People: not all bad.

I’m not unaware that this blog will often contain rants about the stupid and ridiculous things people do for the most stupid and ridiculous reasons, which, frankly, can sometimes get a little depressing. Sometimes it’s worth making a conscious effort to remember that we are responsible for brilliance.

There is a lump of matter in our skulls that can think its way beyond primal survival instincts and contemplate its own mortality and place within the cosmos. It can ask and answer questions about not only its origins, but the origins of the universe within which it finds itself. We can place ourselves in the shoes of those who are less fortunate and help them.

Complex and sophisticated languages, music, architecture, storytelling and many other forms of creation and expression. Not only the ability some have to create, but the ability of others to appreciate it. To respond on a deep emotional level to another person’s creation and either understand what it was they wanted to say, or take an entirely new interpretation of it beyond the creator’s original intention.

People you wouldn’t look at twice on the street are transformed into desirable, sweaty sex gods/goddesses if they’re standing in front of you playing music that fills your head with noise and your bones with vibrations. Moving pictures or written words become real and important because we have an imagination within which they become tangible things.

I know there are a many people in the world who aren’t in any kind of position to appreciate these things the way I can, and I know there are many things that aren’t right in our world – hell I usually moan about most of them right here, but we still have potential. Maybe we’ll realise it before we go under.

Black Friday – another step along the road to madness.

So in previous years, it seemed to me that Black Friday and all that it entailed was an American thing. I could always enjoy stories of fights in queues and punters being maced all for the sake of grabbing the last 50-inch plasma TV in the shop for a third of the usual price, and then feel slightly superior in that typically English way that makes so many others hate us.

But this year, the UK press and UK retailers have managed to induce Black Friday madness in earnest in our fair isles. There goes my snobby smugness – we in the UK are now as possession obsessed as those ‘Mericans ever were. It’s another step along the road to spelling colour without a u, allowing any inbred mook to own a gun and shoot black people, or voting for the party actively trying to be the dumbest in elections (although with UKIP's recent frightening gains, we might already have that one in the bag).

All hail our headlong rush into oblivion!

Some of the ways in which having kids has ruined me.

When people talk about their kids, it’s often in the kind of way that makes me want to puke. Not the declarations of love and happiness – that’s normal, but the suggestion that they are something other than regular kids. You know, not every kid is a world class genius sports star in waiting. Sorry to disabuse you of whatever notion you might have had. Of course, I too get ridiculously proud whenever one of my girls does something cool like spell a tricky word or ask a perceptive question, so I can’t really rant too much about that.

The honest truth is there are some things having children has made worse, not better. My bank balance. Traffic jams. The already crippling overpopulation problems. Also, my enjoyment of fiction, in all its forms. I cry far too easily now, and I’m blaming my kids. Jeopardy or tragedy involving children or even young adults, with a focus on the lost potential of a young life lost. Depictions of cruelty to, disregarding of, or annoyance with children (not that I don’t get annoyed with them. So I’m a hypocrite. Shoot me). Now that I have an intimate knowledge of just how dependent children are on constant, unconditional love and acceptance to develop through their early years, these things shown on film or TV, or written into books leave me a wreck. That never used to happen.

Seeing them becoming more sophisticated with every year on the one hand makes me eager for some of the things I’m looking forward to sharing with them, while on the other makes me increasingly fearful that an inevitable misstep will leave them going down a different path to one I wish for them. It’s sometimes enough to make you sick with fear, this crushing feeling of responsibility. It can also lead to a determined resoluteness to do your absolute best for them, come what may, which can be freeing, although too often is restricting instead.

Quite a few of the people I know who are also parents will talk of what they might have made of their lives had they ignored this biological imperative to reproduce. Where they might have gone, what they might have done. This, I am certain, does not make them unfit parents, but more realistically human. For sure I’ve missed out on some probably fantastic experiences because I had children. It is okay to lament the loss of this other life.

But. Like the majority of those other parents, given the chance not to have them part of my life, no matter what other eventuality might persist, there is nothing that could remotely tempt me. To watch day by day as these individuals take shape, with their own thoughts and their own ideas, is incomparable. It makes living with the sickening fear born of the creeping feeling of inevitability that you're bound to do something that messes them up irrevocably worth it.

