Villains

Everyone knows the villain don't they? The bad guy, that character in a narrative that provides the hero with a righteous cause to pursue.

But I've been thinking, something which, arguably I should not do, but which I did all the same. Name some villains and I can give you justifiable reasons why they're not as villainous as they may seem.
Think about it, don't they say "there are two sides to every story"? so why is the villains side always so pointlessly villainous. Take for example if you will the story of Cinderella. We're supposed to believe that this shrinking violet of a pretty young thing, Miss Cinders herself is viciously oppressed by her base, mean and needlessly cruel step sisters but, can any human being claim they have not bullied, picked on, or victimised an individual in the same way, whether it be in jest, or with malice? I know I have. I know I've treated some of my closest friends like dirt 'in jest' but, if I was to recant back some of the things I had done to others it would paint me as the bad guy! Those sisters were mean to her presumably because they were allowed to and they didn't like her all that much. Their motives for not liking her are entirely their own and, given that we know little of their backstory those reasons could be quite justifiable. Why then are we supposed to empathise more with Cinderella than her sisters, and root for her? Guilt? I don't think that is a strong enough motivator. I think most human beings are programmed with an inbuilt victim complex. We empathise with Cinderella because we all think we are her; whether you're a teenager being made to do chores, or a middle aged gent being leant on by the boss. The fact that, as complex characters, we display both the oppressed desire for better of Cinderella and the capacity for being mean of the so called 'ugly' sisters.

And that's another thing. These sisters have, for as long as I've known of this tale been known as the UGLY stepsisters...Could this constant reference to their physical appearance not provide justified attitude problems amongst them, especially when their daddy gets a new wife and she bears them a sister so beautiful she's apparently fit for a Prince (although, judging by Camilla...).

This also highlights the vagueness of the boundaries of what is heroic and what is villainous. During World War 2, the Allied troops the stormed the beaches of Normandy are almost always, without fail described as heroic. However, the young German individuals who fought both the weather and the stoic defence of the Russian army on the Eastern front are not generally mentioned as such. Neither side did anything braver than the other, it's just that the Allies won the war and it was discovered that Germany was committing gross atrocities against humanity. In the same way as we hear about the millions of Jews killed mercilessly by the Nazis, but surprisingly, post war less was heard of the communists also imprisoned, forced into labour camps and killed with the same merciless abandon. In the same way as the guys with the black caps and skulls are not considered heroic, so is it forgotten that communists were mindlessly persecuted along with Jews, arguably in not so high a number but certainly with the same gruesome methods and cold attitude.

Real life is far less black and white than fiction and yet politicians, press and others would usually have us believe it is. The current 'War on Terror' is based almost entirely on a Good vs Evil premise and yet, I am often left wondering who is truly Evil. When we revere the tale of David and Goliath; and yet our kevlar coated, armor plated, laser-guided, air-strike calling, cruise missiled troops are going against cloth wearing, AK-wielding mountain dwelling former farmhands, goat herders and regular joes, getting most of their high-tech equipment from the battlefield. We can claim, all we like that we're defending our way of life, but surely ze Germans said the same at some point between 1939 and 1945? They presumably thought that they were fighting for the right cause, as much as we do and, we have to ask ourself the question that Messers Mitchell and Webb theorised the Nazis asked...Are we the baddies? Yes, you could argue that the terrorist attacks on American and British shores were the childish 'you started it' factors, but surely that's the slingshot of David against our Goliath-like armed forces? Were they brutal and merciless attacks, yes, but could they retaliate with the same brute force that our comparatively rich nations could? no. Also, by letting the battlefield be on the enemies home turf, the collateral damage is almost all theirs (friendly fire incidents aside) which means that pound for pound our troops have probably ended more innocent lives than theirs did on our shores. If villains are the big guy going against the little guy then I hate to admit we are the baddies. But, again, life is not black and white like that.

And this is the problem with villainy. I cannot find a way to define it. Back when I used to smoke a little pot, my friends and I had a theory about Sonic the Hedgehog that blew apart the boundaries of hero/villain relationships. Imagine if Dr. Robotnik (or Eggman if you prefer) were just a regular Joe trying to get to work on time; and time after time, this bloody hedgehog keeps ruining his ride to work, so he has to come up with more and more elaborate methods of transportation, all of them increasingly fortified; up until a massive, imposing sky fortress. Yet day after day this sodding blue supersonic hedgehog keeps smashing his transport to pieces. We assume this scenario to be untrue since a) we play as sonic and are supposed to relate to the heroic actions of this character and b) the thinly woven plot tells us Robotnik is bad...But what if the thinly woven plot has missed a backstory that has escalated from Robotnik on his way to work in a Prius that was subsequently destroyed by this hedgehog to the stage he is generally at towards the beginning of the game, with his flying contraption with a particular weapon? What if the constant terrorism of this man's daily commute has led to his hatred, and imprisonment of animals, and subsequent desire to control the world? Is Robotnik still, then, a villain?

