Now then; at this most festive of times the news has been pretty well dominated by war and murder. I don't really want to touch too much on the video of Bin Laden laughing and joking about the WTC atrocity except to say that A: The man is pig excrement given human form, and B: how long do you think it will be before some of the more extreme conspiracy kooks start saying that they know for a fact that the video was digitally created by the US Government in order to frame Bin Laden. Hey, if Hitler burned the Reichstag then Dubya must have been behind the WTC, right? Mm...
However the story that has set my mind racing has to be the shabby, sordid, and tragic death of Sarah Payne at the hands of Roy Whiting. It has emerged that Mr. Whiting had a previous conviction for kidnapping and indecently assaulting a young girl. He served 2 and half years for that and was released despite the grave misgivings of his parole officer. None of this was brought up at the trial. There is now a groundswell of public opinion behind a change in the law that would allow details of the accused's previous convictions to be given during a trial. There is also a strong body of support for Sarah's Law. Sarah's Law would be the British equivalent of Megan's Law in the US. In both cases, a young girl was abducted, raped, and murdered by a man with previous convictions for paedophilia that lived in the vicinity. No one in the area knew that the men were paedophiles. Megan's Law made the sex offender's register available for public inspection so that parents would know if a paedophile was moving into their area.
I've written before about the grotesque drama that is repeated year in year out whenever a child is abducted, and this is yet another breathtaking performance of that Danse Macabre. Yet it seems that perhaps we are not going to sit and accept it any more. There does seems to be a very real desire to do something concrete in order to put a stop to this. By the same token, there is an equal amount of opposition to some of the measures being called for. Why would anyone want to oppose something that could save lives and protect children from predatory throwbacks like Whiting? Well, they would oppose it for some very good reasons. Although they may not be enough to convince you that the 2 proposed changes to the law are a bad idea they are certainly enough to make one stop and think.
So firstly we must look at the proposed change to the laws of evidence; to allow details of previous convictions to be brought up at trial. Supporters of this measure say that there are numerous cases where someone has been acquitted by the jury who are then aghast to learn that the accused has a string of convictions for some remarkably similar offenses. "If the previous crimes are sufficiently similar to the ones they currently stand accused of" say supporters of this idea "then surely this is evidence that the person would commit the same crime again? A judge should have the discretion to allow these previous convictions and any relevant evidence from those cases to be presented to the jury in this case". This is a lucid and quite correct argument that falls down on only one small detail; we already have a law that allows this. The statute in question dates from 1898 and allows the use of "Similar Fact Evidence". The law states that if a previous crime or event bears a close similarity to the crime that the accused is currently charged with, then details of that previous crime or event can be put before the jury. Crucially, it is down to the judge's discretion whether or not to allow similar fact evidence (usually there is a pre-trial hearing to determine whether or not something is Similar Fact Evidence or just hearsay).
So if we already have the law, why has it never been used? Well, it has been used on a few fairly famous occasions. The Brides in the Bath case of the early 1900's saw George Smith accused of drowning his new bride in the bath of their honeymoon suite. Mr. Smith contended that his wife must have fallen asleep in the bath or suffered some other tragic mishap. 2 pieces of evidence secured his conviction; firstly there was a demonstration in the courtroom of just how Mr. Smith could have drowned his wife in the bath (the demonstration itself almost led to the death of the WPC sitting in the bath for the demonstration; the method Smith used, to hook one arm under her legs and another round her back and then whip her legs away from her so that she was flat on her back in the bath with her head underwater, was quite stunningly effective the rather embarrassed prosecution barrister explained as the semi conscious and spluttering WPC was carried from the court). The second was the admission of Similar Fact Evidence. The similar facts being that he had married twice before in the previous 2 years and both of his wives had drowned in the bath not long after their wedding.
There have been other cases where Similar fact evidence has been introduced (Rosemary West's trial for example), so if we have this law then why don't we make more use of it? I think partly because the judge has to rule on whether or not to allow the evidence to be admitted. Whilst it is extremely tempting to call them a bunch of bewigged and senile old farts who have a stuffy insistence on sticking to the letter of the law rather than to it's spirit, I don't think it's entirely their fault. Their hands are tied to a large extent by the law itself, which is very restrictive in what it will and will not allow as Similar Fact Evidence. And in all honesty, I really don't think that this is the best case to use as a justification for a change in the law. In the case of Roy Whiting I honestly don't think that I would have allowed his previous conviction to be raised had I been in the same position as the trial judge. Whilst it pointed to the undeniable fact that he is a vile and unpleasant pervert, it did not therefore prove that he was a murderer. The facts of the case did that.
Then of course we have the issue of Sarah's Law. I think everyone's gut feeling about this is pretty much the same; we have a right to know if there is a person in the area who could be a danger to our loved ones. You'll not get much of an argument out of me about the principle involved here. What you will get me arguing about is just how this law would be enacted. The worst case scenario is that we end up with the same level of frontier justice that reared it's ugly head when the News of the World ran their Paedophile naming and shaming campaign. A man who had the same name as one of the named paedophiles was hounded and threatened by his neighbours, a Welsh Paediatrician was driven from her home, and a man named Peter Phile was assaulted and set on fire by a group of residents (scarily enough, only one of those three examples was made up for the Brass Eye program satirising public and media reaction to paedophiles). The best case is that the public will not be whipped up into a frenzy by papers looking to boost their circulation and so access to the list will not lead to lynch mobs being formed.
Opponents of the law say that it will drive paedophiles underground and make it more difficult to track them. Why not just electronically tag them for the same length of time as they're on the sex offender’s register then? That way the authorities will know where they are at all times and a register can be lodged at police stations for inspection upon request. I suppose that Civil Libertarians will object to the principle, but I can't see them being able to sustain any call for the rights of a group of people than evoke such a strong reaction as paedophiles and sex offenders. Also, how come Roy Whiting was allowed to refuse any help or treatment to confront and perhaps help exorcise whatever demons drove him to kidnap and sexually assault that first young girl? Why wasn't it compulsory for him? And why do we release people who step forth into freedom still clinging to the notion that the child they abused was a willing partner? Surely it would be better for all concerned if sentencing for such crimes took the form of being sentenced to be detained at her majesty's pleasure (i.e. until a panel of psychiatrists, police officers, and members of the public are satisfied that he is no longer a danger)? I don't pretend that it will stop these crimes altogether but I think it would cut them down to a certain extent.
It seems to me that the media are portraying people who have any misgivings about the suggested changes in the law as loony lefties who put the rights of sex beasts above the rights of our children (if you have seen the episode of the Simpsons where the Reverend's wife repeatedly interjects with "But what about our children?!" in suitably distraught tones then you'll know what I'm driving at). This is toss. I would suggest that they are worried at the potential for people being convicted for a crime that they are innocent of purely on the basis that they had done something similar once before. They are also worried about people having their lives placed in danger because they are wrongly believed to be a paedophile. If those worries can be assuaged however then you'll find me cheering loudly as new laws to stop the never-ending stream of needless, meaningless deaths are introduced.
Friday 14 December 2001
Tuesday 11 December 2001
How goes the battle?
Even when the Afghanistan war was going well (remember those days?), there was a strong undercurrent of unease about what the US and UK were doing, and where they would stop.
Now then, the War Against Terror (trademark of the US Government); what's going on with that particular package of fun at the moment? The news when last I checked was rather good from a western point of view; the Taliban have effectively ceased to exist, every city (such as they are) in Afghanistan is under Non-Taliban control, an interim government had been agreed, food aid is starting to arrive in the capital, and the search for that nice Mr. Bin Laden has begun in earnest. So it would appear that everything is going swimmingly, correct? Well...
One can usually rely on the American government to take a silk purse and from it construct a pig's scrotum and the war in Afghanistan is no different. Before going on, I will give credit where credit is due; despite all that was said about the tactics used, from a battlefield perspective they worked. The enemy government is not in control any more and is scattered to the four winds. Coalition troops have freedom of movement on the ground. And it was all achieved before the onset of the worst of the Afghan winter. So here's a huzzah to the coalition for the good news.
Now let's start to have a look at the less welcome events of the last couple of weeks. I suppose we could start with that old favourite of the US air force; friendly fire. That's a lovely phrase isn't it? It sounds almost like an all-American cartoon character ("Casper the Friendly Ghost? Meet George the Friendly Fire.") Admittedly, cock ups in the field resulting in the deaths of one's own troops is nothing new in warfare but the American army seemed to have taken it to new heights of ineptitude. Consider, for example, the incident last week, which saw the American military give it's opinion of the interim Afghan P.M. Hamid Karzai as well as demonstrating some of the methods of effectively prosecuting a modern conflict. Or, to put it another way they dropped a bomb on their own troops (killing three of them; the Taliban have so far failed to kill a single soldier in the Coalition military and have had to limit themselves to a few journalists and a member of the CIA) and also managed to injure the most important Afghan in the world at the moment. Mm, nice work boys. Maybe next we'll see the US army help to quell the Marxist rebellion in Nepal by bombing the royal palace. Perhaps they'll even start gunning down more of their own troops to show the Taliban how it's done...
Of course, we are a cynical generation and one that was probably half expecting more wacky friendly fire mishaps and so this is not a subject on which one can dwell for long before it becomes boring. Something which is altogether more interesting (interesting = scary) is the US and it's determination to extend the War Against Terror. Over the last week there ever louder voices from the US in favour of some sort of punitive action against Iraq. Saddam Hussein has been promoted up the hierarchy of world evil by an American government that would seem to have had its appetite for warfare whetted quite nicely by the war thus far. He has gone from being the beaten but still irritating thorn in the side of the West to a super villain masterminding the manufacture of more and better weaponry regardless of the consequences to world peace. He is the despotic head of an unrepresentative government that came to power by dubious means who has no interest in anyone's opinion but his own. He uses terrorism to further his own aims and is unapologetic about doing so. We have been warned that we leave him undisturbed at our peril, for he will surely pay no heed to the UN or any other organisation that may seek to limit his mischief.
I'm not going to try and become Hussein's cheerleader at this point. I have no doubts that the man is an evil and bloated old swine and I look forward to reading his obituary in the papers one day. I'm not even going to disagree with the fact that his removal would be a fundamentally good thing; Paul Wolfowitz (American Deputy Defence Secretary and renowned warmonger) wrote a paper in the late 70's calling for the removal of Hussein and stating that he was a menace to Western security. Whilst I'm not in any position to question Mr. Wolfowitz's academic credentials (which in any case are impeccable; Wolfowitz is respected throughout the political world for his foresight and acumen if not for his ideologies) I am rather concerned at the sight of a powerful man using his position to try and fulfil what is to all intents and purposes a prophecy from a school project. I mean, dear lord, I confidently predicted a nuclear holocaust that would wipe out mankind when I was 14 but I'm pretty damn sure that you wouldn't find me beavering away to bring that to fruition.
The main thing I take issue with however is the implication that the US government is going to simply do whatever the hell it wants and consequence be damned. There was some pretty intense negotiation to secure the, well not the support but the non-interference of the Islamic World in the Afghan war. Even then, there have been waves to rock the boat; Rudolph Giulianni refused a $6 million donation from the Saudi Crown Prince because he dared to hint obliquely that the US government was less than even handed in it's dealings with the Middle east and that may have contributed to the Sept 11th disaster. The fact that this is true doesn't seem to have troubled Rudi's conscience in refusing the money. And whilst the various Moslem governments have given their approval there remain several doubts as to whether they represent the views of the majority of their people. All this occurred to the backdrop of an horrific and unjustified attack which saw the sympathies of the world with America. So one can foresee trouble ahead if the US decides to trample all over the delicate and volatile political situation in the Middle East in order to rectify their mistake in failing to remove the tyrant at the first time of asking (if nothing else they'll be less well informed about the Iraqi military capacity seeing as America doesn't sell them weapons anymore...).
That said the Pakistan based opposition to this war was vociferous in its denunciation of American aggression yet it has failed thus far to destabilise and topple the military government of Pervez Musharraf (in fact the only real trouble he is currently facing stems from the dispute with India in Kashmir). Admittedly this is because he has access to all of the guns and has the support of the army, but then that is the story across a large portion of the Islamic world. Is the American government about to gamble the stability of the governments of the Middle East against removing a threat that, though it exists, is currently held in check?
As a parting shot, I'd like to go back to my earlier description of Hussein and see if it holds true elsewhere. The US government has at it's head a man who came to power by dubious means (thanks to his good old brother Jeb in Florida), who is developing more and better weaponry no matter what the consequences to world peace (the Son of Star Wars missile system continues to roll on despite the fact that it doesn't work and is annoying the hell out of China, Russia, Europe etc), and who has no interest in anyone's opinion but his own (Kyoto is the tip of the iceberg as far as agreements that he has reneged on go). He supports right wing anti-government terrorists in Central America in order to promote his own agenda (because Uncle Sam doesn't want any nasty left wing governments on his own doorstep, no sir-ee!). He hasn't even deigned to make reference to the UN other than to berate other nations for not doing as he told them. If America wants another Boogeyman to frighten it's children with then it would do well to start looking a little closer to home.
Now then, the War Against Terror (trademark of the US Government); what's going on with that particular package of fun at the moment? The news when last I checked was rather good from a western point of view; the Taliban have effectively ceased to exist, every city (such as they are) in Afghanistan is under Non-Taliban control, an interim government had been agreed, food aid is starting to arrive in the capital, and the search for that nice Mr. Bin Laden has begun in earnest. So it would appear that everything is going swimmingly, correct? Well...
One can usually rely on the American government to take a silk purse and from it construct a pig's scrotum and the war in Afghanistan is no different. Before going on, I will give credit where credit is due; despite all that was said about the tactics used, from a battlefield perspective they worked. The enemy government is not in control any more and is scattered to the four winds. Coalition troops have freedom of movement on the ground. And it was all achieved before the onset of the worst of the Afghan winter. So here's a huzzah to the coalition for the good news.
Now let's start to have a look at the less welcome events of the last couple of weeks. I suppose we could start with that old favourite of the US air force; friendly fire. That's a lovely phrase isn't it? It sounds almost like an all-American cartoon character ("Casper the Friendly Ghost? Meet George the Friendly Fire.") Admittedly, cock ups in the field resulting in the deaths of one's own troops is nothing new in warfare but the American army seemed to have taken it to new heights of ineptitude. Consider, for example, the incident last week, which saw the American military give it's opinion of the interim Afghan P.M. Hamid Karzai as well as demonstrating some of the methods of effectively prosecuting a modern conflict. Or, to put it another way they dropped a bomb on their own troops (killing three of them; the Taliban have so far failed to kill a single soldier in the Coalition military and have had to limit themselves to a few journalists and a member of the CIA) and also managed to injure the most important Afghan in the world at the moment. Mm, nice work boys. Maybe next we'll see the US army help to quell the Marxist rebellion in Nepal by bombing the royal palace. Perhaps they'll even start gunning down more of their own troops to show the Taliban how it's done...
Of course, we are a cynical generation and one that was probably half expecting more wacky friendly fire mishaps and so this is not a subject on which one can dwell for long before it becomes boring. Something which is altogether more interesting (interesting = scary) is the US and it's determination to extend the War Against Terror. Over the last week there ever louder voices from the US in favour of some sort of punitive action against Iraq. Saddam Hussein has been promoted up the hierarchy of world evil by an American government that would seem to have had its appetite for warfare whetted quite nicely by the war thus far. He has gone from being the beaten but still irritating thorn in the side of the West to a super villain masterminding the manufacture of more and better weaponry regardless of the consequences to world peace. He is the despotic head of an unrepresentative government that came to power by dubious means who has no interest in anyone's opinion but his own. He uses terrorism to further his own aims and is unapologetic about doing so. We have been warned that we leave him undisturbed at our peril, for he will surely pay no heed to the UN or any other organisation that may seek to limit his mischief.
I'm not going to try and become Hussein's cheerleader at this point. I have no doubts that the man is an evil and bloated old swine and I look forward to reading his obituary in the papers one day. I'm not even going to disagree with the fact that his removal would be a fundamentally good thing; Paul Wolfowitz (American Deputy Defence Secretary and renowned warmonger) wrote a paper in the late 70's calling for the removal of Hussein and stating that he was a menace to Western security. Whilst I'm not in any position to question Mr. Wolfowitz's academic credentials (which in any case are impeccable; Wolfowitz is respected throughout the political world for his foresight and acumen if not for his ideologies) I am rather concerned at the sight of a powerful man using his position to try and fulfil what is to all intents and purposes a prophecy from a school project. I mean, dear lord, I confidently predicted a nuclear holocaust that would wipe out mankind when I was 14 but I'm pretty damn sure that you wouldn't find me beavering away to bring that to fruition.
The main thing I take issue with however is the implication that the US government is going to simply do whatever the hell it wants and consequence be damned. There was some pretty intense negotiation to secure the, well not the support but the non-interference of the Islamic World in the Afghan war. Even then, there have been waves to rock the boat; Rudolph Giulianni refused a $6 million donation from the Saudi Crown Prince because he dared to hint obliquely that the US government was less than even handed in it's dealings with the Middle east and that may have contributed to the Sept 11th disaster. The fact that this is true doesn't seem to have troubled Rudi's conscience in refusing the money. And whilst the various Moslem governments have given their approval there remain several doubts as to whether they represent the views of the majority of their people. All this occurred to the backdrop of an horrific and unjustified attack which saw the sympathies of the world with America. So one can foresee trouble ahead if the US decides to trample all over the delicate and volatile political situation in the Middle East in order to rectify their mistake in failing to remove the tyrant at the first time of asking (if nothing else they'll be less well informed about the Iraqi military capacity seeing as America doesn't sell them weapons anymore...).
That said the Pakistan based opposition to this war was vociferous in its denunciation of American aggression yet it has failed thus far to destabilise and topple the military government of Pervez Musharraf (in fact the only real trouble he is currently facing stems from the dispute with India in Kashmir). Admittedly this is because he has access to all of the guns and has the support of the army, but then that is the story across a large portion of the Islamic world. Is the American government about to gamble the stability of the governments of the Middle East against removing a threat that, though it exists, is currently held in check?
