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Struthio Camelus Socio Medius

The Struthio Camelus Socio Medius, better known as the Social Media Ostrich is remarkable for an Ostrich, as it is in no way related to any other Ostriches.  The Social Media Ostrich is a subspecies of the Humanas Wankerus, better known as Homo Sapiens.

The diet of Social Media Ostriches consists of absolutely anything, as long as it can be consumed whilst sitting in front of a computer or operating an app on a mobile telephone.  When its world view is threatened the Social Media Ostrich will bury its head in the sand.  If cornered it will attack with explicit language and poorly thought out arguments.

The Struthio Camelus Socio Medius can be identified by two distinct behaviours:

  • Regularly sharing chain statuses about social issues with absolutely no intention of devoting any of their time or money to tackle the problem.
  • Repeatedly taking offence at nonsensical issues.

If you ever find yourself in the same room as a Struthio Camelus Socio Medius I recommend exiting via the nearest window, irrespective of whichever floor you happen to be on, as any injuries you sustain will be a great deal less painful than a conversation with a Social Media Ostrich.  If ever you find yourself stranded in the Social Media Ostrich’s natural habitat, the internet, there are a few things you can do to protect yourself.  Never travel the electronic superhighway in groups of less than three.  If face to face with an enraged Struthio Camelus Socio Medius try to change the subject as quickly as possible to something less threatening, like anything involving kittens.  And if you find yourself the subject of a direct attack from a Social Media Ostrich the only thing you can do is ram hot pokers through your eyeballs.  It will not protect you from the attack but will at least prevent you from ever reading their meaningless diatribe.

Until the United Nations is willing to take action against these vicious creatures, millions of people’s lives will be affected every day.  At least 3 billion working hours will be wasted this year by people reading the spurious bile regurgitated by these monsters.  This situation must be stopped.  That’s why I am asking each and every one of my readers to share this blog post on all social media forums and then do absolutely nothing about it again, not even think about it for a moment.  This way, we can change the world as much as Social Media Ostriches do.

N.B  Feathered Ostriches do not actually bury their heads in the sand, it is a total fallacy.  When an Ostrich feels threatened it will do the same as we do, run.  However when an Ostrich is cornered and has no escape it turns into a kick boxing champion.  An Ostrich can kick hard enough to kill a full-grown lion.  Apparently Chuck Norris is approximately 62.5 percent Ostrich.

A New England

On previous occasions I have written posts about the changes I have witnessed in Poland(e.g. I Love Warsaw, 7 Years On) without writing a single word about England.  Now I can’t help but wonder why?  Perhaps my reticence is due to the claim that people should only write about what they know(After all I haven’t lived in England for nearly 8 years).  I suspect it has something to do with the motherly maxim ‘if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.’

One of the strangest things about growing up in England was the importance of television. The most striking thing about English soaps and films was how fucking miserable they were compared to other countries.  It appears that very little has changed.  If soaps are to be believed England is full of po-faced cunts sitting around drinking tea and moaning.  Our film industry has reached such a low ebb that our biggest money-spinner is a blond James Bond with manners better suited to the Elizabethan era.  Our only saving grace is comedy.  Sitcoms, comedy dramas, mockumentaries, sketch shows and stand ups all prove that comedy is alive and well in England.  It has even hijacked the quiz show genre.  The question the overabundance of comedy on our tv screens poses is why do we possess such an insatiable appetite for humour?

Is England depressed?  How on earth do you go about diagnosing a country with depression?  Are we witnessing the emergence of a new 21st century mentality?  Is this what the Latin scholars christened Couldn’tgiveafuckitus?  A quick look at www.mentalhealth.org.uk was enough to convince me that something is definitely wrong.

Is this the result of a nation which feels obliged to answer fine when someone asks how are you?  Is our stiff upper lip affecting our happiness?  What does it really mean when we say mustn’t grumble in response to a personal question despite the fact we are obsessed with grumbling about the weather?  Are we witnessing the implosion of English stolidity? Are we all destined to end up on the Jeremy Kyle show?