And what is with this habit of describing villains, particularly Shakespearean ones, as Machiavellian. Niccolò Machiavelli could be accused of many things (and was, leading to a dramatic fall from grace for him, despite his excellent experience as a statesmen and wide knowledge of the classics; and his ability to combine those two disciplines) but villainy, nor the encouragement of it, was certainly not one of them. In King Lear, for example, the character to whom Machiavellian Villainous characteristics are most often associated is Edmund. The bastard son of the Earl of Gloucester, he attempts to scheme his way to power by manipulation of many around him. However, his status as a bastard is never allowed to be forgotten. His father introduces him under the premise that he is a bastard and his mother was a whore. His half-brother, so full of modesty, and honesty, and chivalrous characteristics is almost universally regarded as the 'good guy' in the tale; however scheming bastard Edmund wrongly accuses him (deliberately, to cover his own back) of having plotted to kill their father. Subsequently, Edgar goes into hiding and disguises himself as Tom O' Bedlam, a mad-man begging for food. Now...I'll be honest, Edmund is very scheming, but all his ire, anger and desire to improve his standing comes from the fact that it has been denied him by circumstance (Rocky to Edgar's Apollo Creed if you well) yet, sneakily, Edgar (Who always comes across as a bit naive and, if you will, clueless. Why are we supposed to put this character on a pedestal when he is clearly just young, dumb and privileged) is canny enough to disguise himself as a madman, knowing full well that no one would suspect him of vulgarising himself so, that, my friends, is a very fucking Machiavellian plot from the man who would be king! For all of Edmund's faults, he, if written in another way, is our perfect anti-hero, as I said, he is Rocky, he is the underdog, and with this narrative written with his life in perspective his is a character it is easy to be sympathetic to. Privileged, revered and oh so fantastic legitimate Edgar is given the world on a plate...is it any wonder Edmund is bitter and, maybe a little, twisted? and should he be described as Machiavellian when Edgar's ploy is far more Machiavellian than any of the flawed-character exploitation Edmund partakes in. And let us not forget that Edmund does make a last ditch attempt to foil his own plans and save the lives of Lear and Cordelia. This is a supposed 'villain' we are talking about here.

Seriously. Heroism and villainy are not black and white; and it is for this reason that tolerance, and indeed tolerance of intolerance must be preached. Recently, I have seen posters, and stickers, and various other environmentally harmful and probably expensive advertising materials from Stonewall, the gay rights group preaching that "Some people are gay! Get used to it!".

Now let me state that I am not homophobic. But what I do fucking hate is intolerance. Is a belief in black and white. That there is a charity (That people donate significant amounts of money to! rather than those fighting poverty, trying to provide clean drinking water or assisting after natural disasters) preaching intolerance in the name of tolerance is an exceptional, expensive and bullshit double standard. "Some people are gay! Get used to it!" could easily be countered with a poster that says "Some people don't like gays! Get used to it!". There are no heroes, or villains on either side. Just opposing ideologies that both sides adhere to. The same situation can be applied to the war on terror, World Wars 1 and 2, to the Los Angeles Riots, the Poll Tax riots, The Russian Revolution, The American War of Independence...Any human conflict. There are always two sides; and there is invariably never a truly right one; only one that is right in context. So the next time someone is arguing over an issue, by all means, pick your side. But do so only if you truly understand the other.

Remember, as Mark Twain once said "Every man is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody."

D'ya like dags?

You know, Dags. Those little bundles of fluff so many of us love to love. Well, D'ya like dags...Or, dogs as they are more commonly known.

It seems a rather disproportionate amount of people do, indeed like dags. So much so that across the board of people who have pets, dogs are probably top of the heap. And you always hear the same reasons.

Well, I'm here to tell people, quite controversially...I do not like dogs. No, I will not provide you with an address to send me hate mail, I will, however, provide an excellent argument as to why, beginning with the reasons people love dogs.

1) They're so loyal!

Aww...how sweet your dog is hopelessly devoted to you huh!? But, due to their pack nature your dog would be limitlessly friendly and hopelessly loyal to anyone who beats it, feeds it, pays it attention or fucks it. They're pack animals, dogs will always follow the leader and if you happen to be the purveyor of fine foods and drinks then you are, without a doubt, the leader. Your dog doesn't love you, you just feed it. But, oh, you say, there have been cases of dogs helping their owners out in selfless acts of love! But you look me in the eye and tell me honestly if you had a man or woman who went out, did your grocery shopping, paid for it for you and prepared every meal for you and you found out they needed a fucking kidney or they would die, you honestly look me in the eye and tell me the first thing that would pop into your head wouldn't be "shit I'd better give em me kidney, who'll feed me otherwise!" Dogs are dumb pack animals. You don't believe me, I could prove it. Any of you give me your dog and I guarantee within a day of beatings it will be at my mercy, staring at me with hopeful glassy eyes and collecting my fucking mail.

