Internetty Spaghetti - Life by Ryan

An Absolute Mosque-ry of My Intelligence

2010-08-18T11:13:00.000-07:00

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/06/pat-condell-on-ground-zero-mosque-is-it-possible-to-be-astonished-but-not-surprised.html

Check this out. Without doubt, unless you live on Mars and are tuning in on Martian FM, you will have heard about President Obama's plans to open a mosque just a few hundred yards from the site of the 9/11 attacks.

In this video, a numpty named Pat Condell claims the usual reactionary banter about Islam being a religion of evil. If you haven't clicked the link already, I'd do so now or else the following is going to seem a little bit nonsensical...

I’m sorry, but I feel that I have to argue this case. Mr Condell is clearly a very intelligent man, and clearly also a man with a much skewed opinion. I mean for Christ’s sake – you just have to take one glance at the web URL to work that out, this is posted on a site called “jihadwatch”, which doesn’t quite suggest an impartiality of opinion.

This is also coming from the man who claimed that, "Muslim women in Britain who cover their faces are mentally ill". Oh dear.

As for claiming Islam to be a religion of intolerance and hatred, I interpret this as quite the hypocritical statement as in the video he’s proven himself to be little more than a bottom-feeding racist, using multiplicity of language in a poor effort to come across as intelligent. Mr Pot, meet Mr Condell – or should I say Mr Kettle?

And as for the claim that Islam is a bigger threat to our world than Nazism ever was, is that really believable? Especially as the more I watched that video the more I became convinced that Mr Condell himself is probably wearing underpants emblazoned with swastikas. I was genuinely surprised when he didn’t end the video with a “Sieg Heil!”.

I also love the way he appeals to the conscience of the great American people. Yet isn’t the very last line of the American Pledge of Allegiance as follows,“...with liberty and justice for all”? And that, in my opinion is exactly what this boils down to – a matter of liberty.

It’s not “diversity” as he claims, it’s freedom. The right to exist. And yet he seemingly wants to deny this basic human right and obliterate every and all form of Islam. Who do you think you are kidding Mr Hitler?

Who is this man to denigrate Islamic culture and religion, who is he to judge and to tar Muslim people with the same brush, and who is he to tell them where to build their “offensive” mosques? Really? Anybody with half a brain should surely recognise this language as nothing but utterly, utterly disgusting.

Don’t get me wrong of course, I’m not saying that they absolutely should build a mosque at Ground Zero – of course that’s a terrible move to make, but to use it as an excuse to scatter filth of the faith of millions of fellow human beings?

Don’t the words “Love thy neighbour” mean anything to this man, or to anyone who has a similar opinion? Take note that it’s “Love thy neighbour”, not “Love thy neighbour unless he’s a dirty Muslim, in which case you’re more than free to shit all over him.”

As far as answering his question, yes I think it is possible to be astonished, but not surprised. Astonished at the sheer narrow-mindedness some people harbour, but I’d have to have my head stuck in the sand for a LONG time to be surprised; this attitude is hardly anything new. If this is the attitude of the “civilised world”, then I do not want to be a part of it.

Please don’t feel the need to quote this post or even to pay any attention to it, as I’m sure it’ll do nothing to change the opinion of those who already have their own formulate opinions on the matter. This is not a post in support of Islam or anything of the sort, it’s simply me addressing the need I feel to combat the warped opinions of fraudsters like Pat Condell.

Peace out, Elvis has left the building.

The Picture. And The Art of Warfare - My Way.

2010-04-07T04:15:00.000-07:00

First of all - yeah, the cheesy picture's gone, thanks largely to the totally unfunny comments of certain rapscallions. In its absence you will find a suitable replacement I hope?

Anyways, this blog needs some serious new material and seeing as I have nothing better to do on this fine Wednesday morn than sit and gnaw my fingernails like a jaundiced goat, I might as well contribute to something semi-productive.

If there's one thing that has defined this decade it's war. Not internet porn, iPods or even the catastrophic brainfarts on behalf of the economy monkeys. No, it's war - fighting silly turbaned men in flipflops called Achmarajahajahajadin.

I have a friend who joined the army not so long ago, much to my dissappointment. I mean, why on earth would you willingly sign up for a job in which you spend all day in the blazing heat getting shot at by weirdy-beardys with rocket launchers?

There's more too. From the moment you get up in the morning (which is usually "O'FUCK!" or "INCOMING" o'clock) to the moment you go to bed at night it's all shouting, bugling and explosioning. Yes, explosioning.