On a recent visit to England I was stunned by the amount of times I heard someone utter the magnificently British phrase ‘I can’t be bothered.’  Initially it left me wondering where such a crippling inertia stems from.  I was convinced that the vast majority of English people think that Carpe Diem is some kind of fish.  Now I suspect that it is merely a symptom of something more.  After all there was a reason the financial recession of the 1920’s was known as the Great Depression.  Or maybe I am wrong.  Maybe England has always been that way.

The times they aren’t a-changing –
Yeah, England’s still shit and it’s still raining,
And everybody’s jaded and tired and bored
And no one lifts a finger because
It’s just not in our culture.
Our culture is carrion and we’re all vultures,
And no one seems bothered by this state of play –
It seems that the stench is with us to stay.

Frank Turner – Once We Were Anarchists

Dear Facebook II

Imagine you are sitting in a bar with your life partner.  She/he happens to be particularly anally retentive, and has an insatiable appetite for information.  As you are slowly drip feeding her/him every morsel of information regarding your unspectacular life you notice someone at the bar.  This person is alone.  Lots of people glance nervously at this person, many even recognise this person, but no one dares approach them.  On first inspection you suspect that this person is nothing special.  Maybe not even average.  But the longer your partner tries to suck information from your soul the more attractive that other person looks.  And that person is Googlina Pluss.

Thank you Facebook for informing me my timeline goes live from April 6th.  From all the things I pray for, having a timeline is up their with… genital warts, or even an anal cavity search.  There is a time or place for timelines and that is history lessons in Primary School.  From all the good you did as a weapon in the Arab Spring, I think it’s fantastic that you are such great advocates for freedom and free will in particular.  I especially appreciate the fact that you didn’t give me a choice.

That’s not to say that I blame you entirely.  The passive nature of the average human being makes taking such liberties so incredibly easy.  I am from a country whose last Prime Minister wasn’t elected, living on a continent with a President nobody voted for, where each country signed up to a constitution which a number of countries voted against.  We live in an age where it’s  illegal to smoke in public premises even if you happen to own them, where we can be detained in prison without charge for up to 28 days and where cucumbers are only allowed a bend of 10mm per 10cm in length, so believe me I understand why you feel able to disregard free will so readily.

Imagine a magician beside a dining table before an attentive audience.  On the dining table there are 257 table cloths.  On top of the table cloths is a full dining set.  The magican pulls away one cloth and the glasses and plates remain in place.  He is a magnificent magician, possibly the greatest in the history of the world.  He does it again and again and again.  He repeats the trick 257 times.  Despite the fact he is an extraordinary man he has to stop.  There is nothing more he can take from the table.  As the magician finishes his performance, he turns and swoops into a bow and realises that the audience has left.  That’s the trouble with repetition.  The more times people experience the same trick, the less chance there is that they will stick around.

For those of you that never read the original post here it is
 
And yes you can now find me on google+

It’s Not The Winning……

We are all liars.  Every single one of us.  There is not, nor has there ever been a person cursed with the gift of total honesty.  It is an impossibility.  It is an end result of the competitive nature of our society.  We are continually measuring ourselves against others.  So much so that in the end our intentions often blur into a philosophical wet patch which causes us great discomfort when we are forced to sleep in it.  Rather than continually reassess our beliefs and ideas it is often more comfortable to roll over and ignore the discharge of doubt as if it isn’t there.

The biggest problem for a race of liars is often the raising of ones children.  In an ideal world a parent should introduce a sense of values which they themselves have accumulated over the years.  The child should look upon their parent with awe, both inspired by their wisdom and dazzled by their brilliance.  However we are disregarding a few things here.  First of all we don’t all live in tents in the desert.  Which means that a parent has to compete with the television, with google and with popular culture for the child’s attention, love and respect.  The pressure the lying parent feels to compete against these things is immense.  They often try to distract the child for their own failings with meaningless clichés, meant to soften the blows to their own ego rather than to encourage or motivate their offspring.  None of these statements are more redundant than the following:

It’s not the winning it’s the taking part that counts.

First said by some arsehole somewhere.

The first thing I want to make clear is that there is no truth to it whatsoever.  It is always the winning which matters.  Nothing else does because from the very beginning of our lives to the very end, our lives are infinitely better if we are winners.

