Tag: writing

Against the grain for the greater good

On the topic of last week’s post, let’s talk about human value again, shall we? Specifically in terms of making untraditional choices and society’s failure to realise that the reason behind said choices does not concern anyone other than the person making it. I am of course, yet again, talking about something people like to pretend doesn’t occur in their world, because acknowledging it would mean they would have to reflect on why on earth they didn’t take a beat to contemplate just how clever it would be to bake a batch of mini-mes with subpar ingredients…

Firstly, I’d like to begin by explaining that this is not necessarily about deciding whether or not to have children – we need to acknowledge the fact that there are quite a few people that would very much like to have them but cannot. The reason should be of no importance to anyone but the person and/or couple suffering from involuntary infertility, unless you are in a position that allows you to help them realise their dream of reproducing.

Secondly, many of my friends have kids. Some were perhaps more of a surprise than they would have liked at the time of conception and others not, but in every case they have shown themselves to be rather spectacular at this whole parenting gig.

So, let it be known that I am not against people reproducing. I am simply hinting at the fact that whether you want to or not should be a private matter. Furthermore, choosing not to doesn’t mean you hate children. In more cases than not, I expect it is the complete opposite.

Let’s say you’re just getting to know someone and you’re of a certain age, so you’re trying to find out just how compatible your lives are before commit to a serious friendship. Asking them if they’ve any children would be perfectly natural. If their answer to your question is no, however, you have absolutely no right to ask them why. Doing so would be rather cruel, plus it is none of your business.

It would be akin to asking you why your mother didn’t allow you enough oxygen when you were in the womb, or, indeed, why on earth you found it necessary to contribute to an overpopulation that is threatening to drain the earth’s natural resources. You can read more about the intricacies of population growth, environmental degradation and climate change in article published on the UN’s website by clicking on this sentence.

Regardless, you could stir up a whole turdnado (you know, like a sharknado, but with shit) by poking your nose where it doesn’t belong. Just think about it – would you be able to handle it if your ‘simple question’ was the last straw for this person?

Granted, for some, it’s about taking the responsibility of not forcing the life of an unwanted creature on an often unsuspecting world. But that’s a decision that will have layers to it as well. There might be a family history of mental illness or a birth defect of some kind, it could be the lack of any known family history, perhaps they experienced or observed traumatic events during their own childhood that impacted their choice. Or, hot fucking take, they just didn’t want to risk having their downstairs ripped apart by someone they might not even like, only for post partum depression to take over once the downstairs have stopped aching.

Also, in case you didn’t know, raising kids is expensive. Not everyone has savings or a steady job to help fund the endless list of activities and made-up holidays everyone has to attend nowadays. Or a partner with which to share the financial struggles, for that matter.

Then there are people who didn’t have a choice in the matter. Victims of rape, some of which might not even know they are pregnant until it’s too late to do something about it. Women that have been forced to live with a living, breathing constant reminder of one of the worst, most painful moments of their existence, only to develop a love for the thing, stronger than the love they have for themselves. Or women that have experienced the same and having to give the child up for adoption without their consent. Asking them why? Not okay.

There’s a multitude of possible reasons why one would make the choice of going against the norm. Perhaps the term childless is the culprit. We don’t call the opposite child-riddled, so why does not having kids deserve such a negative suffix? If I’d had more time, I’d dive deep into the etymology here, but I will save it for another day.

There are plenty of happy childfree people out there as well, of course. Guess what? Their reason is also private, unless they bring it up.

So, my frustration remains with society’s lack of respect for the privacy of those who have chosen differently than the norm. Take, for example, a setting where colleagues are getting to know one another and one party is pointing out left and right the other’s ‘poor’ qualities, such as their failure to own the newest Tesla or a house in the best school district, their unsuitable romantic partner (or lack thereof) or how they spend their wages on ‘silly’ things that make them happy. Yet, in the same breath, they demand to know why you’re not bringing any children into the world; as if they wanted a filthy pariah to have little clones running around. Perhaps they’re afraid their offspring won’t have anyone to pick on, if the lesser caste refuse to comply with the demands of beige society.