A chequered history of opinion.

I recently looked back over a number of previous posts on this blog and it feels odd how when you’re removed from a specific post, in particular the feelings and circumstances that caused you to write that post, by years or sometimes only months, it isn’t always easy to remember how you felt when you wrote it. Some of them I’m still quite proud of; some are written pretty decently and get the point I was trying to make across fairly well. Others...well. Others come off like off-the-cuff ramblings about who knows what. I sound like, not to put too fine a point on it, a bit of a dick.

In spite of this embarrassment, I’ve decided to leave them where they are, like so much Internet flotsam and jetsam (thanks to an old Internet friend by the name of Flower for that quite charming turn of phrase). Not only that, but for the moment I think I’ll continue with the odd burst of nonsense. Frequency of posts has been declining for some time due to other time commitments (some important, like my wife and kids, some not, like my Xbox), but I will try to keep to a once a month minimum. I know how the whole of the Interwebs hangs on my every word, after all.

I guess the point is that everybody changes, and looking back on this page serves as a sort of catalogue of mine.

The UK press: Still awful.

So certain dark corners of the UK press published some articles about British people who had sex on holiday. Can you believe it? Yeah, me too.

You can almost imagine the kind of conversations that took place in the office of the rags that ran with the non-story:

Hack: Hey, Jimmy! Guess what?

Jimmy the intern: What’s that, sir?

Hack: British people go on holiday and sometimes have sex while they’re out there!

Jimmy the intern: Yes sir. Happens quite a lot I’d imagine. You seem surprised, sir.

Hack: Well, jealous mostly, son, but you’re missing the point!

Jimmy the intern: The point, sir?

Hack: This is a perfect opportunity for some good old fashioned slut shaming!

Jimmy the intern: Um, sir?

Hack: Well, take this one girl who apparently sucked off 20 or more men, all for one cocktail! Don’t you think it’s worth using up our front page in an attempt to ruin the rest of her life?

Jimmy the intern: It seems to me sir, that if she wants to do that, she has every right to. Could be, sir, that she did it for the experience, rather than the cocktail. The distressing thought also occurs that she considered agreeing to have 20 or more penises in her mouth at that time was preferable to being beaten and raped by 20 or more frustrated dude-bros later on, sir. An executive decision, if you will sir.

Hack: Jimmy lad, no bugger’s going to read a story about that shite. She should have gone with the rape option, at least then we might have had some sympathy for her. Although we’d probably still have made it her fault; shouldn’t be out drinking, wearing the wrong thing, that sort of thing.

Jimmy the intern: But sir! A man has a choice – to rape or not to rape! Regardless of what the woman wears or how she acts!

Hack: Quiet Jimmy! You can’t talk like that here. Before long, you’ll have people thinking we should teach boys not to rape rather than teaching girls how not to be raped. For shame Jimmy; who’s side are you on, anyway?

Jimmy the intern: Side, sir?

Hack: And then there was that other girl, the one who had a threesome on stage in a club! Allegedly. We even have a picture of her face! Her whole life is ruined, just for indulging in a sexual experience that isn’t really all that rare! Today is a great day to be an arsehole journalist, Jimmy!

Jimmy the intern: Hmm. Sir, clubs like that have been using live sex shows as a holiday season climax for quite some years. It really isn’t anything new. I feel like I have to ask sir. Why no judgement of the men involved in this? No photos of their faces? No childish attempt to ruin their lives?

Hack: Son, I’m beginning to wonder if your heart’s really in hack journalism.

Jimmy the intern: I’m beginning to wonder if you have a heart at all, sir.

Hack: No, we’re not going to judge the men. That would suggest the possibility that a man can be faced with a vagina and do anything other than fuck it.

Jimmy the intern: Oh, bravo sir! You’ve now managed to insult both genders. Well done, sir, well done indeed!

Hack: Jimmy, I get the distinct feeling you’re mocking me.