In fact, I can hardly think of a position in the armed forces that I would want to occupy. The RAF might be alright, there's a good opportunity to laze around all day 'What-ho'ing and drinking tea. Unfortunatley though, there's always the danger that I'd actually be required to get in a plane. And the problem with that is I'll most likely crash it.

As well as this, there might arise the need for one of the planes to drop an atomic bomb on some daft Talibans. Gordon Brown says that it's important for a country to maintain its own nuclear deterrent. But, as we know, Gordon Brown tends to be wrong about pretty much everything.

The Navy? Forget it. If popular myth is anything to go by, I'm signing up for months stuck on a less-than-luxury cruise with rejected members of the Village People. Not that there'd be much time for rampant homosexuality, because I'd spend the majority of my time vomiting over the railings.

And of course, when the time comes for actual warfare, it must be damned hard to actually aim at the enemy with Cher straddling the end of your cannons. On top of that, if the Falklands achieved anything it showed us that Navy boats are big. And therefore very susceptible to mustachioed men called Gonzalez in fighter jets. Anyway, I'm pretty sure that a boat would be nearly useless in the fight against a man in the desert coming at you with a £3 AK-47 and a pair of sandals.

If there's anywhere I'd like to be in the armed forces, it would be in the submarine regiment. To me, this seems like the only option devoid of any of the hassles associated with any of the above. You can fight while sitting in complete, air-conditioned comfort, you're well under the seasick zone, the enemy won't be able to find you and of all Cher's extensive plastic surgery, she never did manage to get a pair of gills.

When military submarines were first mooted, the Royal Navy top brass dismissed them as unfair. They had grown up with the notion that you charged at your enemy in red coats, with a lot of people playing brass instruments. But sneakery is my kind of warfare. The first inkling your enemy has that you’re there is when he is treading water in a big puddle of blazing engine oil. Excellent.

Of course, that leaves one problem still remaining. In a submarine, there's absolutely nowhere to run from the YMCA gang. Still, I'd rather be alive and be fondled by sweaty, muscled men than be paste on the side of a road somewhere deep in Asscrackistan. And I do quite have a thing for men in uniform.

Killer Whale Kills. Imagine That...

2010-02-27T13:27:00.001-08:00

I heard on the news this morning that an employee at SeaWorld had been offed by one of the whales. If you ask me, it's about time.

I don't mean that in a harsh way - it is, afterall, a complete and utter tragedy - but I must admit that it would certainly make for an eventful day out. I mean, what's the alternative? Some namby-pamby dolphins dancing for a bunch of slack-jawed 8 year old bogey munchers? Boooooring. I'd much rather see some action!

There also seems to be a lot of confusion as to what to do with the whale. Some want to put it to death, some want to give it a fair trial, the Japanese want to harpoon it and a young Jason James Richter shouts "Let's free Willy!".

The thing that baffles me the most though is the shock people have expressed. "Gadzooks! A person killed by a whale at SeaWorld?! What is the world coming to?!".

Put it this way - if someone advertised their car as a fast car, I would expect it to be fast and if they told me that their girlfriend was a beautiful woman I would certainly expect that she would indeed be beautiful. Similarly, if someone says that this animal is a "killer whale"... I'll assume you can do the math.

Falling Victim To Airborne Buffoonery

2010-02-04T14:02:00.001-08:00

The past 3 or so days I have spent in the city of Leicester, where unfortunatley I have witnessed first-hand the overpowering ineptitude of the British air travel system.

Time flies when you're having fun they say, and if that's true then I'm certain that sitting in an Airport terminal is about the least fun a human being could endure without losing the will to live.

If time does indeed fly whilst one is having fun,the fact that the arms on the clock seemed stickier than a Toyota's throttle was quite an indication of how I felt. 15 minutes became half an hour, half an hour became an hour and 10 minutes and so it went on.

In the end and by the time the plane finally arrived I had a beard to put Sophocles to shame and a temper akin to that of a menopausal grizzly bear. And that's not even the worst of it. Enter the air hostesses.

Most men jump for joy when they find out they're going to be jetting off on a plane, because on paper at least, flying in an aeroplane is everything a man could want. He gets to go in excess of 200mph, sit on his buttocks for hours on end doing sweet nothing and also, and perhaps most importantly, gets to ogle at attractive cabin crew.

However, these stewardesses were different. Traffic cone orange and reeking of mule sweat they were the Nadia Almada, the Burberry, the Dagenham of aeronautical hospitality and the absolute antithesis of everything air hostesses represent. I actually started to wonder where the airline recruited such (supposed) females and came up with the only logical conclusion that they hired directly from the back of the local sex-change clinic.