My only fear is that all of the clever people have stopped reproducing and that the idiots have taken over.

Right, that’s enough for today. Luckily, I know that some of the finest humans around have managed to produce at least one or two good eggs over the past two decades, so I’ll not be around when the turdnado comes, nor do I need to worry about any descendants of mine suffering through it either.

See you next Tuesday. Until then, enjoy this little gem from NOFX:

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Pearls and swine

“…bereft of me, long and weary my road has been”, sings Chris Cornell in the 2003 Audioslave tune I am the Highway. Now, before you start thinking I’ve sunk low enough to steal someone else’s words because I’ve been suitably bereft of the ability to think of any of my own… this is just where I’m at today. Left to my own devices, my thoughts have gathered at these words forever tattooed onto the walls of my inner workings, as they so often do when I refuse to acknowledge it’s time do admit defeat.

Why do we let ourselves entertain the hopeful thoughts so far-fetched even the most oblivious can spot it a mile away? Well, it’s better than never daring to hope for anything at all, I guess. And, as we all know, hope becomes the motivation we need to get closer to our goals. Although, I’m beginning to think that it’s time I started to figure out what my goals really are. Daydreaming doesn’t really cut it when you have to deal with the outside world.

Alas, I am not about to start moaning about my hopes and dreams. And, for those of you hoping that I’d become much wiser just because the number of days I’ve spent on this earth has increased by all of seven since last time you were on this site, I’m afraid you’re in for some disappointing news – the person writing this is no sage just yet.

BUT. There’s a lot to be said for having experienced the least disappointing birthday in all my days. If you were a part of it, whether physically or in spirit, know that there’s not enough gold stars in the world to decorate your page in my book.

There’s some sort of storm brewing, I can feel it. But I will leave any deeper reflections on that for another day and instead bring your attention back to the unicorn on the donut in the blog photo. Someone made sure I got a donut with Scotland’s national animal on it on my birthday and it was excellent. Even brought a smile to my face. And it got me thinking that this outside world might be ready for my return. Although, I can already promise you, that the previous week can attest to the fact that I’m nowhere near finished making ‘mistakes’. But, hey, I hear experience can make you wise… as long as you’re willing to learn from it and/or own up to the fact that the only person you need to honour and look in the eye (in my case, at least) is yourself.

See y’all next Tuesday. Until then, have a listen or two to the song mentioned earlier:

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Irreverent reveals

Backside of statue in a city square

Someone commented on the not entirely spectacular fact that I haven’t posted anything on a social media account in over a year. Well, that’s due to a number of factors, but two of them are a) whenever I am out doing something with people whose company I enjoy, I tend to keep my phone tucked away and/or I’ve not got the Mark II on me, or b) what I consider a typical Kodak moment these days is something akin to the header photo. Now you know.

The above has very little to do with what I am about to write, though, other than that I found something that is revealed in the carving of the statue of which we can see the backside as particularly post-worthy. Why on earth would you spend time on including the cloaca of an inanimate object? It’s not like it’s going to need it? See, its mere existence beckons an array or questions.

On another note, you can do a deep-dive into cloacae (tee-hee) and/or other “digestive tract talk” by checking out the Three Bean Salad podcast. Perhaps start with the Adverts episode. Right, that’s enough of the anus for one day.

My recent posts may or may not have revealed that I’ve been on my second book, but somehow let procrastination get the better of me. So, in an attempt to force myself into holding myself accountable, I’ve decided to unveil the title, as well as the prologue to see what you guys think about it. Feel free to weigh in however you like, either by clicking on the icon you prefer below

or, you can comment on this post or use the contact form. If you’ve yet to read my book, the Kindle version is cheap as chips.

Next week’s post will also be a reveal of sorts, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Right… are you ready? Am I ready? Here goes:

Life in Reverse – Killing Myself to Live

Prologue / Suicide Note, Pt. 1

A year has gone by since we left Hannah on that bus, finally strong enough to take a step in the right direction and standing up for herself to a person that had caused her nothing but harm over her formative years. You would think she’d be thriving right about now, right? That she’s finally all settled in her lovely new flat, aching to get back to work with the support of her therapist, a healthy romantic relationship brewing somewhere on the horizon. It turns out, though, just because you’ve decided to start making things work for yourself, doesn’t mean the universe is going to get on board. Funny, isn’t it? We’ve all heard the words; It’s going to get worse before it gets better.

