Verbal Slapstick: Optimism is a Revolutionary Act

The Bail-out

2012-07-20T18:16:00.000+01:00

Based on some recent events, I’ve decided to change my bank. That sentence alone should be enough to indicate which bank I’m saddled with.

It’s actually something I’ve been considering for a long time; an embarrassingly long time, in fact. Sometime in the mid-noughties I tried to buy some plane tickets for a round-the-world trip I was taking with my then-girlfriend. The tickets were a good deal, such a good deal that the offer time was limited. I needed to purchase the tickets quick-snap, but that was cool: I had the money in my bank account, ready to go. I tried to pay with my debit card, but the payment bounced. The travel agent informed me that I might have the wrong sort of debit card: apparently my Visa Electron still had the training wheels on. This was a little embarrassing, but since I knew I had the money (to accumulate it I had spent the past six months working sixty hour weeks for Odeon Cinemas, and those scars weren’t fading any time soon), I decided to simply go down to the bank and ask for it. It was my money, after all.

Turns out my money had been electronically transmitted... somewhere. Whatever arbitrary force had prevented the cash entering the travel agent’s account, had also deemed not to return it to mine. It now waited in a ‘holding account’, an overnight cell for errant funds. “No problemo, muchacho,” I said to the bank manager (this is how I spoke in my late teens, apparently). “Just transfer the money back across, and we’ll try again.” It wasn’t his fault that he couldn’t transfer the money back. It wasn’t his fault that it would take three days. And there probably was a reason why this was standard practice. So I managed to keep a lid on my rising fury.

Until five months later, while I stood at a payphone in an airport in Malaysia, frantically pushing buttons to negotiate with my bank’s telephone service. I seemed to be skint, which is challenging enough at home, but proved to be even more frustrating when you don’t have a house to sleep in, or any clean clothes to wear. Thing is, I was sure I wasn’t skint. A paycheck should have arrived in my account several days previously. Normally a delay wouldn’t be such problem, but the last time I’d eaten was also several days previously.

I was told by the automated voice on the telephone that my account had been frozen. In order to release the money I would need to first pay off the debt I owed on my credit card. The single, minor obstacle to this was fact that I didn’t have a credit card. Never had. So I vented my fury, but I doubt the robot at the end of the line cared.

This litany of small but frustrating fuck-ups continued down the years, and I often considered changing my bank. Two things kept me from ever going through with it. First, my colossal indolence, obviously. Second, well, everyone else seemed to be having the same problem. Everyone seemed to find themselves screwed over by their bank at least once a year, so it seemed like a non-issue. I didn’t want to go through all the hassle of switching accounts only to find that my new service was just as bad (and in the meantime, I’d also started a Santander account. They sucked too).

Since the mid-noughties my financial situation has changed quite significantly. It’s also got a bit more complicated: I know have several accounts with Barclays, all doing (slightly) different things. I have a current account that pays basically no interest, and a savings account that also pays basically no interest, but makes me feel guilty whenever I take money out of it. I have a joint account with my younger brother, that pays no interest, but he makes me feel guilty when I take cash out of it. So the situation is more complex, and it’ll be even more stressful and tedious to change to another bank.

Except that it’s ceased to become a question of functionality and become one of ethics. I’ll accept that another bank might be just as charmingly inefficient with my money as Barclays (hell, I’m basically assuming at this point). But I’d like them to be... well, nicer.

Again, this isn’t a completely recent development. Barclays Bank have been acting like jerks for a long time, and it’s not like I’ve been completely in the dark. When I was at uni I voted to have the university funds handled by a financial institution other than Barclays because of their support of invasive strip mining (as if there were another sort) in areas of natural beauty in Canada. I voted to give the university a big old headache, without being bothered to do the same.

It gets worse, and I’m not proud. I should have done something about this sooner. True, no bank is going to be spotless. But not all of them make money from the arms trade, something that Barclays unapologetically does.

The final straw in this? The final challenge to my disgusting laziness? The fact that Barclays couldn’t play by the established rules. Not only are they smilingly amoral in pursuit of profit, they’ve recently been exposed as immoral too.

Let’s delve into the murky world of analogy for a bit. Say the world works on essentially electronic funds, and I have no place to store said monies. My Uncle Charlie offers to store my money, and even provide some interest on it, on the condition that I occasionally use it to let him play the tables at the local casino. I’ll be able to access my money at any time, so long as he’s doing all right on the craps.

Now, truth be told, Uncle Charlie is a pretty mean gambler, so I’m content to let him hang on to the money. Most of the time he comes up holding aces, and even when he loses, the net take is enough to guarantee that my money is safe. Other people I know have left money with their uncles, and it hasn’t gone so well. Occasionally they wake up to find that their money has been gambled away.

But Uncle Charlie gambles like a pro, and that’s why I stick with him, even though he occasionally bets my money on stuff I disapprove of. Bear-baiting. Orphan-wrassling. And he sometimes can’t give me my funds straight away. There are administrative issues. I understand.

But then one day Uncle Charlie is caught cheating in the casino. He and a few of the staff have been colluding to fix one of the tables. It’s been a pretty good scam, and he’d actually been doing all right with it, till he got caught.

Now, it could be argued that Uncle Charlie has been doing me a favour. Times have been tough recently, and it’s in my interest for Uncle Charlie to make as much money as he can. This scam has kept him – and therefore my money – out of harm’s way. Except that if he cheated once, he’ll probably cheat again. He could have been cheating this whole time. And if he got caught once, you just know he’ll get sloppy at some point.

Now I have more to worry about than bear-baiting. Now I’m concerned that as soon as Uncle Barclays, I mean Charlie, gets the sticky fingers again, he’s going to do something monumentally stupid. And get caught.

The problem is that Uncle Charlie thinks he can do basically whatever he likes. He knows that I’m not going to take my money from him and give it to someone else’s uncle. It’s too much of a hassle, plus everyone else’s uncle could be on the make too. But the only way I have to protest, to really indicate that his behaviour is unacceptable and that I can react to it... is to take my money back.

It’ll be a gradual process. But I’m planning on starting a joint account with my (now) girlfriend very soon. And I’ll be thinking carefully about who I choose to start that account with. It’ll be based on ethics, rather than smart short-term deals, and if they prove that they can keep their hands out of the cookie jar for five minutes, they’ll get the rest of my money too.

The more I think about it, the more I want to just get it over with. And the more I think about it, the more ashamed I am to realise that it’s the financial aspect, not the strip-mining, or the arms dealing, that has really galvanised my actions. But screw it. I’m doing the right thing, even if I am playing catch-up. Better late than never.

Croatan / closin' on a century

2012-05-18T10:17:00.002+01:00

Word to your mothers. I have more creative writing stylinz for you. Click the link below to read a short story I wrote named 'Croatan.' It's a bit blue, and has a sexytime scene in it later on, so if you're not a fan of ill advised sexual encounters you better not click it. You better not. Seriously. Srsly.

Croatan

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1M0ICbaGITMLSiZJ32PvgODAmNB3yJxv4ySPR2ptaujs/edit

Story (get it while it lasts): Milk / I do things

2012-04-27T12:41:00.000+01:00

Despite my lengthening periods of absence from Verbal Slapstick I have still been doing vaguely creative things. Firstly, my grass-roots interview project London I's moves (slowly) forward. Having a full-time job negatively impacts on how often I can harass people in the street, but it ticks along. Go and have a look, and like me on facebook whynot.

I've also had an opportunity to put some non-fiction stuff on Notes from the Underground, a truly excellent creative portal. My sincere thanks to Annabel Howard for giving me the chance; hopefully I'll be able to submit some more soon. Have a poke around and you'll find me.

Finally, here's a short story I wrote. It's not very long, so I'll stick it on here rather than Google Doc'ing it. Also if you want to read it I'd suggest doing it now, as I might submit it for publication at some point and will have to remove it. Whether or not uploading it here counts as 'previous publication' is tricky, but hopefully any future editors will allow all 5 of my followers reading it first. Although to be on the safe side, please Mr/Miss/Mrs Future Editor, don't throw the book at me.

Poor Verbal Slapstick. I feel like I've been neglecting the ol' girl recently. But you haven't seen the last of me yet.

**Author's note**

I should probably state first: yes, Joey Crane is the guy I mentioned in the post before this, no, I don't fancy him.

**EDIT**

I took the story down, but you can always message me if you want to read it.

Some notes on riding the Greyhound

2012-03-13T13:30:00.002+00:00

It’s possibly a combination of socioeconomic factors, and the arrant distance involved, that causes some eccentricity on the long-distance Greyhound buses. America is big. Really really big. Trying to quantify it with comparison to the UK is fruitless; the culture relating to distance is so starkly dissimilar as to make any correlation hopelessly skewed. Driving from London to a far-flung location like Cornwall – just over 200 miles away – is considered a huge undertaking in Britain. 200 miles is the sort of distance that – as Bill Bryson once pointed out – most Americans will happily drive to get a taco. Even in major cities Americans will willingly drive for an hour just to get between bars.

So when Greyhound say long distance, they mean long distance. The journey from New York City to San Francisco takes around 72 hours. There are prison sentences shorter than that. Major cities are often a thousand miles apart, and the slightly annular nature of American population distribution means that routes are often torturously circuitous.

Plus, well, it’s mostly poor people that ride the bus. Many American states have little in the way of automotive legislature relating to a car’s physical state, and the ones that do are normally less rigorous than the UK. There’s nothing really comparable to an MOT, and so you occasionally see some absolute clunkers driving around. As long as a car looks OK from the outside it’s unlikely to be pulled over. The sheer scale of the American landscape –even if you live in a town of smallish population you are unlikely to live within walking or cycling distance of everything you need – means that car ownership is almost ubiquitous. You have to be pretty damn poor to ride the bus.

Every American I met who was travelling domestically was doing so by car. In Austin, TX I ran into a guy named Joey from NY whose beaten-to-shit Nissan (affectionately referred to by anyone who climbed inside as ‘Ol’ Blue’) had assumed the status of a spirit vehicle, so often was it miraculously resurrected. It looked like an idiot’s crayon drawing of a car; the sort of vehicle you’d take in to part exchange and come away clutching a Magic Tree air freshener, feeling like you got a good deal.

So riding the Greyhound involves traveling with a cross-section of the lower economic brackets of American society. For a very long time. The natural instinct to ignore everyone around you begins to sputter out after 19 hours without human contact. Add the fact that Americans are generally less reserved than British people and your outcome is that if you travel on the bus long enough, something notable will happen. It’s not that the Greyhound is intrinsically weird, it’s more that you have to spend such a long time on it that something weird is statistically likely to occur.

The drivers themselves are not immune. There is a required speech they must make at the start of each leg, for the benefit of new passengers. It details where the bus is going and what time they are expected to arrive (often to muffled comments and cries of derision), and runs through the Greyhound ‘in-flight’ policies. These mostly consist of things that are prohibited, a list which roughly runs as follows:

• No guns
• No drinking
• No drugs
• No smoking
• No smoking out of the window
• No smoking in the bathroom
• No disabling the smoke alarm in the bathroom and trying to smoke unnoticed in there, seriously guys

Drivers have to repeat the same spiel at every stop, and so begin to add their own spin and vocabulary. A wizened old black guy who sounded remarkably like Droopy listed what sorts of cellular and electronic music devices he did and didn’t have a problem with us listening to. Some of them put on accents, which you would only notice if you ride the whole journey with them.

If you are caught breaking the rules you are dropped at the side of the road in the custody of a state trooper. A vivacious and amply proportioned driver on the last leg of Roanoke, VA to Atlanta, GA would enunciate this warning and then supplement it with: “And I’ma whoop yo’ ass, too,” an offhand threat that drew occasional cheers. She drove at least ten miles below the speed limit the whole way there, “For the sake of the chillun.”

A stern and slabby old geezer behind the wheel in Alabama encouraged people to remain in sight of the bus at all times during rest stops. “If you have to go inside, you look at us out the window,” he advised. “You got 20 minutes, so you can smoke 20 cigarettes. No need to go nowhere.”

Between Phoenix and LA the aisle seat next to me was filled by a rotund guy in a heinously bright shirt that made his sombre, Eeyore-esque voice seem like a wind-up. Raymond had the diabeetus (a term that I had heard college kids say in jest but never heard spoken in truth until then), and carried himself with the resigned, slightly absent gravitas of the long sober drug addict.

Raymond had what I choose to believe was a powerful grasp of scripture. My knowledge of the Bible is essentially naught, and so for all I know the words could have come from fortune cookies, but he said them with sufficient weight and distance that they seemed universally applicable, which I suspect is the point of most scripture anyway. He dissected my life over an eight hour period and told me that either I would be saved or I wouldn’t, a remark which seemed remarkably fatalist for an evangelical, until he told me that his problem was that he knew he was already saved, and so he needed to turn me to the path of righteousness for his own peace of mind (which I thought was pretty generous of him). He was bemused to find I was in the US to mostly look at windfarms.