Jimmy the intern: Not at all sir. I’m so filled with disgust and disdain for the putrid festering sore that is your outlook on life that mocking you would suggest I think you capable of change. No sir, I only wish for your death, for the sooner you and anyone who shares your views are dead, the better it will be for all of us. Good day sir. Don’t expect me back tomorrow.

Hack: Hmm. He’s probably gay. At least I know our editor will love this stuff.

Dear Tabloids, please die in a fire. Yours, me.

Addendum (30th July 2014):

It turns out that the tabloid front pages that I scanned in my local newsagents may not have told the whole story. Shocker. It may be that the whole thing started when the woman involved in the multi-fellatio incident may have been promised a free holiday. Undertaking her task she then discovered ‘holiday’ was the name of a cocktail. This means that some of the imagined conversation above may have been even wider of the mark than it was originally. What that has done is kind of illustrate the point about tabloids even more strongly – if they’d have gone with that angle, then it would have been information worth reporting – anyone involved in that sort of distasteful trickery needs to be taken to task – if that stunt isn’t illegal, it damn well should be. But good old Mr Red Top decides to lay into the woman. And only the woman. How can these shitrags call themselves newspapers when they lie so much? I think I might stop even scanning the front pages.

Proud of the wrong things.

A lot of people are pretty angry with the state of things at the moment. So, led by Brand the wrong even fewer people are being arsed with voting. UKIP recently had pretty decisive victories with about 35% of the vote. Trouble is, only about 35% of people are voting. My math skills are genuinely terrible, but I don’t think that means they speak for the majority. Also THEY HAVE NO POLICIES. Besides mooning Europe and tax breaks for the rich, that is. It’s worse across the rest of Europe with worrying gains by the far right.

Let me put it as clearly as I know how. If you think a group of people are less worthy of respect because they are browner than you then you are wrong. If you think that some folks are not really people, but something less because they fall in love with people of a gender you think, somehow, isn’t the right one, then you are wrong. If you think someone deserves less consideration because they happen to have tits you are wrong. If you think sharing Britain First posts about D-Day isn’t a disgraceful show of ignorant disrespect for the people who died to protect us from the very fascism they promote you are very, very wrong. If you think someone who believes in a different collection of superstitions to you needs to be shot you are wrong. If you think the UK isn’t better for a history of immigration but rather worse, then you are wronger than a wrong thing. If you think having the cheek to be born on the wrong side of a line on a fucking map automatically denies a person the right to try to better their circumstances you are wrong. If you think the best way to measure something or someone’s worth is in terms of money, then you are a fucking idiot. And wrong.

If you are proud to be British or, Jeebus save us, English, then you are proud of the wrong thing. Built a house? Be proud of that. Raised children that don’t grow up to be awful human beings? Definitely be proud of that. Written a book, play an instrument, run a marathon? Be proud. Hell, I’m even proud when I unlock tricky achievements on Xbox. But why oh why are so many people proud of the random circumstances of their birth? It’s not like as a floating unborn consciousness you had the choice of where to get born and thought I know, there. You had zero input into where exactly in the world you came out of your mother, nor did you get to choose her nationality. So what exactly have you accomplished to justify being proud of being British? Splitting the world up by drawing lines on a map is an idea so against my sensibilities it ranks alongside ‘I reckon everything was made by an invisible sky-wizard’ or ‘Let’s measure the worth of everything using metal or paper’. I mean I think it was a bad idea, if that didn’t come across clearly.

Gah. Humans? Fuckin’ keep ‘em.

Operation Don’t Die: Update.

It’s been a while, so I thought an update might be required. Truth is, there isn’t a great deal to report. Still waddling along, occasionally upping the exercise for a little while, with not a great deal changing. Things have been quite, while not exactly stressful, a little bit more full on recently. During this time, I’ve managed to confirm that under this increased load, I tend to shovel more crap into my mouth and have a tendency to not give quite the shit I usually do about health, fitness or chub-levels.

If all this sounds like I’m trying to find excuses for failing to lose weight, well, that’s because that’s what it is. I’ve not exactly gone all Cartman, but I have recently lost my weight loss mojo, and I should really try to get that back. We’ll see if I can. Stay tuned kids.

