Getting a Head in Life

Introducing an extract of a short story I wrote to avoid doing any work. The premise came about when I asked the very timely question: Imagine Weekend at Bernie’s, but with the added challenge of the body having no head.

Brennan had a number of problems. First of all, he was called Brennan, which sounded more like a brand of yogurt than a man in his late twenties. He also had a very respectable job at Durantis Technologies, a multi-billion-dollar company, which, if you’ve watched enough movies from the late 90s, you’ll know is terrible. You wouldn’t wish middle-class stability on your worst enemy. Decent pay packets leading to having disposable income, large houses with literal white-picket fences, no financial stresses and so on. It’s the sort of hell Dante Alighieri refused to depict in his Divine Comedy because it would have been too terrible to contemplate. The point is, being a healthy, fairly well off and moderately attractive white man in an economically prosperous nation is tough, and more people need to understand that.

He was also working closely with the CEO, overseeing a complex and tumultuous merger with Turandis Technologies, another multi-billion-dollar company. With so many billions of dollars at stake, the stress was mounting. Some might throw out lazy metaphors such as having the weight of the world upon his shoulders, forgetting that the world is floating through space and, assuming he was underneath it (therefore in space himself), it wouldn’t weigh that much. A more accurate thing to say would be to say that he had the stress of a large corporate merger to deal with, but that lacks poetry.

Brennan stood to receive a huge bonus should everything go well, which would only add to his misery. As already established, having lots of money is bad. The working classes, crammed into their social housing and eating Spam straight from the tin and drinking gin straight from the bathtub live in enviable happiness. Their gruelling, hard and laborious twelve-hour shifts, and the challenge of paying all their outgoings makes for a full and exciting life. If only they knew the sacrifices the obscenely wealthy made to enable their happy existence.

He got into the office at seven-thirty am and put some expensive coffee into the even more expensive coffee machine. He pressed the button to get it started, situated on a panel featuring a multitude of buttons and knobs, the majority of which did nothing, but a one-buttoned coffee machine would look cheap.

Bernard Shaw (not that one), the CEO, wouldn’t be in until much later. A CEO’s time was too precious to be wasted sitting in traffic, and so he wouldn’t get out of bed until rush hour was long passed. Rush hour had been stretched out over the years, now taking up at least three and a half hours. This gave Brennan plenty of time to work on the Big Important Presentation, or the BIP as it was known.

Acronyms were important in the world of business. Time was money, so it needed to be saved where it could. The cost of extra syllables across the year could really mount up. The coffee machine gave a jovial ping, and Brennan went and poured himself a cup.

Coffee made the world go round. ‘Don’t talk to me before I’ve had my coffee!’ people would say, wide eyed and slack jawed, a thin stream of spittle dribbling from the corner of their mouth.

‘Just don’t,’ they’d say. ‘Don’t you fucking dare!’

Brennan returned to his desk and switched on his Bapple CAM. They were more expensive than PCs and therefore harder to use. Sleek metallic rectangles they were, going went ‘Boom-boom’ whenever you turned them on.

He opened the BIP. It was currently twenty-slides long. Nineteen slides too many in Bernard Shaw’s (not that one) opinion. Too text heavy… his words echoed in Brennan’s mind. Don’t use ten words where three will do… and don’t use three where one would do. Don’t use words when a noise will do… sometimes noises are too long. A gesture. Sum the BIP up in a single movement of the arm. People are too busy to be interpreting noises.

By half nine, Brennan had the BIP whittled down to three slides containing two arm gestures and a waggle of his left foot. He printed off the notes and crept into Bernard Shaw’s office. The door was made of frosted glass, the sort that could only just be seen through. Or at least it would be if it wasn’t for the grey Durantis logo running across it.

By the windows, looking down onto the city below, was an obnoxiously large desk. On the left wall was a poster containing a number of penguins huddled together with the message, ‘Penguins huddle together for warmth. However, we don’t pay you to learn facts about penguins. Get back to work!’ Running along the floor was a strip of green cloth with a small hole at the end, for practising putting.

Brennan had never played golf, on account of not being a CEO. Another sacrifice made by the corporate overlords. If they’re playing golf, there’s less opportunity for poor people to be bored to death by such a ridiculous game.

Brennan placed the printouts on Shaw’s desk. He should have left there and then, but he was taken by a sudden urge to try his hand at putting. He selected a club from a collection by the door and picked up a ball from a glass bowl. He teed up and nervously thwacked the ball. It was launched across the room, smashing a lamp.

He selected another ball and lined up the shot, giving it a hefty tap. The ball rolled into the hole. Brennan decided he was very good at golf, and would take it up if he ever became a CEO, to protect the poor people of course.

He selected one more ball and placed it on the tee. This would be the biggest shot yet, he decided. He swung the club back and heard an ominous thunk. He felt as though his heart had exploded, releasing some horrible gunge. He turned slowly, not knowing what he was going to see.

He saw Shaw, lying on the floor. Or rather, he saw Shaw’s body. Shaw’s head had rolled out of the office, through the open door he had silently crept through.

He wasn’t supposed to be in yet! Why had he arrived early?

