A Talent for Bullshittery

I always believed that everyone has something they are good at. Something in which they know what they are doing, are happy to do it and do it well. I spent much of my life struggling to work out what that thing was for me. I thought it might be music, but recent events have demonstrated I am average at that. I’ve had a relatively varied career in which I’ve secured jobs purely by accident. My main role in all these jobs is maintaining an air of competence by desperately pretending I know what I’m doing.

I managed to get good grades at school despite a general lack of understanding of any given subject. I still don’t know where the mysterious 1 came from every time someone decided to carry one, but I found if I did it often enough sometimes it would work and I’d get ‘a mark’. Over time, I was able to collect enough ‘marks’ to be given a letter. GCSEs came and I did no revision, as going over things I don’t understand in the hope that I’d learn anything was an exercise in futility, and so I just winged it.

Come results day, I found I had an A in Drama, thanks to an entirely improvised monologue. Otherwise, I got Bs across the board (apart from woodwork which actually required skill – I got a D and was grateful for that), a girl I fancied was incredulous. ‘How?’ she said, ‘You did no work. You just sat there making silly remarks.’ She said it with such an air of disdain I decided a relationship was probably not on the cards[1].

After a minor mental breakdown and some self-discovery, I discovered my skill was the ability to bullshit. Riding a wave of adrenaline, I can throw out enough words to act as a smokescreen to hide my mediocrity. By the time employers work out I’m not very good at the job they pay me to do, I’ve either been there long enough that it’s hard to get rid of me, or thrown up so much smoke that nobody is quite sure what it is I do and nor can they work out if I’m doing it properly or not.

I hate technology. I hate computers. I hate people coming to me with questions. Yet, somehow, I spent close to three years working in IT support. I largely spent my days carrying around a monitor. If people saw me, they’d ask me a question, to which I’d point at the monitor and say, ‘I’ll come to you in a bit, I’ve just got to….’ I never needed to finish the sentence; people would just assume the monitor[2] and I were serving some sort of purpose. ‘Yup, when you’re free.’ They would say. The fools.

I once had on my CV that I set up and maintained an online sales division for an office. Which was bending the truth so hard I practically folded it in half. The reality was I put some office furniture on eBay[3].

I have a degree in English Literature, and in the three years it took me to acquire it, I refused to read any of the books on the modules, applying my bullshit skills to the art of essay writing.

My method was to make a statement and THEN look for a reference to back it up. If I couldn’t find one that backed it up, I referenced something shorn of context that made it look like they were backing me up.

To explain, imagine I made the statement ‘Dickens used the character of the Artful Dodger to show that poor East End Londoners are just genetically predisposed to be criminals.’ Of course, I’d find nothing to support this, but instead I might find a reference in an essay that says, ‘Some people believe that the Artful Dodger represents a certain demographic’s natural tendency towards criminality. These people are idiots.’ And I’d strip out ‘Some people believe that’ and ‘These people are idiots.’ And voila I have a supporting reference.

This is of course academically dishonest, but means I’m well equipped for a career in journalism.

Only once did I get caught out, in a module called East End Fiction. I made a broad point that East End Fiction was not actually restricted to the East End per se, because (judging by the texts and what I could hastily glean from the authors’ Wikipedia pages) the population of the East End has historically been very diverse. If anything, the thematic thread linking the texts was one of poverty. The module could have easily been called ‘Working-class Fiction’ without changing any of the content.

I submitted this essay late and significantly under the word count. In the ‘any extra comments’ section of the submission I hastily scribbled, ‘They say good things come to those who wait. They were not talking about this.’

By all accounts I should have received an immediate fail. As it was, I just got docked some marks and received an unrespectable total of 42. The comment at the bottom said, ‘It’s evident that you didn’t read the texts. However, the argument holds up.’

This talent is more a curse than a gift, however. For starters, eventually I’ll find myself in a position where words are not enough and I have to actually produce some sort of work or something of value to someone. But, as I have explained, I get into the positions I get into due to my ability to bullshit, so have no real skills or knowledge to follow through with.

