That’s What Friends Are For

So, this appeared on my facebook.

It was a status update from one of my very best friends: Web MD.

Such a good pal. We’ve been friends since primary school.

Anyway, my old mate Web MD, at whose wedding I was the best man and gave a most impressive speech, asked me a rather interesting question this evening:

“Do you know healthy facts about fish?”

I thought about it for a moment. “No…” came the gradual realisation. “No, I don’t know healthy facts about fish.”

At first I thought it a little strange that he would ask such a thing.

But the more thought I gave it, the more I realised, well, that’s the sort of thing my old mucker Web MD would do. He can make you stop in your tracks like that. He’s a real interrogator.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not an idiot. I know some facts about fish.

Not all the facts about fish – a fish expert I most certainly am not.

But I can tell a perch from a bream. I know the taste of salmon to trout. I know a pike can be attracted to shiny things and that there’s a story in my family where my great-great-grandfather invented some kind of method where you put a stake in the ground to catch them. In fact, come to think of it, the whole Rae side of my family come from fishermen so, even though I do know a few facts about fish, I’m probably a bit of a family dissapointment when it comes to piscatory-knowledge as a whole.

And now this ancestral negligence had come back to cruelly bite me on the arse.

“I don’t know healthy facts about fish!”

I felt empty.

“Why don’t I know healthy facts about fish?” I asked myself. “I’m a relatively intelligent and well-educated chap.” And while my old friend Web MD had not specified a specific number of healthy facts about fish with which I should be familiar, talking as he was in more absolute terms, I did find myself thinking:

“Surely I must know at least one healthy fact about fish?”

But none were forthcoming.

As sure as I could not recall the registration plate of my Dad’s first car, I was drawing a categorial blank when it came to healthy facts about fish.

The shame!

So, suitably humbled and chastised by my old pal Web MD for my unforgiveable ignorance on this matter, I set about immediately upping my game, sorting myself out, and going to the library to take out every single book they had on the well-thumbed subject of healthy facts about fish.

I will be a better man because of it.

But, hey, that’s what friends are for, right?

Thanks facebook!

Why I love Ryan Air

First things first.

I know you probably think Ryanair are one of the worst brands in the world.

I understand, I do. I know that all they have done is ruin your holidays and made your children cry. I know they have ruined business deals, lost you money, maybe even cost you your job. I know that.

I know they are often late and then brag that they are the always on time. I know they have lost your luggage more than once. I know they have even tried to charge you 50p for taking a shit.

But that’s your experience.

Mine is completely different.

Because, for not much over a year and a half, I was in a long-distance relationship with the most wonderful girl in the world. The most beautiful, soulful, sexy, vulnerable, artistic and funny girl in the world.

Surely some exaggeration?

No exaggeration.

And when I would go over to Sweden to see her, this soulmate, I would fly with Ryanair. I would pay about 40 quid, and Ryanair would take me to my love for the same price it would cost to get to somewhere shit like Lincoln.

Ah, that fine flying machine, with its gauche colourings, its grimy seats and shitty attention to detail. That fantastic plane to me meant the promise of love no more than an hour and a half away.

What a wonderful thing to be inside.

That plane.

Squashed between two fatties, a child screaming delightfully in front of me, how I would daydream of what was waiting for me. Those classless try-too-hard stewards would make me smile, for I knew they were assisting me in my journey to Gotheburg’s shitty second airport and the jewel that would be waiting for me when I got there.

That plane took me from aggression, work, and fear to a place that I didn’t know could exist on this planet. It took me to a snow-white pillow with the prettiest head lying next to me. It took me to a calm, affectionate and easy place. That big, brilliant blue bastard plane took me to a sexy bum in a red neglige bending down in front of me to take out the chicken its gorgeous owner had kindly cooked for me.

Aww, that’s the stuff boys!

*the writer pauses to reflect*

So, you understand, where you see cheap, rotten, dishonest, corporate shit … I see my own ‘magic bus’ that took me to a place of tickles and laughs and all sorts of naughty business.

Now, I know you are probably not buying any of this. I know you see Ryanair as cheap, classless wank. And I’m not questioning your view. But I will say one thing: I don’t know where they took you, why they took you, and what went wrong on your particular fight.

But those London to Gothenburg flights of theirs?

I tell you, boys, they are well worth a shot.

London

(this post was written before the riots)

London.

London has a lot to do with living, but little to do with being alive.

It’s an amazing city, it really is. When asked what life is like in London by people in Northamptonshire or Scotland (or anywhere with fresh air for that matter), the only answer I can give them is that it is like a relationship with a bad woman. The kind of woman you never wanted. The kind of woman who destroys you. But the kind of woman who makes you feel alive. And to whom you return time and again for that good stuff.