As a parting shot, I'd like to go back to my earlier description of Hussein and see if it holds true elsewhere. The US government has at it's head a man who came to power by dubious means (thanks to his good old brother Jeb in Florida), who is developing more and better weaponry no matter what the consequences to world peace (the Son of Star Wars missile system continues to roll on despite the fact that it doesn't work and is annoying the hell out of China, Russia, Europe etc), and who has no interest in anyone's opinion but his own (Kyoto is the tip of the iceberg as far as agreements that he has reneged on go). He supports right wing anti-government terrorists in Central America in order to promote his own agenda (because Uncle Sam doesn't want any nasty left wing governments on his own doorstep, no sir-ee!). He hasn't even deigned to make reference to the UN other than to berate other nations for not doing as he told them. If America wants another Boogeyman to frighten it's children with then it would do well to start looking a little closer to home.
Wednesday 5 December 2001
The Office Party
An attempt at a commentary on monogamy from a man failing utterly to be monogomous at that time.
It's that time of year when parties play a large part of one's social calendar. Office parties loom large in the lives of many, Xmas parties throw together families who are still refusing to talk to each other because of what your Suzy said about our Sharon, and New Years Eve parties will see millions of people starting the New Year as they mean to continue; incoherent and pleasantly numb. The first and last of these three party pieces are also notorious for another festive flavour; infidelity and lack of faith to one's partner (of course, if you live in Saffron Walden, South Shields, or the deep south of the USA then this is probably a feature of the 2nd gathering as well; if anyone from those places reads this then I hope they're enjoying following the words with their one eye and 14 fingers...)
Before I even begin to have a look at what drives men and women the world over to casually cheat on the ones whom they supposedly love dearly I suppose it's worth having a look at what bizarre impulse exhorts them to promise a life of monogamy in the first place. Firstly, some cod science; I'm given to understand that man is genetically keyed to sleep around and generally try and have as much sex with as many people as possible. This gives rise to a number of issues. Firstly, does that therefore mean that marriage and monogamy is an unnatural practice (and if so, will the church declare it "Against nature" just as the pathetic timewarps do concerning homosexuality)? Secondly should we actually class sex and the kind of love that leads one into monogamy in the same bracket, or are they entirely separate things? Finally, does this mean that religion was wrong all along and God actually intended us to spend our days rutting away at anything with a pulse (if so then pity the countless monks and nuns who have spent their lives celibate; I'll bet they felt rather foolish upon getting to the pearly gates as St Peter greeted them and led them through to the sight of the assembled heavenly hosts indulging in orgiastic pleasures...)
If we work on the assumption that we are indeed predestined for a life of furtively hunting for our next conquest then we have to ask the question "Why do we have marriage?” After all, divorce rates are continuing to rise and I'm sure you're familiar with the stereotype of the unhappy couple staying together out of a sense of duty, as well as the numerous innuendo's about plummeting post wedlock sex-drive. Shouldn't we all just do what comes naturally? Tempted though I am to go running down that path shouting "OF COURSE WE BLOODY SHOULD! IT'D BE GREAT!!" I rather think that it is not as simple as that.
For example, whilst at University I behaved in exactly the way that students have done since time immemorial; I got horribly drunk a lot and had frequent and casual sex with as many women as I could. My girlfriend at the time did precisely the same thing at her university (erm, only she did it with men, despite all of my fevered fantasies...). If what I've said so far is true then that should have been the most natural thing in the world. If that is the case then perhaps someone can explain just why we both felt so utterly wracked with guilt at our betrayal of each other? We both generally shied away from such encounters when we had some brain cells that hadn't been felled by alcohol. In other words we needed Dutch courage; not to sleep with someone else but to quiet the voice of our respective consciences. If lack of monogamy is the natural state of affairs then why did my morality (such as it is) try so hard to stop me having a good time?
Monogamy and marriage made its first appearance along with early civilisation. There are Greek comedies from the 4th/3rd century BC that refer to marriage between a man and a woman (as opposed to the polygamous marriages that evolved mainly in African/Arabic/Polynesian cultures; lucky bastards...). Although marriage was a ceremony with religious overtones, it was not the supposedly sacred rite that we would recognise today. For example, the Ancient Romans of the middle and upper classes changed their wives more often than a student changes his underwear. Marriage was less about relationships than about alliances between families and to find a couple who had married for love was rare indeed; the Emperor Tiberius, although now noted as a paragon of depravity, was more famous during the early part of his reign for the absolute misery he had suffered by being forced to divorce his beloved wife Vipsania in order to marry the previous Emperor's daughter Julia. After he had taken to the throne his courtiers had to take steps to ensure that he never saw her again after one particular incident; she passed him in the street and he spent the day following her, unable to speak and with tears in his eyes.
Yet even in those times marriage was used as a benchmark of respectability. Unmarried Roman men were viewed as less respectable than those who had taken a wife. Unmarried Roman women were generally assumed to be either prostitutes or slaves. Emperor Augustus introduced laws imposing financial penalties on the unmarried. Did this attitude prevail as a deliberate contrast to, for example, the Oriental monarchs of the East with their harems and multiple wives, or to the Barbarian tribes of the North who were perceived to be amoral savages? Or was marriage encouraged as a method of ensuring that the Roman blood stayed untainted by that of non-Romans? Whatever the reason for it, a precedent was set; marriage, and monogamy within that marriage carried with it public praise and an air of respectability. Sleeping around led to one being tarred as a prostitute if you were a woman, a rogue if you were a man. And yet infidelity was widespread in the ancient world, so even then the social schizophrenia of wanting to appear respectable to the rest of society whilst simultaneously wanting to indulge one's urges was a feature of life.
Then of course the church became the driving force behind life in Europe. For almost 1000 years marriage was a racket ran exclusively by the clergy and my word what fun they had. Like the Romans, the church held marriage up as an ideal state of affairs for a man and a woman. Unlike the Romans they also made marriage a lifelong affair. Divorce was almost unheard of unless you were rich or well connected (and even that was no guarantee; Henry VIII got excommunicated for divorcing his first wife) and so most people married for life. This was considered to be the best state of affairs to have; even animals such as Swans that mated for life generally got a better press than those that did not (I always remember being taught at school that the swan was somehow better than other animals because of this. I wonder if the lesson plans changed when 2 male swans chased away the female mate of 1 of them and then nested together behaving as male and female...). And did this put a stop to infidelity in any way? Well, I think the answer would be a resounding no. Though the church held sway and adultery was a sin, people were ingenious in their efforts to justify their actions (I would hazard a guess that Bill Clinton's beloved excuse of blow jobs not counting as being unfaithful originated around this point in history).
And that pretty much brings us up to date. The influence of religion in our lives is slackening at a wonderfully fast rate and it would appear that the increase in divorces corresponds with that. We no longer feel as great a sense of duty in a marriage, and so if one is unhappy one can get a divorce or have a fling. And isn't the truth of it that in this day and age we have never been so affluent, so well fed, so generally comfortable? We are in a world where gratification of any kind can be yours pretty much straight away. Add to that the fact that women are no longer expected to be demure little creatures that stay at home and it seems that the opportunity to cheat on one's partner is widespread. People are also learning to differentiate between love and lust; if one is out on the town and has the opportunity to satisfy a few base urges with someone else who is basically after the same thing (i.e. no strings attached) then why shouldn't one do so? I would suggest that the guilt one feels at doing so is due to a combination of genuine love for one's partner, and 2000 years of being told that what you are doing is a BAD THING.
Of course I haven't even begun to address other things that play a part in the wonderful world of Adultery (possessiveness, actually falling for the person you have a fling with, etc) but I still can't help but think that the guilt one may feel is a mostly manufactured emotion. I don't wish to belittle those who have been tortured by guilt at their affair(s), but if they really were as heartbroken and remorseful as they say then wouldn't they just...well, not do it anymore? Once bitten is twice shy after all, yet many people are cheerfully unfaithful on a repeat basis. Is the heartache afterwards genuine, or just an emotional purge to satisfy themselves that they have felt bad for doing a bad thing so now the scores are even?
It's that time of year when parties play a large part of one's social calendar. Office parties loom large in the lives of many, Xmas parties throw together families who are still refusing to talk to each other because of what your Suzy said about our Sharon, and New Years Eve parties will see millions of people starting the New Year as they mean to continue; incoherent and pleasantly numb. The first and last of these three party pieces are also notorious for another festive flavour; infidelity and lack of faith to one's partner (of course, if you live in Saffron Walden, South Shields, or the deep south of the USA then this is probably a feature of the 2nd gathering as well; if anyone from those places reads this then I hope they're enjoying following the words with their one eye and 14 fingers...)
Before I even begin to have a look at what drives men and women the world over to casually cheat on the ones whom they supposedly love dearly I suppose it's worth having a look at what bizarre impulse exhorts them to promise a life of monogamy in the first place. Firstly, some cod science; I'm given to understand that man is genetically keyed to sleep around and generally try and have as much sex with as many people as possible. This gives rise to a number of issues. Firstly, does that therefore mean that marriage and monogamy is an unnatural practice (and if so, will the church declare it "Against nature" just as the pathetic timewarps do concerning homosexuality)? Secondly should we actually class sex and the kind of love that leads one into monogamy in the same bracket, or are they entirely separate things? Finally, does this mean that religion was wrong all along and God actually intended us to spend our days rutting away at anything with a pulse (if so then pity the countless monks and nuns who have spent their lives celibate; I'll bet they felt rather foolish upon getting to the pearly gates as St Peter greeted them and led them through to the sight of the assembled heavenly hosts indulging in orgiastic pleasures...)
If we work on the assumption that we are indeed predestined for a life of furtively hunting for our next conquest then we have to ask the question "Why do we have marriage?” After all, divorce rates are continuing to rise and I'm sure you're familiar with the stereotype of the unhappy couple staying together out of a sense of duty, as well as the numerous innuendo's about plummeting post wedlock sex-drive. Shouldn't we all just do what comes naturally? Tempted though I am to go running down that path shouting "OF COURSE WE BLOODY SHOULD! IT'D BE GREAT!!" I rather think that it is not as simple as that.
For example, whilst at University I behaved in exactly the way that students have done since time immemorial; I got horribly drunk a lot and had frequent and casual sex with as many women as I could. My girlfriend at the time did precisely the same thing at her university (erm, only she did it with men, despite all of my fevered fantasies...). If what I've said so far is true then that should have been the most natural thing in the world. If that is the case then perhaps someone can explain just why we both felt so utterly wracked with guilt at our betrayal of each other? We both generally shied away from such encounters when we had some brain cells that hadn't been felled by alcohol. In other words we needed Dutch courage; not to sleep with someone else but to quiet the voice of our respective consciences. If lack of monogamy is the natural state of affairs then why did my morality (such as it is) try so hard to stop me having a good time?
Monogamy and marriage made its first appearance along with early civilisation. There are Greek comedies from the 4th/3rd century BC that refer to marriage between a man and a woman (as opposed to the polygamous marriages that evolved mainly in African/Arabic/Polynesian cultures; lucky bastards...). Although marriage was a ceremony with religious overtones, it was not the supposedly sacred rite that we would recognise today. For example, the Ancient Romans of the middle and upper classes changed their wives more often than a student changes his underwear. Marriage was less about relationships than about alliances between families and to find a couple who had married for love was rare indeed; the Emperor Tiberius, although now noted as a paragon of depravity, was more famous during the early part of his reign for the absolute misery he had suffered by being forced to divorce his beloved wife Vipsania in order to marry the previous Emperor's daughter Julia. After he had taken to the throne his courtiers had to take steps to ensure that he never saw her again after one particular incident; she passed him in the street and he spent the day following her, unable to speak and with tears in his eyes.
Yet even in those times marriage was used as a benchmark of respectability. Unmarried Roman men were viewed as less respectable than those who had taken a wife. Unmarried Roman women were generally assumed to be either prostitutes or slaves. Emperor Augustus introduced laws imposing financial penalties on the unmarried. Did this attitude prevail as a deliberate contrast to, for example, the Oriental monarchs of the East with their harems and multiple wives, or to the Barbarian tribes of the North who were perceived to be amoral savages? Or was marriage encouraged as a method of ensuring that the Roman blood stayed untainted by that of non-Romans? Whatever the reason for it, a precedent was set; marriage, and monogamy within that marriage carried with it public praise and an air of respectability. Sleeping around led to one being tarred as a prostitute if you were a woman, a rogue if you were a man. And yet infidelity was widespread in the ancient world, so even then the social schizophrenia of wanting to appear respectable to the rest of society whilst simultaneously wanting to indulge one's urges was a feature of life.
Then of course the church became the driving force behind life in Europe. For almost 1000 years marriage was a racket ran exclusively by the clergy and my word what fun they had. Like the Romans, the church held marriage up as an ideal state of affairs for a man and a woman. Unlike the Romans they also made marriage a lifelong affair. Divorce was almost unheard of unless you were rich or well connected (and even that was no guarantee; Henry VIII got excommunicated for divorcing his first wife) and so most people married for life. This was considered to be the best state of affairs to have; even animals such as Swans that mated for life generally got a better press than those that did not (I always remember being taught at school that the swan was somehow better than other animals because of this. I wonder if the lesson plans changed when 2 male swans chased away the female mate of 1 of them and then nested together behaving as male and female...). And did this put a stop to infidelity in any way? Well, I think the answer would be a resounding no. Though the church held sway and adultery was a sin, people were ingenious in their efforts to justify their actions (I would hazard a guess that Bill Clinton's beloved excuse of blow jobs not counting as being unfaithful originated around this point in history).
And that pretty much brings us up to date. The influence of religion in our lives is slackening at a wonderfully fast rate and it would appear that the increase in divorces corresponds with that. We no longer feel as great a sense of duty in a marriage, and so if one is unhappy one can get a divorce or have a fling. And isn't the truth of it that in this day and age we have never been so affluent, so well fed, so generally comfortable? We are in a world where gratification of any kind can be yours pretty much straight away. Add to that the fact that women are no longer expected to be demure little creatures that stay at home and it seems that the opportunity to cheat on one's partner is widespread. People are also learning to differentiate between love and lust; if one is out on the town and has the opportunity to satisfy a few base urges with someone else who is basically after the same thing (i.e. no strings attached) then why shouldn't one do so? I would suggest that the guilt one feels at doing so is due to a combination of genuine love for one's partner, and 2000 years of being told that what you are doing is a BAD THING.
Of course I haven't even begun to address other things that play a part in the wonderful world of Adultery (possessiveness, actually falling for the person you have a fling with, etc) but I still can't help but think that the guilt one may feel is a mostly manufactured emotion. I don't wish to belittle those who have been tortured by guilt at their affair(s), but if they really were as heartbroken and remorseful as they say then wouldn't they just...well, not do it anymore? Once bitten is twice shy after all, yet many people are cheerfully unfaithful on a repeat basis. Is the heartache afterwards genuine, or just an emotional purge to satisfy themselves that they have felt bad for doing a bad thing so now the scores are even?
Thursday 29 November 2001
Settle For Less
Another rant that pretty much forced me to get up off my arse and try and build some sort of career.
Today finds me the recipient of a slap to the face by reality, rather like being awoken by a blow to the head from a 2 day old salmon left underneath a radiator in that it's unpleasant and leaves a foul aroma in it's aftermath. It would appear that I am doing a job that does not inspire me creatively and is not what I expected to be doing at this stage of my life. Happily (because I'm feeling rather misanthropic today) I'm by no means the only person in this situation. Of course, maybe I'm wrong about that. Maybe there are millions of children in primary schools right now who dream of becoming Telesales executives, or data analysts, or glorified button monkeys for some company or other. I very much doubt it though.
Yet here I am, encouraged from all quarters to settle for mediocrity and banality by doing a job that holds no challenge and gently chided by society should I wish to engage myself as a writer, an actor, or something equally as bohemian (as they see it). I have friends who would like to be actors or singers, vets or psychologists, yet they confess this grudgingly and always with a tone of “not that I ever will, but….”. What the hell is it that makes settling for second or third best second nature to us? I just don't get it at all. I mean Christ, it's not like we're not all packed with potential (with the possible exception of a man named Paul Edgar; he truly is a hopeless waste of time, bless him...) but we're still encouraged to aspire to banality. One can see examples of this in all strata’s of life. In the music world it is incredibly difficult to be successful if you write good music. Obviously taste differs as to what is "good", but pretty much all music lovers can appreciate a well-written song. And yet the route to financial reward is to perform anodyne shite that is about as inspirational as cancer. So whilst musicians with true talent languish in obscurity and poverty, the photogenic and talentless thrive and have done for years. Does anyone have any doubts about that? Okay, then how come Westlife have won Record of the Year for 3 years running? Can anyone actually remember how any of those "great" records went? No? Precisely, and yet this is where our adulation is supposed to be centred; not on genius but on glossy looking "nice young boys" who have the charisma of a religious fundamentalist at an orgy and produce inoffensive and instantly forgettable music.
I've touched on the world of film in the past but I'll restate my case; 90% of what appears on our screens is badly made, poorly acted drivel. Films that are made to be merely diverting end up being at best irritating and cloying, at worst plain offensively bad (step forward all people who had anything to do with making the film "Pearl Harbour"). The one or two exceptions are catapulted to classic status simply by virtue of not being insultingly awful (the Harry Potter film for example is a well made piece of escapism that will not change the world but will keep one entertained for a couple of hours). And yet films that (in my opinion) deserve to be considered as classics in the truest sense of the word (Memento, LA Confidential) are seen by a handful of people and tend to do far better after their cinema release.
