Selfish Talking

Selfish talking is a pretty straightforward and recognisable concept. The most basic form is that conversation where two parties are each talking AT each other, where there is no space between each person finishing for the other to have possibly digested what they've said and where each small gap in someone's speech is punctuated by the other starting their side of the conversation. If you're lucky, you might observe both parties repeatedly starting their sentences together until the loudest person wins and the other person sullenly backs down, defeated but at least grateful to have more time to think more about how best to phrase their own incongruous contribution as soon as they find a gap.

So that's the obvious form. Another common and obvious form is the listener who'll let you finish your piece and digest it and listen and such, but whose own contribution will still be subtly about them and nothing to do with you. There are a few tell-tale verbal indicators with this kind of conversational input:

"I know! The same thing happened to me when..." followed by an inappropriate and irrelevant personal anecdote.

"Yeah, it's like the time that..." followed by an inappropriate and irrelevant personal anecdote.

"Well it's just like I was saying when..." followed by an inappropriate and irrelevant personal anecdote.

***

Yeah, there's a bit of a pattern there. It's all about control, and shifting the train tracks of a conversation until it rolls into a station of your choice, from where a person can be the focal point and assert their own dominance. And virtually everyone does it, (needless to add for those who know me) myself included.

I don't say this to sound profound, because there's nothing profound about what I'm saying, and everyone is already aware of how nearly everyone will, at some point, try and dominate/hijack a conversation. I only mention it because I recently had a wonderful conversation with a genuinely selfless talker and their influence gradually made me less and less selfish until we were both swimming in a sea of ecstatic no-you-go-firsts and wow-that's-interesting-tell-me-mores that glided by with no self-conscious effort on either side. I made a post a while ago about how exhausting small talk is. But it doesn't have to be. Find those people who make it easy and selfless, and treasure them.

Realistic New Year

Traditionally the time for short-term resolution and determination, the new year buzz is an easy target for a degraded cynic. There's fat people pretending they'll lose weight, skinny celebrities pretending they'll gain it, and all manner of exciting physical and mental challenges set by people drunk on the excesses of the festive season.

But, as much as I love an easy target which reduces the need to fully exercise my brain or acerbic facetiousness, it must be considered at least somewhat admirable that people acknowledge an area in themselves that they wish to change and thus resolve to change it. Certainly it's more worthy than the complacency which allows the person completely devoid of self-criticism to sustain themselves.

So, where do I go from here, having acknowledged that self-improvement isn't necessarily worthy of disdain? I go to the next easy target I can find - the emotionally frail and easily suggestible.

I recently read this blog post - 30 Things To Stop Doing To Yourself (opens in new window) - and unlike anything I've ever written, it appears to be uplifting and popular. Although published in early December, it's exactly the sort of the post-Christmas platitudinous tough love that we all crave - a handy list of the most essential self-improvements.

The problem with it, and similar lists, is that its resolutions are impractical, unmeasurable, facile and occasionally downright wrong:

Here a few examples:

3 - Stop Lying To Yourself
5 - Stop Trying To Be Someone You're Not
These two fall under the facile category because they fundamentally misunderstand basic human nature, which consists very significantly and vitally of self-delusion. People need to be shielded from themselves because it's a way of protecting their mental state from the harsh reality of the mess they really are. Number 3's paragraph actually says that the one person you can't lie to is yourself, which is patently bullshit. Confabulation is a recognised trait that everyone displays, for example when creating fictional narratives to explain actions they've taken or trying to explain the origin of emotional states that the person is completely clueless about.

No. 5 undermines the rest of the list because you'd have to be someone you're not in order to make changes to yourself. If I want to "stop being ungrateful" (no. 30), I have to act like a more grateful person, repressing the feelings of ungratefulness that are my more natural state, and forcibly change myself, suppressing the person I truly am.

20 - Stop Wasting Time Explaining Yourself To Others
28 - Stop Trying To Be Everything To Everyone
The first one here is both vague and dangerous.  Down the path of refusing to explain yourself lies arrogance and a refusal to confront one's own shortcomings. Its failure is compounded by the accompanying sentence: "Just do what you know in your heart is right." How could the author think that encouraging gullible and hapless followers to think "I don't have to explain myself to you. I know in my heart that what I did was right" could ever be a healthy way for people to progress? I'm not sure what the second one even means. Is it a command for people to be more selfish? Less changeable? More apathetic? Perhaps I'm an exceptionally selfish person, but to how many people does no. 28 even apply?

19 - Stop Letting Others Bring You Down To Their Level
Ah, vague and sort-of hard to disagree with. Platitudinous bliss. How many people who are routinely brought down to others' levels (however that's assessed) only do so because they haven't realised that it's probably not a good thing? Will someone read this and say "Hmm... ordinarily I'd feel comfortable degrading myself and lowering myself to the same level as 'others', but now this short sentence has directed me down a new path"? There's no accompanying practical explanation, just a second sentence restating the first in different words.