By the time we arrived in LA I was refereeing a three-way argument between Raymond, his son and his daughter-in-law, a position I considered overloaded with responsibility seeing as Raymond's reason for coming to LA was to reconnect with his partially estranged son. I didn't want to be the guy who clumsily blew out the flame on his rekindling relationship. I must have done OK: he gave me a packet of Ritz crackers (“I’m not supposed to eat them anyway, they could kill me”) which proved useful in dealing with the psychic fallout of a 30 hour bus ride.

Across the whole trip I spent more than a week on the Greyhound. That’s a lot longer than some other experiences that I consider life-changing or defining. I’ve been in relationships that were shorter than that. It ought to mean something, but I'm not sure if it does yet.

Doppler

2012-02-02T14:43:00.000+00:00

Hello! It's been a little while, but I have not been resting on my laurels. Well, I have actually, but I've managed to do at least a couple of creative things since I was last here. To whit: a short story! It's called Doppler, and it was inspired a bit by the creepy bus station outside my house, and mostly by Bret Easton Ellis. Einstein said that genius was knowing how to hide your sources, so I guess I blew that one. Genius is overrated anyway. Einstein knew that.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/11O-Y477wej9aRGs9-h9v36pQDSGu7FFNDssttRLR_KA/edit

Please comment if you have an opinion. Stuff the email, just comment on this post. I have more stuff for you to look at next week. Peace.

The Steep Approach

2012-01-12T18:08:00.000+00:00

I’ve been embarking on a new project recently, which harks all the way back to this rather hopeful sounding post from days gone by. The idea discussed therein has now begun to blossom somewhat, and I have some collaborators – stalwart friends both – who are lending their skills and advice. The project goes live around the end of this month (you’ll know when I start shamelessly and relentless plugging it) and I’m rather proud of the idea, if not the execution.

Without giving a huge amount away the project consists of interviews. Interviews with strangers. Random interviews with strangers. In a bustling capital like London thousands of tiny interactions with those unknown to us happen every day – a glance, a thank you, a hushed ‘fuck off and die’ muttered under the breath – but actually sitting down and chinwagging with someone you’ve previously never clapped eyes on is rarer. It happens in Richard Curtis films and Match.com adverts, but despite a similar air of befuddlement I look nothing like Hugh Grant or Colin Firth, and I don’t even know how to play guitar.

So forcing myself to interact with strangers has given me some interesting insights into the nature of social interaction in general, but more specifically into the concepts of personal space and 'approachability.'

I had never given much credence to the concept of auras (still don’t, save for the purpose of this analogy), but there is certainly an atmosphere around people that is discernible, readable. This is obvious and second nature to all but a few of us: anyone able to read someone’s body language, detect where a conversation is going or steer around a touchy subject is doing it competently without even thinking about it.

The genesis of my project was in America, where people are famously more approachable. This is certainly true, but once a dialogue had begun American people seemed to need more management: to me at least they seemed quicker to lose patience, quicker to become suspicious or tire of a subject. Instead of being closed off and gradually opening up they often seemed immediately candid and then worried about giving too much away.

Perversely I suspect most of this comes from the natural ease with which Americans conduct their own conversations. Americans are very good at talking to strangers; they do it all the time. Their interactions are swift, and industriously handled on both sides. They were attempting to manage me: to ease me through the dialogue. The only difference: I was a strange English boy asking them personal questions, and was attempting to marshal the conversation to get the most out of them. Small wonder many felt the need to stage a retreat when I got too personal.

It’s more difficult to get stuff out of English people, but once they get talking, it’s hard to shut them up. In terms of thermodynamics, Americans are great conductors of heat, English people very poor. They stay warmed up for a good long time if you can get them comfortable.

All this is moot if you can’t find the nads to approach people in the first place, and that’s where reading people comes in. It can be nerve-wracking, going up to strangers, although now that I think about it I cannot say for sure why that should be so. I have a list of questions to ask them – so I know what I’m going to say at least – and I consider myself relatively personable. I am not particularly concerned that someone might haul out and punch me, or start screaming rape or similar. Even if they don’t want to be interviewed (as is entirely their prerogative) all I get is a polite ‘no thank you.’

My own apprehension means that I tend to gravitate towards those who give off an air of approachability. People who radiate some sense – through body language, positioning, even appearance – that they wouldn’t be terribly bothered if an oddly earnest young man sat down opposite them and asked them about their lives. For the purposes of the project they have to be alone, which makes it easier, if only because those who are alone and don’t want to be bothered are pretty easy to spot.

Then only problem is that approaching people who are themselves approachable tends to give a biased sample base. For example, they tend to be younger or older, not middle aged. Younger women are less likely to tell you to go away immediately, but are more likely to be distant. I had expected women to be less often alone than men and was surprised to find this not the case, but men are more likely to occupy themselves with something regardless of where they are. A newspaper can be a formidable shield. Elements of people’s dress can render them distant or affable (and interestingly, the eccentricity of dress has little to do with it). I’ve become very good at picking out the easiest person to talk to in a room.

Unfortunately the easiest person to talk to may not always be the most interesting, or for the purposes of my project, the most varied in terms of life experience. So I’ve learnt some useful new skills only to have to discard them. I’m much better at recognising people who might want to talk, but have to avoid that sort of person if I’m not to repeat the same sort of interview over and over.

I’m exaggerating, of course. The best thing about people in general and Londoners in particular is that everyone is unique. Talk to anyone long enough and you’re certain to hit on something interesting, so no interview is going to be wasted. And the more I force myself to talk to people the more I begin to realise that approachable or not, most people, once approached, are willing to give you the time of day, especially if you explain yourself clearly and concisely.

So what have I really learned? The same thing I learn every week on this blog. To get over myself. ‘Aura of approachability’ my bum. Just don’t be surprised when I sit down next to you.

Alternate viewing

2012-01-04T14:29:00.000+00:00

Cracked.com has ruined a lot of things I like. It’s mostly my fault: no-one is making me look at funny lists of Star Wars bloopers, but once I’ve had them shown to me I can’t un-see them. I’m now that guy, the one who points out editing gaffes or continuity errors in films, just to spread the misery around. You know, that one person who comments on the submarine scene in Raiders even though ‘no gives a crap, oh my God will you shut up about cinematic mistakes, we’re trying to watch a film, why do we even invite you over.’

Occasionally, though, Cracked drops something good in my lap. A recent article suggested a reading of The Catcher in the Rye in which the protagonist, Holden Caulfield, might be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after the death of his younger brother. It’s an interesting theory; Caulfield does demonstrate some of the symptoms of PTSD (mood swings, fluctuating sexual drive, feelings of alienation etc), and equally fascinating is the fact that J.D. Salinger suffered from combat stress reaction or ‘battle fatigue,’ which is thought by many psychologists to be a precursor to PTSD. *clenches fist* Suddenly it all falls into place!

Now when I read The Catcher in the Rye I have difficulty discarding this theory, even though it came from an admittedly left-field source. It indelibly informs my understanding of the book. I can ignore it if I choose, but it’s added a new and interesting dimension to the novel (one I wish I’d heard about when I was at uni. Man, would I have looked smart).

There’s a fan theory about Ferris Beuller’s Day Off in which Ferris is merely a figment of Cameron’s imagination: his psyche’s attempt to break Cameron out of his funk and go and enjoy life a little bit. As a reading it lacks some depth (the fact that Cameron sees plenty of people interacting with Ferris elevates him from charming mental projection to full blown dissociative personality), but like all the best alternate readings once you’ve set out the ground rules you can twist the actual narrative to fit, if you want.

You can apply an alternate reading to whatever you want, even if it’s something you hate. Who’s to stop you? The Thought Police? (I’m hoping that’s not a thing yet.)

I’m not a huge fan of Jedward, but there’s a reading of Jedward that I quite like. My brother claims to have come up with it but I’m pretty sure it was Russell Howard. Anyway, my preferred decoding of Jedward states that one of them (it can be John or Edward, I don’t think anyone remembers which is which anymore), really, REALLY hates being a part of Jedward. That with each camp wave and power kick a little part of him flutters and dies. He stares at himself in the mirror, starkly lit by the sodium lamps of another Butlins dressing room, and wishes himself anywhere else. He wanted to be a surgeon, a captain of enterprise, a hostage negotiator. He dreams of filling their back page column in Heat with his informed feminist rhetoric... but instead has to fill in little coloured bubbles about what their favourite fizzy drink is, or what they dream about at night (Column answer: riding with their fans on unicorns. Real answer: holding Louis Walsh’s head under the water until the bubbles finally stop).

The cast of Made in Chelsea are not, as the show would have us believe, rich, under-educated sociopaths, who cannot either be interesting on their own, or act interesting even when prompted. Instead they are a collective of penniless orphans, given one last chance to act their way out of the workhouse, playing the parts of rich, under-educated sociopaths who cannot either be interesting on their own or act interesting even when prompted, and giving the performance of their goddamn lives.

Remember how the first series of Big Brother was pitched as a genuine psychological experiment, with scientific talking heads and everything? People immediately realised that they were happy to simply watch other people do stuff (which is, when you think about, all you basically do in your daily life anyway), and after a few seasons people were mostly watching it for Russell Brand pulling down his trousers and pants, but to begin with Big Brother was legitimate viewing. And you can do the same to almost any TV show, with a little creative thinking.

The Bachelorette is part of a super-soldier breeding programme. Tool Academy is beamed into space as a counterpoint to ‘the best of humanity’ plaque that went out with the Voyager probe, so that if aliens ever find us we don’t look too stuck up. The men in Playing it Straight are all homosexual. So is the female lead. It’s all a big gay practical joke. The kids that get booted off the island in Shipwrecked are in fact killed and eaten by the remaining cast as supplies dwindle.

The only flaw in my genius scheme to single-handedly save television is that you could just go and watch something else, something not crap, and save yourself a lot of time and effort. But I don’t watch Made in Chelsea because I like it, I watch Made in Chelsea because my flatmates like it, and I was here on the sofa first and it’s cold in my bedroom. They get irritated, and rightly so, when I pick holes in their entertainment. They know it's crap. They don’t care. I could easily go read a book. Since I can’t be bothered to get up, the least I can do is find a way to enjoy what I’m watching.

I’m not suggesting you put up with inferior entertainment forever. I’m always suggesting that you go read a book. But media is yours to enjoy, and yours to exploit and mutate. Go nuts.

"Real in the imaginary world"

2011-12-23T20:23:00.000+00:00

Yesterday my girlfriend asked me whether I would tell my child about Father Christmas or not. What she meant – seeing as Father Christmas appears all by himself on screen and billboard and Coca-Cola truck around October – is whether I would inform my kid of Santa Clause’s fictional nature.

I thought about it and tried to answer honestly, and I think she was gratified with my response. I have no problem with letting my offspring believe in Father Christmas. It’s a nice thing to believe, at least for a little while. Santa Clause has the right level of humanity (big fat guy, big bushy beard, works his fingers to the bone) to counterpoint the miraculous (round the world in one night, flying reindeer, lives at the north pole but isn’t featured on Frozen Planet). It’s a harmless thing to believe, I think, and it goes some way to allaying the fears a precocious child might have about Christmas (what about people who have no-one to give them gifts, or people that don’t know about Jesus, or orphans etc?). Until a child is old enough to understand that the world’s problems are not magically solved at Christmas, Santa Clause can take up the slack.

I wondered if I wasn’t cutting corners. I have no plans to instil any religious belief in my son or daughter, quite the opposite. I have no plans to ‘raise my child atheist,’ but I’m certainly not going to bring the subject of God into their life until I think they’re old enough to grasp it conceptually and come to their own conclusions.

So am I being hypocritical letting my child believe in Santa Clause, a character who is patently fictitious, while actively avoiding the subject of God, an entity which I personally believe to be the same?

After giving it some thought I still think I’m on the path of righteousness, but it’s nice to know that, when posed with the same question, Tim Minchin seemed to bottle it a bit as well.

I like Tim Minchin a lot, not least because we seem to share views on science, faith and religion. He’s a little more outspoken in his beliefs, but I suspect that is because he has to get on stage and sing about them all the time.

I think Tim Minchin is always remarkably cogent about his personal views, and generally fairly magnanimous about other people’s. His justification in the New Statesman for letting his little girl believe in Santa Clause is certainly better put together than mine would ever be. You can read it here, and I suggest you do. It makes more sense than the piffle I’d be spouting about now.

It’s reassuring when people you admire make the same decisions as you; it makes you feel like you’ve chosen correctly. I’m not saying you should blindly follow your idols, but if you’re seeking to evaluate your judgement it makes sense to start with people who you consider rational and well-informed. Tim Minchin seems to be a pretty good social compass, so I was pleased we shared a viewpoint.

I’m glad I don’t have to reconsider my girlfriend’s question, partly because everybody likes to be right but mostly because she was pleased with my answer, and that made me happy. She looked at me as if I were a precocious child myself, and had given an answer beyond my years. I don’t think it was what she was expecting; being right is nice but sometimes it is equally gratifying to surprise the people you love.

So finally, sticking with the subject of people you admire sharing your views, here’s a video from Tim Minchin talking about his opinion of Christmas (seeing as he's not on the Jonathan Ross show, for some pretty spurious reasons).

