our talent for prejudice and discrimination knows no bounds.  We find it hard to empathise, to care about much beyond our immediate circle of friends and loved ones.  Not all of us, clearly, but many of us.  We hate all too easily.  This is why I want something slightly more positive in the stories I read.  I want to read about a humanity worth saving.

The thing that has prompted this whole train of thought is my recent reading of The Hunger Games trilogy.  *BY THE BY, THIS POST CONTAINS HUGE SPOILERS, SO IF YOU DON’T WANT THE ENDING RUINED, STOP READING AND COME BACK AFTER YOU’VE READ IT*  You’d be forgiven for thinking, as I did, that this is a series jumping on the back of the Twilight phenomenon.  The popularity of the series is almost a direct result of Twilight fans looking around for another fantastical horror-tinged series told from the point of view of a teenage girl.  The back of the books carry a hearty recommendation from the talent-vacuum herself, Stephenie Meyer.  Everything about it screams bandwagon-jumper.  Eventually, I was told enough times that it is not (mostly from Empire magazine and not Twilight fans because, well, who can trust a Twilight fan?), that I grasped the nettle and decided to give it a try.

While it is much more simplistic in terms of plot, characterisation and language than I generally prefer (it is meant for teens after all), it is undeniably well written.  Incredibly, I was brought almost literally to tears in the opening pages, when Kat volunteers to replace her little sister Prim in the games (the Hunger Games of the title, where children of the lower classes are forced to fight to the death for the entertainment of the privileged – it is hard to miss the heavy-handed criticism of our love of talent-based reality TV).  It is shockingly moving, and more than enough to convince me of its infinite superiority to the sparkly vampire guff it gets lumped together with.  Nothing else in the series matches that moment for triggering such a raw visceral emotional response; not Rue, not Peeta, not Gale.  The rest of it is a fine read – easy to follow, faced-paced and full of (sometimes really rather gruesome) action, heroics, horror and derring-do to escape seemingly impossible situations.

However.  The ending.  I despise the ending.  Not because it isn’t well-conceived and impressively executed.  But because it is one of the most pessimistic endings I have ever read.  It skews far too close to the reality I wish to escape from.  It goes to great lengths to point out that in war, your greatest allies are often no better or worse than your bitterest enemies.  Everybody is trying to kill people.  Killing people is a really shitty thing to do, and Katniss, the girl at the centre seems to be one of the only people capable of realising this and is punished relentlessly for it.  While she doesn’t suffer quite as much as Morn Hyland (Morn Hyland is the lead character in Stephen Donaldson’s Gap Sequence and is a character that suffers more than any other fictional character I have ever come across – so much so it almost completely ruins the series), she is, by the end, no more than a shell of a human, unable to take joy in anything.

*HERE COME THE SPOILERS* While enduring great hardship, Kat just about remains a whole person through most of the story, until the leader of the rebellion (who is supposedly on the same side as Kat) deliberately engineers the horrific fiery death of Prim with the sole purpose of breaking Kat to secure her own power.  It is a despicable thing to do, but certainly not outside the realms of believability, and it underlines the point about both opposing sides in a war being equally capable of atrocity.  In the current climate of celebrating every member of our armed forces as unquestionable heroes despite many of them being, in the words of the late, great, Bill Hicks, “a bunch of hired fuckin’ killers”, it is a particularly bold narrative choice.
Unfortunately, it is deadly for the story, and this stems from the opening scenes described above when Kat volunteers to replace Prim to keep her safe.  The whole point of Kat’s actions in all of the books, the reason she does what she does, is, more than anything, to protect Prim.  When she fails in that and Prim burns, it isn’t as emotional as you might think.  It has the opposite effect.  It makes you stop caring about Kat and her cause.  If the writer is willing to take even Prim from her in such a terrible way, then what is the point in investing emotionally in her at all?  I understand the point made, I do.  I even agree with it.  But it ruins this series.

