Irish weather, I swear to God, will be the death of me. It doesn't snow for around 40 years and when it finally comes it can't stop itself. Like a row of dominoes, a drunk man somewhere in a village in Lancaster or the British economy, once it starts it just falls. And falls. And falls...
And yet, for me at least it still doesn't feel anything like Christmas. Perhaps my body clock has developed a concussion after one too many nights out, but if you told me it was some time in the middle of September I would fully believe you. Despite the fact that the TV has been screaming at me since July about Christmas this and Christmas that, it just doesn't feel Christmassy at all.
Perhaps, it's in this that the crux of the matter lies; it's not the Grinch that's stolen Christmas, it's Capitalism. Much in the same way it stamped all over a little place called the USSR and turned the humble banker into the Devil Incarnate it's also responsible for the final nail in the festive coffin.
Don't get me wrong however, I'm no weirdy-beardy Marxist. I love me some capitalism, it's just that I also love Christmas. Or did anyway... In a way it's quite poetic in that snow can be tied so well into this; snow looks lovely in postcards and Al Gore videos but as soon as it arrives you become sick of it.
It's exactly the same with Christmas in that as soon as the adverts and Christmas tree shops open (circa mid-summer) you can't help but think "Awwwwwh. Christmas. How lovely!". It isn't soon however before that sentimental cooing becomes screams of hatred and fury at the constant bombardment of Yuletide propaganda.
It is therefore that I can say quite confidently that there is no longer such a thing as festive spirit or Christmas cheer. I'm not being cynical, I'm simply stating the apparent fact that human beings seemingly can't leave anything alone without destroying it. We killed the Dodo, we killed the environment and as if that wasn't enough now we've knocked off old Chris Cringle as well.
It's scary that at such a young and tender age I already appreciate how bone-crackingly annoying Christmas really is. It isn't that long ago however that I remember Christmas being fun. And I'm not talking 40 years ago when it was exciting to find a shiny new shilling in your stocking and the most controversial material on the TV was The Brady Bunch. Only 10 years ago I have memories filled with Santa Claus and Reindeer and mince pies (and of course presents!). Oh yeah, and that guy Jesus. Whoever he is.
And so therefore if you're reading this Mr Capitalist I would implore you to leave Christmas alone. Just this once? Feel free to suck people out of pocket and home any other day of the year but is it really worth spoiling the one time of year that all of Christendom is supposed to be united as one, just to keep yourself in caviar and 24 carat gilded toilet roll?
Monday 21 December 2009
Wednesday 9 December 2009
Life On Mars - Northern Ireland Style
My name is Ryan. I was on my way to school last week when I had an accident.
I woke up in Ballymena … in 1973.
Am I in a coma, was my drink spiked or am I a time traveller?
Cue Bowie …
In 1973 I was not but a grotty flicker in my father's eye. The world was a different place for the teenager,computers were vast walls of flickering lights which Mr. Spock poked at on Star Trek, mobile phones were non-existant and as for a TV it was a case of 'warming up' the black and white with a crank shaft and a well-placed clout.
And that's if the power was on, cos those were the days when candle sales were at a premium and every self-respecting family kept a primus stove handy in readiness for the next political strike in strife torn Ulster.
However, there was an upside to the technological wasteland in which 1970's Ulster lived. Most kids were fit to run the marathon by the age of 10, they could amuse themselves for more than five minutes in an open field with only a ball, a piece of string and an acorn.
The nearest thing to FIFA 2010 was a cruddy football game which consisted of pushing some misshapen plastic figure's head, enabling him to (allegedly) kick the ball. Literature consisted of totally un-PC periodicals where foreign nationals had their butts kicked by tough talking Brits such as Captain Hurricane, or were plastered with bombs by 'Braddock of Bomber Command'.
"I say," said Braddock, dropping another four tons of high explosive on some nasty Nazis, "that'll teach the Gerries to bomb London!"
"Aaaargh," squealed the Gerries/Japs etc etc. "Englander Pig Dog, Achtung, Donner und Blitzen, Himmel!". Or words to that effect.
Penny chews were actually a penny,pizza was something foreign and therefore 'orrible and fast food was still dominated by the good old fish supper on a Friday night while burgers were just making an appearance and considered the height of sophistication and young love could be found everywhere from the chippy to the schoolground.
Imagine that nowadays - nobody in their right mind would go on a first date to McDonalds (unless perhaps their name happens to be Gary Glitter). This perhaps reflects the fact that nowadays the world is a very different place, and definatley not an altogether better one - a world dominated by celebrity, technology, goverened by a new breed of imbecile with their non-stop rules and regulations.
In the words of DCI Gene Hunt, "It doesn't take a degree in Applied Bollocks to know what's going on". Perhaps though, in this day and age, it does.
I woke up in Ballymena … in 1973.
