Changing Constants and Constant Change

Athenlay Rye - Tactical Analysis

2010-02-27T21:29:00.013Z

We play a 3-5-2. A lot can go wrong with a 3-5-2. In theory it looks very anaemic.

The defence looks over exposed and unable to cope with a fast, attacking side. It looks like it will struggle, particularly against a side with good wingers. Going forward it doesn't seem to fare much better looking flat and lacking in options.

Formations are often viewed in a simplistic way by the man in the pub. No serious tactician looks at formations like this: 4-4-2, 3-5-2, 4-3-3... these are just numbers. If these numbers aren't important tactically, what is? Briefly and far from extensively:

1) How the team reacts to losing the ball.
2) How the team reacts to winning the ball.
3) How quickly the team can go from defense to attack.
4) How high the defensive line is kept.
5) Movement off the ball.

There are many more important submodalities but these are a very good start. Alex Ferguson has spoken about the biggest shift in tactics over the past decade being the importance of crunch moments. These are what happens when a team wins the ball. Teams in the Premier League tend to attack and defend as units. Pasquale Marino of Udinese said this weekend, "systems only count to a degree as the important thing is the approach you take".

You used to be able to tell a players position, as in rugby, by his size. Wingers were leggy and fast, centre backs were big and bulky, strikers athletic etc. Now players builds are becoming homogenised (although they are unlikely to ever become quite identical) as more is being asked of players in every position. Mourinho's strikers have extremely taxing defensive duties and Wenger's centrebacks can be found lurking on the edge of the box.

So. 3-5-2.

This is what we look like when the opponents are attacking. Our wide players aren't truly midfielders as the '5' in 3-5-2 would suggest. If they can be categorised it is as wingbacks. They provide protection from opposition wingers. Their status as forward looking players rather than traditional fullbacks pins opposition wingers back. Under 11 teams don't play with attacking fullbacks a la Maicon or Evra so we can be sure that our wingbacks will not only provide cover for our defence but also give their midfield something to think about defensively. Our wingbacks play within ten yards of the line of the ball so they are happy to roam up and down.

This has implications for the type of player that can play at wingback in this formation. Firstly he must be physically fit. The ball goes up and down a lot over the course of a game and the wingback must keep up. Our left wingback could run all day. We change our right wingback a couple of time over the course of a game. He must also be tactically astute. Because of the way we attack we expect our wingbacks to think first about defending and then about attacking. In any event our left and right centrebacks are extremely capable at covering.

Next we have the defensive midfielders. One of them must always provide cover to the defense. This means when we lose the ball we immediately have someone to pressure the ball. Our wingbacks will be tracking back with their midfielders so unless they break very quickly we should always have a centreback spare. In this diagram the player who has lost the ball is our ball playing No 10:

Their player has four options available to him. Whichever of the three available passes he makes, the ball will be contested by one of our players. Pass to their winger and our wingback will cover, pass to their spare midfielder and our holding midfielder will be straight onto him, and pass to their striker and our defender has him covered. Alternatively he may try to run with the ball space to encourage movement from his forwards. This is the most dangerous option. It is imperative that the player he has lost the ball try to win it back immediately. In this case it is our no 10. Delaying the attack by even just a few seconds will prove crucial as it is the job of our spare defensive midfielder to stop him. He will charge across the moment the ball is lost to prevent him moving further forward. It is thus vital for him to be extremely athletic. Fortunately we have a fantastic player in this position whose surging runs forward and sheer athleticism put in mind Vieira at his best.

As the team gets older this formation will become susceptible to enthusiastic fullbacks he might well create 2 on 1 situations on our wing, especially if our wingbacks are caught out of position in an offensive area.

Next we have the ballplaying midfielder. The No 10. Aside from his role in giving the defensive midfielder a precious few seconds to make up ground, he is vital in relaunching attacks. When we win the ball back it is him who our players will first try to hit. He must have and indeed does have the ability to play properly weighted through balls. He must have an intimate understanding of the runs of our star striker. He is faster than any defender in the league so doesn't have to risk being offside and it puts less pressure on our playmaker. Opposition defences will be prone to balls over the top once we win back possession. With two passes we can go from defence to attack.

If they have committed their fullbacks to the attack as in the diagram then not only is the ball over the top an option but a 3 v 2 overload. The second striker is a Heskey type who can receive the ball make 5 or 10 purposeful yards, protect the ball before playing off to out speedy striker or the playmaker.

It is of course possible that one or neither of their fullbacks will be committed to the attack. In this case the ball over the top is still an enticing option. Regardless, if they will only ever attack with 6 men then we have a psychological edge on them.

It is also possible that the player who wins the ball will not be able to hit our playmaker. The players are drilled to look for him and the playmaker is constantly moving to find space and make the pass as easy as possible on whoever is likely to win the ball. However that will not always be possible or one of their fullbacks might mark him (a curious thing to happen but nonetheless possible). In this case the direct ball over the top for the speedy striker is an option. In the diagram above the left wingback or either defensive midfielder might try this. The right wingback or one of the holding midfielders might try to find the support striker, who is very good at holding up the ball (he has good strength). He can then run with it, feed the speedy striker, pass to the playmaker or knock it back to one of the surging holding players.

If all else fails or there is panic then the players are to hit the wings. At worst you will concede a throwin.

With the ball we look to pass and move. The crucial link is the playmaker. He has the best vision and execution.

He should always have 5 passes available to him plus the dribble. This is good from an attacking point of view. This attacking shape means the other side has to have 6 defending players turned on and doing their job. This is rare. Our playmaker knows he can hit either wing, set our speedy striker free or play short to the supporting striker. Failing these he can run himself. As a last resort he can pass sideways to our Vieira style midfielder who is exceptional at driving forward with the ball. With good movement we will destroy teams. We do. Look at this diagram:

The black line represents a run he can make. Clearly positive. Once he's at the edge of the area the other team will need to commit more than one man to block the shot freeing up, in all probability, our star strike to his left. Failure to do so and he has a monstrous shot. U11 goalkeepers will struggle to deal with a high shot. If this isn't on then he has several options. I love to see kite shapes on football pitches. They are beautiful as they provide at least two options for the player with the ball. The red lines represent the balls he can play. The emphasis is on moving right here. The midfielder who starts with the ball can hit all three players. Ideal as he has the best view of the game, facing goal. The support striker can also find three players. He is strong enough to hold up the ball and watch the runners come towards him. It will take very good marking to contain all three players runs. If the Vieira style midfielder gets on the ball any closer to goal then he will shoot. Our speedy striker will be watching, waiting for any rebound (again, likely if he shoots high).

