Getting Old

At thirty-odd years old it would be a touch harsh to say that I’m old. I don’t wear my trousers around my chest and I don’t own any slippers or pyjamas just yet. Having said that, my body keeps reminding me that I’m getting older.

Actually my body’s been doing it for years, the bastard. My first grey hairs appeared at age seventeen. Yes, seventeen. I was at school with bloody grey hair. I’m sure some of the kids thought I was really thirty and was having to repeat a lot of years. Ever since then I’ve been plagued with people thinking they’re being genuinely helpful in pointing it out (just in case I don’t own a mirror). To make matters worse (or better, depending on your viewpoint when it comes to grey hair), my hair then started falling out. It was growing old and dying right in front of me (well, on top of me actually). Upon seeing some photos of me which displayed my growing monk’s bald patch I headed straight for a barber’s and had the lot shaved off. I don’t understand these guys who try and deny it; holding out for as long as they can with a receding hairline (or massive forehand, if you will) and a dodgy comb-over. No-one’s fooled by it. Ironically, because I shave mine as short as possible a couple of people who met me after I shed my locks commented that I must do it through choice “because you’re not bald, are you?” Anyway, I’m now told that (when combined with my round head) I look like Ricky Gervais’s sidekick, Karl Pilkington. I watch little TV so I’m unsure if it’s a kind comparison or not.

For years at school I never understood why sportsmen were always getting injured and taking months to return. I was like Captain Scarlet. Now? Not so much. Doing any kind of regular running ends up producing shin splints. If you don’t know what this is, it’s effectively muscle trauma and/or multiple (small) stress factures of the shin caused by repeated impact. I’ve tried everything to stop it but it flares up if I run more than a couple of times a week (I don’t mean to the bar when they call last orders). It is incredibly painful and takes weeks to properly subside again. To people who haven’t experienced it, I describe it as having dozens of tiny women in sharp, pointy shoes kick you in the shins repeatedly. I’m aware that some people find this thought appealing, however, I’m confident there will be a site (or a million sites) on the internet catering for the person of that particular disposition. It has no place here though, you weirdo.

What else? Well some years ago I involuntarily jumped over the front of my motorbike at about seventy miles per hour. I’ve no idea if it hurt at the time because I was rewarded with concussion and amnesia. As well as the minor injuries which cleared up fairly quickly I also hurt my shoulder and ankle. I’ve no idea what I did but I guess at some kind of ligament damage. I say “guess” because the hospital would have genuinely struggled to show less interest. The upshot was that I couldn’t go to the gym for almost three years because any sustained exercise would leave my shoulder useless for the week after. Thankfully that’s healed now. It was over seven years ago and my right ankle’s still not perfect though. It never feels as strong, sometimes it aches and it is much more susceptible to injury than the left.

It makes you wonder what older life must be like for people who routinely smash themselves up. Stuntmen probably can’t get out of bed when they reach forty. Anyone who regularly competes on a BMX or skateboard is probably composed of so many metal pins and rods that they get rugby tackled by airport security.

Even though I try to avoid flying through and air and landing on things which are hard, I hate to think what I’m going to be like in later life. The male life expectancy in the UK is seventy seven years old. I’m not even halfway there and sometimes I feel like I’ve had the crap kicked out me already. That doesn’t bode well, especially if my recovery powers continue to go downhill faster than a fat kid on a sledge at Christmas.

I really don’t want to be one of those doddery old people who takes an age to move out of the way (and craves attention when you push past them and they break a hip). I reckon I will be though. That’ll be my intolerance coming back and biting me in the arse in the best way possible (and will merely serve to compound my bitterness). I’ll be the one huffing and puffing as I attempt to climb a couple of steps on the way into Boots for some incontinence pads. The kids behind me when inform me I smell of “wee” and I’ll probably fall over while trying to whack one of them with my walking stick. And break my hip.

Captain Scarlet my arse.

Flip Flops

The heat wave which has swept the country has been very welcome after the last couple of forgettable summers. However, being too hot can be very uncomfortable and its effects are demonstrated by the change of clothing worn by the general populace. One thing that puzzles me though is the infatuation with flips flops. I perfectly understand their place if you're unfortunate enough to live in an impoverished third world country and you're below the bread line. If you have to trek five miles carrying a bucket with five holes in it just to fetch your daily water supply then the chances are you're not doing it in the latest Nike Air Jordans. Why, though, do women who own a dozen other pairs of real shoes choose to wear a couple of bits of foam held together with cheap plastic?

