#oneaday, Day 11: Aim Lower

To quote Mr Bill Bailey, I am English, and as such, I crave disappointment. Well, “crave” might not be the right word. “Expect” is probably closer to the truth. A series of crushing disappointments have led me to lower my expectations accordingly, and as such I find myself in a state where even the smallest victories will probably feel like I just single-handedly ice-skated across the Channel with no arms, only one leg and an inability to smell. (Some may argue that an inability to smell may actually make crossing the Channel on ice-skates easier.)

It’s vaguely depressing when you consider that your life aspirations gradually get lower (or “more realistic”, as you justify it to yourself) as you get older, but it’s true.

Right now, the one thing that will tell me that I have Made It And Am In A Good Place will be the day that I’m able to buy a new car. Not “a different car”, a new car. A brand new one. The ones that you see on the television with prices that always begin with “starting from”. That would be lovely. Then I could have a car that works all the time instead of one with “personality”. Cars with “personality” make for amusing stories, but can be a pain in the arse at times. I won’t complain about my personality-filled car too much since I didn’t pay anything for it (I was given it, I didn’t steal it) and it does at least perform the car’s primary function which is to carry you from point A to point B considerably faster than walking.

I will, however, share some of my car’s little quirks with you as I’m sure they’re familiar to any of you who own or have owned a vehicle that’s getting a little long in the tooth.

First up is the “What The Fuck Now?” light, otherwise known as the Engine Management Light. This came on for a while last year and promptly stayed on, apparently due to a shitty catalytic converter or something. The car got serviced, the light went out. Job’s a good ‘un.

Came back from a few weeks in America and got in my car for the first time, started driving it, and sure enough, the What The Fuck Now? light came on. And stayed on. I was annoyed. The car seemed to be running fine, but when random warning lights come on in a vehicle made of things that can explode and/or catch fire, you get a little nervous. I decided to risk it, and drove the 120 miles to Southampton. Three-quarters (ish) of the way there, I stopped at Fleet Services for a drink and a piss. When I started the car up again, the What The Fuck Now? light had gone off. Apparently the car had been feeling neglected and was now satisfied that I’d given it enough attention. It didn’t bother me again.

Until I didn’t drive it for a few days, went out and the What The Fuck Now? light came back on again. Hopefully it will stop whining and complaining when the weather heats up a bit, which it looks like it’s just starting to do.

The What The Fuck Now? light isn’t the only quirky little personality trait my car has, though. No, there’s the “occasionally turn on the windscreen wipers when you clearly haven’t hit the switch” thing, the “gradually fade in the left indicator light on the dashboard when you press the brake pedal while in reverse gear” thing and the “curious rattling noise (that didn’t show up in the MOT or service) when you turn left whilst travelling at 15-20mph, but not when turning right or travelling at speeds greater or less than 15-20mph” quirk.

The Little Blue Car That Could has been a faithful companion for quite some time now. But seriously. I can’t wait for the day I can go and pick up a shiny, brand new car and enjoy driving without wondering if anything’s about to fall off it. (For a little while, at least.)

#oneaday, Day 10: Wordplay

[Before we start and descend headlong into depravity, let me give those of you who don’t follow me on Twitter a bit of context. I asked for a word to blog about. I was immediately bombarded with lots of them. So I’ve decided to attempt to insert all of them into a piece of creative writing that makes at least some degree of sense.

I have hyperlinked each word used to the original tweet that mentioned it.

Given the nature of the words that have been incoming while I’m writing this, the following piece of prose may not be suitable for anyone those under the age of the age of majority in the region where you are reading this. Also, hearty apologies to any Jamaican readers and ting.]

Feena awoke, sat up groggily, brushed the hair out of her face and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. She blinked a few times and looked around her, mouth hanging slightly open, as she tried to recall exactly what had transpired.

Last night had been filled with silliness, for sure. There had been copious drinking and outrageous dancing at the pub, much to the delight of the elderly regulars. The girls had picked the pub specifically because it was a place that wouldn’t be filled with the sort of Ben Sherman-wearing, aftershave-drenched creep that tended to latch on to a group of pretty girls and proceed to harass then throughout the course of the evening. The old men had come out with a few cheeky wolf-whistles and saucy comments, but it was all good-natured and the girls had enjoyed themselves.

She swung her legs down off the bed and let her bare feet drop to the wooden floor, wincing slightly at how cold it was. Evidently she’d forgotten to put the heating on when she’d got in, which wasn’t surprising. She shivered a little, but stood up, intending to make for the kitchen and make herself a nice hot pot of coffee.

