Author: Scott Andrews

Why Did The Oryctolagus Cuniculas Cross The Road?

Last Sunday I received the fright of my life.  Having spent the night before partying heartily I was hardly a picture of good health.  I soldiered through the day verging between sleep and whining like a girl.  By the time it got to late evening I was beginning to feel better.  For example I could stand up without feeling a blistering white pain behind my eyes.  My flat no longer seemed to be on a boat.  I was doing my level best impression of a cucumber(the reason being that I had never seen a cucumber with a hangover) on my couch when I realised that our house rabbit looked like she was having a stroke.  She was laying flat on the ground, her legs painfully contorted, breathing heavier than the winner of the Nobel Prize For Perverted Phone Calls.  It was hard to tell whether she was shaking or it was her breathing, all in all she looked like she was on the way to check out.  We decided that the best we could do was to observe her closely as it wasn’t totally unexpected, after all, she will be 7 in December.  After about half an hour we decided to take her to the night vets, and that is when it began

My mind was racing.  In my head I was saying goodbye to my evil little fur ball.  I was already planning the funeral, deciding upon the vol au vents and the hymns.  I knew the day would come, death is inevitable to us all.  I felt like my eyes were watery.  My heart had sunk.  Just the idea of having to call our families and inform them made my voice wobble.  As we sat in the car, I peeked into her travel cot and looked at her.  The strangest thought struck me.  I don’t know whether she was just putting on a brave face(I am not really sure what her brave face looks like.) or she really didn’t give a fuck, either way her courage was a lesson to me.

To some degree it’s possible that I was projecting.  I will be thirty-one next month.  Since I turned thirty I find myself more and more often thinking about mortality.  Not just mine either.  The horrifying fact is that death is terrifying.  The fact that the human mind was built with the knowledge of it’s own mortality is a horrifying design flaw which in itself takes a massive crap on the intelligent design theory.  It’s been around 800,000 years since the human race became masters of fire, yet we still haven’t become masters of our own destiny.

I am scared of dying, therefore I assumed that my rabbit would be to.  I have no idea of her position on religion.  Rabbits in the afterlife are sadly not mentioned by any of the mainstream religions.  I tried to imagine what heaven would look like for a rabbit?  It would probably be a place where you are safe, and warm, and the food is good and there are plenty of craps tables.  Perhaps I am exaggerating a little.  Perhaps she is a buddhist and will be reincarnated as a wombat.  It’s impossible to be sure.

What I do know is the rabbit does not display any outward signs of pain, as they fear showing weakness to a predator.  I once gave her a nipple cripple and she didn’t even flinch(that last anecdote isn’t true.  She would bite my arm off if I tried.).  However she did once cut the inside of her mouth up and proceed to sit by her water bowl drinking and cleaning herself.  Despite the fact she was hurting she refused to show it, and I admire that.  The fact that she is so horribly independent that she is a terrible pet.  I admire that.  The fact that she lives her life instinctively, that she is a punk rock rabbit, and she lives her life in her way which most people would be afraid to.  If something so small can be so fearless why can’t I?

When we arrived at the vets it took approximately 4 minutes before the vet identified the problem.  She was constipated.  All she needed was a good shit.  They gave her some paraffin to get things moving.  Now she seems much better.  There is a life lesson here, one which we should all take heed of.  It might be that life goes on all whilst you still have shit to do,  it may be that death doesn’t take any shit or it could even be that you should live your life without giving a shit.  Whichever it is, never forget it, in case it comes in useful one day.

Eeek-anomics

It may surprise some to learn that I am not in fact an Economist.  I want to clarify this at the very beginning.  I do not possess a single economic qualification.  I have never worked in finance.  Therefore many would say that I do not have the right to make any comment on this subject.  In my defence I want to point out that the people with the relevant qualifications, running the economies of our collective nations are doing a pretty damn awful job.  I sincerely believe that with my absolute lack of any useful knowledge I could do a just as appalling job as  any finance minister in Europe.  However there is only one thing stopping me becoming an Economist, and that is the knowledge that come the revolution we shall march out those bastards first and shoot them.

The second reason is that you cannot escape the term economic crisis for 24 hours unless you hide inside your wardrobe for the rest of your life.  In the past year alone I have watched over 6,502 hours of news reports about the economic crisis and read over 569,332 words regarding the said topic.  By all appearances it seems that all Finance Ministers actually do is appear on the news as often as possible and talk about the economic crisis without actually doing very much to stop the said crisis.