You know that there is nothing wholesome in it at all.

But it’s exciting.

But the big problem is when you see past the living and decide you want to be alive. When you decide you want to be human. You decide you want to look past the distractions and see who you are, where you are, and understand what you’ve become. In London, this makes for a terrifying and sobering (ha!) realisation. At least it does for me.

A quick lowdown on London. London is a place where much of the bad that happens in the world is created. If you were looking for the laboratories of global exploitation, the places where the world’s injustices are created, London would be up there.

It is a bona fide successful megacity, and it is fucking savage.

People in London aren’t like normal people. They are not talkative, friendly, polite, generous, kind, humble and happy. Not as a rule. People in London are rude, aggressive, greedy, ostentatious, empty and destroy the present and the past with glee as they try to create the future. That, or they are white-faced, broken, corporate pussies who haven’t got any life left in them and might as well die today for all the joy they will ever experience henceforth.

(Now, that last paragraph isn’t aimed at the middle class 20 somethings for whom London is a back garden where they can play, dance, fuck each other, and have a bit of a laugh before failing at advertising, media, or music and going home to their home counties cradles with mum and dad to become a teacher or something. This lot are generally nice, fun, sexy and happy people. My point is more about the people who are trying to make an adult life for themselves in the city.)

Which leads to my main point. The people, of course, aren’t really bad. They are just behaving badly. Like good children in a bad crowd. The intense competition for space is enough to turn on that primate aggression. The megacity is designed to make the ape bear his teeth.

It’s a fucking cage!

In my ten years I have found myself behaving like anything other than a human. I’ve had cowboy-style fights in pubs. I’ve got into punch-ups over a taxi. I’ve slept with strangers I didn’t find attractive. I’ve been indiscreet with secrets. And I’ve bad-mouthed people who mean no harm to anyone.

I’ve been a horrible cunt.

But that’s not me. That’s London.

London makes you behave badly. This place, where we kill pensions, sell subprime mortgages, decide to invade Iraq, write TV shows that exploit children, sponsor sports, put logos on festivals etc. This force for evil in the world. It fucking gets to you.

And even if it doesn’t get to your soul, you go the other way. The shine of the gold the city offers can keep you so cosy that you never look inside your soul again. You. You cowards. You are the ones who avoid the competition in its physical form. But you are complicit in the city’s machinations. You hide your shame in the money, you show the money, you build exclusive behaviours, networks and etiquette around the money. You may not be out to hurt anyone, and you may have succeeded, but the likelihood is your absolute rejection of truth or beauty or fairness, means that you must at least be hurting yourself.

That money doesn’t make you pretty. I promise.

So what can be done?

Well, fuck all.

But seeing as I’m writing. I might as well make some suggestions.

We can be human. Being human counts more when you are in London. Those humans you do meet in London are to my mind some of the greatest souls of all. They exist. They just ain’t the rule.

You can try and be nice to people. Yield. Do let people off the carriage before you get on. With this many people in one place, the rules are important. It’s not the Government trying to break our will, it’s just that rules in a city allow us to function without giving each other cancer. So, yeah, we could all try and obey these simple rules.

“It says no entry, but fuck it, I’m not going to do what The Man says”

Don’t be such a cunt. That’s not rock and roll. That’s just cuntish. Everyone is stressed out. You are just making them more stressed. Show some fucking consideration.

So be nice to people. Say thank you. Say please. Be considerate. Call someone with a nametag by their name. The basic politeness that enables us to be civilised.

Give money to the homeless. They may spend it on drugs. So what? It might also get them some food. Stop being so judgemental. Nothing is perfect.

Take a leaflet from the person giving out leaflets. You may not want what he’s selling. But think for a minute how terrible that constant rejection feels every day. It’s a shit job he’s doing to feed his family. Take his fucking leaflet. I take one from the same guy every day. He’s starting to see the funny side now. But at least he gets treated like a human being. (I might stop and talk to him next week. But equally, I might not. I’m a Londoner.)

There are a million ways you can be a better person in London. And they all benefit your own soul as much as they do everyone else.

Commercially there are things we can do, too. After all, unless we were born here, or came here to avoid a war in our native country, or ran here to escape homophobia in small towns, we are probably here for the money.

For instance, we could respect those of us who are better at our jobs than we are. If someone is smarter than you, that’s okay. Let them progress in front of you, you’ll be the better for it, as you’ll have someone who is better than you taking care of all the difficult stuff and making your life easier in your work. When you are ready, it would be your turn.

It is a peculiar truth that none of us like the idea of anyone being ‘better’ than we are, but none of us would ever reasonably proclaim to be ‘the best’. Those two points naturally conflict.

There are of course also people worse than us at what we do. After all, none of us would ever think of ourselves as the ‘worst’ at what we do. So it’s a give-take situation.