The pub hadn’t been the end of the night, of course. Feena couldn’t remember who had suggested moving on to the nightclub, but she sincerely hoped it wasn’t her, considering the things that were flooding back into her mind, faster and faster now.

The club, Jokers, was a regular student haunt and seemed to constantly have a background scent of stale flatulence. This was partly due to the fact that the toilets were pretty much constantly out of order, though that didn’t stop people pissing, shitting and vomiting into them, the fragrant effluvia occasionally spilling out of the toilet block into the laughably-named “beer garden” and, on one memorable occasion, onto the dance floor.

It wouldn’t have been so bad if Jokers served normal drinks, thought Feena. Jokers was the only place in the city you could get a can of Clamweiser, though. And by the time people were drunk enough to end up in Jokers, they were drunk enough to consume a beverage made of a mixture of gassy American beer and clam juice. She shuddered as she remembered the last memory she had of the night: the fetid stench of the drink being poured into the glass in front of her.

She retched slightly at the thought. It was markedly worse than the previous Most Disgusting Experience of her life, the time where as a teen she had caught her brother at the tail-end of an apparently-epic masturbation session, his computer screen filled with boobies, dripping cock clenched in his hand while their mother’s bra’s clasp pinged open and fell off his chest. She shivered; it was an image which would have been enormously amusing had it not been quite so horrifying.

She rummaged around in the fridge blindly, the light stinging her hungover eyes, and finally withdrew two slices of bread. A piece of toast will sort me right out, she thought. She popped the two slices into the toaster and pressed the lever down.

Suddenly, there was a noise. It sounded like a toilet flushing. Feena froze in her tracks. Was there someone else here?

The answer to her question came in short measure, as a Jamaican man with long dreadlocks wandered into her kitchen, naked as the day he was born, and gave her a polite nod.

“I use de last of ye bumbaclot,” he said, gesturing towards her bathroom and scratching his testicles nonchalantly. “Hoap ye don’ mind.”

Feena blinked, but said nothing. All was silent for a moment. Then, as if finding the silence unbearable, the toaster flung the two hot, crisp pieces of bread high into the air. They seemed to spin in slow motion, rising to the zenith of their flight before gravity took hold and they accelerated inexorably towards the floor, where they plopped unceremoniously, immediately forgotten.

“Did you…” Feena stammered, not sure what she wanted to ask this strange naked man who was now looking at her quizzically. “Did you… Did we…?”

“What?” he asked, smiling slightly.

“Did you… Did you invade my coochie snorcher?” she babbled. She didn’t know why her brain had chosen that particular moment to resurrect a euphemism she hadn’t uttered aloud for at least ten years, but she figured this situation couldn’t get any more embarrassing.

The man chuckled.

“No,” he said. “Some ras-clart try to start dis ting in de club. Saw him off too, noat before me mandible were dislocated, though. Ye help me oot, done fix me up good and ting, Miss Nursey, an’ ye let me sleep here.”

“Oh,” said Feena, still a little bewildered by the whole situation.

“Ye want ye’ toast?” asked the man, picking up the discarded slices from the floor, a thin dusting of brown crumbs remaining on the tiles.

“No,” said Feena absently. “No, I think I just want to go back to bed.”

#oneaday, Day 9: Mild Irritations: aolsystemmsg

The trouble with mild irritations is they have a habit of repeating themselves. And the more they repeat themselves, the greater the effect they have on you.

Such is the case with instant communication’s best friend, “aolsystemmsg”.

If you’re unfamiliar with this robotic twat (ably played with aplomb by Money-Bot above), let me educate you.

If you use instant messaging services like AIM, Skype, MSN, Google Talk or Yahoo! Messenger these days, you’re undoubtedly delighted by the fact it’s possible to stay in touch with your friends/colleagues/people you fancy wherever you are thanks to the wonders of smartphones. And sure enough, it’s great to be able to sit in Starbucks, or indeed the middle of a field, and chat with someone who might be thousands of miles away.

If you’ve popped out and left your computer on, however, there’s a chance you may have left your instant messaging client of choice switched on back home. No big deal, you might think. And, if you’re using Google Talk, it is indeed no big deal whatsoever. If you’re using MSN or Yahoo! Messenger, then it’s a mildly bigger deal; they insist that you can only be logged in on one device at a time, and so they log your other device back home out automatically. Fair enough—it’s a simple matter to log back in later.