I won't go on, because this post is already so long that no one will read it, or even credibly suggest they have read it. I could write anything here and it'll never be read. So, down here, after everyone's lost interest, I'm going to bury the bit where I agree with the list:

17 - Stop Complaining And Feeling Sorry For Yourself 
26 - Stop Blaming Others For Your Troubles
Although, as before, these two are inadequately explained, they are useful if followed. So, how does one follow them properly? I've no idea, but then I'm not claiming to offer "PRACTICAL TIPS FOR PRODUCTIVE LIVING" as the author of "30 Things To Stop Doing To Yourself" is. My own modest contribution is to argue that one of the first steps towards any self-improvement is to acknowledge that one is the main agent for change in one's life and thus to take responsibility for yourself (no. 26). That's not to say that you shouldn't feel angry and resentful towards the people who've helped cause your troubles (and who would argue that it's possible to repress those feelings anyway?). But anyway, such a nuance is impossible when one glibly makes a list of short commands all beginning with "Stop".

Regarding no. 17, I would agree that self-pitying is damaging. I would argue this because it stops people from progressing practically or emotionally. It's so easily written and so much harder to achieve. But that's because you can't read a short list of desirable areas of self-improvement and expect to actually achieve anything by doing so. To quote Lisa Simpson (which is how all powerful paragraph-ending sentences start), "Self-improvement can be achieved but not with a quick fix. It's a long, arduous journey of personal... discovery."

As I stroll into the grey areas of hypocrisy, I'm rather disgusted at my own glibness here. I've tentatively agreed with 2 of the author's points and have written two medium-length paragraphs about why and I still feel as though this has been very inadequately explained or explored. I've no idea how the original author can reel off 30 sentences and expect them to be read as "practical" self-help. But then many people have commented positively on what he's written, so what the fuck do I know?

Last and First Men

What a fantastically ambitious and far-reaching novel Olaf Stapledon has written. I've just finished reading this. It's like H G Wells but more satisfying because fewer people know about it. It reads like high literature but tackles issues of time and space. Is it literature or sci-fi? Who cares, it was written in 1930 and the distinction would be nonsensical, because sci-fi didn't quite exist as a separate entity. The afterword informs me that the author himself would find the attempted division ludicrous, and that was good enough for me. Anyway, that's enough of a tangent.

The basic premise of the book is a brief history of time, from our own (1930s) era through world conflict, a simple story based on an imagining of the future. But it goes on, and on, through different species of human, their different ideas and characteristics. In all, 18 species of human exist, first on the Earth, then on Venus, then on Neptune, where the race ends. I'm not really one for synopses. Even that one has exhausted me.

Reading this so long after it was written is cruel to the author, because of the inherent difficulties an author has in trying to predict a possible future without framing everything in the context of his own times. Hence even the most advanced species rely heavily on "overalls" and "hoes and spades", because the author isn't aware that all future races actually wear foil and spandex, and he hadn't encountered the rudimentary robots which would have fed his imagination with new ideas for mechanical domestic help. And although some of the species of human eventually achieve varying levels of telepathic ability, there is no intermediate technological advance in the fields of communication to match this. Could it have been so hard to predict and augment the Internet? Luckily, he wrote after the advent of aviation, so that advanced races do experience the luxury of personal "flying craft", and even the occasional "ether ship".

But of course these facetiously-noticed petty peccadilloes take nothing away from the genius of the book, which has inspired so many. Arthur C Clarke said of it: "no book before or since has ever had such an impact on my imagination." It is a hugely imaginative cosmological journey that Stapledon takes us through, but the highlight for me is the sentence-by-sentence structure, vocabulary and, dare I say it, poetry. To pick one (almost) at random, when speaking of one of the species' view on the death of their fellow man, he describes it as "an irrevocable tragedy, an utter annihilation of the most resplendent kind of glory, an impoverishment of the cosmos for evermore." This one stuck with me so I made a note of it.

Not only that, but he teaches us important life-lessons:

"There is something else, too, which is a part of growing up - to see that life is really, after all, a game; a terribly serious game, no doubt, but none the less a game. When we play a game, as it should be played, we strain every muscle to win; but all the while we care less for winning than for the game. Ad we play the better for it."

But, but before we gain too much levity, we are also reminded that "thus the whole duration of humanity, with its many sequent species and its incessant downpour of generations, is but a flash in the lifetime of the cosmos."

I noticed that after reading substantial portions of the book, I looked at the world with a distant gaze, smiling wryly at the minutiae of every day life. Early in the book, our "First" humans stashed a huge vault-full of human knowledge in a cave, that it should never be lost. I thought that the retention of that knowledge would be pivotal to the cultural survival of man. It mattered slightly for a few thousand years, or perhaps 30 pages, but it meant nothing once hundreds of generations had passed, each with their own ideas of what's important, indispensable, sacred. In the end, it mattered not. It was a strangely liberating thought, not getting bogged down in the little things. I felt almost Buddhist. I didn't even bother shaving that day, such was its ascetic appeal.