Brennan panicked and dropped the offending club. He tapped is foot anxiously, biting down on his tongue. What to do? What to do? He heard the ping of the elevator at the end of the office. The marketing team would soon be in, and they’d see what he had done. He had knocked Shaw’s head clean off. The big merger meeting would be ruined.

In a fit of blind panic, Brennan ran out of the office, scooped up Shaw’s head and returned. He shut the world out, plonking the disembodied head on the desk. The wide brown eyes glowered at him, as if to say, ‘What have you done now, you silly silly man?’

Brennan had no answer.

If this sort of thing tickles your fancy, why not buy this book. If it doesn’t, buy it anyway. It’s only 99p you tight arse!

On Phrases

As Western society marches towards fascism, which can only lead to a more intolerant and violent world that undoes any progress made over the last few decades, I think it’s only appropriate that I talk about phrases that annoy me.

I have often been told I am too literal a person. This may be the reason I tend to avoid ‘phrases’. They annoy me. All to often they make no sense. Even quotable lines, under any scrutiny, fall apart and can be discarded to the ‘nonsense’ pile; a pile that grows ever larger, threatening to cause a landslide of nonsense, burying the village of ‘Over-stretched Metaphor’.

My theory is, once you reach a certain age, you can spout any old bollocks and claim it’s an oft used expression. ‘It takes a strong swimmer to measure a whale.’ That’s one I’ll be telling my grandkids.

Anyway, a particular memory stands out in my mind. I recall sitting in a maths class attempting to make sense of ‘the scientific calculator’. Upon getting the wrong answer to a question I said, ‘This calculator is broken!’

To which the maths teacher said, ‘It’s a poor craftsman who blames his tools.’ This is possibly the most ridiculous statement ever uttered. I’d say it’s the mark of a good craftsman who can cast an eye over his tools and say, ‘Well this isn’t going to work. That saw’s blunt. Ever tried cutting wood with a blunt saw? You’ll be there for ages, and it won’t be a smooth cut. Either sharpen your saw or get a new one.’

The phrase should be, ‘It’s a poor craftsman who, upon seeing his tools aren’t fit for purpose, says, ‘I’ll give it a go anyway, because I’m so good it doesn’t matter that my chisel doesn’t have a handle.’’

One my nan used to say was, ‘You’d laugh to see a pudding roll.’ The phrase suggests that I’d laugh at anything. The problem is, it suggests that seeing a pudding flop about of its own accord isn’t innately amusing. If I was stood in a forest clearing and saw a Swiss Roll tumble on by, I probably would have a little chuckle.

A president once said, ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.’ And, by and large, everyone thought, ‘that’s well good. What a clever man.’ Realistically, the crowd should have responded, ‘No, that’s not how democracy works you idiot!’

He claimed to know how to run a nation, and then put himself forward for position of nation runner, asking people to vote for him. The contract there is, the people would vote for him, allowing him to be nation runner, and in turn, he’d run it in their favour. If after voting for him, the voters have to then ask what they can do for their country, what was the point in that whole election bollocks?

Then there’s, ‘The only thing needed for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing.’ This is dangerously close to victim blaming. Good people have their own lives to live. They can’t constantly be on the lookout with a big stick for evil doers. Why don’t evil people just stop being evil? Could a serial killer stand up in court and say, ‘yes I did assault, brutally murder and then dismember several people, but the point your missing is that good people didn’t do anything!’

Having said that, my brain is so shit that I was once brought low by a friend telling me that the pineapple was once seen as a symbol of wealth and status, which is why the pineapple is featured in a lot of architecture, and then they said, ‘For example, there is a pineapple on the roof of St Paul’s.’

‘An actual pineapple?’ said I

‘Yeah, an actual pineapple!’ They were giddy with enthusiasm.

‘Does that mean it’s someone’s job to change it like once a week?’ I enquired innocently

They responded to my question with another question. ‘What?’ said they.

‘Like, the pineapple would rot and attract pests. Also, wouldn’t it just fall off? Like if there’s a strong wind or something. How many tourists do you think have been taken out over the years by falling fruit?’

My friend looked at me for some time before repeating, ‘What?’

‘The pineapple on the roof!’

‘No, when I said, “an actual pineapple” I didn’t mean an actual pineapple!’

Which just goes to show people abuse language, so it’s no wonder phrases are stupid. Phrases can be forgiven for being nonsensical when people don’t mean the words that they say, despite the very specific meanings of said words.

There’s just no hope for anyone.

Buy this book if you like.

On Drink

After an afternoon of lonely day drinking, I paused to reflect on how well dry January was going. As a gym going, must eat-five-a-dayer (though I consider it a success if I manage 1 and a half), I often wonder about the effect of my drinking. I’m not an excessive drinker, but I am a consistent one. On a good week (or a bad one, depending on your view) I can average 1-2 pints a day or, if I’m feeling particularly fancy, a glass of wine or two.

This is probably considered too much by medical standards, particularly in regard to cancer risks, a disease that seems impossible to escape. It’ll get us all eventually if global warming doesn’t. My local pub has a poster over the urinals detailing the symptoms of colorectal cancer, which is not the most uplifting reading material when doing a two-pint wee. Having said that, over the years medical advice on drinking has got to the point that even looking at a pint of beer is considered liable to increase your chance of some sort of cancer by as much as 5000%.