AOL Instant Messenger, though, does not like this at all and gets very jealous of your other devices. Dare to log into another device while your first one is still logged in and you’ll be bombarded with IMs from the mysterious “aolsystemmsg” helpfully informing you that you’re logged on in two different locations, and that if you’d like to log the others out then would you be kind enough to type the number “1” now, please.

Well, all right, “bombarded” is perhaps a little strong. You get one IM. But you get this one IM every single time you change devices. If you’re like me and you hop back and forth between desktop computer, netbook and iPhone quite a bit, this can become extremely frustrating very, very quickly. “aolsystemmsg” takes on its own personality in your mind, a robot sitting there copy-pasting the same message to you over and over, cackling maniacally at your growing annoyance because he’s not actually causing you any harm and therefore isn’t breaking Asimov’s First Law of Robotics.

He’s still a complete cock, though. And there is no way to turn him off. At least, I’m not aware of any way to do so. Short of throwing your phone down the toilet. Which will make it ultimately quite useless as a means of communication for the sake of dealing with what is, essentially, a minor annoyance.

So, there’s a lesson to be learned here then, perhaps. Use Google Talk. Don’t let the robots win. Because we all know what happens when the robots win.

That’s right. Eternal servitude in salt mines. And you don’t want that, do you?

#oneaday, Day 8: Film Illiterate

I am woefully film-illiterate, as becomes painfully apparent the moment anyone uses the tried-and-tested icebreaker “Have you seen [insert movie that everyone has seen here]?”

I just don’t watch that many movies. It’s as simple as that. When given the option between spending nearly two hours watching a movie passively or interacting actively with a video game, nine times out of ten I’ll pick the video game, particularly if I’m by myself. This is inclined to change if I’m with other people, though, since unless you’re sitting with another gamer (or at least someone who’s invested in the story, characters, gameplay and/or your progress in the game) then sitting watching someone else play a game is no fun. (There are exceptions to this rule, of course; titles like Heavy Rain spring immediately to mind.)

But for the most part, because I live a long way from some of my friends and several thousand miles away from even more of my friends, watching a movie is usually a solitary experience. And if I’m going to be playing solitaire, I’d rather be, you know, playing.

That doesn’t stop me thinking that there are certain movies that I “should” see, though. There are a few of the classics that I have seen—unlike Ash, who wrote about this very topic earlier today, I have seen 2001: A Space Odyssey, for example. (And I can’t remember a bloody thing about it, leading me to believe it might not have been as good as everyone says it is.) But for the most part, if someone mentions a film that supposedly “everyone” has seen, chances are, I haven’t.

Now, in an effort to rectify this, and partly in celebration of its arrival on the PS3, I signed up for a LOVEFiLM trial subscription. My thinking behind it was that I’d finally be able to jump on board with some of these supposed “classics” and catch up with what I’ve been missing for all these years. The first film I watched was Team America: World Police which, while probably not a “classic” in the same way as certain other films are, it’s certainly one which gets quoted and referenced a lot. (And it was pretty hilarious, too. The scene with “Kim Jong-Il’s panthers” had me in stitches.)

Last night, though, I jumped in at the deep end and watched one of those films that is supposedly “iconic”, a quintessential snapshot of the art form at a particular moment in time. That film was Dirty Harry.

I wasn’t sure what to expect, even though I’ve been seeing Dirty Harry references throughout literature, games and journalism for the last twenty-five years or so. But I was pleasantly surprised to find an enjoyable film that you didn’t have to think about too hard, yet which still carried an underlying message that is still relevant today—that of criminals’ “rights”.

One thing that was particularly striking about the film was how differently it treated its antagonist to today’s movies. These days, there is often some lengthy exposition detailing exactly how and why the “villain” of the piece came to be so, well, villainous. This can lead to some interesting moral ambiguity situations when you discover that sometimes a “villain” can just be someone who’s doing what they think is right, or that they have underlying problems that explain their actions, however reprehensible.

There’s none of that in Dirty Harry. Scorpio is a scumbag, pure and simple. He’s a pure personification of “evil”—he rapes, he kills, he manipulates, he tricks, and he sure doesn’t like to be brought to justice. His demonisation throughout the course of the film causes the audience to subconsciously and automatically side with Harry, as questionable as some of his methods might be. It’s an effective trick, and one which makes the whole movie immensely satisfying right up to its conclusion.

So there’s one I can tick off my list. Any other suggestions?

#oneaday, Day 7: Video Games: A Primer

A lot of my fellow One A Day bloggers are avid video gamers. Many of them even write words about them on a professional basis. But there are others, like Pete Fraser, who are understandably bewildered by the whole thing. Sure enough, it’s a fast-moving, exciting medium which many believe is difficult to penetrate if you haven’t been along for the whole ride.