If the opposition is committing a lot of players to defending on that side then it is possible to switch play to the left. Unless the defending team have 8 or 9 players back they will struggle to contain us.

Earlier I mentioned several factors which are more important than the generic formation numbers. These can be summarised as two factors. Firstly what I shall call the team block. This is how high up the attacking line is and how high up the defending line is and, importantly, how close they are to each other. We are happy to play quite deep to limit the impact of speedy wingers. We are also excellent at counter attacking (turning defence into attack quickly) so this system works well for us.

The second important factor is what is happening to the 3 or 4 people closest to the ball. These are the most important players. Our team has many many options. We achieve this by having wingbacks that provide security in defence and an overload in attack. Two such players with great tactical versatility are vital for the success of this tactic.

With it we have won 5 and drawn 1. Pretty good.

3 things I must avoid (like the plague)

2010-02-05T19:28:00.002Z

Hello. My name is Paul. I must avoid three things in my quest to become the nuts:

Procrastination

I spend too much time on the internet. This is not helping me. I could save literally 12 hours a week if I cut out the bullshit internet time. I can do a lot in 12 hours.

Lack of Persistence

Challenging times up ahead. I must keep the train fuckin runninnnnng. The old adage, "there's no such thing as failure, only feedback". Keep going dude. Dont be a pussy.

Indiscriminate spending

I spend money on stupid things. Like half a duck when Im not hungry. hahaha fuckin duck got served........on my plate. Dickkkkk. So right, £10 a day not including rent, food and bills. Can I do it? Courrrrrrse I can. GO!
This will allow me to pick and choose when I work at times. Flexibility. Mmmmmmmmmm. My girlfriend can do the splits.

What do you need to cut out to become bigger than Kanye, hotter than Fox, blacker than Obama.....

Ppxxxxx

Drug Tsars - 2 simple truths

2009-11-02T12:23:00.002Z

Much has been said about the sacking of Professor Nutt from his role as chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. I want simply to make two observations.

Firstly, that it is not the government's role to tell an individual how to use their spare time. We own our bodies (surely?) and so should be allowed to do what we want with them.

If I want to cause myself harm I should be allowed to.

I completely accept that causing myself harm on a regular basis is a poor life choice. It is a poor life choice that I should be at liberty to indulge.

J. S. Mill's harm principle seems pertinent:
'Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign... The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant. '

Drug taking is like drinking alcohol or telling lies to friends: not ideal, particularly in excess, but none of the state's business.

Secondly, a debate must centre on the facts so as to provide a coherent policy. I've yet to hear a politician from the Labour or Conservative parties provide a coherent facts-based argument as to why certain drugs should be prohibited.

I've never heard one argue why alcohol and tobacco should be treated differently to other drugs, when the science says they are more dangerous than illegal drugs like ecstasy and LSD.

I've heard an awful lot of emotive language about drugs wrecking lives and communities, but never seen a study to support this. It's a big claim. One that is almost certainly wrong. Drugs may act as an accelerant to social decay but it is never the cause.

Evidence-based policy is necessary.

Between Love and Hate

2009-08-08T19:15:00.005+01:00

You have to proactively shape your life. You're not going to see the results you want unless you perform actions which lead to those results.

Earlier I was asked to perform a little mind experiment. I was asked to imagine my life in 20 years time if I continued behaving as I am now. Do not allow for any improvement of character or action. Just honestly and objectively consider how you'll end up aged 40/50/60. How happy will you be? Who will your friends be? Will you have a wife/husband? What will they be like? Where will you live? What will you be doing for a living?

Do this now. Be honest because nobody else is going to know and if you can't be honest with yourself I know how you will end up. Unhappy. Unfulfilled. Be objective. Don't run this game with all your thoughts, hopes and feelings. This will skew it to the positive. You'll think,

"I'm not doing this now... I know I've wanted to do it for ages so Ill do it soon". And deep down inside you'll think, "I have wanted to change this about me for ages.. if I havent done there's a reason and I fear I might never...".

So empty those out. Accept, for a few seconds at least, that you're not a special little snowflake. You're a human.

Play the game.

...content yourself with mediocrity. Tell yourself that's enough and feel it deep down. I hope you can't.

"All good is hard. All evil is easy. Dying, losing, cheating, and mediocrity is easy. Stay away from easy. " Scott Alexander.

This truth is so simple and Im sure a lot of people would scoff a little and then go on to continue to suffer the banality of their existence. I've really come to learn that hard times are good. Because they are hard. They form character. That which doesnt kill you makes you stronger.

If you CHOOSE to become stronger.

And there's a really good reason for choosing hard over easy (are you recoiling at the prospect of hard? Does it make you feel uneasy or uncomfortable... revealing, huh!?). It builds confidence. Part of being a real man or woman is trusting in yourself to get through things. It's being shit scared of something, knowing you will probably fail AND DOING IT IF ANYWAY.

Once you become accustomed to doing that you learn really quickly. Once you know that you can get shit handled your brain subconsciously picks up on that (with no additional effort) and allows you to try new things.

And notice how trying new things and confidence will be crucial to ensuring you don't live the life you're gonna lead in the game. Beat the game. Trust in yourself. Get shit handled. It's down to you and only you.

Back to the game earlier. It really scared me. I am so fucking psyched right now. If I was like I am now in 1 year I'd be really disappointed. So in 20 years. The mental scramble is there. Go. Like a thunderbird. GO!

Now answer the question, "What should I be doing right now?".

Somehow you know. Somehow you know that the best you would be doing something different other than watching a youtube video and reading a blog. What should you be doing?

Go do it.

One minority group that should have no rights and should be gassed

2009-07-21T12:05:00.007+01:00

Fleas. I fucking hate fleas. So I'm home for ONE WEEK and there are fleas everywhere. And they suck your blood.

Only gypsies get fleas and now we have them. They're really easy to catch but they lay dozens of eggs a day and the eggs are indestructable. Like batman. UGHHHHHHHH.

