So, the life span of people from deprived areas of Scotland is still shorter by as much as 11 years than the average life span of general Scottish population It's mostly thanks to high levels of obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure and all the other illnesses related to bad diet, alcohol, fags and no exercise.
The government is very, very surprised that despite the fact that they are pumping money into projects that were supposed to improve the health and well being of denizens of said deprived areas, the situation is still the same.
Well, here's a thing, you can't force people to be healthy, especially if choices they have to make every day are obvious for comfort craving monkeys we all are. As long as the price of ready meals is lower than the price of fruit and vegetables, fags are in every corner shop and nicotine replacement therapy only in pharmacies, tv is more attractive than moving one's nicotine and rubbish food filled body to gym, nothing's going to change.
But the fact that people have a choice is a part of democratic freedom. And they can choose to eat, inhale, inject, rub into gums and drink things that are bad for them and in the long run will make their babies addicts from day one and their illness riddled selves live shorter, but it's their choice. There's only as much as you are allowed to do in a democracy, dear concerned government. You can give people support and advice they are free to ignore.
Now, if you want these pesky advice ignoring people to do exactly what you tell them to do and live these bloody 11 years longer on average, well, there's always introducing totalitarian regime.
Thursday 13 December 2012
Saturday 24 November 2012
All your parcels are belong to everybody, or, do you know what happens to your parcels when you're out?
As some of you might know, I'm not a big fan of chasing my parcels around Edinburgh between the depot staffed with grunty idiots that's always shut anyway and the local Post Office where you stand in a line for half an hour listening to the owner entertaining a string of socially housed people with nothing but time on their hands with conversations about nothing, but the new Neighbour Scheme courtesy of Royal Mail is even worse!
We were all opted in on 1st October and, in the age of broadly accessible internet, smartphones and computer databases, the only way to let Royal Mail know that you don't want your items to be left with a complete stranger is by displaying a special sticker on your post box... no, you can't go on their website and add your address to a database of opted-out addresses, you can't call them and ask them to do so, you have to fill in a request form for a sticker and give reasons why do you think it's a bad idea to hand over your parcel to a random person?
Well, that's a tricky one, off the top of my head:
- your neighbours don't have to like you;
- you don't have to like your neighbours;
- they might be drunk;
- or stoned;
- or high on prescription drugs and so decide it might be fun to watch a random parcel fly out of their flat's window;
- your neighbours can open it and keep the items and claim they never got the parcel;
- their kids might want use the box and damage your items;
- they might go way for two weeks on the same day and your emergency parcel of cat food will sit at their house until they come back;
- your neighbours might simply not want to be bothered by the postman and then by you about some stupid parcel.
Supposedly, over 90% people in the 'trial areas' were very satisfied with the new service?? I must be living in some other universe then Royal Mail management, or am I the only one who likes their items delivered straight to them?
So now I have to wait for my sticker for 4 working days (so up to two weeks in Royal Mail jargon) and keep my fingers crossed no parcel will arrive before the sticker...
We were all opted in on 1st October and, in the age of broadly accessible internet, smartphones and computer databases, the only way to let Royal Mail know that you don't want your items to be left with a complete stranger is by displaying a special sticker on your post box... no, you can't go on their website and add your address to a database of opted-out addresses, you can't call them and ask them to do so, you have to fill in a request form for a sticker and give reasons why do you think it's a bad idea to hand over your parcel to a random person?
Well, that's a tricky one, off the top of my head:
- your neighbours don't have to like you;
- you don't have to like your neighbours;
- they might be drunk;
- or stoned;
- or high on prescription drugs and so decide it might be fun to watch a random parcel fly out of their flat's window;
- your neighbours can open it and keep the items and claim they never got the parcel;
- their kids might want use the box and damage your items;
- they might go way for two weeks on the same day and your emergency parcel of cat food will sit at their house until they come back;
- your neighbours might simply not want to be bothered by the postman and then by you about some stupid parcel.
Supposedly, over 90% people in the 'trial areas' were very satisfied with the new service?? I must be living in some other universe then Royal Mail management, or am I the only one who likes their items delivered straight to them?
So now I have to wait for my sticker for 4 working days (so up to two weeks in Royal Mail jargon) and keep my fingers crossed no parcel will arrive before the sticker...
Wednesday 21 November 2012
Bicycles in the city
Cyclists...bloody cyclists.
This is evolving to be a new swear word for XXIst century. I have nothing against cycling in general, used to do it a lot until I burst my knee, but cyclists in the city are like a plague of itch . Annoying, rude, don't want to disappear.
Just today I have witnessed a cyclist who couldn't kept steady when looking around and he still kept looking back and almost swerved into the side of the bus, another one who decided to continue straight on to the pavement when the light turned red, without indicating or slowing down and one that jumped the red light at a busy intersection. Add to this the usual ones who block the buses because they can't get their gears right and although they pedal very fast they are not going very fast at all, the ones that go across the road with the pedestrians but don't get off their bikes and the ones that actually collide with cars because of doing any/all of the above.