So I would agree with Mr Clarke on the novel's influential properties. For example, I learned that life is an insignificant game. Life may be "but a flash in the lifetime of the cosmos", but it's still a game.

My Quiet Apocalypse

I was out walking my dog when the end of the world landed a few roads away. I didn't see where it had come from and, back then, I didn't know the reasons behind it. But it landed shortly after 8pm on a lazy Sunday. Seeing the distant glow, my dog whimpered. When the noise followed very shortly afterwards, he bounded away, howling in fear, or perhaps pain. I didn't chase after him because the sight and the noise had arrested my attention. I could see a distant volcano of embers showering my town and engulfing it in orange haze. I wandered, feeling strangely ethereal, towards the glow.

As I approached the pandemonium, I saw a man lying on the floor, holding his stomach tightly, trying to contain his own entrails. I gave him my coat to press against his abdomen but he fell down dead shortly after. I picked up my coat and dusted off the mess and put it back on. I walked on.

Fire rained down from my girlfriend's flat but I didn't feel it when it scorched my skin. I walked in, brushing past a red-faced screaming woman holding a blistered baby. We made eye-contact but I looked away. My girlfriend's floor had disappeared and only fire and debris remained so I walked away from the building. I couldn't see the woman, but the baby was lying in the doorway, grasping at the embers as they cascaded around it.

Someone pushed past me and knocked me to the ground. I stood up and brushed myself down, wetting my fingers in the blood of the dead man on my jacket. I tried to wipe my hand off on a nearby car, but it was hot and dusty, so I wiped it on my jeans instead. I saw people taking bottles of wine from a battered off-licence and took one from a small boy as he ran from the shop, past me. He shouted something at me but it was impossible to hear or see what he'd said, so I turned away.

My head felt hazy, and my vision began to seem blurry. I almost tripped over a corpse in the middle of the road. A thick dust descended and made it more difficult to see. Someone ran into me, screaming, red-eyed, wild. I pushed him over, feeling sluggishly aggressive. I stumbled for a few more minutes through the jungle of maddened creatures. I seemed to be going against the flow, but I found my way to the safety of a brick wall, and then a doorway, and I leant against it, coughing. Feeling ever more sluggish, I crouched down, wheezing heavily. And then I sat down and went to sleep.

Pop-Psychology

One of the great pleasures in life is shallow pop-psychology, partly because it's so useful for understanding and interpreting people and their interactions, and partly because talking about it annoys those people who've actually spent years studying the science. At this point of confrontation between the experts and the amateurs, we the amateurs chortle merrily and say, "but these are the most interesting aspects of psychology, and I can learn about them from the Internet! Why would I want to waste years scratching any further beneath the surface of this science and bore myself with facts about the efficacy of barbiturates?" I appreciate the commitment of psychologists who've done the legwork in researching and verifying experiments, but virtually no one cares about anything beyond the headline.

That's why I, and all my lazily pseudo-intellectual kind, can appreciate the genius of a website like YouAreNotSoSmart.com, a handy synthesis of psychological phenomena both well-established and recondite. Each phenomenon is packed into a web post the size of a small chapter for comprehensive but digestible consumption. What I've learnt from these brief forays into psychology is that most of the brain's pop-psychology functions are concerned with self-delusion and self-preservation.

Confirmation bias? Fanboyism? The Benjamin Franklin effect? (Look them all up. I wouldn't do them justice). All of these are concerned with keeping the brain from frying in its own contradictions as we battle through life lying to ourselves and each other. The Benjamin Franklin effect especially brings home this truth.* When confronted with a reality which seems bizarre or incomprehensible to us, do we adjust our realities and expectations in order that we may better understand our surroundings and attain an awareness of the objective "truth"? Ha, no. We delude ourselves. We retroactively adjust our goals. We even go so far as to distort the things we've actually experienced and warp our own memories, because, for some reason, this is an altogether more agreeable solution to the contradictions than, say, confronting our own fallibility.

In many ways this is unsurprising. We're idiots. We're easily led. That's not an immense revelation.

Still, that's the real beauty of pop-psychology. It tells us things we already know, but in mock-authoritative fashion.