I know talking about dry January is boring, but talking about drinking is equally boring. I suppose the sad truth of the matter is most of us, when it comes down to it, are quite boring. I find a drink or two takes the edge of that realisation.

People who give up drinking (mostly famous actors who have access to fancy rehab centres and have a flock of people ready to cheer on their sobriety and millions in the bank to inject other forms of excitement into their lives) tend to oversell the benefits.

‘I lost so much weight. I sleep better. I’ve got more energy. My emotions are better regulated. I can hear the thoughts of pigeons. The leg I lost in Nam grew back.’ It’s never ending. If that is the case for drinkers turned non-drinkers, I say kudos, but just once I want someone to say, ‘I gave up drinking and have never been more depressed. My family no longer invite me to Sunday dinner. And I keep shitting myself for no reason.’ Just for the sake of balance if nothing else.

The problem is, I feel there is no greater place than a pub. If I were a spiritual man and believed in an eternal paradise, it’d be one of two things. First, it’d be forever waking up and realising it’s only 3 am, meaning you don’t have to get up and get ready for school yet (it has to be school; it hasn’t been the same since I entered the world of work). Second, it would be a nice pub. Not too busy, but enough people for there to be a decent vibe.

A pub pint is about as close as I get to a ritualistic experience. Maybe being spiritually bereft has left a hole in me somewhere. Perhaps all human beings need that slightly ethereal edge to their lives. An embrace of the otherworldly and illogical.

Then there’s the aesthetic nature of drinking. It goes beyond the pure physical pleasure of the stuff. Get yourself a perfect pint in a sturdy glass. Whatever shade your beer, be it a shimmering black, a woody brown, a warm amber or a shimmering gold, a beer is a work of art, especially with a couple centimetres of tantalising foam. A small tumbler of whisky is like a poem, distilled into a potent liquid. There’s nothing quite so sophisticated as a glass of wine sloshing from side to side with the wild gesticulation of a passionate storyteller claiming, ‘And then, I says to him I says…’

That first metallic hit on the tongue is more refreshing than anything you can imagine. If it’s whisky, the powerful thump to the chest makes you feel alive. The sharp taste of white wine makes me think I could be an ancient Greek philosopher, discussing the latest developments in metaphysics. Perhaps I’d discover quantum metaphysics. Why is there something rather than nothing? Child’s play; imagine something that is also nothing at the same time, depending on it being observed. A mellow red makes me feel like an old lord, hunkered down in his fort for winter, eyes bleary with the smoke of the fireplace.

Look, the point is. It’s either I over idealise drinking as some high experience, or I sit and listen to my own thoughts at night! Maybe drinking is healthier.

The Death of British Democracy

It’s not without some anger that I come to accept the death of British democracy. I’ll get it out of the way first, I didn’t vote Labour, so don’t think of this as a puff piece for them. I voted Green, which means that I can sit on the sidelines saying BOOO! At whoever happens to be talking, seeing as they got fewer seats than Reform and, not being populist wanks, they won’t be getting any airtime. I mean, they did the unthinkable and from the word go talked about raising taxes. I’ll never understand why taxes get such a bad rep. People complain about the state of the roads, how difficult it is to see a doctor, issues within the education sector and so on. They want more, but only if they don’t have to pay for it. It’s weird, you’ll find a lot of people are willing to die for their country, but very few willing to help fund it. Life, it seems, is cheap.

Labour won the general election by a landslide. However, they haven’t brought about a utopia within their first six months of power, so therefore people have set up a petition to have another election, seemingly unaware of how elections work. I would hope, in the name of balance, if they did have another election and within six months the national debt hasn’t been blasted away and every UK citizen given a meat hamper, these same people would be calling for another election. Michael Caine even signed the petition, which is a shame. One, because he’s a super rich actor who will not be affected one way or another whatever happens, and two, he’s in his 90s. He’s likely to die soon and it’d be up to the still alive to clean up the mess.

It’s a sad time to be a citizen of the United Kingdom, what with people claiming that Nigel Farage is very charismatic. Presumably, these are the sorts of people who’d classify flour as a spice or The Macarena as some sort of avant-garde jazz.

Believe it or not, I’m happy to have been born English. On the whole, it’s been something of a privilege. I’ve known this ever since a teacher starting banging on about WaterAid in year 3. “Some people don’t have access to clean water!” she rightfully, chastised me and several others after we started an impromptu water fight. The joke was on us, as we did it early in the day and had to sit in a wet uniform.

It’s just sad to watch people cling onto this notion that the UK matters anymore. The country had its time and it’s over. It’s an old and largely impotent nation now and, believe it or not, that’s a good position to be in (figuratively speaking of course, I now regret my choice of words). We sit in relative wealth (on a national level, there is are many living in poverty within the UK I know). We have a lot of comforts that we can sit back on and just enjoy the ride, but nationalists will be nationalists. They can only be satisfied when cheering on achievements they had nothing to do with.

It astounds me that so many people have been taken in by his nonsense. Lots of people seem to think, without irony, that he represents the common man. This anthropomorphic toad who’d be considered an unbelievable caricature in a Dickens novel, spouting his empty, populist drivel.