Next council elections, I swear I will vote for anyone who will ban cycling in the city centre, or at least put the bikes in the car lane so when they block the entire lane for twenty minutes only a dozen people will be late for work, not three busfuls.
By the way, is cycling like a new mid life crisis thing?
Based on ongoing observation, 90% of city cyclists are middle aged guys in ugly yellow vests and even uglier hard hats and even worse, clad in at least token amount of lycra... going to work on a bike in the vain hope that it will balance the life of too much coffee, cake and sitting at the desk at work, possibly?
Cyclists...bloody cyclists.
This is evolving to be a new swear word for XXIst century. I have nothing against cycling in general, used to do it a lot until I burst my knee, but cyclists in the city are like a plague of itch . Annoying, rude, don't want to disappear.
Just today I have witnessed a cyclist who couldn't kept steady when looking around and he still kept looking back and almost swerved into the side of the bus, another one who decided to continue straight on to the pavement when the light turned red, without indicating or slowing down and one that jumped the red light at a busy intersection. Add to this the usual ones who block the buses because they can't get their gears right and although they pedal very fast they are not going very fast at all, the ones that go across the road with the pedestrians but don't get off their bikes and the ones that actually collide with cars because of doing any/all of the above.
Next council elections, I swear I will vote for anyone who will ban cycling in the city centre, or at least put the bikes in the car lane so when they block the entire lane for twenty minutes only a dozen people will be late for work, not three busfuls.
By the way, is cycling like a new mid life crisis thing?
Based on ongoing observation, 90% of city cyclists are middle aged guys in ugly yellow vests and even uglier hard hats and even worse, clad in at least token amount of lycra... going to work on a bike in the vain hope that it will balance the life of too much coffee, cake and sitting at the desk at work, possibly?
Cyclists...bloody cyclists.
Wednesday 24 October 2012
The rise of homo benefitus
According to Metro, the city of Glasgow not only has the lowest average life expectation in Europe, highest rates for obesity, high blood pressure and death by knife, it's also officially a city with really high poverty. News?
There's a new breed of humans developing in Glasgow and spreading throughout Scotland - homo benefitus.
It's the people who never experienced getting up in the mornings to go to work and working eight or more hours a day. Still, they believe going to court for 10am at least once a month and to the Jobcentre every two weeks is normal. So is walking to the corner shop in your pyjamas in the afternoon and being bored 'oot ur skull' for most of the time.
They have no concept of normal human interactions. They glare instead of looking, demand instead of asking and shout instead of talking. They fuck everybody that's got a different set of genitals and drop sprogs until their sprogs start having kids themselves at the ripe age of fourteen, when they become grannies. Marriage is virtually unknown. Religion is a baffling concept. Paying taxes is a mysterious activity that 'rich cunts' do.
Cheap alcohol, narcotics and multicultural 'chippies and chinkies' are staples of homo benefitus diet. That's why the ones in their twenties look puffy and in their thirties - like they are almost fifty. In males lined, gaunt faces with sunken beady eyes and grey skin of vitamin deficient are prominent. Aggression and violence is also common because of the constant substance hunger, the packs of hooded youngsters on little bikes prowl the boundaries of the estates looking for sustenance for themselves and their relatives.
In homo benefitus society simple biological facts, history of one's own country and basic geography away from streets and parks of birth are unknown. Even their grasp of language is not quite there, but as long as their own tribes understand the honking slang of the junkies, slurring of toothless alkies and angry sharp calls of bored council estaters it's all that matters. The landscape of half rotten sofas chewed on by staffies and kids surrounded by ugly buildings with boarded windows smelling strongly of urine and neglect is a familiar one that comforts your average homo benefitus on return home from the necessary trip 'ootside'.
So, all these problems listed above are news, really? And if you think I'm exaggerating here, take a walk across one of Glasgow's council estates. Just don't go alone...
There's a new breed of humans developing in Glasgow and spreading throughout Scotland - homo benefitus.
It's the people who never experienced getting up in the mornings to go to work and working eight or more hours a day. Still, they believe going to court for 10am at least once a month and to the Jobcentre every two weeks is normal. So is walking to the corner shop in your pyjamas in the afternoon and being bored 'oot ur skull' for most of the time.
They have no concept of normal human interactions. They glare instead of looking, demand instead of asking and shout instead of talking. They fuck everybody that's got a different set of genitals and drop sprogs until their sprogs start having kids themselves at the ripe age of fourteen, when they become grannies. Marriage is virtually unknown. Religion is a baffling concept. Paying taxes is a mysterious activity that 'rich cunts' do.
Cheap alcohol, narcotics and multicultural 'chippies and chinkies' are staples of homo benefitus diet. That's why the ones in their twenties look puffy and in their thirties - like they are almost fifty. In males lined, gaunt faces with sunken beady eyes and grey skin of vitamin deficient are prominent. Aggression and violence is also common because of the constant substance hunger, the packs of hooded youngsters on little bikes prowl the boundaries of the estates looking for sustenance for themselves and their relatives.