2) They're so cute.

Wow, you must have incredibly bad eyesight because most breeds of dog are not cute. An Alsatian is not cute, it's fucking scary, and Dobermans just look like weapons. Besides which, breeds of dog are so twisted it is sick. What has happened is that so much sick breeding and inbreeding over thousands of years have rendered one species (YES, domestic dogs are all one species, Canis familiaris) to have multiple forms, most of which are not pretty. Sharpei dogs just look like someone has put googly eyes on a furry scrotum with legs, they're all wrinkle skinned and ugly, what the hell is wrong with those chihuahua rat things. Vainglorious society girls really dig those dogs, but there is something sinister and extraterrestrial about their appearance. And what the fuck is up with a pekingese! That is what happens when you take Dougal from The Magic Roundabout and smash his fucking face in. I mean, seriously people, what is up with you, as if our own British Royal Family was not a bad enough advert for inbreeding, you take an already ugly mutt and breed it with similar looking ugly mutts, possibly from the same litter until you have something with an appearance akin to the love child of Anne Widdicombe and Winston Churchill with it's faced pushed up against glass, that sounds like a pair of bellows farting when it breathes and suffers from so many underlying disorders that essentially what you have bred is a barely functioning handicapped inbred child that if it was the result of a human brother and sister, would have been aborted. And that example just happens to be our own Great British bulldog. Seriously, they're not cute.

and
3) It's better than a cat.

Oh...Oh oh no. You did not just say that did you...The Egyptians held cats in deified esteem for a reason, because cats just are superior. The same reasons I hate dogs is the same reasons I adore cats. For one thing, when a cat is loyal there is usually a reason. I have a cat and, to be fair I just took it in. I didn't go to a store to buy it, it turned up at my place skinny as a rake scrounging kebab. It looked a young cat, it was definitely underweight and it took a lot for me to gain it's trust. Number one reason why cats are great. A dog would take one snack and be licking peanut butter off your balls the next second. Cats take time. The other thing is that a properly trained cat doesn't need you. You know that when that cat comes around and jumps on your lap, it isn't there because it needs you, it is there because it wants to be. Back to the example of my cat, after gaining it's trust the first thing I did was play with it a lot, it was so skinny when it turned up at my house that it couldn't have been hunting and, probably wasn't all too good at it. A bit of playing later and boom, you've got rats on your doorstep. But this ultimately meant the cat was independent. It didn't need me to feed it, or look after it. It just liked the easy food and the attentive company. Cats are selfish and superior like that. In much the same way that a rich woman will have a housekeeper rather than do the chores herself. Cats are superior because they don't need humans, they just find us convenient. It is admirably selfish behaviour and a lot better than the doe eyed 'love' and 'loyalty' shown by man's supposed best friend the crotch-sniffing superbeing that is Canis familiaris.

This is not an off the cuff opinion. I have hated dogs for a long time. They smell, even when you've just bathed them. They drool, because, well, they're stupid, and the fact that human beings are so quick to attach emotion to beasts when actually thousands of years of evolved behaviour explain the position so much better, well, it just annoys the hell out of me.

In the words of that cold hearted miser from The Simpsons, Mr. Burns "If I came into your house and started sniffing at your crotch and slobbering all over you, what would you say?"

Work Is The Curse of the Drinking Class

Here in the UK, we have this phenomenon known as 'binge drinking.'

The media, i.e. fun loving hipsters hanging out in fancy london wine bars, will have you believe this is when lower class scumbags spunk their welfare benefit money on cheap fizzy alcohol in order to get as desperately drunk as possible. Once drunk they will usually fight, and then ladies wearing belts for skirts fall out of cars in a knickerless state and show everybody their nether regions, which generally have an untoward odour and a disease.

This media picture is a little bit of a misnomer. You see, the London based press have to spend about £6 for a 125ml glass of wine. They, therefore, do not go out, as it is too expensive. This means they spend most of their time indoors supping cheap supermarket plonk and getting hammered in the comfort of their own homes.

What is different between the two things? Well, nothing. Except one is a lot more shameful than the other, and that is sitting at home alone and drinking. One is indicative of a societal problem with alcohol attitudes but the other is indicative of a personal problem with it.
Thus, in order to cover up their own borderline alcoholism, namby-pamby journos in their nylon suits, with their paperchase notebooks conjure up fear-mongering stories about how ritual date-rape and debauchery is commonplace on Saturday nights in town centres...IT IS BOLLOCKS.