To make it worse, there is a passage near the end, just after Prim goes up in flames and Kat herself is on the edge of death that describes Kat as being on a watery surface.  Above her all the people she loved that have died are birds soaring through the sky heading to some undisclosed but easy to guess destination.  Kat is unable to follow them and is instead being dragged under the surface by terrible clawed things representing the people she hates who are dead.  The bird that was Prim tries desperately to save her, but cannot and eventually has to let Kat go under to be clawed and shredded.  What this says to me is that even in death, the only thing that awaits Kat is an eternity in hell.  At a point earlier on, in the midst of a desperate battle to end the oppression of the lower classes, Kat murders an unarmed civilian to stop them raising the alarm.  This is her fate thanks to that instinctive action.  Suzanne Collins must hate humanity with a passion few can muster to give her heroine such a desolate ending.

The so-called happy ending, describing Kat getting together with one of only a few resolutely decent characters and having children rings utterly hollow and is tempered by Kat’s overwhelming fear for them.  This is not due to poor writing; on the contrary - it feels entirely right for the character and completely intentional on the author’s part.  Some stories have bittersweet endings – see the final pages of The Lord of the Rings, or Stardust.  Some have a devastating climax that manage to strengthen the story and wring the emotions – see the brilliant and wrenching The Book Thief or The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, and some have a cheap gag designed to annoy readers – step forward Stephen King’s Dark Tower.  The Hunger Games is just resolutely pessimistic at the expense of almost all reader satisfaction, and while the author’s point is strongly made and keenly felt, much of the enjoyment is sucked out of the experience.  It is a shame that such a well conceived story leaves such a bad taste in the mouth.

How does it feel to lose your mind?

My memory has never been particularly good. I am reasonably good at retaining things that are interesting to me, but the everyday stuff doesn’t usually stick. Thanks to a wife who is much better at it than me and the occasional making of lists, I manage to get by. Recently however, there was an incident that made me feel uneasy, and wonder if I might be slowly losing my grip on things.

A little ways back we had a spot of sunny weather (hard to believe in our current state of grey skies and rain), during which I dusted off my sunglasses. One day I had taken them to work, and resolved to get a few minor jobs done over my lunch hour. My glasses were on the corner of my desk. At lunchtime I left work and headed to one of our local retail parks. As I arrived at the first shop I wandered inside, picked up a few things, browsed for a moment and went to pay. On the way out I went to put my sunglasses back on, only to realise I didn’t have them.

I checked back at the till, where the shop-worker had no interest in helping me at all. I retraced my way through the shop, checking all the places I had gone. I had a clear memory of wearing my glasses on the walk over, of taking them off as I walked in the shop and of holding them as I walked around. I could only assume that someone had picked them up and walked off with them. Red mist began to descend. While I calmly walked out of the shop and back to work, I was burning internally with a completely over the top fury. The shop, the person who must have taken them, anyone else I found to be slightly irritating; all were wished an untimely and violent death. (As a side note, I don’t genuinely wish for anyone’s death (apart from maybe Robbie Williams’) and wouldn’t attempt to engineer someone’s. I can wish an untimely death on a person internally when I’m annoyed because there’s no such thing as magic, and it wouldn’t actually have any effect. Anyway, due to the aforementioned red mist, this one would like to enter a plea of temporary insanity, guv’nor.)

Upon arriving back at work, it was quite distressing to note that my sunglasses were there on the corner of my desk where I had left them. I had never taken them with me. Those memories of removing them as I entered the shop and such were a garbled pile of steaming crap dreamt up by my failing brain as I struggled to recall the last thing I did with my glasses. So, I had got ridiculously angry over something that I was completely wrong about. Sometimes I can’t help feeling like I’m on the top of a long, gently-sloping decline into obliviousness and dementia. It is a cause for concern.

Can virtual social media spark real social change?