In homo benefitus society simple biological facts, history of one's own country and basic geography away from streets and parks of birth are unknown. Even their grasp of language is not quite there, but as long as their own tribes understand the honking slang of the junkies, slurring of toothless alkies and angry sharp calls of bored council estaters it's all that matters. The landscape of half rotten sofas chewed on by staffies and kids surrounded by ugly buildings with boarded windows smelling strongly of urine and neglect is a familiar one that comforts your average homo benefitus on return home from the necessary trip 'ootside'.
So, all these problems listed above are news, really? And if you think I'm exaggerating here, take a walk across one of Glasgow's council estates. Just don't go alone...
Thursday 11 October 2012
Hey, space opera sf fans feeling the drought of such books - read these!
Just when I started losing faith in the existence of good science fiction books of a space opera type, that are not a part of some painfully prolonged cycle or have about as much science in them as a cookbook or are written in a teeth pain inducing I-explain-the-setting-in-the-first-chapter style - I have found two real gems, one by a new unknown author and one by an old bearded bear with 44 novels under his belt.
Dark Eden by Chris Beckett - I picked it off the shelf because of a creepy cover and it proved to be a fascinating read. A bit of a rough ending but big kudos for throwing the reader in a middle of an unknown ecosystem of a far away planet without a sun, where the inbred descendants of two Earthlings live in near darkness, awaiting a mythical rescue party from an even more mythical world where the light comes from the sun and not from the fluorescent plants and animals. Chaos awaits the human settlement when a young guy challenges old rituals and gathers a party of youngsters to cross the frozen darkness (not a darkness like we know it, imagine pure darkness with no moon and no nearby stars...) of a mountain range to prove that there is more to this world than one valley in a forest. More kudos for the most imaginative alien ecosystem I have encountered in a good long while. A word of warning, don't read Dark Eden if you are in a depressive mood, it's a rather heavy book that proves that humans are always same in the end, doesn't matter on which world we end up living.
City at the End of Time by Greg Bear - I'm still reading it but I'm so awe struck by the intricate structure and multitude of characters and the in your face chaos theory science bits that I recommend it just now to any sf fan craving what I just mentioned. The story takes place in the future so distant the universe is dying and in the future not so distant where the time is dying, characters are linked between these two story strands by dreams and 'straying' into each others heads. Multiverse, beings that shed matter as inconvenient, future changing the past, muses sorting out lose ends of history, shreds of Earth's dirt as something of most value, books that change what's written inside them and cats that know but are not sharing - I'm going back to reading, excuse me...
Thursday 6 September 2012
Independent thinking about independence
There was some news about the Scottish independence referendum today, with one side going on about how it's a bad idea and the other side going on about how it's a good idea. I'm not picking a side just yet, however I'd like to point out what follows.
Independence is a slogan, not a plan for the future, because governments don't plan further than next elections, the planning ahead for ones children died out with hereditary dynasties of rulers.
It's a first step in the process, that's been at best vaguely summarised as 'We'll manage when we're independent!'
It's going to bring such a costly turmoil with all the changes in local authorities and administration and setting proper borders and sorting out tax money that it might be that Scotland will end up free but in even deeper financial trouble.
Independence is not going to stop a bleary eyed pregnant junkie turning up for her 20 weeks growth anomaly scan high as a freaking kite.
It's not going to unify people of Scotland, splintering into smaller and smaller groups over having a job or not, being Scottish or not, giving a shit about anything or not.
It's not going to suddenly make people more ambitious, keen, inspired to do more and be more.
Taking all this under consideration and other points missing from the propaganda that you can surely come up with yourselves and setting all the emotional outbursts aside - what's the need for Scottish independence right now in 2012, in the middle of the economic crisis, while the growing trend is for merging countries into bigger entities, if the outcome is at best uncertain?
I'm open for discussion but any shouty Bravehearts can kindly go fuck themselves.
Independence is a slogan, not a plan for the future, because governments don't plan further than next elections, the planning ahead for ones children died out with hereditary dynasties of rulers.
It's a first step in the process, that's been at best vaguely summarised as 'We'll manage when we're independent!'
It's going to bring such a costly turmoil with all the changes in local authorities and administration and setting proper borders and sorting out tax money that it might be that Scotland will end up free but in even deeper financial trouble.
Independence is not going to stop a bleary eyed pregnant junkie turning up for her 20 weeks growth anomaly scan high as a freaking kite.
It's not going to unify people of Scotland, splintering into smaller and smaller groups over having a job or not, being Scottish or not, giving a shit about anything or not.
It's not going to suddenly make people more ambitious, keen, inspired to do more and be more.