Everything’s okay.

Nothing, in the end, when you get right down to it, matters. Sure, they matter to you, but that doesn’t mean they, you know, matter. Everyone has concerns, fears, good times and bad times. While your own personal experiences and those of the people closest to you mean something to you, they don’t to most people. Widen your perspective a little. Whatever you do today, and whatever happens to you, will have no effect on the sun coming up in the morning. It’ll have no effect on the Andromeda galaxy, which is, arguably, more important by virtue of taking up more space than you do. What effect do you think you have on the universe at large, compared to what effect it has on you? We inhabit such a microscopically tiny and unimportant corner of the universe that the idea that all of that was created just so we could have a half-decent view at night makes the idea of the creator myth found at the heart of most religions ludicrous. None of it matters.

While it might sound rather depressing to some, to me that is a great source of comfort. To feel confident that this life isn’t just a test to see if you can make it into to an invite-only everlasting heaven is pretty damn freeing. Plus, even heavenly bliss is bound to get boring if it never ends, don’t you think?

I’m married, have children, family and friends. They all matter to me, and I matter to them, but I’m not arrogant enough to think that we matter in other terms. If I disappeared tomorrow along with everyone important to me, do you really think the universe would give a shit? So, what’s to stop me from doing whatever – shotgun rampage, stop going into work, stop paying my TV licence, walk naked down a busy street and dry-hump a tramp? Where’s my sense of morality? Well, it's probably some complex question of evolution that we’ll never really understand completely, but that doesn’t matter. The way I see it, it doesn’t really matter that it doesn’t matter. That sounds a bit silly, I know, but if I’m too unimportant to affect a cold uncaring universe, then all that really exists for me is my smaller, immediate universe. Andromeda is out there, but so what? So just because it is impossible to affect things on a large scale, it doesn’t mean there’s no reason to care on a smaller scale. There’s no reason not to do your best to positively affect the minute pocket of universe you exist in. Just take comfort in the fact that if somehow you fail, the universe won’t condemn you for it; it won’t even notice.

If what you do doesn’t matter, then all that matters is what you do.

Magic.

Considering most of the people I know, this is probably preaching to the converted, but hey, it’s been a slow month. You don’t need to look to faith, neither do you need to look to Penn, nor Teller for magic. Not real magic, anyway – that’s merely clever chicanery. Just pop to a book shop, or a library, and it’s everywhere. The way you can get hooked on the right words, the way Katie will explode with delighted laughter at the insults Willy Wonka and Grandma Georgina trade during Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, the way an author can leave your head spinning by merely stringing words together.

Thanks to one of our local libraries, I’ve recently had the good fortune to read the following:

Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5, Cat’s Cradle and Breakfast of Champions, all three bona-fide classics of American fiction. Vonnegut’s writing style curiously echoes that of J. G. Ballard, in that it is largely descriptive and unemotional, but occasionally you get suckered by a passage of such breathtaking beauty or haunting pain, you feel like you’ve been punched in the gut; particularly in Slaughterhouse 5 which recounts much of Vonnegut’s experience in World War 2, during which he was present at the bombing of the German city of Dresden.

Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane, which recently won book of the year, for obvious reasons. There are some books you read that just hit that sweetest of spots and transport you to that moment in childhood when you are finally able to read for your own pleasure and you discover such wonders that you never suspected your imagination could hold. It’s like that, and every page holds such joy that the spell it holds you in doesn’t break, even after the final page is finished. With the exception of Good Omens, which was written with Terry Pratchett, I’m quite late to Gaiman, but boy am I glad I caught up. American Gods, Stardust and Anansi Boys are all marvellous, if not quite as transformative as The Ocean at the End of the Lane.

Jasper Fforde’s The Song of the Quarkbeast, which is set in one of Fforde’s wonderful alternate versions of the UK. Aimed at younger readers, it is not quite as engaging as his other work, particularly the Thursday Next series and Shades of Grey, but is still great. Fforde is one of those writers that have such an astonishing grasp of the English language that genius wordplay and clever puns abound in his novels. The Thursday Next books are, if you can believe this, as good as Pratchett’s Discworld series. They are out there, no doubt, but if you’re not put off by all the weirdness then Fforde’s writing is hugely enjoyable.