That said however, the trip itself was enjoyable and Leicester city was absolutley charming, albeit a slight culture shock to get to grips with. I had been told that it was the English city with the largest Indian population, but I honestly started to wonder whether it was actually the Indian city with the largest English population.

Perhaps I'd hopped on the plane to Dubai instead? And perhaps we'd picked up some kathoeys from Bangkok en route?

Chivalry Is Dead. Blame The Women.

2010-02-01T09:29:00.000-08:00

This past weekend one of my close friends said to me, "Chivalry's certainly dead these days isn't it? It's the bloody women that killed it too,". I did a doubletake, my eyes bulged and steam literally cascaded from my ears.

I was shocked. I was outraged. I was mortified. Most of all though, I felt robbed - not robbed emotionally by this grotesquely un-PC comment - but robbed because I'd been saying this for years.

The reason for this, is that only the other day I was walking down the street (with aforementioned friend) late at night when a woman in her mid-30's came stumbling out of the local flophouse and doddered into the middle of the path of oncoming traffic.

Being the noble and pure of heart cavalier that I am, I went to offer her assistance only to be met with an endless string of horrible profanities and a barrage of fists worthy of Bruce Lee.

Apparently these days if you lend a helpful hand to any female unlucky enough to stray across your path you're a sex pest.

Now, when it comes to sweeping generalisations (as I'm sure you're by now aware) I tend to be the Mack-Daddy. All Germans are humourless, anyone who listens to the Village People is a homosexual and if you wear a shell suit you're more likely than not to rob me.

My writing is however a mixture of observation and slight cynicism all gelled together with a pinch - or perhaps more a bucket - of salt. I am of course completely aware that the majority of generalisations are all tosh.

For instance, I know an incredibly funny German, I listen to Village People and have largely retained my heterosexuality, and nobody round these parts in trackies will rob you. Just call your mother names and stuff fireworks up your cat's bum.

It's exactly these generalisations that have led to the death of chivalry and the subsequent labeling of all men as sexual deviants by women, who have become so obsessed with casting off the chains of practical domestic slavery in days-gone-by that their spouses are now treated as walking, talking, money-earning sex toys.

To an extent though, we all need generalisations, because if we didn't have them life would tick by very slowly - points would never be made, anecdotes would take two years and comedy would inevitably die. "How many blondes does it take to screw in a lightbulb? According to recent survey it takes on average 1.2547 blonde females to screw in a lightbulb!". Ba-dum tish indeed.

Stupidity Is Not A Crime... Just Damn Annoying

2010-01-16T07:14:00.000-08:00

It’s a well known fact that the world is mad. Grass is green, sky is blue, all English men are dentally challenged Hugh Grants and yellow snow is not to be eaten – all of these are simple but proven truths.

It seems to me though, that as time drags on we’re all getting more and more stupid. Case in point, in these days conversation in the pub is very dull. “What have you done this past week?”
“Nothing much, tried to look down my secretary’s top for a while, went out and got drunk, pissed myself and then cried myself to sleep”.

Now imagine that same conversation 6000 or so years ago. “Today, I killed a mammoth with my bare hands and invented the wheel, what about you?”
“ Same old really, designed the concept of time and came up with the idea of cooking with fire.”

Fast-forward to the present day and you can hardly breathe for some moronic person doing some moronic thing for some moronic reason or another. Stupid people with stupid clothes, stupid people making stupid sentences, stupid people on stupid phones, stupid people in stupid cars – which leads me to another point; how much safer would the roads not be if a shotgun was mounted in the steering column rather than an airbag?

Just last week I spied on eBay some idiot selling a ticket to see my beloved Lady Gaga at the princely sum of £210 for a single standing ticket, and standing in the queue in an off-licence last month I overhead the following conversation between the person at the till and some air-headed blonde:
“What’s your date of birth?”, “July 15th” “What year?” ,“...Like, every year, duhhh”. I mean really?

The numpties in my hometown are also apparently going into spray-can hyperdrive with the rise of East-LA style graffiti marring pretty much every smooth concrete surface they can get their needle-scarred mitts on. Catch a grip, this country’s about as “gansta” as Ronnie bloody Corbett.

The media these days is awash with tin-foil hat wearing Star Wars nerds who warn us that humankind will one day be destroyed by technology and super-robots (with or without Germanic accents). I, however, am not so sure about this – because with the current state of human intelligence, ingenuity and manufacturing skills it’s pretty much guaranteed that aforementioned killer robot will have broken long before you can say “Hasta la Vista, baby”.

