#oneaday Day 859: HAWT

It is officially Hot. The sun has been out all day, and this means that all the world’s Hot has been stored up for the whole day and is now being stored in our bedroom making it an unbearable oven almost impossible to sleep in without leaving a noisy fan on all night.

This means that Summer is Here, or something along those lines, anyway.

I have a weird relationship with summer. I’ve written about this subject in the past, but after 858 previous daily entries, frankly it’s sometimes difficult to come up with completely original topics, so I’m going to write about it again. (The last time was in 2010, anyway, so I think I’ve earned the right to do it again.) I digress. Let me start again.

I have a weird relationship with summer. I like the fact that it’s warm and it looks nice outside and you can wear shorts and not put a coat on and whatnot, but I dislike the fact it makes my arse sweaty (apparently my arse contains my body’s thermostat, meaning that if I get slightly too hot it’s the first place to start sweating) and it can be uncomfortable to sit outside in for too long, particularly if you’re prone to burning like I am.

I like the fact that it’s socially acceptable to get out a hosepipe (assuming they haven’t been banned in your region due to “drought” conditions — and let’s not get started on the misuse of that term) and spray it all over yourself on the “mist” setting. Well, okay, maybe not socially acceptable, but certainly understandable.

I like the fact that paddling pools become a viable option in the summer, even for grown adults who should really know better.

I like that you can do normally indoor-type stuff outside (though techie geeks really need to invent a phone/tablet/laptop screen that is actually at all visible in the sunlight and has a faster response time than e-ink displays) and that it’s pretty much obligatory to have some sort of iced drink to hand at all times.

I dislike the fact that if you get burned, then everything hurts for days afterwards. Particularly worthy of ire is getting burned on the top of your head, which is enormously uncomfortable and itchy — doubly frustrating for one such as myself who suffers from a perpetually-itchy head.

I dislike the fact that scrawny chavs feel the need to take their shirts off and display their hairless, prepubescent-looking chests to the world while walking around town.

I dislike that you can very easily inadvertently blind yourself with nothing but a phone screen and an unfortunate reflection.

I like that you can get in your car, open all the windows and drive to your destination with fresh air blowing in freely, regardless of what it does to your hair. (My hair inevitably looks stupid, so being windswept has very little effect on my usual appearance.)

I like that it’s a good time of year to play Dead or Alive Xtreme 2, not only one of the most perverted non-hentai (well, there’s no bonking in it, anyway) games in the world, but also one of the most summery things in existence.

I like the feeling of summer humidity exploding into a heavy rainstorm, and standing out in that warm rain getting drenched.

See? Mixed feelings. I don’t do “being Hot” very well, and if I had the choice I’d rather be too cold than too hot. But there’s plenty to like about the summer. It’s a cheerful time of year, particularly in a country such as this which spends an awful lot of time overcast, raining or both.

As such, I’ve bought a bike and will be picking it up tomorrow with a view to actually Going Outside when I get the chance. This, then, is doubtless a cue for the sun to disappear for the rest of the year and a torrential deluge of Biblical proportions to begin. Oh well. Good intentions and all that.

What are your favourite and most-despised things about the summer?

(Cue silence. In the past, ending a post with a question has generally been a prompt for there to be no comments whatsoever. But I’m not giving up now, dammit.)

#oneaday Day 569: It’s All Kicking Off

“It’s all kicking off.” A phrase which now represents the recent riots that have been taking place around the UK.

I’m not going to use this as a means of making some sort of political comment on the whole thing, because as a normal human being and a law-abiding citizen, frankly I don’t care on the political aspect of it — if there even is one. What I do care about is that people in this country have the capacity to go completely batshit mental and smash the shit out of absolutely everything, then set fire to it just to make sure it’s good and properly destroyed.

A piece on the BBC earlier summed up pretty much what I think about the whole thing — a growing culture of consumerism, materialism and a sense of misplaced entitlement among young people is highly likely to blame. Evidence of it is everywhere, and as an ex-teacher I frequently came face to face with the kind of behaviour which, left unchecked, could (and did) escalate into something altogether more sinister.

Parents do need to take more responsibility for their children and be able to tell them “no” rather than pandering to their whims. In the first school I taught in, the most unpleasant child in the class would never turn up to his detentions because, I quote, “Mum says I don’t have to do detentions”. In the face of such defiance from not only the child but the parents too, what exactly is the educational system expected to do in order to instil a sense of “good citizenship” in these little scruttocks?