Pick a war, any war.  Ask a soldier.  Not winning in something as serious as war often equates with death.  Perhaps it’s an extreme example.  How about in your working life?  There are three people up for promotion.  You are the oldest, with the most experience.  You get interviewed but don’t get the job.  The bigger office, the extra 20 thousand a year, which would have meant you could have got a mortgage on a bigger house  and finally started a family are all gone in the blink of an eye.  However it doesn’t matter, because you took part.  How about love?  The most beautiful girl in your high school.  All the boys want her.  You ask her out.  She laughs in your face and tells everyone in school that you are an idiot.  Of course you don’t feel sad, because you took part.

The problem with propagating lies to children is that they do have an impact in unforeseen ways.  We are in grave danger of producing a society of kids who just don’t give a shit.  Why should they even try to win if it doesn’t matter?  We are sucking the motivation out of them by being overly reassuring.  What’s wrong with trying your best to win and not being good enough?  It’s going to happen often enough in their adult lives that one day they may even thank you for it.

Life is about winning, from the moment it begins until the moment it ends.  Denying it, is like claiming that the sky is green.  If you don’t believe me ask the other 179,999,999 sperm your father ejaculated when you were created.  That’s right you can’t.  Because they didn’t win the greatest lottery of them all.  I am sure if you did ask them they would say ‘It’s not the winning it’s the taking part that counts’.

Mass Debates And Mass Debaters

Some of the greatest, most pointless debates known to man have taken place within a group of semi-drunk heathens.  Almost always the subject is as banal as the afterlife, the meaning of life, the meaning of apple or the end of the world.  It’s much easier to attribute blame and lay it at someone’s doorstep after several beers and a few whiskeys, usually because alcohol lowers the barriers which we surround ourselves with.  From time to time drunken debates can go wrong, they can become too personal and heated, thankfully we can then blame alcohol rather than ourselves.

The first mistake people often make, is to misunderstand the point of such discussions.  The purpose of such deliberations is not to try to bully and harangue the other person into agreeing with you.  There is no winner or loser.  The reason to enter such debates is to exchange ideas.  From the process alone you can often learn something as long as you are receptive to others opinions.  In times long past philosophers would use debates as a public forum to test their own ideas, and when necessary to refine them.  And it’s for this reason alone that I love these verbal jousting matches.

Recently I was dragged into a discussion about Warsaw.  I said in passing that ‘Warsaw as a city, has no personality.’  Rightfully so I was challenged by friends and my better half to spell out exactly what I meant.  In hindsight I can say that I failed.  For whatever reason I was unable to clearly explain exactly what I meant.  It didn’t, nor does it anger me.  It only frustrates me.  And it is that frustration which keeps the topic floating in the back of my mind.

The question itself is two-fold.  The first regards whether a city can actually have a personality.  In my mind’s eye I see a man surrounded by people at a party.  As he tells stories and leads the conversation like a conductor before an orchestra you can see something radiating off of him.  He is like the Queen Bee.  He is magnetic.  That thing which ensures people return to converse with him is his personality.  On Monday when these people go to work they are going to tell anecdotes to their colleagues about their meeting with this man.  These people have been affected, some stronger than others.  Perhaps even inspired.  These people at the party have been changed.  Even if it is a temporary change.  The thing which has done this is personality.

A city with personality inspires awe.  People write books, make films and sing songs in its name.  The people there are proud to be there.  People are drawn to it, after one visit they want to live there.  The believe in its power to improve their lives.  It changes them.  People tell stories about the wonderful things they experienced there.  There is even more pressure if you are a capital city.  That charismatic person at the party becomes a famous celebrity.  They cannot just be typical or normal.  You expect personality from this person and your disappointment is infinitely higher if they fail.

What did I learn?  That a sense of pride can be found in the most unlikely of places.  That I only enjoy leaving and never arriving.  And that Warsaw is the only European capital built with its back to the river.  Is it shy?  I don’t know.  Maybe that’s why I am not mesmerised by its charm.  Or maybe, just maybe it’s because I am a Mass Debater.