I’m no stranger to populism. I once got myself voted onto the student council by promising to extend lunch by an extra forty minutes and, if students weren’t 100% engaged in a lesson, they would get their money back. When the teacher challenged me with sensible questions like ‘what money are you talking about?’ I contemplated blaming the immigrants, but wasn’t too sure what one of them was at the time, so played it safe just by dismissing her as being part of the Woke Agenda. The chaos I tried to inspire was mostly her fault by making applying to the student council compulsory for the whole class. Like every politician, my promises were left unfulfilled and the status remained quo.

Because that’s how it works now. Say what you want, for there’s no being held accountable. There are no consequences for lying. General bigotry is not only tolerated but championed under the banner of ‘free speech’. You can even tank a nation’s economy and be rewarded with a book deal and a career in public speaking.

Once upon a time, when shady foreign businessmen tried to influence a democracy, they had to do so discretely. They had to operate in a way that gave them deniability, perhaps through shell companies. Now they can just come right out in a public forum and state their intention.

I don’t know who I hate more between Elon Musk and Nigel Farage. I’d like to hit both with a plank of wood (I’d like to, but I wouldn’t – I state this because I know Farage is still upset about the battery acid comment. This a man who brushes off allegations of singing Neo Nazi songs as a younger man). I think Farage has the edge, because I get the impression Elon’s nonsense stems from a deeply entrenched sense of insecurity.

He’s had a hair transplant for goodness’ sake. A man who is comfortable in himself just goes bald. They shine their head to the point it could blind any would-be attacker or wild predator. Notice how, not so long ago, Musk was often touted as some great force of good in the world. He was considered the Oracle, a technological guru. Some would, without irony, say he was the real-life Tony Stark[1]. All of this no doubt went to his head. It made him feel good. It’s as if he suffers from an external sense of self. He needs constant reassurance that he is something special. Over time, whether it had anything to do with him or not, his name became less favourable. If this were a story, this would be where it’s said that the people turned on him. But instead, for a man with a fragile ego, it was even worse. People lost interest.

The only people who still talked about him as if he was this great visionary were the perpetually online. The sort of people who explode under direct sunlight. The sort of people who aren’t doing to well at life and blame everyone else for that. But they still stroke his ego, and so he nurtures them as best he can. He’ll appeal to the worst of humanity because at least they’ll say nice things about him. He’ll keep spouting nonsense and manipulating his X platform to maximise the likes and shares of his own words so he can keep his head above the waterline of self-doubt and insignificance. It is sad to watch[2].

Farage on the other hand, is just a dick.

A self-serving, snake of a man who will say anything at all to slither into power, whereupon he can make money. He’ll chase the money offered by Musk, because money is power. He’ll join Musk in spelunking through the caverns of Trump’s anus because he’s a little, weak turd who knows he’ll need to ingratiate himself with stronger allies if he’s to ever succeed.

And the media will help him do it. Because journalists are scum desperate for clicks. They used to speak truth to power but now they peddle lies and division for advertising revenue. In their relentless pursuit of eyes on page, regardless of methods, ironically blinds them to the fact that they are eroding the very foundations of democracy. Only an informed populace can truly engage in democracy, a deliberately misinformed one is just playing a game of Us vs Them, a simple game that often ends with a big old war and many lives lost.

We’re sleepwalking towards our doom. Farage will get in, and strip away everything we’ve built. He’ll undo all our progress and continue to pollute and destroy, all in the name of wealth. The posh and the wealthy will back him, because they stand to gain. Those with nothing will back him, because people often vote for chains, thinking they are for other people. They’ll cheer as they’re led to the slaughterhouse.

To quote one famous senator ‘this is how democracy dies; to thunderous applause!’

If you want some cheering up. Read this silly book. It has five stars. The most stars you can conceivably receive.

[1] In the MCU and in many comic book storylines, Tony Stark is an incredibly flawed person. He is arrogant, bordering on narcissistic with deeply ingrained daddy issues. He thinks he can get what he wants by throwing his money around. He’s a war profiteer! It takes witnessing the terror of war up close to set up a chain of events that leads to personal growth, which ultimately leads him to be a better person. It’s a satisfying arc. Tony Stark is interesting to watch or read, because he is fictional. In real life, for the most part, he’d be unbearable.

[2] Of course, I’ve never met Musk and have no background in or respect for psychology, as it’s a social science and can therefore be disregarded.

Whatever comes out the drawer

CEOs are weird. Weirder still is how they are often revered. There are two ways to become a CEO. Found the company or just be lucky and know people. Theoretically, I could found a company right now and put myself as founder/CEO and whack that on my CV. I could start appearing on terrible podcasts where I talk about how great I am and how it’s my innate greatness which got me to the position of CEO, and anyone who’s not at least a managing director is a victim of their own shortcomings.

I read recently that Mark Zuckerberg, famous thief, wears the same T-shirt everyday to save time and prioritise his decision making. Many business bros see this as an indication of his genius and a driver of his success. I personally question the decision-making skills of someone who may become paralysed by one of the first decisions of the day. Though perhaps I’m doing myself a disservice. Maybe deciding what shirt to pull out of the drawer/wardrobe/pull out of the hamper and give the sniff test is a tough decision for you mere mortals. The fact that I can do it in seconds is just indicative of my genius.