Taking all this under consideration and other points missing from the propaganda that you can surely come up with yourselves and setting all the emotional outbursts aside - what's the need for Scottish independence right now in 2012, in the middle of the economic crisis, while the growing trend is for merging countries into bigger entities, if the outcome is at best uncertain?
I'm open for discussion but any shouty Bravehearts can kindly go fuck themselves.
Friday 31 August 2012
City streets survival guide
It's difficult to leave the house these days without somebody trying to sell you something or give you something that will eventually cost you rather more than you expected or guilt trip you into parting with your hard earned cash. These ruthless commission driven people have a whole range of tricks up their sweaty sleeves, it's time to fight back. Here's some tried and tested methods that will help you get back home with your wallet and pride intact.
To whining junkies you don't say anything, they don't sound like they're speaking English anyway so they shouldn't expect a response.
To payment protection insurance back claimers you say "I read before I sign".
To charity muggers you say "I pick my charities online and pay them by Direct Debit".
To Sky sellers you say "I already have Sky".
To very persistent charity muggers you shout "I hate children/animals/homeless people!".
To AA breakdown cover teams you say "I don't have a car".
If that charity mugger is still following you, you can start running down the street screaming "Stay away from me!"
To survey people you say anything in gibberish language looking surprised, don't try to speak these three Polish phrases you know, half of them will BE Polish.
If that charity mugger is still after you, call the police.
To any religion selling individuals you say "I believe in Cthulhu".
Enjoy!
To whining junkies you don't say anything, they don't sound like they're speaking English anyway so they shouldn't expect a response.
To payment protection insurance back claimers you say "I read before I sign".
To charity muggers you say "I pick my charities online and pay them by Direct Debit".
To Sky sellers you say "I already have Sky".
To very persistent charity muggers you shout "I hate children/animals/homeless people!".
To AA breakdown cover teams you say "I don't have a car".
If that charity mugger is still following you, you can start running down the street screaming "Stay away from me!"
To survey people you say anything in gibberish language looking surprised, don't try to speak these three Polish phrases you know, half of them will BE Polish.
If that charity mugger is still after you, call the police.
To any religion selling individuals you say "I believe in Cthulhu".
Enjoy!
Sunday 26 August 2012
Fortune favours the ambitious
What happened to ambition?
What happened to these teachers who used to tell you that you can be anything you want to be, as long as you work hard and keep going and don't give up? What happened to these parents who used to push their children to go further and higher than they ever got in their lives, which made you almost hate them when you were a teenager but love them even more when you looked back and understood why they did it? What happened to the economy that should favour the brave and the imaginative? What happened to people taking their lives into their own hands and pushing it until it's going in the right direction?
I just don't understand what happened. Ambition is the only way to success. Success is the best antidepressant. Praise people for being ambitious and there will be much less life hampering mental health problems around. Bloody hell, I just started to sound like a self help book but...
When you win that photo competition you kept thinking about for a while, write down that story that was at the back of your head for the past fifteen years, get that job interview you wanted so badly, feel the urge to look further than next week in your life, try and fail and try again and win, then you will understand.
What happened to these teachers who used to tell you that you can be anything you want to be, as long as you work hard and keep going and don't give up? What happened to these parents who used to push their children to go further and higher than they ever got in their lives, which made you almost hate them when you were a teenager but love them even more when you looked back and understood why they did it? What happened to the economy that should favour the brave and the imaginative? What happened to people taking their lives into their own hands and pushing it until it's going in the right direction?
I just don't understand what happened. Ambition is the only way to success. Success is the best antidepressant. Praise people for being ambitious and there will be much less life hampering mental health problems around. Bloody hell, I just started to sound like a self help book but...
When you win that photo competition you kept thinking about for a while, write down that story that was at the back of your head for the past fifteen years, get that job interview you wanted so badly, feel the urge to look further than next week in your life, try and fail and try again and win, then you will understand.
Friday 24 August 2012
Bare bones of fashion
This summer I have noticed an abundance of white-on-black skull pattern on scarves, tops and leggings of young woman. Now, it's nothing new to choose clothes with potentially shocking patterns but I feel like walking up to them and asking - why do you feel like wearing skulls? is it a sign that you are worshipping death in some way? Revere it? Have a morbid fascination with dead bodies? Are toying with the idea of necrophilia? Or suicide? Collect skulls in your cellar? Mark yourself as a member of a flash mob that will descend on the city centre at some unspecified time and stand together to form a shape of a skull? Secretly wish that Thanatos might get attracted to your screaming child? Maybe you used to listen to death metal? Or dabbed in Satanism? Or you study medicine and are quietly fascinated with bones? What is the reason that you choose to display one of the universally recognisable symbols of death, decay and danger?
However, I won't ask, as I fear that the answer would be a blank look and a mumble about it being fashionable or cool or on sale.
Next summer it will be a pattern of black-on-white penises, mark my words...
Sunday 29 July 2012
World (de)Press(ing) Photo 2011
I went to see a World Press Photo exhibition to distract myself from the greyness of July with some world class photography. Turns out, it was rather depressing.