It’s not all kids, of course, but any time an event like this comes along — particularly one of this magnitude — it’s easy to quickly decry all children and teenagers as “feral” and start advocating increasingly Draconian societal measures. That’s possibly not the answer, as it would likely lead to even greater social unrest — unrest which the previously “nice” kids might feel compelled to join in on.

What is a problem is the gang culture that is growing and spreading in our towns. When I worked in retail in Southampton, we used to have an almost constant gang presence in the store thanks to the fact that we offered, in effect, free Internet access. Hordes of youths in hoodies, ill-fitting trousers tucked into socks and several tons of cheap “gold” jewellery frequently spent the best part of a day in the store, intimidating staff and customers alike, until we got to a stage where enough was enough and we had to start taking tougher action.

The presence of these individuals was enough to be intimidating, but then you looked at what they were doing online. Most of them made use of the social networking site “Bebo” at the time, and most of them were on there “repping” whatever gang they happened to come from around the city. In some ways, it was sort of hilariously pathetic, as these kids boasted about how hard they were, how excellent their rapping was (spoiler: it wasn’t very excellent) and how badly they were going to “murk” their rivals from the next postcode over. But on the other hand, the obsession with guns, violence and materialism coupled with severely short tempers was somewhat sinister — and it made running across these individuals outside a disturbing, unpleasant experience. And they knew it.

The scariest thing about these riots is seeing that the people that I fear are capable of scary shit. Having your fears justified only makes them more scary.

At the time of writing, at least, things do seem to be calming down a bit. I hope this momentary madness passes and the devastated communities affected by the chaos can regroup, rebuild and move on. And that the scumbags responsible are brought to swift and humiliating justice.

#oneaday, Day 241: The Gogglebox

Television is generally a good indication of what to expect from a country’s culture. Of course, it’s not the be-all and end-all of their cultural output. Thank God. But it does give some indication of the values of that country, the things they find entertaining and their general outlook on life.

Tonight I happened to catch a little bit of possibly the most uninspiring quiz show I’ve ever seen. It takes the very essence of England and Englishness—grey boringness; small talk about grey, boring things; reluctance to show any sort of enthusiasm whatsoever—and turns it into a spectacular example of how to get what is a pretty well-established format amazingly wrong.

The show is Eggheads. It appears to pit a team of clever people against a team of “Ha! They’re from the public! They must smell awful!” people. Presumably it’s intended to be some sort of triumphant David and Goliath situation, with, at some point, the team of great unwashed defeating the people with two brain cells to rub together.

There’s one very simple thing this programme gets wrong. Tension. Quiz shows are made by their tension. It can be created in many ways, and for many, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? is perhaps the best example, as it uses all of them. Music. Audience reactions. A host who milks the situation for all it’s worth. None of these are things that require lots of money and flashy effects to produce. They simply require a bit of personality. And, crucially, an audience.

Eggheads doesn’t have an audience. This means that even the most spectacular victory scored by the hoi-polloi is greeted by absolute, complete and utter stony silence. And this means the participants have no energy whatsoever. If they won, they’d probably just nod their head sagely and go “oh, thank you.” It’s the televisual equivalent of when you find yourself sitting outside the headmaster’s office and all you can hear is the ticking of a grandfather clock. Assuming you went to the kind of school that had grandfather clocks in it.

Contrast this with even the most cheap and nasty of American game shows and you’ll see a very different side of things. You’ll see participants whooping, hollering, cheering, jumping around and generally acting like they’re happy to be there. Of course, you have to be in the right mood to find this entertaining, as overzealous enthusiasm can be just as grating as stark boringness if you’re in the wrong frame of mind. But it somehow seems rather more appropriate for the game show format than what I witnessed tonight.

As for Japanese game shows? They do stuff like this. Kind of like The Generation Game. But, you know, good.

#oneaday, Day 232: The Big Smoke

I spent the day in London today. Primarily for a job interview, but I also had the good fortune to run into one George Kokoris and one Mitu Khandaker. Well, all right, we’d pre-arranged to meet. But “had the good fortune to run into” sounds so much nicer, doesn’t it?

Anyway, the actual reasons I was in London are fairly unimportant for the purposes of this entry. I want to talk about London itself.

London is simultaneously one of the most English places you can be, and one of the most un-English places you can be. Many people who come to visit England begin and end their visits with London. Many of them don’t even get outside the city limits of our capital. Which is fair enough; there’s plenty to see there, after all.