And what about more the more commonplace side of things? Supermarkets ensure that, rather than shopping at a butcher's or a grocer's who will provide the very best available as their livelihood depends on it, we buy average (at best) food and if we don't like it then, well, we can go and f*ck ourselves because there are millions more customers who'll keep on buying. Politicians will make lofty promises and break them in exchange for base motives. Do we give a f*ck, or is it just easier for us to allow squalid corrupt little morons gradually corrode our quality of life? The 80's made compassion and interest in public affairs a bad thing, and our current government is quite happy to continue that state of affairs as it repeatedly a*serapes us for all we're worth whilst telling us it's for our own good.
Boy I'm in a mood.
Anyway, there are a few levels on which society glorifies the middle of the road. On an altogether more personal level we're pressured into doing the same. Unless you're lucky enough to be financially comfortable, fiscal pressures such as mortgages, loans etc pretty much make up our mind for us about accepting whichever tawdry and humdrum jobs are on offer. So we chain ourselves to telephone headsets or get nailed to computer keyboards and proceed to gradually, imperceptibly piss our lives and dreams away in exchange for the ability to pay the bills. I know of only 1 person who has had the courage to say "Balls" to the everyday pressures of banality and decided to strike out and follow his dreams. Obviously I can never tell him just how much I admire him for doing this (after all, he's fat and one can't give a fat man idea's above his station...) but all the same, such decisions are rare and should be encouraged.
Not that I'm naive enough to believe that following one's dreams is a sure-fire recipe for success. I'd always wanted to be a family law solicitor and I achieved that goal. Looking back now, I still love the law; I love its simple clean logic and it's analytical mindset yet I still left the profession. And why? Well, probably because I was cast adrift by the man who was supposed to be supervising and guiding me and left to sink or swim in a river of broken marriages, petty criminals, perverts, and paedophiles. When I had the temerity (the sheer *nerve*) to allow despair to overwhelm me, the B*STARDS turned their backs on me. Why was that? Mainly because I tried to be a little more than the blank legal cipher who views each case as a career opportunity and increased cash flow. In trying to be a better solicitor it would appear that I sealed my fate because it would have been easier to drift along and take the money. Once again, banality is plus point.
Now I don't mean to sound arrogant by that last point (aside from anything else I've wanted to get it off my chest for a while...) because I am 100% positive that I am not the only one left unsatisfied by the direction that my working life is going. Nor, judging by the conversations that I've had with my friends, am I the only one shite scared to actually do something about it. It has been written that every man and woman has the potential for greatness but an inclination towards failure. It seems to me that nowadays society does it's best to encourage us to believe that the best we can aspire to is mass-produced facile bullshit. Our media hardly encourages greatness as it shoots down anyone who gets "too big for their boots"; the only one's who get an easy ride (be they actors, musicians, politicians or whatever) are the one's who keep their heads down and don't attract too much attention to themselves. The hackneyed and predictable in other words.
It could just be that I'm being overtly pessimistic today. For all that few people manage to see their hopes come to fruition, perhaps most people accept this without rancour. Or perhaps people just don't think about it. Which is fair I suppose because dwelling on what you may have to look back on as your life's achievements when you're older and finding that they're as insubstantial as air is not how I'd choose to spend my time either. I can't help thinking that we'd all be better off if we actually acted on it rather than ignored it though. Ah well, I can dream I suppose. Now, excuse me whilst I write another mundane report and hammer another mundane nail in my coffin.
Today finds me the recipient of a slap to the face by reality, rather like being awoken by a blow to the head from a 2 day old salmon left underneath a radiator in that it's unpleasant and leaves a foul aroma in it's aftermath. It would appear that I am doing a job that does not inspire me creatively and is not what I expected to be doing at this stage of my life. Happily (because I'm feeling rather misanthropic today) I'm by no means the only person in this situation. Of course, maybe I'm wrong about that. Maybe there are millions of children in primary schools right now who dream of becoming Telesales executives, or data analysts, or glorified button monkeys for some company or other. I very much doubt it though.
Yet here I am, encouraged from all quarters to settle for mediocrity and banality by doing a job that holds no challenge and gently chided by society should I wish to engage myself as a writer, an actor, or something equally as bohemian (as they see it). I have friends who would like to be actors or singers, vets or psychologists, yet they confess this grudgingly and always with a tone of “not that I ever will, but….”. What the hell is it that makes settling for second or third best second nature to us? I just don't get it at all. I mean Christ, it's not like we're not all packed with potential (with the possible exception of a man named Paul Edgar; he truly is a hopeless waste of time, bless him...) but we're still encouraged to aspire to banality. One can see examples of this in all strata’s of life. In the music world it is incredibly difficult to be successful if you write good music. Obviously taste differs as to what is "good", but pretty much all music lovers can appreciate a well-written song. And yet the route to financial reward is to perform anodyne shite that is about as inspirational as cancer. So whilst musicians with true talent languish in obscurity and poverty, the photogenic and talentless thrive and have done for years. Does anyone have any doubts about that? Okay, then how come Westlife have won Record of the Year for 3 years running? Can anyone actually remember how any of those "great" records went? No? Precisely, and yet this is where our adulation is supposed to be centred; not on genius but on glossy looking "nice young boys" who have the charisma of a religious fundamentalist at an orgy and produce inoffensive and instantly forgettable music.
I've touched on the world of film in the past but I'll restate my case; 90% of what appears on our screens is badly made, poorly acted drivel. Films that are made to be merely diverting end up being at best irritating and cloying, at worst plain offensively bad (step forward all people who had anything to do with making the film "Pearl Harbour"). The one or two exceptions are catapulted to classic status simply by virtue of not being insultingly awful (the Harry Potter film for example is a well made piece of escapism that will not change the world but will keep one entertained for a couple of hours). And yet films that (in my opinion) deserve to be considered as classics in the truest sense of the word (Memento, LA Confidential) are seen by a handful of people and tend to do far better after their cinema release.
And what about more the more commonplace side of things? Supermarkets ensure that, rather than shopping at a butcher's or a grocer's who will provide the very best available as their livelihood depends on it, we buy average (at best) food and if we don't like it then, well, we can go and f*ck ourselves because there are millions more customers who'll keep on buying. Politicians will make lofty promises and break them in exchange for base motives. Do we give a f*ck, or is it just easier for us to allow squalid corrupt little morons gradually corrode our quality of life? The 80's made compassion and interest in public affairs a bad thing, and our current government is quite happy to continue that state of affairs as it repeatedly a*serapes us for all we're worth whilst telling us it's for our own good.
Boy I'm in a mood.
Anyway, there are a few levels on which society glorifies the middle of the road. On an altogether more personal level we're pressured into doing the same. Unless you're lucky enough to be financially comfortable, fiscal pressures such as mortgages, loans etc pretty much make up our mind for us about accepting whichever tawdry and humdrum jobs are on offer. So we chain ourselves to telephone headsets or get nailed to computer keyboards and proceed to gradually, imperceptibly piss our lives and dreams away in exchange for the ability to pay the bills. I know of only 1 person who has had the courage to say "Balls" to the everyday pressures of banality and decided to strike out and follow his dreams. Obviously I can never tell him just how much I admire him for doing this (after all, he's fat and one can't give a fat man idea's above his station...) but all the same, such decisions are rare and should be encouraged.
Not that I'm naive enough to believe that following one's dreams is a sure-fire recipe for success. I'd always wanted to be a family law solicitor and I achieved that goal. Looking back now, I still love the law; I love its simple clean logic and it's analytical mindset yet I still left the profession. And why? Well, probably because I was cast adrift by the man who was supposed to be supervising and guiding me and left to sink or swim in a river of broken marriages, petty criminals, perverts, and paedophiles. When I had the temerity (the sheer *nerve*) to allow despair to overwhelm me, the B*STARDS turned their backs on me. Why was that? Mainly because I tried to be a little more than the blank legal cipher who views each case as a career opportunity and increased cash flow. In trying to be a better solicitor it would appear that I sealed my fate because it would have been easier to drift along and take the money. Once again, banality is plus point.
Now I don't mean to sound arrogant by that last point (aside from anything else I've wanted to get it off my chest for a while...) because I am 100% positive that I am not the only one left unsatisfied by the direction that my working life is going. Nor, judging by the conversations that I've had with my friends, am I the only one shite scared to actually do something about it. It has been written that every man and woman has the potential for greatness but an inclination towards failure. It seems to me that nowadays society does it's best to encourage us to believe that the best we can aspire to is mass-produced facile bullshit. Our media hardly encourages greatness as it shoots down anyone who gets "too big for their boots"; the only one's who get an easy ride (be they actors, musicians, politicians or whatever) are the one's who keep their heads down and don't attract too much attention to themselves. The hackneyed and predictable in other words.
It could just be that I'm being overtly pessimistic today. For all that few people manage to see their hopes come to fruition, perhaps most people accept this without rancour. Or perhaps people just don't think about it. Which is fair I suppose because dwelling on what you may have to look back on as your life's achievements when you're older and finding that they're as insubstantial as air is not how I'd choose to spend my time either. I can't help thinking that we'd all be better off if we actually acted on it rather than ignored it though. Ah well, I can dream I suppose. Now, excuse me whilst I write another mundane report and hammer another mundane nail in my coffin.
Friday 16 November 2001
Hawks and Doves
This whole piece stemmed from my irritation at those who basically assume that any war waged by the US in any circumstance is inherently unjust. I do still feel that the US was fully justified in it's Afghan war. Shame about the aftermath.
So then; Afghanistan. It's certainly been an interesting week over there hasn't it. I confess that 7 days ago I didn't hold out much hope of seeing any real progress against the Taliban (especially upon hearing Dubya's speech; "My fellow Americans, let's roll!" Coupled with his previous "Osama Bin Laden; wanted dead or alive" spiel his choice of words really does make me think that he believes this is a Hollywood production. Maybe he'd just watched Independence Day again, or maybe Ronnie "Alzheimer" Reagan is writing his speeches. Who knows....). And yet here I am having been proved wrong on pretty much every doomsayer's point that I made prior to the bombing. For once I'm rather glad to have been wrong about something (which is unusual for me but when being proved right would have meant the nuclear destruction of western civilisation...well, I'm willing to swallow my pride in the face of that).
Not everyone has been quite to quick to gorge themselves on humble pie however. Sunday will see a CND organised anti-war march through London, which they claim will garner massive support. A few dissident Labour MP's are still beating their anti-war drums (although not George Galloway. This moustachioed Scots MP, who was awarded 15 minutes of fame for meeting with Saddam Hussein to express his vociferous opposition to sanctions on Iraq, huffed and puffed in Parliament about how and why the British people *demanded* a stop to the bombing. He has been conspicuous by his absence since the fall of Kabul. Maybe he's planning to invite Omar and Bin Laden to his Glasgow constituency in a show of solidarity. One can hope that the people of Glasgow show them the same hospitality that was shown to the refugee who was stabbed to death there a couple of months ago). One MP, Tom Dalyell, having argued strenuously that the war was a very bad thing is now saying that the victory of the Coalition (since when did one country make up a coalition? I think our forces fired a couple of missiles but apart from that it's been USA all the way) will destabilise Pakistan and cause nuclear war. Now I thought I was pessimistic but this man really does win the award for sourest grapes of 2001.
That said, I do think that the hawks in this war are being a little premature in their jubilation. Thus far most of the main cities in Afghanistan are no longer under Taliban control but have reverted to their previous state of affairs. This state of affairs was control by independent warlords or titular allies of the Northern Alliance (of whom more later). Coincidentally, this state of affairs was also conspicuous by it's total lack of law and order, social cohesion, and anything remotely resembling peace. So whilst we do have the undoubted benefits of women being able to walk the streets without their suffocating burqa's and the people of Afghanistan being able to enjoy activities that we take for granted (such as listening to music) or that we don't even indulge in any more (flying kites; yes, the Taliban thought that flying kites was a symbol of decadence. I really would hate to go to one of their parties...) we also have to accept that power has been returned to a group of people who made an utter pigs ear of their last attempt.
And, lest we forget, the fat lady has yet to sing where this war is concerned. The Taliban and Al-Quaida terrorist have taken to the mountains to fight a guerilla war. As any member of the Russian military will tell you, they really are quite remarkably good at that sort of thing. A former soldier in the Hereford based SAS wrote an article for the Guardian explaining at length just why the Taliban would be nigh on invincible in their mountain strongholds, and that allied special forces could look forward to being massacred should they attempt to do battle with the Afghans. However, as the SAS soldier in question has since been exposed as a liar who did nothing more dangerous in Hereford than make the tea it is perhaps difficult to give credit to his assertions. To be sure, the veneer of invulnerability that surrounded the Taliban has been shattered in this last week but I still think that we write them off at our peril. And of course Bin Laden and Omar are still at large (although Mullah Omar Mohammed, supreme spiritual leader of the Taliban, showed himself to have the emotional maturity of a spiteful 11 year old in an interview a couple of days ago. He insisted that he would destroy America using a secret plan that was "beyond human comprehension". Which is rather like little Billy Hague answering "I'm not telling" or "You wouldn't understand" when pressed on how he intended to win the election) and thus still dangerous.
Yet although I'm willing to acknowledge that the war is far from won and that there is still a lot of hard work to be done in establishing a working government in, and eliminating Al Quaida from Afghanistan, to hear the anti war brigade (doves to the political right's hawks) speak you would think that this will only be achieved by wading through rivers of Coalition blood. It's almost as if some of them want to see the war lost simply so they can crow about how they were right, whilst others seek proof of their assertions that western government is corrupt and inept (which it is but this is hardly the most desirable time for it to be demonstrated!) Never mind the fact that this would mean interminable years of further oppression for Afghanistan (strangely, the Taliban's treatment of women was a cause celebre among these same people a few short months ago. After the accusations from the left that the government would readily abandon all of it's principles and ideal's simply to get ahead I find it smugly satisfying to see them doing the same thing...) and never mind that it would definitely mean further atrocities like Sept 11th. Just as long as they aren't shown to have been wrong, that's what's important.
However, let's not allow the political right to claim victory just yet. The Northern Alliance, upon whom so much has depended in this war, were only formed as a group after the Taliban took Kabul in the 90's. Before that they were a disparate bunch of selfish and amoral bandits who fought among themselves with little thought or regard for the people of Afghanistan. All they craved was power. Believe it or not, the Taliban were actually welcomed into Kabul as they promised stability! And now they are running Kabul again. Theoretically there will be a UN peacekeeping force there soon and they will assist in the setting up of a government that will represent all of the ethnic groups there. But the Alliance are already making disquieting noises about such a move being unnecessary as they will restore democracy to Afghanistan. To believe this would be rather like taking Hitler at his word if he were to say that he would restore the synagogues of Germany.
America is shying away from being part of the peacekeeping force which will be made up of troops from Moslem nations, and rightly so as it avoids many accusations of American imperialism. It does however leave them open to the accusations from the left of taking what they want from Afghanistan and then discarding it regardless of what will happen afterwards. Abraham Lincoln made a famous quote about fooling some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time. I think it applies equally well to pleasing the political right and left about this war; the west can please most of the hawks some of the time, and none of the doves all of the time. Let's just hope that this really is a war to end all wars, if for no other reason than the blinkered refusal by some of the doves to accept that mankind hasn't evolved sufficiently to consign conflict and warfare to history. This refusal to accept reality means that in the future the west will be hamstrung by the wrenching of hearts before an inaccurate bomb is dropped in anger.
So then; Afghanistan. It's certainly been an interesting week over there hasn't it. I confess that 7 days ago I didn't hold out much hope of seeing any real progress against the Taliban (especially upon hearing Dubya's speech; "My fellow Americans, let's roll!" Coupled with his previous "Osama Bin Laden; wanted dead or alive" spiel his choice of words really does make me think that he believes this is a Hollywood production. Maybe he'd just watched Independence Day again, or maybe Ronnie "Alzheimer" Reagan is writing his speeches. Who knows....). And yet here I am having been proved wrong on pretty much every doomsayer's point that I made prior to the bombing. For once I'm rather glad to have been wrong about something (which is unusual for me but when being proved right would have meant the nuclear destruction of western civilisation...well, I'm willing to swallow my pride in the face of that).
Not everyone has been quite to quick to gorge themselves on humble pie however. Sunday will see a CND organised anti-war march through London, which they claim will garner massive support. A few dissident Labour MP's are still beating their anti-war drums (although not George Galloway. This moustachioed Scots MP, who was awarded 15 minutes of fame for meeting with Saddam Hussein to express his vociferous opposition to sanctions on Iraq, huffed and puffed in Parliament about how and why the British people *demanded* a stop to the bombing. He has been conspicuous by his absence since the fall of Kabul. Maybe he's planning to invite Omar and Bin Laden to his Glasgow constituency in a show of solidarity. One can hope that the people of Glasgow show them the same hospitality that was shown to the refugee who was stabbed to death there a couple of months ago). One MP, Tom Dalyell, having argued strenuously that the war was a very bad thing is now saying that the victory of the Coalition (since when did one country make up a coalition? I think our forces fired a couple of missiles but apart from that it's been USA all the way) will destabilise Pakistan and cause nuclear war. Now I thought I was pessimistic but this man really does win the award for sourest grapes of 2001.
That said, I do think that the hawks in this war are being a little premature in their jubilation. Thus far most of the main cities in Afghanistan are no longer under Taliban control but have reverted to their previous state of affairs. This state of affairs was control by independent warlords or titular allies of the Northern Alliance (of whom more later). Coincidentally, this state of affairs was also conspicuous by it's total lack of law and order, social cohesion, and anything remotely resembling peace. So whilst we do have the undoubted benefits of women being able to walk the streets without their suffocating burqa's and the people of Afghanistan being able to enjoy activities that we take for granted (such as listening to music) or that we don't even indulge in any more (flying kites; yes, the Taliban thought that flying kites was a symbol of decadence. I really would hate to go to one of their parties...) we also have to accept that power has been returned to a group of people who made an utter pigs ear of their last attempt.