The weather’s warm, yes I get it, but that's not enough I’m afraid. Shoes are generally supposed to offer comfort and support to your feet. You could also argue they're supposed to look good. Flip flops do none of these things. Do your feet really get that sweaty? You really ought to see a doctor or something about that. Put it like this, I work in an air-conditioned office and the bastard things were everywhere. It may be thirty two degrees outside but inside it's no warmer than a mid-October afternoon and, roughly, the same temperature as the rest of the year at your desk. You don't feel the urge to wear flip flops in January, do you?

Why does this concern me? Well they look ridiculous but that on its own is not enough to be bothered about. If it was then my next rant would be picking on teenagers who reckon they look awesome by hanging their trousers down below their arses and waddling like penguins when they walk. No, it's the infernal 'flap, flap, flap' sound as they walk past which makes me want to tear the offending items from their feet and force feed them to the owner. If you want to show off your scabby feet and half painted toe nails then, by all means, go ahead. Please have some consideration for those of us whose hearing is functional though.

I’m not known for keeping my feelings under wraps and, after one of my several verbal rants on the subject, a ‘dress code policy’ was distributed around the office (not that I’m claiming any influence over its creation). Amusingly, there was a ‘no flip flops’ entry. Several of us chuckled at the indignation shown by more than a few apoplectic girls because, you know, they have it really tough. Being able to wear flowery dresses and flip flops is only fair because, after all, the men have to wear suits and ties which are much more comfortable in the height of summer. Anyway, staggeringly, after launching a protest the ‘ban’ was diluted to the point of worthlessness when it was decided that smart flip flops weren’t actually flip flops at all and so they were fine.

This is why democracy is a bad thing.

Censorship of Entertainment Media

The very concept that an average, well adjusted member of society will watch a violent film and then feel compelled to go on a kill-crazy rampage bothers me. It makes no sense and has little grounding in fact. Having said that, it’s not to say that there aren’t enough examples for Daily Mail readers to point at as irrefutable proof that media completely controls our psyche.

First let’s look at some of these examples. In the ‘90s there were several copycat killings after people had watched Natural Born Killers and, allegedly, were influenced into murdering by the film alone. One victim, left paralysed after being shot, attempted to sue the movie’s director, Oliver Stone, and Time Warner (and was supported by the author John Grisham, of all people). The case was eventually dismissed by a Judge, which is a good result for us all because otherwise we’d be watching nothing more daring than Toy Story Part 624 by now (although I’m sure there’d be something in there which would be construed as psychologically damaging by someone).

Time Warner already had experience of this attitude. In 1992 they took a huge amount of flak when the band Body Count recorded a song entitled Cop Killer. Even the US President, George Bush, waded into this one, deriding the song and publishers. Ironically, some Warner executives were sent death threats. Way to prove a point guys… Eventually the album was re-released without the track. Lead singer Ice T defended the song:

"I'm singing in the first person as a character who is fed up with police brutality. I ain't never killed no cop. I felt like it a lot of times. But I never did it. If you believe that I'm a cop killer, you believe David Bowie is an astronaut."

He makes a perfectly valid point. Do we want movies and songs which are only truly accurate about their depictions of the author’s exploits? If that’s the case we’d better remove ninety percent of published material from shelves.

Switching formats, I’m sure everyone is familiar with Grand Theft Auto, even if you’ve never played the game. That’s the power of controversy. In third person perspective you have the ability to steal cars, beat people to death, rob money, shoot the police and, generally, create absolute bedlam. The series has been around since 1997 but it only seemed to cause a real stir when the perspective switched from a top-down view. This is presumably due to it looking more realistic when you bounce a prostitute off the bonnet of your stolen Corvette before getting out and finishing her off with a chainsaw. Like Natural Born Killers, the game has been linked with violent crimes and the publishing house has had to deal with a number of legal cases.