To that I say: pish, pfaugh and nonsense. There’s never been an easier time to get into video games and find out more about them. Let me explain why.

It’s unfortunate that the early days of gaming were plagued with stereotypes (which some people, see the delightful Jeff Minter, pictured to the right, are still more than happy to live up to) and this put a lot of people off getting into the hobby. It wasn’t a “cool” thing to do. It was the thing that “nerds” did, and the sort of thing that could potentially get you beaten up at school if you were in a particularly rough and less-enlightened place.

The thing is, though, at least some of the stereotypes had partial basis in fact. Early gaming demanded many things. Patience. An understanding that you were dealing with a brand new technology that wasn’t particularly refined yet. In many cases, a mathematical mind. A willingness to practice things until you got better. Early games were frequently simple affairs that artificially inflated their playtime by being ludicrously difficult. This made the hardcore gamers very happy when they were able to finally beat a particularly difficult level, but for people who might be interested in passing? They didn’t want to spend that much time in front of a TV listening to the whining and squeaking of a cassette deck loading games.

Over time, though, games have become more and more sophisticated, family-friendly and accessible. A big part of this movement has come via games consoles, which have actually been around almost as long as home computers. Games consoles are made to be hooked up to “the big television” of the house and, in the early days at least, were often filled with experiences made to be shared—indeed, the very first gaming machines were primitive multiplayer “tennis” affairs. Later, we got many arcade conversions, and TV advertising, particularly the cringeworthy efforts from Atari, encouraged family participation and friendly competition.

As consoles became more and more sophisticated, developers started experimenting with a greater focus on developing narratives throughout their games. We saw titles such as the ambitious Final Fantasy series telling surprisingly mature, sophisticated (if now clichéd) stories through the SNES and PlayStation 1 periods having graduated from their primitive roots on the original NES. Graphics improved at a rapidly-increasing rate, giving us games that wanted more and more to be like the movies. But still they were tied to arbitrary control schemes that required practice; there was still a barrier of entry: “you must be this skilful to enjoy this medium”.

Until we get to this generation. This generation of gaming has exploded. We’re at a stage now where gaming is accessible to pretty much anyone. We’re at a stage where gaming is no longer confined to one specific demographic. We’re at a stage where you don’t even need a controller to work your Xbox if that’s the route you want to take.

Love them or hate them, several things have done a huge amount to make gaming more accessible to the masses. The Wii and the variety of plastic-instrument music games such as Rock Band brought family-friendly, “lifestyle” and party gaming back, reminding people how much fun it was to get together with friends and play in the same room. Kinect for the Xbox provides entertaining, active games that kids and adults alike can enjoy without having to remember which button does what. Facebook games like Farmville, while shallow to people who have been playing games for years, provide bored office drones and soccer moms with fun things to do on the Internet. Call of Duty lets the frat boys (and girl-equivalents) of the world blow seven shades of shit out of each other whilst shouting racial epithets at one another. And the blossoming independent development scene sees digital artists and creative minds pushing the boundaries of what “interactive entertainment” really means.

Games may or may not be art—that’s an interminable question that may never be answered conclusively. But one thing games aren’t? Just for teenage boys. Give ’em a shot. You might surprise yourself.

#oneaday, Day 6: Public Service Announcement

I should stop being surprised at this, but I still am.

People on the Internet are dickholes. Well, not all of them. I know a lot of very nice people who live in the Internet. Many of them are writing blogs like this one—hello!—but then there is another breed out there—the breed who thinks it’s appropriate to hurl unwarranted abuse at others. Others that they’ve never met or spoken to, in some cases.

Ever been on Formspring? It’s pretty fun. People can submit questions to you, either anonymously or under their username, and then you can answer them. That is the sole purpose of the site. I’ve had a lot of fun with it, thanks mostly to my very creative friends who are excellent with coming up with bizarre, thought-provoking questions. And somehow the questions are much more fun when you’re not quite sure who they’re from. It becomes a game in itself to work out who submitted the bizarre question about the robots and the cabbage.

Unfortunately, as we’ve seen many times by now, the potential anonymity that the Internet offers causes some people to think that they can say absolutely anything. So it was earlier on when my lovely Twitter-friend @Cilllah was bombarded with violent and pretty offensive nonsense from some nutjob banging on about his “garden” and about how he was going to rape and kill her.