Main news stories 2011 AD were the tsunami in Japan, the revolution in Libya and the general unrest all over the world - rubble, young men with masked faces waving weapons, dead bodies, blood covered children and destruction. Social stories covered child brides, illegal wrestling and police violence in Ukraine - distress, desperation and hope slowly draining away from people's tired eyes.
Even the animal stories that usually are a bit more uplifting could not make you smile this time. Illegal shark hunting, last 30 rhinos that need guards standing around them 24/7, escaped tiger shot dead...
All of a sudden the rainy, cold July did not seem like a big deal. So I guess it kind of worked as a distraction, but I would really like to see more variety at 2012 exhibition. Surely, not each and every one of us is a violent, aggressive, perverted, egoistic, unhappy individual ready to explode given an excuse of the mob.
On second thought...
Main news stories 2011 AD were the tsunami in Japan, the revolution in Libya and the general unrest all over the world - rubble, young men with masked faces waving weapons, dead bodies, blood covered children and destruction. Social stories covered child brides, illegal wrestling and police violence in Ukraine - distress, desperation and hope slowly draining away from people's tired eyes.
Even the animal stories that usually are a bit more uplifting could not make you smile this time. Illegal shark hunting, last 30 rhinos that need guards standing around them 24/7, escaped tiger shot dead...
All of a sudden the rainy, cold July did not seem like a big deal. So I guess it kind of worked as a distraction, but I would really like to see more variety at 2012 exhibition. Surely, not each and every one of us is a violent, aggressive, perverted, egoistic, unhappy individual ready to explode given an excuse of the mob.
On second thought...
Tuesday 3 July 2012
It's a good time to be alive!
Yes, a rare, for me, optimistic take on reality today.
Childhood infection will not kill you. Your peers might knife you to death after school, but it is more avoidable than pox.
You don't have to start working at the age of 11 in the environment that would not pass any health and safety checks. You might not have to start working at all if you stay on top of every benefit reform.
You will not starve. You might become morbidly obese by the time you grow pubes, but die smiling, knowing your ancestors would be jealous.
You don't have to get married and procreate or become a social recluse if you don't. Desperate loneliness might drive you insane, but still you will find like minded people online.
You have a good chance to live so long that you will actively wish to die and be done with all the annoying illnesses plaguing you.
Ah, nothing like a good dose of positive thinking once in a while. Good night.
Childhood infection will not kill you. Your peers might knife you to death after school, but it is more avoidable than pox.
You don't have to start working at the age of 11 in the environment that would not pass any health and safety checks. You might not have to start working at all if you stay on top of every benefit reform.
You will not starve. You might become morbidly obese by the time you grow pubes, but die smiling, knowing your ancestors would be jealous.
You don't have to get married and procreate or become a social recluse if you don't. Desperate loneliness might drive you insane, but still you will find like minded people online.
You have a good chance to live so long that you will actively wish to die and be done with all the annoying illnesses plaguing you.
Ah, nothing like a good dose of positive thinking once in a while. Good night.
Tuesday 12 June 2012
There's only one place they call me one of their own
You know you've been in Scotland for a long time when:
Almost seven years...
- You don't notice wearing winter jacket in June much.
- You watch news about hooligan wars in Warsaw and Polish "Policja " and "Ambulans" look kind of strange on emergency services cars.
- You can have a conversation with inebriated Glaswegian.
- You don't observe any religious festivals, which are a Polish equivalent of bank holidays.
- You make sure your top has a hood or take umbrella with you when leaving the house for longer than two hours, even if it's a perfect sunny day.
Almost seven years...
Thursday 7 June 2012
Torn between who you are and who you want to be...
The world is on our doorstep, knocking.
These days, you can go and get support to become whoever you want - but so many people are just not interested.You can, if you really work on that, go and study in another country and then get a job there and stay - but people are avoiding having to work at all. For the first time in history if you're a woman you can decide not to have children without severe social repercussions - but every day on the bus you can see neglected children with unhappy mothers who became mothers just because they didn't really have a better idea on who to be.
I don't understand.
Why are people satisfied with so little? Why do you get comfortable in a council house that can never be truly yours, living with someone you're with because you're too scared to be on your own again, just with your thoughts and telly blaring to cover the silence? Why do you cut down your dreams to fit in what you have, year after year, until there's nothing left but shreds and a vague sense of regret?
Don't you dare say life is crap and there's nothing that can be done. There's a whole world on your doorstep. Just open the bloody door.
These days, you can go and get support to become whoever you want - but so many people are just not interested.You can, if you really work on that, go and study in another country and then get a job there and stay - but people are avoiding having to work at all. For the first time in history if you're a woman you can decide not to have children without severe social repercussions - but every day on the bus you can see neglected children with unhappy mothers who became mothers just because they didn't really have a better idea on who to be.
I don't understand.