But the city has a unique character all of its own that isn’t replicated anywhere else in the whole country. Sure, there are other big cities, but none quite have the same feeling as London.

It’s a combination of things. Not all of them good. First of all, there’s the fact that everyone’s always in a hurry. Everyone has places to be, things to do and people to see that are far more important than whatever it is you’re up to at the time. As a result, God help you if you dare to stand on the left-hand side while you’re on an escalator or travelator, as you’ll probably end up with someone physically pushing you out of the way, as I witnessed happening to another person earlier. And it’s not as if charging down the escalators saves you any more than one or two seconds at most.

Then there’s the traffic. I have a complete phobia of driving in London. I’ve only done it once and have absolutely no intention of ever doing it again. I’m not sure entirely why that is. Again, it’s probably an aggression thing. See a light turn amber in preparation of going green and almost immediately horns start beeping and other drivers start getting impatient.

But on the flip side, there’s the curious little hideaways that the city offers. Just today, near Waterloo, we wandered down an innocuous and borderline scabby-looking side street only to come across a little row of three lovely restaurants bordered by some gorgeous trees and bushes. Stepping into this restaurant was like escaping reality for a little while. The noise of the city was gone, and we were in a land of Thai curries, Lionel Richie advertising Walkers crisps on the TV, and a selection of R&B and soul from the last twenty years. Most peculiar. And an experience that can’t be replicated easily anywhere else.

Somewhere else, somewhere near Regent Street (and I can’t remember where, so stop hassling me and stuff) there’s an awesome American barbecue and grill place that is pretty much a place where they give you an enormous plate of meat, some implements with which to eat it and the possibility of some bread and/or fries, and then it’s up to you how to deal with it.

Then there’s the theatres. Scattered around the place, there’s hundreds of shows to see, things to do, stuff to enjoy.

It’s a bombardment for the senses. And it’s utterly exhausting. But I think, today, I came to appreciate it a little for once. Perhaps it was sharing it with other people. Perhaps it was having a sense of purpose for being there. Or maybe it’s just one of those changes in my outlook. I couldn’t say.

Just remember, though, if you’re visiting England or the UK in general, we have a whole lot more to offer than that bustling metropolis!

We’re Doing It Wrong

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My hatred and loathing for my home country of the UK has been well documented both on these pages, on Twitter and in various other places that I’ve deposited little pockets of mental detritus around the Web. The reasons for this are manifold, of course, but the recent US elections highlighted one of the reasons that I don’t feel proud to be British, English, United Kingdomish, whatever you want to call me.

Congratulations, by the way, America. You made the right choice by electing Obama as President-elect, the first black President the US has ever seen (a fact the BBC were fond of reminding us roughly every ten seconds during their coverage). You have elected a leader who is intelligent, articulate and inspirational – a leader who certainly gives the impression that he can make a difference and who inspires trust in the things he says. His acceptance speech made me want to shed a tear and made me feel proud and patriotic… towards America.

I’m sure pretty much everyone has seen this by now, but here we go again:

The man is a fantastic public speaker, it can’t be denied – even if you don’t agree with everything he says, or doubt he’ll be able to get the job done, or whatever… there’s no denying that he knows how to instill confidence and pride in a crowd.

We get this:

This is Gordon Brown. He is our Prime Minister. Our unelected Prime Minister, I might add, who sat waiting for Blair to resign like a rabid dog waiting to pounce on a hunk of meat before jumping in and continuing the mess his predecessor had created.

There are many things I object to about Gordon Brown and his government. The biggest thing that struck me about the US election is that I actually cared about the outcome. I cared about the candidates. I was keen for Obama to win because I supported him as a person, I supported what he stood for and I found him an inspirational candidate. I felt uneasy about McCain and particularly about the Evil Ice Bitch that stood with him with her strangely plastic face. Conversely, I’ve watched several UK elections over the years and not one of them has inspired the same kind of pride, patriotism and edge-of-the-seat excitement that the US elections did. This is largely to do with the fact that our politicians are boring and uninspiring, as clearly demonstrated above.

Couple this with the fact that they seem to make consistently stupid decisions, particularly when it comes to things like criminal rights, education and the like, and I can say with some confidence that I have roughly 0% confidence and trust in our government… and the trouble is that the “other sides” don’t inspire much confidence either. David Cameron is a posh public-school boy who is widely regarded as “out of touch” with much of society. I will likely vote for him in the next election purely because I’ve seen what a hash Gordon Brown and the Labour Party have made in the last few years, but I know that it’s unlikely there will be any great change. Our “third option”, the Liberal Democrats, may as well not exist because they consistently gain so little votes in the elections that their presence is merely an annoyance to the “big two” parties.