I've been around several town and city centres on weekend nights, in some cases joining in, and in some cases just passing through. I myself have scarpered from the police and, in one case, nearly vomited on one officer's shoes before insisting we go joyriding. I have been so drunk I have accused my girlfriend of being involved in a global alien-cover up conspiracy citing "I've seen X-Files!" As my evidence. I've seen tarts stumbling about, I've seen guys batter each other and I've listened to two drunk folk having a quicky on a balcony near my former residence...which was nice...

What I see is not a societal problem of a group of yobs not knowing when to stop, but the indication of a society that doesn't know when to stop, full stop! These are people working upwards of 40 hour weeks, whether they need the money or not. These are people with very few public holidays and with holiday time off week being desperately short. Where personal lives are put on hiatus from 9-5 every weekday, and you could still be on call at weekends, or working shifts, or nights. What I see is a country when Sunday isn't even sacred anymore, and everything has to be open, and everyone has to work.
Work, work, work...It's all we get fed in this country, and the government encourages you to work hard...They do so because the harder you work the more tax they rape your bank account of. Let's face it, it is a form of rape. They forcefully penetrate your paycheque, and you, under duress, have to give something up. With so little time to relax is it little wonder that a majority of people go out at weekends to get absolutely smashed?
Not really is my opinion. I've done the 9-5 life and it made me want to drink myself into oblivion.

I bring this up because, this week the government announced a plan to have a minimum price-per-unit on alcohol.
Wow, what a wonderful scheme, they'll definately set the bar low in this current economic climate, won't they!? Erm...Not quite. It seems they want to push prices of even cheap plonk up, and this means you could pay pub prices for the honour of drinking in your own home! What's more, who decides what a unit of alcohol is? I can remember when one pint of lager, ale or normal strength cider was one unit...and I can remember when it was 3 units, but I don't remember an inbetween, meaning that, I assume, the government department that decides how much alcohol makes a unit, changed their minds.
So what this means is that the government would set a minimum price per unit on alcohol, a unit system which they control. And while this does not necessarily mean there is increased tax, I'm pretty certain alcohol is subject to VAT. Meaning that in this scheme there is only one winner.

The thing is, I can see we have a problem with drink in this country, but that's because of how much it is villified. People look at you like you've just inappropriately touched their child if you order an alcoholic beverage with your lunch; but are perfectly happy to down 'shots' at the weekend. Some businesses now have random drug and alcohol testing and have a zero tolerance attitude to alcohol in the workplace...yet come Christmas they'll buy in bulk the kind of degradingly cheap juice that makes people get merry and hump bareback on the photocopier.
The double standard is so ridiculous that people fail to notice that many other countries and cultures can deal perfectly with alcohol.

When I went to Italy, I could buy litre cartons of wine for a little at half a euro. Half a euro, at the current exchange rate is about 49p. 49 of The Queen's Great British Pence for ONE LITRE (about 2 pints) of wine! You can barely find a can of cheap lager for that price in Britain. Yet when I was in Italy I never got confronted by a xenophobic gang of miscreant youths, all supping from cheap cartons of wine. Nor did I see drunked old crones thoughtfully mumbling into their cans. I saw no sleazy slags falling as much out of the clubs as they were out of their clothes and I saw no public scuffles. I did, however, see a lot of people drinking; and quite a few people drinking quite a lot.

The difference was that these people were doing that drinking in a long space of time, and I joined in! There was food involved too; those Italian fellas love their grub and it's easy to see why. Food and drink is like sea and sand, like Torville and Dean, like Butch and Sundance. Without one the other is nothing. Even the Russians, fabled for their boozy antics, usually eat small nibbles with their vodkas.
But these cultures also don't work stupid hours, don't have red tape smothering everything they need to do and do have a relaxed attitude to work, if not life in general. Especially Italy. While in the UK, everything has to be 24-hours; in Italy, everything can be 24-hours, but it isn't. Because between the hours of about 12 and 3 very little happens other than eating, drinking and napping. People wake up, the go to work, they spend a few hours not giving a fuck about their job (except the Carabinieri, who would gladly spend 24-hours a day dressed up like a slightly more homosexual version of C.H.I.P.S) they then go to lunch (which is allowed, i.e. not taboo, to include wine) and then have a nap.
Last time I had lunch while at work it was three pre cooked chicken drumsticks. Most people I know go for the sandwich, and some just pop to KFC. And do you know what? I FUCKING hate that. It shows a lack of respect on behalf of our employers and, as it happens, social attitudes are generally forged by the rules. Therefore, alcohol is taboo before 5pm, and generally taboo before Friday (unless it's a special occassion) but after 5pm on a Friday, alcohol is the main food group to enter your body until work the following Monday morning, where everyone in the office/shop/wherever you work tries to one-up the next person's hangover; although inevitably the person who wins is the one who doesn't go to work on Monday.