Sex, Lies And Chocolate Cake

2010-01-09T03:12:00.000-08:00

Only a few weeks ago the world was enraptured in the season to be jolly (LaLaLaLaLaa!) but it seems that the tabloids have enjoyed a year-long jolly season. Not so long ago people made the headlines for being either genuinely famous, for sleeping with and/or killing somebody genuinely famous or for being blown to pieces in some far-off war.

Apparently though, this has changed and the only way to enter the public eye is to have your arse ripped out by The Sun. The sheer amount of public scandals that have happened in the past 12 months is enough to make even Bill Clinton hot under the collar. Banks burst at the seams with the sheer volume of snakes running them, Christian Bale got angry, world leaders were punched, Christian Bale got angry some more and Jude Law changed lovers more than Col. Gaddafi changes psychoanalysts.

I've noticed a certain trend between a good amount of these, which is the recurring theme of Nazism. From Max Mosley's less-than-healthy obsession with all things German, Prince Harry's stint as a Gestapo officer way back when in 2005, to Nick Griffin and the daftest bunch of Nazis this side of 'Allo 'Allo. Perhaps the conspiracy theories are true, and Mr Hitler truely is hiding in a bunker in the Antarctic, pulling strings and orchestrating his grand return through the medium of British idiocy?

Rarely these days do politicians get away with anything, especially the current stock of lifeless, braindead chimps in suits that run our country. Noone in their right mind would give a monkey a gun and for that reason whoever decided it would be a good idea to give a monkey taxpayers money surely deserves to be slowly fed a bag of iron filings?

This only adds to my list of reasons for not wanting to become a politician for fear I'd marry a woman who looks like a sack of mouldy pears, spend public money on porn because I'm married to aforementioned pear sack, and turn my constituency into a giant moat for ducks.

Sportsmen have also come under scrutiny, Max Mosley and Lewis Hamilton both doing their very best to make Formula One even more rubbish than it already was, Thierry Henry incited the wrath of the whole of Ireland for his controversial handling of balls. Tiger Woods of course did something completely different with his balls, managing to sink many holes in one with his 9 wood, something which inexplicably has sent his sponsors abandoning ship like rats....

There's absolutely no way that I could leave this post without a tip of the hat to Northern Ireland's very own femme fatale. So here's to you Mrs Robinson, Jesus loves you more than you could know. And now so does Dominic Mohan.

New Year, New Decade, New Beginnings

2010-01-01T16:25:00.000-08:00

So Christmas has passed, 2009 is gone and in its place now stands not just a new year, but a new decade as well. With the sound of exploding fireworks, enough alcohol to kill the world’s entire population of bull elephants and more cooked birds than Bill Oddie can shake a stick at, the Noughties (God how I loathe that name) have gone out with a raucous and drunken bang.

So let’s take a look back at the past 10 years before we throw ourselves headlong into the next. The 2000’s was a period of great advancement but also, I feel, great regression. For every step forwards we’ve taken, we also seem to have taken a larger step backwards. For instance, we further developed the internet and while this is great, it means nobody anywhere can trip on a banana skin without the entire world knowing about it within minutes.

You can hardly sneeze anywhere in the Middle East anymore without your country being invaded, pretty much every animal on earth now carries a deadly form of flu, your 13 year old daughter is pregnant again, stress-related illness has become the new must-have, Ugg boots were developed, education systems failed to be educational, men ceased to be men anymore and politicians seemingly ceased to be human at all.

Oh yeah, and a little event known as the Recession hasn’t made the past year any the more enjoyable either. However, the horrors and mistakes of the past 10 years will with any luck incite the necessity for true change and revolution over the years to come.

The decadence of the 2000’s has proven itself to be a mirage, and crumbled accordingly. As human beings we will all learn and live on and for that reason I have high hopes for 2010, and with the recent snowfall turning the country whiter than the BNP cricket team, the new decade couldn’t have gotten off to a more idyllic start. Happy New Year!

I'm Dreaming Of A Sh*te Christmas...

2009-12-21T12:08:00.000-08:00

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?

Life On Mars - Northern Ireland Style

2009-12-09T11:21:00.000-08:00

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.

Villainy, Licentiousness, Abomination, Infernity - That's Me Set For Life!

2009-11-03T11:56:00.000-08:00

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.

It's A Man's World. Whatever That World May Be....

2009-10-11T07:26:00.001-07:00

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.

You Never Get A Second Chance To Make A First Impression...

2009-10-11T07:24:00.000-07:00

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.