Im writing this in the library so I dont have to write it at home and it's cringe worthy. Even the guy next to me thinks so.

You go to sleep and you feel them crawling on you. You wake up and pull back the covers and there they are gorged with blood, too fat to move. My dad says they shit blood. Any creature that shits blood hibitually is a dirty fucking sket and doesnt deserve life.

Im so happy the guy from the council is coming tomorrow to gas them. Im slightly reserved because he can't guarantee the work done in my room or the living quarters because there are floor boards.

I would go on but this blogpost does far more justice to what a repellant form of life they are: http://www.jasoncandoit.com/2009/06/i-can-tell-you-about-fleas.html

My cat is currently locked in the men's toilet of the restaurant and is being kept there until she dies in her flea pit. My dad calls he a 'sac a pus' : a flea bag. The funny thing is, now the little bitch has been treated the fleas dont go on her. She smells funny. Which isnt news to anyone. And also, I SMELL BAD. I smell like mouldy potatoes and still the little fuckers bite me. WHERE IS THE JUSTICE?

From all this I deduce there is no God.

Good day.

And if you're reading this and know the restaurant Im talking about above, all the competition have AIDS. I know: I gave it them.

Calling all Jews..!

2009-07-09T17:51:00.014+01:00

...Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Atheists, Tits, and Rock stars...

1) Last Sunday I went to B&Q. It was a strange sensation as I wasn't following my dad around. I went by myself. Not to peruse but to buy. I went to buy paint.

I LOVE paint. More than paint I love the colours. Whenever I went as a kid I would pick up a catalogue with all seven hundred and infinity colours that dulux do and decide which ones were my favourite. I had favourite shades of lime green.

So I walk through to the pain mixing desk. I am the only one waiting. There are three people behind the desk. One of them is incompetent and the other two look like they've done well to get dressed and stand upright. I stand and wait. I wait some more. I have 36 hours to have the house cleaned before we have to move out. My Landlord believes it's his place to offer me spiritual healing so that I get a 1st in my degree and claims to have played the bongos and the accordion to The Beatles. That is all you need to know about him.

And still I wait.

Eventually I ask how to get some paint mixed.

"You wait here until we're ready to see you."

I sit up on the desk, crossed-legged. They are slightly bemused by this and pretend not to notice. People come and go. I think one old man waited so long his time came and went in the queue. Squirrels had time to evolve capes and eventually wings so they can fly places instead of running.

And then I was served. And you know what? It was so fucking worth it. They have a machine which adds the precise shade of paint using lasers (it's not actually lasers but cant we just pretend?) and then they put it in what looks like a microwave which shakes the pain about. It looks like an epileptic fit. And then...

Voila! It's done. Perhaps the people who work at Cricklewood's B&Q have been experimenting by placing their heads inside. This would explain a few things and to be honest, I don't blame them. It looks fun.

So I get home after 2 hours and the paint's the wrong colour. I walk to another store and am home within half an hour with the right paint.

You can do it when you B&Q it.

2) I moved out of my house on Tuesday evening. I arrive home from a day working at the UCL Summer School. I pour myself a glass of water. I leave the room. I check my things are ready. My aunt calls to say she's 2 minutes away. I enter the room. I pick up my pint glass. I take a swig. I

WHAT THE FUCK

T, who has been fantastic in cleaning all weekend, lets out a mumble,

"Oh dont drink that honey it's disinfectant!"

KKCCCCCHHHHHAAARRRRRRRRRRRCHHHHHHHHHH

"Oh NO!"

KKKKKKKKKCCCCCCHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOPPP

When you are dehydrated and you swig water just to hydrate yourself it goes straight down.
When you are dehydrated and you swig disinfectant to hydrate yourself it goes straight down.

2 minutes later there's a knock on my door and my aunt's there with a taxi waiting to pick stuff up. The timer is running and Im holding my throat like Ive been giving head to the Jolly Green Giant. URGH.

Bags are thrown in the taxi and every time I breathe I can feel disinfectant. Every now and then my stomach lets out a moan and I blow bubbles out my mouth. Im starting to feel queasy. Ugh.

My aunt is trying to get through to NHS direct but they are overloaded with calls about swine flu. I get to my aunt's place with all my bags. I burst through the door and her flatmate Helene is there. I stumble through the door, take down water and excuse myself to shove fingers down my throat. Having emptied Kate Moss' annual calorie intake into the toilet I exit, compose myself and walk out,

"Hi Im Paul! Nice to meet you.."

"It's LETHAL TO SMALL MAMMALS AND AQUATIC BIRDS!" my aunt shouts through.

"Um...k... Ill just go stand on one leg and peck at worms in a pink tutu, then..?"

My Aunt phones 999 and the paramedic comes. Fortunately the whole saga becomes worth it as the nurse who sees me is a pretty young thing who gives me a pleasing halfway between a massage and a jolly good thrashing, flirts brazenly (memorably telling me I should be thankful there were no blisters in my mouth before showing me exactly where those blisters would have been with her tongue) and assures me I'll be just fine.

Whilst waiting for the all clear in reception, a young muslim man sits down. He is thin, with a gentle face and not much of an extremist beard. I would definitely let him look after my kittens whilst Im on holiday.

And he's handcuffed to the sigma x / n of all fat, beer quaffing, pub bastards. And has two large black guys in uniform with him. Over the course of the next half hour it gradually becomes clear that he's definitely maybe killed a few kittens (and maybe their unsuspecting owners) and his gauntness comes from a prison diet of soda bread and buggery. He is particularly proud of the prison celebrities he's seen (Abu Hamza, Ian Huntley...) and chats away quite aimiably.

How do you end a story about convicts and students who swallow disinfectant?

3) Human Rights... Gosh, arent they terrible?

This article is so sickeningly innaccurate it makes me even more sick than I am now (see point 4).

For a start it implies support for Jack Straw in his belief that some humans aren't worthy of Human Rights. Because Human Rights arent really for Humans. They're for the white middle classes. ?? The notion of Human Rights has not been entirely uncontroversial. Jeremy Bentham called them "Nonsense upon stilts..". But objection to Human Rights (or even the Human Rights Act 1998 - henceforth HRA) must be based on more than wilful lies.

I can barely believe I need to make some of the points below.