Secondly, existing in a constant state of ignorance but being possessed of the knowledge of it instils an ever-present sense of dread and frustration. It leaves riding tsunamis of adrenaline, leading to crashouts that I can almost mark in the calendar.

I’ve got one scheduled for the end of next month.

Constantly not knowing what I’m doing leads to a great deal of stress and anxiety. People say I get in my head too much about things. That I tell myself I don’t know how to do something and therefore don’t do it. If I turn that around and tell myself I can do stuff, then it’ll get better.

The problem is you can’t bullshit a bullshitter.

[1] In retrospect, I have had it pointed out that I am not particularly socially aware, so my judgement isn’t the best in these situations. Perhaps what I interpreted as disdain was in fact awe and wonder.

[2] An empty box is better. Alternatively, if it’s a large company, you can stand in the server room stroking your chin and going ‘hmm’ and people think you are doing something very important and are not to be disturbed.

[3] I have since removed this as I am possessed of the ability to feel shame.

Featured

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.

I don’t care what the [ex]royalman said!

This may make me sound sociopathic, but I don’t care about the royal family. I’m not an anti-royalist, because that would mean I care, but as I just stated, I don’t. You may think writing a blog about the royal family suggests the opposite is true, but it isn’t. I don’t care, so shut your stupid face.

When drawn into a debate, I have often defended the royal family. Not because I care (I don’t), but because if we ever want a Game of Thrones type situation to kick off, we need to have a monarchy.

I have some respect for the Queen, as I once saw a clip of the Changing of the Colours… or something like that. I don’t know, there were horses. It was a really hot day, and she – a lady in her 90s – stood respectfully for the whole thing. My nan died in her 80s, and she spent the last ten years of her life sitting down, only ever getting up when a comfier chair presented itself.

It’s weird when you think about it though, as the whole parade was in her honour. I don’t think anyone really wanted to be there, least of all her. But it was traditional. And what is tradition other than doing things we don’t want to do because they’ve always been done?

“But it’s disgusting!”
“It’s traditional!!”

Anyway, what is currently irking me about the royal family – unfortunately making me care to some degree – is the media circus surrounding Harry and Meghan. Not because I care about them necessarily; I care that everyone else seems to care. There have been a number of headlines and articles that have wound me up during my morning poo. One being the claim that Harry and Meghan have had to ‘rely’ on the money left to Harry by Diana.

“Is this all there is? We’re going to have to call Oprah!”

At risk of belittling their plight, I think they’re going to be alright. Assuming they budget, they can probably live a decent enough life. If they need to top their funds up, Meghan could always pick up a few acting shifts. Harry could stack shelves at B&M. The point is, we’re unlikely to get into a position where Harry is regularly seen on street corners giving blow jobs for £5 a go. Mainly because I don’t think he could stomach seeing his grandmother’s disapproving face every time he gets paid.

There’s also the idea that people are shocked that someone in the royal family is racist. I thought it was generally presumed they all were. Phillip’s racism has become a recurring joke. These are perhaps the most outdated white folk on the planet. Elizabeth’s great-great-grandmother was queen Victoria who claimed to be Empress of India, and we’re surprised someone was a bit racist!

Then there’s this bold claim:

I’d go so far as to say it’s going to have longer lasting consequences than the Reformation!

It’s nice to know that those behind the Daily Mirror have their priorities straight. In terms of royal crises and their severity, it goes:

Edward VII abdicates to marry an American.
Harry and Meghan don’t want to be royals any more.
Prince Andrew used to go on holiday with a sex-trafficking paedo

We all remember that right? I didn’t just dream it? I have been known to have some pretty bizarre dreams involving members of the royal family.

If I was a cynical man I’d suggest that maybe the powers that be are jumping on this and stirring up media hype to get us easily distracted morons to forget all about that.

