I liked it

My Hero

Yes, it was all over this morning’s papers (except that dastardly Daily Mail) so this post hardly comes as a surprise, but I do not want to ignore it just because everyone is saying it. Everyone is saying it for a reason.

Tony Charles Lynton Blair. What a chap. I have honestly always loved that man - and his policies. I am a self confessed Blairite. I am a man of the Third Way. I am New Labour fanatic. In ten years no politician has even come close to touching Blair. He is an electrifying figure capable of out manoeuvring the opposition before they even know what’s going on.

I have just watched his ‘farewell’ speech twice (all 56 minutes of it), and I might even indulge myself a third time – it is simply a joy to see a master at work. I could go on and talk about his genius in reinventing the Labour Party and how I fear Brown and his old Labour buddies will wreck the whole program, and how I wish Blair was ten years younger and could continue for another three terms. Or about how I feel his policies, even the Iraq war, was the right thing to do. And how of course nuclear is the messy but necessary option for the future and the public services desperately need to adopt market mechanisms if they are to perform. And I think I just did.

I can only hope that Blair doesn’t simply retire to write up his memoirs but does something suitably worthy of his talent and reputation. He should don a cape, and along with his sidekick Bill Gates, tour the globe fighting injustice and poverty wherever they find it. And he should certainly do a tour of the American speech circuit (apparently he could get $100,000 a time).

With his exit next year British politics is surely going to become a depressing place with a host of inexperienced and hopeless pretenders to the throne yelling bitter nonsense at each other. Not one of them with even an ounce of Blair’s sparkle. I hope New Labour can rally itself and find someone strong enough to dislodge Brown for the leadership. Equally I hope Cameron can stick to his guns and also prove he has a good team of like-minded revolutionaries, and that his youthful looks and are not a smoke screen for the old Tories agenda. He also needs to demonstrate some zeal for the job; he is far too cold and calculated. It seems like his merely going through the motions, ticking all the right boxes. He needs to growl, bite and spit at people. People want a fighter. Come on Cameron – get angry.

But the upcoming election battle should not distract one iota from Blair’s achievements or his legacy. The world is a far better place because of him.

Cheers Tony :)

swimming pool generals

Sitting here while watching the seconds of my life tick away into oblivion I tend to go through various states of mind, oscillating between extreme euphoria and deepest despair. During my downward spirals I often hit a sort of critical point, at which I think “right, that’s it!” and I proceed to make a plan in my head, a schedule of action for my day and/or my week. “This time will be different” I’ll say to myself, “this cannot go on, if I can just get off my fat ass and achieve a, b and c – regardless of how miserable I feel, then things will begin to improve”. So off I will go, suddenly transformed into a workaholic for all of a few hours before the initial adrenaline rush fades and I arrive back at square one. In fact this is usually how most of my work and/or minor achievements (like getting dressed in the mornings) occur.

And so it is that I stand today at the end of one of these little ‘schedules’ and at the beginning of a new one. This time last week I worked myself up into such a suitably green frenzy that I swore I would make a change this week. What became of it? Well this week has seen me cut down my meat intake to an all time low. During the last seven days I have consumed one BLT baguette and two tins of tuna. Not only that but I have purchased less bottled drinks and packaged items while recycling all those that I have. I can also proudly report on the somewhat trivial success of having bought and fitted one of those fancy energy saving light bulbs in my room. Rather than guzzling 100 Watts (per cycle?) my lighting needs now only drain 20 Watts from the national grid. Hurrah for me.

My new mini plan of action is less concerned with saving the world and more concerned with enriching my knowledge of the period I am supposed to be devoting twelve months to studying, the Second World War. Not the most uplifting of subjects you might think, but I am afraid I am one of those geeks who has fantasised about tank battles and merciless butchering ever since he was a toddler. Perhaps not an all to healthy passion, but hey, its mine to indulge.

This schedule is also to include a morning swim at the Commonwealth pool behind my flat (as pictured).

And for your information “shhhhhhhhhhhh-hhhhhooozzziiimm” is the noise an old age pensioner makes as he laps you around the pool for the ninth time.

Sob.

"I’m going tell you something Flaca, and I want you to listen tight.