The problem is, we can tackle ‘worse’ just fine. It’s what we do! It’s the ‘better’ that might just be the end of us.

And, yes, all of the chapters are related to relevant pieces of music. Also, if that tickles you, you should read Trackman; a spectacular piece of writing by Catriona Child.

So, I shall see you next Tuesday, for my second unveiling. Until then, here’s the song mentioned in the excerpt:

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Grave expectations

“So, how’s the writing going?” he says. And I had to admit that it’s not. At all. “I’ve not done anything productive since [sic]” and instantly I could hear all the excuses I’d been giving myself for the past 6 months, for how I’ve failed to do the one thing I know will give me purpose, accountability, even joy in some weird sense.

Self-sabotage, pt. 2, eh…

You see, when something good happens, hope starts to build. Not even that, maybe just a glimmer of hope triggers something so alien and futile as a new neural path struck in the opposite direction of all the others. So, we choose not to do the things that’ll enable such hapless and fruitless endeavours. Until the next time, of course, something unexpectedly positive in nature comes around and we’re forced to look lady luck in the eye.

After all, what’s more terrifying than going after the holy grail knowing you’ve got an actual winning chance?

Welcome to Desolation Highway.

If you’re taught, early on, that disappointment is inevitable due to your existence alone, you’re no doubt better off trying to shield yourself from the things that seem unequivocally and genuinely good. And your scepticism would be coming from a place of experience, that good things only happen to other people and not to you. We’re meant to contribute to the greater good by making sure others will both have and eat all of the bukkake. Or, was it cake? Who knows – not a fan of either. But the one certainty is that self-indulgence of any kind is not only wrong, but so wrong that it takes away from the so-called greater good. Which is why completing the one thing that would show others that you’re motivated by the one good thing that actually did happen, despite your lack of trying and incessant efforts to burn all bridges, becomes a reminder of how guilty you should feel for recognising even the slightest flicker of self-worth.

Why is hope such a dangerous thing, when hurt is the feeling you know best? Perhaps it’s because you already know that, when you allow yourself to feel hopeful, you set yourself up for even more chances of finding those small pockets of happiness. But not only by chance, but with actual effort. And, if that were to go away after having had the chance to get used to it, the inevitable hurt at the end of it would be such that we could not even stand to bare it. So we do our best to stop the good things from happening, just to avoid the extreme pain of potentially becoming rejected by something we actually wanted for once.

Hope and epistemology are, to me, interlinked by the fact that they both relate to expectation. The latter may be more science-based than the former, but it’s all about being able to envision realistic outcomes based on your experience. I may not be the biggest fan of Socrates’ biggest fluffer, but I do think he ‘d know exactly what I’m getting at here. Arguably, without Plato we wouldn’t even know about Socrates. Famously, Plato never spoke in his own voice in his dialogues, yet he seemed to understand the importance of his own role in bringing forth the messages of them. Double-edged swords and all that.

I’m not sure what’s brought this philosophical babble on, it might have been a discussion I had earlier today about the theory of the Id and the Ego being excuses for horrible personality traits that you don’t want to acknowledge, and I may or may not write a word or two on that soon. But not tonight. It is far too late and I seem to have decided that I’m going to try to not sabotage tomorrow for myself just yet.

I’ll see you next Tuesday. Until then, let’s all just remind ourselves that good things can happen and that it’s okay to hope – maybe not fully expect, but certainly dare to hope – for some things to work out in our favour too. And not only despite our best efforts to stop them from doing just that.