Now, given all the nonsense over the #TwitterJokeTrial a while back, I don’t for a second believe that this moron was actually going to do these things. But how is it in any way appropriate to say things like that to someone who’s just going about their business on the Internet? Hiding behind the veil of anonymity to throw out abuse to strangers? That’s kind of pathetic.

This sort of thing shouldn’t annoy me so much—it’s been going on for years after all. It doesn’t make it right, though. I’ve been using the Internet and related technologies since the early days—a 300 baud modem on an Atari 8-bit, then on the Atari ST, then CompuServe under Windows 3.1, up through various incarnations of the “proper” Web to the stage we’re at today. And at no point have I ever felt the need to pick on some poor person and be an asshole to them.

Perhaps I’m just too nice of a person to understand why people do the things they do. But I can live with that; I’d much rather be a person that the vast majority of people like and respect (and perhaps a few assholes think is a bit of a pussy) than someone who gets their kicks from threatening rape and violence on strangers.

The joke’s on them, of course. The mental image that springs to mind as soon as anyone starts trolling like that is one of a Jabba-esque freak in his (you know it’s a he) piss-and-cum-stained pants, probably with their semi-erect penis clasped firmly in their left hand (right hand is for mousing) and a folder called “HOTTYZ” on his desktop containing profile pictures of all the women he’s harassed.

And if you’re not that person? You can feel pretty good about yourself.

#oneaday, Day 5: The FF Gambit

In an attempt to batter the shit out of my Pile of Shame, I’m playing Final Fantasy XII, a game which I bought upon its initial release—just like every Final Fantasy—and have spectacularly failed to finish—just like every post-IX Final Fantasy. (I have since finished X and X-2 and maintain that X-2 is an excellent game despite being almost—but not quite—as gay as Space Channel 5)

The thing is, FFXII is good. Really good. Like, “it’s a Final Fantasy for people who hate JRPGs” good, in that it dispenses with all the usual bullshit (rigid linearity until the last hour, when saving the world can be inexplicably put on hold to go and raise some chickens, endless random battles) and provides an experience that is altogether more “Western” in its feel. We have a much more open world. We have enemies wandering around in the field. We have immensely satisfying combat which takes place in the field. We have sidequests with a bloody quest log and we have an interesting, if unconventional, character development system.

And we have Gambits. I was all set to dismiss Gambits as a means of getting the game to play itself. But having played it for about twelve hours now (coming up on the point that I originally got distracted by something else on my initial partial-playthrough, so we’re nearly into new territory) I’ve discovered something: Gambits are awesome.

If you passed on FFXII, let me enlighten you. A Gambit is a means of “programming” your party members to act in particular ways. You give them a particular condition, such as “Ally has less than 50% HP”, and then give them an action, like “Cure”. You can prioritise the actions, too, so certain things will take precedence when more than one of the conditions are true. And as such, you can plan out the way you’d like a battle to unfold before it starts.

In many senses, it’s like that “group huddle” you have in something like World of Warcraft before you take on a dungeon’s boss. Everyone has a role to play, and it’s important that people stick to that plan where possible, but be able to adapt to the situation if necessary. That’s why FFXII gives you the opportunity to immediately issue direct commands, too, which override any and all Gambits in play. In fact, it’s technically possible to play the entire game by micromanaging every action all your characters do, but it would probably take you approximately ten times longer to play the game if you chose to do that. Gambits aren’t letting you leave the game on autopilot—they’re letting you plan out a battle before it happens and then just focus on responding to situations as they arise. You’ll frequently have to switch them out to take advantage of particular enemies’ weaknesses, and I’ve noticed myself spending a lot more time in the menu in FFXII than I would do in earlier, more traditional entries in the series. Planning out the way the characters will respond is interesting and addictive, and immensely satisfying when it goes right.

In fact, the only thing which may be a bit off-putting to some people about FFXII these days is the graphics. In this HD age, FFXII looks pretty ugly, and ironically this is because it was a pretty good-looking PS2 game. There is a lot of detail in both the textures and the characters, but the low resolution which the game runs at gives the whole thing a very “muddy” and flickery look which some people may find a bit difficult to deal with. It’s certainly not unplayable, though, and spending a bit of time in the company of the PS2 serves as a reminder that games didn’t always need HD graphics and Achievements to be good.

(Interestingly, FFXII does actually feature a proto-Achievement system in the form of the Sky Pirate’s Den, which fills with trophies as you fulfil certain accomplishments in the game.)