That’s just a few examples, from the many available. What would the campaigners have us do, stick to romantic comedies and music from Justin Bieber? Do me a favour, shoot me now. I’m generally against censorship for adults. Sure, you don’t want children watching the latest ‘hack ‘em to death’ slasher movie but once you become an adult you should be trusted to make the decision for yourself. This viewpoint is open to an obvious retort: “What about those who cannot be trusted to make that decision?” It’s a fair question, to a point. After all there will always exist a certain percentage of people capable of committing heinous crimes given the (smallest) incentive. Two questions though:

1. What percentage of the population is that?
2. Should the rest of the population be censored due to their existence?

Answers: very small and no.

The Grand Theft Auto series has sold more than one hundred and twenty million copies and is linked with half a dozen violent cases. That’s 6 violent cases from more than 120,000,000 copies of the game. Statistically that’s such a small percentage that a mathematician would probably discount it altogether as an abnormality, which is what it is.

Staying with software, let’s take a more extreme example. The terrorists who perpetrated the attacks on the New York Twin Towers apparently practiced flying airliners and got used to the city’s geography using Microsoft’s Flight Simulator program. That’s right, almost three thousand people killed with the aid of an innocuous simulation game. Ban that too then, eh?

Where does it end?

People with violent and impulsive disorders will not lose them by repeated viewings of Notting Hill (although, to be fair, Hugh Grant might start looking over his shoulder). If your brain is wired in that way then any number of things could act as a trigger. I completely accept that watching Hostel is more likely to send someone over the edge than Finding Nemo but I contend that these people were already teetering on the precipice. I don’t want to give them a shove but I don’t want to punish the 99.9999% of people who have no likelihood of ever going berserk either.

Personally, some of my favourite films are violent (Pulp Fiction and Fight Club for example). I own most of the Grand Theft Auto games and I wilfully opened fire on the civilians in the controversial airport scene in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. I’ve been known to enjoy some ‘gangsta rap’ but nothing I’ve learned from Ice Cube has prompted me to shoot a cop in the face. I suffer from guilt if I run a kamikaze rabbit over in the car.

Surely I’m impatient and irritable enough, with an enjoyment of fictional media violence, to construct the perfect fall from sanity into a bout of mass murdering hysteria? But here I am, in my thirties, and mellowing more by the year. Yet, as I appreciate the complexities of human nature, I would not think to apply my case to the remainder of the population which is how you should react the next time you read about the case of a ‘copycat killer’.

The English Language

The advent of the internet and text messaging etc. appears to have dissolved the intellect of the average person to the point that they are incapable of communicating more coherently than a five year old. For example, pointlessly abbreviating words is lazy at best. Really, how much time does typing ‘gr8’ rather than ‘great’ save? Maybe I could collect together all those saved nanoseconds and spend the time curing AIDS. Do people think it makes them look cool? If I send a text message saying ‘R u going 2 the pub? C u l8er’ I’ll be super cool. I will be like a hacker! Check out my l33t skillz yo!

Of course not. In reality I’ll come across as a lazy, ill educated moron.

Only slightly less irritating is the average person’s inability to grasp the correct usage of apostrophes. Just because something is plural is doesn’t automatically gain one. PC’s? No. CD’s? No! Unless you’re saying that something belongs to the CD, leave it alone – it’s CDs. It’s staggering how much ‘professional’ printed material contains this elementary mistake. On that subject, I refuse to take my car to have its MOT test anywhere which has a sign saying MOT's (unless they can prove that Mr Mot owns the place).

While I’m at it, I may as well have a crack at those who cannot fathom the different between there, their and they’re. The general consensus appears to be that if you don’t know the difference you just use there for every eventuality. It seems most adults would implode if faced with the challenge of correctly writing, “They’re going to get their ball from over there”.

The irony of having witnessed, on several occasions, people refer to someone as a ‘looser’ on an internet forum is brilliant. A looser of what exactly? Is that a job title (is it even a word)? Are you inferring that it’s his job to go around and loosen things which are too tight? If so, I’d like to be a Bra Looser please. Where do I sign?

Moving on, I walked into a takeaway the other day and was confronted with a handwritten sign which said, “Cheques only accepted for values ova £5”.