Am I in a coma, was my drink spiked or am I a time traveller?
Cue Bowie …
In 1973 I was not but a grotty flicker in my father's eye. The world was a different place for the teenager,computers were vast walls of flickering lights which Mr. Spock poked at on Star Trek, mobile phones were non-existant and as for a TV it was a case of 'warming up' the black and white with a crank shaft and a well-placed clout.
And that's if the power was on, cos those were the days when candle sales were at a premium and every self-respecting family kept a primus stove handy in readiness for the next political strike in strife torn Ulster.
However, there was an upside to the technological wasteland in which 1970's Ulster lived. Most kids were fit to run the marathon by the age of 10, they could amuse themselves for more than five minutes in an open field with only a ball, a piece of string and an acorn.
The nearest thing to FIFA 2010 was a cruddy football game which consisted of pushing some misshapen plastic figure's head, enabling him to (allegedly) kick the ball. Literature consisted of totally un-PC periodicals where foreign nationals had their butts kicked by tough talking Brits such as Captain Hurricane, or were plastered with bombs by 'Braddock of Bomber Command'.
"I say," said Braddock, dropping another four tons of high explosive on some nasty Nazis, "that'll teach the Gerries to bomb London!"
"Aaaargh," squealed the Gerries/Japs etc etc. "Englander Pig Dog, Achtung, Donner und Blitzen, Himmel!". Or words to that effect.
Penny chews were actually a penny,pizza was something foreign and therefore 'orrible and fast food was still dominated by the good old fish supper on a Friday night while burgers were just making an appearance and considered the height of sophistication and young love could be found everywhere from the chippy to the schoolground.
Imagine that nowadays - nobody in their right mind would go on a first date to McDonalds (unless perhaps their name happens to be Gary Glitter). This perhaps reflects the fact that nowadays the world is a very different place, and definatley not an altogether better one - a world dominated by celebrity, technology, goverened by a new breed of imbecile with their non-stop rules and regulations.
In the words of DCI Gene Hunt, "It doesn't take a degree in Applied Bollocks to know what's going on". Perhaps though, in this day and age, it does.
Tuesday 3 November 2009
Villainy, Licentiousness, Abomination, Infernity - That's Me Set For Life!
There’s some amount of speculation that the newspaper industry these days is collapsing, crushed by the omnipresent digital leviathan that is the internet. Journalists argue that newspapers simply can’t compete with the amount of free news available on the net and that soon the media industry will be lost to the power of e-news.
As a journalist-in-training this certainly presents me with a dilemma over whether I’ll be able to actually secure a job in the newspaper industry when I get out of university (provided I even get in...). I, however, have a simple and brilliant solution that will guarantee me work indefinatley for the rest of my life.
The plan is simple, I’m going to move to Coronation Street. Never in the history of TV soaps, or perhaps in existence with the exception of Nottingham, has there been a place with such treachery, murder, double dealing, trauma and terror. If I can’t get a front-page lead out of that, no one can.
As a journalist-in-training this certainly presents me with a dilemma over whether I’ll be able to actually secure a job in the newspaper industry when I get out of university (provided I even get in...). I, however, have a simple and brilliant solution that will guarantee me work indefinatley for the rest of my life.
The plan is simple, I’m going to move to Coronation Street. Never in the history of TV soaps, or perhaps in existence with the exception of Nottingham, has there been a place with such treachery, murder, double dealing, trauma and terror. If I can’t get a front-page lead out of that, no one can.
Sunday 11 October 2009
It's A Man's World. Whatever That World May Be....
Recently I have been pondering the question, "What does it mean to be a man?". Beyond the physical body hair and big strong arms of course, has the archetypal character of the human male become tarnished over time or ruined by modern life and what exactly is a man in the 21st Century?
In Ancient Greece, men were in charge of the family and house. They would work during the day and when they returned they would lay on a couch and were fed and entertained while the women and children ate in another room. Not much has changed certain feminists would argue, and to a degree this is true. In other respects though, the role of the modern male has completely changed.
Gone are the bearded and muscled warriors of old, replaced by a new generation of perfectly groomed, manicured psuedo-males who would rather hunt for a bargain on moisturiser than a deer. Australian anthropologist Peter McAllister claims that at the end of the last century, an Aboriginal could outrun Usain Bolt and that any Neanderthal woman could best Arnold Schwarzenegger in an arm-wrestle.
So what happened us? The concept of a man been devalued and we're now the worst men in human history according to the big-brained boffins. It would be easy to take the lazy route and blame feminists, but I disagree because a strong man should be able to take any strong-opinionated woman in his stride. The truth is we've become lazy, complacent and if anything, cowardly.