As I say, I don’t care one way or the other about the royal family. But if the institution wants to remain, they’ll have to modernise themselves soon. The claims of racism will hit them hard and, seeing as no one’s come out to deny it or decry racism, then perhaps there’s something to it. From a marketing perspective, they missed a trick. Embracing Meghan as one of their own, would have been a step forward into the twenty-first century. Not that I’m suggesting embracing a person of colour simply for their own political gain would be a good thing. Just good from a marketing point. And marketing is always evil.

They seem somewhat blind. If they’re not careful, public favour will swing towards republicanism. They bring in the tourists, people will cry, but the tourists rarely get to have dinner with the Queen.

In an age of austerity. In an increasingly ‘woke’ society (whatever that means), more and more people will start to wonder why we pay posh people’s rent when they have enough as it is. Simply for slipping out of a posh vagina.

For a long time I’ve been saying we need to go one way or the other. Disband the monarchy or disband parliament and make it an absolute monarchy.

If we go with the latter we can go mental and invade France, without having the trouble of having to justify it. Beyond ‘the old woman with the fancy hat said to.’ If we go with the former, then maybe we can make journalists really work for that ad revenue.

100 years is the record. I reckon we could beat that.

We all know monarchy can only ever end with a beheading. As I say, I bear no real animosity towards the royals. I don’t really know any of them. So maybe don’t cut of their heads. If you have to cut of a head, take Piers Morgan’s.

Yes. That’s the conclusion to this blog. Let’s decapitate Piers Morgan.

…What? Oh, okay.

For legal reasons I need to point out that I don’t actually endorse the beheading of Piers Morgan, no matter how much of a wankstain he is.

The incredibly long The Eye of the World review pt II

You really need to read Pt I for any of this to make sense. Also, Pt I has all the jokes. I just ran out of steam for this one, but I always finish what I start.

Get out of here you freak!

I have played The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and watched the truly awful TV show. One thing I never understood about that world is why everyone hates Witchers. It’s a trope that often pops up in science fiction and fantasy with no real explanation. In most cases it exists purely to paint characters as loner outcasts, generating sympathy and creating conflict.

However, it rarely makes sense. In the Witcher universe, Witchers are created to kill horrible monsters that terrorise villages and towns. Monsters too scary and powerful for ordinary folk to kill. In almost every conceivable way, this is a good thing. And yet people hate Witchers. This is like hating the pest control man after he got rid of that rat infestation in your restaurant, saving your business, simply because he’s a pest control man. And yet hate them they do. They hate them passionately enough to get violent (which is also stupid because Witchers are created to kill monsters. No matter how much I hated a heavywieght boxer, I wouldn’t try to fight one).

What are you smiling at? Get out of here you freak!

Then there’s X-men. Everyone hates mutants. This makes a little more sense because these mutants can be dangerous and there are even some who would like to enslave humanity. Also, a huge comic book demographic in the early years were ethnic minorities people who felt marginalised and oppressed by mainstream society, so there was subtext. However, once it became apparent that the X-Men existed in an expanded universe, it ceased to make sense. Anti-mutant prejudice doesn’t make a lick of sense when it’s set in the same world where people love Spider-Man or the Avengers who consist of a space thunder god and a massive green rage monster.

Getting back to the Eye of the World.

No one trusts the Aes Sedai. To begin with, the only context given is that people believe they had something to do with the Breaking of the World. This is fine, this is lore and generates some conflict. However, Moiraine gives very little reason for the characters to hate or mistrust them and plenty of reasons for them to trust her. For starters, without her, their village would most likely have been destroyed. Following that, she heals a great deal of the villagers and saves Rand’s father from certain death. Following that she and Lan are the only things that keep them alive.

I know you are beautiful. I know you protected all those innocent folk, I know you healed the wounded and dying, I know everything you have said so far has proven to be true… but I just don’t trust you.

Sure, at one point she says she’d rather kill the boys than have the Dark One get a hold of them, but she does so to show the seriousness of the situation and their importance.