It would be nice (at least for me) if you went back and had a look at this time last year’s post, in which I talk about why I like Christmas, despite being a pretty staunch atheist with a mental family. Once again, my own ideas seem to be in line with Mr. Minchin’s, and that gives me rather fuzzy feeling inside. A nice Christmas gift is to be certain in your beliefs, or at least to know that people you care about share them. I hope that Tim Minchin won’t mind me sharing this video. You should buy his DVD with your Christmas money.

How does one spell 'GERDOOSH!'

2011-12-02T20:02:00.001+00:00

Yesterday I finished the first of my introductory personal training sessions at my new gym, having decided that, as an unemployed writer with no discernable career prospects, a premium membership at an expensive London gymnasium was a cunning and necessary investment.

I’ve actually had a few personal training sessions before. The daughter of my next-door neighbours was a personal trainer occasionally employed by my step-mother, and as a generous gift my step-mother once bought me a few hours of her time.

Despite being born and raised in the Cotswolds (with numerous bratty escapes to Florence), Sam the personal trainer had something of the cockney sparrow about her. Petite, blonde, with a ready smile and a savage wit, she should would stamp her feet and blow cigarette smoke into the freezing December air while I ran laps of the garden, or mock my private life and romantic entanglements as I did sit-ups. For a couple of months she was also my impromptu shrink, her perceptions as sharp as her repartee. She’s off the fags and happily preggers now and should be due any day (incidentally if she’s reading this, I’ve always thought Joshua a wonderful name). And she always left promptly when it was clear I was going to puke after our sessions, to spare me some manly pride, the lamb.

Elvis the personal trainer is slightly more intimidating. He’s got the body I want, but physically we are spheres apart. Possibly the only parts that could stand up to comparison are our shins, which looks like regular shins, basically the same, I suppose, apart from mine are white and his are black. In the shin department we’re neck and neck. Elbows too, actually, let’s give me some credit, we’ve both got elbows, and his aren’t noticeably more muscular than mine. Eyelids. I bet we could probably bench similar weights with our eyelids.

Everywhere else is a different story. I might want Elvis’s physique but one glance shows it is definitely beyond my grasp. In order to get a left arm of comparable size to Elvis’s I would have to get myself another left arm, duct-tape the two of them together and then stuff the gaps with sand, or possible lead shot. Elvis’s pectorals look like they would deflect machine gun fire with a series of tings and kpwings. To an objective observer we could easily be two separate subspecies of humans: homo weedus and homo stackus, perhaps.

Like many very large men Elvis carries himself with a considered, almost delicate deliberateness (the poor man can probably rend metal with a gesture; imagine the tactile responsibilities of a superman). He has a taciturn face and is very softly spoken. He has recently been on Deal or No Deal and talked - with enthusiasm so warm that it became touching - about being recognised in the shops. He didn’t do very well in the show: offered a deal in the high thousands, he held out for £100,000 and walked away with 250 quid. When I ask, as politely as I can, what he did with his ‘winnings,’ he tells me he took his missus out for a meal. By this point I’m starting to fall for Elvis.

The work-out isn’t that bad, partly because I’m a little fitter than I look but mostly because Elvis goes easy on me. “You got this. You’re a strong guy,” he says at one point, managing to keep a smile off his face. We do T press-ups and mountain climbers and the rest (well, I do, Elvis just counts and tells me not to worry when I fail the last rep).

I’m not actually as unfit and puny as I’m making out. I am, however, whippet-skinny, so it’s unlikely I’ll ever get as ripped as Elvis. I’d look ludicrous with a large upper body: like Mr. Incredible, or a Stretch Armstrong someone’s left out in the sun.

However I’m determined to get my money’s worth from this gym, although it’s very impersonal and mechanistic. The breaks between music videos on the screens give ‘positive’ tips, one of which, no word of a lie, is to put unhealthy ‘bad’ items at the front section of the trolley when you shop. This is ostensibly so we can ask ourselves “do we really need this item” but seeing as the item by this point is already in the trolley, all giving the front section special attention is going to do is remind people how poorly disciplined and hideous to look at they are.

One should give the gym the benefit of the doubt: the advice is no doubt designed to inspire rewarding self-control, but I feel the drop in self-esteem engendered by finishing the shop with the front section stuffed with biscuits outweighs the positive feelings that might be accrued in the frankly unlikely scenario where you hold the biscuits thoughtfully in your hand before exclaiming: “Not this time, worthless calories!” and hurl them back on the shelves.

It’s a little disappointing to find that I’ve joined White Goodman’s Globo Gym, but none of this is Elvis’s fault. He’s a good motivator and a nice guy and if I stick to the exercises he proscribed I’m sure I could beef up a bit. The aim of this? Well, the look, obviously, but mostly to feel like I’m getting something worthwhile out of all this free time.

Although it doesn’t make much sense financially, at least going to the gym allows me to exercise control over one element of my life: my body. No job, no book deal, yadda yadda yadda. The best I can do is to make the most of what I have to get what I want, and I have lots of spare time, and I want Fight Club era Brad Pitt’s body. It’s an unrealistic aim, but so is getting £250,000 cash out of a little red box, and if Elvis can give it a fair go and then take the loss with a smile on his face, then perhaps I should follow his example. I’m sure Elvis’s missus would have preferred the big one, but I bet she was pleased with the £250 meal. I’m sure my missus would prefer Fight Club era Brad Pitt, but I figure me getting a little more tonk won’t make her scowl either.

Writer's... um...

2011-11-29T16:02:00.001+00:00

Every writer writes about writer’s block at some point. In fact, I’m fairly sure I’ve started several blog posts in this manner (possibly with that same opening sentence, I do love alliteration), only to put them aside either until ‘proper’ inspiration struck, or because I felt the idea seemed trite or overdone. As I’ve said, every writer mentions it at some point (even if it’s only to say they don’t ever suffer from it, the smug paranormal-romance writing bastards).

I suppose I’m persisting with it now because I don’t really have writer’s block at the moment. For the time being, work on the novel has slowed, and I’m starting to enter the next phase: finding someone who likes it enough to represent me. It’s a frankly petrifying move, as every rejection (not many so far, but mounting) feels like a simple and solid reason to abandon the project that has consumed eighteen months of my life, taken me out of a settled existence surrounded by friends; into a place I hardly know and where no one knows me, and left me an embarrassing stretch behind other recent graduates in trying to find employment.

So the novel suffers not from writer’s block but rather writer’s paralysis. Until I find some feedback, any sort of feedback, I know not what to do with it. It can become this or it can become that, dependent on the whim and will of an agent or a publisher or the public or my friends and family. I’m confident in my writing. It’s my only talent and I have worked hard at it. If I might be allowed to bluster a moment: it’s better than Verbal Slapstick. These blog posts take roughly an hour or less, and are edited perhaps once before I upload them (this may explain why they are littered with typographical errors).

My book is in part a labour of love, and inverted, a test of skill. If someone tells me how to make it better, I am positive I can do so. I just don’t know how (which is sort of the kicker, no matter how you look at it).

A dear friend and successful author has what I believe to be the most sensible and generally successful solution for writer’s block: write around it. It doesn’t matter what you turn to, even if it’s something away from your primary project. Just getting words on paper or on screen can be enough to start the creative juices flowing (a metaphor I am unable to source, and somewhat weirded out by).

More than that, writer’s block can be just that: and obstacle to be skirted, flanked, outmanoeuvred. Some things are difficult to write about. Some things are boring to write about. Some things are challenging to write about in a way that makes sense, or is compelling, or isn’t a little cringe-worthy. Every writer has things that they personally struggle with. I don’t write sex scenes because I can’t (please don’t make any inferences here). It’s just too hard (that’s what she said). So if I feel I have to have a sex scene (and sometimes you just do) I have to find a way to write around it without looking like I’m writing around it. It’s a time-consuming and messy process (much like sex).

Another quite well-known writer of my recent acquaintance told me a good story about his own experience leapfrogging writer’s block. Finding himself completely stymied while trying to write a scene set in a sea-side cafe during winter, and finding it more a problem of atmosphere rather than description, he decided to take himself to a similar cafe and grab some photographs. Jumping on the train to some depressing sea resort he wandered around until he found a cafe comparable to the one in his imaginings, had a cup of tea and snapped some photos. He got them developed on the way home and pinned them up around his writing desk. And did not look at them once. Although he had not been paying special attention to the cafe his was in (his idea was to get the photos and be home as soon as possible, before the urge to write at all disappeared) something about the place had apparently seeped in – the look or the smell or the sad tiredness of it all – and swilled around in his head so that he returned to his desk fully equipped to carry on. Writer’s block can be defeated by ‘physical’ means: action can be taken.

You can read your way around it. This sounds like an intellectual way of saying ‘steal things from other writers’ and it sort of is, but there’s nothing malicious behind it (or at least there shouldn’t be). Stephen King said that if you don’t read then you lack the tools to write and I think that goes beyond an aphorism into straight-up profundity. Words are your tools and your building material at the same time, your clay and your wood and your chisel and saw and pencil and granite and and dynamite. The more examples, combinations, permutations you are exposed to, the more ideas you have to draw on. And I don’t mean simply by facsimile. There’s an arborescence to writing: every new word you learn, or new context you experience, increases the number of viable word-links you can make. And because of the profligate manner in which words can be joined (especially English words, the slags) the number of links increases immensely with each piece of inducted knowledge. You are constrained only by the rules of grammar (which can be bent) and those of style (which can be broken).

Finally, you just have to keep going. I have no internet connection right now, so I cannot say with authority which writer described writing as ‘staring at a blank piece of paper until your forehead bleeds’ (or something along those lines), but that is often what it feels like. Writing when it isn’t coming easy can be tortuously hard. It’s less fun than almost everything else there is to do in your house, up to and including de-scaling the kettle. But if you go away and leave it when it’s hard, chances are it will still be hard when you return (that’s what she said. I’m so sorry). It might be better to creep, creep your way across the screen, checking your word count (wisely removed from the hotkeys and appearing at the bottom of the screen on Word 2007) every few seconds, writing and deleting, writing and deleting, a frustrating arduous slog up a literary hill until... until the difficult part is over, or what you’ve written leads naturally to something else, or while you’re thinking of a way to tell this bit, you figure out how to tell that bit, or (and this happens more than one might like, but is necessary), you realise that you’re fighting a pointless battle, and you may as well chuck this whole section and start again a bit further back but with a better idea.

Writer’s block is a problem with creativity. Ergo, in order to beat it, all one has to do is create. Quality can follow on. So I don't know what to do with the book. Better start thinking about the next one.

It occurs that perhaps I should have saved writing this post for a time when I actually have writer’s block. Oops. Bit of a plus for my flatmates though: that kettle’s going to be sparkling at some point.

Keep On Moving

2011-11-27T17:24:00.000+00:00

I’ve moved house again, and I consider this relocation a more positive one; instead of just shuffling between my parents’ respective houses when they got sick of me, I’ve moved in with members of my peer group. Friends, at least for now.

I have a somewhat bipolar view on moving house, although this refers solely to the actual act of moving all the crap you’ve accumulated from one location to another. It’s the shifting of domiciles that gets me all flustered, rather than generally changing location. There are obvious benefits of moving to London (there’s a Caribbean/bagel shop round the corner. That’s the best kind of slash, even better than Buffy/Willow).

Moving house can be a rich and fulfilling experience. It’s an opportunity to imprint a facet of your personality on to a physical space: changing the way a room looks to better reflect your own tastes. One hopes that moving home is a chance to upgrade, to make a fresh start in better surroundings. In these times of financial uncertainty many people may unfortunately find themselves downsizing, moving to poorer accommodation in an attempt to save cash. This is depressing, but even in this case moving home means you can start afresh.

When you move house, you are essentially creating order from chaos. Some of the order you bring with you from your own place: your furniture and your pictures and your telly. Some of it is discretely tucked away in your new house: that cupboard with an unexpected amount of space, that strange little nook in the kitchen that turns out to be the perfect size for the wine rack. This bit I like. The way all that clutter fits neatly in the aforementioned cupboard. The way all your wine bottles look in the aforementioned rack. The way the aforementioned wine gets you pleasantly shitfaced.

The problem is that there is just so much tuppin’ chaos about. And your efforts to unravel complexity and strife only create more. It occurs that I haven’t just lazily listed things for a while, so suck it up:

Things you didn’t plan for on your cheerful ‘New House’ list:

1. It’s filthy. The previous owners or the landlord will have spruced it up a bit, and this will serve to hide the grime until just after it is practical to clean it properly yourself i.e. as soon as your stuff is piled up in the middle of the floor. The obvious bits will be sparkling: oven door, the middle of the carpets, mantelpieces. But anything above eye height and anything below ankle level is going to be mucky and probably with an oddly unplaceable but distinctively unpleasant smell.

Sometimes the house will have been ‘professionally cleaned’ before your arrival. This brings to mind an adept and well practised grime-fighting team, sort of Kim and Aggie with uniforms and without the inherent bigotry. What you probably got is a collection of bored students, or a group of harassed first generation immigrants, rushing to their eighteenth job of the day to earn enough cash to keep little Yaakov in short trousers. You aren’t going to be cheerfully eating off the floor after their lacklustre performance. On the other hand, it might assuage some of the guilt you feel for leaving your old place in such a fucking state.