So, if you’re hungering for a great almost-Western-style RPG with a JRPG aesthetic? Give ol’ FFXII a chance. If FFXIII didn’t push your buttons with its “here’s a straight line to the finish, apart from this bit” mentality, FFXII is what you need. Join me in my quest through my Pile of Shame!

#oneaday, Day 4: The Application Letter I’d Actually Like to Write

Dear Employer,

Hello. My name’s Pete, and I’m a fully-functional human being able to perform tasks for you in exchange for money. I’m not actually that fussy about the tasks you’d like me to perform, so long as they at least fall under the category of “things that I’m capable of doing”.

Things that I’m capable of doing, if you were curious (which you should be) include the following:

Typing like the clappers (anywhere between 85 and 100wpm depending on how easy your test is)
Producing good-quality writing at short notice (as this blog which I update every day will hopefully attest)
Spotting mistakes in others’ writing and being able to correct them, with a particular focus on people who do not understand the difference between “your” and “you’re”.
Inspiring a viral trend of people to get off their behinds (or, more accurately, get back on their behinds, only in a different context) and get creative—see the One A Day Project, up to 105 participants at the time of writing.
5-Star “Poker Face” on Dance Central (but, eh, let’s keep that one our little secret, shall we?)
Teaching people who have no idea how to use a computer how to use a computer in terms they can understand.
Being honest about the things I don’t know or understand, and finding the information out for myself.
Being able to sit down in front of a new piece of software and get to grips with it very quickly.
Feature on, edit, produce and release a podcast (see: the Squadron of Shame, soon to return after our holiday break)
Using Aperture and Photoshop for photo-tweakage.
Having an opinion worth listening to (see: the number of people who are playing Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale at least partly because of my enthusing)
Write words on paper that people can actually understand without having to resort to words such as “timeously”, “leverage” and “monetize”.

You may think that the vast majority of experience on my CV isn’t exactly relevant to the position you’re advertising. And you’d probably be right. But man is far more than a list of past positions on a piece of paper. He is the sum of his skills, experiences, memories and adaptability. And I have all of the above in spades, meaning that I’d be more than happy to turn my hand to something new. And not only that, the fact that I can learn new things incredibly quickly and retain them easily means that even if I’ve never done the exact job you’re advertising before, I’m pretty certain that I could do well at it if you simply explain what it is I have to do first.

I’ve also been out of regular work since last March, which means that by hiring me you’d be doing your bit to help the UK out of its “millions of people unemployed” situation. I haven’t even been claiming any benefits, but might start having to pretty soon. By hiring me, you’d be allowing some of that taxpayers’ money to be spent on something useful rather than keeping me provided with Lemsip, toilet paper and Eccles cakes.

But above all, by hiring me, you’d be helping both yourself and me. You’d be giving me a job, some financial security, a reason to get up in the morning and something upon which to focus my efforts. And I’d be giving you a committed, grateful, industrious worker who will do his utmost to show you he’s the best damn person-who-can-fulfil-the-position-you’re-advertising ever.

So think about it, huh? Do you want the person who writes the predictable but completely empty-of-soul letter that proclaims how supposedly “passionate” they are about whatever your industry is, and how much of a “generalist” they are? Or do you want the actual human being?

Thanks for your time. I’ll be right here while I don’t have anything better to do of a day. Call me. Email me. Hire me.

Pete

#oneaday, Day 3: My Life with Des

The concept of Des as displayed in my comic is, of course, nonsense and would be genuinely terrifying if it were actually true. But for anyone who has suffered with depression, anxiety or similar symptoms, your own personal black cloud of despair is very much a real thing, even if you can’t see him or make him cups of tea in order to make him go away. (Some people may argue that last point, but I don’t really drink tea.)

Thinking about it, though, “Des”, or “The Black Cloud of Despair” to give him his full name, has been with me pretty much for as long as I remember, right from a young age. In this post, I’m going to explore my relationship with “him” and perhaps work some things out as a result. This probably isn’t going to be easy to write (or read) but it’s cathartic or something. So here we go.

Des sometimes came with me to primary school. I had disproportionately-large ears when I was a kid, or at least a haircut which made them appear that way, and I was relentlessly bullied throughout most of primary school for them, even by people who were (sometimes) my friends. I recall spending many lunchtimes at school either in tears, getting beaten up by the school bullies or getting absolutely furious at one of the dinner ladies. I can’t even remember why I got so angry with her now, but I have vivid memories of kicking a bin over on more than one occasion. Looking back on it, all these things that were happening just attracted Des to me like flies to shit. The relentless teasing and bullying made me feel bad about myself, and I felt wronged, that life was somehow unfair, even at that early age. Des whispered in my ear that I was never going to be one of the “cool” kids, that I’d never be part of the “élite cliques”, and I believed him. I stopped trying to be “cool” and settled for the (ultimately more useful) choice of “doing well”.