It just all seems so easy to scapegoat the booze rather than the businesses; and this is the most upsetting thing. In this country, we seem to be obsessed with the quick fix, the government thinks we have a problem with smokers, they try to price smokers out of the habit and put harsh messages on the boxes. The government thinks we have a drink problem, they try to price us out of buying drink and tell us how much damage it will do to our liver. The government thinks we've got a weight problem, they tax chocolate. An environment problem, raise fuel prices...

...See a pattern. See problem, raise price of 'cause' of problem...Is it any wonder bankers are losing sleep when people are being bankrupted for living normal lives. The government sees little problem with 60 hour weeks, half hour lunches and extended opening hours. They also see no problem with the fact that harder working working-class people have their pay docked moreso than those who work less, despite the fact that them working more implies they need the money more.
Well, vote me for prime minister and I'll do something about it. Until then I can only suggest that next time you go to lunch, go to the supermarket, get some good ingredients for a meal, get some wine, cook, eat, have a few drinks, go for a snooze, and go to work a few hours late. When the boss asks where you were, be honest, and tell them they can join you next time (not the nap...bit sexual). Only if we turn our bosses over to a more mediterranean attitude can we get away with the sciving we wish we were cool enough to do.

Short note

Feminism. A movement whereby, until males are an entirely subordinate gender, women will never be quite 'equal' enough. Where a large group of disproportionately ugly women portray female beauty as objectification, and where there is a distinct obsession with a so called 'glass ceiling!' a stupid term given that if it was literally applied, attractive young women would be openly encouraged to scale the ranks, given their propensity for wearing skirts.

The Wheels on the Bus...

Good ol' public transport...It's easy to have a stab at bemoaning it. "They're always late, never on time, overcrowded, smelly, poorly maintained..." etc. etc. etc.

Let's cut to the fucking chase. I can deal with a train or bus being a few minutes lit...You know, I could even deal with major delays, of upwards of an hour. I don't mind that the vehicles themselves are often terribly maintained, as long as I can sit down of whatever squalid seat is available, and I really do not care if someone is playing music quite loud in front of me, as long as it doesn't sound like James Blunt.

What I hate about public transport, is the people. Not all of them. Some people are perfectly happy to sit and enjoy their journey in quiet comfort, ably chatting to their friends without raising their voices to decibel levels somewhat akin to those of a rock concert.

Does people using their mobile phones get on my nerves?....No...Does people using their mobile phones when they think that the level of volume in their voice is relative to the distance away the person they are talking to is? Yes! The whole purpose of a mobile is to allow portable communication wherever you are (as long as there's a signal but that's a different blog altogether) no matter what the distance...i.e. someone in Birmingham, Alabama can hear you just as well from your location as someone in Birmingham, UK. Therefore it is entirely unnecessary to project your voice down the phone in the manner of Brian fucking Blessed.

Worse than that though, are the people who think the opposite. The people to who, the closer the person with whom they wish to speak, the louder they believe they should be chatting. I must admit, this is predominantly aimed at teenage females, whose laughter cuts through me like a knife and whose purpose in life is somewhat debatable. All they seem to do, and I use these examples not in any sexist ironic way, but as examples I have truthfully overheard, all they seem to do, is discuss hair and nails....Seriously...Same girls on my train all they time, all they ever talk about. They occasionally discuss their hideous sexual conquests but that itself is usually tied into the "Oh yeah he fucked me coz he really liked my hair" thing...
I wish I was joking, I'm sadly not.

Now, I don't mean to be construed as anti-social. I am not, if I was sat with my friends I would chat quietly too them. But quietly is the optimum word here! It's school classroom syndrome. If you all chat quietly, no one really minds and you can get on with it. If one lot of you talks loudly, everyone else has to raise their voice and the volume creeps up until you get asked to work in silence. Unfortunately, remove the teacher from the equation and you get a diesel powered tin box with enough noise pollution and hot air to move the Earth from it's orbit.