And, lest we forget, the fat lady has yet to sing where this war is concerned. The Taliban and Al-Quaida terrorist have taken to the mountains to fight a guerilla war. As any member of the Russian military will tell you, they really are quite remarkably good at that sort of thing. A former soldier in the Hereford based SAS wrote an article for the Guardian explaining at length just why the Taliban would be nigh on invincible in their mountain strongholds, and that allied special forces could look forward to being massacred should they attempt to do battle with the Afghans. However, as the SAS soldier in question has since been exposed as a liar who did nothing more dangerous in Hereford than make the tea it is perhaps difficult to give credit to his assertions. To be sure, the veneer of invulnerability that surrounded the Taliban has been shattered in this last week but I still think that we write them off at our peril. And of course Bin Laden and Omar are still at large (although Mullah Omar Mohammed, supreme spiritual leader of the Taliban, showed himself to have the emotional maturity of a spiteful 11 year old in an interview a couple of days ago. He insisted that he would destroy America using a secret plan that was "beyond human comprehension". Which is rather like little Billy Hague answering "I'm not telling" or "You wouldn't understand" when pressed on how he intended to win the election) and thus still dangerous.
Yet although I'm willing to acknowledge that the war is far from won and that there is still a lot of hard work to be done in establishing a working government in, and eliminating Al Quaida from Afghanistan, to hear the anti war brigade (doves to the political right's hawks) speak you would think that this will only be achieved by wading through rivers of Coalition blood. It's almost as if some of them want to see the war lost simply so they can crow about how they were right, whilst others seek proof of their assertions that western government is corrupt and inept (which it is but this is hardly the most desirable time for it to be demonstrated!) Never mind the fact that this would mean interminable years of further oppression for Afghanistan (strangely, the Taliban's treatment of women was a cause celebre among these same people a few short months ago. After the accusations from the left that the government would readily abandon all of it's principles and ideal's simply to get ahead I find it smugly satisfying to see them doing the same thing...) and never mind that it would definitely mean further atrocities like Sept 11th. Just as long as they aren't shown to have been wrong, that's what's important.
However, let's not allow the political right to claim victory just yet. The Northern Alliance, upon whom so much has depended in this war, were only formed as a group after the Taliban took Kabul in the 90's. Before that they were a disparate bunch of selfish and amoral bandits who fought among themselves with little thought or regard for the people of Afghanistan. All they craved was power. Believe it or not, the Taliban were actually welcomed into Kabul as they promised stability! And now they are running Kabul again. Theoretically there will be a UN peacekeeping force there soon and they will assist in the setting up of a government that will represent all of the ethnic groups there. But the Alliance are already making disquieting noises about such a move being unnecessary as they will restore democracy to Afghanistan. To believe this would be rather like taking Hitler at his word if he were to say that he would restore the synagogues of Germany.
America is shying away from being part of the peacekeeping force which will be made up of troops from Moslem nations, and rightly so as it avoids many accusations of American imperialism. It does however leave them open to the accusations from the left of taking what they want from Afghanistan and then discarding it regardless of what will happen afterwards. Abraham Lincoln made a famous quote about fooling some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time. I think it applies equally well to pleasing the political right and left about this war; the west can please most of the hawks some of the time, and none of the doves all of the time. Let's just hope that this really is a war to end all wars, if for no other reason than the blinkered refusal by some of the doves to accept that mankind hasn't evolved sufficiently to consign conflict and warfare to history. This refusal to accept reality means that in the future the west will be hamstrung by the wrenching of hearts before an inaccurate bomb is dropped in anger.
Thursday 15 November 2001
F.E.A.R.
I still don't fully understand why so many of us live our lives beholden to one sort of fear or another.
I'm writing today because it has struck me that the vast majority of us live our lives in fear and I find this rather strange. I'm not talking about the kind of pant-wetting fear that leaves one a meek and quivering wreck with heart palpitations that would be more suited to a field mouse than a human being (I'm sure you know the feeling; I last experienced it when I was about 12 and some Neanderthal in a scruffy school uniform decided that what I really needed was to have face moved about 3 inches across my skull via the means of a sustained beating). I'm talking about the low-grade fear that seems to permeate everybody’s life but is so commonplace that we don't even think about it any more.
Let me give you an example; I'm an intelligent person. I'm not being any more arrogant than usual by saying that. However, I'm also very verbose and florid when I speak and that can give the impression that I know more than I actually do. Anyway to cut a long story short, I've been told that many of my work colleagues and casual acquaintances are scared of me. And the reason for this? Well it would appear that they are scared that I will think that they are stupid, and so they will not talk to me or around me as much or as freely as normal.
I find this rather strange. Arrogant I may be, but I'm not so full of myself to think that my opinion matters a damn to most people, so why do certain of my friends feel this way? I'm sure I'm not the only person to have ever experienced this; being a university graduate is an excellent way of putting some non-graduates on the defensive. Being an Oxbridge graduate is a superb way of making non-Oxbridge types feel that they have to prove their intelligence (in fact, now that I come to think of it, I'm guilty of that myself). There can't be much doubt that a lot of us seem to have a fear of appearing stupid in some way, but for the life of me I can't figure out why this should be. Is it a childhood thing; do we all still worry about being laughed at by the rest of the class? Or is it a self-esteem issue; we're so riddled with neurosis that we feel that if we know less than another person then we are inferior to them?
Now clearly my perspective on this comes from my own experience, but I'm 100% sure that this isn't the only area of our life that generates hot, dull fear for us. Physical appearance is yet another. I used to have hair of a fairly normal length and so I went about my day generally unnoticed by passing strangers. Then, in a fit of drunken bravado, I shaved my hair off. The very next morning as I was walking to the shops an old lady looked up, saw me approaching, and with a few fearful glances back at me, crossed the street to avoid me. In contrast to that, many moons ago I had *very* long hair. This earned me tuts of disapproval from my parents and their peers, as well as a few beatings from some quite charming gentlemen who, apparently, didn't like "hippies".
The reactions that I've described should be familiar to all of us. Who among us has not felt one's heart race when walking alone and noticing a man who is either big, shaven headed, ferocious looking etc? And yet despite the Daily Mail's attempts to convince us otherwise, random beatings are an incredibly rare occurrence. I personally haven't been hit by or fought with anybody since school, but I still find myself a little nervous if I'm in the situation I just described. I suppose the reason for the fear we may feel because of people of a certain appearance is easier to explain than our fear of looking stupid. It's not difficult to think of book, film, or TV examples of the bad guys being big, shaven headed thugs, and so the stereotype is reinforced endlessly and we all continue to feel fear about people we don't even know for no other reason than their appearance. (For the record, I'm growing my hair again; I'm getting sick of being looked at like a violent thug who is searching for his next victim).
The final example of this fear is a one that I personally have no experience of. Women mainly experience it but it is by no means exclusive to them. It is particularly prevalent when gaggles of women are on a night out. I'm referring of course to how threatened many women feel by another woman whom they perceive as more attractive than them. Lest you be in any doubt, watch the look on a lady's face as an attractive women glides past her. Believe me, sometimes I've seen hatred in their eyes! As a further example of this, a friend of mine was talking about an old schoolmate of his. She was rather good looking, to the extent that she is now a part-time model and is in a relationship with a fitness instructor (and also part-time model). And the reaction of on of the women who was listening? "Bitch!".
Now I don't mean to belittle anyone here (after all, of the three types of daily fear that I've described, this one is by far and away the funniest...) but aren't we all being a little...well, insecure about ourselves? Why can't we be happy with the way we look, or the way we think? Why do people feel the need to be the cleverest and best-looking person out of everybody? Is it because we are striving to better ourselves, or trying to pull others down to our level? It's food for thought anyway.
I'm writing today because it has struck me that the vast majority of us live our lives in fear and I find this rather strange. I'm not talking about the kind of pant-wetting fear that leaves one a meek and quivering wreck with heart palpitations that would be more suited to a field mouse than a human being (I'm sure you know the feeling; I last experienced it when I was about 12 and some Neanderthal in a scruffy school uniform decided that what I really needed was to have face moved about 3 inches across my skull via the means of a sustained beating). I'm talking about the low-grade fear that seems to permeate everybody’s life but is so commonplace that we don't even think about it any more.
Let me give you an example; I'm an intelligent person. I'm not being any more arrogant than usual by saying that. However, I'm also very verbose and florid when I speak and that can give the impression that I know more than I actually do. Anyway to cut a long story short, I've been told that many of my work colleagues and casual acquaintances are scared of me. And the reason for this? Well it would appear that they are scared that I will think that they are stupid, and so they will not talk to me or around me as much or as freely as normal.
I find this rather strange. Arrogant I may be, but I'm not so full of myself to think that my opinion matters a damn to most people, so why do certain of my friends feel this way? I'm sure I'm not the only person to have ever experienced this; being a university graduate is an excellent way of putting some non-graduates on the defensive. Being an Oxbridge graduate is a superb way of making non-Oxbridge types feel that they have to prove their intelligence (in fact, now that I come to think of it, I'm guilty of that myself). There can't be much doubt that a lot of us seem to have a fear of appearing stupid in some way, but for the life of me I can't figure out why this should be. Is it a childhood thing; do we all still worry about being laughed at by the rest of the class? Or is it a self-esteem issue; we're so riddled with neurosis that we feel that if we know less than another person then we are inferior to them?
Now clearly my perspective on this comes from my own experience, but I'm 100% sure that this isn't the only area of our life that generates hot, dull fear for us. Physical appearance is yet another. I used to have hair of a fairly normal length and so I went about my day generally unnoticed by passing strangers. Then, in a fit of drunken bravado, I shaved my hair off. The very next morning as I was walking to the shops an old lady looked up, saw me approaching, and with a few fearful glances back at me, crossed the street to avoid me. In contrast to that, many moons ago I had *very* long hair. This earned me tuts of disapproval from my parents and their peers, as well as a few beatings from some quite charming gentlemen who, apparently, didn't like "hippies".
The reactions that I've described should be familiar to all of us. Who among us has not felt one's heart race when walking alone and noticing a man who is either big, shaven headed, ferocious looking etc? And yet despite the Daily Mail's attempts to convince us otherwise, random beatings are an incredibly rare occurrence. I personally haven't been hit by or fought with anybody since school, but I still find myself a little nervous if I'm in the situation I just described. I suppose the reason for the fear we may feel because of people of a certain appearance is easier to explain than our fear of looking stupid. It's not difficult to think of book, film, or TV examples of the bad guys being big, shaven headed thugs, and so the stereotype is reinforced endlessly and we all continue to feel fear about people we don't even know for no other reason than their appearance. (For the record, I'm growing my hair again; I'm getting sick of being looked at like a violent thug who is searching for his next victim).
The final example of this fear is a one that I personally have no experience of. Women mainly experience it but it is by no means exclusive to them. It is particularly prevalent when gaggles of women are on a night out. I'm referring of course to how threatened many women feel by another woman whom they perceive as more attractive than them. Lest you be in any doubt, watch the look on a lady's face as an attractive women glides past her. Believe me, sometimes I've seen hatred in their eyes! As a further example of this, a friend of mine was talking about an old schoolmate of his. She was rather good looking, to the extent that she is now a part-time model and is in a relationship with a fitness instructor (and also part-time model). And the reaction of on of the women who was listening? "Bitch!".
Now I don't mean to belittle anyone here (after all, of the three types of daily fear that I've described, this one is by far and away the funniest...) but aren't we all being a little...well, insecure about ourselves? Why can't we be happy with the way we look, or the way we think? Why do people feel the need to be the cleverest and best-looking person out of everybody? Is it because we are striving to better ourselves, or trying to pull others down to our level? It's food for thought anyway.
Tuesday 13 November 2001
One Night Stand
I missed out the obvious criticism of One Night Stands; the sex tends to be shit.
Can anybody really be bothered to read about or talk about yesterday's events in NYC or Kabul? I find myself weary at the prospect to be honest. Reaction to the NYC crash; it's been done before. Plane crashes are just soooooooo last month sweetie, and this one didn't add anything to the horror of Sept 11th (remember my rant way back about compassion fatigue due to excessive TV coverage? I think I'm falling victim to it and I'll bet I'm not the only one). And the "war" in Afghanistan seems to be being fought in the good old colonial fashion ("I say old boy, did you see that? Them there friendly sand niggers just got blasted to pieces by those bad-guy towel heads" "Good lord! So they did. Jenkins, make a note; bomb that bit of rock there until it's a smouldering hole in the ground. Oh, and Jenkins? Could you send a few more messages of support to our sand niggers please? They're doing *such* a good job of finding the enemy positions for us...").
So no, much as I'm sure you don't have any desire to read about current affairs, I have little real desire to write about them. No, I think it's perhaps time for another in the ongoing series of "an exceedingly bitter young man tries to talk in a reasoned an objective manner about love and relationships."
One night stands. They're a hoot aren't they? Every Saturday and Sunday morning millions of people across the world will wake up with somebody whom they'd never slept with before and never will again. Opinion on whether this is a good or bad thing seems to be fairly evenly divided, though I don't think that I'm entirely wide of the mark when I say that the majority of men publicly state that they are great whilst the majority of women put it on record that they think one night stands are a bad thing. Are both sides being entirely truthful when they say this? The fact that one night stands (ONS as I'm going to refer to them from now as I'm, in essence, a lazy git) continue to occur would seem to either make a lie of the accepted female wisdom or provide a testament to the to the ingeniousness of the male half of the species in their never-ending quest to get laid. So which is it?
Once again, I'll declare my vested interests from the start. I'm pretty much an amateur when it comes to one night stands (despite all of my best efforts...) and so much of what I'm going to write is taken from the experiences of my friends, so the names will be changed to protect the innocent. However I will put it on record that I, like the large majority of men in the world, think that one night stands are generally a good thing. In my own experience I've had fun, I can kid myself that the good lady in question did too, and I generally find that I have remained on good terms with them afterwards (working I suppose on the theory that if you've seen each other naked then you need not have any further inhibitions when talking to one another...).
So then, what's the deal with ONS? They must make up something like 60% of worldwide sexual encounters every weekend (of the remainder, 38% is fulfilled by couples just starting out on a relationship, 1.8% by married couples or those in long term relationships, and .2% by lonely farmers with a nervous looking ewe) but they generally don't get a good press at all. The image that tends to be put forward is of leering lads discussing the previous night's merriment in the most graphic terms whilst a thoroughly shamed woman has to come to terms with cheapening herself for a moment of pleasure. This is, of course, total bollocks. It is an image that probably owes it's origin to the Victorian/Christian attitude to sex; that it's dirty (sex can of course be dirty. But only if you do it right.). As I'm sure many women would agree, it is just as likely that we will find the ladies being raucous and lewd whilst being encouraged by their friends in their dissection of a particular ONS. Woe betide the man who receives unfavourable press from such a lady for he will find himself a figure of fun in their social group for the months and years to come. So it's not as if the whole affair is arranged in favour of the man. Women get something out of it too. Yet what could that be?
Well I think I may have an answer to that one. It's an answer that will no doubt cause consternation and uproar among the patriarchal mindset of the prudish, the morally upstanding, and the hypocritical. It is simply this; women enjoy sex just as much as men. Now that I've made that revelation, and now that the whole world hasn't in fact come to an end, and seeing as how the whole moral fibre of society hasn't crumbled shall we continue?
In the minds of rational people, sex is no longer about just procreation. In the minds of modern people, sex isn't necessarily about love. In the minds of most people of my age, sex is about fun. Enjoying oneself. Having a bloody good time in the company of one or more willing people and returning the favour. People who were my age during the 50's tend to labour under the illusion that sex used to be altogether more sacred and was about love and companionship. What utter toss! People still had casual sex but the only difference was that they were labelled with imaginative names (the words "Slag", "Slut" and all associated terms enjoyed a veritable renaissance during the 50's. Love and compassion indeed...) and they had to be discreet about it. Nowadays we no longer feel the need to put single mothers in asylums or hound teenagers out of the neighbourhood for having sex before marriage. I am saying that that is an advance.
One thing that I would say against ONS is the method by which they normally happen. As I've already alluded to, most ONS take place on Friday and/or Saturday night. It doesn't take a genius to work out why. Getting stunningly drunk is an excellent way of ensuring that you'll wake up next to someone who will be as pleased or horrified as yourself to find themselves there. We do this because we are packed to the brim with inhibitions and hang-ups, and alcohol temporarily banishes them. You'd think I'd be all in favour of anything that causes more sex in the world, but I'm not entirely pleased that we need alcohol to achieve this. It seems to me that one of the main reasons we have such inhibitions is the legacy of the times when religious groups held sway over our lives. As in Orwell's 1984, they sought to control every aspect of our lives. In 1984 this was done by the creation of the "Anti Sex League" which encouraged artificial insemination as a means of procreation. Religion, not having access to such technology, went for the tried and tested route of Guilt. We were made to feel guilty about our urges and told that they should be limited to marriage (thus ignoring the fact that marriage is one of the finest contraceptives ever invented...). It's only in the last 10 or 20 years that this assertion has been properly challenged, and we are by no means completely free of it's influence, which is why many ONS take place whilst under the influence of no less than about 4 pints of lager. The other reason I don't like the idea of getting drunk to facilitate getting laid is that I'm a man. Do I really have to spell out what can happen (or, more accurately, can't happen) to a man when he's drunk? No? Good.
I suspect that one of the main reasons that ONS get such a bad press is because when the alcohol wears off, inhibitions return. I'm sure that you recall the simple joy of feeling incredibly awkward whilst lying in bed next to a stranger/work colleague/friend. We tend to deal with this in a simple way; by not having any contact whatsoever with that other person for weeks afterwards. This naturally leads to bad feeling and resentment, so if one were to want to stay on good terms with their erstwhile bedroom partner then one would have to swallow one's pride and apologise for one's behaviour. As pride is harder to swallow than spunk (erm...so I've been told) this is not very likely to happen in the majority of cases. As it is generally women who take snubs and perceived insults to heart a lot more than men, is this why so many women proclaim their distaste for ONS? As men are thicker skinned about such things, could it be that we only ever remember the ONS itself and mentally censor any recriminations that follow? It's as good an explanation as any.