2. None of your stuff fits anywhere. It doesn’t matter how spartan you were when you moved, or how zen you felt when you took all your old tat to the charity shop. It doesn’t even matter that the space you’re moving in to is technically larger than the one you left. Everything you own is going to spend several days waiting morosely in the middle of the floor. You will fall over it. Several times. Unpacking is not simply a case of transferring your things from suitcase to drawer. Instead it has become, somehow, a three-dimensional jigsaw of hellish complexity and stress, like playing Tetris while ramped up on coke. The only way to ensure you will have a place to store all your shoes is to abandon them all and arrive barefoot.

3. It will take at least twice as long as you anticipated. ‘Oh, we’ll try and get the majority done over the weekend,’ you glibly inform your mother on the phone. Yes, you will try. And, young Jedi, you will fail. Miserably. By Sunday night you will still be craning your neck to see the TV around the boxes marked ‘Kitchen: Misc.’ And on Monday you will go back to work, and on Monday evening you will come back exhausted and look at the box and go: ‘No. Shan’t. You can’t make me.’ You finish moving in roughly three weeks before it’s time to move out.

4. No service providers care you’ve moved. Not a jot. One would think, seeing as it’s all your money in the bank, that said bank might be more forthcoming in updating their details. They won’t: they’re a bank. Instead they’ll fail to update your address at all the first time you tell them, then when you realise you haven’t had a statement in months they’ll change it incorrectly, so your neighbour gets a juicy opportunity to impersonate you on Amazon. And when you finally stagger to the bank and shout at someone they will obsequiously listen to you rant and agree that mistakes have been made and then demurely tap away the changes on their computer. And then the cash machine will eat your card on the way home so you’ll know not to fuck with them next time.

5. Utilities companies don’t want you to move. In fact, they will actively deny that you have done so, in order to keep charging you for the electricity the new tenant is using. Like lovers refusing to acknowledge the end of an affair, they will continue to write and call long after it has become appropriate. When it has become indisputable that you have truly gone for good, they will seek you out at the next property, to make sure that £2.13 you owe does not go unreturned, and possibly post their masturbatory tissues through your letterbox.

6. No one is going to forward you your post. Look at what you did with the old mail from your new house. You collected it up, like an organised and industrious person, then you left it in a prominent place on the table by the door, and when the pile got too big and you couldn’t stand you look at it any more, you sneakily recycled it all.

7. Sky aren’t coming. I’m sorry, they just aren’t. When you think about the service you are getting from them, it’s almost mind-boggling. Information is being coded into a digital signal: intangible, invisible, and amazingly fast; and is being fired up into space and then back down to your television. Imagine how impossible that would have sounded a hundred years ago. And the price you pay for this fantastic, incredible technology is to use up two day’s worth of holiday, and then have to chuck a sickie next week, and finally get it installed three weeks after you were supposed to, and after the technician has drilled several dozen holes in every wall of your house. And you’ll be bored to tears all day while you wait because, obviously, you don’t have Sky, and all your books are still in a box marked ‘Bedroom: Misc’ that you just can’t face opening.

8. You haven’t got the internet. Best get a TV licence. Oh, how do I do that without the internet? Is there a number to call? Actually, wait, the phone doesn’t work. Better set that up first. Um... wait, how do I do that without the internet? Oh you know what, fuck it, let’s just get a takeaway and sort it tomorrow. Right, where’s the nearest Chinese? Just Google... oh for shitting shit’s sake.

9. IKEA hates you. You would think, being a Swedish brand, that IKEA would be fairly liberal, and it certainly pretends to be. ‘Look, much if our furniture is customisable! And we sell Swedish food in the cafeteria! And the instructions are all pictorial, like Lego. Isn’t that so crazy and Scandinavian?’ In fact, IKEA operates much like a Fascist state: everything works fine as long as no one deviates from the set ideal.

‘You vill valk vhere ve tell you to valk! If you deviate from the display path you will end up back vhere you started, or unable to return to the section you need, as punishment for your transgression of zhese simple rules! Ve do not care if you only came to buy vun of zhose tissue paper lamp shades. You vill purchase ALL ze items from a display room, and you vill install ze furniture exactly as ve describe! If you do not, none of it will fit, or it vill look shit! All of our bookcases are unreasonable short, or too tall for ze average room! Zis is to remind you that you are simply a cog in ze IKEA paradise machine. Now nest, you worthless filth. And buy meatballs at ze end. From a can.’

10. That doesn’t work. That thing there, whatever it is. If it worked, they would have taken it with them when they left. If it seems to work, it just means that it’s broken in a way that isn’t immediately apparent, and will only become obvious when you’ve left it alone for a while. It leaks water. Or gas. Or it makes the room smell like burning. Or it might explode. Just leave it.

11. Sometimes making your possessions fit will require a tiny amount of DIY. DIY tasks so small and menial that you cannot in good conscience leave out the Y part. Drill one hole in wall, put in one rawlplug, put in one screw, hang mirror. You cannot justify getting a workman out for that. Even though you know, you KNOW, that you will drill one wonky hole in wall, stuff in incorrect rawlplug, be unable to get it out or get the screw in, dig the whole thing out with pliers and make a horrendous mess, and then in three months time when you’ve gotten over the experience the mirror and possibly the wall will fall over.

12. Every single lightbulb in the house will blow within the first week. Those filaments have been waiting, taut, stretched, aching, aching for release. Click, twang.

Artificial light is over-rated anyway. It gives you cancer, probably. Just put the wine rack somewhere you can still see it, and pray the light in the fridge holds out.

I might not be out of action that long, as I’ll try and sort some automatic updates until I finally get an internet connection (in three weeks). Till then, I’ve got moving chores to get on with (mostly playing Batman: Arkham City. I’m still basically unemployed).

Stay tuned for Verbal Slapstick: Fully Automated.

Batman: Arkham City

2011-11-11T13:00:00.000+00:00

It might seem a little unfair that I’m about to praise Batman: Arkham City for expanding on a previously successful game, when my previous review of Dead Space 2 criticised the developers for doing just that. But where Dead Space felt like version 2.0 – a little slicker but perhaps with a little less heart – Arkham City is packed to bursting point with new content. Rocksteady have seemingly decided to skip 2.0 and go all the way to 5.

Before I get too over-enthusiastic I should point out that the above comparison does hold some water: this isn’t a new game by any means. Anyone who played Arkham Asylum is going to be able to dive right back in. The fighting system is the same, as are the sneaking sections and (broadly) the locomotion controls. You’re still Batman, you still stride around after your great big chin with your cape flowing behind you, you still pull petrified hoodlums off balconies or leave them dangling from gargoyles, and you still get to bang heads in flowing, graceful combat.

What makes Arkham City a great sequel is how far the developers have pushed the formula. Firstly this it down to some inspired extras. I don’t know how much extra programming it took to include Catwoman and Robin but it was surely worth it. This is how you do extra content: the basic mechanics of both characters are exactly the same as Batman but they both feel fresh and vibrant and different. The Catwoman sections are well plotted and provide a nice break from Batman, although there simply aren’t enough of them to provide anything but a distraction. The downloadable option of Robin is limited simply to challenge modes, so it’s gratifying to see how much effort Rocksteady have put into the package: Robin has a whole different gadget set and his fighting moves are a joy: agile, skilful and flashy compared to Batman’s ‘break every bone one-by-one approach.’

But the game itself has more than enough content to keep people happy without going near an internet connection. Arkham City is huge, and as a sandbox is delightfully constructed. There is stuff everywhere. Hardly any areas are simply there to be traversed, riddles, collectables and power-ups abound. It’s the mark of a good sandbox game when travelling across a small area takes a long time simply because there are so many distractions. The main story is a little too short and is poorly paced, but you probably won’t notice because you’ll spend much of your time off doing side quests. The fact that the basic mechanics of the game are so enjoyable means you’ll relish the chance to play even if it’s not related to the story: it’s hard to just glide over a collection of henchmen idly chatting in the street when you can leap down among them like a black angel and start doing the fighty-fighty. It makes you feel like Batman every single time.

It’s the fighting mechanics that are at the core of this. Rocksteady toyed originally with the idea of a beat-match style system for combat and although that idea was dropped you can see its legacy in the smooth flow of moves. The fighting system is still largely the same as the previous game: strikes, counters and evades make up the basics, with special moves and gadgets being introduced as the game progresses. Arkham Asylum was praised for providing depth with an apparently simple system and Arkham City expands on this by simply stuffing in more moves. You can use almost every gadget in a fight, and there are hardly any two-button combinations that don’t do something in combat. Combos can contain more than a dozen unique moves. It makes you feel like Batman, and it makes you look like Batman to anyone who might be watching.

The stealth sections have also been beefed up, but here it becomes apparent that there’s more to creating a great experience than cramming things in to the build. The predator sections are in many cases inferior to the previous game's offerings simply because there is too much going on: too many bad guys, too many guns, not enough obviously scripted areas. Although this provides a greater challenge, it robs some of the atmosphere. The guards are smarter and more vigilant but it’s less cinematic to take them out in the most practical way; we want more idiot guards snoozing under skylights or hanging out by fragile walls.

The challenge maps provide a nice counter to this, as they demand that you fulfil particular tasks while taking out enemies. A lot of these are ingenious and fun and so they add a little of what the main narrative has lost. Many are unlocked by solving The Riddler’s puzzles and collecting trophies so there’s a nice progression to content that continues after the main game.

The Riddler makes an in-the-flesh appearance this time, along with a cavalcade of other Batman villains. Again it feels like Rocksteady wanted to give you your money’s worth and generous as that is it can sometimes feel like the game is at bursting point. The story is packed full of villains and so it can occasionally seem like you are wandering about at their behest rather than as part of an overarching tale. Villians are introduced and disposed of too quickly, sometimes with little introduction and no back story. The superb codex and occasional audio logs go some way to counter this but they cannot match the raw atmosphere of Arkham Asylum.

If there are any real criticisms to be made of Batman: Arkham City it is that the game occasionally tries to do too much, without giving adequate time and affection to what makes it so fantastic. But with the sheer level of content on offer, it’s hard to argue with Rocksteady’s choice. There are a few underused or lazy patches, but there’s enough quality here to allow them, and enough quantity to keep you in the Batsuit for a good long time.

What I Know Is...

2011-11-08T18:00:00.002+00:00

At dinner the other day I had someone raggin' on Wikipedia, and I felt the need to step in. It didn't do much good (at least, it didn't convert him to my point of view, which is the only 'good' I'm going to allow for here), which was not unexpected. Wikipedia has become so ubiquitous that most of the 'it's just made up' or 'anyone can do it' criticisms have fallen by the wayside. It's hard to constantly dismiss a service you use with great effect, every day of the week. The only people who are still staunch critics of Wikipedia are those who do not regularly use it, and they can therefore be difficult to convince of its positives.

Wikipedia is one of the most visited websites on the internet, one of the most consulted resources on the planet. It's a universal repository of the world's knowledge, accessible to everyone with a connection and watched over by a community of independent guiding individuals. With it you can take a good stab at answering any non-subjective, fact-based question you can come up with, and if it doesn't have the answer its editors will eventually get around to looking it up. Or if you already know, you could make the page yourself, with the guidance and correction of the community and their code of conduct. It's basically the collective wet-dream of Ancient Greek philosophers and 1960s science fiction.

However, Wikipedia’s most egalitarian dynamic is the source of its most persistent criticism: anyone can edit it, you don’t have to pay for it, and therefore it’s all incorrect. Wrong. Bullshit. Outright lies (often with some sort of agenda).

There have been several well publicised acts of Wikipedia vandalism, in which people deliberately introduced incorrect and occasionally defamatory information to particular pages. There are instances of omission or out-of-date data, and perceived bias (in America, and possibly only America, Wikipedia has been reported to have a ‘liberal’ bias, and other services have sprung up to mirror or counter this).

You know, instead of me telling you all this, why not peruse the Wikipedia article on its own reliability? It’s extremely interesting.

Criticisms of Wikipedia seem to be fading away. Many of its opponents have had their queries or criticisms addressed and have tentatively given the initiative their approval. One suspects that many of its critics have simply found it too convenient, or found it their first place of research too many times to remain vociferous in their disapproval.

One thing you might note from the article linked above is that the most vocal critics of Wikipedia seem to be editors or ex-editors of other encyclopaedias. The easy joke to make is: ‘well they would say that, wouldn’t they.’ None of them could possibly admit that Wikipedia –a free service – can perform the functions of their own, paid publications as well or better than they can. As well as being a little embarrassing, they’d be out of a job (probably not because the encyclopaedia would fold, but I wouldn’t want to have to explain my Wikipedia thumbs-up to the board of directors on Monday morning).

However, I think it a little truculent to assume a reactionary stance on the part of these people. They are responsible for publications that have a dedication – a paid, professional dedication – to the truth. They are correct to point out that, in a system that is open to anyone, perfection is either unattainable or impossible to keep hold of. They make a salient point. I just don’t think they are operating in possession of all the facts.