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Feeding your inner demons after midnight

I’ve written about this sort of stuff before; self-sabotage and keeping good things at bay in order to protect yourself from getting your hopes inevitably crushed to tiny fragments. But as the temperature outside shoots through the roof and the sun peeks through the clouds on a more regular basis, depression starts rearing its ugly head, yet again. Which brings my thoughts to my definition of happiness. Despite knowing a lot better, I’ve always viewed it as a constant, something you become, that which makes you you – one of those annoying shiny happy people. So, naturally, I’ve done my best to stop myself from falling into the ‘happiness trap’ by planting and cultivating dumb, destructive ideas in my own head, such as ‘no happy person ever wrote a decent song’, or ‘happiness makes you ignorant to other people’s suffering’, ‘it’s better to not have known happiness at all, than to grieve its inevitable departure once you’ve fucked everything up’. You get the gist:

To me, allowing myself something that would bring even the smallest likelihood of experiencing happiness meant I’d lose my depth, my integrity, my ability to write resonant lyrics. But now I’m thinking; who the hell decided we’ve got to be so bloody deep all the bloody time? I’ll tell you who most certainly didn’t – someone in a state of happiness.

Did you ever watch that film Happiness for Beginners, where a divorce leads to the main character going on a quest – both literally and figuratively – to find what she thinks is happiness, only to encounter layers and layers of happy accidents that make up so much more than what she’d envisioned as her initial goal? A nuanced cluster of emotion, knowledge, compassion, grief and letting go of the fear of what might happen if you dared being completely true to yourself.

Fuck me, that sounded a bit pretentious, eh?

Regardless, baring your soul to yourself, for yourself, is scary as fuck! You’ve spent all this time curating different masks for every possible event, that you feel rather naked without them, and only that next level rock bottom shit can make you feel the need to do such a thing. When you’re so far below the initial rock bottom that you just cannot be bothered to keep up the charade. At least that’s what I believe to be true for myself.

And then comes the choice between finding solace (i.e. temporary lobotomy) at the bottom of a whisky bottle, or venturing into something as self-indulgent as neuro-linguistic programming – “a set of principles and techniques aimed at enhancing self-awareness, increasing confidence, building communication skills and motivating positive social actions” – after gaslighting yourself into believing you’ll be able to open yourself to such a thing. You can read more about NLP in this Psychology Today article. Turns out, the bullshit factor vaporises when you put the work in.

An article on the US National Institutes of Health referred to the treatment as “old wine in a new glass“, which I can get behind. Although not yet a recognised form of psychotherapy, NLP is very much just the re-programming/un-learning of unhelpful tactics learned over time, much akin to cognitive behavioural therapy. Although with a little less emphasis on the psychoanalysis of trauma and a little more on introducing new ideas that are, in essence, better for you long-term. Which makes me think that this whole unlearning malarkey is a little bit overrated and perhaps even – dare I say it – unnecessary. I don’t want to appear too bombastic about this: there’s no ‘one size fits all’ when it comes to matters of the mind. And I’m certainly not about to knock CBT, which cam be tremendously helpful for a lot of people. But, some alternatives/variations/deviation are welcome.

So, what’s all this to do with demons and happiness? Was this header just clickbait, and there’s not even one single reference to either Charmed nor Buffy?

Well, I like to think that we’ve all got a tiny cluster of mini demons – cute wee ones, like Gizmo before his midnight feed, or, you know, Spike – living happily right up there in the prefrontal cortex of every child, but every so often, some ill-tempered adult drops a hefty scoop of angel dust-like protein powder in there, just to se what’ll happen. That’s when the shit starts to stir. For most, the good kind of childhood resilience will help take care of the aftereffects of the protein overdose. Yet, for some, the crooked kind of resilience they’ve been dealt means they just push everything down until it starts spilling out between the threadbare seams that struggle to hold them together and the demons in. One little crack turns into an explosion, where the debris and shrapnel gets sucked into the black hole left by the big boom, but the black hole is no ordinary black hole into which shit disappears.

No, sir. It’s a door to a parallel universe, where the shrapnel whittles down the debris into pointy, stabby things that – once properly sharpened – returns through its own rectum, only to stab the unsuspecting victim from the inside. This, in turn, causes a person the sort of trauma a person must go through in order to write a song like, say, Hurt. NIN or Aguilera, it doesn’t really matter. Those of us that keep feeding the demons, instead of letting them starve. The ones that need to feel like they can help the demon and not realising that, in the process, they are doing the opposite to themselves. The ones making sure everyone else’s gas oxygen mask is on before even contemplating locating one for themselves.