Then you have Steve Jobs who, apparently, thought showers were unnecessary and yet, apparently, washed his feet in toilets. Is my lack of business success down to my refusal to put my feet in the toilet?

It’s also interesting to note that worshippers of CEOs always brush over a business’s failings. They either choose not to mention them completely, put blame elsewhere or use the classic ‘failure is the greatest teacher’, though only if you have unlimited money. Failure was not a great teacher for my uncle Brian who, in an attempt to brew bathtub gin, was killed when the still exploded. The silliest thing was he was CEO of a major gin company at the time.

If you’ve ever had the misfortune of looking at LinkedIn – that vacuous hole of self-aggrandising nonsense and empty epithets – you will no doubt have seen posts which claim to have an exhaustive list of characteristics of ‘successful’ people. Sometimes, they’ll helpfully juxtapose them against unsuccessful people so you can really sort yourself out. Not only are these ‘traits’ often open to interpretation or almost impossible to quantify in any meaningful way, the people who post this lunacy have obviously never heard of the survivor fallacy/bias. Many people society might deem to have ‘failed’ will also have the very traits that apparently lead to success, such as my other Uncle Stevie, whose artisanal pottery company never took off. He was found cooked in his own kiln. This is because failed businesses rarely stick in the mind. The CEOs of failed businesses are rarely in demand for profiling. They have to fail pretty spectacularly in order to have any staying power, perhaps leading to the collapse of a government. It’s also, because the sort of people who post this shit want to pretend they are special.

CEOs tend to earn an obscene amount of money. This is fine as far as I’m concerned; take what you can get. What I dislike is this idea that they deserve such money or are in someway earning it.

There is a point where the amount of work one can do can’t possibly increase anymore, but salaries (and bonuses) can keep going up as much as people want. Though the busiest job I ever had was IT support where I was paid £19k annually. Since I was fired for instigating an office-wide rap battle, every job I’ve had has paid me more for considerably less work. However, I am not an indicator of the norm, seeing as I have somehow got by despite having an aversion to work of any kind. I can only assume businesses keep me around as an example of how not to be.

Let’s be honest, no office job is what you can call ‘hard’. Going down the mines is hard. Being a teacher who’s responsible for 30+ children, all of whom you are expected to keep alive whilst also educating is hard. Being a nurse is hard. Deep sea welding is probably difficult, I presume. I can’t weld on land and can only assume that being under 500 feet of water makes the whole thing more complicated. Responding to emails and attending meetings is not hard. There’s that theory that get enough monkeys in a room typing at random for an infinite amount of time and eventually they’ll produce Shakespeare. Give one monkey an hour and a half and they’ll have a pretty good marketing strategy typed up.

Here is often where business bros say things like ‘ah, but CEOs bear the weight of responsibility. The buck stops with them. If the company fails, it’s on them.’ Which sounds reasonable until you hear about CEOs earning millions, sometimes tens of millions and sometimes hundreds of millions to ‘step down’ after overseeing nothing but failure. I know words can be tricky and meanings can sometimes shift, but I would not define risk as ‘even in the worst-case scenario, you’ll get enough money to live off for multiple lifetimes.’ It’s so common for this sort of thing to be included in a CEOs contract that there’s a term for it. The Golden Parachute or The Golden Handshake.

We can talk about the morality of such things and the idea of peak capitalism until the cows come home (which may be a while as, judging by their holiday photos, they’re having a great time), but the point is, I read that Mark Zuckerberg wears the same type of shirt every day to save time and prioritise decision making, and that really annoyed me.

You can read a collection of short stories that has absolutely no relation to any of the above here: The Tiny Compendium of Ridiculousness

Stop the boats!

Be sure to call them migrants,
illegals, refugees.
Call them anything you like,
just not human beings.
In your role of keeping
the nation well informed,
warn of imminent invasion.
There’s a risk of being swarmed.
It’s an oft told story,
worn, tattered and old.
They’re simply a problem,
that needs to be solved.
So, don’t use words like people,
humans or family
lest you reveal
that children drowning
is a tragedy.

More things: More Opinions.

Today, I meet with Professor Andrew De Vere, scholar and author who received his PHD in looking at things and having opinions from Oxford in the late 80s (arguably the better half of the 80s). Having not been born until the 90s, I have no first-hand experience with the 80s and therefore cannot fathom the recent explosion in 80s nostalgia, particularly among the younger generation who have even less claim to feel nostalgic about the 80s. Perhaps that’s how terrible the world has become. Generations cannot even look back on their own childhood with rose tinted glasses and therefore have to look back on someone else’s.

Anyway, I digress. Professor Andrew, who currently holds tenure at Manchester University as Professor of Opinions, rose to prominence in the early 90s (arguably the worst part of the 90s), with his book Speaking of, in which he looked at a large number of things and had opinions on them. He is now on a world tour promoting his new book More things: More opinions.

We meet at a Starbucks in Central London (arguably the most central part of London). It’s immediately apparent that Professor De Vere is not your usual professor. For starters he wears no tweed. There’s not an elbow patch to be seen. In fact, he’s wearing a short-sleeved T shirt.