Firstly one must remove all the assumptions or criticisms that are addressed by Wikipedia themselves. Primary among them is the idea that Wikipedia claims to be in any way incontrovertible. Wikipedia knows that people mess with it. It knows because the people who edit it spend much of their time removing incorrect information. But the fact that some of the information might be incorrect does not invalidate the rest. Wikipedia freely admits to its flaws, but doesn’t need to advertise them. To do so would undermine the principles of sharing factual information.

Look at it this way. Say the staff of the Encyclopaedia Britannica sat down before the launch of the latest edition. New research will, over time, either disprove or modify some of the information their book contains. New theories will either solidify or be dropped. It is also always possible, however unlikely, that some mistake might have slipped through their net. They cannot say with absolute certainty that every single word in the book is correct, now and forever, because that is simply impossible. Firstly, this does not negate the books usefulness as a research tool, not a jot. Secondly, it does not mean they are going to whack a big sticker on the front of every edition saying ‘Caution! One of these facts may prove to be false.’ To do so would invalidate (subjectively, not statistically) every other fact contained within. They don’t have to do that, in fact they shouldn’t, and neither should Wikipedia.

Next, it’s becoming increasingly hard to argue with Wikipedia’s results. As the community gathers strength (and let us not forget that Wikipedia is only ten years old. Britannica has been around since 1768), articles get bigger, better structured and better referenced. The kinks are slowly being ironed out, and now Wikipedia’s rate of major mistakes is comparable to paid services.

Thirdly, well, if you’re looking to really do some research, I would suggest looking at more than one book. To begin with, academic institutions came down hard on Wikipedia, refusing to countenance its use in a scholarly environment. While one might argue that it is Wikipedia’s slow trudge towards better quality that has led to the relaxing of these guidelines, a cynic would suggest that it’s because every single student in the world uses it as their primary research tool, if only to get a basic understanding of the concept they were supposed to have learned about in that class they slept through. Nowadays, most academic institutions (and this change was visible even during my own university career) limit themselves to wearily pointing out Wikipedia’s possible problems and suggesting that it might be an idea if students varied their sources a little bit. This final part is nothing new: students have always been told to research from multiple sources to get a better understanding and confirm the veracity of their statements. The most enterprising of lazy students will note that the bigger Wikipedia articles have lists of references at the bottom: the perfect place to start wider reading (without having to find that pesky reading list that you immediately lost on day 1 of the term).

Finally, most people are unaware of how Wikipedia actually operates behind the scenes. This is a little surprising, considering how simple it is to go and have a poke around. You can edit articles with relative ease, and create a user profile and start writing your own stuff within minutes. What people might who try might note, however, is how frickin’ difficult it is to just jump on there and start fucking with things.

Every change made to a Wikipedia article is visible to other users. There are teams of Wikipedia users, dozens, scores, hundreds, who spend a lot of their free time trawling around checking these immediate edits. If they don’t make the cut, they get cut. Straight away. In almost half the cases, before anyone else might have time to read them.

When I tried to create my first Wikipedia article I was staggered by how in-depth the code of conduct was. I did my best to follow it, and made an article for an upcoming book by a well-known children’s author. I had the new releases catalogue next to me, so I had a source, and I was fairly certain that no one else would have made that page. Off I went, and stuck to their style guidelines as best as I was able. All the information was demonstrably correct; the style was neutral and objective, the page itself linked to another page about the real-life individual the novel was about.

It lasted less than two days before it was marked for what is known as ‘speedy deletion.’ When I enquired as to why, I was told that the subject in question was not demonstrably notable: there was no apparent demand for the article, no one wanted to know, the very fact of the books existence was not enough to get it a page dedicated to it.

I tried to get sniffy about this but was stumped by the sheer objective weight of the person I was dealing with. He demonstrated what made an article notable, and more important, how that could be proved. ‘It doesn’t matter if you think it’s notable,’ he said (I am paraphrasing, his replies were marked by politeness but a certain brevity, I suspect I was not the only newbie he was gently remonstrating with). ‘You might even be right, but you need to be able to prove it.’

I gave up on that article, although I want to eventually become a bigger part of the Wikipedia community. For now I’ll edit any mistakes that I see (still waiting on that) and watch how it’s done. Hopefully my brief and unsuccessful foray points out how comprehensive the moderating is, and also how stringent the code: it’s a little eye-opening to see how every article matches the guidelines (even if it’s badly written or apparently pointless).

So if Wikipedia is easy to defend (and it is: I did all this in an hour, and guess what my primary source was), and if its criticisms are either easy to address or in some cases simply unfair and unrealistic, why the bad vibes, Joe Public?

I think it’s probably because it’s free, and anyone can edit it. That sounds like a tautology based on what I’ve discussed previously, but I want you to look at the above statement very carefully.

It’s free, and anyone can edit it. This has no inherent negative connotations. Just because it’s free, doesn’t mean it can’t be as good as or better than a paid service. The water that comes out of the tap is consistently demonstrated to be better for you than water you pay a pound for. And just because anyone can edit it, doesn’t mean that those who make edits might be poorly informed or somehow malicious. The fact that anyone can edit it means that you have a potentially limitless knowledge base on which to draw, making it, in statistical terms at least, the greatest learning tool in existence.

That isn’t how people see it, but I think that says more about people than Wikipedia. It’s become a natural assumption that anything free is somehow inferior to something you have to pay for. It’s the natural assumption that most people are idiots, and any initiative maintained by a collection of people must reflect this, even if the evidence suggests otherwise. If the masses are in charge, it must be somehow inferior to something created by the elite.

But knowledge is self-duplicating. The more people who know about it the more of it there is. That means that although a contributor may not have a PhD, they can still crib off the notes of someone who does. It’s the same knowledge. Having a PhD doesn’t make it more intrinsically right. If that knowledge could not be verified then no one would be able to get a PhD in the first place. Wikipedia is not merely the URL each article inhabits. It is a window to all knowledge relevant to the subject, regardless of who discovered, formulated or described that knowledge. The person who made the page is irrelevant, as it should be in the best encyclopaedia.

Murder on the Marylebone Express

2011-10-24T15:23:00.001+01:00

Insomnia and early rising don’t mix. In fact, insomnia doesn’t mix with much, except perhaps a slow slide towards psychosis and the occasional rage-induced homicide. But having scored some work experience at the London offices of a major publisher (saying it that way obscures the fact that I’m still on work experience at 25), I’ve got to get up in the morning. The fact that I don’t live in London doesn’t help. It’s especially jarring as my last commute to work involved walking to the end of my road and then climbing over the wall into the pub car-park.

Even after a (at this point probably mythical) good night’s sleep I’m not a morning person. So a broken 5 hours leaves me crusty-eyed and pale and, more importantly, venomously spiteful. I was seriously worried that, even if I didn’t straight-up murder somebody on the tube, I might still catch myself being horribly rude to some undeserving passenger or barista or shop-assistant. It has since dawned on me that even if I were to be so unpleasant, nobody would notice. It seems like the rest of the world can’t stand mornings either.

I first realised it while trying to take a seat on the train. The scenario was one most people would recognise: only one seat – a window seat – was available, and a suited and briefcased gentleman was sprawled in the aisle seat next to it. His coffee was on the shared table, his newspaper supplements spread over the free chair. I lingered nearby, waiting for him to notice me and let me by. I continued to wait. It became obvious that he had noticed me. It is doubtful he misinterpreted my reason for standing there (“Man, this new cologne is really excellent!”), and so he was clearly waiting me out, hoping I would give up and leave the free seat in his churlish employ.

Bastard, I thought (not, I hope you’ll agree, unreasonably). I grunted aloud, preparing to give him my patented ‘I’ll kill you and all your relations’ death-glare. But the look in his eyes startled me right out of it. It was a version of my own murderous stare, with a trace of desperation and shame in it too. He needed that seat. Really needed it. And he obviously begrudged me my selfish, unnecessary attempt to wrest it from him. His eyes spelt out a self-righteous, self-justified, class-A fuck you.

The venom in his glance had me momentarily taken aback. But my legs were tired and my bag was heavy and most importantly screw you mister so I awkwardly clambered over his legs and then stood hovering above him: a strange tableau that threatened to become sexually charged if he took no action. Suitably abashed, he removed his magazines and I sat down next to him. We spent the next hour avoiding each other’s gaze, frowning fixedly, and hoping against hope that our latent telekinetic powers might finally manifest so that we could slam our antagonist like a ragdoll against the ceiling of carriage. Hate condensed in the air around us. The train lights flickered and sparked with pent-up aggression. People in the seats around began to develop radiation-induced tumours.

Since then I have noticed a palpable undercurrent of malice in my morning interactions. It filigrees through our communications like a fracture in glass, a tiny but visible flaw in our otherwise transparent connections.

“Can I take your order? …please ask for ritual suicide.”

“Just a cup of coffee please…and you have ten seconds before I throttle you.”

“I’m terribly sorry, but could you move down inside the carriage slightly… or a swift death will be your greatest blessing.”

People aren’t rude to each other, heavens no. They are either frostily, mockingly polite or stony-silent. Occasionally a tourist might commit the cardinal sin of British bad manners (pointing out someone else’s bad manners), and then develop a gushing nosebleed as they suddenly find themselves the subject of a collective psychic assault. The rest of the time we all just sit and stew…

… and then when we get to work we swallow it all down, compose ourselves into smiles and ‘How was your evenings,’ and get on with our lives. The train home is better, but only because most people appear too dog-tired to conjure the energy for physical violence.

There’s an easy happy-clappy message here: do as you would be done by, if-that’s-how-you-feel-how-do-you-think-they-feel etc. Well, for your own safety I suggest you drop all that joy to the world crap and think practically about it.

Look at it this way. You are a paragon of self-restraint and justice. You are a strap-hanging saint, a paladin of the platform, the ethical emblem of the escalator. And when that guy accidentally jarred you with his suitcase it was all you could do not to light him on fire and dance around the flames.

So do you really want to risk pushing that bald man with gimlet eyes and his bag on the seat, or try reading over the shoulder of that clearly psychotic woman with the iPad? They don’t look quite so well-balanced.

Morning people? How morning are we talking? We are biologically programmed to wake at sunrise. There are no morning people when, like most commuters, you have to leave in the dark for much of the year. Think about your personal safety. Let’s just assume that, before 9am, everyone we speak to is a short-fused passive-aggressive timebomb. Why risk turning your trip on the Northern Line into a scene from The Hurt Locker? Follow my example. In maudlin, eyes-to-the-floor silence.

See you at work, everybody.

Gig in 100 words

2011-10-10T21:50:00.002+01:00

Nero have got the monochromatic look, and a hot singer who’s also a midwife which helps probably, and they sound like their keyboard has the major chords highlighted and only responds to two fisted hammer-blows. A number one record gives them an earworm or two and a lightshow that few one-word remix artists past deadmau5 are allowed. They might be accused of being cheesy, and with reason, but their drops stimulate the part of the human neuro-cortex that makes you throw your gun fingers about like Eminem before he got sad all the time.

The Employment Gambit

2011-10-06T16:08:00.001+01:00

My life has been in the hands of statistics recently. I’m one of the 1 in 5 graduates currently out of work. Proper work, not dealing drugs work, or medical testing work, or get paid to build your neighbour’s brick wall and don’t tell the taxman about it (if the Inland Revenue is reading this, then I’m joking. If).

Since I’m applying for jobs at least 3 days out of 5, and maybe 1 in 10 of these jobs I’m actually qualified for, statistically I should eventually find employment, even if I don’t score that job as editor of the Financial Times, or that astronaut thing I keep seeing on Milkround.

Except that isn’t how statistics work. Statistics only tell you how things currently stand: applying for jobs 3 days out of 5, qualified for 1 in 10 means exactly that; there’s no inherent likelihood of finding work. For that you need to delve into the dark and nefarious world of probability.

There is no ancient god of probability, but only because that kind of mathematical thinking is a relatively new development in human history. Love, war, archery, natural imagery, playing the lyre, cheating at stuff, all that has been around for millennia, and there’s normally a pantheistic deity either devoted to it or ready to take it under his/her mantle (in the ancient Greek pantheon Apollo is god of about thirty things. He also has a pretty workmanlike attitude to what he patronises, being the god of both plague and medicine).

It’s easier to pray to some higher being than it is to accept the sheer mathematical cruelty of the world. If gravity had been conceptually realised a bit earlier then we’d have a god of gravity (his name would be Crash, his avatar a man on crutches). If we’d come up with probability sooner I’m certain there would have been a god of probability. It’s the perfect gig for a deity: no heavy lifting like that Atlas guy, no work at all really; you just hang about being capricious and humans will worship you because their brains are hardwired that way. When they occasionally win, it’s because you smiled upon them. When they mostly lose, it’s because... well, that’s probability, folks!

Let’s imagine a god of probability. Let’s call him... I don’t know, Gambit, since he was always third favourite X-Man. Let’s say he looks like this:

*Pant* There are a lot of pictures of Gambit kissing Wolverine online, but I think I found them all.

Back to my job hunting. Firstly I haven’t got a clue what 3/5 x 1/10 equals, but I’ve got a feeling it’s going to be quite a low fraction. If we take the above sum as true for now, then I’ve got a small probability of being successfully employed any time soon. No problem, right? I just have to keep trying. The more jobs I apply for, the more chance I have of being successful. Just gotta keep on truckin.’ Hell, the only reason I’m here talking to you is because Indeed.com has crashed, and I can’t watch porn in Cafe Nero.