But there are people worse than that still. And these people take what I do to the extreme. You see, these blogs are, as mentioned in the first post, about the trivial little things that piss me/us off. We like a good moan, and what better to moan about than the trivial, after all, everything is relative, and here in the west are lives are relatively much better than those of most people elsewhere in the world. By jovially complaining about the little things it actually reminds me that it could be much worse...
...There are some people however, who do not believe that is the case. You know the ones. Their problems are always much worse than yours, and if you've got a problem similar, theirs will always be worse anyway. I used to work in insurance and have a few textbook examples. The company I worked for specifically dealt with more mature clients (over 50s), in itself that meant there was some relatively friendly chat, but it also happens that most of the biggest, baddest bastards are in this category. I had a man telephone me, wanting to know why his renewal premium was so high on his motor insurance. I pointed out the fault claim (fault claim means that the costs could not be claimed from the other side, either because it was the motorists fault, or because the offending motorist was uninsured) he discussed this claim with me and said that it was because of a squirrel. Now, and here's the good bit, this person. Keep in mind this person has been allowed onto the roads, in a vehicle capable of causing death and destruction. This person claimed that the squirrel had hit him!

Not that he was travelling at an unnatural speed for his species, and as such should take responsibility for the destruction of nature occurring as a result...No, apparently squirrels, SUICIDE SQUIRRELS AT THAT! Are throwing themselves into the roads, in order to to deliberately put motorists insurance premiums up....Presumably these are all al quaeda trained suicide squirrels, whose efforts have led to the current economic collapse, since people are bankrupting themselves with their car insurance. That's the only reason I can think of for an animal, a shy, skittish and generally quite cautious animal, to jump into a moving car.

I had another example. The renewal process for a policy begins a month (i.e. 28 days) before the renewal date of that policy. If someone wishes to renew their car insurance 30 days prior, they'll have to wait two days, it's all automated, the customer service bods on the end of the phone can do nothing about it. But I had someone phone me once, cursing me, calling me all the names under the sun, because I could not renew his policy...Why was it so desperate?
Well it turns out the insurance on his FUCKING PORSCHE needing renewing immediately because they were GOING AWAY ON A SIX MONTH FUCKING HOLIDAY IN THE FUCKING CARIBBEAN!
There was me, sat in an office, clucking away insurance bullshit hour after hour after hour, I didn't have a holiday booked...I wasn't going away anywhere, and if I was it would be nowhere near six months long, and the location would more than likely be Beirut rather than the Caribbean, I was being paid peanuts to do a job that a computer could be programmed to do, and should be to put these poor call centre bastards out of their misery but I was the one who was being unreasonable...Oh was I really?...Not doing something I literally can't do in the first place, that you only need done because you're swanning off to one the sunniest, warmest, nicest, most beautiful locations in the world to enjoy half a year of sun, sea, sand and geriatric sex and I'm the bastard...I do sincerely hope that on that trip, that gentleman contracted some exotic parasitic pathogen. He probably wouldn't have though, because he fucking is one, and they all stick together.

This brings me back to the point of this blog. You see, there are bastards among all of us. I am myself a bit of a bastard, I can be rude and unpleasant, sometimes with reason, sometimes without. But I do remember that, relatively speaking, we have it quite comfortably. And so, when an announcement comes over the PA telling me we've been delayed on my train, I look up, shake my head a bit, and get back to reading my book. When I'm told there is a rail replacement service (a British phenomenon whereby, during emergency or planned engineering works on train lines, rail services are replaced with bus or coach services to your destinations) I climb aboard whatever rickety bone yard piece of crap they've dug up, slip myself into the uncomfortable seat and remember that some people in other countries have to travel like this daily...Which is why I get slightly pissed off when some grotesque fat-fuck of a lady is stood in front of my in the ticket line to complain about such things..."I've just come back from Barbados..." see above for my discussion on ungrateful shits who don't realise how lucky they are with their Caribbean holidays..."and we had better treatment there...You call that a rail replacement? I'm disabled, I've got a bad thigh" No, love, you've got two bad thighs, with fat fucking ankles and a face like a lobster being anally violated on a bed of broken glass, besides which if it was that bad you shouldn't have been flying, and you seem to be able to march about stomping your feet perfectly fine when you've got something to bitch about. "I don't call that customer service..." Well what do you call it? It's not customer disservice because they've tried to do something to help you...I mean, maybe, they could just put a personal train service on just for you, and send you hurtling down the tracks, which are being repaired for a reason, and that would make you happy...Or maybe, they should always have a chauffeur driven limousine on standby in case YOU happen to be fucking travelling that day...