Can anybody really be bothered to read about or talk about yesterday's events in NYC or Kabul? I find myself weary at the prospect to be honest. Reaction to the NYC crash; it's been done before. Plane crashes are just soooooooo last month sweetie, and this one didn't add anything to the horror of Sept 11th (remember my rant way back about compassion fatigue due to excessive TV coverage? I think I'm falling victim to it and I'll bet I'm not the only one). And the "war" in Afghanistan seems to be being fought in the good old colonial fashion ("I say old boy, did you see that? Them there friendly sand niggers just got blasted to pieces by those bad-guy towel heads" "Good lord! So they did. Jenkins, make a note; bomb that bit of rock there until it's a smouldering hole in the ground. Oh, and Jenkins? Could you send a few more messages of support to our sand niggers please? They're doing *such* a good job of finding the enemy positions for us...").
So no, much as I'm sure you don't have any desire to read about current affairs, I have little real desire to write about them. No, I think it's perhaps time for another in the ongoing series of "an exceedingly bitter young man tries to talk in a reasoned an objective manner about love and relationships."
One night stands. They're a hoot aren't they? Every Saturday and Sunday morning millions of people across the world will wake up with somebody whom they'd never slept with before and never will again. Opinion on whether this is a good or bad thing seems to be fairly evenly divided, though I don't think that I'm entirely wide of the mark when I say that the majority of men publicly state that they are great whilst the majority of women put it on record that they think one night stands are a bad thing. Are both sides being entirely truthful when they say this? The fact that one night stands (ONS as I'm going to refer to them from now as I'm, in essence, a lazy git) continue to occur would seem to either make a lie of the accepted female wisdom or provide a testament to the to the ingeniousness of the male half of the species in their never-ending quest to get laid. So which is it?
Once again, I'll declare my vested interests from the start. I'm pretty much an amateur when it comes to one night stands (despite all of my best efforts...) and so much of what I'm going to write is taken from the experiences of my friends, so the names will be changed to protect the innocent. However I will put it on record that I, like the large majority of men in the world, think that one night stands are generally a good thing. In my own experience I've had fun, I can kid myself that the good lady in question did too, and I generally find that I have remained on good terms with them afterwards (working I suppose on the theory that if you've seen each other naked then you need not have any further inhibitions when talking to one another...).
So then, what's the deal with ONS? They must make up something like 60% of worldwide sexual encounters every weekend (of the remainder, 38% is fulfilled by couples just starting out on a relationship, 1.8% by married couples or those in long term relationships, and .2% by lonely farmers with a nervous looking ewe) but they generally don't get a good press at all. The image that tends to be put forward is of leering lads discussing the previous night's merriment in the most graphic terms whilst a thoroughly shamed woman has to come to terms with cheapening herself for a moment of pleasure. This is, of course, total bollocks. It is an image that probably owes it's origin to the Victorian/Christian attitude to sex; that it's dirty (sex can of course be dirty. But only if you do it right.). As I'm sure many women would agree, it is just as likely that we will find the ladies being raucous and lewd whilst being encouraged by their friends in their dissection of a particular ONS. Woe betide the man who receives unfavourable press from such a lady for he will find himself a figure of fun in their social group for the months and years to come. So it's not as if the whole affair is arranged in favour of the man. Women get something out of it too. Yet what could that be?
Well I think I may have an answer to that one. It's an answer that will no doubt cause consternation and uproar among the patriarchal mindset of the prudish, the morally upstanding, and the hypocritical. It is simply this; women enjoy sex just as much as men. Now that I've made that revelation, and now that the whole world hasn't in fact come to an end, and seeing as how the whole moral fibre of society hasn't crumbled shall we continue?
In the minds of rational people, sex is no longer about just procreation. In the minds of modern people, sex isn't necessarily about love. In the minds of most people of my age, sex is about fun. Enjoying oneself. Having a bloody good time in the company of one or more willing people and returning the favour. People who were my age during the 50's tend to labour under the illusion that sex used to be altogether more sacred and was about love and companionship. What utter toss! People still had casual sex but the only difference was that they were labelled with imaginative names (the words "Slag", "Slut" and all associated terms enjoyed a veritable renaissance during the 50's. Love and compassion indeed...) and they had to be discreet about it. Nowadays we no longer feel the need to put single mothers in asylums or hound teenagers out of the neighbourhood for having sex before marriage. I am saying that that is an advance.
One thing that I would say against ONS is the method by which they normally happen. As I've already alluded to, most ONS take place on Friday and/or Saturday night. It doesn't take a genius to work out why. Getting stunningly drunk is an excellent way of ensuring that you'll wake up next to someone who will be as pleased or horrified as yourself to find themselves there. We do this because we are packed to the brim with inhibitions and hang-ups, and alcohol temporarily banishes them. You'd think I'd be all in favour of anything that causes more sex in the world, but I'm not entirely pleased that we need alcohol to achieve this. It seems to me that one of the main reasons we have such inhibitions is the legacy of the times when religious groups held sway over our lives. As in Orwell's 1984, they sought to control every aspect of our lives. In 1984 this was done by the creation of the "Anti Sex League" which encouraged artificial insemination as a means of procreation. Religion, not having access to such technology, went for the tried and tested route of Guilt. We were made to feel guilty about our urges and told that they should be limited to marriage (thus ignoring the fact that marriage is one of the finest contraceptives ever invented...). It's only in the last 10 or 20 years that this assertion has been properly challenged, and we are by no means completely free of it's influence, which is why many ONS take place whilst under the influence of no less than about 4 pints of lager. The other reason I don't like the idea of getting drunk to facilitate getting laid is that I'm a man. Do I really have to spell out what can happen (or, more accurately, can't happen) to a man when he's drunk? No? Good.
I suspect that one of the main reasons that ONS get such a bad press is because when the alcohol wears off, inhibitions return. I'm sure that you recall the simple joy of feeling incredibly awkward whilst lying in bed next to a stranger/work colleague/friend. We tend to deal with this in a simple way; by not having any contact whatsoever with that other person for weeks afterwards. This naturally leads to bad feeling and resentment, so if one were to want to stay on good terms with their erstwhile bedroom partner then one would have to swallow one's pride and apologise for one's behaviour. As pride is harder to swallow than spunk (erm...so I've been told) this is not very likely to happen in the majority of cases. As it is generally women who take snubs and perceived insults to heart a lot more than men, is this why so many women proclaim their distaste for ONS? As men are thicker skinned about such things, could it be that we only ever remember the ONS itself and mentally censor any recriminations that follow? It's as good an explanation as any.
Thursday 8 November 2001
World Conflict Day
I still say we should rename Guy Fawkes Night to World Conflict Day, and make it a global event.
Okay, I'll make a promise from the outset; I'll not mention anything about Afghanistan, the Taliban, the Northern Alliance, bombing, or indeed anything about the whole mess over there at all. Apart from just there obviously. One thing I will say about it is, where the hell has Dubya been hiding? He's managed to hove into view again briefly (apparently he and Blair shared a "Kodak Moment" yesterday; can I really be the only person who finds their "special" relationship suspiciously homo-erotic?) but before yesterday I hadn't heard a peep from him in weeks! What in God's name has he been up to? There are a few possibilities; he did say that he was going to do whatever it took to defeat terrorism, so maybe his Chiefs of Staff realised that it would take him shutting up and not interfering? Or, as he took more time off in his first 6 months of office than any other President in history, maybe he was just working on getting his golf handicap down (hell, maybe that's the sole reason for his anguish at the WTC tragedy in the first place; as he watched the planes smashing into the twin towers he knew, just knew, that this was a new age and that nothing would be the same again. Now, more than ever before, the country that he had solemnly sworn to serve needed a leader who can guarantee scoring at least 3 under par during a crisis...)
Anyway we in England had our annual opportunity to experience what living in a war zone is like; Guy Fawkes Night. We too got to enjoy 6 hours of explosions in the background. There were fireworks that looked for all the world like the tracer fire of anti-aircraft weapons. And, just like in Israel and Northern Ireland, we also had morons with only the vaguest idea of how to use the explosives that they carried being guided round the streets by their desire to see somebody getting hurt. Whilst my brother and I pondered the irony of celebrating Bonfire Night during the current war it occurred to us; instead of having the 5th of November as a celebration of the smashing of the Catholic plot to blow up Parliament (thus limiting it to the UK) why don't we redesignate it "World Conflict and Terrorism Day"?
After all, the conspirators were religious fanatics (so were some of their targets but that is by the by...) who wanted to commit a terrorist action that, had it succeeded, would have been the WTC attack of the 17th century. If we extend this celebration around the world, then we can all experience what it is like to live under bombardment in, for example, the Lebanon or Iraq. I suppose we could make it even better by getting the nations that normally pound the shit out of each other to not kill each other for that day. Instead they can pile up dummies dressed in the ethnic costume of their choice into a large pyre and enjoy the same quasi-pagan fun that we in the UK do. The Guy can be the current hate figure of that particular nation, so American Bonfires would have Osama Bin Laden and Israeli's would perch Yasser Arafat atop theirs. This would also help stop the accusations that November 5th is an anti Catholic festival because the Guy wouldn't necessarily be the ubiquitous Mr Fawkes. Speaking personally, I'm more than happy to dispel the accusations altogether. Next November I intend to take a trip to Northern Ireland and set light to Rev. Ian Paisley. If you think about it the fat bigoted piece of shit has done more for world conflict than poor old Guy, so why not?
It seems that I'm not the only one who has world conflict on his mind. I understand that Prince Charles was attacked in Latvia by an anti war protester. If we ignore for a second the fact that attacks by anti war protesters are right up there with Pro-Life supporters murdering doctors in terms of irony, should we perhaps be concerned that the heir to the throne was put in a situation where he could be assaulted? No. No we shouldn't. And why? Because the "attack" consisted of his being slapped in the face with a bunch of flowers being wielded by a (rather good looking actually...) Latvian woman.
What is it about Prince Charles that leads to him being singled out by the surrealist movement for special attention? When he was in Australia someone tried to shoot him...with a starting pistol! Now he's in Latvia being attacked by a flora-bearing redhead who thinks that she's making a powerful international statement whereas in fact she's doing nothing more worthy than make me think "Hmm, I wonder if they're all as good looking as that in Latvia? Maybe I'll check out flight prices..." which probably wasn't her intention. If only all would be assassins were of this mindset then the world would be a much better place. If you think about it then it is highly unlikely that World War 1 would have broken out if Gavrilo Princep had tried to assassinate Archduke Ferdinand by throwing a telephone in the shape of a lobster at him. And I daresay that we'd be a lot better disposed toward Mr Bin Laden if his acolytes had contented themselves with trying to melt clock faces over the World Trade Centre.
I'm actually rather ambivalent about his heir-to-the-throne status as well. I mean, he seems like a nice chap and all, but wouldn't it be much better if we could elect our next King or Queen? They'd get the job for life obviously and they would have to be our nations representative, the person who encapsulates what it means to be British. I've already got a list of candidates; Sven Goran-Eriksson would be the obvious choice, and perhaps with him as our head of state we could look forward to a more relaxed way of life involving lots more public nudity. Jim Davidson would be another possibility, as his election would almost certainly lead to him declaring war on France, which can only be a good thing. We could even go for Thatcher as most Americans think that she's the Queen anyway. But my personal choice would have to be tourettes syndrome hero Joey Deacon, star of "John's not Mad" and a particularly brilliant edition of Blue Peter when I was about 5. The idea of the next meeting of the Commonwealth heads of state being punctuated by occasional outbursts of "Fucking wanker" and "Pissflaps" is a beautiful thing and I hope that one day my vision will become reality.
I do find it a little strange that we still have archaic methods of choosing leaders or people of importance now that we're in the 21st century. There are Royal families all over the world that rely on primogeniture (the custom of everything being inherited by the eldest son; yes, I did have to look it up). Even the Pope is chosen by a ballot of the Cardinals although I still think that the job should be advertised in the normal way, and I've already got my CV written and ready to send as soon as old John Paul number 2 finally shuffles off this mortal coil. I happen to think that I'd be able to bring a lot to the job of Pope and I hope that I'll at least get through to the interview stage. Admittedly I'm only doing it because I think it would be a good way to pick up women ("Hey girls. Got any Catholic in you? D'you want some?") but hey, Jesus did preach love so I suppose I could justify myself on those grounds. Regardless of that, I'm serious when I say I'm going to apply for the job and, as the current incumbent isn't long for this world, I should get a chance to do it soon. I figure that if the Bishop of Newcastle was polite enough to respond to my ranting then the Vatican are bound to give me some sort of response. And when they do you'll be the first to read it.
Okay, I'll make a promise from the outset; I'll not mention anything about Afghanistan, the Taliban, the Northern Alliance, bombing, or indeed anything about the whole mess over there at all. Apart from just there obviously. One thing I will say about it is, where the hell has Dubya been hiding? He's managed to hove into view again briefly (apparently he and Blair shared a "Kodak Moment" yesterday; can I really be the only person who finds their "special" relationship suspiciously homo-erotic?) but before yesterday I hadn't heard a peep from him in weeks! What in God's name has he been up to? There are a few possibilities; he did say that he was going to do whatever it took to defeat terrorism, so maybe his Chiefs of Staff realised that it would take him shutting up and not interfering? Or, as he took more time off in his first 6 months of office than any other President in history, maybe he was just working on getting his golf handicap down (hell, maybe that's the sole reason for his anguish at the WTC tragedy in the first place; as he watched the planes smashing into the twin towers he knew, just knew, that this was a new age and that nothing would be the same again. Now, more than ever before, the country that he had solemnly sworn to serve needed a leader who can guarantee scoring at least 3 under par during a crisis...)
Anyway we in England had our annual opportunity to experience what living in a war zone is like; Guy Fawkes Night. We too got to enjoy 6 hours of explosions in the background. There were fireworks that looked for all the world like the tracer fire of anti-aircraft weapons. And, just like in Israel and Northern Ireland, we also had morons with only the vaguest idea of how to use the explosives that they carried being guided round the streets by their desire to see somebody getting hurt. Whilst my brother and I pondered the irony of celebrating Bonfire Night during the current war it occurred to us; instead of having the 5th of November as a celebration of the smashing of the Catholic plot to blow up Parliament (thus limiting it to the UK) why don't we redesignate it "World Conflict and Terrorism Day"?
After all, the conspirators were religious fanatics (so were some of their targets but that is by the by...) who wanted to commit a terrorist action that, had it succeeded, would have been the WTC attack of the 17th century. If we extend this celebration around the world, then we can all experience what it is like to live under bombardment in, for example, the Lebanon or Iraq. I suppose we could make it even better by getting the nations that normally pound the shit out of each other to not kill each other for that day. Instead they can pile up dummies dressed in the ethnic costume of their choice into a large pyre and enjoy the same quasi-pagan fun that we in the UK do. The Guy can be the current hate figure of that particular nation, so American Bonfires would have Osama Bin Laden and Israeli's would perch Yasser Arafat atop theirs. This would also help stop the accusations that November 5th is an anti Catholic festival because the Guy wouldn't necessarily be the ubiquitous Mr Fawkes. Speaking personally, I'm more than happy to dispel the accusations altogether. Next November I intend to take a trip to Northern Ireland and set light to Rev. Ian Paisley. If you think about it the fat bigoted piece of shit has done more for world conflict than poor old Guy, so why not?
It seems that I'm not the only one who has world conflict on his mind. I understand that Prince Charles was attacked in Latvia by an anti war protester. If we ignore for a second the fact that attacks by anti war protesters are right up there with Pro-Life supporters murdering doctors in terms of irony, should we perhaps be concerned that the heir to the throne was put in a situation where he could be assaulted? No. No we shouldn't. And why? Because the "attack" consisted of his being slapped in the face with a bunch of flowers being wielded by a (rather good looking actually...) Latvian woman.
What is it about Prince Charles that leads to him being singled out by the surrealist movement for special attention? When he was in Australia someone tried to shoot him...with a starting pistol! Now he's in Latvia being attacked by a flora-bearing redhead who thinks that she's making a powerful international statement whereas in fact she's doing nothing more worthy than make me think "Hmm, I wonder if they're all as good looking as that in Latvia? Maybe I'll check out flight prices..." which probably wasn't her intention. If only all would be assassins were of this mindset then the world would be a much better place. If you think about it then it is highly unlikely that World War 1 would have broken out if Gavrilo Princep had tried to assassinate Archduke Ferdinand by throwing a telephone in the shape of a lobster at him. And I daresay that we'd be a lot better disposed toward Mr Bin Laden if his acolytes had contented themselves with trying to melt clock faces over the World Trade Centre.
I'm actually rather ambivalent about his heir-to-the-throne status as well. I mean, he seems like a nice chap and all, but wouldn't it be much better if we could elect our next King or Queen? They'd get the job for life obviously and they would have to be our nations representative, the person who encapsulates what it means to be British. I've already got a list of candidates; Sven Goran-Eriksson would be the obvious choice, and perhaps with him as our head of state we could look forward to a more relaxed way of life involving lots more public nudity. Jim Davidson would be another possibility, as his election would almost certainly lead to him declaring war on France, which can only be a good thing. We could even go for Thatcher as most Americans think that she's the Queen anyway. But my personal choice would have to be tourettes syndrome hero Joey Deacon, star of "John's not Mad" and a particularly brilliant edition of Blue Peter when I was about 5. The idea of the next meeting of the Commonwealth heads of state being punctuated by occasional outbursts of "Fucking wanker" and "Pissflaps" is a beautiful thing and I hope that one day my vision will become reality.