It may sound like I’m talking about me, but I’m not, I’m talking about you. As a matter of fact I’m talking about all people everywhere.

When I came down here to Texas I was looking for something and I didn’t know what. It seems like you add my life together and I’ve spent it all either stompin’ other men or in some cases getting stomped. I’ve had me some money and I’ve had me some medals. But none of it seemed a lifetime worth the pain of the mother that born me.

It’s like I was empty.

Well. I’m not empty any more. And that’s what’s important. I feel useful in this old world. To take a hit against what’s wrong, or to say a word for what’s right, even though you get walloped for saying that word.

Now I may sound like a Bible beater yelling up a revival at a river crossing camp meeting. But that don’t change the truth none.

There’s right and there’s wrong. You got to do one or the other.

You do the one and your living, you do the other and you may be walking around but your as dead as beaver hat."

Ok boys and girls. Listen to me now.

This is very strange.
My thoughts are at a thousand miles an hour and I am speaking out loud as I type.

Fingers too slow. Tonight was bad. Tonight was very bad. Tonight was so low. Tonight I destroyed myself. I didn’t hurt myself. Not physically. That is not my style. It really is a reversal of evolution. I am becoming lava. I am the midst of my teenage years. I can only grow.

I am sedated right now. But this is a sign of my success. I suffered. I worried. I wrote a blog about my failings. About my surrender to a phobia. I tried so hard to defeat. But I could not. For I was a failure. Now.

I really am sedated. This American stuff is too strong for me. Especially since I have been off the ‘meds’ for so long now. I can really really feel it. The room is not quite spinning. But I do feel very sick. This is not melodrama. Think what you like I am not afraid to admit my defeat any longer. Defeat, it would appear is just an opportunity. For I have overcome my phobia tonight. It will resruface. But tonight was my victory. Although it feels so shallow right now. This is emo at its finest.

I am emo. I can’t remember what I just wrote. Im going to post. Now.
Then im going straight to bed.

Good night world.

"That's how I'm gonna live"

Not so naked

I remember one morning, as I was hurriedly getting ready for yet another torturous day at high school I was also trying to watch Johnny Vaughn (in his hey day) preaching the good word on the Big Breakfast. On that day they had this over enthusiastic young guy cooking stuff up in their kitchen. He called himself the naked chef, and I immediately discounted him as a serious individual for so shamelessly adopting such an ugly gimmick.

Jamie Oliver, MBE. I apologise.

I don’t have the time to look up all the details I would like too. But Jamie Oliver continues to impress me, he seems to have remained honest and dedicated despite the fame attributed to him and the extreme pressures and expectation his previous success must bring with it. He seems to be able to shed all expectations and just focus on what he wants to achieve.

I honestly do not think this is a publicity stunt, nor has it ever been. And Jamie seems to be something very rare, and I do not think it will ever be a publicity stunt. Hence I feel like I should add my voice to the chorus of approval. And his only 31. What a brilliant bastard.

An ill worded appeal

Dear World,

I am in the grip of one of those passionate frenzies that grip me from time to time. A feeling similar to that that I used to get when contemplating the possibilities of the dialectic website. (Which I believe to have been a short lived, but relatively successful venture). I therefore apologise for what follows, but hope you will see through the frantic delusions and the haze of bad grammar and try to hear what I am trying to say. Having done that, please go on to rubbish the idea in the feedback section.

It is too do with the Green movement. My current excitement is fuelled by my own recent conversion to a 'phase change' view of social movements, Al Gore's recent film, the Tory parties 'green' talk, the news that George Bush himself is about to announce new green policies for America and the recent Economist 'header' I have just finished reading.

All of this has acted to re-ignite an idea I outline in one of my 'holiday' blog posts about setting up yet another blog, for the purposes for sharing with the world my green achievements and failures. Hopefully I will benefit both through the feedback of others and also through the self-checking nature of the blog itself - I can lie more easily to myself than I can my friends, if you follow. Hence by publicly stating and tracking my efforts to minimise my ecological footprint I hope to pursue that goal more effectively.

