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.
Tuesday, 13 November 2001
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.
Tuesday, 2 October 2001
9/11 Distractions
A month after 9/11, and the haze of shock was clearing from my mind. A stark and unpleasant reality now had to be faced.
Though I've tried (God knows, I've tried) to find something in the news to talk about, it always comes back to the Big Story. It's not as if I'd be short of material at the moment; Darth Tory's election to the Conservative Party leadership has the promise of being one of the most unintentionally funny moves in political history. Here is a man who physically resembles William Hague's older, less vivacious brother and, judging by some of his initial cabinet appointments, mentally resembles Margaret Thatcher's younger, less stable son. However, I shall hold to my promise to leave him alone for a while. I do so for 3 main reasons;
1: It's impossible to judge a man as a leader when he makes his debut in such interesting times.
2: He may end up driving moderate Tory's out of the Party and into the waiting LibDems and I'm worried that if I start to blather about that at length that I might jinx it.
3: I can't be bothered to talk about such an irrelevance as the Tories when there are things that are far more pertinent going on in the world.
It's not as if I'd just be limited to the political scene. After all, it's not every day that one of our Royals makes a balls up the like of which occurred last week. Okay, that's patently not true, but usually they at least have the benefit of being able to close ranks. After having seen the blatant dishonesty employed by the Production Company owned by the more pointless of his two brothers, Prince Charles is somewhat miffed. And who can blame him when the only media group to break the gentleman’s agreement not to film Prince William at University is the only one owned by a gentleman? It would seem that the upper classes could still teach the "gutter press" a thing or two about corruption and venality.
The secrecy surrounding William's University life also gives me further grounds to suspect that he will be a King whom I can admire. After all, it's only 2 years ago since the young Prince went on a week long cruise accompanied only by a dozen plump chested young lovelies. If his University career continues along the same vein as that, indeed if he just behaves like any normal 18-19 year old who finds himself away from home for the first substantial period of time in his life, then we may have a figurehead who is actually a little more representative of the British People. He already has a couple of bonus'; his Grand-dad is Greek so he'll have no trouble adjusting to the University Male diet of Kebabs. His Auntie Margaret could no doubt teach him a thing or two about binge drinking. And he only need look at his Mum's fate to develop the total mistrust of Moslems that this country will no doubt see over the coming months....
Also, if one were to, for example, wish to talk about Northern Ireland and the imminent end of the Northern Irish Assembly followed closely by the end of the cease-fire, one would have no shortage of reports coming from the province to draw upon. A group known as the Red Hand Defenders over the weekend murdered a journalist. Leaving aside the fact that their name immediately brings to mind the US children’s TV programme "The Red Hand Gang" ( a programme that sticks in my mind for 2 reasons; the theme tune which sort of went La la la la la, La La-la, Lalalalalalalala-La and so on and so forth, and the unfortunately named James Bond III whom if memory serves played the gangly black boy in the show.) this is a very serious and bad thing. The RHD is a cover name for the main Protestant groups the UDA et al. Aside from showcasing their obvious love of acronyms, the incident shows that the loyalists are not willing to stick to the cease-fire when it doesn't suit them. Which tends to suggest that the republicans won't. When coupled with the fact that Sinn Fein are on the cusp of being booted out of the NI assembly (whether it gets suspended or not) one can see that perhaps this New War on Terrorism will not just be confined to distant, mountainous area of land full of bugger all.
I don't have to just look at domestic affairs either. Former US President Clinton has found himself disbarred from the Supreme Court as part of the plea bargain that was struck during the Lewinsky scandal. This allows me to rejoice in the news that I now have something in common with Bill Clinton (apart of course from having gotten a blow job off somebody that he really shouldn't have), and that is information that I intend to use just as soon as I head down to Oxford to "accidentally" bump into his daughter (who I am thankful to say has changed an awful lot since her Dad first took office. She's still not as nice as Dubya's delightful daughters are though...).
Yet such is the level of activity in the news that I would not even need to confine myself to the ruling classes unless I desired to do so. Yesterday saw the father and stepmother of 6 year old Lauren Wright convicted of her manslaughter after having treated her to 18 months of sustained abuse. What is even more horrendous about the case is that it has provided the media with a bona fide Wicked Stepmother. Lauren's father was culpable for her death in that he turned a blind eye to what was going on (and so I now understand just what is meant by "blinded by love"). And what was going on? Oh, the usual sort of things; beating, starvation, neglect, torture. And you know what the worst thing about it is? It really is "the usual sort of thing". I mean for God's sake! I have a healthy attitude to small children in that I hate them and don't want to spend any time in their company. But to systematically beat and torture a child to death...I know I am of a liberal nature and have repeatedly stated that I believe in the benefits of rehabilitation for offenders, but when one hears of cases like this one can see exactly why the hang-em-and-flog-em brigade have such a strong following.
But no, such is the climate of the world that it is not really possible for me to talk about such things, not really. After all, by the time I come to write my next faltering words the world will almost certainly have changed again. We will have changed from a world outraged at the acts of 11th September to a world waging war on those responsible. If I were sure that this would lead to the world becoming lighter by a few thousand fanatical morons then I would rejoice. If it could be further guaranteed that no more innocent people would die because of this, I would rejoice. Funnily enough I'm not rejoicing. Such is war I suppose. Can we get it over with please?