A momentary aside: surely for one so obsessed with fate, surely if the Dark One captured the boys that would be the Wheel weaving as the Wheel weaves, no?

Nothing happens and then things just… happen

For a book that stretches on for over seven hundred pages not a lot happens. Until they do. I know that things happening is a given for books, but the way the happen in The Eye of the World is sudden and jarring. And not in the good way. It’s as if Jordan has been told to interrupt his meandering nothingness with some plot, so he just whacks it in and gets it over with as quickly as possible, so he can return to what he does best. Nothing.

For instance, Egwene finding out she can touch the True Source just immediately happens upon meeting Moiraine. Would it not have been better if she just decided to accompany the group and over time (or during a climactic event) she discovered she was magic.

When the group get separated Perrin and Egwene bump into some bloke in the wilderness. He happens to be able to talk to wolves. Upon explaining this, he looks to Perrin and says, ‘you can talk to wolves too!’ after which Perrin discovers he can indeed talk to wolves. Then his eyes start to turn yellow and he becomes gruffer and more huntsman like.

Look at that smirk; it’s as if he knows he’ll add nothing to the plot.

Imagine if Rowling took this approach with Harry Potter and didn’t include the scene on Dudley’s birthday where Harry talks to a snake. Imagine if instead Harry’s Parseltongue abilities were revealed like this.

‘Salazar Slytherin could talk to snakes you know,’ said Dumbledore. ‘Oh, by the way, so can you Harry.’

‘Oh, Okay,’ said Harry, before going on to immediately talk to several snakes.

‘Also, make sure you never put your name in the Goblet of Fire, otherwise I’ll beat the shit out of you,’ said Dumbledore calmly.

It doesn’t have quite the same effect. I’m not saying there should have been a lengthy scene with Perrin giving a lecture on quantum mechanics to a pack of wolves, just the odd hint here and there. The whole preamble provides the perfect place to seed it, given that most of his fellow villagers are shepherds who complain about wolves. Why not have Perrin say how he’s never been bothered by wolves? Say he’s even seen them when wandering on the outskirts and they seem to pay him no mind or regard him curiously. They end up travelling a lot, why not have Perrin warn them of wolves before anyone else sees sign of them? Anything beyond, ‘you can talk to wolves now. But let’s not dwell on that.’

Back to Rand: In order to see a captured False Dragon who can apparently wield the One Power, Rand randomly climbs a wall to get a look. He then falls off said wall when startled by a girl (who is beautiful). As it turns out he’s fallen into the queen’s garden and the beautiful girl is the princess. He is taken before the queen in a scene that adds nothing, aside from an Aes Sedai says that bad things are afoot and he’s at the centre of it… which we already knew. He is then promptly let go and it’s all forgotten about. There’s no tension, there’s no consquence (in this book at least). Seeing as the False Dragon (Logain) can weild the One Power, and it’s very obvious that Rand can too, this scene would have been much better had he actually born witness to Logain’s trial.

He could have seen Logain make a case for himself and been quite reasonable, he could have seen the Aes Sedai’s contempt for him and then his cruel sentence pronounced. Not only would this have given some credence to the mistrust of Aes Sedai and given Rand some much needed character development, this would have a purpose come the ending.

Instead the guards just kick him out and say, ‘don’t come back!’ probably shaking their fists.

Why save the world? It’s already lifeless

One of the most important aspects of a high fantasy (or any kind of fantasy) story is the world it’s set in. It becomes a character in its own right. Writers will often spend years creating their world, with rich histories, different cultures and diverse geographies, much of which readers won’t even see on the page.

Usually, this means you get something like Middle-earth. Mordor, Gondor, Rohan, Mirkwood, Erebor and so on, all feel like distinct and different places. The elves, the dwarves and the men all feel like separate cultures and there are even subcultures within them. Tolkien even made his own languages. With grammar and everything!

In case you missed it – a Guerrilla Union of Shrews!