Except that isn’t how probability works either. It’s what our brains are programmed to understand, because they are pattern recognition machines, designed to help us react to environmental changes. Unfortunately mathematics isn’t an environmental change, it’s the ancient Greeks’ way of ruining primary school.

So let’s be generous and say I have a 1 in 10 chance of getting an interview out of every job I apply for. The gambler in me says “no problemo, capitan, you need to apply for ten jobs and bingo-bango, you gonna get at least one.”

This tells us two things: firstly that the gambler in me sounds like a dickweed, secondly that 1/10 is a very misleading series of symbols. What is implied is that 1/10 times 10 equals 1, which is unfortunately guffins. Not true. No dice, to use a gambling term. 1/10 is always 1/10, no matter how many times you try. So no matter how many jobs I apply for, I always have the same small chance of success.

I don’t really have any other options, but you can see why gambling is so insidious. Our brains tell us that the more times we try, the greater our chance of winning, which is patently false. Einstein’s theory of how to win at roulette was to “steal the money from the table while the croupier isn’t looking,” and if one of the leading scientific minds of the last century can’t figure it out, I doubt your can-do attitude and lucky rabbit’s foot is going to do jack when it comes to making mathematics pay out. While I don’t lose anything from multiple job enquiries, if I had to bet something in order to play I’d soon be even broker than I am now (something that is unfortunately possible, since some jerk invented negative figures. This is why nerds are bullied at school).

I don’t believe in god, but prayer to a deity is preferable to the repeat misery of my inbox every morning (Dear Milkround. I DO NOT WANT TO BE A RECRUITMENT CONSULTANT. Please leave me alone).

The best thing about the ancient pantheons (Greeks especially, and those thieving Romans), is that they were almost human, fallible; like Eastenders but with more smiting. They were forever falling in love with humans, playing tricks out of spite, meddling with things they shouldn’t be meddling with. And because they were fallible they were knowable, and therefore worth praying to. They could be cajoled, bargained with, even bribed (Zeus especially was amenable to a flash of boob now and again, the horny old goat).

So that time you almost fell over in the bath but didn’t? That’s the god of gravity smiling upon you, or off having a fag or something. He’s got a lot on his plate, what with all those aeroplanes around nowadays. I need a job, and so my pilgrimage to Cafe Nero has become a trip to Gambit’s temple, my every wheedling cover-letter a sacrifice of sorts (of my dignity, mostly).

And that means I can ignore the basic laws of probability, and not get downhearted. I just need to keep playing the game, keep rolling the dice, and Gambit will take pity on me eventually. And when I get my first paycheck I’ll go out and buy a dozen lottery tickets, so that he knows I am grateful. Infinite is his patience, long are his odds, blessed be unto snake-eyes, Amen.

The hazel-eyed monster

2011-10-04T17:32:00.000+01:00

Gore Vidal had it pegged when he said: “Every time a friend succeeds a piece of me dies.” At the moment a large part of my ego is circling the drain, thanks to the glorious success of a friend.

Said compadre is DW Wilson, who recently became the youngest winner of the BBC’s National Short Story Award, helping himself to some critical acclaim and a very tidy cash prize. While I’m here I’ll plug his book Once You Break A Knuckle, which is available on Amazon.com and will see a UK publication soon.

DW is certainly deserving of his award. His short story, The Dead Roads, is a perfectly crafted tale of love and youth and adventure with a smidgen of betrayal thrown in, all set in the richly painted and somewhat bizarre backwoods landscape of DW’s native Canada. It’s about as good a short story as you’ll read; it’s a proper tale, full of big things and ass-kicking, none of the navel-gazing nonsense that clogs up my Granta subscription. Although seriously, go read Granta. There’s some good shit in there.

So I suspect I’d be jealous of DW even if he hadn’t won a big slice of pie, because he’s written a short story I could only dream of penning. The success of The Dead Roads ought to be measured on how good it is, not how much it is worth. And it’s plenty good enough to get jealous over.

I pondered briefly why DW’s success would cut me so close. I mean, plenty of other people I know are successful, and most of them are young. Some people I don’t know have levels of success I can only goggle over, and they hardly keep me awake at night. It could be the cash DW has deservedly won, but lottery winners have all the money they could dream of and I don’t mind. If I did I’d be out there egging their mansions, the lucky buggers.

Partly it’s because DW is successful in what I might petulantly call my field: he’s a writer, and I want to be a writer (anyone who tells you just writing things is enough to make you one is sadly deluded, and probably as broke as I am). He’s doing the thing that I want to be doing, and doing it well; better, probably, than I ever will.

But there are thousands of successful writers, and I manage to keep my jealousy in check. If I met, say, Pat Barker I’d probably gush over her work, rather than seethe and plot her downfall (that’s right DW, watch every shadow from now on). I know plenty of writers personally and many (most) are as talented or more talented than I, and I have perfectly cordial relations with them. What is it about this piece of news that makes me boil with envy? (apart from the money thing, that’s obvious).

The answer is because DW earned it. Straight up. His work ethic is something I should seek to emulate, and he put a lot of labour into that story. It shows. It shows in the silky sharp cadence of every sentence. It shows in his indiscriminate verbing, that makes it sound as if the narrator were sat in the next seat to you. It shows in his funny, sweet dialogue, that makes me nostalgic for a place I’ve never been and experiences I never had. It’s a work of art, of craft, and it damn well got that way because DW spends hours staring at his laptop every day, making sure it turns out like that.

That’s the problem, that’s where the jealousy comes from. I ought to be doing it that way, and I’m not. The work ethic, the dedication, the sheer toil that leads to success is on display in front of me and I’m not taking the hint because I’m lazy, or bolshy, or unsure, or whatever feeble adjective I feel like justifying it with.

That’s why I’m not really jealous of lottery winners. They didn’t do anything to earn their prize. And if they won it by chance, then so can I, maybe. It could be you. It won’t, but it could. I don’t have to do anything to be in with a shot.

So I’m not really jealous of DW’s prize, the recognition or the money. I’m not even really jealous of the story, I’m just grateful I had the chance to read it. It’s the reward, not the prize, that’s ripping me wide open. The reward for diligence and hard work and talent. The reward that I might deserve if I could only show those same qualities. I’m jealous of what he’s doing, not what he’s done.

Now I just need to make myself do the same.

High Culture + Low Culture = THE Culture.

2011-10-04T17:02:00.000+01:00

A combination of circumstances has left me without internet this week (this post comes from a Cafe Nero near you), a deprivation I might normally have relished with monkish pride (escape from social networking, more time to read, get outside in the sunshine etc etc) had I not been looking for employment. It turns out that looking for work is rather challenging without access to the web.

As the days go by I have noticed other, even more trivial endeavours hobbled by my lack of internet. I don’t know when any social events are occurring, for instance (Facebook does my calendar for me). Simple meals have become more challenging as I rack my brain for measurements and cooking times. I feel a little disconnected from the world (I can’t get Radio 4 on the laptop anymore). Several times I have left investigating a minor piece of information (phone numbers, cinema listings, directions to a bar) until the last minute, confident that I would be able to discover each fact with only the briefest of searches, remembering far too late that I can’t just jump online to find out, and here is the thing, I honestly don’t know how else to find out.

How do I find out cinema times without the internet? Is there a number you can call? And how do I find out what that number is? Do I just ask people in the street until one of them has it? Or do I go and ask the neighbours? If someone gives me an address how do I find it? My girlfriend doesn’t have a map of London in her house; she just has old issues of Heat I pretend I don’t read when she’s at work.

I’m not completely stymied. There is free wifi at several bars and cafes in the local area (which is a good thing, else you might not be reading this). My trip to Cafe Nero has become a daily pilgrimage, partly because they let you grossly abuse their loyalty card system. (“I would like eight of your cheapest green teas, please. And now for my free drink, I would like an extra-large hot fudge sundae macchiato with extra cream, another shot of espresso, and a dash of any particularly interesting syrups you’ve got back there.”)

But my reliance on the internet is worrying, not to mention debilitating. Every day I go to Cafe Nero and trawl Guardian jobs and Milkround and Indeed.com looking for work, like the good little graduate I am. But I don’t look up every piece of information I might conceivably need in a day. So then when I get home I am baffled by a seemingly innocuous question. I didn’t think I really used the internet much, and now I find I can’t get by without it.

I’m not the only one in this predicament, obviously. As a society we have moved away from what might be termed ‘fundamental knowledge:’ that which allows us to cook things from basic ingredients, to fix things when they break, where to find regular and multiple sources of information, so that if one is unavailable we are not completely foxed.

If I were a Daily Mail columnist I might at this point bemoan the above fact, confess my yearning for a simpler time when everyone knew how to make an apple pie from scratch, use a mangle, ride a horse to work or some such nonsense. Stuff that, frankly. I’d quite like to know how to make an apple pie, but I don’t want to frickin’ memorise it. I’d just rather look it up, thanks.

There are two reasons why people seem to know less about their fundamental processes. The first is the centralization of, and easy access to, all sorts of information. We don’t need to know off-hand how to get engine oil out of cotton trousers any more than we need to memorise the cinema listings in the paper in case we feel like going in the week. The information is right there online waiting for us. It feels like a new development but it’s not, really. It’s simply a more egalitarian arrangement. In days gone by rich people might have the sum of all human knowledge kicking around in their library, if they were bothered to look. Several of the more traditional (read: bigoted) politicians and aristocrats of the later 19th century worried what free access to libraries might do to the minds of the working class. They phrased their arguments as concern over the brain capacity of the poor, as if learning French or classics might make them forget to how to use a hammer, but what they were really panicking about was the idea that extra knowledge might awaken the working class to how well and truly they were being stiffed by their supposed betters. The emancipatory effect of common access to knowledge is one of the main arguments used at the moment by those trying to defend our libraries against the public service cuts of the current austerity government. But the public’s current access to information via the internet must have those old lords and ministers spinning in their graves. While the information available on the internet might be of lower edited quality than that found in the average library, it’s certainly more pernicious; just ask China. (Don’t bother, they don’t write back. I’ve tried).

The information provides emancipation is indirectly related to the second reason why we have less basic knowledge: the emancipation of women from the home.

Let’s face it, when anyone harks back to the days when we knew how to tailor our own clothes and cook from scratch and all that stuff, they mean when women knew how to do it. For at least the last couple of centuries the employment routine of men hasn’t really changed: wake up, perform basic ablutions, eat, go to work, come home, go to pub, eat, perform basic ablutions, sleep. That’s it. Men have never known how to make apple pies and sew on buttons because the women did it all for them. If we’ve forgotten these simple pieces of knowledge as a society it’s because women have forgotten them, and women have forgotten them because they’ve got better things to be doing.

Why should anyone need to devote themselves to basic pieces of knowledge when it is all readily available for them? Why bother with memorising how to cook or clean or fix things except for convenience’s sake: unless you decide you want to. The rest of the time you can just look it up, and save your time for doing things you want to do.

Let’s forget about an apocalypse or something equally dramatic. Let’s assume we get the Star Trek future where humanity keeps progressing, solving its own problems and social ills and eventually devoting itself to knowledge and ethical pleasure. You think Captain Kirk has a fucking clue how to make an apple pie? He probably doesn’t even lace his own shoes; he’s too busy discovering energy fields and banging space babes.

We don’t need to get by without the internet when it’s doing such a good job for us. It’s supposed to be a time saver, and used properly it really is. That other methods for doing things may have fallen by the wayside is disconcerting but shouldn’t necessarily concern us. It’s a bugger that most graduate jobs are posted online if you don’t have internet access, but I can see how it’s the most convenient method for everyone involved. The solution is to make sure that everyone has access to the internet, so that everyone can take advantage of meritocratic information transfer.

The only downside is this: when information is so readily available, how do we separate what is trivial from what is meaningful?

In days gone by the stuff you had to learn to get through the day was necessary, but trivial. You don’t glory in the knowledge of how to mop a floor. The other stuff, the bits you had to find out for yourself, were what was recognised as important. That these scales have reversed themselves somewhat is a sign of the time we live in. But meaningful information is the same as it ever was: information that improves the life and intellect of its discoverer, either emotionally or physically. I’d bet you’re a damn sight more likely to remember how to make an apple pie if you get some sort of pleasure from doing it. It’s easy to get high and mighty about types of culture, but if an encyclopaedic knowledge of TOWIE makes you the envy of your friends and makes you beam with pride than to hell with anyone who might tell you it’s not worthwhile.

We aren’t taught to learn from the internet, though. Older people scoff at the idea that schools might have classes dedicated to how to use the internet, but that strikes me as very short-sighted. Surely people deserve to know how to make the most of the greatest human development in years? Information is now easy to get at. People are only just beginning to realise that, I think. It’s why the internet has spent the best part of a decade languishing in an intellectual doldrums of pornography and funny cats. But think about how many people use Wikipedia every day. You think that, a hundred years ago, those people would have used a regular encyclopaedia so voraciously? Or that they might own one at all?