That’s it – it’s all demon fodder. But, hey, maybe some of the cute ones are worth it.

That’s it for today. Like always, I shall see you next Tuesday. Until then, enjoy this banger from Razorbats in the video below:

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Booty is in the eye of the beholder

Brynseng Subway, Oslo, 2026

Yep – you read that right. Bear with me.

I somehow managed to throw my back out from laughing like a crazed hyena last night – at a bloody meme (or, let’s be honest, its absurdity). Needless to say, I’ve slept next to fuck all and my brain is acting very much like itself. It does what it wants.

So, it should come as no surprise, then, that the very thing that made me see the Kodak moment quality of the scenery in the post’s featured image was a song that’s been stuck in my head all day without me realising it was. I was trapped in a Buffyverse-like demonic musical with no end in sight, with every song derived from the holy grail; the song that continued to escape me, just as I had it on the tip of my tongue. Until the sun ripped through the clouds for approximately 32 seconds, creating the mirage of a slightly silvery shine to the pavement, I had no idea I’d been building up to a Victor Hugo classic.

Have you guessed it yet? Not to worry, you’ll find a link at the bottom of the post if not. Well, the link will be there regardless…

Anyway… went off on a bit of a tangent there. But, if that particular song isn’t a deluxe version of a booty call, I don’t know what is.

I’ve never been fond of metaphors. Never liked the mystery, shall we say – I preferred directness’ more bombastic quality. Yet, as I’ve grown older and more afraid of being caught in a special kind of fuck up loop from which there’s no escape (unless you fancy winding up in a parallel dimension fuck up loop bonanza), it seems I’ve started using them.

“Desperation

Zombie nation

Vacant, lifeless stares

Screens displaying my worst fears“

My own goddamned lyrics, but only I know the meaning of the words I didn’t dare say. This, of course, shall remain a mystery. Unless you read my book, of course.

But, yeah, back to the booty. The term booty, as we know it today – I’m not about to go into a whole thing about its origins – is synonymous to three things; a loot plundered from an enemy (as seen in numerous pirate movies), a somewhat sizeable arse or, you know, that thing. Now, the original expression is ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’. I’ll argue that we can gather from any anthropology experiment, that people will have different views on what they will define as either of those three aforementioned definitions as well. In fact, I think beauty in and of itself has lost its meaning, with the constant need to push beauty standards so far up into the atmosphere that you need the help of artificial intelligence to do the airbrushing. So why not say it like it is; what might shiver your timbers may not shiver those of your neighbours.

Ooft, that was a bit of a mouthful.

What do I want from you, you may ask. Why am I ending this post before I’ve even reached a conclusion? Well, I want you to tell me what you want to read about, what you think the booty’s all about, why you think a 40yo woman can’t make herself write the word that’s fallen between the lines here…

Again, buy my book and you might get an idea. Haha. It is very late and I have a sequel to write, as I was ever so gently reminded of earlier today.

Now, I am going to go “live inside my head” for a bit. See you next Tuesday.

*This week, we mourn the loss of the late Anthony Head. May he rest in peace.

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What are you grateful for?

View over Portobello and Easter Road from Arthur's Seat

This is a question I’ve had to ask myself these past few days, as May seemed to whizz past like a brown-dyed whirlwind, with no sign of pausing at any point – if I’d had the money to pay someone to give me a lobotomy, I likely would.

But then, out of the blue, small moments of thankfulness make themselves known in the shape of an image, a smell, a voice message from a mind reader, that all remind me that I do have things to be grateful for. And that’s why, dear reader, I felt the need to write about the good things that make life worth living today. It’ll be a very short post, but don’t let that take anything away from the fact that acknowledging random glimpses of light makes one hell of an impact on the sometimes seemingly all-encompassing darkness.