First, the myth that "The ‘human rights’ culture has done serious and fundamental damage to traditional English liberties". OK. So "habeas corpus", the right of an individual to their person which has been around in the English common law since at least the early 1300s is not a traditional English liberty? Fortunately I will show below how not only is this claim false but the opposite is the case: Jack Straw, in a long line of idiot politicians claiming to protect us against terrorism, have done more to erode the fundamental rights of citizens traditionally enshrined by English law.

Secondly, the HRA is undemocratic as it comes down to judges to interpret the HRA. What the fuck? Do these morons understand that democracies rely on a separation of powers in order to exist as anything but oppressive regimes? Whenever power is too heavily concentrated it inevitably leads to abuses of power. In any event, who the fuck else is going to decide on court cases: politicians? Or are the people going to elect judges now? I cant believe Im answering this point. I would honestly be tempted to scrap the HRA if only so I could ban the Daily Mail for being so wilfully stupid.

Parliament isn't being "usurped" by judges. Judges only ever have the right to interpret a) statutes passed by Parliament and b) Common law, if and only if, there are no relevant statutes. So let's get this straight. Parliament passes a statute and then gets angry that this statute exists. And then it's the judges' fault. Sometimes the idiocy of politicians gets me. We should just make Page 3 models eligible to run for Parliament cos at least then there'd be more women MPs.

"This gives enormous power to the unelected judges to wade into areas of controversy that should properly be the province of politicians – such as the issue of privacy, where judges are hell-bent on creating a law precisely because politicians have chosen not to do so."

This is fucking ridiculous. Maybe the fever is getting to me, but are they really saying here that politicians don't create any law, and instead of obeying the 1000 year old principles of the common law (something that makes British law uniquely rich and interesting) and create new (appealable and indeed, repealable by Parliament) law through their decisions, the courts should not come to a conclusion on cases that the Daily Mail doesnt want them to? They havent even commented on which types of cases the courts shouldnt decide on. This is so, so inadequate in many ways that are so obvious I won't even list all of them.

The most obviously wrong point is that politicians have created a law on privacy. It's called the Human Rights Act 1998.

Thirdly, this stupid point:

"And lastly and most fundamental of all, the very idea of setting down in statute what rights we have runs absolutely counter to the foundational principle of English common law and the unique principle of liberty it enshrines – that everything is permitted unless it is expressly forbidden."

OK, so having ignored English Common law up to this point suddenly someone in the back office has told the writer it exists so the imbecile fudges a point around it. The HRA creates obligations for STATE INSTITUTIONS i.e. PUBLIC BODIES. It does not affect the way individuals should behave towards each other. If I torture you I have not, according to the HRA, breached your human rights. i have commited a criminal offence. If the government torture me then they have breached my human rights. English Common law has always sought to restrict the actions of government over the people. In fact one of the best things about the English Common law is how well it has protected the liberty of the individual from the oppressive forces of the state.

Finally, and this is what I really want to go wild on, we have:

‘human rights’ has become a judicial weapon in the hands of every minority group under the sun to beat up on the majority culture, turning rights and wrongs and common sense itself on their heads.

Human rights should matter to us all. They prevent the incremental creep of repressive laws. It is not the courts we should be afraid of. it never has been in the UK (the judiciary are probably my favourite thing about the UK, no exageration). Let's look at this in concrete terms. As the Daily Mail insists on using minority groups and terrorists as examples of people the HRA helps, let's look at how successive governments have used these minority groups as an excuse to slowly clamp down on our civil liberties.

Until the early 1970s if you were arrested you could only be detained for 24 hours. Habeas Corpus was key. This is the right to your own person. Pretty basic stuff, here. You could only be searched if a police officer has reasonable suspicion that you had commited a crime (i.e. not randomly, which btw hits minorities harder and so exarcebates crime). If there wasn't enough evidence after 24 hours to bring you before a judge then you had to be released. For hundreds of years this has worked well.

In 1974 two bombs went off in pubs in the centre of Birmingham. At the time this was the worst terrorist attack in the UK (only surpassed by the recent 7/7 bombings). At the time the government proposed a temporary anti-terrorist measure whereby you could be detained for 7 days without reasonable suspicion. Everyone thought this was a jolly good idea, because gosh aren't those terrorists naughty people and I won't ever be stopped so it's fine!

In 1984 a law was passed so that anyone suspected of commiting a serious crime, regardless of the evidence obtained (so not really reasonable suspicion then) could be detained for 5 days.

The Public Order Act 1986 allows for you to be stopped and searched for offensive weapons without reasonable suspicion. We can already see standards slipping.

After September 11th the government pushed through a law which allowed anyone suspected of being a terrorist to be detained for 14 days without charge. Remember that pre 1974 reasonable suspicion was required. Now it's pretty haphazard. Terrorism is such a threat, the government would say, that individual liberties must be curtailed.

Since then 14 days has doubled to 28 days.

Since then the government tried to push it up further to 90 days. Only the unelected (so the Daily Mail would hate them) House of Lords prevented this from happening.

If 28 days is required it's because a lot of evidence needs to be gathered to bring a case against the accused. This means there is a big gap between the now and being convinced that someone is guilty of a crime. This raises the pertinent question, why are you detaining them at all in the first place? On a whim?

Again what we are seeing is the creep of repressive laws. The "exceptional" powers invoked by the government gradually become the norm.

Anyone could be locked up for 28 days and then released without charge. Imagine the effect that would have on you, your family and any dependents you had. This has happened to lots of people already.

The fact is you probably (particularly if you're white) don't think this would happen to you so you aren't to bothered. Firstly, note how this creates a sense of disillusionment and mistrust in minorities (particularly at the moment among muslims) which will only have the effect of increasing crime. Secondly, either it could affect you and you're worried or only those muslism scumbag terrorists in which case it is an effectively racist law. Thirdly, watch the creep. I'm reminded of the Niemoller poem about the passiveness of German intellectuals amid the rise of nazism in Germany. It applies here, I think:

In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;

And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;

And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;

And then... they came for me... And by that time there was no one left to speak up."

If history has a purpose then here it is.

Note also how it protects us all. The right to have a private wedding is enshrined in Article 8. Catherine Zeta Jones and her very old husband are happy for that. They arent poor. They arent racial minorities. They're famous!

Neomi Campbell was protected from having treatment she was receiving for drug addiction being splashed across the tabloids.