*http://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/10/05/the-benjamin-franklin-effect/

Last and First Men

From Olaf Stapledon's Last and First Men, written in 1930, a description of Americans in a fictionalised history of the ages:

For the best of America was too weak to withstand the worst. Americans had indeed contributed amply to human thought. They had helped emancipate philosophy from ancient fetters. They had serviced science by lavish and rigorous research. In astronomy, favoured by their costly instruments and clear atmosphere, they had done much to reveal the dispositions of ther stars and galaxies. In literature, though often they behaved as barbarians, they had also conceived new modes of expression, and moods of thought not easily appreciated in Europe... Their best minds faced old problems of theory and of valuation with a fresh innocence and courage, so that fogs of superstition were cleared away whenever these choice Americans were present. But these best were after all a minority in a huge wilderness of opinionated self-deceivers, in whom, surprisingly, an outworn religious dogma was championed with the intolerant optimism of youth. For this was essentiallty a race of bright, but arrested, adolescents.

New Employment, New Dangers

I've settled comfortably into my new office role. Despite expected teething problems, such as horrifying initial incompetence and why-is-no-one-else-wearing-a-suit-syndrome, it's going okay. The people, though different from my usual crowd of hapless, giggling misfits, are affable and approachable. The office, though lacking in privacy and humidity, is spacious and calming. The work and procedures, though at first bewildering, are slowly sinking in and becoming familiar and comfortable. My major current concern is the office radio.

I like good music, not popular music, ffs. I feel like an old man, or, more accurately, a fraudulent geek. I don't understand these new cultural references. Why is everyone laughing when someone says a singer sounds like Avril Lavigne? I thought it was Avril Lavigne. And, anyway, what happened to Avril after her fabulous I'm With You. Wow, that was a cool song. Pretty nifty, in fact. Hip n' shit. But I don't understand. How come some of these new-fangled accepted songs have industrial-like instrumentals on when my own music is disregarded for its "noisome" tone? For what purpose auto-tune?

And why do they only ever sing about their worthless, failed relationships, their disgusting history of the inbreeding of the vacuous and the banal, their half-baked misremembrances of fictionalised saccharine pairings, concocted in the sweaty mind of the songwriter and regurgitated by a singer devoid of personality or flair, and whose entire claim to celebrity entitlement stems from a stealthy act of fellatio gleefully delivered to an emotionless Simon Cowell at the beginning of a long and sticky journey through a well-watched but ultimately soulless reality television show?

I even had the chance to put an end to the madness today. There was some dispute in the office when the Luddites in the row behind complained that their analogue radio clashed with the echo of the DAB radio next to me. I stupidly, selflessly fixed everything by pointing out that our radio could also receive and transmit an FM signal. Now I'm stuck in the Dark Age of analogue listening to popular music.

I can feel it eroding my soul. I have to come home and bathe in the disinfectant of Black Sabbath.

But they also have a nice water cooler here. So, like, swings and roundabouts.

The Golden Mean

Studies have shown that over-indulged children have trouble relinquishing their position as the centre of attention, have trouble becoming competent in everyday self-care skills, and have trouble taking responsibility.(1) Furthermore, these over-indulged infants are more materialistic and at greater risk of depression.(2)

But are adults now any better? Are we capable of waiting for things or do we need them instantly? I'm too lazy to argue extensively or convincingly here, so here's my rash assertion: adults at large have now ceased to progress from these over-indulged, infantile babblers and remain trapped in this state of whiny gratification-seeking neediness.

Instead of blindly embarking on this hellish downward spiral (which I am too lazy to detail right now), I offer here some cheap arguments expounding the virtue of self-reliance and self-discipline. Again, the link comes from childhood. Neuroscientist Sam Wang argues that self-disciplined toddlers are more likely to grow into persistent, positive, healthy and satisfied adults.(3) And that's what every adult surely secretly craves: the discipline and self-confidence which arises from being in control of one's feelings and not wallowing. Not in a repressive sense by any means, but simply in a way which prevents us being crippled by reprehensible, criminally-selfish self-pity.

The problem is that the most immediate cultural images of the proponents of combating over-indulgence are those distant, tough-love fathers usually portrayed on television and film as emotionally-repressed, stunted beer drinkers with little regard for the vital need to vent and express oneself, and an inability to look at their children whilst they explain to them why they consistently tell them to manthefuckup. This stereotype damages the importance of the role that tough love has to play in our development.

To prevent this sullying of tough love, whilst practising our self-reliant self-discipline we must also be studiously compassionate to counterbalance the potential isolating individualism of my proposed philosophy. It's a heavy request, and not one certain of success by any stretch, but I am sufficiently optimistic to hope we are capable of differentiating between those who need help and those who actually require the tough love of a benevolent friend or guardian.

As a safeguard, our first priority should always be compassion, but, in close second must be the desire for dignity and self-reliance. The benefits of encouraging self-discipline and responsibility can never be overstated. We can move from the straw strength of a generation raised with a high-altitude emotional safety net and move towards independence and dignity, ensuring always the primacy of compassion, tolerance and warmth.

Now do it.

"I've made such stronger bonds with the people around me since I emptied out all the ugliness in my head."