So a questionable start there.

Des joined me at secondary school, too. On my first day at secondary school, the small group of us who had been together in the same class for all of primary school were now scattered around different tutor groups with a bunch of strangers. Strangers whom we were obviously expected to interact with.

Des whispered in my ear again. “You don’t know what to do, do you?” he said, a mocking tone in his voice. “You really have no idea.”

I didn’t. I actually turned to my friend sitting behind me and said “I can’t remember how to make friends!” and he just laughed me off. But I genuinely couldn’t. And to this day, it’s never a conscious process. It just sort of happens, with some people more than others. Those people that I instantly “click” with? Those are the people I know are going to be true friends, the ones who will never disappear from my life, even if distance or time separates us.

The bullying wasn’t quite so bad throughout secondary school, and I at least had a group of friends that were less fond of turning their backs on me at regular intervals, so I was able to stand my ground a bit more. But Des was still there, and I totally lacked the confidence to do any normal teenage things like ask girls out because he’d always be there, muttering that there’s no way they’d ever want me. I went out with two girls throughout my high school life: one of them cheated on me in front of me at the school prom (classy, but she’s now married to the guy so fair play to them, I guess) and the other got together with me on a school trip to a local recording of Songs of Praise (I know, right), promptly disappeared for a week and then decided that it wasn’t working. Well, great.

Sixth form was better. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that sixth form was my favourite time to be alive. Des left me alone throughout this time, and I got on with my life. I did the things I enjoyed to the best of my ability and have some of the fondest memories with my friends of all time during that period. It seemed like things were finally taking a change for the better, and as the time to go to university drew nearer, it seemed like my whole life was ahead of me and that I could finally look forward to what was to come instead of resenting the past.

And sure enough, university was pretty great. Barring one small incident at the very start of my time there where I met someone whom I was absolutely sure within a matter of minutes was the “right person” for me who then got together with someone else because I was too hesitant to speak up (that and she liked him more, I guess), Des mostly left me alone throughout university, and I again enjoyed good times with great people.

Since then, though, he’s been back. Occasionally he goes away for a while, but he always comes back. During my work in teaching, he was ever-present, enveloping me, telling me over and over that I couldn’t do it, that I was going to get found out, that I was useless, that the abuse and insults the kids threw around were personal, that the fact I couldn’t control a class was symptomatic of my failure as a human being.

I jacked it in after suffering what amounted to a complete emotional breakdown in the middle of one day. I had to leave early that day, and I never returned, having been signed off sick.

I wanted to hide, and I did. I felt like I hadn’t had any real friends at that job, and the few people who did show some concern I pushed away, partly on the advice of a professional body and partly because I couldn’t face them. Through this time, my wife stood by me, even though she was also going through difficult times at work and trying to figure out what she wanted to do with her life, too. I appreciated that. If I’d been through that time by myself I’m not entirely sure I’d be here writing this right now. Codependence isn’t helpful in the long run, but it is certainly a means of surviving a situation while it’s happening. The other person can see when Des is moving in, and can swat him away. But you have to learn to swat him away yourself sometime.

I eventually moved back to Southampton when I got what appeared to be my dream job. It was a retail job, but not. I was getting to use my teaching and communication skills on a daily basis, play with gadgets and enthuse about them—and above all, I was damn good at it. When I was selling stuff, I frequently topped the “charts” for the day, and held the record for “most shit sold in a day” for the longest time—possibly still do. When I was teaching people how to use their computers, customers frequently requested me specifically because they thought I was good at what I did.

For a long time, it seemed as if Des was gone for good. But things changed, as they tend to. A shifting focus in our working environment left some of us feeling a little uncomfortable that we weren’t performing quite the same roles we’d been hired to do. Although many of us were technically salesmen, the thing we’d loved about the job was that it wasn’t a “high-pressure, hard sell” task. We just talked to people enthusiastically about the products, and this genuine enthusiasm helped people come to their conclusions far more than any amount of rabbiting on about warranties and membership programmes.

No longer, though. Des started to creep in, though in this case, he actually offered some good advice. “This isn’t right,” he said. “You shouldn’t be doing this. This isn’t what you’re here for.”