It ruled, before British law recognised that homosexuals could feel love, that gay couples living as a married couple would receive ownership of their partner's belongings should they die.

They love the Human Rights Act and so should you!

So what of terrorism? How do we deal with the very real the posed by terrorism?

Well it's not sending terror suspects off to their home countries to be tortured. It is right that the UK government has a positive obligation not to send terror suspects back to countries where it believes they will be tortured.

It is also clear that control orders do not work. A control order limits the movement of an individual. Their passport is stripped from them. It is essentially like being in prison but without having to be on high alert every time you drop the soap. The highest courts in the land have repeatedly found them to to violate Article 5, the right to liberty. A week ago it was ruled unanimously by the House of Lords (this is a rare thing indeed) that control orders violate the Article 3 right to a fair trial as the defendant is not given enough time to prepare their defence having finally been informed of the charge being brought against them. The courts have been emphatic time and time again that they do not work and must be scrapped. Finally they are all under review.

Thank you judges, yee who are "undemocratic" because you dont have to pander the the public's every wish!

How to deal with the problem of adducing evidence?
Every other Western state allows the admission of intelligence gained through wire tapping. If kept under control this is a far less intrusion of a fundamental right than the violation of habeas corpus. Detention or being listened in on? If one of these has to go to prevent terrorist atrocities I know which I would choose. The UK must make the intelligent choice. It is either that or succumb to the populist idiocy of the Daily Mail.

The choice is really quite clear. Liberty trumps all.

4) I have swine flu.

Gut feelings and Bombs

2009-05-19T10:53:00.014+01:00

Housemate 3.14 studies biology. As he announces he's off to the library to study I ask him to get me a good read. The kind of riveting read that only a science library can throw up. God I love photosynthesising bio-molecular agents. It's how Spiderman came to be.

Instead he waltzes into the kitchen with a copy of "The Single Helix" by Steve Jones. Steve Jones has the most boring name. It denotes the kind of boring, clichéd guy who works 9-5 in a Fake Plastic Office, reads The Sun, never washes his hands after using a urinal and says "buddy" and "fair dos" a lot. He probably lives in Surrey.

Also the book is called "The Single Helix". A world of nerdery awaits.

"Thanks Housemate 3.14".

The first surprise about this book is that Steve Jones is a professor at my uni and one of the world's most respected biologists.
The second surprise is that considering he made his reputation studying snails he is actually a very engaging author.
The third surprise about this book is that it is not really a book but a collection of articles he wrote for a national newspaper. He's like Bill Bryson but without the fun name. Jeremy Clarkson but without the trumpet.
The fourth surprise of this book is that it's fucking amazing and you should buy it.

If you don't like reading then go to a bookshop and read the chapter entitled "Seeing with Bullets". And it might help if you divert your eyes from this blog cos there are lots of words... and LETTERS... and there's stuff to READ, OH...MY...GOD... you uncultured swine. Pfft.

The chapter in question explores Neuro-Philosophy. Dripping with sex appeal, isn't it?

If you're still with me you have a slightly sadistic streak because dude... it's Neuro-Philosophy. N-P seeks to explain consciousness in terms of science. So it's a mixture of Philosophy of Mind and Neuroscience. All very clever. All very ambitious. To my mind there is no bigger, more interesting, more challenging question for science and philosophy to tackle.
What came as a surprise to me is that we are making progress.

Wars, as Steve Jones explains, are terrible things. They are the ultimate in human destruction. Nobody loves war. There is always a preferred way out even when we accept war as being necessary. And yet for scientists wars prove particularly fruitful. Because of the competitive nature of war it encourages innovation. A suitable technological breakthrough can bring you victory.

There are also benefits to medical science. A lot was learned about the immune system from trying to perform skin grafts in World War II. Similarly, the freak injuries that people receive in battle (because we should have less wars, and more battles: I'd definitely not be so wary of plundering other countries if it was sold as being a battle... The Battle of Basra....sick one mate, let's do it!) allow us to understand a lot about the human body. We can survive without limbs. Infectious diseases spread rapidly in minging conditions. Even the chilling experiments conducted on people by the Nazis.

What has war got to do with Neurophilosophy? Well, it's funny you ask because I was just about to tell you.

During World War II many people got shot in the head. Brilliantly many of these people survived despite having had permanent damage caused to certain parts of the brain. Being shot in the back of the head will mess with your vision. What scientists realised to their complete surprise is that many of these people could detect colour and position despite not being able to see.

To simplify, nerves which run from the eye to the brain end up in two neural locations. One of these is responsible for converting the light that hits your retina into an image. This is us "seeing". Look around you and all that you see is being created by one part of your brain. However this is just an image. Your awareness of what is happening is being processed by a different part of the brain. What's interesting is these processes run in parallel, rather than in series, so the disruption of one of these neural regions can leave the other completely unaffected.

So when these poor fellows got shot in the back of the head all that was affected was their ability to create images of the world around them rather than their ability to use the light around them to sense what is going on. They had 'blindsight'.

This phenomenon has been supported by many studies since.

Isn't this incredible? You can know about things of which you are not consciously aware. There are millions of individual pieces of information that we are capable of distinguishing at any one moment. We only consciously process 7 (plus or minus 2) of these. So every day we consciously focus on tens of thousands of things (the sounds of a car passing, our friend waving, the smell of bacon) and many billions of pieces of information are filtered out. It seems like often they are genuinely screened out. A lot of it though is processed unconsciously. If, like me, you have a habit of walking dangerously close to lamp posts before swerving at the last second without consciously having understood that a lamppost was even there, then you have experienced the glory of the unconscious mind. Our ability to process information unconsciously is thought to be the reason we learn so quickly. Ties are made unconsciously, so even if we have not made the link consciously it is there like a large library waiting for the right piece of information to be picked from the shelves of the unconscious mind.

Our unconscious mind is also surely where our gut feelings come from. When we use our intuition to make a decision we are using our unconscious mind. I consider myself to be heavily intuitive and what's more, to have made the leap from being strongly analytic to strongly intuitive in 5 years. Is it true to say I have just learnt to use my unconscious mind more and my conscious mind less?

Hypnosis seems to be the closing of the conscious mind and the flowering of the unconscious mind. Meditation is simply switching off the conscious, analytic mind and turning up the intuitive, unconscious mind.