If you’ve ever been so fortunate as to experience Edinburgh in springtime, you should be able to smell the photo at the top of this post – it’s a bizarre sort of coconutty smell emanating from the “common gorse”, its bright yellow flowers lighting the hillsides of Arthur’s Seat (and my heart) on fire. My first whiff of these bad boys, I was sure I’d overexerted myself during a run and was having a stroke!

Now that I’ve reached a ripe old age where that’s a distinct possibility, I’d kill for that to be the last thing I ever smelled. Not just because I think it’s a very nice smell, but because just looking at old photos of this peculiar plant brings me back to the things I am most grateful for – friendships forged in unbreakable materials, gargantuan gigs, the break of the first post-Fringe morning, my neighbour Iain, Easter bloody Road, running alongside Porty beach, kirkyard parties, CROY, trips down south on the Caledonian Sleeper, visits from the auld country, getting to see others experience this incredible city for the first (or thousandth) time … All I need to jump into Narnia for a brief moment, is one look at a photo.

So, I suppose I’m grateful for … Thomas Wedgwood and his failures?

Either way, there’s light in the darkness and I’m off to capture some of it. To my dear pal, whose birthday I am still celebrating two days later, I hope you know that I am endlessly grateful your light stretches across oceans.

To the rest of you, I shall see you next Tuesday. Until then, you should check out The Gratitudes.

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What is best in life?

When a young barbarian was asked this very question, his reply was simply this;

“To crush your enemies, see them driven before you and to hear the lamentation of their women” (Conan the Barbarian, 1982)

To each their own, I suppose. Not my personal preference, but it was certainly what fuelled Conan’s fire in his quest for happiness. (Spoiler alert: I can also recall him chucking a witch into the fire, but with less success. I digress).

What brought me here today, to this particular quote, is a rather simple observation; we need to focus on the things that make life living if we want to get through the political shitstorm we’re all in at the moment, because tearing each other down isn’t solving anything (although, it might lead to the lamentation of a woman or two).

I’ll be very brief today, and perhaps uncharacteristically rantless, but I think – with a little help from our friend Conan, portrayed by the illustrious Arnold Schwarzenegger – that the shorter length might help spread the word.

A wise person once said that you cannot change another person. This is of course a truth with some modifications, because you can absolutely change someone by treating them badly, but the change achieved will likely not be what you were after. So, in order to achieve sustainable change in a controlled environment, you will need a subject who is entirely under you’re control; yourself.

In changing your own less desirable qualities, you might like yourself more. Hell, you might even inspire and motivate others to do the same. Treat others the way you’d want them to treat you; with compassion and respect. If they fail to return the favour, there’s an easy fix; cut them loose. You don’t need to waste your time and energy on the undeserving few.

I know what you’re thinking… “But, we’ve been friends for so long, I can’t give up on them“, or, “but they’re my mum, how can I let them down?” Guess what? If you’re the only one making an effort – and it’s making you feel miserable, to boot – they’re not holding onto you for your sake. You’ve got something they need. More than likely, they’ve already taken so much from you, that there’s very little left, apart from shame and codependency.

Cut them loose. Let go of any bitterness – it’s not going to make you any stronger. If anything, it’ll make you resentful and/or unable to give what you want to someone you do want to stick around.

We can’t change how others view the world, but we can try to understand why their views might differ from our own. You might even learn that they’re more enlightened than you first assumed, and that their beliefs are the only logical option for their situation – that doesn’t mean that you’re wrong. Our views, our beliefs, our truths are shaped by our experiences. Subjective truths may not always be factual, but I’d argue there is no objective truth in shared experience. You’re entitled to your opinion here, of course. This one’s mine.

My point is this:

Treat yourself and others with compassion. Sometimes showing compassion means leaving before it’s too late. Sometimes it means accepting an opinion we do not share. If we’re too focussed on who’s to blame or their shitty qualities, we’ll venture so far away from resolving the initial issue that the shitemongers will win.

Also, don’t take it upon yourself to take people down a peg as you see fit – I appreciate that most people have been raised in loving, supporting homes and communities that have convinced them that this is true for everyone, but you don’t know what sort of shit you’re stirring up within those that have experienced the opposite. They’re already down further than you can fathom and haven’t a peg to spare.