Though I've tried (God knows, I've tried) to find something in the news to talk about, it always comes back to the Big Story. It's not as if I'd be short of material at the moment; Darth Tory's election to the Conservative Party leadership has the promise of being one of the most unintentionally funny moves in political history. Here is a man who physically resembles William Hague's older, less vivacious brother and, judging by some of his initial cabinet appointments, mentally resembles Margaret Thatcher's younger, less stable son. However, I shall hold to my promise to leave him alone for a while. I do so for 3 main reasons;
1: It's impossible to judge a man as a leader when he makes his debut in such interesting times.
2: He may end up driving moderate Tory's out of the Party and into the waiting LibDems and I'm worried that if I start to blather about that at length that I might jinx it.
3: I can't be bothered to talk about such an irrelevance as the Tories when there are things that are far more pertinent going on in the world.
It's not as if I'd just be limited to the political scene. After all, it's not every day that one of our Royals makes a balls up the like of which occurred last week. Okay, that's patently not true, but usually they at least have the benefit of being able to close ranks. After having seen the blatant dishonesty employed by the Production Company owned by the more pointless of his two brothers, Prince Charles is somewhat miffed. And who can blame him when the only media group to break the gentleman’s agreement not to film Prince William at University is the only one owned by a gentleman? It would seem that the upper classes could still teach the "gutter press" a thing or two about corruption and venality.
The secrecy surrounding William's University life also gives me further grounds to suspect that he will be a King whom I can admire. After all, it's only 2 years ago since the young Prince went on a week long cruise accompanied only by a dozen plump chested young lovelies. If his University career continues along the same vein as that, indeed if he just behaves like any normal 18-19 year old who finds himself away from home for the first substantial period of time in his life, then we may have a figurehead who is actually a little more representative of the British People. He already has a couple of bonus'; his Grand-dad is Greek so he'll have no trouble adjusting to the University Male diet of Kebabs. His Auntie Margaret could no doubt teach him a thing or two about binge drinking. And he only need look at his Mum's fate to develop the total mistrust of Moslems that this country will no doubt see over the coming months....
Also, if one were to, for example, wish to talk about Northern Ireland and the imminent end of the Northern Irish Assembly followed closely by the end of the cease-fire, one would have no shortage of reports coming from the province to draw upon. A group known as the Red Hand Defenders over the weekend murdered a journalist. Leaving aside the fact that their name immediately brings to mind the US children’s TV programme "The Red Hand Gang" ( a programme that sticks in my mind for 2 reasons; the theme tune which sort of went La la la la la, La La-la, Lalalalalalalala-La and so on and so forth, and the unfortunately named James Bond III whom if memory serves played the gangly black boy in the show.) this is a very serious and bad thing. The RHD is a cover name for the main Protestant groups the UDA et al. Aside from showcasing their obvious love of acronyms, the incident shows that the loyalists are not willing to stick to the cease-fire when it doesn't suit them. Which tends to suggest that the republicans won't. When coupled with the fact that Sinn Fein are on the cusp of being booted out of the NI assembly (whether it gets suspended or not) one can see that perhaps this New War on Terrorism will not just be confined to distant, mountainous area of land full of bugger all.
I don't have to just look at domestic affairs either. Former US President Clinton has found himself disbarred from the Supreme Court as part of the plea bargain that was struck during the Lewinsky scandal. This allows me to rejoice in the news that I now have something in common with Bill Clinton (apart of course from having gotten a blow job off somebody that he really shouldn't have), and that is information that I intend to use just as soon as I head down to Oxford to "accidentally" bump into his daughter (who I am thankful to say has changed an awful lot since her Dad first took office. She's still not as nice as Dubya's delightful daughters are though...).
Yet such is the level of activity in the news that I would not even need to confine myself to the ruling classes unless I desired to do so. Yesterday saw the father and stepmother of 6 year old Lauren Wright convicted of her manslaughter after having treated her to 18 months of sustained abuse. What is even more horrendous about the case is that it has provided the media with a bona fide Wicked Stepmother. Lauren's father was culpable for her death in that he turned a blind eye to what was going on (and so I now understand just what is meant by "blinded by love"). And what was going on? Oh, the usual sort of things; beating, starvation, neglect, torture. And you know what the worst thing about it is? It really is "the usual sort of thing". I mean for God's sake! I have a healthy attitude to small children in that I hate them and don't want to spend any time in their company. But to systematically beat and torture a child to death...I know I am of a liberal nature and have repeatedly stated that I believe in the benefits of rehabilitation for offenders, but when one hears of cases like this one can see exactly why the hang-em-and-flog-em brigade have such a strong following.
But no, such is the climate of the world that it is not really possible for me to talk about such things, not really. After all, by the time I come to write my next faltering words the world will almost certainly have changed again. We will have changed from a world outraged at the acts of 11th September to a world waging war on those responsible. If I were sure that this would lead to the world becoming lighter by a few thousand fanatical morons then I would rejoice. If it could be further guaranteed that no more innocent people would die because of this, I would rejoice. Funnily enough I'm not rejoicing. Such is war I suppose. Can we get it over with please?
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