Even the children’s author, Brian Jacques with his Redwall series has a number of seemingly different cultures from the Redwallers to the armies of Salamandastron and the Guosim (Guerrilla Union of Shrews) of Mossflower Woods. All of which seem to live in geographically different places.

I couldn’t even tell you what the land of the Wheel of Time is called. I think the main country is Andor. Some nations are mentioned, but considering the books length, the politics and cultural differences never seem to come up. In fact, the world is rarely described in prose or dialogue. We just seem to meander from village to village, occasionally hitting a town and then a bigger town. Then there’s the Blight, which is all sweaty and horrible and the trees are alive.

As they travel, people’s attitudes don’t seem to change. There’s no change in architecture or geography really, just grasslands, occasional streams and woods. There’s nothing there. Nothing exciting, nothing to add a splash of colour to an otherwise dreary narrative.

You don’t ‘ave t’talk loik farmer folk, but it ‘elps.

The world of the Wheel of Time is like a piece of over boiled cabbage, limp, lifeless and drained.

The Ending

To sum up the ending. They reach the Eye of the World, which is guarded by the Green Giant from the sweetcorn brand, who just sort of turns up. They use the Eye of the World (no explanation really given as to what it is) and then they’re set upon by some as yet unmentioned servants of the Dark One known as the Forsaken. Egwene is endangered and so Rand ends up channelling the One Power and uses some sort of light power to sever the dark feeding Ba’alzamon. Then it’s done. It’s over.

Green Man: Take this magic sweetcorn.
Moiraine: What’s magic about it?
Green Man: Just take the corn damn it woman!

Moiraine, Egwene and Nynaeve know he channelled and defeated the dark one, but not the boys. Rand is upset that he’s regarded with suspicion and doesn’t want the boys to find out. He plans to run away. Because being a man who channels is bad. Because he’ll go mad and will be gentled by the Aes Sedai. Now, this would actually mean something if that scene I mentioned a few paragraphs ago happened. As it is, it doesn’t mean much. And again, I ask why? It’s obvious he is the Dragon Reborn (it’s practically stated by this point) and he supposedly defeated the Dark One, the enemy of the Aes Sedai. Why would he be gentled if he is the prophesised saviour who’ll be able to stop the Dark One from being freed? I had a quick glance at the wiki for the Wheel of Time. The second book practically opens with Rand being outed anyway. So why they go with the secrecy option is beyond me.

Then it just sort of ends. 782 pages. Village to village to town to town then a minor showdown and that’s it. A skilled editor would be able to whittle it down to 300 pages and maybe it would be a passable book.

As it is, it’s the first of 14 monoliths that have sold over 80 million copies, confirming my view that the public don’t know shit.

Maybe that’s what the majority of fantasy readers want though; something to remind them of how much they liked Lord of the Rings. Fantasy is their comfort blanket. Just plonk some people on horses to battle an obscure an ancient evil. Don’t muddy the waters with character or nuance. Some swords and a touch of magic is all they need.

In short – 5/5 would definitely recommend.

Drunk Review: The Witcher

The Witcher

Note: I’ve drunk a lot of wine, so this won’t be a particularly cohesive and well thought out review.

It was inevitable. Game of Thrones was a smash hit. It let fantasy out of the broom cupboard and it went mainstream. For a while, everything was good. Then season 7 came. Yes, that’s right, it became crap at 7, and you all know it. You can make the Hound say ‘cunt’ all you like, it doesn’t make for a good episode. Season 8 finally killed it, and it wasn’t a dignified death. All they had to do was see it home, resolve some ongoing plot threads and finish some character arcs and we’d still be talking about the phenomenon that was. Instead, the series wilfully dove headfirst into a cart of wyvern manure.

Still, the television world was left with a gaping hole. Mainstream audiences got hooked on fantasy. Armour, swords, intriguing characters, imaginative new worlds and more swords. The masses hungered for more, and producers are happy to feed… for a price.