That’s it. I’ll see you next Tuesday. Until then, feast your eyes upon the glorious display of wholesomeness below.

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More is more…

A for anarchy in red on black background

Once upon a time, when the hacker was still just as elusive and enigmatic as Sméagol himself, a pointless character in a nonsensical movie franchise uttered the claim “ignorance is bliss”, a phrase that has since been quoted ad nauseam. Whilst uttering these meaningless words, said character was chomping away at a slab of beef – all the while pointing to the fact that he was aware that the steak and the whole situation in that particular reality itself was entirely artificial and bogus. Regardless of the fact, the character portrayed himself as blissful because he chose to be unaware that the scenario was being fed to him via The Matrix. Which, in and of itself, defeats the whole purpose of him being ignorant, as he was clearly aware of his existential circumstances. If you are aware, you cannot claim to be ignorant. Thus, if ignorance is bliss and you are aware, you cannot be blissful.

What’s more, ignorance is not ‘bliss’, it’s defined as a lack of awareness and foresight. To simplify – much in the vein of rock legend Yngwie Malmsteen – bliss is bliss and ignorance is ignorance. One does not follow the other in any logical way.

Yes, I know it’s just a movie, but this particular scene planted a seed… a seed that somehow grew into a gargantuan parasite that set out to infect an entire generation with thinking those words justify their unwillingness to learn. It’s given them an excuse to be selective about knowledge (something we all know is the only point in getting old and senile; you finally get to edit out the shite you don’t want to hear).

Eejits.

Hold on tight, I can smell a rant coming.

I currently find myself living in a country that seems to have some sort of vexillology fetish. If, for any reason whatsoever, there’s cause for getting a flag out, out it shall come. Hoist that fucking rag (brilliant Tom Waits song, by the way), regardless of said rag’s connotations, be they political or similarly sinister in nature.

Here, they love marching for no apparent reason. They’ll gather at the town hall and walk around in circles, waving their flags and shouting messages whose origin no one really took the time out to figure out. They just like the feeling of doing something good. They like the word solidarity, but haven’t a clue what it means.

It’s as meaningful as claiming to support ‘the troops’, without knowing what troops they are supporting, what they are fighting for, or from whence the fuck they’ve originated, for that matter. They boast about their support of one nation’s leader and proudly post about their hostility towards another on social media, not even realising they are two sides of the same coin; evils, where neither is the ‘lesser’.

They hang flags in their windows in support of a nation they know nothing about. Without thinking, they do what the Internet tells them to. Do they even know what the flag stands for?

Will they admit that they didn’t even care about any conflict. That, truth be told, it wasn’t even on their radar until it started affecting their cost of living? The energy prices have skyrocketed, so you must blame someone. Anyone. Did they think the flag they bought off Temu, that wasn’t the exact colour but close enough, was going to bring down the price of petrol?

My meaning here is not to point fingers at anyone picking sides… I think any desire to solve conflicts with warfare – cold or not – is abhorrent. No, what I mean to say is this; educate yourselves enough to know how these things can be avoided, or at least subdued. Or, worst case scenario, you’ll know enough to morally decide which side to fight on if push comes to shove. Fighting for what’s fair shouldn’t have to end in bloodshed or everlasting war.

Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance is the beginning of the end.

If I’ve not scared you off for good, I’ll see you next Tuesday.

Listen to Bad Religion!

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No such thing: The urgency of agency

No matter where I go or what I do – or don’t – these days, there’s no escaping the constant bombardment of someone’s voice, whether that’s an actual voice, an advert or a poorly written – and often grossly and/or grammatically incorrect – public announcement. Whenever I apply for a job, being able to adapt your writing to their tone of voice is at the top of their wish list (where it should be, to be fair).

Please forgive my need to insert the slightly superfluous ‘constant’ in front of ‘bombardment’ – a word that per definition already alludes to a sustained activity – perhaps I was having a mini-stroke, and that it for a millisecond fed/refuelled/resuscitated my aversion to anything less intense than extra extra.