Why are people satisfied with so little? Why do you get comfortable in a council house that can never be truly yours, living with someone you're with because you're too scared to be on your own again, just with your thoughts and telly blaring to cover the silence? Why do you cut down your dreams to fit in what you have, year after year, until there's nothing left but shreds and a vague sense of regret?
Don't you dare say life is crap and there's nothing that can be done. There's a whole world on your doorstep. Just open the bloody door.
Monday 4 June 2012
Notes on the zombie apocalypse
The zombie is quite a popular concept these days. It must have overtaken vampires and werewolfs by now, after the first ones got degraded to shiny teenagers (thanks, Twilight saga) or messy monsters (thanks, Skyrim) and the second ones to muscly teenagers (thanks, Twilight saga) or equally messy monsters (thanks, Skyrim). Zombies are in fact such a powerful concept in pop culture right now, the guy made a fortune on writing a Zombie Survival Guide.
But it's already too late.
If you look into the empty eyes of that third generation benefit scrounger in the post office line behind you, observe the automatically gum chewing gob of that thirty something suit lost in the rhythmic noise leaking from his headphones, or try to walk past a Next shop during the sale avoiding the claws and teeth of the mindless horde trying to grab what their rotten brains tell them they need - you will realise that zombie apocalypse has already happened. If you managed to read all the way to here - congratulations, count yourself the survivor. If you're skimming the text attracted by the word 'zombie' - you're probably infected. To the zombiefied I have nothing to say cause they will not read this.
But it's already too late.
If you look into the empty eyes of that third generation benefit scrounger in the post office line behind you, observe the automatically gum chewing gob of that thirty something suit lost in the rhythmic noise leaking from his headphones, or try to walk past a Next shop during the sale avoiding the claws and teeth of the mindless horde trying to grab what their rotten brains tell them they need - you will realise that zombie apocalypse has already happened. If you managed to read all the way to here - congratulations, count yourself the survivor. If you're skimming the text attracted by the word 'zombie' - you're probably infected. To the zombiefied I have nothing to say cause they will not read this.
Wednesday 30 May 2012
Mean nature of nature
Human body, such a wonderful construction.
Our eyes are built to see any prey or danger in the distance and cope well with different weather conditions.
Muscles in our backs, legs and circulation system are well designed for a life of wandering around in pursuit and production of food.
There's never enough of food, so when we manage to eat we store fat and our stomachs are well used to not being full regularly.
Our joints can carry the weight of our erect bodies for hours and allow us to be swift, sneaky predators.
Nimble fingers delight in a variety of everyday activities, weaving, making, cooking, gathering, carrying, never a repetitive strain on them.
Human bodies, such wonderful constructions. Just not for a looking-mostly-at screens, sitting-nine-hours-a-day, typing-furiously-continuously twenty first century humans with fridges full of food.
Oh, we are so screwed...
Thursday 24 May 2012
Come to castle Gormenghast
If you're in a mood for a sprawling novel wrapped in grey shadows and filled with characters that won't leave you alone for a long while, come to castle Gormenghast. Its corridors and towers and secret rooms are filled with some of the strangest characters you will ever encounter as a reader. There's a countess who, after giving birth to the heir of the title of the Lord of Gormenghast, The Seventy-Seventh, turns back to tending her flocks of wild birds and requests not to be bothered with the child until he is seven. There's Fuchsia, her daughter, who spends her time up in the secret attic, playing with figments of her imagination. There are bright carvers who live in the shadows of the castle walls and who present their work to the melancholic Seventy-Sixth Lord once every month, for him to choose the best three carvings and burn the rest. There's Flay, Lord's main servant caught in a deadly waiting game with Swelter, the murderous chef from the cavernous kitchens. There's Sourdust, librarian and keeper of bizzare traditions that rule the daily life of the castle. And the castle itself is like another character, enormous, confusing, neglected.
This is not an easy read. The language is rather elaborate and the three books that Mervyn Peake finished before he died (a curse of ambitious authors, announcing that they will write long cycles, it seems) add up to more than a 1000 pages. Characters drift through the dusty corridors and ponder and argue and explore. The plot itself unwinds unhurriedly but it is intriguing and keeps you hooked. The strangeness of names, of places, of events is at times almost overpowering, it's almost like wandering through a half remembered dream. All in all, if you can read your way into the language and have time to curl up with the book undisturbed, it is well worth it.
What's the point of being a reader after all, if you don't challenge yourself every now and again to try something different?
This is not an easy read. The language is rather elaborate and the three books that Mervyn Peake finished before he died (a curse of ambitious authors, announcing that they will write long cycles, it seems) add up to more than a 1000 pages. Characters drift through the dusty corridors and ponder and argue and explore. The plot itself unwinds unhurriedly but it is intriguing and keeps you hooked. The strangeness of names, of places, of events is at times almost overpowering, it's almost like wandering through a half remembered dream. All in all, if you can read your way into the language and have time to curl up with the book undisturbed, it is well worth it.