I will now introduce my financial theory entitled Biebernomics.  The theory goes as follows.  There is one Justin Bieber.  A record company pays him 1 million dollars per cd.  They make 2 million dollars for each cd.  Imagine if there were two Justin Bieber’s.  If a record company paid him 1 million dollars, they would only break even on the cd as there is another Justin Bieber out there eating up their sales.  Now imagine if there were 10 Justin Bieber’s.  For a record company to make a 50% profit they couldn’t pay him more than 100,000 dollars in order to come out with a profit.  The point is that even if you are as lovely as Justin Bieber, your value is only high as long because there is one of you.  The only way Justin Bieber could earn more money would be by killing all the other Justin Bieber’s out there until he is the only one.  And the same principle works well in economics.

The Euro zone suffers from too many Justin Bieber’s.  There are 14 printing presses producing money for 17 countries.  If one country decides they need more money they print it which increases the number of euros in circulation whilst reducing the value of those already in existence.  The problem is how exactly this Euro is valued.  In my attempts to find how the value of the Euro was created I stumbled across this gem.

‘Based on International Monetary Fund estimates of 2008 GDP and purchasing power parity among the various currencies, the euro zone is the second largest economy in the world.[7]‘ from Wikipedia – Euro

In a nutshell the value of the Euro(which has been in circulation since 2002) is based upon estimates from the I.M.F, the same bunch of idiotic men in suits who steered the world economy directly into a financial crisis.  Basically a group of people guessed the value of the Euro.  A continent  has a currency which is based on the predictions a group of accountants made years ago.  The same group of people who were not able to predict that a global recession was on the horizon.  Excuse me, I know I am not any kind of financial genius but does that not sound a tad insane?

Money in itself is a form of hypocrisy.  We earn it, we save it, we love it, we all want more of it, yet most of us fail to realise that money is absolutely worthless.  The thing which we use to assess the value of the world we live in is completely and utterly worthless.  It only has value because we say it does, if one day we decided that it’s worthless it would be.  Many years ago the British Pound was directly linked to the value of gold.  Even now the notes retain a promise from the chairman of the bank of England.

‘But the value of the pound has not been linked to gold for many years, so the meaning of the promise to pay has changed. Exchange into gold is no longer possible and Bank of England notes can only be exchanged for other Bank of England notes of the same face value. Public trust in the pound is now maintained by the operation of monetary policy, the objective of which is price stability.’ from the Bank Of England’s website

So let me get this right, gold is no longer how we value the pound, instead we value it by monetary policy.  The fact is the British Government made this change because we don’t have any gold left.  Which means now that the value of the pound is linked to policy’s.  Idea’s in effect which only further proves that money has no real value.  This is a constant truth.  If a friend asks to borrow 10 pounds tell him you want 11 back.  Not only have you made a profit but you have changed the value of one 10 pound note.  It’s funny to think that we are the masters of money and not vice versa.  If what I say is true, what can we do to save Capitalism?

The global economic crisis has been worsened by growing instability.  The Euro is wobbling and may well be on the verge of collapsing.  For the European Union to be a success we all need a stable currency we can rally round.  My proposal is that the new currency should be named after the Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel.  The value of the Merkel will be set by me personally.  Every morning I shall find a picture of what Angela Merkel is wearing on that particular day and rate her hotness on a scale of 1 to 10.  Lets be honest she will never score less than a 4 and more than a 6.  Which means on her better days the Merkel will be worth 6 dollars, and on her worse days 4.  The Bierbernomics of the Merkel are distinctly positive.  Due to the fact there is only one Angela Merkel, and that there is almost zero chance that she has a twin or a clone, the Merkel is guaranteed to be a stable currency for many years to come.

I believe by correct application of Biebernomics and the introduction of the Merkel as the new European currency I have single-handedly saved the world from the largest financial crisis to strike the world since the second world war.  If you want to thank me feel free to leave a comment underneath,  or if you have any questions about Biebernomics and the Merkel or even if you wish to merely nominate me for the Nobel prize please feel free to do so.

Dear Facebook

As people age they change.  As do social networks.  Sometimes for the best, sometimes for the worst.  The key difference between a human being and a social network is that the human being doesn’t have much impact on how they change, whilst a social network has a creative group of people who decide what changes should be made in the future.

I have tried to be fair.  I wanted to make sure that my reaction to the new Facebook was not just a knee jerk reaction, like when your wife comes home with a new haircut.  I wanted to be sure that you are the same you.  I wanted to ensure that my criticism is fully justifiable.  And well wouldn’t you know, I feel it is.