Anyway…

Whenever I turn on the telly, there’s always some beige blob waffling on about some non-topic, seemingly fearful of its own demise lest its non-message gets out everywhere, all at once, despite its obvious lack of talent, knowledge and/or personality, its trivial theatrics drowning out any relevant or important messages that might have accidentally and concurrently gotten onto the airwaves somehow. The Voice! A whole enterprise void of fucking significance, other than being a platform for the beige to celebrate the beige…

Voices, voices everywhere, yet not a speck of inspired insight within the vessels from which they’ve escaped…

Which makes everything seem so trivial, so insignificant, so unfathomably meaningless.

I do fucking love a perfectly placed superlative.

Although, not to a lecherous degree. Enough with the digressions. Despite what you might be thinking, what I wanted to write about today was not voices. No, sir. Today, I write about the message. That’s not to say that the voice or its owner is not important – far from it – but they remain empty. Nothing but conveyors of the all-important message.

We’ve all heard the saying, ‘don’t shoot the messenger’. But, although I wholeheartedly agree that we shouldn’t be going around shooting (most) people, I certainly think that the messenger should be held accountable for any misinterpretations/misrepresentations, and/or the delivery of any messages written with nefarious intent, where there is reason to believe that the delivery of said message will be catastrophic for the recipient.

Speaking of messengers, the pigeon in the post’s header was already far beyond saving when I discovered it on my way to the subway. I played no role in its seemingly grotesque beheading, which I can only imagine to have been some sort of ritual sacrifice to please the rush hour gods. I’ve named him Alfred, my he rest in peace, this eternal half-pigeon of subway lore – perhaps the last of Mike Tyson’s messenger pigeons. Who knows? Maybe, just maybe, he had failed to deliver his message and this was his punishment?

There are quite a few examples where things have gone tits up, merely due to a person’s lack of grasp on punctuation and its function, or they’ve simply failed to adhere to the concept of time and arrived too late (or too early), managing to almost cock up the future of an entire empire.

Research tells me there’s no evidence of punctuation errors having (as of yet) been punishable by death (contrary to popular belief), but I remain hopeful that one of the more reasonable of our world leaders will at least organise some sort of consequential punishment of the monetary variety, to prevent any future violations.

Nevertheless, understanding history is important, in some cases even crucial, but understanding who wrote it and why some things were thoroughly documented whilst others merely mentioned, is equally as (if not more) important, for hear me when I say;

there is no such thing as a neutral messenger.

The messenger may not have an agenda per se, but more often than not when that is the case, they will have been hired by someone who most certainly does. We see this in politics, religion, fahrking reality shows… who can even tell the difference between those three these days?

The media, i.e. us journalists, had one job; to report the news of the world, document both sides of a story to present the general public with the unbiased and honest truth, so that they would be able to form their own opinion based on actual events.

However, it’s been a long time since the media gave a fuck and a half about integrity. It’s all ’bout the money, it’s all about the dumb, dumb, dumb-bah-dumb, dumb. Or whatever Meja sang, way back when. I’d argue that the art of reporting died the second the first Netflix “documentary” aired, presenting one side of a non-story to make it seem as if there was one. This, again, led to a global lapse in judgement across the aforementioned general public, and they somehow started believing everything the internet fed them to be the absolute truth.

Idiocracy had somehow become our reality. Every headline serving up piping hot truths – or, at least, the A/B tested version of someone’s not-so-fresh take on their version of it – made the same article mean different things to different people, based on what type of headline their sordid little selves clicked on. If you’ve spent even a day past fresher’s week in uni, you know just how useful quantitative research is without its qualitative equivalent…

The sociopathic fiend that decided this was something that should be used by the media should perhaps meet a fate similar to that of our avian acquaintance Alfred. Because they have made a villain out of the messenger. The once trusted reported has become a joke, a parody, a liar and a prostitute. They’ve made the world into a place bereft of trust or hope. No wonder folks are fleeing to outer space on a pocket rocket.

If the men in the white coats fail in their attempts to locate my lair, I shall see you next Tuesday. Until then, enjoy this fabulous tune (quite possibly one of the weirdest gems to find in my dad’s cassette collection, squeezed in between E.L.O. and Gary Moore):

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