There is clearly a lot of work to be done in Neuro-Philosophy. The stakes are high. We have a peep hole into consciousness and (as James Crick thought) the soul.

Isn't biology great?

Paradise

2009-05-04T19:39:00.005+01:00

Everybody's trying to get to Paradise
Some people say that they've been there before
They all tell me the grass is green in Paradise
And they all long to step back through its door
But what the door might look like they're unsure
Not one of them knows what they're looking for

There's some who try to charm their way to Paradise
To get there with a smooth tongue and fine style
But hook-nose gargoyles bar the way to Paradise
Sat there like stones unmoving all the while
Impervious to every kind of smile
When charmers choke they dine upon their bile

I knew a man who tried to fly to Paradise
He made his wings from pigeon backs and wax
I asked him if he knew the way to Paradise
He laughed and said he'd follow angel tracks
Not knowing angels hunt in snarling packs
Or that they drown his kind in leather sacks

Some people seek to pray their way to Paradise
They think that they'll get in by saying please
They say their fathers wait for them in Paradise
And they wait for their carriage on their knees
They're clustered up in church like swarms of bees
On course to join the earth and feed the trees

Some claim that they will work their way to Paradise
They babble about towers and machines
You might think they had never heard of Paradise
To my mind they just don't know what it means
They never trade their cows for magic beans
Believing magic comes from magic screens

Some even think to fight their way to Paradise
When they get there they plan to storm the walls
Then fly their favourite flags on top of Paradise
And leave its wonders wrecked by cannonballs
When from the ruins some survivor crawls
They'll wreck him too, explaining 'duty calls'

A preacher cries 'I know the way to Paradise,
It's set down here in paper, ink and stone!'
Reads loudly from a book describing Paradise
In what sounds very like a threatening tone
And those who listen don't feel so alone
But I for one would rather write my own

I'm told some people love their way to Paradise
Perhaps they walk there in each other's shoes
If told their lovers couldn't come to Paradise
I often wonder which path each would choose
But I have heard a whisper from the Muse
That Paradise is better loved in twos

It's true I've tried to write my way to Paradise
I crafted clever lines to light my road
But I got lost along the way to Paradise
And I was weighed down by my lettered load
I followed my inventions where they flowed
Became distracted and my progress slowed

At last it seemed I'd never get to Paradise
I'd just signed my surrender when it hit:
What if we all could think our way to Paradise?
Or better still from ourselves conjure it?
Twin lanterns in my eyes were promptly lit
And I began constructing mine to fit

With my dreams I will build myself a Paradise
Behind the stained-glass windows of my face
'Cause anyone can build themselves a Paradise
When they stop searching for some distant place
We all win when we see there is no race
And Paradise lies in the mind's embrace

Check it: http://www.invisibledragon.co.uk/creators.html

Talkin' About A Revolution

2009-04-13T14:01:00.008+01:00

Who am I?

This is the broadest, most vague question. You can answer this however you like. There are no limits. No right, no wrong. You can respond with a colour. A memory. A sight. Or in a more orthodox manner like me. Whatever comes up for you when you ask yourself the question, "Who am I?".

I am a dynamic, resourceful, intelligent, adaptable maniac. I am full of contradictions. I am happy with these contradictions. Things don't need to make sense. I am strongly intuitive. I would be happy living in a cave in Turkmenistan by myself and yet I find human company the most re-energising experience.
I cannot be put in a box. I am fluid and dynamic. I'm hot and cold. I'm values-driven and will not compromise these values. My favourite food is spaghetti bolognese.
I like long walks on the beach. Conformity for conformity's sake is soul destroying.
I care.

What am I grateful for?

These things arent necessarily capable of being true or false. They relate mostly to things out of your control or in the past.

- Good genes. I believe I was given a supreme genetic advantage in life. Im mixed race, with a fast metabolism, all my senses working and an athletic body.
- I live in the Western World where we have so many opportunities afforded us. In the UK we have an excellent health care system, a good climate, and good weather and landscapes (no monsoons or earthquakes).
- An excellent childhood where my intellect was nurtured - I was always encouraged to read and given assistance academically - and a great grounding in culture - from food to music to books to plays. We had dinner times altogether where I was encouraged to speak my mind and we debated philosophy, politics, life, love and sex openly.
- Having duel nationality - English and French. When England lose, France win and when France lose.... fuck it, I speak English!
- Growing up in a bilingual household.
- Growing up in London, a diverse and exciting environment.

What do I value?

Which experiences, places, people, attitudes, objects, thoughts, beliefs do you value most? Which enrich your life? What makes your life worth living?

- I value my friends and family. I value my health. Nothing else really matters. It's all dust and wind.
- I enjoy playing football and watching football and rugby. I tried to play rugby at school. Rugby played me. Internazionale are my team. I support France in sport.
- My values, beliefs and principles are the most important things in the world to me.
- I believe in giving. Giving is always better than receiving. Except head.
- I live for the sun. I get sad when there isn't enough sunlight. I think I photosynthesise.
- Sex.
- Rock'n'roll. Muse, Matt Bellamy, Radiohead, Jonny Greenwood, The Strokes, Julian Casablancas, New York City Cops, Muse live, Daft Punk, Electro House, Take it Or Leave It. Proper fuckin Rocknroll. And Stereophonics + Definitely Maybe. And The Clash. And Dizzee Rascal. I dont know what ID do without his positive energy.

What do I want out of life?

Well?

In many ways this is a false question for me: the question is 'What can I give?'

I want a challenging, varied job. I want to start my own business. I want the world's best wife and children out of whose asses the sun shines. I want to be well off but money isn't a primary concern.
I want to continue growing.

Until I'm THIS tall.

I want to win. I want to always get whatever I want.

How do I work?

How do your emotions work? How do you learn? How do you get the best out of yourself?

I am incredibly competitive. I hate to lose. I love winning. Winning isn't enough though. I don't dwell on victories. They are to be expected. Onwards and upwards. I win for me. I don't need or want other people to know. I get more out of myself if I create a siege mentality. Me against the world. Me and my team against the world.
I learn by listening rather than by reading or seeing. I like to debate because that's how I internalise things. I speak to myself.
I have a few pressure points. Genuinely trying to put someone down because of who they are makes my blood pressure rise very quickly. This includes racism, sexism and bullying weaker people.