I do find it a little strange that we still have archaic methods of choosing leaders or people of importance now that we're in the 21st century. There are Royal families all over the world that rely on primogeniture (the custom of everything being inherited by the eldest son; yes, I did have to look it up). Even the Pope is chosen by a ballot of the Cardinals although I still think that the job should be advertised in the normal way, and I've already got my CV written and ready to send as soon as old John Paul number 2 finally shuffles off this mortal coil. I happen to think that I'd be able to bring a lot to the job of Pope and I hope that I'll at least get through to the interview stage. Admittedly I'm only doing it because I think it would be a good way to pick up women ("Hey girls. Got any Catholic in you? D'you want some?") but hey, Jesus did preach love so I suppose I could justify myself on those grounds. Regardless of that, I'm serious when I say I'm going to apply for the job and, as the current incumbent isn't long for this world, I should get a chance to do it soon. I figure that if the Bishop of Newcastle was polite enough to respond to my ranting then the Vatican are bound to give me some sort of response. And when they do you'll be the first to read it.
Monday 5 November 2001
This is the End
Like all men, I really am a rather stunningly maudlin little shit when dumped.
Relationships are funny things really aren't they? Without ever quite meaning to, we hand over the key to our heart to somebody whom, for all we know, could be some sort of mentally deranged fool with a pathological need for companionship. We're also (as I've belatedly discovered) saying to someone "Hello. I'd like to make an emotional investment in you that may well end in disappointment and leave me feeling crushed". All very odd when put in those terms, but of course no-one in their right mind thinks that way at the onset of their journey together. They rightly think only of good times together and being happy ever after. Fair enough for all the millions of people for whom everything works out. If you are one of those people then this rant is really not for you. Having examined why we are so phenomenally bad at starting relationships in the first place, I thought it might be a good idea to look at why we are so spectacularly awful at ending them.
As this is mainly going to be drawn from my own experiences as well as general observations on the (many) relationships that my friends have either enjoyed or endured, you may not find yourself entirely agreeing with everything that I'm about to say. Part of me wishes to say "Tough shit", but as it is my stated desire to continue to learn then I welcome any corrections to my thinking that you may wish to suggest. I'll almost certainly ignore them of course, but it's the thought that counts...
It seems to me that at the last spluttering gasps of a relationship there are 3 main stages involved for one or both parties; denial, acceptance, and then moving on. It strikes me that of all of these, the final stage is the one most heavily imbued with sadness due to the fact that one is letting go of what may have been a large part of their lives for an awful long time, but I'm getting ahead of myself (and the last person who did that still has difficulty sitting...) so I shall start at the beginning. Or the end as it were.
Now then, the process of denial can take many forms but it seems to split down the middle into two distinct categories which, generally speaking, can be divided fairly evenly. There are those who try to block out the fact that the relationship is over, and there are those who try to blot out the fact that the relationship ever happened in the first place. The former camp tends to be the sole reserve of people with a problem keeping a firm grip on reality. After all, if one has just been compared (unfavourably) to a festering boil on the arse of Anne Widdecombe by ones partner and has been told repeatedly to just bugger off and leave them alone, then it would seem pretty cut and dried as to whether the relationship is at an end. Not to these plucky (not to say, delusional) men and women. I don't know if you're familiar with the evocative Geordie phrase "I'd crawl through broken glass to stick matches in her shit". Well, I am willing to bet my life that it was coined by a man in this particular stage of relationship death. That phrase pretty much evokes exactly how pitiful the person who can't accept that a relationship has ended is. Despite all evidence to the contrary, they will insist that there is still a chance, however slim, that "we can work it out".
Of course, due to the immensely complicated laws of relationships, ones friends are pretty much forbidden to point this out. Their role is limited to providing support, compassion, and wishing like hell that their friend would hurry up and make the return trip to the real world. Should one of these friends pluck up the courage (or just get sick to death of the insipid whining about how "I'm certain that he/she'll see sense and want me back!") to tell them that it is over, they can look forward to one of two reactions; being ignored (rather like the fast show sketch where the woman talks and the men don't hear her) or being the recipient of some quite spectacularly bile imbued anger that has been building up for weeks (and cannot possibly be directed at ones former partner because after all, that would mean that they'd *never* take you back...). I estimate that something like 40% of friendships probably end during this phase of life so one can double one's fun by losing one's partner and one's friends in one fell swoop. If someone you know is behaving erratically (well...more erratically than usually anyway) and is generally no fun whatsoever to be with, then chance are you know someone engulfed in this particular form of denial.
The second category, although no less delusional, is that of "It was never really a proper relationship anyway". This is generally reserved for the shorter relationships (though not always; I know of one person who's husband wants their marriage annulled rather than a divorce because that way he can pretend it never happened. And I thought I was good at detaching myself from reality...) and in general is a lot easier on everybody than the above form of denial. All this seems to entail is devaluing the time that you did spend together so that one can put up a barrier in order to protect oneself from the pain of one's loss (by the way, can we take the fact that one will feel gut-wrenching, panic inducing anguish at the end of a relationship as given? That way I don't have to harp on about it, as I'm sure you're quite aware of what it feels like). Not surprisingly, this method of denial is a favourite of men the world over. There are probably undiscovered tribes in the Brazilian rainforest that follow this particular custom. Depending on what the relationship actually meant to you (i.e. whether you really did like them or not, something that you usually only discover once you don't have them any more) then this is either a fantastic method of letting oneself down gently and ensuring that one doesn't have too much emotional baggage upon starting a new relationship, or it is a quite remarkable method of storing up trouble for later on. Generally this trouble only emerges when one sees one's former partner being blissfully happy with someone who is not you. Lord knows how many hundreds of nights out have ended in tear-sodden violence thanks to this particular baby. And let's not even get into the situation where one partner is in the former stage of denial and the other is in the latter. Mm-mm, what fun and games that can lead to...
But it's not all horrendous doom and gloom. No, not a bit of it. Once one has traversed the borderline whirlpool madness that can be denial, one can then begin to sail into the choppy waters of acceptance. Again, I should say that I'm biased here; having spent the last year in denial I'm now making my first forays into acceptance. And what a truly marvelous feeling it is. When one is in denial one is constantly under an oppressive weight, sort of like walking round carrying a damp St. Bernard on ones back. When one accepts that it is all over, the weight is lifted almost completely. You are free to feel joy, or sadness, or indifference about something and you can feel it *without reference to how you would have felt about your former partner!* Oh, what an absolute relief it is! It's almost like being reborn (although thankfully one doesn't feel the urge to dedicate one's life to Jesus/Mohammed/David Icke; well, not unless you had a *really* tough time in denial...) Every new experience becomes just that; totally new. Having fun becomes one's driving (nay, only) motivation. One can start new relationships or friendships unencumbered by the past. Perhaps it's just the time of year, but the image that comes to mind is emerging from a dark cave into a myriad sky of fireworks, a cornucopia of colour, an infinite variety of new delight. Of course, sometimes the fireworks burn out and one can get burnt quite badly. After all, I mentioned that one is almost reborn and really feels new experiences; the problem with this is that although one experiences unfettered joy during this period in ones life, one can also feel adversely affected by things that one would previously have brushed aside.
It's because of that emotional rawness that people in this stage of relationship death tend to go absolutely fucking crazy for a while. By which I mean, they become incapable of not going out and partying until their lungs bleed. They want to have fun all of the time and at all costs. To do otherwise would leave one open to experience more pain, and we had quite enough of that going through denial thank you very much indeed. Different people do it in different ways of course; some develop new hobbies and pursue them to levels of quite breathtaking sadness, others indulge in Herculean bouts of shagging with anything that has a pulse, still others take the brave step of tentatively pursuing a new relationship. None of these courses of action are particularly bad, and from what I have seen no one method is clearly better than another when it comes to acceptance. Horses for courses I suppose. What I would say is that none of them really mean anything until one is able to move on.
By moving on I mean dealing with the months/years that you spent with your former partner. I said earlier that I think this is the saddest and most melancholy of all the stages of relationship death and I stand by that. You are admitting that many of your old dreams are over and that a lot of your former goals and expectations in life have irrevocably altered. That is not to say that it means one shuts the former lover out of one's life altogether. I have seen people in that situation remain friends, perhaps with a better and stronger friendship than they can ever have with anybody else. I've seen them be apart for a few years and end up back together. Of course, I've also seen them rent apart with bitterness and anger that it all went wrong. Moving on doesn't necessarily mean peace for one's soul, it might just mean an end to open hostilities. I suppose one simply has to hope that one will come out of whatever relationship they've been in relatively unscathed and hoping that, if nothing else, they'll have learned something.
Relationships are funny things really aren't they? Without ever quite meaning to, we hand over the key to our heart to somebody whom, for all we know, could be some sort of mentally deranged fool with a pathological need for companionship. We're also (as I've belatedly discovered) saying to someone "Hello. I'd like to make an emotional investment in you that may well end in disappointment and leave me feeling crushed". All very odd when put in those terms, but of course no-one in their right mind thinks that way at the onset of their journey together. They rightly think only of good times together and being happy ever after. Fair enough for all the millions of people for whom everything works out. If you are one of those people then this rant is really not for you. Having examined why we are so phenomenally bad at starting relationships in the first place, I thought it might be a good idea to look at why we are so spectacularly awful at ending them.
As this is mainly going to be drawn from my own experiences as well as general observations on the (many) relationships that my friends have either enjoyed or endured, you may not find yourself entirely agreeing with everything that I'm about to say. Part of me wishes to say "Tough shit", but as it is my stated desire to continue to learn then I welcome any corrections to my thinking that you may wish to suggest. I'll almost certainly ignore them of course, but it's the thought that counts...
It seems to me that at the last spluttering gasps of a relationship there are 3 main stages involved for one or both parties; denial, acceptance, and then moving on. It strikes me that of all of these, the final stage is the one most heavily imbued with sadness due to the fact that one is letting go of what may have been a large part of their lives for an awful long time, but I'm getting ahead of myself (and the last person who did that still has difficulty sitting...) so I shall start at the beginning. Or the end as it were.
Now then, the process of denial can take many forms but it seems to split down the middle into two distinct categories which, generally speaking, can be divided fairly evenly. There are those who try to block out the fact that the relationship is over, and there are those who try to blot out the fact that the relationship ever happened in the first place. The former camp tends to be the sole reserve of people with a problem keeping a firm grip on reality. After all, if one has just been compared (unfavourably) to a festering boil on the arse of Anne Widdecombe by ones partner and has been told repeatedly to just bugger off and leave them alone, then it would seem pretty cut and dried as to whether the relationship is at an end. Not to these plucky (not to say, delusional) men and women. I don't know if you're familiar with the evocative Geordie phrase "I'd crawl through broken glass to stick matches in her shit". Well, I am willing to bet my life that it was coined by a man in this particular stage of relationship death. That phrase pretty much evokes exactly how pitiful the person who can't accept that a relationship has ended is. Despite all evidence to the contrary, they will insist that there is still a chance, however slim, that "we can work it out".
Of course, due to the immensely complicated laws of relationships, ones friends are pretty much forbidden to point this out. Their role is limited to providing support, compassion, and wishing like hell that their friend would hurry up and make the return trip to the real world. Should one of these friends pluck up the courage (or just get sick to death of the insipid whining about how "I'm certain that he/she'll see sense and want me back!") to tell them that it is over, they can look forward to one of two reactions; being ignored (rather like the fast show sketch where the woman talks and the men don't hear her) or being the recipient of some quite spectacularly bile imbued anger that has been building up for weeks (and cannot possibly be directed at ones former partner because after all, that would mean that they'd *never* take you back...). I estimate that something like 40% of friendships probably end during this phase of life so one can double one's fun by losing one's partner and one's friends in one fell swoop. If someone you know is behaving erratically (well...more erratically than usually anyway) and is generally no fun whatsoever to be with, then chance are you know someone engulfed in this particular form of denial.
The second category, although no less delusional, is that of "It was never really a proper relationship anyway". This is generally reserved for the shorter relationships (though not always; I know of one person who's husband wants their marriage annulled rather than a divorce because that way he can pretend it never happened. And I thought I was good at detaching myself from reality...) and in general is a lot easier on everybody than the above form of denial. All this seems to entail is devaluing the time that you did spend together so that one can put up a barrier in order to protect oneself from the pain of one's loss (by the way, can we take the fact that one will feel gut-wrenching, panic inducing anguish at the end of a relationship as given? That way I don't have to harp on about it, as I'm sure you're quite aware of what it feels like). Not surprisingly, this method of denial is a favourite of men the world over. There are probably undiscovered tribes in the Brazilian rainforest that follow this particular custom. Depending on what the relationship actually meant to you (i.e. whether you really did like them or not, something that you usually only discover once you don't have them any more) then this is either a fantastic method of letting oneself down gently and ensuring that one doesn't have too much emotional baggage upon starting a new relationship, or it is a quite remarkable method of storing up trouble for later on. Generally this trouble only emerges when one sees one's former partner being blissfully happy with someone who is not you. Lord knows how many hundreds of nights out have ended in tear-sodden violence thanks to this particular baby. And let's not even get into the situation where one partner is in the former stage of denial and the other is in the latter. Mm-mm, what fun and games that can lead to...
But it's not all horrendous doom and gloom. No, not a bit of it. Once one has traversed the borderline whirlpool madness that can be denial, one can then begin to sail into the choppy waters of acceptance. Again, I should say that I'm biased here; having spent the last year in denial I'm now making my first forays into acceptance. And what a truly marvelous feeling it is. When one is in denial one is constantly under an oppressive weight, sort of like walking round carrying a damp St. Bernard on ones back. When one accepts that it is all over, the weight is lifted almost completely. You are free to feel joy, or sadness, or indifference about something and you can feel it *without reference to how you would have felt about your former partner!* Oh, what an absolute relief it is! It's almost like being reborn (although thankfully one doesn't feel the urge to dedicate one's life to Jesus/Mohammed/David Icke; well, not unless you had a *really* tough time in denial...) Every new experience becomes just that; totally new. Having fun becomes one's driving (nay, only) motivation. One can start new relationships or friendships unencumbered by the past. Perhaps it's just the time of year, but the image that comes to mind is emerging from a dark cave into a myriad sky of fireworks, a cornucopia of colour, an infinite variety of new delight. Of course, sometimes the fireworks burn out and one can get burnt quite badly. After all, I mentioned that one is almost reborn and really feels new experiences; the problem with this is that although one experiences unfettered joy during this period in ones life, one can also feel adversely affected by things that one would previously have brushed aside.
It's because of that emotional rawness that people in this stage of relationship death tend to go absolutely fucking crazy for a while. By which I mean, they become incapable of not going out and partying until their lungs bleed. They want to have fun all of the time and at all costs. To do otherwise would leave one open to experience more pain, and we had quite enough of that going through denial thank you very much indeed. Different people do it in different ways of course; some develop new hobbies and pursue them to levels of quite breathtaking sadness, others indulge in Herculean bouts of shagging with anything that has a pulse, still others take the brave step of tentatively pursuing a new relationship. None of these courses of action are particularly bad, and from what I have seen no one method is clearly better than another when it comes to acceptance. Horses for courses I suppose. What I would say is that none of them really mean anything until one is able to move on.
By moving on I mean dealing with the months/years that you spent with your former partner. I said earlier that I think this is the saddest and most melancholy of all the stages of relationship death and I stand by that. You are admitting that many of your old dreams are over and that a lot of your former goals and expectations in life have irrevocably altered. That is not to say that it means one shuts the former lover out of one's life altogether. I have seen people in that situation remain friends, perhaps with a better and stronger friendship than they can ever have with anybody else. I've seen them be apart for a few years and end up back together. Of course, I've also seen them rent apart with bitterness and anger that it all went wrong. Moving on doesn't necessarily mean peace for one's soul, it might just mean an end to open hostilities. I suppose one simply has to hope that one will come out of whatever relationship they've been in relatively unscathed and hoping that, if nothing else, they'll have learned something.
Tuesday 30 October 2001
Lurch to the Right
I think I'd spent the whole week prior to this being patronised by those on the political left for suggesting that America was fully justified in retaliating against Afghanistan. As such, this rant is rather...prickly. Not to mention full of absolute bullshit.
Okay, so it's been two whole weeks since I really ranted about anything in particular and I should really exorcise my demons again before I end up becoming one of those rather tragic gentlemen who stand at Grey's Monument in Newcastle every weekend shouting randomly at passers by about how Jesus/Buddha/Mohammed/Barrymore will save them. I was incredibly gratified to see the reaction to my last set of acidic musings and I shall definitely be making more of an effort in future to rant more about more universal social issues such as dating. If nothing else, it's a hell of a lot easier to write that stuff than it is to try and present world and domestic politics in an amusing and readable manner.
That said however, I'm now going to try and talk about world politics in an amusing and readable manner. Sorry. These days it's difficult for me to talk about any other subject (although not in Dublin, where a taxi driver gave me the friendly advice about what to do if the subject of politics arose whilst in a Dublin bar; "Keep you fuckin' mouth shut son"). After all, we are seeing the first examples of biological and chemical warfare since I last farted and shoved Joanne's head under the duvet, so this is a fairly serious and worrying time for the world. But I think what I'd like to talk about is not so much the war itself, nor the anthrax attack on America, but the way that both of these events have been and are being reported on.
I don't think I'm revealing any great secret when I say that I am of a liberal mindset. Nor should it shock you to find that I am a critic of many principles of right-wing thought (having been guilty of thinking them for about 8 years...). So therefore, according to stereotyping I should be firmly opposed to the war, bitterly complaining about the civilian casualties, and generally soul searching about the motivations of the West in prosecuting this conflict. What I should not be doing is getting irritated beyond all belief about the hand-wringing and good-intentioned bleating about the civilian casualties of the war, becoming annoyed by constant attempts by certain sections of the media to lead us to believe that the war is as good as lost and that we should cease all hostilities before anyone else gets killed, and finding myself being in favour of the war.