- Dave McPherson, Obsession is a Young Man's Game

"Sources"

(1) http://www.counseling.org/Resources/Library/VISTAS/vistas05/Vistas05.art18.pdf
(2) http://www.overindulgence.info/Documents/Study%206%20Childhood%20OI%20and%20Life%20Aspiration%20Prelim%20Report.pdf
(3)http://bigthink.com/ideas/40003

On the Inadequacy of Headstones

It was on one of my frequent perambulations through obscure Nottingham churchyards that I noticed that almost every grave's headstone bore the inscription "In Loving Memory".

Why did everyone creating these stones think it would be a good idea to copy the inscription of virtually every other inhabitant? It's not original, it shows poor and defective thought and a lack of the true sentimentality that one would hope one's surviving relatives and friends would feel towards one post-mortem.

Personally, I can't imagine the manufacturers of headstones being responsible. After all, they've got to do a lot of carving whether or not people want to alter the standard sentence fragment. Besides, ultimate responsibility lies with those preparing the dead person's funeral.

Even if a lazy and unscrupulous funeral director did say to you, "Sorry, mate. 'In Loving Memory' or 'Gone, but not forgotten' are your only options', would you accept that? No, not if you have any regard for the recently-deceased. Instead, you launch into a semi-incomprehensible splenetic tirade, pointing out that "of course I love them (or at least want to give that impression to the other relatives and future pompous history graduates who may walk past his grave), and of course they're not forgotten. What brand of facile asininity is this, you incompetent fool?"

You may as well just write "This man/woman was alive and now they're dead. They left behind some sad people. We had some good times." At least it's more expansive. And at least it's original. There are no benefits to the standard formula. It lacks poetry and warmth.

Now, you might argue that the space for originality is underneath the "In Loving Memory". That's where you write your sentimental drivel - "The Pain of Your Passing is Eclipsed by the Warmth of the Memories You Have Given Us" - or whatever. That's where you truly demonstrate the depth of your feelings to the deceased.

No, this isn't good enough. The headstone is all that is there in the cemetery to commemorate the dead. It should be a unique testament given to celebrate a unique life. It could be blank apart from a poem (not a poem, obviously. See below) and a name, or have playful carved-doodles of phalluses, if that is part of a relevant and affectionate tribute to the person decomposing beneath. You can tailor it as much as you like, and you shouldn't be constrained by what everyone else has written first. The Loving Memory in whose name you compose your headstone can be presumed.

P.S. The one "In Loving Memory" I could bear to sanction would be:

On Poetry

You know how when people don't understand things they sometimes end up criticising or belittling them instead? I do that a lot. I'm going to do it now.* Against poetry.

But please read this disclaimer first:

I accept that poetry - the writing and appreciation of - is a noble and valuable pursuit. There is an extensive and rich cultural history of poets and poetry throughout the world, and it is written and appreciated by people who are far my intellectual, emotional and financial superiors. Many people who write poetry also write brilliant prose, and being accomplished in the art of the former is arguably conducive to excellence in the latter. Basically, anyone who would argue that poetry is in anyway irrelevant or defunct is clearly a terrible person. Good? Good.

-------

POETRY

So... here's an ironically-ragged collection of my dissatisfactions:

My objections tend around the form of poetry. For example, why should we reward disjointed phrases? Is it not the case that poetical phrases hang in the air because their author was unwilling or incapable of putting them into well-crafted and articulate prose? Is it any different from a shy and retiring author using a passive tone? Perhaps, in both cases, the writer cannot speak plainly and, in the case of poetry, must instead hide behind half-spoken sentiments and inconclusive strings of adjectives?

Fully-constructed sentences can be used to show everything from humour to outrage, affection to loathing. What do we gain from the use of irregular sentences except the shallow mystique which arises from obfuscation?

So then what do we lose with the astute use of full, flowing sentences? Perhaps a certain rhythm. Perhaps we don't read enough similes or metaphors. Perhaps we have less lurid description and imagery. But none of these problems are necessarily so when we make the transition from prose to verse, are they? I'm asking.

-------

*Despite the tone of this post, I don't feel anything negative towards those who indulge in poetry. Quite the opposite, in fact. I'm jealous of them, because, to me, poetry is irrelevant, but I feel that it shouldn't be. I don't know how to appreciate it, or write it, or credit it. I write this not to mock, but as an acknoweldgement of my own inadequacies. Look, see how scared I am of poets? These caveats have taken up more space than the bit against poetry itself.

Mark Twain: The Ugly Years

I've written before about the delights of Mark Twain in his latter, misanthropic years. But now I've been studying him in a little more detail, reading a rather good biography by Ron Powers - Mark Twain: A Life. Unfortunately, as with all of one's heroes, studying Twain reveals his ugly side, his human flaws and weaknesses, which shatter the illusion that I've had of him as a faultless machine of pure satirical incision.