What standards do I hold myself to with regard to others?

How should you treat others?

Everyone is human. I see the best in everyone. I look for the positive intention behind every act rather than the negative outcome. So long as noone has crossed a personal boundary (see below) I afford people total respect. I dont judge people. I try to make people feel at ease.

Once someone is comfortable in my presence I will push to see where their boundaries are. This is natural. I want to know what I'm faced with. Why are they alive? What do they value? Who are they? I can be purposely inflammatory to find out how cool someone is. In fact the quickest way to screen out those who are going to be a drain on my time is by testing their boundaries straight away. "OIIIIIIIIIIII MINGER" is the bane of my friend's life. Their complaints are unfair. I also raise overtly sexual topics early on, tell them I love them and ask them if they like Muse. These things are important to me. If someone can't handle being probed even slightly then they aren't solid enough to hang out with. Plus a boy's gotta have his fun.

I never knock other people's dreams.

What standards do I have with myself?

I treat myself increasingly like I am the shit. Because, to be frank, I am. I'm fucking insane. Im Lindor and Tropical Islands rolled into one.

I expect the best from myself. Anything less is inexcusable. I don't dwell on successes. Next goal please.

I'm getting into the meat and veg section of my life now. Work : Play ratio is shifting.

What standards do I expect of others towards me?

I expect the respect I accord them. I hate being put in a box. I hate genuine racism. These things will make me lose control.

I expect my friends to push themselves. It isn't acceptable to bitch and whine. It isnt acceptable to lie and make excuses. It isn't acceptable to be on the phone when we've arranged to meet. It's insolent.

On this point I have SO MANY that I'm not going to right them all down. The general gist is there.

The point is not to copy my answers but to find out what yours are...

Go go gadget girl! Start a revolution!

Let's Play Chess

2009-04-11T15:41:00.007+01:00

This post is dedicated to Pratik. Every year we have a chess match. It's the best of three. We have it after exams in the summer. A celebration of our nerdiness in the park with as many Gauloise and emptied lager cans as we can muster. This year will be our fourth.

The first year we pick up Sainsburys Basic Lager. At 88p for a 4 pack each we thought, "How bad can it be?". Well I'll tell you how bad it can be: horse urine bad. It is foul. So we sit in Russell Square playing chess. I win the first game. There are no more cans left by the end of an intense match. We pause to smoke enough cigarettes to fill up said cans and enter the second match. It's a hot day and I've had too much horse urine too quickly. I have vague memories of hitting on (!?) a very attractive young lady who was very willing to give us her rizla before going back to her friend. When I go to return the Rizla I discover that her friend is a drug dealer. Not one to let the Eastern European Scarface's presence ruin my fun I continue chatting to the Mediterranean stunner until it becomes clear that I either buy drugs or become a special ingredient in Sainsbury's next batch of lager.

I buy some weed. Pratik and I listen to Morcheeba. Pratik wins the second game. I smoke weed. I get the munchies. We go to get food at a cheap Korean shop. And I mean a shop. Upstairs it's a video store and downstairs they've got a few tables and a kitchen. The walls are lined with TVs illegally burning DVDs that haven't been released yet. Thanks to this I have already seen the 34th installment of Rocky. Unfortunately, as the coming lines will demonstrate, I was not in a state to remember much. I order a curried dog and noodle mixture. It looks foul but Im drunk and stoned and need food. I eat it. It comes back up. I'm a good shot. There's none on the table. Curiously it now looks more appetising. I excuse myself and go to the toilet.

Suddenly the world is far more spinny and holy shit I need a poo. I am sick many, many times. I shit. I pass out with my pants down. Pratik enters, observes there's no more toilet paper, and carries me out. I have vague memories of a Korean women shrieking (probably asking how I made such an appetising dish as she shovels it down her throat with those irksome oriental spoons). It's 4 in the afternoon as Pratik carries me down Tottenham Court Road. We stop briefly to allow more of my stomach to find freedom. If the poor woman who was trying to enjoy a Big Mac on the otherside of the window is reading this, darling, green is so not your colour. And many apologies for marring your view of Warren Street tube station.

Pratik puts me on a Victoria line tube Southbound and tells someone to make sure I get off at Victoria. Miraculously I do (perhaps it was the sobering prospect of ending up in Brixton should I fail to get off). I get on a train to get to East Croydon. I fail to get off (perhaps it was the sobering prospect of ending up in Croydon...) and find myself being awoken by a ticket inspector in Hayward's Heath. How novel.

I decide Haywards Heath has less to recommend itself to me than Croydon and head back home.

For the Second Annual Chess Match i arrive straight from a houseparty in South London with a Croydon mate. He is in a dress (time obscures the reason: but heck, who needs a reason to wear a dress at midday around campus) and ready to shout obscenities. I am always ready to shout obscenities. We do so. We meet up with Pratik. We play chess. And time prevents us from being able to finish the game. For a second year running it finishes 1-1. I feel ill and Pratik goes to a house party, takes a load of speed, chases deer around the park and never makes it back to his.

The Third Annual Chess Match involves curry, a G&T and loads of bum sex. We purposely dont play the third game because "It's tradition!"

Using sophisticated quantum trend analysis I predict this year will involve copious amounts of pink, hitting each other with rainbows and not daring to win because PEACE NOT WAR.

All this is really on a tangent because i wanted to make a deep point about our approach to humanity.

Approaching humans, as Marcus Buckingham points out in the Harvard Business Review, is best done by recognising the subtlety of human behaviour. Mediocre communicators/managers play checkers. Excellent communicators/managers play chess. They recognise every piece is different. They do not force a castle to play like a bishop or a queen like a knight. Instead, they accept each piece for what it is and seek to use its powers to maximum efficiency instead of making them do what they cannot naturally do.

We all have natural qualities. Let's make the most of those qualities instead of wishing we were another chess piece.

Exothermic/Endothermic

2009-04-09T09:11:00.004+01:00

In my last post I said that Self-Improvement was rubbish. Not strictly true because the post was about self-improvement and it was far from rubbish. I just wanted to warn against Self-Improvement replacing World of Warcraft in your life and not actually making a difference. The difference is made through acting not by reading a book or an article and thinking "Oh this is nice...what a well written piece...I know so much more about the world now!".