I say this now: Fantasy is the best genre that was and ever will be. It’s just a fact. However, it is also the worst genre. It is a fickle beast is fantasy. It’s very easy to get wrong. For every ten fantasy novels, shows or video games you pick up, you’ll be lucky if one is good. The majority is so badly written it’s almost understandable when people say they just ‘don’t get fantasy’, which is a stupid thing to say because, as I’ve said, it’s the best.

I was intrigued when I heard Netflix was to produce a live-action series of The Witcher. Even more so when I discovered Henry Cavill was to play the titular role. My only experience with The Witcher was playing The Witcher III. I enjoyed it very much so. I thought the writing was strong and the characters well fleshed out. Tell a lie, I played the Witcher I a few years prior, but my PC kept crashing after 30 seconds. I thought it very unlikely the TV show would replicate this experience.

As it transpires, the TV show is being more faithful to the novels written by Andrzej Sapkowski from which the games were based. Let’s hope Sapkowski decided to include royalty payments in his contract this time, rather than agreeing to a one-off payment before demanding a ridiculous sum. You know, despite reportedly saying:

“They offered me a percentage of their profits. I said, ‘No, there will be no profit at all – give me all my money right now! The whole amount. It was stupid. I was stupid enough to leave everything in their hands because I didn’t believe in their success. But who could foresee their success? I couldn’t.”

It’s hard to get excited about a show based on a set of books the author had such little faith in that he doubted it’d make a good video game. I mean gamers will buy any old shit. And the Witcher games turned out to be good. Has the series done the same?

No.

Well, maybe that’s too harsh. It has merit.

But no.

Having not read the novels, I can’t comment on how ‘faithful’ they are, but as a project in its own right: No… just no. For fantasy to work, immersion is key. If you’re not immersed, you’re just watching a bunch of people spout nonsense words. There are many things in this series (so far) that pull me out and leave me no longer immersed (unimmersed? Is that a word?).

First and foremost, it’s the acting.

Not Cavill, Cavill is untouchable. He looks the part, sounds the part and is the part. He could punch my own mother’s head clean off and I’d still offer him somewhere to sleep for the night.

Everyone else sounds like they’re reading from a card held off-camera by the screenwriter hastily scribbling the next line. The intonation and inflexions are all over the place if they’re there at all. It’s either overdone or wooden.

The Lord of the Rings had a solid and reliable cast which allowed people to get away with lines like ‘Of course he does. He’s a Baggins…not some blockheaded Bracegirdle from Hardbottle.’ No one in the Witcher could do the same!

The character of Jaskier (Buttercup in Polish. Dandelion in the game) is trying desperately hard to be the comic relief, but alas the script lets him down. The scriptwriters seem unable to grasp the fact that comic relief has to be comic, otherwise it doesn’t really work. His singing is irksome, particularly because they seem to be under the belief that using clearly pre-recorded and over-produced vocals will enhance a scene. They are incorrect in this. The script is all over the place. For starters, there’s the fact that there are at least three separate storylines occurring at once, all of which appear to be taking place at different times. I’ve seen many an online conversation where people seem to congratulate themselves on ‘working this out’ before it becomes much clearer three or four episodes in. The fact that there was any ‘working out’ to be done is testament to poor film making. Memento isn’t chronological, but you’re aware of that from the get go. It’s highlighted that there’s a difference. The Witcher just plonks different jarring times in front of you leaving what some would call ‘subtle clues’, but anyone with any sense would call fucking weird contradictions. All it would take is a bit of text showing the time jumps.

Some might accuse me of being simplistic and needing everything signposted. But my argument is, I knew it was different times, it just didn’t make sense not to signpost, considering the ‘reveal’ is more a shrug and an ‘ok’ moment. It’s not a twist as such, it’s not building up to a dramatic moment. It’s just a narrative choice that without signposting makes for a confusing watch.