What's the point of being a reader after all, if you don't challenge yourself every now and again to try something different?
Saturday 19 May 2012
The Big Depression
As of first quarter of 2012, the main role models for young female teenagers are singers, actresses and wooden puppets from fake reality shows like The Only way is Essex. Fathers are out of the top ten. Mothers are slightly higher, but nowhere near Rihanna. Less than a quarter interviewed thinks that a successful businesswoman is a person to look up to.
So, the biggest aspiration for the next generation seems to be dressing in sparkly, pretty, expensive clothes, landing a wealthy boyfriend or husband or manager and spending your empty lives growing more and more bitter as talent is one of these things you can't buy and having children out of boredom.
It's like the last century and a half never happened.
All the independent, hard working, self sufficient women are once again invisible, covered with an avalanche of telly- and pop- and cyber-drivel that managed to convince girls that there's nothing like being glamorous, beautiful, photographed, groomed and vacuous. Bring back the corsets and coming out of age balls!
Well done, guys, you Simon Cowells and Hollywood producers and television executives, smirking down from what ten years ago looked like last bastions of male supremacy, where guys still earned more than woman and climbed higher in the food chain, with ambitious woman constantly snapping at your heels. Well done, you now managed to successfully promote 1800s mentality to scores of easily influenced girls.
Are we now facing another century and a half of going back to equality of thinking?
So, the biggest aspiration for the next generation seems to be dressing in sparkly, pretty, expensive clothes, landing a wealthy boyfriend or husband or manager and spending your empty lives growing more and more bitter as talent is one of these things you can't buy and having children out of boredom.
It's like the last century and a half never happened.
All the independent, hard working, self sufficient women are once again invisible, covered with an avalanche of telly- and pop- and cyber-drivel that managed to convince girls that there's nothing like being glamorous, beautiful, photographed, groomed and vacuous. Bring back the corsets and coming out of age balls!
Well done, guys, you Simon Cowells and Hollywood producers and television executives, smirking down from what ten years ago looked like last bastions of male supremacy, where guys still earned more than woman and climbed higher in the food chain, with ambitious woman constantly snapping at your heels. Well done, you now managed to successfully promote 1800s mentality to scores of easily influenced girls.
Are we now facing another century and a half of going back to equality of thinking?
Friday 11 May 2012
Ignorance is bliss
Welcome to an ongoing end of the world!
We live in a world of overspecialisation.
We know who to call, email, write to if there is a problem with internet, water, gas supply. We know which company to choose to clean our carpets, tidy the garden and deliver shopping, based on internet reviews. We get others to trim our hair, make our shoes and bake our bread. We become people who take photos, design rock gardens, translate, write sarcastic reviews or walk other people's dogs for a living.
I know that most people faced with some apocalyptic scenario will stand up proudly and declare that it is not so bloody difficult to grow crops and skin prey and make shelter. To survive cold and sew clothes and make a fire. To make a knife and a bow and a toilet.
Is it really such an easy task to all of a sudden be responsible for every single aspect of your own life to an extent not known to most humans for the better part of the last hundred years, my proud friends? Without a collective knowledge of wikipedia, foras and instant communication with people who have hands on experience: farmers, hunters, tailors, plumbers and mums? Without ever handling a dead animal, not being faced with manual dexterity task since P3 and gagging at the thought of wearing same clothes for a month?
Species that overspecialise die out.
Welcome to an ongoing end of the world!
We live in a world of overspecialisation.
We know who to call, email, write to if there is a problem with internet, water, gas supply. We know which company to choose to clean our carpets, tidy the garden and deliver shopping, based on internet reviews. We get others to trim our hair, make our shoes and bake our bread. We become people who take photos, design rock gardens, translate, write sarcastic reviews or walk other people's dogs for a living.
I know that most people faced with some apocalyptic scenario will stand up proudly and declare that it is not so bloody difficult to grow crops and skin prey and make shelter. To survive cold and sew clothes and make a fire. To make a knife and a bow and a toilet.
Is it really such an easy task to all of a sudden be responsible for every single aspect of your own life to an extent not known to most humans for the better part of the last hundred years, my proud friends? Without a collective knowledge of wikipedia, foras and instant communication with people who have hands on experience: farmers, hunters, tailors, plumbers and mums? Without ever handling a dead animal, not being faced with manual dexterity task since P3 and gagging at the thought of wearing same clothes for a month?
Species that overspecialise die out.
Welcome to an ongoing end of the world!
Sunday 6 May 2012
Kidhood
Kids scream and run around falling down a lot to draw attention to themselves.
Kids stay in their pyjamas all weekends.
Kids want to have friends over all the time and stay up as late as possible.
Kids love rubbish fast food, chippies, chinese and fear fruit and veg.
Kids want to play with babies.
Kids swear for the fun of watching people cringe.
Kids want to have fun, expect to be taken care of and don't understand responsibility.