Ova? OVA? Are you bloody kidding me? I was so irritated I nearly punched the chav like girl behind the counter. Eventually I figured it might impede the preparation of my food and I was really hungry. Who, in a commercial customer facing environment, would think it acceptable to use text speak? I barely tolerate it within a text message. Maybe I’m the fool though since I still buy food there.

Anyway, the examples go on and on.

Why does this irk me? I don’t know. I am English and I live in England. We invented the bloody language so it’d be nice to see people I converse with display some ability to use it correctly. The UK’s population is around 60 million. World wide, it is estimated that 375 million people speak English as their first language. If you combine non-native English speakers then the figure soars to a billion or so. Would I like to be picked up on my English by a foreigner who was learning the language at night school? No. But then I have some pride.

I will now, with plenty of forethought, defend myself against the most obvious of retaliatory attacks. Pointing out my written mistakes in general is missing the point as there is a difference between a typo and habitual miss-use. Everybody makes mistakes and that’s not my point; it’s the continued blatantly incorrect use of your own language that should be eradicated, at its very base level. I don’t expect everyone to be able to talk at length about prepositional pronouns but it’s got to be reasonable to expect someone to know the written difference between off and of.

National Stereotypes

National stereotypes are pretty silly and I’m going to prove it in a moment. What I’ll also do is inadvertently offend just about everyone who reads it. Never mind. If you find your fists clenching and your temple throbbing you’re missing the point. Generally, stereotypes are not positive so when I list a nation’s it is going to invoke some reaction (maybe). Don’t worry, my home is in here too so don’t think I’m sitting in an ivory tower just casting dispersions about everyone else.

American

All Americans are obese and the only thing which matches their girth is the size of their arrogance. Their country is the centre of the world and therefore they have no interest in where anything else is (unless they need to bomb it). This, as with most things, will be accomplished in the loudest, brashest manner possible. History lessons need only go back three generations and culture is the act of placing a fifty in a stripper’s bra while in Vegas. Everyone carries a Magnum handgun and shoot outs are a part of everyday life at the ‘mall’ (or, more frequently, school).

Australian

Australians spend their days sitting on the porch of their self-constructed shack in the outback, drinking Castlemaine XXXX and cooking BBQs from kangaroo meat. They all wear cowboys hats, refer to men as mate and women as Sheila. Every conversation begins with “g’day” and they all have constant sunburn.

Canadian

Canadians are the northern cousins of Americans, but detest any reference to that fact. The quickest way to be punched by a Canadian is to ask whereabouts in America he’s from. To ensure this doesn’t happen Canadians will sew a maple leaf onto every item of clothing they own. Mainly, they live in the snow with Huskies, moose, mounties and that bloke from the 90s TV show Due South.

Columbian

A Columbian is either a farmer, a soldier (for whichever dictator is in power at the time) or a producer of copious amounts of drugs. Cocaine is the recreation of choice and, coincidentally, the country’s major exportation industry. The Government officially denies this last fact but makes only a superficial effort to battle it (preferring instead to stay in and party).

Dutch

The Dutch all live in Amsterdam and spend their days walking backwards and forwards between the brothels and coffee shops, smoking enough cannabis to ensure they never get upset about anything. When was the last time you saw the Dutch go to war?

English

The English have bad teeth and, probably for that reason, a stiff upper lip. They’re overly polite which is why they stomach warm beer when they’re not drinking tea. Phrases such as “good day old chap” and “tally ho” are flung around with careless abandon, usually by people in bowler hats. They are miserable because it always rains. Spain is a sophisticated holiday destination and they’ll return home bright red from sunburn with a straw donkey en tow.

French

Mainly, all the French eat is bread, cheese and garlic which means, with the best will in the world, they’re going to stink a bit. Occasionally they eat snails and frogs too. They are seldom seen without a beret or a striped top and are not very good when it comes to fighting wars. They are quite good at hiding in basements from Germans though. It is also well known that French women are hairier than the men.

Germans

The national uniform of choice is lederhosen, which is an excuse to wear leather shorts and a little hat (ala Robin Hood). Germans have absolutely no sense of humour. They are also uncompromising in their efficiency, which is why humour is outlawed – you can’t be getting shit done if you’re too busy making jokes about it.

