Category: Rants

A Televised Lobotomy

Television used to be something wonderful.  As a kid it was a mesmerizing force which was clearly more intelligent than every adult I encountered.  It was my babysitter, my teacher, my entertainer and my best friend.  And then something horrible happened.  I got old.

One of the most difficult things a middle-aged man ever has to come to terms with is that he will never ever be in the A-Team.  Or he will never be James Bond.  Or a professional football player.  Or any other of the lives which seem infinitely more interesting than ours which are blasted out from the googlebox week in week out.  Eventually a man can come to terms with it, until he experiences a moment of revelation.

In my lifetime television has inexplicably given birth to reality tv shows.  Gone are the days of sexy television shows in magnificent places.  Now they are replaced by a stream of fake tanned, fake haired genetically modified metro sexual ponces who are just as poor as we are, doing things which are less interesting than we do whilst desperately courting the attention of anyone who is interested.  People have become famous for going on television and being themselves.  And that Ladies and Gentleman is sick.

Now my middle-aged disappointment has been replaced with repulsion.  I am repulsed by the fact that somehow our society has enough money to pay people to be themselves.  As a consequence it is a factor in the death of escapism.  In the years long past people would read a book, or rent a dvd or go to the cinema.  Now they watch people on television in their living rooms, being people, watching television, in their living rooms.  Somewhere along the lines people have lost their imagination and never got around to looking for it once again.  My Grandfather used to say ‘if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.’  Maybe I should write a book about a guy who is writing a book about a guy who is writing a book?  Surely that would be a bestseller.  If that fails I could record myself performing a self-lobotomy and upload it to YouTube.  Now I am certain that would be a hit.

Unleash Your Inner Wildebeest

I, Scott Andrews, liver of 31 earth circles have never read a self-help book.  Furthermore my self is entirely unhelped.

Recently I went to see the doctor about it.  I said ‘doctor I don’t what know to do, my self is entirely unhelped.’ He looked at me sadly and shook his head.  After about a minute he spoke – ‘Mr Andrews you clearly need to unleash the inner you’.

There was only one thing holding me back.  Deep down, I knew that I had absolutely no idea how to unleash my inner me.  I headed straight to my local book shop to be confronted my an enormous shelf full of titles such as ‘How to Win Friends & Influence People’, ‘Awaken the Giant Within’, ‘How to Write a Best-Selling Self-Help Book’, ‘Humped Me, Dumped Me’, ‘How to Lose Weight in Only 7 Shits’ and ‘How to Stop Wanking off Tramps’.  Unfortunately for me they didn’t have a book entitled ‘Unleash the Inner You’.  In my time of great need, self-help books had failed me.  It was down to me to help my self.

There is only one place people go nowadays when they are in need of help, to the electronic superhighway.  I went home and switched on my computer.  And then I asked the Goddess of knowledge in the 21st century, Google,  ‘how does one go about unleashing one’s inner self ?’  She didn’t let me down, the joyous gatekeeper of all things wise.  According to her, the only way to unleash the inner me is to listen to it.

For the last three days I have sat in my underpants waiting for my inner me to speak.  I now suspect that my inner me is actually a Buddhist monk that has taken a vow of silence.

I have started to worry that I don’t have an inner me as my self has been entirely unhelped for so long.  Or maybe my inner me and my outer me have fallen out.  The trouble is that I am certain that there is no way to release my inner wildebeest until they get back on speaking terms.  Perhaps I could persuade one of them to apologise?

If this experience has taught me anything at all, it’s the fact that people with inner and outer me’s are mental.  It’s yet another example of how fucked up our world is.  A hundred years ago people who listened to the voices in their heads were called lunatics.  Nowadays they are merely unleashing their inner selves.  And yet no one out there seems to care about the plight of these inner selves.  It’s as if no one has realised that the reason they are called inner is because they belong on the inside, much the same as a sea-horse belongs in the sea, and a piss head belongs in a pool of his own piss.  There is nothing left for me to do, I’m off to email Bono.

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.

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+

I Love Warsaw

I woke up this morning to find that (for the second time in as many months) we have no water.  Being somewhat strategically minded I decided the best course of action was to wait as long as possible before getting ready to leave for work.  Unfortunately we still had no water.  In a panic I ran around the flat in search of mineral water.  I was horrified when I realised that I had less than a fifth of a litre at my disposal.  I had a choice, the likes of which I had never faced before.  Should I wash?  Should I shave?  Should I brush my teeth?  Or should I use it to flush the toilet?  Or should I try to do all four?  Sadly I was only successful in 75 percent of my pursuits.

Unfortunately that’s the price we pay for living in the 19th century, what do you mean it’s the 21st?  I guess you should expect such things in third world countries.What do you mean European Union?  It’s actually pretty typical when you live in a village.  What do you mean Warsaw is the capital of Poland?  Am I being antsy?  Am I merely just angry?  No way, there is plenty to love about Poland.  There just isn’t much to like.  Especially in regards to Warsaw.  In most countries the capital city is the proverbial Cinderella.  Not this city though.

This city where a bus has not run on time since 1637, where there is a shortage of small change in every single shop large or small, where you have to pay to piss in a public toilet, where beggars rarely hide their real intentions, where gay parades were banned as recently as 2005, where history is a matter of convenience rather than truth, where building flats is more important than building homes, where the underground is one straight line, where old ladies in mohair Berets are more intimidating than the youth, where there are more churches than football pitches, where customer service is yet to be invented, where drinking alcohol in public is prohibited.  This Warsaw.  This home.  This ugly sister.