In my own opinion however, nothing can adequately surmise what it is to be a man, simply because it's a constantly shifting ideal. The world has changed a lot between ancient times and the present and as a result of that the world's inhabitants have changed along with it. The modern man may have swapped his spear for a telly remote but I believe that at the core of us lies strength, integrity and kindness - traits that set us apart from the rest and traits that are timeless.
Regardless of whether you buy your clothes in Abercrombie and Fitch or the military surplus store or whether you're name's Phil or Alonso. We are men, and we will continue to be men because being a man isn't about shooting animals or skinning them alive no more than it's about sitting in front of the telly - it's about being strong and dependable, whatever the world dictates that to be.
In Ancient Greece, men were in charge of the family and house. They would work during the day and when they returned they would lay on a couch and were fed and entertained while the women and children ate in another room. Not much has changed certain feminists would argue, and to a degree this is true. In other respects though, the role of the modern male has completely changed.
Gone are the bearded and muscled warriors of old, replaced by a new generation of perfectly groomed, manicured psuedo-males who would rather hunt for a bargain on moisturiser than a deer. Australian anthropologist Peter McAllister claims that at the end of the last century, an Aboriginal could outrun Usain Bolt and that any Neanderthal woman could best Arnold Schwarzenegger in an arm-wrestle.
So what happened us? The concept of a man been devalued and we're now the worst men in human history according to the big-brained boffins. It would be easy to take the lazy route and blame feminists, but I disagree because a strong man should be able to take any strong-opinionated woman in his stride. The truth is we've become lazy, complacent and if anything, cowardly.
In my own opinion however, nothing can adequately surmise what it is to be a man, simply because it's a constantly shifting ideal. The world has changed a lot between ancient times and the present and as a result of that the world's inhabitants have changed along with it. The modern man may have swapped his spear for a telly remote but I believe that at the core of us lies strength, integrity and kindness - traits that set us apart from the rest and traits that are timeless.
Regardless of whether you buy your clothes in Abercrombie and Fitch or the military surplus store or whether you're name's Phil or Alonso. We are men, and we will continue to be men because being a man isn't about shooting animals or skinning them alive no more than it's about sitting in front of the telly - it's about being strong and dependable, whatever the world dictates that to be.
You Never Get A Second Chance To Make A First Impression...
I have to say it, blogging is one of the strangest, most pointless things a person could do. Why would anybody spend time writing about their daily lives when nobody’s going to read it? And even if they do they’re probably going to hate it. Anyway, if it’s personal thoughts and feelings you want to get off your chest, I hear that Samaritans run a very good helpline, albeit one run by people who like most other helplines these days probably only speak Urdu.
And yet here I am. I’m not even sure what I’m doing here if truth be told, I suppose it’s just pure curiosity. Strange men in white coats tell us that we all display an innate desire to tinker with things that terrify us. That explains the reason we go to watch horror films, fling ourselves out of aeroplanes and probably also explains why Margaret Thatcher stayed Prime Minister for so long, we’re all simply obsessed with fear.
Unlike elderly men who peer out through slatted blinds at hooligans outside their front gardens or Daily Mail readers who are never happy unless they have something to be scared of, my fear lies in the omnipresent, all-powerful modern phenomena that is the Internet.That’s not to say I’m anti-technology, because if I was I would hardly be blogging. I’d be living in a cave somewhere in Albania and preaching about the end of the world to any goat unfortunate enough to traipse across my path.
And I will openly admit that the Internet can be a great positive force in the world. For instance it can be extremely beneficial educationally, you can share your great aunt Nora’s flair for nude chainsaw-balancing with the world in seconds and you can order anything from shoes to wives almost instantaneously.
It’s however when the internet shows it’s darker, meaner and more scurrilous side that things take a downwards twist. For instance, your children are being mercilessly driven to suicide on Facebook, your dad spends the majority of evenings showing off his private parts to a young Belarusian girl, someone’s just pilfered your entire internet savings account, and that video of you on Holiday in ’83 that you believed to be gone forever is now number one on the E4 programme Rude Tube.
And that’s only scratching the surface. You can’t take a quick pee in a bush anymore without being videoed, you can never harmlessly join in the Nigerian lottery without being declared bankrupt and having a nasty computer virus to add insult to injury and you find the novel you’ve been working on for 20 years has been swiped and published by a man named Pablo.
The thing is, if something can be put on the internet it can be stolen. Money, music, DVDs, literature, newspapers are all going down the drain as a result of e-theivery. And there’s not a damn thing anyone can do about it. In fact, I can guarantee that there has been at least one person read this blog and became overwhelmed with the urge to plagiarise it.
Like a roaring pseudo-Orwellian-all-pigs-are-equal-freedom-is-slavery behemoth, the Internet has in the space of 10 or so years enslaved the majority of the Western World and the question is less wether we benefit or not from it, but more how to control a beast that is seemingly uncontrollable.
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