Italian

The Italians are a sophisticated race of sun-tanned Mediterranean playboys. They spend their time consuming large amount of pasta and driving exotic sports cars. They are, however, even worse at war than the French. Their tanks have one forward gear, five reverse gears and come equipped with a white flag instead of a gun. Governments change hands on a bi-weekly basis and everyone knows someone in the Mafia.

Irish

The Irish are constantly pissed. The national dish is Guinness and every Irishman has a leprechaun living in his garden, amongst a bed of four leaf clovers. There is an Irish bar on the corner of every street in every city in the world.

Indonesian

Indonesia is a country north of Australia and south of China which consists of more than a trillion islands. If you go there it is 99% jungle and there is no civilisation prevalent. Chances are you’ll be captured by a tribe, paraded before the Chief and then cooked in a pot with some vegetables for lunch.

Japanese

All Japanese men are suited businessmen and all women are Geisha. The staple Japanese meal is anything which includes uncooked fish, washed down with sake. All men are descendants of at least one fearsome samurai warrior and can wield a katana better than you can a fork. Although appearing reserved, the average Japanese enjoys nothing better than relaxing with some octopus-raping-a-schoolgirl themed comics and a large dose of crazy game shows involving people falling from great heights into pits of eels. Every piece of technology in the world is designed here.

Mexican

All Mexicans are drug dealers or illegal immigrants trying to cross the border into America. They are generally foiled because they are easy to spot, dressed in ponchos and massive sombreros. If you live in Los Angeles every second person is Mexican and you’ll be derided as racist if you cannot speak Spanish.

Russian

You can easily spot a Russian because he will be wearing a fur hat (called a ushanka – See? You’ve learned something). The hammer and sickle motif is purely optional but he’ll probably be carrying a glass of vodka too. They are still bitter about the end of the cold war and anyone who doesn’t work for the KGB has to queue two weeks for a loaf of bread.

Saudi Arabian

Everyone in Saudi is an oil sheik who owns a fleet of Rolls Royces and a larger fleet of white robes. Women dress in black, like ninjas. They all live in giant palaces and camel racing is the national pastime (alongside being extremely rich).

Scottish

The Scottish only just lose out in the pissed stakes to the Irish. They’re not picky enough to stick to a single ale though. They have a penchant for skirts and throwing large tree trunks around. They speak with an accent no-one outside of Scotland can understand and are always cold and wet. In Scotland, it rains even more than in England.

Somalian

All Somalians are pirates, just like Captain Jack Sparrow, only with less swords and more AK47s. Every vessel which passes within a light year of the African nation gets stolen and only returned upon payment of a significant ransom. Apparently oil tankers aren’t difficult to hide and the combined might of a dozen countries and their navies are outwitted almost every time by some farmers-cum-hustlers in rubber dinghies. 

Thai

Thailand is the home of some of the most beautiful beaches and stunning scenery in the world. Its population consists entirely of transsexual lady-boys and the only reason people visit is to sleep with underage children. It’s also the only country in the world which thought Gary Glitter was ‘an alright bloke’. Drugs are so frowned upon that if you’re caught with anything stronger than a cigarette you’ll be beheaded on the spot while your companions can look forward to a pleasant stay in somewhere known as the Bangkok Hilton.

Welsh

The Welsh communicate in a language no-one understands which, by all accounts, involves spitting on the other person as much as possible to get your point across. The entire country is a series of mountains which provide the home for eleventy billion sheep, the primary source of company on those long, cold nights.

DIY

Who thought that building things around your own home was a good idea? That’s what builders are for (the clue is in the name). I wouldn’t try and build an engine for my car, I’ll leave that to the professionals. Generally when there is a living to be made doing something it’s because lots of people don’t possess the necessary skill to do it themselves. That’s me; the most hopeless person ever to have attempted anything vaguely DIY related.

I’m staggeringly impatient. This is the first drawback. The second, and major, drawback is that I just do not possess the aptitude for it. Don’t get me wrong, I recognise my DIY limits more than anyone so I only take on the simplest of tasks but I often manage to underestimate even those. This invariably results in a cacophony of unrepeatable language. The start of a DIY attempt commonly coincides with my wife making sure she’s at the other end of the house or, better still, in a different county.