He’s already looking around the place and, I assume, formulating a number of opinions. I begin by asking him whether the rise of the internet has led to something of a global opinion overload.

‘Don’t get me started on the internet,’ he says, which is annoying, as I have to fill this interview with something. There is a queue forming, coincidentally organised by generation with the boomers at the front sneering and grumbling, swiftly followed by Gen X, with Gen Z taking up the rear, transfixed on their smartphones, presumably Tik-Toking. The millennials stand in the middle, clearly hungover and downing anti-anxiety pills.

‘What do you think of the current generation?’ I ask.

‘Too broad a subject – narrow it down a bit,’ the professor gives me a smile.

‘Notice how people’s mental health gets visibly worse the further down the line we get?’

‘That’s the education system for you,’ he says.

‘But the approach to education has changed from generation to generation.’

‘Exactly, and everyone is messed up in a different way. Take the boomer and, to a lesser extent Gen X. Stiff, filled with self-importance, all homeowners with good jobs and savings, and yet always angry.’ He pauses to take a drink of his hot chocolate with whipped cream, a flake, several marshmallows and a sparkler.

‘You see, in their day it was all “pay attention! Here are the facts, there shall be no discussion, if you even try it, you’ll get a beating. Get a haircut! In fact, I’m going to beat you anyway.” And then they got a board rubber to the temple. Proper board rubbers too, big heavy blocks, not like the board rubbers you have these days.’

‘I see.’

‘No you don’t, you don’t have a PHD in looking at things.’

‘I’m sorry, go on.’

‘Their education was good, but emotionally stifling. The job market was better, so there was a natural equilibrium. The more education you received, the better the job you got. Which is why they can’t fathom why younger generations don’t have more money.’

We are temporarily interrupted by a millennial loudly having an existential crisis. I notice De Vere eyeing the poor sod with his all-seeing eyes, feeding data to his all-opining brain.

‘Naturally, educational establishments realised beating children into submission was probably not the most nurturing way of teaching a child. The millennials had a different experience. For starters, they weren’t hit nearly as much. Furthermore, they were told that they were special; that everyone is unique. They were told they could be anything they wanted to be if they worked at it. They were told to find something they enjoyed and that they were good at. That was the key to a happy and successful future.’

‘That sounds good though,’ I say.

‘Lots of things sound good. Swimming in a pool of melted chocolate sounds good. Then you try it and find it a lot more viscous than water and drown. You see, higher education became a business and everyone went, primarily because it was encouraged – keeps unemployment figures down. All the universities marketed themselves by saying “get a degree, you’ll get a better job that pays more than your less educated peers. Get a degree and you can smack them in the head.”’

We watched the millennial in crisis being dragged out of the place by the police, hopefully to be unceremoniously dumped in the Thames. ‘Of course, this gave them all a certain mindset. You can’t tell a child they’re special all their lives and that they can be anything they want without it going to their heads just a little bit. This mindset comes into contact with reality and they realise that they’ll be lucky if they’re able to get a boring admin job. They realise they are as special and unique as the next person.’

‘You don’t think people are unique?’ I ask.

He smiles. ‘I didn’t say that. Everyone is special and unique, it’s just that the extent of their specialness – their uniqueness – is less striking than they think. Imagine the trauma. People who have been told by adults in positions of authority that they are special. That they can be anything. The world is theirs. Only for them to realise, not by degrees, but overnight that they are nothing. It’s like speeding down the motorway only to smash into a brick wall. Only they have to go on. Childhood lessons are difficult to dislodge, and when they rub the wrong way against reality, there is friction. Where there is friction, things wear away.’

‘I see.’ Gen Z are getting close to the counter, all seem eager to try the latest fruity concoction named something absurd by the marketing department. All are having multiple conversations at the same time, snapping pictures and watching videos and listening to soundbites Their eyes frentetically darting hither and thither and back again. Their language is frankly incomprehensible, letting me know that I am rapidly aging.

‘This poor bunch. They probably have it the worst.’

‘How so?’

‘For starters, their teachers are millennials.’

I shudder at the thought. Alcohol dependant, self-hating narcissists, simultaneously bitter about the glut of lies they were fed as children and yet grateful that their teachers at least tried.

‘Imagine them,’ I say, nodding at a group of shuffling corpses heading for the door and moving in the direction of the nearest Wetherspoons ‘teaching.’

‘You don’t need to; they are. Some of them work for the government too.’

‘God help us.’

‘There is no God.’

‘Something help us.’

‘There is no help. Now, if that wasn’t bad enough, Gen Z were born in the Internet age. Unlike their chronically depressed predecessors, there was no gradual acclimation to the online world. Social media is not something that was introduced to their lives. It is their lives. 24/7 – constantly connected, constantly entertained to the point that it’s boring. Constant noise, constant colour. They’ve been given the means to communicate at all times, but were never taught how to communicate.

‘This is how you should look. This is the life you should have. This is what it means to be alive. Why aren’t you doing this? Why aren’t you living? Here is a game. Don’t want to play? Here’s a video of someone who has earned millions playing games playing a game. Don’t want to watch? Here’s a podcast from people who seemingly have everything complaining. Here’s a trailer. Here’s someone reacting to the trailer. Here’s why we know why that thing is bad, despite not yet seeing the thing.