These are the people that ruin public transport. They are never working class, or upper class. Working class people accept the shitness of public transport as an inevitability, and as such have contingency plans in place to combat it, or just deal with it. Upper class people are too stiff upper-lipped, they'll have a bitch and a moan and maybe eek some complimentary drinks and snacks out of people, but they'll never hold up a queue just to moan to someone who has no power over the situation about it. The middle classes too are usually accepting. They don't enjoy it, but they understand the necessity for caution in travel. After all a half hour delay, and finally arriving at your destination in a metal box is far better than arriving early in a wooden one. No, it is the upper middle classes who like to complain. Not the rich, not the comfortable and not the poor, but the reasonably well off. And it's always due to regression to the mean (i.e. the natural law that states that everything should be roughly around where it always is such as population densities of animals or, sales of cars at a car lot...There will be ups and downs but over time it will all regress towards the mean) Therefore, when these people have just come back from a holiday, they're going to have their straw hats and rose tinted sunglasses on and come from relative comfort and crashing back down to reality. Regression to the mean, if you have a good time, a shit one will follow and even if it's not that shit it will seem worse because you've just had a good time.
These are the people who make transport rubbish. Because these are usually the people in charge of it...They're the ones in charge of it, they're the ones who moan about it, they're the ones who want to make the trains run on time and in doing so take over network rail and neglect line maintenance, leading to derailing, crashes and deaths. Unfortunately they never travel at those times and it is usually always the happy-to-accept-it public who are the unfortunate victims of upper-middle-class stupidity.

So next time you're on a delayed bus, train, plane...or even stuck in traffic. Remember these things. 1) It could be much worse, some people live in conditions far more abominable than you and 2) If you see some can't-get-over-themselves wannabe snob bitching and moaning, punch them...hard and with conviction....really whack them like you mean it. If you don't they'll get ideas above their station and people will die.

Milk...What the f*ck!?

So, a man, one day, in the very distant past, was prowling through a forest, when he sees a large bovine creature. He readies his posture, feels the wind, checks his stance, launches his spear and with that, the large bovine falls dead and all those pre-historic guys in loin cloths had a lovely steak.

After a while, these large, cumbersome bovines were getting annoying to kill, so they were caught and enclosed, they were kept and fattened up to provide available food that could be fattened to order, and of course their hides could be utilised for clothing or throw cushions or whatever.

Then a female had a calf...And it suckled...and some filthy fucking pervo thought "I've gotta get me some of that!" and we've been slaves the stuff since.

While there is no doubt it is an excellent source of calcium, so is a piece of raw calcium metal, but you wouldn't eat that would you? It is rich, and nutritious, yes, but there's no denying that when you spill it on something, it smells like a homeless for ages and when you drink too much of it cold it makes your gut feel, for want of a better, more legitimate word, ICKY. Let's not forget that horrible lactic aftertaste too, and the way it seems to coat your mouth with a thin slime layer or fats.

We take a lovely cup of freshly brewed black tea, with a bit of sugar for sweetness, all very acceptable...and then we drizzle a mixture of minerals and fats sucked by machine from a cows grubby nipple; and most sickening of all, we drink the stuff.

The reason I say this is because, after a long lay off without it (since the missus doesn't like it) I have recently indulged in a couple of sips of milk here and there...and while before I may have enjoyed it purely out of habit, now I feel rather like you do when you catch sight or whiff of that one tipple you always avoid...You know the one, it tasted different, and you had it at a party or do once, and you were stone dead drunk in seconds, vomited everywhere and vowed never to drink again...You never meant 'never drink again' you actually meant 'never drink that shite again'. In my dad's case it's amaretto, in my case ouzo, you smell it, and it makes you feel instantly sickeningly drunk just to catch a glimpse of it from across a supermarket. That is how milk makes me feel now. It's acidic lactic tang, the slimy mouth feel, and the smell all combine to make something that tastes as bad as it looks. I mean, you rarely dare drink a cloudy liquid and yet this one is thick with suspensions and yet we gulp it down with aplomb...

...Thoroughly disgusting thank you...I'll wait for it to go off and have me a yoghurt...I love yoghurt.

HAPPY LOVE DAY EVERYONE!

Picture the situation, you're a priest, and you fanny about marrying couples against the will of the Roman Emperor...as you do...and then all of a sudden some bastards kill you. That is the (abridged) story of St. Valentine as first told in the Nuremberg Chronicle in 1493. The fact that this story was described at least 1000 years after Valentine's canonisation, let alone his life, is of no bearing...What I want to know is, why did they kill him?



You see, most would say it was the whole 'encouraging the marriage of Christians' thing...No, no, no....You see I think it is possibly because people in the olde worlde bible days, had magical powers of premonition. They saw that in about 1,500 years time, people would be running around like headless chickens buying up everything cute, fluffy, red, chocolaty, boozy, cuddly, sparkly, spangly, dangly, lovey, dovey and generally tatty in order to profess some sort of love to someone who, lets face it, they're probably going to end up breaking up with anyway.

It defies logic.


Don't get me wrong, I am not bitter because I am single, I have a partner, we are engaged and are relatively happy together. I am not bitter at all...I am merely baffled by how shallow the whole thing is.



My girlfriend has recently been suffering a bout of chronic sciatic pain. It has meant that I have spent a great deal of time, and love, picking her up, putting her down, running her errands, doing the chores; with absolutely no contemplation of any reward to myself. And yet, if I were to not get her a Valentine's Day card, she would find it logical to feel in some way unloved...