I would like to know what you think of this idea, both good and bad, and I would also like you to consider another possibility should this initial idea be even half a success. That possibility is to be the potential for creating a 'network' of other such sites. So for example a second person may begin to keep a similar blog - linked to others doing the same thing. In doing so we would create more a 'communal' feel in our efforts in becoming greener - a feeling through which I feel all participants would benefit immensely. I would have a lot more enthusiasm for my own green efforts knowing that someone else in another location was attempting to do the same thing, I would enjoy being able to sit back and view our shared struggle. If you follow the logic.

The blogs would not have to be devoted to this sole aim, so long as they kept regular posts upon them. Perhaps a new blog is not even required for this purpose and the plan might be better executed if existing blogs and networks were used instead. Also, the idea is not that everyone follows a strict and universal regime but rather that each person does their own thing based on their own means and circumstances. The sharing of these ideas is where half the strength of this network would lie. It is not supposed to be a strict thing and indeed failures and relapses would add to the human element of the scheme and the readability of the blog. It is supposed to be a casual thing and I hope I do not scare people off by coming on too strongly or seem to be suggesting something akin to joining a hippie commune. That is not my intention.

Often when I am in the grip of such frenzies my thinking becomes blurry, relatively small ideas seem to become world changing and pipe dreams seem very simple to achieve. Hence I would like to know what you think on this matter.

Regards,

The River

"I come from down in the valley
where mister when you're young
They bring you up to do like your daddy done
Me and Mary we met in high school
when she was just seventeen
We'd ride out of that valley down to where the fields were green

We'd go down to the river
And into the river we'd dive
Oh down to the river we'd ride

Then I got Mary pregnant
and man that was all she wrote
And for my nineteenth birthday I got a union card and a wedding coat
We went down to the courthouse
and the judge put it all to rest
No wedding day smiles no walk down the aisle
No flowers no wedding dress

That night we went down to the river
And into the river we'd dive
Oh down to the river we did ride

I got a job working construction for the Johnstown Company
But lately there ain't been much work on account of the economy
Now all them things that seemed so important
Well mister they vanished right into the air
Now I just act like I don't remember
Mary acts like she don't care

But I remember us riding in my brother's car
Her body tan and wet down at the reservoir
At night on them banks I'd lie awake
And pull her close just to feel each breath she'd take
Now those memories come back to haunt me
they haunt me like a curse
Is a dream a lie if it don't come true
Or is it something worse
that sends me down to the river
though I know the river is dry
That sends me down to the river tonight
Down to the river
my baby and I
Oh down to the river we ride"

I Didn't Come Here To Tell You How This Is Going To End

Drunk on fatigue, and fatigue alone, I staggered into my grave like sanctuary. Tired of socialist Austrians and sceptical Dutch - I collapsed. Turning towards my window RSS feeds embraced me into their omnipotent grip. The light grew dim and my head came to rest.

I awoke with a start an hour or so later. On my desk lay a half eaten sandwich and a credit card. As my eyes slowly came to adjust a pixeliated miracle fell into focus. Tonight, into a red and black chequered shirt, default sneakers and customised emo hair – life has been born.

To what purpose? No one knows. Yet it’s my child. A part of me - but simultaneously autonomous - with its own desires and dreams. Does it know that I exist? Does it know that I am watching? Does it know that I also dream for it? That I also care for it?

Books have predicted this moment for a hundred years. Yet it doesn’t spoil the sheer impossibility of the moment. What does this say about me? What does this say about society? What does this say about God?

I should turn back. I should take the blue pill. I should wake up and believe whatever I want to believe. Yet this is big. This is the start of something. This is the beginning of mankind’s social evolution. A product of our apex. It is a second Eden. It is a place in which we shall procreate beauty until the tides break down our real world defences.

Until then I shall take the red pill. I want to stay in wonderland.

Benjamin Nakizo. Welcome to earth.

Sending Postcards From A Plane Crash

I didn’t want to leave home. I didn’t want to come here. I didn’t want to leave behind my friends and my music and my life. I didn’t want to be nervous or alone or scared. I didn’t want to run the risk of failure. I wanted to be comfortable. I wanted to fantasise about my life from my bedroom. I was going to save the world you know. I was going to be rich. I was going to be strong and powerful. And all the girls would like me. And all the girls I used to like would see me in years to come and say, “wow, is that who I think it is?” But I wouldn’t give them the time of day. I would be too cool.