I rely on the internet for all my information. But it’s about so much more than cinema timings and Google maps. I didn’t realise how flippin’ useful the whole thing was until it was taken away. So I’m taking more time to read, to go outside in the sunshine. But as soon as I get my internets back, I’m going to go and learn something.

Dead Space 2

2011-09-26T14:03:00.000+01:00

Is a shark attack survivor lucky because they got to live, or unlucky to be attacked in the first place? This question might have crossed engineer Isaac Clarke’s mind when he wakes up in the middle of another necromorph outbreak, this time on ‘The Sprawl,’ a huge space station orbiting one of Saturn’s moons, three years after his first nightmare on the mining ship Ishimura.
The player might wonder what has been happening with Isaac over the last three years, and the game neatly averts this by making sure Isaac doesn’t remember either. He’s been kept on mental lockdown by the inevitable sinister government forces and therefore both Isaac and player will find their experience in Dead Space 2 following on directly from the end of the previous game.

That’s not all the follows directly on because Dead Space 2 is fundamentally Dead Space: Episode 2. The first game’s basic mechanics are expanded on hugely but hardly anything new of note has been added. Most of the weapons return, as do telekinetic and stasis manipulation and zero-g environments. Isaac’s suit now allows him to fly about in zero-g (an ability he apparently forgot about in the previous outing) and this allows some interesting multi-level exploration, while the stasis and telekinetic powers are used occasionally for puzzles but are now mostly necessary parts of combat. As in his first adventure, Isaac also spends a lot of time repairing broken systems and travelling on trams (apparently the 26th Century’s regular form of mass transit).

That Dead Space 2 is a direct update is not necessarily a fatal flaw because what the game does it does very well. Combat is tense and exciting and the weapons are satisfyingly meaty with plenty of opportunity for customisation. The enemy range is a little bland with only a few new types appearing, but these new opponents are well designed and introduced in exciting ways. The damaged space station conveys a damaged fragility with constant explosions and breakages. Windows can occasionally be shot out leaving a desperate scramble to lower the seals and stop Isaac from shooting off into space (it's also a good way to clear a room of enemies). There’s a tangible sense of danger from all around and this adds to what Dead Space 2 does best of all: atmosphere.

The game’s lack of a HUD makes for an immersive experience, as do the multiple layers of narrative: text and audio logs dotted about the rooms give insight into the well-created and well-explored background involving sinister religious movements and government shenanigans. The voice acting is excellent and the audio cues and score are creepily energising: screams and metallic clanks punctuate your exploration, and the space station has a variety of environments which all have nice audio details. The puzzles, while a little bland and simplistic, are all well conceived within the game-world. Isaac fixes or reprograms things for relatively well explained reasons. It certainly beats Resident Evil’s ‘place random item in convenient slot’ dynamic.

The game uses perhaps too many dirty tricks in trying to ramp up the suspense (Isaac tramps through far too many children’s bedrooms, for example), and this tries to hide Dead Space 2’s primary flaw: it’s not very scary (always a minor bugger for a horror game).

Partly this is the fault of the plotting, which in the middle section is extremely slow. It also owes something to Isaac’s re-invention as a talkie hero; he is now a bit too sarcastic and unflustered, nothing like the anonymous and helpless engineer from the first game. Gravel-voiced and laconic, he’s too badass to seem truly vulnerable. In the end, though, Dead Space 2’s failure to be frightening stems from the basic running of the game itself.

The weapons are all perhaps a little too effective in defeating necromorphs and though ammo is often scarce the ability to telekinetically hurl torn-off limbs means you never really run dry (a gimmick the game makes laboriously sure you know about).The enemies themselves are too numerous and ultimately too squishy to be terrifying; the fear diminishes each time you see and defeat them and you will be doing that a lot. The game is at its most terrifying in the very early sections where Isaac is disorientated, unarmed and on the run. The ability to fight back so effectively saps some of the suspense: this is Aliens rather than Alien or Event Horizon. Finally the plodding nature of the level design means that fatigue and repetition set in during the middle third, and it is this repetition that kills the fear.

At first glance Dead Space’s multiplayer might be accused of cribbing from Left 4 Dead’s online notes but the difference in play styles is enough to save it from cries of plagerism. Although the set-up is the same (humans versus monsters, with humans comparatively durable but less manoeuvrable and with fewer respawns), the difference between L4D’s smooth first-person flee-fest and Dead Space’s slightly clunky third-person view, with its focus on dismemberment, keeps the experience feeling fresh. It requires teamwork enough to breed some sense of achievement and has enough unlockables to stave off repetition. Like the single-player game it’s hardly revolutionary but competent and diverting enough that fans will probably keep a decent community going for a long time.

It would be a little unfair to criticise Visceral Games for their choice in essentially updating the first game, seeing as for the most part they have done very well. Newcomers to the series will find probably the most competent over-the-shoulder third person shooter available. Fans of Dead Space will probably find enough new content to keep them involved (although are unlikely to find the game particularly challenging except on high difficulties). It seems as if Visceral have listened hard to the reviews of the first game and then done their best to address the criticisms. It is their decision to avoid trying anything new that handicaps Dead Space 2, leaving a fantastically polished experience that lacks true terror. In engineer parlance: the first Dead Space was hardly broke, and this is about as fixed as it’s going to get.

Co-operative schmoperative.

2011-09-15T20:19:00.000+01:00

One of the best things about finishing a draft of the book (especially since I’m probably never going to make any money off of it, so I need to take the positives where I can), is that I can start playing games again relatively guilt free. I’m pretty stoked that this freedom coincides neatly with the release of Gears of War 3 on the Xbox. Normally I’m not one for threequels, either as a concept or a portmanteau, but the Gears series holds sentimental value for me beyond the fact you get a chainsaw attached to the bottom of your gun. (Gunsaw. Now that’s a wordwhich. I mean portmanteau.)

Gears is a co-op game, and I’ve played through the first two with my long-suffering and now sadly ex-housemate Joe (I moved out, he didn’t die). The games themselves are fun to play (gunsaw!) but I enjoyed them primarily because it was a diverting and occasionally hilarious bonding experience. I sincerely hope Joe feels the same way – it won’t be nearly as fun playing it without him – but I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s dreading the experience. You see, I’m a terrible co-op player.

When it comes to Gears I have a specific condition known as ‘chainsaw blindness.’ If I’ve got the gunsaw, I feel like I really ought to use it, and the satisfaction of slicing a big monster into chunky salsa is much greater than just plugging him full of bullets from across the room. The satisfaction is roughly the same each time, which means I feel compelled to do it to every enemy I see. The only problem is that in a game designed almost completely around taking cover behind things and shooting at other things, wandering around the room waving your gunsaw (still not getting tired of that) at monsters tends to get you shot. A lot. And that means your co-op buddy has to bring you back to life. A lot. Or get swarmed by bad guys you were supposed to be helping with and dying himself. A lot. Which sends you back to the next checkpoint. A lot.

Joe, saint that he is, mostly suffers this in silence. He also kindly ignores my tendency to throw explosives at his feet, when I begin personal vendettas with specific bad guys at the expense of everything else, my shameless thieving of all the good weapons and ammo, and my categorical refusal to snipe people even when the game demands it (“but it’s booooring!”).

I also play co-op games with my youngest brother, whose patience (perhaps correctly) is far more limited. We therefore tend to play the sort of hack-everyone-to-pieces fighty games that don’t really require a huge amount of teamwork bar you being on the same screen. Rather than a pairing of valiant heroes fighting side by side, we operate as two desperate individuals fighting against impossible odds... several feet apart from one another. We’ve made an executive decision to stay away from co-op shooters (his preferred name for ‘chainsaw blindness’ is ‘Joshua being a dick’).

I’ve also been known to deliberately sabotage team efforts for the sake of humour. Which is fine if everyone else finds it funny, but as I have what might charitably be described as an individual sense of humour, it’s really only me that sees the funny side. Imagine my joy when I discovered that in Little Big Planet one could grab onto the other players as well as ledges and buttons and suchlike. It looks like I’m not going to make that leap! And now neither are you, because I’m clinging on to your shins!

This problem with co-operation stems not from competitiveness (I get it world, I suck at stuff), but from what might be termed ‘fun-blindness.’ In that, I’m blind to everything that isn’t fun. Fun for me. The most important guy in the equation. Pick that thing up! Hold that checkpoint! Leave me that medkit! Pass me the ball! Um... sorry, can’t hear you over my GUNSAW! Wait, we’re dead again? Shit, sorry mate. It happens in real life too: I’m that guy that runs backwards and forwards in the penalty box, demanding the ball, even though you know, the referee knows, everyone knows that the opposition goalie has a better chance of finding the net than he has.

It’s not that I’m ignoring other people’s needs, I’m just... not exactly paying attention to them. Which is weird, because I much prefer co-op games to anything else. And it’s a bit of a shame because when I can be forced to concentrate I can be a useful team player, both in sport and in video games. I have all the basic skills, I just need to be reminded to deploy them in a way that actually benefits... anyone at all. That’s when the whole thing gets more rewarding, because it’s about group achievement as well as individuality, and when it comes to individual achievement in video games you can really do that all by your onesie.

Joe’s got it figured. He uses me as what he generously calls a ‘diversion,’ but perhaps might be better described as ‘bait.’ We (and when I say ‘we’ I of course mean ‘he’), beat the final boss in the original Gears with a sublime headshot, while I crouched behind a barrel, out of ammo, blindly dry-firing my pistol and muttering “dontkillmedontkillmedontkillme.”

We shared the credit equally, because that’s the kind of guy he is. I can’t wait to play it again.

Stone Junction

2011-09-15T16:38:00.000+01:00

Stone Junction by Jim Dodge

Stone Junction invites counter-culture comparisons, singing as it does a flipside requiem for everything beautiful that came out of American subculture, from the Wild West to the present day, but paying special homage to the hit-the-road-and-don’t-stop freneticism of the Beat Generation and the spirit-quest-or-die narcotic prose of the late sixties and seventies. So: Stone Junction is like every amazing war story you ever heard, at every amazing party you ever went to, from every hip cat that you ached, just ached, to be like, and of whom you never saw the dark side to taint the beauty of everything you thought you learned. Stone Junction reminds you that the world keeps going and going everywhere you look, that “the mind is the shadow of the light that it seeks,” and that there are enough road warriors, Boy Poets and mountain visionaries out there for you to stumble across one if you keep travelling hard and fast enough.

This book does not simply rely, however, on the fast-burning sentiment of rock-and-roll and the stories that it births. Dodge’s writing is breathless, direct and profane, but always beautifully balanced and candid. The multiple shifts in voice and cadence are handled effortlessly, allowing the reader to flit between psychological and spiritual discussion, punchy, stichomythic and occasionally deliberately puerile dialogue, and roustabout description without ever feeling dislocated or lost. Jenny Raine cocks a laconic eyebrow at such changes (“Am I to take this radical change in diction and voice as an indication of candour?”), but Dodge does a good job of letting his characters speak for him without making them puppets (it takes nearly 400 pages to elicit that remark, although it has doubtless been on the reader’s mind a good deal longer). We are taught without being talked down to, kept at a breakneck pace without being pushed, always understanding without needing our hands held. One wonders if there is a story or subject Dodge cannot make his prose fit, such is the ease with which he turns myriad styles and tones to his own usage.

In his occasional protagonist Daniel Pearse, Jim Dodge has created the ultimate literary subversive: born to the world’s most self-aware teenage tearaway, taught from birth by a ludicrously varied but sublimely drawn and rounded range of magicians, thieves, terrorists and gamblers, Daniel is finally imbued with the spiritual self-actualization to vanish from the material trappings of the universe (this is less a spoiler than one might imagine). That Daniel’s characterization does not vanish with his physical form is testament both to Dodge’s boisterous but sensitive prose, and to the care and time taken to establish Daniel’s development as a shaman and as a man. Daniel appears on the page as a newborn and leaves it as only a young man and the time in between is examined thoroughly, sometimes at the expense of pacing. Dodge seems to have so many stories to tell, so many inflammatory rebels with which to dazzle us, that the central narrative of Daniel’s development seems to sometimes lack momentum. This is not to say that Daniel’s story is not fascinating, bizarre, hilarious and occasionally very sad, only that the subcast of dreamers and prophets around which Dodge hangs his narrative are sometimes too big for the story to hold.

In fact, it seems like perhaps the story itself is too big for the spine to contain. The pacing of the central narrative – lugubrious elsewhere – increases dramatically after Daniel’s spectacular theft of the book’s MacGuffin. The cast of glittering outlaws keeps getting bigger but by now it seems that there is simply not enough time to explore these characters with the same depth and affection Dodge has devoted to those that preceded them. Comparatively minor characters from the books early stages – for example the drug-addled but sense-talking hedonist Mott – elicit more pagetime than some of the key players in the book, among them the seemingly significant but underused escapee Jenny Raine. The savage Debritto is introduced too late to be a truly useful villain (a reader needs time to build the inverted affection for a baddie that will make their eventual destruction cathartic), and even the magnificently damaged revolutionary Volta’s presence is somewhat staccato.