Let's deal with that last point first of all, as it's one that needs clarifying. I believe that the war is a just one. The US was the victim of a terrorist attack that was planned by men in Afghanistan. The (not-quite-legitimate) government of Afghanistan 1: Refused to hand over the suspect for the bombings and 2: Refused to close down the training camps where the men who committed the atrocities received some of their training. No amount of diplomacy was going to persuade the Taliban to hand them over. War is being waged to try and achieve those 2 aims. Any of the whining about how the US should go through the UN, or the West is bullying a 3rd world nation, or how America was to blame for being attacked in the first place is nothing more than sophistry. The fact is that the US (and it's allies; I'll not bore you with the details of the NATO treaty that provides for this) is fully justified in fighting this war.
That's not to say that I agree with how it's being fought. My contempt for Dubya knows no bounds, and it doesn't surprise me that he is providing America with a level of leadership last shown when Mad Jock "Madman" McMad selected Culloden Moor as a surefire place to beat the English in battle. He has made a balls up of handling the anthrax crisis (Postal workers dying? No problem. What's that? It might be affecting politicians and spreading to the White House? OH MY GOD!! CALL THE NATIONAL GUARD!!! AAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!) and the tactics of his military show something to be desired. America is going to have to realise at some point that it is going to have to take its soldiers out of the their boxes and play with them. And some of them will get broken. This is not a nice thing, but it is a necessary thing.
Of course, it could be said that the tactics that are being used have been chosen to assuage the criticisms of liberal thinkers. I am of the opinion that it is a very bad idea to let liberal thinkers (and I include myself in this statement) decide courses of action during a war. In wartime, right wing thinking with its clarity of purpose and ability to ride roughshod over semantics and nit picking should flourish. It is the job of liberal thinkers to take over after the war is concluded. It is the job of liberal thinkers to ensure that nothing like that *ever* happens again. All we do in wartime is complain that the world no longer follows the nice, civilised rules that it (sometimes) does in peacetime. This is a distraction. Had it been this way in WWII then chances are the media would have made vehement demands that we pull out of the war by 1942 due to the unpleasant nature of David Stirling's new SAS regiment in Africa, not to mention the large number of civilian casualties on both sides. Frankly, after the war I would like the freedom to continue to make the left wing observations that I currently make. I'm not likely to be allowed this luxury if we back down and allow terrorism and extremism to continue to flourish. So can we forget all of the secondary observations about how the West is not doing what it should and doing things it shouldn't? Good.
Now, the thorny issue of civilian casualties (or "collateral damage" as it is euphemistically called). Obviously I believe that this is a bad thing. I think you'd have to be something of a sociopath not to think this. However...well, this is a war isn't it? It certainly looks very much to me like one. And, as war is not conducted in some hermetically sealed environment where one can only find soldiers and no civilians, there is always a chance of civilian deaths. Again I'll make it clear; this is deplorable and every conceivable effort should be made to avoid it.
Now here's a thing; the West has developed weapons that are far more accurate than anything that has gone before. They are not as pinpoint accurate as we were led to believe in the Gulf War but they are not as indiscriminate as the bombs that dropped in any previous wars. Research is constantly ongoing to try and make these bombs more accurate still. I would say that we've discharged our moral responsibility to avoid the death of innocents. Now how about the Taliban and the Al-Quaida terrorist network? Well, the Taliban have butchered hundreds (if not thousands) of their own civilians in Kabul. In their war against the Northern Alliance (who, it must be conceded, are probably as bad as the Taliban) they have shown scant regard for the welfare of the non-combatants who live in or near the battlegrounds. As for Al-Quaida...well, I hardly need remind you that the reason that this war started in the first place was because they deliberately planned and carried out an attack that killed 5,000 civilians.
Current reports from the left wing press and media provide us with a barrage of images of civilian deaths. The Taliban and the more media savvy Al-Quaida know that this will cause consternation in the west and so allow journalists access to sites where innocents have dies. We should not let this deter us. We should certainly acknowledge that it is a tragedy, but we are basically allowing our conscience to hold us to ransom if we join the clamour for the war to stop based on this. Surely the best way to minimise civilian casualties would be for the West to stop pussyfooting around and go in hard; by which I mean fight a ground war with air cover. Remember the shambles caused in the Balkans because the west hummed and hah-ed about committing troops? Remember the *huge* number of civilian casualties that were a direct result of that reluctance to fight (Jesus, they're *still* finding mass graves from that unpleasant period, and they'll probably be finding them for years to come)? The quicker that ground troops are used to 1. Capture or kill Bin Laden and his lieutenants and 2. Destroy the Al-Quaida training camps in Afghanistan (and hopefully 3. Get rid of those inhuman, misogynist, hateful bastards running Afghanistan) then the sooner the war in that particular region will be over, and the civilian casualties will stop. Well...assuming that we can get enough food to the poor hungry people they will anyway....
It's disingenuous of the left wing media to try and derail the war effort (such as it is) for no other reason than it will sell papers or increase their audience share. War is a very bad thing. Their posturing only ensures that this war lasts longer. If one wishes to be critical of the war, then limit criticism to the fact that it is being fought poorly by all means, but don't doubt that it should be fought in the first place.
Okay, so it's been two whole weeks since I really ranted about anything in particular and I should really exorcise my demons again before I end up becoming one of those rather tragic gentlemen who stand at Grey's Monument in Newcastle every weekend shouting randomly at passers by about how Jesus/Buddha/Mohammed/Barrymore will save them. I was incredibly gratified to see the reaction to my last set of acidic musings and I shall definitely be making more of an effort in future to rant more about more universal social issues such as dating. If nothing else, it's a hell of a lot easier to write that stuff than it is to try and present world and domestic politics in an amusing and readable manner.
That said however, I'm now going to try and talk about world politics in an amusing and readable manner. Sorry. These days it's difficult for me to talk about any other subject (although not in Dublin, where a taxi driver gave me the friendly advice about what to do if the subject of politics arose whilst in a Dublin bar; "Keep you fuckin' mouth shut son"). After all, we are seeing the first examples of biological and chemical warfare since I last farted and shoved Joanne's head under the duvet, so this is a fairly serious and worrying time for the world. But I think what I'd like to talk about is not so much the war itself, nor the anthrax attack on America, but the way that both of these events have been and are being reported on.
I don't think I'm revealing any great secret when I say that I am of a liberal mindset. Nor should it shock you to find that I am a critic of many principles of right-wing thought (having been guilty of thinking them for about 8 years...). So therefore, according to stereotyping I should be firmly opposed to the war, bitterly complaining about the civilian casualties, and generally soul searching about the motivations of the West in prosecuting this conflict. What I should not be doing is getting irritated beyond all belief about the hand-wringing and good-intentioned bleating about the civilian casualties of the war, becoming annoyed by constant attempts by certain sections of the media to lead us to believe that the war is as good as lost and that we should cease all hostilities before anyone else gets killed, and finding myself being in favour of the war.
Let's deal with that last point first of all, as it's one that needs clarifying. I believe that the war is a just one. The US was the victim of a terrorist attack that was planned by men in Afghanistan. The (not-quite-legitimate) government of Afghanistan 1: Refused to hand over the suspect for the bombings and 2: Refused to close down the training camps where the men who committed the atrocities received some of their training. No amount of diplomacy was going to persuade the Taliban to hand them over. War is being waged to try and achieve those 2 aims. Any of the whining about how the US should go through the UN, or the West is bullying a 3rd world nation, or how America was to blame for being attacked in the first place is nothing more than sophistry. The fact is that the US (and it's allies; I'll not bore you with the details of the NATO treaty that provides for this) is fully justified in fighting this war.
That's not to say that I agree with how it's being fought. My contempt for Dubya knows no bounds, and it doesn't surprise me that he is providing America with a level of leadership last shown when Mad Jock "Madman" McMad selected Culloden Moor as a surefire place to beat the English in battle. He has made a balls up of handling the anthrax crisis (Postal workers dying? No problem. What's that? It might be affecting politicians and spreading to the White House? OH MY GOD!! CALL THE NATIONAL GUARD!!! AAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!) and the tactics of his military show something to be desired. America is going to have to realise at some point that it is going to have to take its soldiers out of the their boxes and play with them. And some of them will get broken. This is not a nice thing, but it is a necessary thing.
Of course, it could be said that the tactics that are being used have been chosen to assuage the criticisms of liberal thinkers. I am of the opinion that it is a very bad idea to let liberal thinkers (and I include myself in this statement) decide courses of action during a war. In wartime, right wing thinking with its clarity of purpose and ability to ride roughshod over semantics and nit picking should flourish. It is the job of liberal thinkers to take over after the war is concluded. It is the job of liberal thinkers to ensure that nothing like that *ever* happens again. All we do in wartime is complain that the world no longer follows the nice, civilised rules that it (sometimes) does in peacetime. This is a distraction. Had it been this way in WWII then chances are the media would have made vehement demands that we pull out of the war by 1942 due to the unpleasant nature of David Stirling's new SAS regiment in Africa, not to mention the large number of civilian casualties on both sides. Frankly, after the war I would like the freedom to continue to make the left wing observations that I currently make. I'm not likely to be allowed this luxury if we back down and allow terrorism and extremism to continue to flourish. So can we forget all of the secondary observations about how the West is not doing what it should and doing things it shouldn't? Good.
Now, the thorny issue of civilian casualties (or "collateral damage" as it is euphemistically called). Obviously I believe that this is a bad thing. I think you'd have to be something of a sociopath not to think this. However...well, this is a war isn't it? It certainly looks very much to me like one. And, as war is not conducted in some hermetically sealed environment where one can only find soldiers and no civilians, there is always a chance of civilian deaths. Again I'll make it clear; this is deplorable and every conceivable effort should be made to avoid it.
Now here's a thing; the West has developed weapons that are far more accurate than anything that has gone before. They are not as pinpoint accurate as we were led to believe in the Gulf War but they are not as indiscriminate as the bombs that dropped in any previous wars. Research is constantly ongoing to try and make these bombs more accurate still. I would say that we've discharged our moral responsibility to avoid the death of innocents. Now how about the Taliban and the Al-Quaida terrorist network? Well, the Taliban have butchered hundreds (if not thousands) of their own civilians in Kabul. In their war against the Northern Alliance (who, it must be conceded, are probably as bad as the Taliban) they have shown scant regard for the welfare of the non-combatants who live in or near the battlegrounds. As for Al-Quaida...well, I hardly need remind you that the reason that this war started in the first place was because they deliberately planned and carried out an attack that killed 5,000 civilians.
Current reports from the left wing press and media provide us with a barrage of images of civilian deaths. The Taliban and the more media savvy Al-Quaida know that this will cause consternation in the west and so allow journalists access to sites where innocents have dies. We should not let this deter us. We should certainly acknowledge that it is a tragedy, but we are basically allowing our conscience to hold us to ransom if we join the clamour for the war to stop based on this. Surely the best way to minimise civilian casualties would be for the West to stop pussyfooting around and go in hard; by which I mean fight a ground war with air cover. Remember the shambles caused in the Balkans because the west hummed and hah-ed about committing troops? Remember the *huge* number of civilian casualties that were a direct result of that reluctance to fight (Jesus, they're *still* finding mass graves from that unpleasant period, and they'll probably be finding them for years to come)? The quicker that ground troops are used to 1. Capture or kill Bin Laden and his lieutenants and 2. Destroy the Al-Quaida training camps in Afghanistan (and hopefully 3. Get rid of those inhuman, misogynist, hateful bastards running Afghanistan) then the sooner the war in that particular region will be over, and the civilian casualties will stop. Well...assuming that we can get enough food to the poor hungry people they will anyway....
It's disingenuous of the left wing media to try and derail the war effort (such as it is) for no other reason than it will sell papers or increase their audience share. War is a very bad thing. Their posturing only ensures that this war lasts longer. If one wishes to be critical of the war, then limit criticism to the fact that it is being fought poorly by all means, but don't doubt that it should be fought in the first place.
Monday 15 October 2001
The Dating Game
Dating was a nightmare for me to return to after 9 years with one woman. And oh, how I complained...
I'm rather bored with the war for now. Not that the fear induced sleeplessness shows any signs of relenting of course, but I do challenge anyone to find a news story that shows a new angle on events. I have a rant formulating which I believe will give a different take on the coverage of Afghanistan but I need to let it percolate it's way through my sub-conscious for a little longer. No, today I feel the need to indulge myself and examine something utterly inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. I'm going to have a look at dating.
Dating is something that I am a relative newcomer to. Having met my former fiancee at age 15 and stayed with her for over 9 years, it is also something that I felt sure I had avoided and I was grateful in extremis for that. But we live in an uncertain world and so it was that I found myself stranded in a game whose rules I had a vague understanding and whose formalities and etiquette seemed alien in their complexity. Now, I don't intend to make this a rundown of my love life since splitting with my other half, so you may be asking yourself "Yeah? So what?". And that line of thought would be entirely acceptable if I were to mire myself in self-pity at my rather poor showing in the dating game. But I don't intend to do that, no not one bit of it. What I do intend to do is vent my spleen about one aspect of it; an element that one seemingly *must* understand if one wants to get anywhere (and I mean that in every sense of the phrase). I'm talking about the idea of "Not Seeming Too Keen".
Okay, before I get started I should declare an interest in attacking this particular little bugbear. After my relationship with my fiancee had ended, I met a few people whom I liked enough to want to date again. Being rather naïve with regard to dating, I was guilty of trying "Not to seem too keen". What it in fact achieved was to make me "Not seem too bright" as well as "Not capable of doing something without dithering like a prat". So in that respect perhaps my extraordinary supply of bile that I have reserved for this dating practice is a little biased.
Now if it were just me who had managed to snatch despair from the jaws of happiness then I would write it off as a personal error to be learnt from and *never* to be repeated again. But I am by no means the only one to make such a complete tit of myself in the name of making a juvenile effort at looking cool at all costs. No, not at all. In the last few months I have seen numerous friends meet somebody who they liked and could see themselves getting involved in a relationship with. In particular, I've seen one very close friend manage to consign countless potential relationships to the grave for absolutely no other reason that this bizarre idea that one shouldn't seem to keen about someone else. The routine ran something like this;
Friend goes out for a weekend's worth of merriment; friend meets up with Someone; friend is attracted to this Someone; this Someone is attracted to friend; friend and Someone spend entire evening together; friend get's back and fizzes around with excitement at having met Someone whom they really like; friend makes enquiries of mutual friends to find out what Someone thought of friend (don't ask - this friend of mine seems to know every other human being on the face of the planet...), friend invariably finds out that Someone was equally as besotted; friend forces self not to ring,text,email, or contact Someone in any way ; Someone sends non-committal message via text/email (because friend won't answer the phone in case it's Someone, and Someone has to be non-committal as Someone must also be sure "Not To Seem Too Keen"); friend get's utterly disheartened at non-committal nature of message and writes off all hope of relationship with Someone; friend does not reply to Someone; Someone assumes friend is not interested; Repeat from start.
Did I miss something? Are we still a nation of Victorian era prudes for whom showing emotion is a faux pas on the same level as paedophilia?! What happened to the idea of the UK being full of vibrant and trendy young things? The pattern that my friend seems to follow is by no means unique and I'm sure that you'll recognise it to a greater or lesser degree. And who in the name of blistering piss decided that the most surefire way to attract a potential partner was to not contact them for about a week after meeting them, and then being cool and distant when one eventually deigns to get in touch? I mean, I know that love and lust don't exactly operate logically but this strikes me as an obscene repression of ones natural feelings upon meeting someone whom one likes.
I'm sure things are different in the wonderful world of adulthood, but when I first met my fiancee I was no more capable of playing it cool and distant than I was of not having a crafty one off the wrist at least every other day (hey c'mon; I *was* 15...). Any pretence at measured and logical thought perished in the fiery inferno of the unfettered passion and unbridled lust that I felt at the mere thought of her. As such, I rang her within a few days of first meeting her, she rang back the following day and the rest (like our engagement) is history.
So what exactly changes between being a teenager and being an adult. One would think that things would be a lot more cut and dried as an adult. After all, the hormones no longer rampage round our bodies like a viagra tainted flu virus (by the time our mid twenties are upon us they are more like a mild case of the sniffles) and we don't have to endure the horrendous coyness and gangly awkwardness that is the sole preserve of the teenager in love. And yet rather than being relieved beyond words to see the back of that godawful time, we seem to be doing our very best to artificially recreate it. And we do this by obsessively "Not Seeming Very Keen".
It's not as if this could be misconstrued as an attempt to retain some of the sense of wonder that permeates every new experience of our teenage years. Christ knows, I felt as stupidly in lust with my first post-fiancee dalliance when we met as I ever had done as a teenager so what the hell possessed me (and possesses pretty much all young adults) to try and "Not Seem Too Keen"? I suppose the most obvious answer is that we are afraid of facing the ridicule of our peers. And so it seems that we are happy to think less of ourselves, to be unable to live with ourselves and the decisions that we've made, just as long as our friends don't mock us or think less of us. Perhaps we are so egotistical as to believe that every single potential partner (or even just potential shag if you want me to be cynically truthful) also doubles up as "Potential Stalker". If so then that is a pretty sad indictment of ourselves; we'd prefer to live in perpetual fear rather than let our guard down and grasp the possibility of living in happiness.
Can I really be the only single person who thinks that this Law of Dating is one of the worst ideas in the history of human nature? Or am I just an embittered and sad git who is angry at his own self-inflicted lack of success with the opposite sex? Either way, please do enlighten me as I've given up trying to make sense of the whole damn thing!
I'm rather bored with the war for now. Not that the fear induced sleeplessness shows any signs of relenting of course, but I do challenge anyone to find a news story that shows a new angle on events. I have a rant formulating which I believe will give a different take on the coverage of Afghanistan but I need to let it percolate it's way through my sub-conscious for a little longer. No, today I feel the need to indulge myself and examine something utterly inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. I'm going to have a look at dating.
