Author: Scott Andrews

Reclusive former writer of absurd nonsense. Occasional contributor to #newsbiscuit

Vertigo Vertigoing Vertigone

Have you ever noticed how the truly arrogant souls amongst us do not suffer from vertigo?  It’s a miracle of science, or perhaps the omnipotent omnipresent deity that nobody who isn’t mental has ever met.  I’m quite amazed that they can see anything but darkness, considering their heads are so far up their own arses that they can taste yesterdays dinner.

You may be wondering what’s got my goat.  Nothing.  I don’t have a goat.  What I do have is a chip on my shoulder.  But then I’ve always been a messy eater.  Truly I am angry.  I hardly notice the difference anymore because I feel exactly the same way every single day.  I am angry at what our world has become, about what people have become and most of all I am angry about the way in which we admire others.

To borrow a phrase from another writer, we are the Pepsi generation.  The generation of brands before bands, of product before integrity, we have fully embraced the concept of manyana to match the death of human ambition.  And yet still we raise people up on pedestals and worship at their feet.  All the while we are waiting for them to fall. When they do, we cause a stampede as we run over their bodies, each footfall carefully aimed and we tear at their carcasses without every stopping to ask ourselves what the fuck are we doing?  Never once do we ask ourselves why we need heroes?  Deep down we know that by proving that our heroes are fallible, we somehow excuse our own shortcomings.  That if someone more intelligent, attractive and/or richer than you can’t resist stumbling down the local park and performing sex acts on homeless vagrants how could anyone expect you to?  If some middle-aged actor can’t turn down a big mac, how could you?  If some talented musician ends their own life because they were unhappy, how unhappy must you be with your lot in life.

We embrace weakness.  We celebrate it.  It comforts us, and wraps us in a warm blanket of our own shortcomings, where we can lay immobile without ever feeling the compulsion to try.  We have become obsessed with protecting our children from failure.  Failure has become a dirty word, one which we all do our level best to avoid.  And we are all well aware of what the best strategy is,  after all, how could anyone fail at anything, if they never ever try…

Waiting Like A Waiter

Recently I posted the following tweet on Twitter

The reason I wrote such a thought was not because of a linguistic question.  It was because right now I am waiting on a number of things.  My waiting list is longer than an Orangutan’s arms.  I hope the waiting ends soon so I can shout from the rooftops.  Instead I am just bubbling with frustration.

This waiting experience, made me think about waiting in general.  As I turned on my computer and waited for it to load, and then waited for chrome to open, and then waited for the webpage to load  and then waited for the words to form in my brain and waited for my fingers to get to work I realised that waiting is unavoidable.  We wait for thousands of different things each and every day.  Whether it be traffic lights, phone calls, food to cook, dogs to crap, snow to melt, to get paid and to get laid.  It is impossible to go twenty-four hours without having to wait for anything.

The veracity of this truth is unyielding.  And yet when people show the tiniest hint of impatience, rather than sympathize, we throw meaningless expressions at them.  We push this fantasy that a man of action can do anything he wants.  Carpe diem unless someone is walking on the pedestrian crossing, or they have to pick up the kids from school, or if it’s the day before payday.  Time and tide wait for no man, but man waits for just about everything else.

The cold truth of the matter is that destiny is not in our hands.  Destiny is the result of many other factors.  I challenge each and every one of you to time how long you spend waiting for things for a whole day.  Or even count the number of times you will find yourself waiting for something.  You will be unpleasantly surprised.  Next time someone says to you that patience is the virtue of a saint, punch them in the face.  Or if you are not of violent disposition lean close to them and whisper ‘Merda taurorum animas conturbit’.

Horses For Courses

Over the past week all the joyous forms of social media have been rife with jokes, gags and criticism regarding the Horsegate scandal.  For those of you that live under a rock, the denizens of Great Britain and Ireland have been thoroughly disgusted to discover that a number of supermarkets (the most notable being Tesco) have been selling beefburgers containing horsemeat.  The sense of outrage has been generated by one of three things: incorrect labelling, animal rights, or possibly the fact that our Gaelic cousins do it, so it must be wrong.  Strangely, the sense of outrage hasn’t been caused by the one fact that is the most outrageous about the whole affair.  In fact it has been largely overlooked.

Ever since the invention of advertising and marketing, labels have become largely worthless.  Although the days of adverts supporting smoking are long gone,smoking the concept of not telling the truth hasn’t.  This is why McDonalds adverts never feature fat children that get out of breath whilst standing in line, or why Coca-Cola doesn’t feature people with no teeth or Bell Whisky show homeless people abusing themselves at bus stops.  The very concept of truth-telling in business is absurd as so many things are terribly unhealthy for us.  There is more chance of the tooth fairy existing.

Many newspapers have put forward the argument that people in Britain and Ireland do not eat horse because a horse is widely regarded as a companion animal.  Obviously the vast majority of those that keep horses for companions  have two surnames, live in mansions and have a tennis court and a swimming pool.  Strangely I have never met anyone who kept a horse as a pet.  They simply aren’t that much fun to cuddle up with on the sofa, and well when you forget to walk them they do make an awful mess on the carpet.  If we are honest to ourselves we know deep down that horses aren’t companion animals no more than the person you happen to go jogging with is your best friend.