Yes. Trouble is, not always for the better. Social media is, says I as one more know-nothing who talks as though I am an expert, a strange thing. Wondrous, yet frustrating. I spend a fair bit of time on the various sites, facebooking, twittering, and to a lesser degree googleplussing (but I never go myspacing anymore). I do not live on these sites, and even should I wish to, having two young children and a wife in the real world makes it impossible. Same goes for gaming or reading or movie-watching. I’ve spent enough time on them to find some wonderful things. I’ve struck up virtual friendships with people I will never meet in the flesh who have more in common with me than many of my real life acquaintances.

I’ve been witness to social media (Twitter, in particular) saving lives and fanning revolutionary flames. When the earthquake struck Haiti, people were tweeting the locations of survivors buried in the rubble to allow the emergency services to reach them quicker. When revolution began to bubble up across the Middle East, Twitter became a real time instant method of communication, helping the movements to stay organised and allowing witnesses to report events to the outside world as they happened. News breaks quickly on Twitter. Too quick for Fox, BBC, Sky, MSNBC or any of the others to keep up.

Just recently there was the ‘invisible kids’ video which took off quicker and became bigger than anybody thought possible. But now here’s the problem. If something is presented in a certain way, it can allow something that has a suspect ulterior motive reach a much wider audience. I’m all for stopping dictators using child soldiers, but when the person telling me about it turns out to be attempting to build his own child army in service to his own dangerous religious agenda, it isn’t going to get me onside. Furthermore, getting caught wanking in public did him no additional favours. And yet, I wonder how many new recruits signed up to his cause. Too many, no doubt.

The recent issue around climate change is another example. Hacking thousands of emails and taking a few out of context ignited such an unfathomable fury of denial that the perception of science in general and climate science in particular, will probably take years to recover, despite the science being practically as sound as science gets. Nobody will search for the reams and reams of papers out there (try searching using Google scholar (select the ‘More’ drop down menu on the Google homepage, then ‘even more’, then ‘Scholar’) and searching not just for climate change, but some of its affects like ocean acidification, or glacier melt). Even now, very few people are aware that the supposedly damning revelation of ‘Mike’s Nature Trick’ relates to an interesting anomaly about tree rings and how since the 1960s climate data from tree rings has diverged from all the other data sets, and is nothing at all to do with a huge conspiracy involving every scientific institution (including NASA, for buggery’s sake!) and most world governments to, apparently, get rich from solar panels and electric cars. Or something.

So yes, a number of very real surges in public opinion can be attributed at least in part to the supposedly unreal online world, but, as is so often the case when people are involved, sometimes it is beautifully inspiring, and sometimes it makes you want to choke a donkey.

Beware the time-suckers.

A little while ago, I decided to take tentative steps to re-enter the world of gaming by buying an Xbox 360.  Although I used to be able to wipe the floor with the majority of my friends (as well as anyone at school or the neighbourhood kids), I suspected this time I might fair less well. Due to being an adult with a family and full time job, there isn’t a great deal of time to really get stuck in. Furthermore, gaming isn’t really a domain occupied only by children, and to keep an adult interested, the difficulty would likely have to be steeper. Well, it turns out my suspicions were right on the money.

After resisting for a number of years, the buzz around Bayonetta was what finally pulled me in. So, one Friday night after the girls (little and big) had gone to bed, I fired up my new toy. And then had to spend time creating an avatar. This was a tad annoying, but due to my habit of trying to make everything just-so and as exact as they can be (a personality trait that is deadly in this world, but more on that in a bit), I duly spent hours choosing what my little electronic self should wear and how he should look. Then came the game. I couldn’t bring myself to choose a difficulty setting lower than ‘normal’ – I still have some pride. It didn’t take long for me to get my ass handed to me. Repeatedly. It didn’t take long to figure something else out. Bayonetta is insane. To my credit, I persevered, refusing to lower the difficulty. I recently completed it. It’s right up my atheist street because it essentially ends with you summoning the queen of hell to punch god into the sun. Like I said, insane. What do I get for my hard work? The chance to do it again on ‘hard’ difficulty. Yeah, cheers for that. I’ll do it though. Or at least I’ll try. And I’ll try because the obsessively anal (snigger) personality trait mentioned above demands that I do.