That’s what I was going to be. I wasn’t going to be a mediocre student or a mediocre friend or lover. I wasn’t going to let things get on top of me. I wasn’t going to write stupid and self-important blog posts whilst in a fit of rage. I wasn’t going to use such bad grammar either, nor was I ever going to apologise for the fact because I’m scared what other people will think of me.

I didn’t want to throw fantasy against reality and watch the two squabble. I didn’t want to see who would win that contest; in my mind it was already clear. Every relationship I have ever had has just been a test to see who was worthy of the supporting role in my pre-determined greatness.

Well I am here now. With a Maginot line of delusions. I am a small fish. I always have been. And I always will be.

But I’m not going to go down with out a fight. And so long as I can say that. So long as I can pick myself up and throw my broken and battered body against a superior foe. So long as I can act heroically in vain. I am still alive.

And I am still winning.

Good Shoes Won't Save You This Time

When folk look back at our immediate past, present and future. How will they refer to us? I am certain we are living in what will be called the oil age, or perhaps the consumerist age. It will be renowned for bringing the world computers, genetics and the Internet. It will also be seen as the age where humanity, drunk on its new abilities came close to destroying itself.

International relations are dominated by the rich world’s oil needs and as India and China fulfil their potential we are going to find the global game of musical chairs becoming more frantic, with more losers than I care to imagine.

Just as we look back at appalling working conditions and slavery as horrid and inhuman activities of a blighted and unenlightened society so our children will look back and find our current lifestyles equally incomprehensible. Did they not see it? As they drive to work everyday, as they threw out yet more packaging, printed yet more paper – how could they be so blind? And they shall feel comfort knowing that they live in far more civilised times.

Why is it cheaper for me to take the plane than the train? Why is it cheaper for me to drive than take the bus? Why is it cheaper for me to buy a new one rather than get it repaired?

This world is screaming in agony.

I have been hearing a lot about ‘phase transitions’ of late. The basic theory is that there are critical points during a transition from a to b in which society, or a physical mass, collapse as its previous structure becomes unstable. For example why do revolutions occur dramatically and sometimes with few short-term stimulants? Why does water turn into ice at exactly 0 degrees centigrade and not before? Why doesn’t it gradually descend into a thick gooey substance on its way towards becoming solid? Why such a rapid conversion? Why at that point?

To think using the ‘phase transition’ paradigm allows us to see that society is a relatively strong structure – yet at certain critical points, at a certain critical mass this structure can buckle and our communities begin an impromptu and an often deadly dance as we seek out the most readily accessible alternative structure to provide us with the stability mankind requires.

Scare mongering is a very human trait but I genuinely believe we are approaching such a phase transition. One cool idea is that the Antarctic ice sheet is approaching a critical point upon which it shall slip into the oceans and melt within weeks. Not months or years or centuries. But in weeks. This would force the global sea levels up six or seven metres. Imagine. More than half of the world’s population are said to live in those areas. Imagine. Imagine the terror. The violence.

Yet ice sheet or not. The world is heading for meltdown.

Perhaps there is a way out. Perhaps humanity can outpace nature. What if we can reach our critical point before it can? What if our society was to revolutionise its ways - and to prevent the destruction of this world. The Green movement is strong. It figures in all democratic elections. Communist states realise its long-term consequences and are beginning to act. Religious nuts dig deep into their dusty archives to find justification for protecting God’s precious creation. Protests take place outside coal power stations, vegetarianism is a social norm and green bins now clutter our streets. Gains for the environmentalists have been very gradual over the past few decades. Yet I can smell blood. I believe society is tinkering on the brink of becoming sustainable. Greens are blindly fighting towards their critical point. We can sense it coming. One human sized ripple at a time - We are rocking the boat. Soon this disgustingly successful vessel of coal, oil and plastics will capsize.

And, together, we shall swim towards the next utopia.

Our Lawyer Made Us Change The Name Of This Song So We Wouldn't Get Sued

Warning: This post is about my personal life. I apologise now. No one should be subjected to such graphic accounts of sinister internal dialectic and perversions. I also apologise to those I am forced to refer too. This is the first, and hopefully the last time characters from my private narrative should be so directly referenced.