For example, in his early 30s, Twain became engaged to his first wife, Olivia Langdon. And he fell in love in the most clichéd and humiliating way that anyone can fall in love, complete with the worst and most offensive love-letters ever crafted, their appalling nature magnified when contrasted with his otherwise sterling verbal and written performances at the time.

Here are a few excerpts:

"Livy, Livy, Livy darling, it is such a happiness, such a pleasure, such a luxury, to write you, that I don't know when to stop."

"P.S. -- I do LOVE you, Livy!
~
P.P.P.S. -- I do love, LOVE, LOVE you, Livy, darling.
~
P.P.P.P.P.S. -- I do love you, Livy!"

"You are so pure, so great, so good, so beautiful. How can I help loving you? ... [H]ow can I keep from worshipping you, you dear little paragon?"

"I send a thousand kisses -- pray send me some."

And so on, and so forth.

Now, I value historical accuracy as much as the next graduate, but I can't help but think that Powers has done Twain a great disservice by faithfully reproducing these inane scribbles. In a new edition, perhaps he would consider striking out all references to love and replacing them with filth and bile. Mark "the truth is the most valuable thing we have, so I try to conserve it" Twain would, I'm sure, approve.

Right now, I eagerly anticipate the time, in a few years, when multiple members of his family will start perishing so that he might unlock the genius of his latter years. No one writes their best work when they're happy and complacent.

Pity Poor David Cameron

In the wake of the riots, there has been a false dichotomy presented amongst various commentators as to how we can or should proceed. EITHER we can pepper the looters with live ammunition and make their corpses homeless OR give them an unconditional discharge and their own radio show.

At the centre of this rather flimsy pretext is a rather elegant philosophical debate about determinism.

In the Red Dwarf episode "The Inquisitor", Rimmer, when asked to justify his existence, says, "What else could I have been? My father was a half-crazed military failure, my mother was a bitch-queen from hell. My brothers had all the looks and talent. What did I have? Unmanageable hair and ingrowing toenails. Yes, I admit it. I'm nothing. But, from what I started with, nothing is up."

A similar argument is heard referring to the recent rioters (who are, for the sake of the argument, assumed to be disaffected, poor youths with a lack of parental influence): what else could they have been, it's easy for us to say, we're very white and middle class, don't know what it's like on the street, they need their voice heard etc.

This is, of course, a valid argument. People are products of their genetics and their environment. The former they have no control over, and the latter they have little control over. The problem is that, if we follow the argument to its full extent, can we ever punish anyone? If someone comes from a broken and abusive home and in term becomes abusive, is that their fault? They can't help it, shirley. And so on, and so forth. The problem is knowing where to draw the line of personal responsibility.

(Arguably, this is also a problem with religion - if people go to Heaven for believing, what of the people who didn't have the advantage of a Christian upbringing? It's not their fault, but they're still more likely to be punished for eternity.)

The person I really pity is David Cameron. Wealthy, aristocratic family, privileged upbringing, Eton, Oxford, married to a woman from a wealthy, aristocratic family. And those genetics! Not only white, he also has the chubby baby-like cheeks of the aristocracy. I ask you, with this start in life, what else could he have been but a Tory?

What about George Osborne? Multi-million pound trust fund, privileged upbringing, middle name Gideon, a sneering face incapable of showing compassion? What else could he have been?

We should show empathy and intelligence in understanding how people's start in life can influence their behaviour and ask what we can do to promote equality in light of this. But we must be consistent. When these people dismantle or even destroy our country, we must realise that they haven't always had the same opportunities and experiences that we have. And neither have the rioters.

P.S. Overheard in a restaurant last night - news of _______'s riots filtering through to a family from that city. Children's response was concern that they would no longer be able to buy their jeans from a certain burned-out shop. The atmosphere became slightly tense and awkward after I angrily (and rather pompously) suggested that I felt a lot more concern for the people who would lose their £5.93-an-hour jobs in that shop.

Rules of the (trashy) Blog

I read a lot of trashy blogs. Personal blogs of people with issues. I only read them if they're well-written, so the people who write them are obviously clever people. However, when reading them, they still feel like the equivalent of watching Jeremy Kyle in trackies - low-brow, guilty voyeurism.

I'm now going to attempt to legitimise my indulgence of these blogs by pretending I've been intensely analysing them. To that end (and avoiding any observations which might identify the blogs or their writers), I've compiled a short list of the rules a person must follow in order to create a successful trashy, personal blog.

The Good
Use of culture and current issues
Like I said previously, these bloggers appear to be of a high intellectual calibre. The successful blog will demonstrate knowledge of literature, political debates or philosophy, and often frame their otherwise self-centred musings within more globally-relevant considerations.