It’s quite clear that the writers wanted the mage Yennefer to be the main character, but were restricted by the fact that they were making a series called The Witcher, and the Witcher in question is Geralt of Rivia. Yennefer is the only one that seems to get a backstory, dull and drawn out as it is. Hunchbacked and ugly, she’s sold by her father to a witch who then trains her, she’s a quarter elf, she has some sex. She becomes beautiful. Not once do we really have it explained what a Witcher is, where they come from and why they’re made and all that. Which would help for some context for a show called The Witcher.

One of the big elements of the Witcher lore is The Conjunction of the Spheres, which is pretty much read out to you at the beginning of the Witcher games but is merely alluded to in episodes I’ve watched so far. So, there’s that.

Then there’s the fact that all the characters say one thing only to immediately do something completely different the next minute. The first episode has a wizard request that Geralt kill a woman, a princess born in an eclipse or something who has mutations that make her evil… or some shit. She’s coming to kill him on market day. Geralt has a big speech about choosing between a lesser and a greater evil and how all evil is evil and it’s not a choice he wishes to make. He doesn’t kill people, only monsters. The inevitable ‘but people are the real monsters’ response comes up a lot. Which is admittedly true, but Witcher’s are more concerned with the big hairy and generally more monstrous monsters. He then meets the woman in question, who provides a sad backstory and requests that Geralt kill the wizard instead. Geralt says no. Because he doesn’t kill people. Because then he’s the monster. Then they have sex… or do they? I don’t know it’s weird.

Then it’s market day. Geralt rushes back to the town, fearful of what might occur. He’s met by all the princess’ men, who he promptly kills. Then the princess emerges (no sign of a market happening), who he promptly kills. Then the wizard comes out and tries to get the body. Geralt promptly threatens to kill him. The wizard chastises him for butchering the men and bringing death and what not to the town and he’s forced to leave.

So, the wizard who asks Geralt to kill the woman drives him off for killing the woman. This is possibly to keep face within the city, but the Witcher who doesn’t kill men has killed a lot of men. There are ways to explain this lapse in judgement. But it’s a recurring symptom.

Episode 4 has the Queen of Cintra state to Geralt that it’s fortuitous he should be at the banquet, as he could deal with any nastiness should it kick off. Geralt once again states that he’s not a bodyguard for hire and doesn’t kill people. When asked why she can’t do it she says:

“I’m a queen, I need to act with a modicum of decency and fairness.”

Or something along those lines. 2 seconds later a Nilfgaardian presents himself as a marriage prospect. To which the queen tells him his country is shit and he should fuck off, which he promptly does. Showing she didn’t need Geralt at all, and also raises the question of why she bothered to invite the poor Nilfgaardian in the first place.

Then a hedgehog man turns up and a fight ensues and, naturally, Geralt proceeds once again to murder everyone.

It turns out her daughter loves said hedgehog man and asks for the queen’s blessing. There’s much jabbering about destiny. The queen then tries to stab the hedgehog man in a move that can only be described as ‘entirely predictable.’ This scene is incredibly comical, because the stabbing appears to happen in slow motion, but the daughter’s screaming reaction seems unaffected, making it appear as if the queen just really takes her time with stabbing.

After the banquet has been smashed to pieces and men lay dead on the floor, the queen gives her blessing having realised the error of her ways. Another man pops up and says, “the queen has also said yes to my engagement proposal,’ prompting no one to say “when? When the fuck did she do that? Before or after you stabbed up some of her men?’

Everyone stands together, including hedgehog man. They all hold hands forgetting the queen tried to stab him mere moments ago.

It’s a fucking mess. No one has a clue what’s going on. Yennefer portal hops everywhere to unsuccessfully escape an assassin and his bug creature only to easily force said bug creature to decapitate itself moments later. If you can do that, do that first! And this is after she complains about her idea of being a mage for king hasn’t worked out properly and she’s just there to ‘wipe the backsides of nobles’. Finally, something interesting happens and she runs away and those under her protection get killed. Despite the fact that she can portal places… which surely negated the need to take a carriage in the first place. Did I mention they were in a carriage at first? Who knows; I’m pissed.

Sword fights are good though, so I’ll probably keep watching.