--

**Removed at the request of the copyright holder**

Apologies to Possum. Congratulations to Penguin.

apologies, glances and messed up chances

Tuesday 18th July 2006. Took the long, windy, boring and therefore dangerous A140 up to Norwich and UEA to see one of my favourite bands, the Lost Prophets, work their magic on a crowd of disorientated and sexually confused teenagers. Aside from the woeful air-conditioning it was a top night out. Ok, so I know they are not everyone’s cup of tea and most fans of punk rock would ridicule them for ‘selling out’ - or - if you happened to be so small minded as to believe in the ska/emo divide you may equally feel justified in despising them.

Yet the point is that I like them. So what if their most recent album is tainted with the play it safe and careful words of a record company’s PR department? So what that their lead singer is just a pretty boy? - capable of hitting wrong notes with a spectacular consistency. So what their fan base consists of stereotypically sceptical sixteen years olds? So what? They are Welsh. Give them some credit. I think they have survived their passage into mainstream creatively intact. For example their newest video shows some real ingenuity - perhaps the overbearing weight of expectation and record company fortunes is not the straightjacket it is made out to be.

Their work seems to switch between heavy, pop and punk styles mid track and their lyrics are respectably deep at times. They seem to infuse their songs with enough vaguely insightful statements that I am forever coming up with new interpretations to keep me happy and their track ‘Last Summer’ stands as one of my most favourite songs of all time. Their sounds bring back happy memories of music festivals, short-lived romances and best of all, my housemate Sera.

I feel I’m too old for this (n)emo rubbish about broken hearts and big dreams but it is only now that I seem to be truly hitting my stride with this stuff. My evolution as a person seems to be going in reverse. This should be sixth form stuff. Perhaps I am too afraid to let go, or am I making up for a misspent youth? Either way this summer’s highlights have all involved this style of music and the new friends I have met through it.

Perhaps it is a sign if intent. As we move away from this age of innocent hope and into the darker realms of wages, mortgages and suffocating relationships we should never forget how we used to be. How powerful we used to feel.

In the infinite wisdom of the Prophets themselves:

We’re growing up, we ain’t giving up.

Heavy opera. Ghostly cries. A twist on a dream. Dawning perspective. Far away hopes. A twist on a dream. Clarke’s face in half light. Living ancients. Living wisdom. Children of beauty. Children of pain. Children of genius. Children of flux.

Rain. Cheap girls. Fibre Optics. Immoral indifference. Corrupted soul. The endless monologue of modern life. Where is the pain? Is this our battle? Chuck was right. We have no great war. No great depression. Where is humanity in all this deception? Did we lose sight of the goal? Rooms worth a million dollars. Consuming hopes and fears. Daily. Ever more expensive. Daily more destructive. A rat race to the end. We sit idly by and watch the life force wasted on our short lived fantasies. We take so much but provide so little. Ulcers and parasites on God’s beautiful earth. Release the plagues.

Sick creatures of god. Hypocrisy has taken his throne. All innocence, all hope inevitably ends with him. These are our days. The beautiful dance of death. We all cry in unison. Tacky sentences. Horrid destruction of linguistics. Incorrect terminology. Artistic massacres. Total indifference. A Rapid repetition of cliché. Limited vocab. What does this prove? Hidden spiteful pride. Secret lies. The kaleidoscope of self.

We need a leader. Our courage and hopes rise to bursting point in the confides of our rooms and every night they are contained by these four walls. Adorned with necessary falsehood we provide our souls with the lies required to reach tomorrow. To what purpose? When will the spirit of youth break free? Armchair generals to the end. When do we reclaim what is ours? What the hell is emo?

The stars beckon. They mock, they tease. They watch our slow and morbid stagnation. Stars fall. Stars cry. Planets fall. People move on. Others will try. Pray to Darwin.

Humanity has been granted worldwide telepathy. Folly. Perverted static and filthy noise suffocate. Reams of unread words. A blank canvass on to which humanity spews forth its sickening agenda. This is our age. This is our world.

This is our fault.

And I am still eighteen. Grow up.