You see, there is something I was completely unaware of that forms part of the Xbox gaming world, and that is the system of unlocking achievements to earn points. Everyone on Xbox Live has a points balance. Most games have about 50 achievements worth about 1000 points. How could I ever finish a game and not return to it not having earned all of the achievements? Simply put, I can’t. It is the same reason I won’t buy a James Bond film on DVD or Blu Ray. I would have to then get the entire collection. And really, who wants a copy of Moonraker sitting on their shelf? Nobody in their right mind.  Although, the pleasant surprise that I could download a bunch of those old Atari 2600 games, allowing me to remember a little of what it was to be a kid, is worth almost any number of frustrated attempts to earn meaningless achievements.

Anyway. Now I’m stuck in this limbo; unable to stop, and unable to devote enough time to it. Doomed to be forever on the cusp of competence. My little collection of games is growing, as is the number of locked achievements my stupid brain tells me I must earn. I have now introduced myself to the world of Mass Effect (a trilogy of ridiculously deep and endlessly variable games with a sci-fi plot worthy of James Cameron), Project Gotham Racing (in which it is possible to have a racing career spanning years – I cannot stop until I’m number 1), BioShock (quite simply frightening, to the point where I dread putting it on a little) and Gears of War (which basically involves shooting lots of aliens. Well, perhaps that’s a touch harsh, there is more to it. You sometimes blow them up, too). And this is before the fact that you can play these things online against other people, something I’ve only dabbled in a little, due to the embarrassing level of my shiteness. It can still be a great deal of fun, even though the emphasis is on shooting people a little too much. The way all the big releases seem to be shooters is a large part of the reason I never really wanted one in the first place. It’s probably a good thing there are other demands on my time preventing me from becoming a fully fledged gaming addict. I might have ended up like this guy.

Spoilt for choice.

It’ll soon be time for America to choose a new President, and boy howdy, could they make it difficult for the rest of us. The man currently calling the big White House his home has, regrettably, underwhelmed in his first term. It isn’t necessarily his fault, but for one reason or another (often Republicans in Congress who refuse to co-operate regardless of the matter being discussed or voted on, or whatever it is they do there, simply to oppose for the sake of opposition) his approval rating is falling. Many of the things he has accomplished have been compromised drastically from the initial proposition, most notably the universal health care thing. Even compromised as it is, Republicans are determined to reverse it. The general lack of effectiveness isn’t enough to prevent Obama’s policies slowly reducing unemployment, gradually moving the economy in what is generally agreed to be the right direction. Perhaps if there wasn’t this need to compromise with belligerent petty opposition on every issue, he might have done better. Of course, that would resemble something approaching communism, and our friends in the United States know that would be a Very Bad Thing. Many Republicans may not know exactly what communism is, but they know it’s bad.

Obama has been called, as well as foreigner and the most dangerous President America has ever had (really, Gingrich?), a socialist, communist and Nazi, as if the three are completely interchangeable. He’s not a socialist, although frankly, if he was a little more left-leaning, it might not be a bad thing (although I can’t imagine what names they’d find for him then). As to communism or Nazism, apart from the fact that, on a political scale the two things are polar extremes, to any sensible person he’s clearly neither. You can tell that, because all the rich people are still allowed to get richer regardless of the huge number of people living in the direst poverty, and on the other side, there are no groups of people being forced to wear yellow stars.

Nevertheless, for one reason or another, there is a real chance the Republicans could take the Presidency from him soon. So, who might take it? Surely none of them could be as demented as Bush or Palin, right? Well. There’s Mitt Romney, a Mormon with a track record of destroying American businesses and sending the jobs overseas for ridiculous profits. They kind of guy who posthumously converts atheist loved ones to his religion (which, as religions go, really is one of the dumbest ones). Or there’s Newt Gingrich, who has promised America the first permanent Moon base. This is one of his least crazy ideas. To be honest, that would be kind of awesome, if it weren’t for his desperate need to start wars. And then there is Rick Santorum, the guy with the Google problem. The guy waging wars on homosexuality and women. The guy who thinks a woman who gets pregnant following a rape should be forced to have the baby and consider it a gift from god. There is Ron Paul, who is almost half way sensible, but for the possibility he’s an awful racist. Unfortunately, making the most sense puts him a distant fourth in the race and not really in contention.