‘Don’t be racist. You’re a racist. Unless you’re not, in which case you probably have a relative who’s racist from whom you might catch racism. Are you homophobic? I bet you are! Are you gay? Are you Straight? Are you bi? Are you trans? What do you mean you don’t know? This is who you are. Surely you know who you are! Who are you? Don’t let anyone label you. What are your labels? This is important stuff! Here’s another game.’

‘Stop!’ I say feeling very overwhelmed.

‘It cannot be stopped. It’s constant. Imagine trying to teach these arseholes.’

‘Just… tell be about your new book.’

‘It picks up from where the last one left off. A lot has happened since then. I’ve had a lot more opinions.’

‘Do you not think there’re too many opinions?’

‘Too many opinions? Never. Well… perhaps. Tell you the truth, opinions are pretty easy. They don’t require any work and yet, they are very important. At least, so I tell my students.’

‘Shall we leave it there?’ I ask, feeling somewhat drained.

‘Do you not want to hear what I have to say about the precarious political situation we find ourselves in?’

‘No.’

More Things: More Opinions is out now. It’s shit.

An Update for Appearance’s Sake.

I generally think of myself as quite laid-back and mellow. However, whenever I say this out loud people laugh at me, shake their heads and then tell me I’m the worst person they’ve ever met. Just one of the reasons I stopped going to therapy.

I have started to notice what everyone’s getting at though. I recently threw a book into recycling as a symbolic punishment for these offenses:

“The clouds were the colour of pewter jugs that threatened to spill over…”

And:

“Her mouth fell open rudely.”

Sunday Times bestseller that. The first offence focuses on the colour of clouds. Being the colour of pewter is fine, but why would the fact that they are jugs affect the colour. The fact that the jugs are threatening to spill over would also bear no relevance to the colour. “It’s metaphorical! The author is stating that it looked like it was going to rain!” I hear you cry. And I get that; doesn’t stop it being shit though. It’s established in the beginning of the sentence that we’re focusing on colour and ends with shit imagery. A much better version of that would be. ‘It looked like it was going to rain.’

The second offence… how does someone’s mouth fall open rudely?

I threw it in with the recycling in the hopes it’ll be recycled into a better book. I’ve been seething with rage ever since. So maybe I’m not that laid-back.

My Haiku Obsession.

I sit with the working week looming ahead of me, the oily monstrosity that it is. In my mind it looks much like Hexxus from FernGully, which is a dated reference if there ever was one.

I am often struck by momentary obsessions – things just work their way into my head and take up residence for a month or so, before leaving having deliberately stuffed a fish behind the radiator and not paid a penny in rent. The current obsession is with haikus, that delightfully restrictive poetic form. And no, I’m not being sarcastic when I say delightfully restrictive. See, I like poetry, but I don’t write much of it because when I do, I start with a few sentences in an attempt to do a Howl style beat poem, jumping form warped imagery to warped imagery, to be read to a backdrop of smooth jazz in a smoke-filled room by a beret wearing prick. Then before I know it, I’ve gone off on a tangent and – well the long and short of it is it’s just not very good. Though it was better than this. He’s not even German!

Anyway, haikus prevent me from doing that because of its rigid 5/7/5 structure. I’m forced to be concise. Traditionally, haikus would be a reflection of nature, so I am led to believe. With the use of a cutting word. Of course, it has since evolved to encompass anything as it spread across the world, but the unique structure remains.

I’ve read a lot of haikus this month. Some don’t stick to this structure due to the fact they’re translations, and it turns out that languages that developed in different continents over thousands of years didn’t do so with a very specific form of poetry in mind. It has made me start the Japanese course on Duolingo, but apparently, trying to learn an entire language just to be able to read haikus is far too pretentious. If I’m to continue, I’ll have to learn all about Japanese culture and its rich history.

But all of that is going to take far too much time. So instead, I’ll just nick the poetic form. No doubt I’ll be harassed of the internet for cultural appropriation. Anyway: here are some of my haikus:

With gaze fixed upon
the ever-changing future,
I ponder the past.

I don’t like that one.

Now I am empty.
I am lost; blown by a wind
That I cannot feel.

That one’s my angst ridden one.

An apple a day
may keep the doctor at bay
but death always wins.

Because he’s a cheater.

Oppressed by silence.
Overwhelmed by all the noise.
Never quite at peace.

And lastly something for nature:

Spider web of frost
Glistening in the moonlight.
A cold gemstone home.

That works so long as you say glistening correctly.

That’s it. That’s all I have to say today. Couldn’t even be bothered to give you pictures.

I hate social media

Now, you could argue that a blog is a form of social media, but seeing as I don’t get much in the way of readers, the social aspect doesn’t really come into it. I hate social media with an intense and slightly painful passion. I would have nothing to do with it if it wasn’t for the fact that it is part of my job. For a lot of companies, the role of social media manager gets shoved into the realm of digital marketing. Makes sense, it’s digital and is, to some degree, marketing.