The Bad
Constantly relating oneself to popular fiction characters
This is a tricky one. It's usually true, because popular fiction writers (of whatever medium) get to where they are by being able to encapsulate recognisable personalities. However, when this sometimes-legitimate observation is made too often, because of very slight incidental links, it begins to look a lot like unabashed egotism.

Thinking everyone cares loads about what one has to say
Okay, I'm aware that the ironymeter is creeping up here. The problem is that writing an exclusively personal blog is perhaps unavoidably egotistical. The other problem is that those with any self-awareness are conscious of this fact whilst writing their blog. Thus, they feel the need to half-apologise for their naked self-obsession whilst continuing with it. Some writers adopt a Charlie Brooker-level of self-abuse to negate further criticisms, and some power through with complete disregard for the criticism (after all, if you don't want to read about them, don't read their blog, etc.). But, for most people, the uneasy half-acknowledgement of this conflict is the best they can offer. The successful trashy blogger will apologise semi-frequently for their self-obsession.

Hints of future greatness
This is heavily tied-up with the previous point. "Why should I write a blog? Because one day, I'll be great." (Again, the ironymeter is hovering at "wry smile".) The successful trashy blogger must at all times assume that they're the next Salinger/Plath and that their blog-work documenting their early life is VITAL. One day, hordes of biographers will be scratching around, desperate to gain insight into your genius. "Please tell me she kept a notebook, a diary, anything! Shit! I've found desperatelysmiling.blogspot.com, a record of her pre-fame thoughts and feelings. Now we can give her the understanding and attention she obviously deserves." That's how the story will go. The successful blogger MUST retain this mindset, or risk annihilation.

"Nothing ever works out for me"
Why does the trashy blogger feel the need to blog? Because their life is an unmitigated disaster. Either their life is unfair and nothing goes their way, or they're predisposed to be unsuccessful because they weren't given the gift of commitment and get-up-and-go. Either way, at least documenting their lack of success will help them feel better. Maybe it'll make other like-minded "failures" make sense of their own shortcomings? Maybe the world can at least sympathise that, were things different, the trashy-blogger would be successful. And that's worth something.

The Ugly
Copious amounts of information about one's body
Are you boobs too small? Did the big girls make fun of your hairy forearms? Or, if you're a boy, did the older boys have smoother skin and bigger muscles? The successful trashy-blogger will document all such embarrassments, and post them on the famously-private Internet. Right next to that picture of you, which identifies you as the writer and curator of the blog.

Hating the cool kids whilst aspiring to be one
This is the trashy blog at its most subtle and nuanced. A cursory glance will reveal that there is no way that the trashy-blogger would try and be like them, the arch-nemesis - the boy who called you an ugly "munter" for 3 years at high school, the girl who spread that rumour about you and the caretaker's dog. The "hating" bit is pretty straight-forward. The more elusive "aspiring" part comes from the occasional longing and wistful tone, the self-conscious desire to look as much like them as possible when posing for the photo in the "about me" section, etc. Like the best of David Attenborough, it sometimes requires a lot of patient watching, but the successful trashy blogger will eventually reveal their secret aspirations.

The lack of humour
This is pretty self-explanatory. The trashy-blog isn't here to impress you, it's here to cover you in tar and let you sink into a pit of despair. Clearly, adding humour (or even an attempt at humour) would undermine this effort.

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Well, there we go. This has gone some way towards legitimising my observation of numerous versions of the trashy-blog. There's definitely a case for accusing BtM of being partially trashy, but I think I've definitely avoided some of the more egregious rules listed above. But tell me, what do you think? I, like, really care.

The Pursuit of Privacy

I've recently been frantically deleting old posts, tweets, photos and details of my name from social networking sites, as well as tightening privacy and security settings. I've tried to get rid of anything that can too easily identify me, my interests, or my friends. I have a vague idea that this has been done for reasons of privacy. But, overall, this is a pointless and bad idea for a number of reasons.

Firstly, no one cares about my details. I'm not rich, famous, or successful. If I were planning a career in politics or the like, I could understand why I've done this, but I'm not, so I don't.

Secondly, even if someone did genuinely seek to undermine me or use my past words against me, my precautions would be ineffectual. Basically, I'm not so good at IT that I could truly protect myself from such threats online if they existed.

Thirdly, I've basically committed cultural genocide against myself:

Twitter's probably the most painful example. I've deleted tweets which might be viewed as too inflammatory or foul-mouthed alongside those which might compromise my security. I've gone from about 1,600 tweets to 200, and now they mostly consist of short one-sentence answers to other people's tweets. I'm too vain to let my tweet-count slip to zero, but I'm too paranoid to allow anything interesting to remain.
edit: Fuck it, I'll delete them all, barring the first one, which will show when I joined, and a second explanatory one, explaining the lack of future posts. I'm nothing if not methodical.