Let the better ones pass, and the ones we are better than should let us pass in turn.

But no.

“Competition” – that much-celebrated term for the foundation of all that is wrong in the world – wouldn’t let us do that. We fuck people over because we want more stuff, more power, more recongition, so that we can eventually hold a job that is out of our comfort zone so we can make more money, impress our wives (or so our wives can impress their friends), and eventually die of cancer from the stress of the job we hated and were in no natural position to do.

But that is London. It isn’t going to change. That is who we are.

And while there is so much art, so much activity and so much beauty in this city, it sometimes doesn’t hurt to look at what it really is, what it is doing to us, and the extent to which it is turning us into liars.

We are beating ourselves up. Each other up. Our very souls up.

But like that bad woman I spoke of, it’s brilliant. It’s the most exciting thing I’ve ever fucking known. And I am certain it will be the death of me.

London is what going to hell feels like.

The Misanthrope Counsellor

When I grow up I’d quite like to be a counsellor.

Not just yet, mind. As things stand, I’ve still enough energy to do a young man’s job.

But the ‘older me’ might want to do something a little more helpful to society at some point. Something more meaningful.

And surely it is the counsellor who has the most fun.

First, you really can help people. Life is getting harder and more savage. Depression, disillusionment and anger seem the only reasonable mental states for anyone who pays attention to anything at all these days. Plus, with so much ‘self’ in everything we do it seems, to this blogger at least, inevitable that mortality, insignificance and reality will weigh heavy on Gen X and Y as they creep past 50 years old.

But that’s only partly why I would like to do it.

Yes, it would be great to help people in this state. But I also want to do it because watching this generation fall apart will be fucking hilarious.

What more could a misanthrope wish for?

“So what you are saying, Ms Williams, is that you were once very beautiful? How interesting. But now, at 55, people don’t look at you like they once used to? Oh dear. People don’t help you as much as they once used to? They don’t give you special favours that they wouldn’t give others because they no longer have an unspoken hope that you might one day return the favour sexually? How awful for you. If only you’d considered your inner self rather than using your outer self to claw every advantage you could get for yourself.

“Love eludes you too? You spurned the very rare blessing of good looks for lots of sex, social power, and popularity with those around you. Yes, that sounds terrible. You ignored love because you were more interested in what you could get and not what you could give, or share. Nobody was good enough for you or your killer body and now nobody wants your saggy old tits or your bitchy personality – and the best you can hope for is the occasional night with drunk kid with a cougar fetish. How humbling for you. Right. That’s the hour. Same time next week?”

How nice to know that you are helping someone. While enjoying front row seats for this intimate and spectacular collapse.

“So Mr Smith. Let’s recap. You spent all of your life making money? You devoted everything you had to the pursuit of gain? You loved the game, you wanted to win, you stepped on everyone and anyone to get to the top. But now that the game is up, you’d like to get to know your children. But your grown up children don’t really want to speak to you? They don’t see you as much of a friend or really love you that much? They only see you as someone who gives them money? How horrible and empty for you. I can see how it must hurt. Why would a child love someone who has done nothing but reject them their whole life? Yes, I suppose the idea of growing old must be quite frightening and lonely. If only there had been some cultural warnings for you when you were making your life choices – you know, saying things like ‘money can’t buy love and friendship.’ Yes, this new concept must come as quite a blow to you. But at least you still have your money, eh?”

And then a shrug of the shoulders, a tap of the wristwatch and, before you can say “serves you fucking right” the Misanthrope Counsellor is off to the pub to bask in the wonderfully interesting act that has just been played out before him. But at the same time, the fat cat feels a little happier in himself too.

“Mr and Mrs Francis, welcome. So, from our last session, it says you are trapped in a loveless marriage? Oh dear. How did that possibly happen? I mean, those were quite a few important vows you made in front of everyone you know. How can you go from wanting to make those enormous promises in front of your friends and family, to no longer loving someone anymore? Seems almost impossible. Oh, i see … you didn’t actually take the vows very seriously. You simply wanted to get married because everyone else was doing it. You wanted to please your parents. You didn’t want to be excluded from social functions as a ‘singleton.’ I see. You were incapable of unconditional love, but you also lacked the courage to be on your own, or wait until someone you could love with all your heart turned up? Yes. I’m sure you do feel a little depressed.”

Yep. The kindly old counsellor will help these tortured souls get better while laughing his fucking head off all evening at what a fantastic and interesting day he had.

As society continues to allow its communities to crumble, as it continues to create competition and enmity between anyone and everyone, as it continues to allow its national institutions of care get broken up and sold, it will be the kindly old professional counsellor that will be sweeping up the debris.

And he will probably be loving every minute of it.