Still, I have no skills with social media marketing. Because social media is terrible. To be fair, I have no skills with digital marketing either. In fact, I have no employable skills whatsoever, beyond the ability to spout nonsense in an interview.

‘You said you could do this!’

‘It was an interview, I’d agree to kill a man if it got me the job.’

‘Would you kill a man?’

‘No, I’d just say I would and then make up excuses later.’

*Would you kill the person you love most to prove your loyalty?*

Anyway, last night, after finally getting some content signed off, I had to whittle down a lengthy post to the acceptable lengths of Twitter. In doing so, I forgot to add a colon. So I deleted it. I then spent twenty minutes stressing about the best way to replace the post with something better, then I remembered I didn’t care. Social media is a cesspit of pointless drivel. Most companies I have accidentally found myself working for are very specialised, which makes the whole social media angle pointless. Yet, companies are convinced that they’ll live or die by their social media presence. I remember having an argument with a manager whose favourite phrase was ‘where’s the value?’

I discovered that just repeating it back to them was enough to win the debate.

‘Where’s the value?’

‘Where is the value?’

‘That’s what I’m asking you?’

‘I know, but where is the value?’

‘Yes, where is it?’

‘The value?’

‘Yes, where’s the value?’

‘Where is the value?’

My point being, there was none, and endlessly searching for it was futile. Something won’t always appear just because you’re looking for it. My subsequent point was, given control of an IT budget, a person is unlikely to fire up Twitter in the hope that someone’s tweeting about their state of the art cyber-security suite. If they were, then God help us all. One of the Hindu one’s preferably, they seem the most well-adjusted.

If you’re selling hats, maybe social media works. Everyone has a head and hats aren’t necessarily that expensive. It’s also something you can sell in a visual way. “Buy this hat. Wear it on your #head. #wearinghatsonhead’ you can say, followed by a picture of someone wearing said hat on their head.

As a teenager, I had a Myspace page. I used it to learn some basic HTML coding and showed everyone how unique I was by making everything black and having an emo song blast out every time someone landed on the page.

This gave way to Facebook. This gave way to me deleting Facebook. Nothing made me despair more than seeing the sorts of things people felt compelled to tell the world. ‘How will we contact you?’ friends exclaimed. ‘I have a phone, you can text me. Alternatively, we’ve been friends for many years and you know where I live!’ said I. I was a naïve fool. I deleted Facebook and, subsequently, my social life too.

I haven’t seen the documentary ‘The Social Network’, so I have no idea what the rational behind Facebook was. I only know that if I had written the script, it would have gone like this:

Int. a bustling, slightly unsafe laboratory – Day

Mark Zukerberg taps on a test tube filled with a sinister looking liquid.

Mark: I’ve done it!

Previously unmentioned person: done what?

Mark: I have created Facebook

PUP: What does that do?

Mark: You can find your friends and add them.

PUP: And then what?

Mark: talk to them.

PUP: Oh thank goodness. This solves a vital issue. For generations, friends have had no way of communicating with one another effectively. We’ve had to make do with flailing our arms and screeching at one another.

The fact that Facebook not only took off but became a billion dollar industry is equal parts astonishing and distressing. In a twist worthy of the Twilight Zone, I recently had to make a new Facebook page, primarily to pretend to manage various business pages. I also joined a amateur dramatic society and they said ‘You’ll need a Facebook page so we can contact you.’

‘How did you contact people before Facebook?’ I asked.

‘What are you talking about?’ they said, ‘Facebook is, always has been and always shall be. All hail the book of faces!’ as they spoke, everyone bowed down and began to chant.

This unfortunate circumstance means I occasionally accidentally see someone’s status. Usually, attention seeking, rambling nonsense. A lot of selfies too. Here I am at a place. Here I am at another place. If no one was interested enough to be with you at said place, why do you think people will be interested that you were there? Then there are those politically attuned, who post newspaper articles with a scathing comment, to garner some good old-fashioned agreement.

I find all of this rather irksome. A healthier individual would say, ‘well, they’re happy. Let them continue.’ But down that path lies madness.

The real worst thing about social media is people’s insistence on sharing things their children do. ‘Look at my baby, they’re bashing a window with a toy train!’ ‘Look at my baby, they’re literally doing nothing of interest to anyone outside this room. I should really put my phone down and devote my full concentration to enjoying the antics of my baby, but I’d much rather exploit him for likes. That’s right, I’m prostituting my child!’

Someone showed me a picture of a child on Instagram in their school uniform. They had scribbled over the logo and said ‘Obviously, I’ve taken precautions. There are some dodgy people on the Internet.’ Said I: ‘I notice you haven’t taken the simpler precaution of not documenting your child’s every moment online.’

They no longer show me pictures. I feel sorry for the offspring of my generation. Very few photos of me exist. Primarily because I was the second child, so naturally was less interesting, and I was born before the internet was available to the public and there was a camera on every device. This is good. I like this fact. I can create a sense of mystery. There are no embarrassing childhood moments for people to see and go ‘hah! You were a child once and had no sense of self-awareness!’ Any child born after say, 2012 will have their entire lives broadcast to one and all; friend and stranger alike. All because their parents had such fragile egos they could only be happy for fleeting moments, so long as enough people smashed that like button.

You all make me sick.