...WHAT!?



How the hell does this love thing work? "Oh, yeah sacrifice your life for me all you want, but God-Damn it if I don't an overpriced piece of paper with a kitten on it, and something red and fluffy, so help me I will ditch your arse!"


"But what about the kids!?"

"SOD THE KIDS! I WANT WORTHLESS FLUFFY SHITE!"



To all those of you who are single, never, ever look at Valentine's Day as a depressing time. Just imagine the dent in your finances from having to purchase all that tat...And check out the prices two months before and I guarantee they at least double by February 14th.



The other problem I have is that it is all very sexist as well, isn't it? I mean, everything seems to be about men taking the initiative to buy things for women. While it could be argued that this is because women remember while men need reminding, this is also extremely sexist; there have been no scientific studies that show women have better memories than men, as far as I know, and when such supposed 'studies' do crop up, the evidence is generally misinterpreted, falsely correlated or even just plain corrupt. Therefore, why are there no posters up saying "CHICKS! MEN DIG BEERS!" whereas there are thousands essentially saying "MEN! CHICKS DIG BEARS!" At least Christmas gives a fair whack of attention to all, an over-consumerist religious festival is all vaguely acceptable (I won't be saying that at Christmas!), so long as it is not sexist, racist or prejudiced, but Valentine's Day so openly is that it should be arrested.



If a lady was approached by a grotesque blob of male; an overweight balding misogynist, who smacked her on her arse, put his face between her tits, went "brrbrbbrbrbrbr" into them and then said "Buy your man something nice!" he would be arrested for sexual assault. However, adverts all over the place are essentially doing the same thing to men, except with a far more psychologically sinister undertone. "Buying your lady some chocolates sir...Well, we do have a reasonable box for £6, but....You don't really love her unless you get these £50 chocolates, do you now!?"

"Yes, your lady may be a bit partial to a Chauvignon Blanc, but, does it have bubbles?...You see, if it doesn't have bubbles you won't get any sex, and she'll probably leave you for your best friend...I know Champagne taste like stale cats piss...but it doesn't matter...Oh and I forget to mention...WE CAN NOW MAKE IT PINK!"



This is why society seems to be having more divorces than weddings these days. People like breaking up more than they do getting together because when they're together businesses are constantly bombarding people with messages that essentially equate to "If you love him/her you'd buy it!"

It's a sorry state of affairs really.



The problem is though, that people get away with it because, contrary to what women all want to believe, men are actually the fairer sex. We may have testosterone, male bonding, and an inbuilt desire to witness or be part of violence. But that's just from our former (and in some cases current) role as protectors and fighters. But when a man makes an attachment to a woman he is utterly powerless. The story of Sampson and Delilah, whether true or not, is perfectly allegorical to how men behave; we give up all of our power. While there are some exceptions, the majority of families I know of are matriarchal. Even old fashioned relationships, where the men go out and work and the women look after the kids, if that woman wasn't there that man would be up a particular faecal creek without a propellant device. In terms of extra-marital affairs, it has been proven (in non biased, non gender supportive psychological studies) that women are more likely to have an affair just for fun, than men. Men tend to have affairs out of lack of confidence, low self esteem or a feeling of being hen-pecked and nagged. Men give the power to do that to women...If our mates gave us half as much shit as our girlfriends we'd batter them, but we go all doe eyed and sappy when it comes to our ladies and this is possibly man's greatest weakness, and the reason why Tosspot, Wanker and Prick Advertising Co. can get away with making us feel emasculated if we don't go overboard on our overdrafts at this time of year.



So advertising execs. swarthy bastards in their nice suits with their sports cars...Well I hope they crash those sports cars at incredibly high speeds because the emotional blackmailing of the general (but particularly male) population at this time of year is inexcusable. I never see a poster in a shop saying "Show her your love with an attentive evening, a nice home cooked meal, and some passionate love making..." instead all I see is "Buy her roses and diamonds and kittens and balloons and red shit and black shit and nipple tassels and chocolates and champagne and caviar and go to a restaurant and buy more champagne at the restaurant and eat lobster at the restaurant and then buy expensive sheets and more roses to pick off the petals and shower the bed with them and then have sex with her but buy these expensive sex toys because you're inadequate, sex wise, and make sure you get the premium model, it's all gotta be premium or she'll think you're a cheapskate, can't have that now can we big man...yeah, not such a big man now are ya...that's right, get your wallet out, show the world how you really show someone you love them..."





So, that's why St. Valentine was killed. Because he's a c*nt and they knew it...





...Now I'm just off to the shops to buy some roses, and chocolates, or I'll be in the doghouse later.