Do yourself a favour and read some of them for yourself.

Growing up, guitars and good friends.

When I was in my teens, the big musical thing was Britpop. Now, that isn’t my fault, so don’t be too hard on me. The thing about music is it isn’t necessarily what’s best in a technical sense that becomes your favourite. Sure, everyone can appreciate decent lyrics and great playing. But your favourite music often becomes your favourite because of how you felt, or what you were doing, or even how old you were when you heard it. So when I first really got into music, following a brief flirtation with the mighty Jovi, it was to the strains of the Britpop movement. Blur’s Parklife was the first record I truly fell in love with (and to this day I remain so), but Oasis slowly eclipsed Blur as my favourite. As with so many of today’s leading guitar acts, Definitely Maybe inspired me to buy a guitar. I lacked both the talent and the will for it to go any further than a hobby, but being able to play first Oasis, and later Stereophonics, Blur and Weller was among the greatest joys of my teenage life.

One of my childhood friends, Ian, loved Oasis as much as I did, and there is no doubt that we bonded tremendously over this mutual love. Entire weekends would disappear learning Slide Away or Champagne Supernova; Ian singing, me playing guitar. Our friends were probably bored half to death listening to us, but we didn’t care. Then we got older, and things change as they always do. Girlfriends, jobs, moving all conspired to move my guitars to a cupboard under the stairs. Late last year Ian died of a rare form of Leukaemia, and now I find myself remembering all those weekends spent playing guitar. Turns out I can’t listen to Live Forever all the way through without crying anymore.

We never did get a band together. But in the end that isn’t what matters. What matters is the comfort of the memories I have of those years. There has been much talk of Ian looking down on us and the things we’re doing with approval and love. If you’ve read enough of these you’ll know that in my heart that’s a belief I can’t share, but at times like these I feel and understand the need people have for it, and I cannot give enough kudos to the vicar who spoke at Ian’s funeral, who happily admitted that he had been tasked with giving the ceremony just enough religion ‘to get him in’, and the good grace with which he managed this.

Thoughts now turn to those guitars, gathering dust under the stairs. I think maybe I’ll bring them out again into the light of day and give Don’t Look Back in Anger a whirl. It feels like a modest tribute, but somehow the most heartfelt.

Further adventures in parenting and crushing self-doubt.

I get told often by people that I’m a good father. Of course, as nice as that is to hear, I know enough to recognise that the opinion of one person, or several people, as much as I happen to love and respect those people, doesn’t necessarily make it true. I know that my kids are happy and loved, but is that enough? It won’t be too many more years before the influence I have over them becomes less than their peers and current cultural guff.

Katie can sometimes be reluctant to join in with group activities and parties, preferring instead to play with her sister who is half her age. I don’t really think this is anything to worry about, except I remember how it felt at school to be outside the groups, to feel awkward around the other kids. At a fairly recent birthday party she went to, a few of the other kids clocked that she wasn’t wearing different shoes, but the same ones she wore to school. When questioned on this, she merely looked at the questioner as if she didn’t understand what she was being asked, or what the point of the question was, and carried on dancing. The pride and love I felt for her on witnessing this was like nothing else. As is the feeling I get when I see her devouring book after book, and writing her own stories (she recently wrote one about a Christmas tree that was sad because it hadn’t been decorated).

She'd rather sing along to Disney songs or stuff from my collection (she's currently digging Lana Del Ray's Dark Paradise) than listen to One Direction sing about how much they want to shag people (almost all pop music, regardless of how innocent it seems, is about sex. Don't pretend it isn't). I've not forgotten the Jessie J incident, and I know this happy arrangement can't last, and I'm mentally preparing for that as much as I can.

But this lack of interest in other people’s opinions of her can’t last. Not to put too fine a point on it, it’s difficult to get through childhood without being irreparably fucked up by parents, peers, teachers, randoms or any combination thereof. I hope my two are strong enough, and I hope I can help them through.