Dating is something that I am a relative newcomer to. Having met my former fiancee at age 15 and stayed with her for over 9 years, it is also something that I felt sure I had avoided and I was grateful in extremis for that. But we live in an uncertain world and so it was that I found myself stranded in a game whose rules I had a vague understanding and whose formalities and etiquette seemed alien in their complexity. Now, I don't intend to make this a rundown of my love life since splitting with my other half, so you may be asking yourself "Yeah? So what?". And that line of thought would be entirely acceptable if I were to mire myself in self-pity at my rather poor showing in the dating game. But I don't intend to do that, no not one bit of it. What I do intend to do is vent my spleen about one aspect of it; an element that one seemingly *must* understand if one wants to get anywhere (and I mean that in every sense of the phrase). I'm talking about the idea of "Not Seeming Too Keen".
Okay, before I get started I should declare an interest in attacking this particular little bugbear. After my relationship with my fiancee had ended, I met a few people whom I liked enough to want to date again. Being rather naïve with regard to dating, I was guilty of trying "Not to seem too keen". What it in fact achieved was to make me "Not seem too bright" as well as "Not capable of doing something without dithering like a prat". So in that respect perhaps my extraordinary supply of bile that I have reserved for this dating practice is a little biased.
Now if it were just me who had managed to snatch despair from the jaws of happiness then I would write it off as a personal error to be learnt from and *never* to be repeated again. But I am by no means the only one to make such a complete tit of myself in the name of making a juvenile effort at looking cool at all costs. No, not at all. In the last few months I have seen numerous friends meet somebody who they liked and could see themselves getting involved in a relationship with. In particular, I've seen one very close friend manage to consign countless potential relationships to the grave for absolutely no other reason that this bizarre idea that one shouldn't seem to keen about someone else. The routine ran something like this;
Friend goes out for a weekend's worth of merriment; friend meets up with Someone; friend is attracted to this Someone; this Someone is attracted to friend; friend and Someone spend entire evening together; friend get's back and fizzes around with excitement at having met Someone whom they really like; friend makes enquiries of mutual friends to find out what Someone thought of friend (don't ask - this friend of mine seems to know every other human being on the face of the planet...), friend invariably finds out that Someone was equally as besotted; friend forces self not to ring,text,email, or contact Someone in any way ; Someone sends non-committal message via text/email (because friend won't answer the phone in case it's Someone, and Someone has to be non-committal as Someone must also be sure "Not To Seem Too Keen"); friend get's utterly disheartened at non-committal nature of message and writes off all hope of relationship with Someone; friend does not reply to Someone; Someone assumes friend is not interested; Repeat from start.
Did I miss something? Are we still a nation of Victorian era prudes for whom showing emotion is a faux pas on the same level as paedophilia?! What happened to the idea of the UK being full of vibrant and trendy young things? The pattern that my friend seems to follow is by no means unique and I'm sure that you'll recognise it to a greater or lesser degree. And who in the name of blistering piss decided that the most surefire way to attract a potential partner was to not contact them for about a week after meeting them, and then being cool and distant when one eventually deigns to get in touch? I mean, I know that love and lust don't exactly operate logically but this strikes me as an obscene repression of ones natural feelings upon meeting someone whom one likes.
I'm sure things are different in the wonderful world of adulthood, but when I first met my fiancee I was no more capable of playing it cool and distant than I was of not having a crafty one off the wrist at least every other day (hey c'mon; I *was* 15...). Any pretence at measured and logical thought perished in the fiery inferno of the unfettered passion and unbridled lust that I felt at the mere thought of her. As such, I rang her within a few days of first meeting her, she rang back the following day and the rest (like our engagement) is history.
So what exactly changes between being a teenager and being an adult. One would think that things would be a lot more cut and dried as an adult. After all, the hormones no longer rampage round our bodies like a viagra tainted flu virus (by the time our mid twenties are upon us they are more like a mild case of the sniffles) and we don't have to endure the horrendous coyness and gangly awkwardness that is the sole preserve of the teenager in love. And yet rather than being relieved beyond words to see the back of that godawful time, we seem to be doing our very best to artificially recreate it. And we do this by obsessively "Not Seeming Very Keen".
It's not as if this could be misconstrued as an attempt to retain some of the sense of wonder that permeates every new experience of our teenage years. Christ knows, I felt as stupidly in lust with my first post-fiancee dalliance when we met as I ever had done as a teenager so what the hell possessed me (and possesses pretty much all young adults) to try and "Not Seem Too Keen"? I suppose the most obvious answer is that we are afraid of facing the ridicule of our peers. And so it seems that we are happy to think less of ourselves, to be unable to live with ourselves and the decisions that we've made, just as long as our friends don't mock us or think less of us. Perhaps we are so egotistical as to believe that every single potential partner (or even just potential shag if you want me to be cynically truthful) also doubles up as "Potential Stalker". If so then that is a pretty sad indictment of ourselves; we'd prefer to live in perpetual fear rather than let our guard down and grasp the possibility of living in happiness.
Can I really be the only single person who thinks that this Law of Dating is one of the worst ideas in the history of human nature? Or am I just an embittered and sad git who is angry at his own self-inflicted lack of success with the opposite sex? Either way, please do enlighten me as I've given up trying to make sense of the whole damn thing!
Monday 8 October 2001
The Eve of the War
Although too alarmist in parts, I think I was pretty much on the money when I talked of how one side wanted this war to polarise the world into 2 camps. Unfortunately, I wasn't pessimistic enough in saying that only one side wanted that outcome.
So, the war has started. We all looked forward to it with an increasingly resigned sense of dread and so it is no big surprise. There remains only one main question to be answered; will this war be televised?
Jesus, am I really that jaded about the onset of what may develop into WWIII? Well, pretty much so if I'm honest. America is rather less comfortable with being at war since Sept. 11th as they now have to face the very real prospect of terrorist retaliation at any time and in any place. We as their foremost allies must face that same prospect. However, at the risk of sounding smug, we've had to live with the prospect of terrorism for 30 years and so it has caused fewer ripples here. After all, the IRA were (and still probably are to a lesser extent) funded by America for years (The terrorist group ETA must be kicking themselves for not having more Basque's in America than there are in the whole of Spain; it certainly worked a treat for the IRA). Osama Bin Laden was trained by the CIA, as were many of the Mujahadin groups in Afghanistan. In effect we've simply swapped one US created problem for another. At least this time we know that we're not the only country who will have to push that fear of terrorism to the back of our minds in order to get on with our day. (Incidentally, what exactly is "State Sponsored Terrorism"? Does a man knock on the door of a country's embassy with an sponsorship form asking for money for little Achmed's sponsored suicide bombing?)
Anyway, after the 4 weeks of hype and building up of tension the air assaults were launched and were met with a reaction of...well, I think it was best summed up when somebody said that "...it's not as good as the Gulf War is it? I mean, there's hardly anything about it on the TV and the pictures aren't very good." All in all the effect thus far has been of a public who, having had the onset of hostilities hyped up as much as Titanic, have found that what is on their screens is more like Battlefield: Earth. Besides, the US and UK airforce's regularly drop bombs all over Iraq and those events form little more than a footnote on page 12 of the newspaper. Isn't this just a case of "Same shit, different country"?
No. No it damn well isn't. This little war-ette has the potential to become something quite remarkably frightening. Granted, it also has the possibility of fizzling out and sweeping the board at the Razzie Awards (perhaps winning the coveted titles of "Most Unjustifiably Hyped War", "War least likely to lead to Nuclear Holocaust", and "Most Welcome distraction from the Recession"). But this conflict could be the spark that polarises the world into two opposing camps, and that is something that the Gulf War never realistically threatened to do.
Seeing as I've started out with the Gulf War comparison, I may as well continue with the theme. Firstly I'll deal with my most frivolous point; the Televised War. Pretty much everybody remembers the TV coverage of the Gulf War. Entertaining wasn't it? It was like being an observer to the world's biggest video game! Coupled with the extraordinarily low amount of Allied casualties over the course of the war (the US army killed more allied soldiers than the Iraqi's...) the TV helped to reassure the West that we were still the big kids in the playground. We knew that we were winning because we could see exactly where the missiles were landing. All the missile-mounted camera's failed to do was flash up the address of the target in the corner of the screen! The TV was our friend.
I don't think it will be this time round. Afghanistan has no infrastructure worth speaking of, nor does it have much in the way of industry. Therefore, our fireworks display will be a lot less spectacular this time round (who wants to see footage of a cruise missile destroying a 4x4 with mounted machine gun when we've already seen one blowing up a Baghdad airfield?). Secondly, the ground war is not the foregone conclusion that it was in the Gulf. The Iraqi army was bombed and carpet-bombed for weeks, and they weren't exactly a credible threat to allied ground forces in the first place. The Taliban have scattered to an extent anyway and so are less vulnerable to bombing, and they will almost certainly do what they did when the USSR rolled in; disperse to the mountains and cause mayhem from there. So this time the US will have competition in the contest to see who can kill the most allied soldiers. I doubt that the TV will show the undoubtedly bloody and ferocious fighting that will be the norm after the ground war commences. It's one thing to watch a war that one has little danger of losing. It's quite another to watch, say, the aftermath of a massacre in a valley which would see almost 100 allied soldiers lying butchered whilst the Taliban guerrillas whoop victoriously in their village.
Then we have the religious angle to consider. Bin Laden claims to be acting in the best interests of Islam when he urges Moslems everywhere to rise up against the Great Satan. He's not of course, but that is by the by. He wants to see the world split into two camps; believers and infidels. There is no half way house here. You are either with him or against him (a phrase which I shall come back to later). He has also built up large-scale international support amongst the people of the Middle East simply because he opposes America. Saddam Hussein was an altogether different prospect; here was a nationalist dictator who had little or no time for religion. He didn't much care for what one's religious background, just as long as his orders were carried out. When he may a brief and desperate call for a Jihad against America and the UK he was pretty much universally ignored despite the fact that he had launched missiles against Israel (normally a pretty safe bet if one wishes to gain the support of fanatics who claim to be Moslem). Unlike Hussein, Bin Laden has a proven record for fighting in the name of Islam so who is to say that he will not become a rallying point for all of those who despise America (and there are a lot of them, make no mistake)?
When the Gulf War began, the world was pretty much united in it's support of the liberation of Kuwait (although perhaps we should ignore the fact that the only reason that they did it was to safeguard the flow of oil from the region). The same cannot be said today. Iran is schizophrenic in it's approach as it has a Prime Minister who seems to support the action against the Taliban and a Supreme Leader who wants to keep it firmly mired in it's USA-hating past (it's probably best to think of it in terms of what would happen in the UK if Blair was still PM and Thatcher was Queen; not a very pretty picture really so let us move on...). Malaysia has come out in opposition to the attacks, and the Moslems of Indonesia seem less than happy. The remaining Moslem nations who support the bombing are all lead by autocratic governments. What they say and what the people of those nations say is not necessarily the same thing. Bin Laden is doing his best to encourage support among the fanatical Islamic groups in Saudi Arabia, Egypt etc. It may well turn out that those nations have to start denouncing the US and UK in order to keep their own people happy (and save their own skin of course).
Do we think that the US, UK, and whomever else have joined the party by then will simply stop? Can anyone see Bush or Blair making a broadly cheered speech where they make it clear that "...due to the opposition to this war that has sprung up among our allies, we shall withdraw from Afghanistan and rely on the UN to bring Bin Laden to justice"? Especially if they haven't captured or killed Bin Laden? It's not going to happen really, is it? And as has been said by numerous American politicians, "If you're not with us, you're against us!" (Told you I'd come back to it). So it's not beyond the realms of possibility to find a large portion of the Middle East withdrawing support from the US, which could in turn lead to them being cast in the same light as the Taliban. In other words, we could find ourselves facing a war between the Western and Moslem worlds. This is what Bin Laden wants in the first place, so you can bet he won't miss the chance to try and make it happen.
So, the war has started. We all looked forward to it with an increasingly resigned sense of dread and so it is no big surprise. There remains only one main question to be answered; will this war be televised?
Jesus, am I really that jaded about the onset of what may develop into WWIII? Well, pretty much so if I'm honest. America is rather less comfortable with being at war since Sept. 11th as they now have to face the very real prospect of terrorist retaliation at any time and in any place. We as their foremost allies must face that same prospect. However, at the risk of sounding smug, we've had to live with the prospect of terrorism for 30 years and so it has caused fewer ripples here. After all, the IRA were (and still probably are to a lesser extent) funded by America for years (The terrorist group ETA must be kicking themselves for not having more Basque's in America than there are in the whole of Spain; it certainly worked a treat for the IRA). Osama Bin Laden was trained by the CIA, as were many of the Mujahadin groups in Afghanistan. In effect we've simply swapped one US created problem for another. At least this time we know that we're not the only country who will have to push that fear of terrorism to the back of our minds in order to get on with our day. (Incidentally, what exactly is "State Sponsored Terrorism"? Does a man knock on the door of a country's embassy with an sponsorship form asking for money for little Achmed's sponsored suicide bombing?)
Anyway, after the 4 weeks of hype and building up of tension the air assaults were launched and were met with a reaction of...well, I think it was best summed up when somebody said that "...it's not as good as the Gulf War is it? I mean, there's hardly anything about it on the TV and the pictures aren't very good." All in all the effect thus far has been of a public who, having had the onset of hostilities hyped up as much as Titanic, have found that what is on their screens is more like Battlefield: Earth. Besides, the US and UK airforce's regularly drop bombs all over Iraq and those events form little more than a footnote on page 12 of the newspaper. Isn't this just a case of "Same shit, different country"?
No. No it damn well isn't. This little war-ette has the potential to become something quite remarkably frightening. Granted, it also has the possibility of fizzling out and sweeping the board at the Razzie Awards (perhaps winning the coveted titles of "Most Unjustifiably Hyped War", "War least likely to lead to Nuclear Holocaust", and "Most Welcome distraction from the Recession"). But this conflict could be the spark that polarises the world into two opposing camps, and that is something that the Gulf War never realistically threatened to do.
Seeing as I've started out with the Gulf War comparison, I may as well continue with the theme. Firstly I'll deal with my most frivolous point; the Televised War. Pretty much everybody remembers the TV coverage of the Gulf War. Entertaining wasn't it? It was like being an observer to the world's biggest video game! Coupled with the extraordinarily low amount of Allied casualties over the course of the war (the US army killed more allied soldiers than the Iraqi's...) the TV helped to reassure the West that we were still the big kids in the playground. We knew that we were winning because we could see exactly where the missiles were landing. All the missile-mounted camera's failed to do was flash up the address of the target in the corner of the screen! The TV was our friend.
I don't think it will be this time round. Afghanistan has no infrastructure worth speaking of, nor does it have much in the way of industry. Therefore, our fireworks display will be a lot less spectacular this time round (who wants to see footage of a cruise missile destroying a 4x4 with mounted machine gun when we've already seen one blowing up a Baghdad airfield?). Secondly, the ground war is not the foregone conclusion that it was in the Gulf. The Iraqi army was bombed and carpet-bombed for weeks, and they weren't exactly a credible threat to allied ground forces in the first place. The Taliban have scattered to an extent anyway and so are less vulnerable to bombing, and they will almost certainly do what they did when the USSR rolled in; disperse to the mountains and cause mayhem from there. So this time the US will have competition in the contest to see who can kill the most allied soldiers. I doubt that the TV will show the undoubtedly bloody and ferocious fighting that will be the norm after the ground war commences. It's one thing to watch a war that one has little danger of losing. It's quite another to watch, say, the aftermath of a massacre in a valley which would see almost 100 allied soldiers lying butchered whilst the Taliban guerrillas whoop victoriously in their village.
Then we have the religious angle to consider. Bin Laden claims to be acting in the best interests of Islam when he urges Moslems everywhere to rise up against the Great Satan. He's not of course, but that is by the by. He wants to see the world split into two camps; believers and infidels. There is no half way house here. You are either with him or against him (a phrase which I shall come back to later). He has also built up large-scale international support amongst the people of the Middle East simply because he opposes America. Saddam Hussein was an altogether different prospect; here was a nationalist dictator who had little or no time for religion. He didn't much care for what one's religious background, just as long as his orders were carried out. When he may a brief and desperate call for a Jihad against America and the UK he was pretty much universally ignored despite the fact that he had launched missiles against Israel (normally a pretty safe bet if one wishes to gain the support of fanatics who claim to be Moslem). Unlike Hussein, Bin Laden has a proven record for fighting in the name of Islam so who is to say that he will not become a rallying point for all of those who despise America (and there are a lot of them, make no mistake)?
When the Gulf War began, the world was pretty much united in it's support of the liberation of Kuwait (although perhaps we should ignore the fact that the only reason that they did it was to safeguard the flow of oil from the region). The same cannot be said today. Iran is schizophrenic in it's approach as it has a Prime Minister who seems to support the action against the Taliban and a Supreme Leader who wants to keep it firmly mired in it's USA-hating past (it's probably best to think of it in terms of what would happen in the UK if Blair was still PM and Thatcher was Queen; not a very pretty picture really so let us move on...). Malaysia has come out in opposition to the attacks, and the Moslems of Indonesia seem less than happy. The remaining Moslem nations who support the bombing are all lead by autocratic governments. What they say and what the people of those nations say is not necessarily the same thing. Bin Laden is doing his best to encourage support among the fanatical Islamic groups in Saudi Arabia, Egypt etc. It may well turn out that those nations have to start denouncing the US and UK in order to keep their own people happy (and save their own skin of course).
Do we think that the US, UK, and whomever else have joined the party by then will simply stop? Can anyone see Bush or Blair making a broadly cheered speech where they make it clear that "...due to the opposition to this war that has sprung up among our allies, we shall withdraw from Afghanistan and rely on the UN to bring Bin Laden to justice"? Especially if they haven't captured or killed Bin Laden? It's not going to happen really, is it? And as has been said by numerous American politicians, "If you're not with us, you're against us!" (Told you I'd come back to it). So it's not beyond the realms of possibility to find a large portion of the Middle East withdrawing support from the US, which could in turn lead to them being cast in the same light as the Taliban. In other words, we could find ourselves facing a war between the Western and Moslem worlds. This is what Bin Laden wants in the first place, so you can bet he won't miss the chance to try and make it happen.
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