So. Um, good luck with that America. Do the rest of the world a favour, and do your best to keep the ineffective, dangerous foreign communist Nazi in power, because one of the others could really cause some trouble.

Perhaps a vow of silence?

"It's better to keep your mouth closed and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt." 

   - Anonymous (possibly Mark Twain, but nobody seems entirely sure)

I know I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m a bit of a broken record when it comes to these things (and the politically sensitive entries that once made up half this blog are now no-go, so it takes me longer to find things it’s okay to talk about. [Is that okay Mr. Cameron? I haven’t crossed a line there have I Mr. Cameron? I’m not- *gets violently ball-gagged* mmmh mm mmh! Mmmh! Mmh-mmh-mh-mmmh! *ball gag removed following nodding promise to change subject*]). 

Anyway, I’m going to mention it again, because it tends to plague me a little. Although this blog is mostly pointless drivel I do occasionally write things I quite like; am even a little proud of. I’ve had compliments about my writing from quite a range of people, some I only know online who read this blog. Others I’m close to like members of my family. Some are work colleagues. This does make me feel pretty good (don’t worry about me getting big-headed, as you’ll soon see). 

All of this good work tends to be undone every time I open my mouth, however. I have a brain that works, but works slowly, and as such cannot debate in real time. This also translates to writing in real time when talking to someone online, but at least I can fact check online so I don’t end up saying something like My Little Eye is a Hollywood remake of Rec (something I genuinely said, which, considering I think enough of my cinematic knowledge and sensibilities to write a film review blog, was a really dumb thing to say). I am so bad at it that I once told someone they were jealous of Alex Turner’s song writing ability because I failed to find the words to defend my love of Arctic Monkeys. Sometimes it isn’t all my fault. Sometimes the person I’m talking to simply over-rides any attempt to engage by repeating their deliberate misunderstanding until I simply stop trying and they call that a win for their purposefully ignorant viewpoint. And I’ve been over-looked and not listened to when I actually do find the right words to say so many times it is becoming ridiculous.

It sometimes gets bad enough that I consider communicating only via email and just shutting my stupid mouth lest I say something that makes me look like a proper knob.  But I won't.

I am not a psychologist.

What’s worse, unrelenting negativity or ceaseless positivity? Depends on my mood probably, but they are both ridiculous ways to live a life. Some things are shit. The menu at my kid’s school (although there are apparently plans afoot to change it), the fact that my four-year-old daughter has to go to school at all, terrorism, Newt Gingrich – all utter cock. In fact, many, many things are shit. It is okay to say so. A lot of things are also great. Music, cinema, the sound of the sea, boobs – each of them stupendously brilliant. The world (and by extension, my life upon it) is both lovely and terrible. As a citizen of the developed world, it is undoubtedly better than most.

I’m not quite sure what my point is. I guess I think that a spade should be called a spade. It is a digging implement (or possibly a playing card). I can’t imagine that it is possible to be either in a great mood or a miserable one all the time, and people who pretend either one are a bit bloody annoying. Shouldn’t self esteem issues work the same way? Sometimes I’m alright – even pretty damn good; when I got my degree, when someone pays me a genuine complement, when my wife smiles at me. Other times, I’m a useless hateful piece of human sputum – when I get something wrong or forget something that causes problems for others, or when I spout some ill-considered, off-the-cuff remark that upsets somebody. I know there are people with genuine deficiencies that can cause extreme spirals of depression, but for the un-afflicted, a love-hate relationship with yourself is surely par for the cause, isn’t it?