Lots of kids around on council estates and most of them are pushing thirty.
Kids stay in their pyjamas all weekends.
Kids want to have friends over all the time and stay up as late as possible.
Kids love rubbish fast food, chippies, chinese and fear fruit and veg.
Kids want to play with babies.
Kids swear for the fun of watching people cringe.
Kids want to have fun, expect to be taken care of and don't understand responsibility.
Lots of kids around on council estates and most of them are pushing thirty.
Tuesday 17 April 2012
You might be overdosing on Skyrim if...
You catch yourself humming a theme tune at least once a day.
You feel a strange urge to talk to anyone walking past you, just in case they have a quest for you.
You realise that salt suddenly became a rare and special commodity in your world view.
You get off the bus and start looking for your horse as you have just fast travelled.
You feel disappointed that there's no open fire cooking spit in your flat.
You start giving suspicious looks to people who admit they don't know what Skyrim is.
Wednesday 11 April 2012
Happy New Tax Year 2012-2013
New Tax Year is upon us, time for some resolutions.
I will keep up with paperwork, almost a week in and it's going well.
I will keep all work related receipts in one place, I think I already lost two, oh well.
I will not leave my tax return to do on the deadline night with madwoman's glint in puffy eyes caused by two tables not adding up, well, I have until 31st January...
I will not go into depressive and ranty mood when I see the amount of tax I have to pay this time, I will instead go and poison a batch of heroin to get rid of some of tax-money-sucking pests.
I will not get into a state of nervous breakdown every time I get a letter from HMRC in its ugly recycled brown envelope, it doesn't mean audit is on its way the only mistake ever made was theirs and they did even apologise.
And to all my non self employed friends - be happy, your paid holiday allowances have just renewed!
Tuesday 13 March 2012
30 going on 30
When you're 30...
Your family stops expecting you to have sprogs sometime soon.
At the same time, you are allowed to like cartoons again and it's nostalgic rather than childish.
And it's such a laugh when someone IDs you in the shop.
You can stop wasting money on pricey creams, these wrinkles are here to stay.
You are officially allowed to stay in on Saturday night not to pass out after drinking two bottles of wine with your pals but to soak in the bath and fall asleep at 10pm.
And enjoy these two bottles of wine too if you're so inclined.
Your friends are the ones who know you well and still want to talk to you.
So it's ok to have opinions.
And it's fine to wear your winter coat until it's actually warm outside not to change into flimsy one just because it's March.
to be continued in following months...
Wednesday 29 February 2012
Hello 29th of February, you devious bastard.
Would a day that happens only once every four years not be the best one to host the 2012 end of the world?
There could be a big economic crisis and all the people would be swept in the rising tide of debt and dependency.
Or an outbreak of wide spread infertility and common cancers which would see the numbers of humans dwindling to nothing by the next leap year extra day.
There could be a general lack of interest in the catastrophic news about more and more frequent volcano eruptions, tidal waves and hurricanes tearing the planet apart.
Or a meteorite could crash into Earth surprising everyone feeling safe because someone should be monitoring them flying rocks.
There could be a breakthrough in technology leading to heavy implantation of tiny modems under peoples skin and subsequent complete withdrawal from this reality.
Oh wait...
We're almost there, aren't we?
Saturday 14 January 2012
Saturday quest for the bottle of milk
Living on the edge of a sprawling council housing village can be such an adventure at times.
Just to find out on return home that the milk you so bravely acquired has an expiration date of today...
Tuesday 3 January 2012
Books of 2011
The Best 20 Books of 2011
A very subjective choice, fellow geeks who still like to waste their time wonderfully with printed words - keep an eye out for these.
1. Fiona McIntosh - The Quickening trilogy: Myrren's Gift, Blood and Memory, Bridge of Souls
2.Philip K. Dick - The Zap Gun
3. Angela Carter - Nights at the Circus
4. John M. Ford - The Dragon Waiting
5. China Meville - Kraken
6. William Heaney - Memoirs of a Master Forger
7. Margaret Atwood - Oryx and Crake
8. Neal Asher - Orbus
9. Jack Vance - Lyonesse - Suldrun's Garden
10. Robert J. Sawyer - The WWW Trilogy: Wake, Watch, Wonder
11. Alan Campbell - Sea of Ghosts
12. Margaret Atwood - Alias Grace
13. Iain M. Banks - Excession
14. Jack Vance - Tales of the Dying Earth : The Dying Earth, The Eyes of the Overworld, Cugel's Saga, Rhialto the Marvellous)
15. Charles Stross - The Fuller Memorandum
16. Iain M. Banks - Surface Detail
17. Sophie Hannah - Lasting Damage
18. Naomi Novik - Empire of Ivory
19. G. W. Dahlquist - The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters
20. Robin Hobb - The Tawny Man Trilogy: Fool's Errand, The Golden Fool, Fool's Fate
Overall, a nice mixture of sf, fantasy and weird. Enjoy.
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