Our MPs are fond of that particularly odious brand of management-speak and obfuscation of what they actually mean through dumb buzz-words. (I realise “obfuscation” may qualify as one of those words, but I like it.) None of them will ever answer a direct question. I realise that this is nothing new, but it does little to inspire confidence. Obama has, conversely, in the speeches I have witnessed so far, been relatively plain-speaking and comes across as honest. Time will tell if he can live up to his promises, but at least I’m feeling pretty good about him at the moment.

I don’t see any change forthcoming in the UK. Each new generation of politicians in this country is more boring, dull, morose and out-of-touch than the last. Each new generation is doing more and more damage to the country in the name of being “progressive” and encouraging “diversity” when in fact all they are doing is removing rights from people who deserve them and providing them to people who don’t, like criminals and poorly-behaved children in schools. As a result, the country is becoming apathetic, with little to no respect for authority. There’s no chance of any kind of “revolution” forthcoming because the country is so weary and exhausted by the constant beatdowns and the amount of effort it takes to get a straight answer out of a politician.

I realise this all sounds a bit Daily Mail-ish and for that I apologise. But I wanted to share my thoughts, post-election. I am filled with pride and “patriotism” (for want of a better word) towards America at the moment, but it only highlights the fact that we’re doing it wrong here.

In praise of slow

(With apologies to Carl Honore for shamelessly liberating the title of his book, which I haven’t read, but respect the sentiment behind the title.)

I sauntered to work today. Tomorrow I might amble, stroll, perambulate or, you know, walk. This is nothing unusual, you might think, but I’ve noticed a curious phenomenon develop over the last few years, and that is the fact that everyone seems to have somewhere more important than the place I’m going to get to, preferably much quicker than I do. As such, as I wander down the street, it’s almost inevitable, even at unsociable hours in the morning, that at least one person will come charging past me – not running, because that would look panicky – but walking at at least twice the speed I do. I don’t walk as slowly as, say, an elderly gentleman, but I still walk considerably slower than these people who are inevitably dressed in some sort of suit, wearing clip-cloppy shoes that immediately makes them somehow seem incredibly arrogant. Quite how shoes can be arrogant is anyone’s guess, but that’s what it makes me think.

Then there’s London. Anyone who’s ever visited London, however much you may have liked it, will have noticed how much of a hurry every damn person in that city is in. Traffic lights go amber and horns sound immediately like some sort of automatic reaction. Dare to stand slightly left-of-centre on the escalators leading down to the Underground and some greased-up City-boy businessman will make a snide comment like “Slow lane’s over there, mate”. Stand in a queue at Pret and you’ll see at least five people who have been waiting roughly fifteen seconds storm out in seeming disgust, muttering about inefficiency. (Contrast this with my experience a few years back when an entire symphony orchestra descended on one tiny kebab shop in the middle of Warsaw which was staffed by one rather uncomfortable looking man. Now that was inefficiency, although to be fair he was somewhat up against the wall. Almost literally.)

Then there’s the laziness of people who use computers. “Why can’t I drag that text into my subject header?” I heard one person ask of an email application – because using two keyboard shortcuts to copy and paste it was obviously just such a hassle. “Why can’t it do this?” “Why doesn’t this do my work for me?” “Computers are supposed to be efficient!”

And then – then – there’s the attention span of people on the Internet. Dare to write in more than one paragraph on a message board and there will be at least one response along the lines of “OMFG WALL OF TEXT” with nothing more meaningful to say. Well, thanks for that.

You’d think there’d be a point to this wall of text. And I guess there is. It’s to say to these people “slow the fuck down”. Leave ten minutes earlier so you can enjoy a walk to work without barging past people. Take your time over writing your emails and they might actually be spelled and punctuated correctly. Read someone’s wall of text and you might actually find something interesting that they had to say. And London? Just climb out of your own arse and realise that some people don’t want to live their lives at 300 miles per hour before dying of a heart attack at 28.

This post is dedicated to the people who take the time to sit down, chill out, relax, enjoy some time, some space and don’t mind being a little bit wordy and pretentious along the way. If you’re reading this and you’ve got this far, chances are you’re one of them. And to you I say, “Good job. Keep it up.”