I don’t think feeling like crap is necessarily a bad thing. That oft-repeated balls about how you’ve got to love yourself before you can be a proper person makes no sense. Self-hate is just as normal. So feel free to despise yourself at times when you feel useless, fat, ugly or whatever. But try to remember to give yourself appropriate credit when you do brilliant things as well. It might be worth remembering that we’re on a ball of rock flying through the vacuum in the tiniest corner of an inconceivably huge uncaring Universe with only a small layer of atmosphere held down by gravity stopping us all from dying horribly. With that in mind, who really gives a monkey’s bollock how fat you are or how stupid I am?

The strange and depressing case of Donna Williams.

Just before Christmas, I was walking to the bus station to catch the bus home after work. It was late and dark, and I just wanted to get home and see my kids. Walking towards me is a person, stumbling slightly, veering a little, but definitely heading my way. As we close in on each other, I notice that they are very upset, crying, gesturing, wanting very much to communicate something urgently. It is at this point that I reluctantly decide I have to take my headphones out of my ears and engage with this person. Sadly, being able to hear her makes little difference, because she is very upset, very drunk, with a very strong West Midlands (possibly) accent.

As the sounds tumble from her mouth I slowly begin to establish that something bad happened at a cash point. I think maybe some people stole the cash she was withdrawing or perhaps even forced her to withdraw money. It sounds serious so I point her in the direction of the police station, and after much repetition I think she understands. She neglects to make any movement towards said police station, however, choosing instead to stand by me. In a small voice, I hear her say “I think you’d better come with me”. Thinking rather selfishly about my bus and my kids’ bath time, I reluctantly agree - she is so distressed I’m left with little choice. I begin to wonder if she’s on drugs as well.

As we start towards the police station, she seems to find a little self control and I am hoping I can just leave her to whoever’s on duty at the front desk and catch my bus after all. “I’m Donna” she says en route, visibly pleased to have someone else around. We walk into the police station, and it is immediately clear that the guy behind the desk is very reluctant to talk to her, and is barely civil to me.

As Donna feebly attempts to explain what got her so upset in her mostly unintelligible drivel, it seems that in her drunken and possibly drugged state, she may merely have witnessed some people withdrawing cash from a cash point and assumed they were stealing the bank’s, and possibly her money. Even without the drink, the drugs and the distress, it seems clear that Donna never had the benefit of a full education (which might go some way to explaining the drink and the drugs). She continues to talk, to repeat herself while waving her bank card about (it is now I am able to establish her full name as she waves her card under my nose). She talks about her Jobseeker’s money, about how she still has a little in her account, about if the police do catch these apparent thieves, what will happen, going round and round, repeating herself in broken random sentences, while struggling to focus. The guy behind the desk is trying to explain that there would need to be proof of a crime first, and that she should check her account and talk to her bank. My bus has long gone, but it is clear that Donna will get no help from the police tonight. Not that there’s really anything they could do – she’s pissed and going on about people withdrawing cash and her Jobseeker’s. Eventually she is convinced to leave.

Outside, she seems to feel better, so I make my excuses. Donna is off to a pub and invites me along for a drink about ten times before I am finally able to shake her hand and get away. I don’t want to be there to see what a panic she gets in when the pub refuses to serve her. I catch a later bus and get home just in time to say goodnight to my kids as they get into bed.

It seems a shame that people like Donna exist, but it is an inevitable consequence of a civilisation such as ours. Success is measured by achievement and wealth, progress and the accumulation of stuff. When you don’t have the ability to accomplish in the same terms, you get cast down, left to live on Jobseeker’s Allowance, scorned by those around you and with no prospects of it ever changing. Without even the knowledge or basic level of social intelligence to see the kind of problem you have what is left? Drink. Drugs. Other temporary avenues of escape.

I hope Donna is okay. I hope she made it through that night. I hope she finds some miraculous way to improve her circumstances. If you ever meet her, or find yourself forced to interact with someone like her, don’t be an asshole, okay?