Category: Rants

New Year’s Evil

The second night of this horror fest of fake social orgasms kicks off this Saturday.  This time no family are required, merely a group of friends hellbent on celebrating the fact that the Earth has rotated just one more time on its axis.  Oh and that you have to write the date a different way when you wake up.  Despite the apparent lack of value in New Year’s Evil a large number of people believe that there is some mystic specialness relating to it which only people who have visited Goa and have a beard can see.  I have a message for those people.  It’s bollocks.

By adding the words ‘it’s gonna be’  along with ‘wicked/great/awesome/the dog’s bollocks’ you as a reveller have already failed.  Several centuries ago the fore mentioned expressions were identified by social anthropologists as the curse of the idiot.  If you find yourself at a party this Saturday and are unfortunate enough to hear such expressions you must run very quickly and contact a real grown up, as the chance of having anything resembling fun or a good time with such morons is as likely as Fidel Castro revealing himself to be a woman.

Instead contend yourself with an altered reality for a moment.  In days long gone people would sacrifice goats, virgins and encyclopedia salesmen to mark the passing of the days.  Our generation have developed New Year’s Eve as a means to sacrifice our livers.  The only thing more pointless that a New Year’s Eve party is the lives of the people saying it’s wicked whilst they are at a New Year’s Eve party.

Prepare yourself now for midnight by singing the first line of a song and mumbling the rest.  Start thinking of a things you could pretend you want to change or give up  before giving up the giving up a fortnight from now.  Hone your social skills by spending everyday between now and the party drunk, and walking up to strangers and telling them that you fucking love them and that you will definitely call them.  Stock up on fireworks now, because if you don’t try to blow your fingers off when the bell strikes midnight your neighbors are going to be deeply disappointed.  And last but not least, steel your stomach for the quaffing of cheap unpronounceable champagne by drinking a litre of vodka now and drinking your own piss at midnight.

Wherever you happen to be in the world, wherever you go for your New Year’s Evil party, bear this one thought in mind. All over the world there are billions of people having just as shit a time as you, and some of them might be people you hate.  As the wise men say, every cloud has a silver lining.  Until next time, I sincerely hope each and every one of you has a Crappy New Year!

The Meaning Of Christmas

There are only six calendar days left before Christmas eve and as usual I am yet to even begin shopping.  I could blame it on my inertia, or my schedule or I could even blame it on the boogie.  However I shan’t.  Instead I will blame it on the fact that I despise Christmas.  It’s hard to put my finger on exactly why as there are so many reasons which work in my eyes.  Whether it be the mythical attachments, the commercialisation, the nonsensical ‘family’ time, or even the giving and receiving of things which nobody wants.  The thing which annoys me most of all is the constant string of bullshit which people come out with regarding the ‘Christmas’, ‘Christian’, ‘Festive’ spirit.  There is only one true spirit of Christmas and that is one of pure unadulterated insanity.

By definition a ‘religious’ celebration for a man who ‘purportedly’ lived 2000 plus years ago, despite the fact there is absolutely zero evidence that he did is something straight out of the Da Vinci code.  The idea that Christmas is some kind of religious celebration is absolute nonsense and has thankfully  been long forgotten by most countries.

Which brings us to Santa Claus.  Who unfortunately is yet another religious icon.  Saint Nicholas of Myra was a 4th century Greek Christian Bishop who was renown specifically for giving gifts to the poor.  Saint Nick is most famous for giving dowries to three daughters of an impoverished Christian so they wouldn’t have to become prostitutes.  Is this the true spirit of Christmas?  Should we not give gifts to each other and only to women we fear may become prostitutes?

Another interesting aspect of the ‘Festive’ spirit is the active promotion of lying.  The Christmas lies begin with misleading our children to believe in a 4th century Greek Bishop who now is the proud owner of a courier service slightly better than UPS.  A bishop who despite being dead for almost 1600 years now delivers presents to every child in the world in one night by using a sleigh and flying reindeer.  And yet we expect our children to grow up respecting us.  What happens when little Johnny goes back to school in January and asks young Abdul or Jewish Jacob what they got for Christmas?  When they say nothing is Johnny going to reply ‘of course chaps, I forgot for one moment what a beautiful and joyous multi-cultural society we reside in.’  Sadly not as another lie we propagate means that Johnny will know instantly why they didn’t get a present.  Who hasn’t heard ‘you have to be a good boy/girl/alien if you want Santa to bring you a present’?   So now Johnny believes that his friends are bad boys.  And Johnny wonders what exactly it is they did which is so bad, after all he set fire to the neighbours cat and still got a present.

The promotion of lies is nothing new, nor is the manipulation of pliable ideals.  The fact is Christmas is no longer Christian.  Nor is there a fixed spirit.  It is a commercial concept which has been twisted to fit the epoch in which we live.  And that epoch is one of meaninglessness.  Christmas has been refined as a celebration over 300 years.  It can have meaning if you try hard enough.  It has whatever meaning you want it to have.  For me this year is about giving gifts to women who I worry may become prostitutes and lying to children.  And if that isn’t admirable I don’t know what is.

I Enable Therefore I Am

Your alcoholic neighbour knocks on your door sobbing.  He says he is broke, that they have cut off his electricity and that if you don’t lend him some money his house if going to be repossessed.  If you give him money there is a good chance he will piss it up the wall.  If you don’t there is a possibility that his world will fall to pieces.

Your junkie cousin comes to see you.  Apparently he had an unexpectedly large telephone bill and now he says doesn’t have enough money to get to work in the morning.  If you could only lend him some money until Friday he promises he will pay you back.  Of course there is an equal chance that he may go out and get wasted, and not show up for work, and inevitably lose his job.  What do you do?  It’s your choice.

Are we as a race in a perpetual state of fucking denial?  Nine out of ten cats don’t and won’t do these things in fear of enabling these social failures from fucking up again.  In the same way we don’t give bombs to terrorists (only money), teaching jobs to pedophiles,  guns to crazy people (aside from the U.S) or knuckle dusters to wife beaters.  Common sense warns you that you have heard it all before.  That you have been let down so many times in the past.

Why is it we are prepared to let the governments of the west give more money to the banks?  The same banks which have created such a shit storm in the process.  Why is it we are prepared to allow our Politicians to give more powers to the E.U.? The same administrative facility which has overseen this epic-sized fuck up.  Are we blatantly mental?

Where are the stories of the global recession in other parts of the globe?  Where are the stories of unemployed Brazilian foresters?  Or Chinese accordion players?  Or African ice cream manufacturers?  The news lures us into this false sense of security.  The recession has only happened in the U.S and the E.U because of our vastly superior financial apparatus.  So what about the middle-east?  Where are the stories of broke Arabian sheiks having to reduce their harem for 432 to 431 fair bosomed maidens?  Where are the redundancies there?

Sometimes the truth can only be as clear as mud.  We are having an invisible global recession, caused by over reliance on invisible assets, caused by over-investment in fictional currencies, yet we still enable the idiots at the controls to carry on navigating our path to an inevitable meltdown.  It is as if we don’t care, like we are merely along for the ride and we are too fucking lazy to look out the window and take a glance at the iceberg we are heading towards.

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.

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.