First off the bat I would like to point something out which perhaps someone in your HQ may not have considered.  I applaud your efforts in increasing the privacy of your users.  However if what people what is more privacy, then why use fucking social networks in the first place.  It is a simple choice, which doesn’t require any damn groups to make it easier.

I have no idea why you think lists are a great idea.  In a world where we are often criticised for being judgemental, you are in effect forcing us to pigeon-hole every single person I have met.  It is completely unneccessary.  If someone who isn’t a friend/school friend/lives in your area tries to add you, you can use a little black magic.  What you have to do is rip a chicken’s head of its living body, smother your naked body in its blood, put its entrails on your head and dance along aisle three of your local supermarket.  And when you get home select ignore.

I appreciate respect for innovation.  I suspect that you have grossly overrated your competition.  The similarities between your lists and Google+ circles are quite obvious.  However again it appears that you failed to notice one thing.  Nobody uses Google+.  There is only one thing worse than imitating someone else and that is imitating something which is significantly worse than you.

My point is Facebook that I loved you the way you are.  Part of your success was due to your simplicity.  In the era of cross platforming, simplicity is even more vital now than ever.  Maybe it’s because I am old.  Or too dumb or too slow to appreciate it.  One thing I would appreciate is one simple button in the settings marked Old Version.  That way you could give people the choice and find out exactly how the masses feel about your changes.

7 Years On

Today is my 7th anniversary in Poland.  I thought I would try to note down some observations on the changes I have witnessed here.  However that is proving to be much more difficult than expected as I haven’t actually seen that many.  What I have experienced are lessons.

The first lesson I learnt here was that despite the fact that Poland looks much the same as any other country, albeit with a higher proportion of tower blocks, cars which drive on the wrong side(which now peculiarly feels like the right side) of the road and signs in a funny language it isn’t.  It is impossible to say that Poland is diverse in its culture and its beliefs because it isn’t.  If anything it is a country still in the process of finding itself and figuring out its place in the 21st century.

The second lesson I learnt was that a grieving Pole is an unpredictable Pole.  It is somewhat typical here to lament your lot in life and look to assign blame.  Rarely do people just move on.  Sadness here can quickly turn to anger.  In the 7 years gone I have witnessed Poland grieve a Pope and a President(with many other poor souls).  Sadness here is a bitter pill.  I have seen miners riot, football hooligans riot and most surprising of all, Old people fight with the police.

The third and final lesson I wish to mention is that bureaucracy is a cancer with always remains.  The remnants of history here are hidden in plain view to anyone who has to visit a tax office, a doctor or apply for anything at all.  The average Polish government office has to cut down the equivalent of 62.7 percent of the amazon rainforest every year in order to have enough paper to ensure that every form is signed and dated in quad-duplicate.  It is as if the advent of computers is kept in the same part of the Polish psyche as the enlightenment.

These are just a few observations in my time here.  Poland is my adopted homeland and in truth trying to love her is like loving your least favourite cousin.  You have to see beyond her rough edges to get to the good stuff.  Now it is my home.  And like any home it needs a few repairs.

Shopping War Stories

There are few things in life I hate more than shopping centres.  The people, the lights, the noise, the hustle, the bustle.  The little Hitlers dressed up and power-hungry, the barbies dressing down pretending they want to help.  The clubcards, the goldcards, the premium cards, the loyalty cards, the membership cards.  There isn’t anything I like about shopping.  The only thing worse than shopping is shopping before Christmas.

The tinsel, the fairylights, the fucking incessant relentless noise of the same bastard Christmas carols being played over tinny p.a’s whilst strangers offer to wrap your rap cd’s and people with small heads ask you to save the children despite the fact the only thing on your mind is saving yourself.

The worst element of the shopping experience for a man is clothes shopping.  Headless dummies silently sneer at you as you search for something resembling normality yet end up buying jeans which make you look like a malnourished junkie or a homeless vagrant.  You have to choose between shirts which make you look like a tablecloth or your nan’s curtains.  T-shirts either come down to your knees or cut the blood supply off from your shoulders.  When you finally get to the front of the queue the anorexic fashion slave folds your clothes in silence as she desperately waits for the credit card machine to spit out your receipt, as she can’t look at you because you are so last year.

Maybe I am last year, maybe I am last Christmas I honestly couldn’t give a flying fuck.  The fact is anytime I enter a shopping centre I see hundreds of thousands of reasons why I hate the human race.  And they all look the same.