On Facebook, I've deleted all old photo albums, even those which appear benign. I'm not sure why; although my friends could access them, my outside privacy settings were secure. Maybe I just don't trust my friends, but then, of course, they'll have other photos of me anyway, and won't always have the same stringent privacy settings that I employ. This goes back to my second reason listed above. Anyway, beyond photos, I've also started going back over all my old statuses and postings, and deleting them, bit by bit. Again, secondary reason, this is pointless because a lot of my filthy incendiary comments are probably on other people's walls, not to mention what I may've said in countless "private message" conversations (which I can only delete from my side).

Anyway, this talk of wall postings, tweets and status updates lead me onto expanding the third reason. I generally put a lot of effort into my updates and tweets. I sometimes looked back on them and smiled, thinking how enormously clever I was. As each was accompanied by a date and a time, they acted as handy reminders of how I might've felt at a certain time, during a certain period of my life. At the very least, they would've been a good archive of some of my more interesting thoughts and ideas.

Maybe I'm actually being vain in thinking this matters at all. Surely the only reason I'd ever truly look back is because I was writing my autobiography, having achieved a great deal in public life? Am I planning to attain a great and notable standing at some point in my life? Not really. So why should it matter if I'm deleting my past?

Perhaps I feel blasé about this whole trauma because I've been reading a lot about Mark Twain recently, who had a healthy disregard for truth and accurate memory ("Truth is the most valuable thing we have, so I try to conserve it" etc.). If I ever rise to prominence, I'll take the opportunity to rewrite my life and reinvigorate the past. Who'll contradict me? Mark Zuckerberg? HA! Show me the evidence.


P.S. All this has made me realise the hypocrisy of this public blog. However, barring a few privacy lapses, it's not too personally compromising. It shall remain. But it'll have to get more interesting to soak up the wisdom and wit from the deleted social-networking posts (Ha. Prove they weren't!).

Kaiser Chiefs: A Brief Study of Lyrical Mediocrity.

This study is almost so brief that it may as well be left to the title to say it, but I'll expand a little.

The Kaiser Chiefs, along with The Killers and suchlike, were one of the new indie bands everyone liked when I was about 15. Indie had nothing to make me like it. It was popular and bland, and thus beyond redemption. It stood out in no category. Musically? Below average. Passion? Below average. Lyrics? Below average. And yet I decided I liked the Kaiser Chiefs enough to refrain from turning off their music where possible.

It is possible, if not likely, that I professed to like them purely to increase my credibility should I ever make the dubious claim that I'm a tolerant person with regards to music.

Anyway, they were, for the album I had, mostly harmless. 


And then I heard their single "Ruby". The first two categories remained unchanged, but lyrically, they had gone from "below average" to "psychotically poor". For those who haven't heard this delight, the chorus goes something like:

Ruby, Ruby, Ruby, Ruby
And do ya, do ya, do ya, do ya
Know what ya doing, doing to me?
Ruby, Ruby, Ruby, Ruby

Well, they still sold well, so I'm told, so clearly my opinion is less commercially-viable than your average music fan's. But what annoyed me even more than Ruby was a different song I happened to hear, called "The Angry Mob". Why did it annoy me more? Because it crossed over from the vapid and unimportant to the vapid and "political". 

Maybe I'm just a snob. I mean, In and of itself The Angry Mob isn't so vapid (of course, it's not so worthy that it deserves a proper lyrical synopsis here. Suffice to say that it doesn't like Daily Mail readers). It ends with the repeated chanting of: 

We are the angry mob
We read the papers everyday day
We like who like
We hate who we hate
But we're also easily swayed

And, in many ways, this is a fair and accurate summary of the right-wing paper-readers they speak about. So maybe I'm wrong to criticise it. It's bland and inoffensive (and harmless), just like the band itself, you could argue. The problem is that, as recently shown at Glastonbury, many people appear to regard this as the pinnacle of lyrical excellence. Wondering around near the back of The Other Stage, I saw people chanting this with such devotion and such wonderment. There's no way that this is because of its hypnotic music quality. It has none. Perhaps people are simply caught up in the moment of seeing an act they've seen on TV before. However, when criticising the lyrics, I was informed by an intelligent and astute friend, that I was wrong in my choice of target.

Regardless of what people actually thought of the lyrics (and, as indie fans, there's a good chance they weren't thinking at all), the problem is that people will see that this group is popular, hear their lyrics, and place an unnaturally large emphasis on the worth of what the Kaiser Chiefs have to say to them. However, people sometimes forget that indie, as a genre, is devoid of any lasting political significance.

I'm not a snob and I appreciate and empathise with what I assume the Kaiser Chiefs' views are. However, reaching such a wide audience, they have a responsibility - when using political lyrics - to be outstanding, to show real intellectual worth, and make people really think. With such simplistic and monotonous lyrics, they waste this opportunity. They appeal to the lowest-political-common-denominator. With laziness like that, they may as well write papers for the angry mob themselves.