Perhaps it is moral outrage.  Would you be outraged to discover that you had eaten horse and not known it?  Not really because you didn’t know about it.  It’s like being angry about the second world war.  You have missed the bus.  It is in the past.  You have eaten, digested and shat it out by now.  Most amusingly, the people who appear to be the most outraged are those people reading articles by newspapers that may or may not have hacked the telephones of dead people, on their tablets or telephones that were manufactured by Chinese slaves, as they read they tut aloud and tap their feet in anger.  The feet in question are adorned with american sports shoes which were made by Africans being paid less the a pound a month.  Moral outrage, in an age where it’s impossible to have clean hands is nothing more than mere hypocrisy.

The other aspect which is quite bizarre is what exactly people are outraged about.  ‘Oh my god, I’ve eaten a meat which is completely legal and doesn’t harm my health!’.  You would think that the morally outraged would be outraged at the fact that people are outraged that they have food to eat when millions of people on this planet do not.  Horse is eaten in France, Italy, Asia and South America.  It is not a rare and unusual source of sustenance.

Let’s briefly recap.  A number of people in Britain are outraged because they unknowingly ate horse.  Eating horse is not dangerous to a person’s health.  It is not a crime.  Nor is it a sin.  In fact there are no reasons why a citizen of Britain cannot eat a horse.  Let’s be honest it’s not like it’s against our religion.  Now that would be outrageous.  Imagine if they had put pork in the beefburgers.  Could you imagine the reaction of the 1.54 million Muslims and an estimated 250,000 Jews that live in Britain?  The small print you don’t see in most of the news stories is that pork was also found in the beefburgers.  It’s impossible to estimate the number of people who may or may not have broken their own religious vows because a number of businesses were trying to increase their profit margins.  Isn’t that outrageous?  Isn’t that something the morally outraged should be outraged about?  I guess not.

Horsegate is yet another example which highlights how far wrong our way of life now is.  The idea of moral authority should be buried in a casket named the 20th century.  We should be reactionary about things which matter now, not what may have mattered ten years ago.  Essentially, this scandal could safely be reflected under a ‘corrupt company blames another corrupt company for doing something unpopular’ headline.  As irrespective of punishment, this will never change.  Businesses will always seek out ways to cut costs and increase profits.  In the meantime it takes valuable attention away from issues which really matter.  And that ladies and gentleman is the biggest shame of all.

The Other Side Of The Fence

Each and every one of us is an armchair critic.  We can’t help it.  It’s part of human nature.  We are all insanely competitive whether we like it or not.  It’s the reason we feel a compulsion to grade strangers farts, to use names rather than descriptions and to lie constantly to people who demand that we tell the truth.  The truth is that we need our own opinions to comfort us, yet from time to time we are willing to sacrifice them for some other perceived greater good.  Which is why publishing something is a form of psychopathic masochism.

Perhaps I will start with a picture.  Imagine a county long jump competition.  A young boy takes his run up, speeds down the runaway and leaps with all his might.  And lands considerably shorter than the rest of the competition.  He is conscious of the fact and looks around towards his mother for confirmation.  She smiles and says ‘well done’.  And yet he knows it’s not.  He knows that despite the fact he gave his best, it wasn’t anywhere close to good enough.  Yet his mother’s lies are enough to cast doubt in his mind.  This snapshot, this moment, could be the moment that ruins the rest of his life.  It could be the exact second when he discovers that finishing last is acceptable.  Or perhaps that his efforts are futile so it doesn’t matter if he tries.  Or maybe he realises exactly then that he is shit.  That he can’t win.

The reason I mentioned the previous image is to highlight that life is a constant stream of momentary perceptions.  When I first published my book, I was amazed that I sold one copy.  The idea that someone, somewhere was reading my book was a thing of beauty, a source of amazement.  After sometime reviews began to appear in different places.  To start I was terrified each time I found a new one.  It was as if deep down I felt as if I was a fraud, and that eventually someone would notice that and I would receive a 1 star which would outline exactly why I am a shit writer.  A year and a half later and that 1 star hasn’t appeared.  I still struggle not to overanalyze every single review.  I still find criticism where there is none, and I probably always will.  And yet the reviews still roll in, in batches of 4 stars and 5 stars.  From time to time, when I am feeling low, I read the reviews again.  And I pinch myself, and can’t help but wonder whose book they are really talking about.

In the beginning I was sure it was just friends being friends.  Only saying nice things because they were duty bound.  Now I have read reviews from a considerable number of strangers and have been blown away by their kindness.  I suspect it’s something like what a doting parent feels.  This thing, that grew from within me, has now left me and made a number of people happy.  I’ve come to realise that how I feel no longer matters.  The most important thing is  how people feel about Professor Henry Tomlinson.  I no longer feel anxious or scared when I read people’s reviews.  I only miss Henry Tomlinson.

January Sales

Good news my kindlings, kobos, space-age fruit, or whatever form of electronic device you prefer to read on.  To celebrate the fact that ‘Existence Is Futile’ has passed 2,500 likes on Facebook, I have decided to slash the price of the e-book like I’m Freddy Krueger on  amphetamines.

In the U.S of A and India the price is due to fall below $5 which is cheaper than a … nevermind.  On the beautiful island of Britannica you will be able to buy the e-book for less than half the price of a pack of cigarettes.  Europe is closing on 5 euros which one day will be worth as much money as a single slice of Edam.  In Japan the price will drop below 500 yen.  In Brasil, less than  a bottle of rum.  And in Canada less than a tin of maple syrup.

And if that isn’t enough I am still looking for reviewers on Goodreads.  If you want to become one, you could get the book for free.  Click here for more.

You have so many ways to get my book, it would be a crime not too.  After all it’s January, everyone is staying home and saving money.  So why not stay home with a good book?  And if you cannot find a good book, why not try ‘Existence Is Futile’ 😛