Stone Junction asks big, important questions, and seems like it might deliver the answers in a manner that will stick with you always, but in the end it seems that there is just too much for Dodge to address. Daniel’s bizarre sexual peccadillo is humorously explored but never explained, and his eventual fate is just obtuse enough to leave the reader frustrated: something important has happened, something we want to understand but are unable. Stone Junction feels like it is making a promise, a promise to reveal something fundamental, and while what the reader takes away spiritually from the novel is certainly not Jim Dodge’s responsibility, his caginess in regards to certain important events is sure to leave many bewildered, if not necessarily dissatisfied.

Stone Junction is a sublimely written, incredibly compelling and fantastically imaginative novel. Its only flaw is that it fails to quite deliver on its sense of scale, and when a book is talking primarily about the way we perceive reality and our own place and happiness within it is difficult to begrudge Dodge this. To finish with a final nonconformist comparison, Stone Junction is like the drug-related vision quests and realisations it contains: while you are reading you get the sense of something larger than yourself, a sense of understanding beyond yourself, but when the comedown hits that understanding fades, leaving a memory that is too fragmented to be communicated.

Red Dead Redemption

2011-09-13T22:43:00.000+01:00

There are a few occasions during Red Dead Redemption where Rockstar achieve what could be argued to be the point of computer games in general: the complete and total immersion of the player in the setting. Desperately rounding up stampeding cattle during a thunderstorm, turning down a hooker’s advance as you confidently stroll into a seedy saloon, honky-tonk piano in the background, even loading a save point to find the player character – scarred and gravel voiced John Marston – kicking apart his campfire and tossing aside his cigarette as the sunrise sets a pastel sky afire. It is these moments that demonstrate the love and research Rockstar have put into Red Dead Redemption, and what elevates a solidly created sandbox offering into the realm of classic.

Red Dead Redemption has been both marketed and reviewed as Grand Theft Auto in the Wild West and the comparisons are so obvious that Rockstar haven’t bothered to hide them, and have in fact borrowed elements wholesale from the GTA series. The sandbox set-up is a mirror of GTA’s, with mission hubs separated by comparatively sparse areas requiring player travel. The two games are so close in terms of style that the player HUD is actually a copy of GTA’s, with the compass and map showing mission start-points, side quests and shops, and the world map being divided into sections which are locked off until story missions are completed. The system of crime and punishment is essentially the same, with players accumulating more ‘Wanted’ stars (and being chased by progressively more dogged law-enforcement) based on their level of skulduggery and violence.

What saves RDR from being a cowboy clone is the simple fact that the western genre actually lends itself to the outlaw sandbox mechanic far better than GTA ever did. The morality system in the game is a perfect fit for the Wild West, if only because there is a compelling reason to gun down individuals while remaining on the side of angels. If you want to be bad you can be bad, and if you want to be good, you can still shoot people in good conscience, something that the cops and robbers setting of the GTA games has attempted but never really realised. Rockstar’s Wild West is both a generous one: covering big-sky plains, stunning deserts mesas and pine-covered mountains, and a sensitive one. The game’s late 19^th century setting allows Rockstar full access to about every Wild West trope while also allowing them to explore the end of an American era and the development of a modern nation. The GTA games have become more emotionally developed and aware – the plight of Nico Bellic in GTA 4 is a far more difficult and ambiguous than that of San Andreas’ CJ – and Red Dead Redemption is a fitting continuation.

The open-world setting itself is even better than GTA’s – swapping cars for horses and crowded streets for open ground makes travel far more interesting, and makes the environment itself the real star of the game. Although the option to fast travel returns (this time by stagecoach), players are much more likely to find themselves riding from mission to mission on horseback. This is partly because of the spectacular visuals: no longer hemmed in by buildings and traffic the player is treated to stunning vistas and dynamic weather, but mostly because exploration now provides more content. As well as a bevy of collection and hunting based subquests, John Marston will encounter a myriad of people in need. Many of these are ‘Stranger’ missions: subquests that provide entertaining, morbid and often hilarious glances into Rockstar’s version of the old west, but there are also constant real-time occurrences. Robberies, horse thefts, rustling and beatings occur throughout the world and it is up to the player to decide whether they want in or not. All this creates a setting that is more obviously alive than any of Rockstar’s previous offerings.

The gameplay mechanics themselves are solid. Not since Spider-Man 2 has locomotion been so enjoyable and Rockstar have cleaned up the shooting and cover mechanics of GTA 4 to provide competent and exciting gunplay. This is necessary because you’ll be doing a lot of shooting in Red Dead Redemption: Rockstar’s version of the old west is sparsely populated, but John Marston will still gun down a ludicrous number of opponents during the game. Several story missions involve gunfights with scores of foes and it is here that Red Dead Redemption reveals a slight lack of storytelling and focus. Like previous Rockstar games the story missions almost all involve riding to a location, murdering everyone in sight and then moving on. While enjoyable the sheer repetition weighs down the game and robs narrative significance from Marston’s quest to track down his former gang-mates and secure the release of his family: aside from a diverting time spent assisting a Mexican rebellion you spend the entire game searching for particular individuals, gunning down mooks on the way, and it often feels like Rockstar were stuck for a compelling way to tell this story, or for a more interesting way of structuring the missions. In fact, it is the story tasks away from gunfights that are the most compelling: rounding up cattle, discouraging rustlers and robbers, roping and taming steers, in short, actually being a cowboy. These missions are woefully few and although they make a welcome return towards the end of the game it is the lack of variety in mission content that is Red Dead Redemption’s biggest flaw.

That said, the missions are presented with Rockstar’s usual polish. The voice acting is superb, the cutscenes are atmospheric and well-staged (though occasionally buggy and prone to clipping) and the character design and modelling is memorable. John Marston is the perfect cowboy hero: gruff and violent, but laconic and witty enough to be worth liking. Rockstar’s off-kilter sense of humour returns and the authentic and sardonic scripting is a joy to hear.

Although its popularity in print and on film has waned, it is perhaps a little surprising that the western genre is underrepresented in video games. Considering the ease with which the setting lends itself to shooting games in particular one might expect a glut of cowboy inspired shoot-em-ups, jostling for space amongst the military and sci-fi offerings that clog the shelves. But there have been only a few games set in the old west released in the last decade, and of those released it has been mostly third-person, sandbox affairs that have been best received. Rockstar’s previous offering (and spiritual prequel) Red Dead Revolver was linear but atmospheric and competent enough as a shooter, and Neversoft’s Gun – certainly the most similar title to Red Dead Redemption – was well received. But it is the sheer scope and depth of a game like Red Dead Redemption that demonstrates the difficulty of playing with the western: any attempt to represent the genre without the love and diligence shown by Rockstar Games is doomed to fall far short, and there are enough mediocre, by-the-book shooters on the shelves without adding poorly contrived cowboy games.

Next step by next step

2011-09-13T19:59:00.000+01:00

I return, moderately triumphant.

Actually, I got back to England half way through July, but I had some extra tasks to be getting along with. First and foremost among these was convincing a very pretty young woman I'd been romancing (ineptly) since Christmas to be my actual, all-the-time, meet-the-parents, hold-hands girlfriend. I will forgive you your scepticism, as I was similarly pessimistic about my chances of success. I would like to take this opportunity, therefore, to pat myself on the back and give you, dear reader, a jolly good raspberry, because said femme is now my (already regretful) GF. So there.

I also needed to graduate from my Masters, the academic component of which finished over a year ago. But my parents wanted to see my walk the walk, and since they financed the whole thing both financially and emotionally, I thought it only fair that they get to see me dress up like a gay wizard and stumble across the stage clutching at my mortarboard.

Finally, I had to finish my book. Remember that? The thing I was talking about in my very first post, all that time ago? Well I'm as surprised as you are, but I finished the bloody thing. At just over 80,000 words it's what is known in the publishing trade as a 'short book,' but hopefully when I get some feedback it will get a little longer.

The only problem is that now I've finished the trip (did you look at the tumblr? You really should, I never thought windfarms could be so beautiful), and got the certificate, and finished the book, and most importantly won the girl (although I better do some shaping up and flying right in that regard from now on), is that I have to get a J-O-B.

I can hear you lamenting on my behalf, internet, and I thank you for it. My time from now on will be filled with formulating interesting and coherent answers to the question: "why do you want to work here?" I cannot, of course, let slip the true answer, that I don't want to work there, or anywhere, except in the coffee shop writing fiction, or possibly lying around in my pants playing Dead Space 2 on my father's flat-screen TV (a task to which I am no doubt suited, but am unlikely to find financial remuneration for).

Since writing is the only thing I'm particularly good at, it makes sense to seek employment in some sector that might benefit from my skills, and not drive me to immediate and violent suicide. So before I move to London to seek my fortune, and as I wait on feedback for the book (and begin the slow and lonely toil of editing and changing a skimpy, poorly-plotted piece of speculative fiction into something people might actually pay for), I'm going to start looking for copywriting positions, either freelance or part-time. Most employers will rightly be looking for examples of people's work before considering paying for it, and this website is the primary writing platform I have, which means three things for this blog:

1. I'm going to have to start using fewer parenthesis, and probably shorter sentences too. I'll keep splitting infinitives, because screw you, that's why.

2. I'm probably going to have to start proof-reading what I write, instead of just half-heartedly gabbling away while I watch Nicktoons.

3. I'm going to have to start reformatting some of the posts I create to fit with the copywriting positions I'm applying for.

What that means in basic terms is that I'm going to be broadening the scope of Verbal Slapstick, at least in the short term, and also attempting a much more regular update schedule, possibly as often as once or twice a week. Whether this is a positive development if up to you (it's certainly going to appear on your Facebook feed a lot more), and the same goes for the change in content. I'm going to start doing more reviews, mostly albums, books and video games (because they're the only things I know anything about), and mostly older texts at that (because until I have a job I have no money, and new games are prohibitively expensive).

So in short: Verbal Slapstick: Coming to a cover-letter near you. If you have anything you'd particularly like me to talk about or review do email me at verbalslapstick@gmail.com, and if you think the writing stinks, let me know why.

Interlude: America

2011-04-08T17:31:00.000+01:00

So, on Monday I'm off to the States for 90 days. I may blog, if something funny happens, but probably not. Any readers I'm yet to alienate with my repeat absence will no doubt be used to this sort of abandonment. I'll be back in mid-summer, armed to the teeth with personal disasters and witty (ish) aphorisms.

I WILL, however, be running a photoblog while I'm over there. For this I've jumped ship to tumblr for a while (sorry Blogger, I'll be back, I promise). It's called "A Bad Land for Gods" and you can find it here or at www.abadlandforgods.tumblr.com.

Thanks for everyone that reads this or stumbles upon it, and I'll see you all on the other side.

Well DUH. (A toast-related semi-epiphany)

2011-03-23T00:10:00.000+00:00

The other day I had... well, I suppose that epiphany is too strong a word, considering what it actually involved. I'll just tell the story, but I'd ask you to refrain from judging me until I get to the point.

I was making cheese on toast, and I was toasting the bread in the toaster before putting it under the grill (seriously, what's going on with people that don't do that? I asked for cheese on toast, not cheese on bread). The toast popped up and I saw that, as always, there was a narrow strip at the top of the slice that hadn't properly toasted: a white avenue of imperfection on my road to cheese paradise. I bemoaned this fact to my father, and asked aloud why they don't make toasters deep enough to fit the whole slice of bread in.

My father gave me a look that I have come to recognise from my friends and family. It is a complicated expression, driven by mixed emotions. It contains genuine surprise, a soupçon of mirth, a ripple of pained symnpathy for my enduring idiocy and, perhaps, a tiny element of pride: not really in me, but in the fact that they themselves are responsible for my cheerful existence despite my own obvious shortcomings.

"Why don't you," he said, "just put the bread in sideways?"

I think that I stared a moment in utter incomprehension. I think maybe I even opened my mouth to chastise the old man for saying something so ludicrous. Then the concept had time to percolate, and my mouth fell open again, this time in surprise, in awe.

Why don't I just put the bread in sideways?

I would ask you to hold off judging me for just a moment more and consider the following: I had just had a problem solved that would otherwise have followed me my entire life. Let's face it, I was never going to buy a toaster that was deep enough to fit the whole slice (in retrospect, probably because they don't exist). I was going to have to put up with that niggle till the day I died, and here it was solved. Grateful? I felt tuppin' indebted. It was too late for that particular slice, but I had the rest of my life to get it right.

Fine, go ahead. Why didn't you think of that before. Well, I don't bloody know, do I? I'm not, y'know, an idiot. Well, not completely, anyway. It seems like the sort of thing I ought to have figured out myself, but there I was catching flies in my mouth in my own kitchen (at 24 years old).

So judge me if you like, I probably deserve it. But ask yourself this question: what minor irritations in your life have solutions that you never considered? If this toast thing has shown me anything it's that a problem shared can be a problem solved, for good.

I'm not saying it's going to work on much more than the orientation of your bread products. My insomnia isn't going to have a 2 second solution, for example. But that isn't going to stop me seeking a further help, if I can't figure it out on my own. And I'm not going to keep putting up with minor irritations if I think someone might be able to provide an answer. Hell, if this toast fiasco has taught me anything it's that I have no reason to be proud about such things: I'm clearly not firing on all cylinders when it comes to fixing small miseries.

Better cheese on toast means a better existence generally. It's a damn good start.