In my last house I put up some CD shelves. There were three holes for securing each shelf to the wall and I left one overnight (half filled) to ensure it was properly attached. Next morning it was fine, so I filled it with the remaining CDs. When I came down the following morning the shelf lay in the middle of the floor, surrounded by scattered CDs. I swore a bit. Now, I’m a man who believes in overkill. If I can’t open something I generally result to brute force, normally with the biggest hammer I can find. No word of a lie, I once tried to get a car stereo in place with a hammer (which is ironic given that kids probably use one to remove them under torchlight). Anyway, plainly a hammer wouldn’t work in this case so what I actually did was make nine more holes in the shelf and attached it to the wall with twelve screws and half a tube of No More Nails (just to be sure). The only thing that’ll get that shelf off the wall is a wrecking ball so I hope the bloke who bought the house likes CDs.

I’ve made the mistake a few times of underestimating a painting task. That’s easy right? You lob the paint on the wall and job done. For the last room I painted I even bought the ‘one coat’ stuff to speed the process up (did I mention I’m impatient?). When they named it ‘one coat’, I want to know who did the counting. I mean, it’s not a big number (that’s kind of the point). Did they lose count or was someone in the marketing department dyslexic? It must have been a marketing thing because ‘three coats if you’re lucky’ doesn’t have the same ring to it.

Buying any kind of furniture which requires assembly is normally a nightmare too. First off, at least two screws will be missing. I built a bench for the garden and I swear they did it on purpose. Not only were the screws missing but they were such an obscure size that I had to visit three DIY shops before I found the correct sized ones. Once you overcome the component shortage you’re then left to deal with instructions which look like they were drawn on tracing paper with crayons by a five year old. In the dark. The printers then remove a couple of stages from the process and you’re left wondering how the cabinet you’re building went from comprising of sixteen separate sections to the finished article in a single, seamless step.

Then there are the DIY shops, catering to the belief that the every day bloke can build himself a two storey extension over the course of a long weekend. There are two types of people in DIY shops; those who stroll around confidently (they’re there to buy a three mill flange-nut hexagonal converter and know its application intimately) and then there’s me. I’m the clueless bloke, repeating my steps down the same aisles (looking just as confused and lost as the three previous forays past the array of spanners).

I’ve said all this but, of course, you’re not a man without a good tool kit (no double entendre intended). It is acceptable to enter a DIY store and gaze longingly at chainsaws with motors powerful enough to run a yacht. A psychologist would probably be interested in what compels me to look at the scythes, axes and hammers while wondering which ones could genuinely be used in a new Friday 13th movie. I’m not going to ask though. My point is a man without a tool kit is... well, he’s a girl. It doesn’t matter if you can use it or not but when someone asks if you have a three quarter inch wrench you need to be able to give a positive response. It’s the law.

Coffee Drinkers

I’m English and, as the world knows, that means I must drink copious amounts of tea. It’s one of our national stereotypes along with bad teeth and using phrases such as ‘jolly good show, old chap’. If you’re like me (and for your sake, I hope you’re not) then you don’t like coffee and you may understand the premise of my forthcoming rant – but only if you make your drink in a communal area.

Either I’m unlucky, in that the coffee drinkers I share resources with all have Parkinson’s disease, or it is a deliberate act of sabotage to infect our company’s sugar supply with lumps of crystallised rabbit excrement. I’m unsure why coffee drinkers cannot make their beverage without depositing large quantities of the stuff in the sugar bowl. It’s surely not that difficult. If you dislike coffee, you’ll understand; just a couple of grains of the devil’s spawn makes an entire cup of tea taste like you slurped it directly from a cow’s backside. There’s nothing I enjoy more than sifting through sugar trying to extricate the offending lumps of Nestle’s finest, so I’m giving serious consideration to returning the favour. I fear that spilling open tea bags into coffee supplies isn’t going to cut it; the ‘flavour’ of the beans is enough to kill taste buds so I reckon it’ll have no problem against a few tea leaves. No, something more radical is required and I think I’m onto a win-win scenario. Apparently Cyanide is likely to have an acidic taste. I’m unsure how that’ll work out when mixed with coffee, but the resultant decrease in our office population ought to ensure that the sugar supply remains uncontaminated in future.