I voiced my concerns reasonably—something that had always been part of the culture of the workplace in question—and found myself on the receiving end of what can only be described as out-and-out bullying. This eventually left me with no option but to resign from the job I once loved so much. Not only that, but the circumstances of my departure clearly stymied my chances at later returning to the company in a different region. I had thought I had left bullying behind a long time ago, but it wasn’t to be. I still have a copy of my lengthy resignation letter, which plenty of other people agreed with wholeheartedly.

I moved back into teaching—a move which I talked about a few days ago—and regretted it. Des stopped being helpful and started telling me that I was no good again, a feeling that was further backed up by OfSTED inspectors with clipboards telling me that I was no good.

So I left. Shortly afterwards, I found myself with no job, no money, no wife and no-one but Des for company on many days. On those days, there wasn’t much I could do. Des would surround me, bombard me with thoughts and feelings of what might have been, what could have been, regrets and the like. He frequently laid me low, unable to function for the vast majority of a day. He made me shout and scream to no-one, to break things, to lash out at empty space and myself because there was no-one else to lash out to. He made me question whether it was even worth carrying on trying, because I felt like I’d been “trying” for so hard and never getting there.

And when I had to leave that place I’d called home, he came with me, taunting me, pointing at what had happened as somehow a failure on my part.

And perhaps I have failed at certain things in the past. But failing at something is a sign to do one of two things: do better, or do something else instead. And that’s what I’ve been doing since then. It hasn’t yet found me a full-time job, it hasn’t yet got me any money, it hasn’t yet got me back into my own place.

But it has helped to define me, to understand myself and my limits. Des has made me into the person I am today and put me in the situation I am currently in. When a concept or a feeling is with you for so long, it can’t help being part of who you are. It’s how you deal with it that makes the difference. Instead of listening to Des’s taunts and just nodding along, believing every one, I should punch him in the face, tell him to stop being such an asshole and then prove him wrong.

In short, I should see him as my personal trainer, not the school bully. It’s difficult to redefine the way you look at something. But I don’t really have an option any more.

Here’s to the hard work ahead, and it hopefully paying off.

#oneaday, Day 2: Flubag

I can always tell when it’s the holiday season. Because the holiday season is the Time To Get Ill. Almost without fail every single year, at some point around Christmas/New Year, my body goes “Nope! Had enough. Here’s some snot. Happy Christmas!” and buggers off for a few days.

This year is no exception. I thought I’d escaped, because for the whole time I was over in California visiting my brother for the holidays, I was fine, despite everyone around me gradually sinking into a mire of barking repeatedly like someone with Spatchcock’s Ever-Coughing Syndrome. Including the dog. Who was actually barking, not coughing.

On the plane ride on the way home, though, I felt the illness hit. Several other Spatchcock’s sufferers on the flight coupled with yummy delicious recycled air being pumped around the cabin meant a breeding ground for germs. And sure enough… “Had enough. Here’s some snot. Happy Christmas!”

Well, you’re late, illness glands. And, you know, you really didn’t have to get me anything this year. I just got you a bunch of pills, and I know you don’t really like them that much.

The most irritating thing about suffering with Spatchcock’s Syndrome is how difficult it makes sleeping. When you lie down in bed with Spatchcock’s, you are constantly in one of two states: mouth-breathing, or coughing.

The mouth-breathing comes because your nose is so full of juicy snot that if you didn’t mouth-breathe you’d suffocate and die, and suffocating and dying because of snot would just be embarrassing. If you do happen to get to sleep whilst in the mouth-breathing phase, your snores will qualify as some of the most disgusting noises on the planet and will probably involve bubbling. If you are sleeping with anyone at the time, this is a sure-fire way to find out if they really love you or not.

The coughing usually comes when you manage to clear your nose a little bit, and inevitably brings up more snot to join the party. The noise and the irritation in your throat wakes you and anyone in the same building up, and once it passes you’re back to mouth-breathing again.

So you probably end up not sleeping until your brain is so devoid of power that it goes into laptop-style hibernation mode and fails to wake you up until lunchtime the next day. And because you slept at a weird time, you end up feeling crappy the next day, which compounds the whole situation further.

Eventually you just decide to not sleep any more until this dratted pox departs your system, during which time you gradually slip into a hallucinogenic fantasy which you can’t quite decide whether is good or bad or somewhere in between and then you die. Possibly.

I am grateful for one thing, though: at least it’s not full-on achey joints flu, which I’ve only been struck down with once at a time that happened to coincide with a Christmas I was set to spend alone in my house due to holiday retail work commitments and the rest of my family doing other things. Elsewhere. Without me.

Remind me why I want to get a job again?