If you're doing that, please, please stop. Do it for the starving children in Somalia whose parents feel the need to turn to piracy.

The difference is made by acting not by thinking. Life isn't entertainment. You aren't a comedy. Life is serious business and it's the only one you've got. Live it to the max.

A few people brought up points I confusion I didnt meant to leave hanging. Their question runs like this, "If we don't look to the outside world for help, how are we meant to change our inside world?"

Let me answer that for you. Wherever I use self-improvement I am referring to bettering oneself. This might seem counter-intuitive so bare with it:

Self-improvement is not about changing who you are. Becoming a better person is not about learning how to be like some other awesome person. Self-improvement is about self-discovery. It is about releasing your true self. Letting your hopes, dreams, thoughts and feeling shine.

Dull and matt ------------------------------> Bright and shiny.

It is about allowing your natural personality come through and all the best things about you work together in perfect harmony.

This is particularly pertinent to me as a coach. I often get resistance in people who say they want great things but they don't want to change who they are. Some coaches would dismiss this as EGO rearing his ugly head again. It's true that most people could do with having their ego dissolved a little. Nonetheless this is a GOOD thing. I don't think anyone needs to change who they are. They need to drop all the add-ons and java updates around their personality that obscure their true self.

This stems from my belief that we are all naturally incredible people. We all have special gifts and talents that we can share with the world. Most people when asked if they have something to give would agree. Most people would say that they have more to give than they are currently giving. Self-improvement is about reaching this place.

Self-management

Many of the ideas in what follows come from Peter Drucker's article "Managing Oneself" in the Harvard Business Review. I read it last night and it seemed to bring out many of the points I was looking to make in my article.

The rest is padded out with my own experiences and NLP.

- What are your strengths and what are your weaknesses?

This can apply to anything you want in your life. Your social life. Your work life. Your learning. Your weekly game of golf.

If you really want to be good then do something.

1) Write down what things you want to be good at. Do it now.

I'll play along with you.

a) Philosophy Studies.
b) More depraved nights out.
c) Management - My Own Business and Football Management.

2) What do you think your strengths and weaknesses are?

a) Strengths - I am good at creating arguments, I am good at distilling complicated points simply, I am open-minded, I am good at research, I am good at applying philosophy to the real world.
Things I can work on - Disciplining myself to sit down and read, Engaging with topics I find dry or irrelevant, I need to be more widely read.

b) Strengths - Being depraved, not giving a fuck, having fun/self-amusing, getting horrendously drunk, bringing the party whilst sober, positivity, strength of character.
Things I can work on - Persistence, Consistency, Finding people as depraved as me.

c) Strengths - Confidence in myself, Ability to make decisions under stress, Working as part of a team, Working as a leader, Getting things done, Transmitting confidence to others, Competitiveness, Being positive, Taking responsibility for the results of my team, Creativity, Values-driven.
Things I can work on - Experience, Knowledge of a particular field (self-improvement and football coaching), Communicating ideas calmly and effectively, Never appearing arrogant.

Those are mine. Do yours. Notice any reoccurring trends in your strengths and weaknesses. My reoccurring strengths are my Infectious Positivity, Values and Confidence. My weaknesses are my lack of experience and ability to stick to what I perceive as a mundane process.

3. Other questions

What distinguishes these points is how little people actually know about themselves and how often they are wrong. We think we know far more than we do about ourselves. Once we discover the answers to these question we will be in a far better position to achieve the success we deserve and grasp opportunities that come our way.

How do you learn? Do you learn by reading like Eisenhower, by writing like Churchill or Beethoven, or by speaking like me. Im heavily auditory so I learn by speaking to myself and by discussing things with other people. Everyone in the library around me knows this. If I am to learn effectively I have to be able to hear what's going on. I then cement it like Beethoven by writing it out. If I write it, I never have to read the notes again. It's there.
So how do you learn? Write down what you think, play around with it and see if you're right.

Leader or follower? Do not stigmatise the answer to this. Being a leader isn't necessarily better. There is far more pressure to produce results as a leader. If you don't work well under pressure, are not decisive and are not willing to take full responsibility for everything that happens to you and your team then you will not make a good leader. There are plenty of support positions of value. General George Patton, an American military hero of WWII, was denied the chance to become an independent commander as the head of Defence said, "Patton is the best subordinate the American army has ever produced, but he would be the worst commander." Generally those who aren't leaders can be superb advisers. Are you a good adviser?

Values: How do you believe the world should work? Put yourself in a position where the world can work the way you think it should. Work for an ethical investment fund if you believe investing in arms is wrong, don't shop at Primark if you believe clothes shouldnt be died with the blood of Bangladeshis and shop there if you love cheap clothes!

Long term/Short term: Which is more important and how will you get there? In football Arsenal FC represent the long term approach investing in youth and giving young talent the playing time to fulfil their potential. This has led to a lack of silverware over the past 5 years but the future looks very, very bright. Chelsea on the other hand have been immensely successful by investing large sums of money in players at their peak. How sustainable is it? Usually a balance will be struck but there will always be instances in your life when you choose one over the other. How does that affect you?

Big Picture/Little Picture Do you prefer to look at the details, the nitty gritty and make those subtle distinctions that make the difference or do you like to look at the big picture? The former risk not seeing the wood for all the trees. The latter can make careless errors through a lack of attention to detail. Those who like to see the big picture often work very well with those you see the details. Which are you? How do you work best?

4. Use these results

So you don't know what you want to do with your life?

Use these results. When we play to our strengths and get results we feel good about ourselves. We are positive. We are open to the world. We naturally give ourselves Permission to Land.

What can you do that will utilise your strengths?

5. Reality Check

Every time you start a new task, set a new goal and do something new write down what you think will happen. Then, a day, a week or a year later, check to see whether what happened matched up to what you thought would happen. You might be surprised.

This is an excellent opportunity to refine what your strengths and weaknesses actually are.

Also, don't develop an ego around this. I really encourage you to play to your strengths but this does not mean to posit your strengths as being the only valuable thing a human can have. Drucker says that engineers often pride themselves on their lack of people skills saying that humans are too volatile to be reliable. Maths gives certainties which are better. Those in human resources often make the opposite claim that maths is trivial and an understanding of what drives and motivates humans is more important.

Both views are impoverished. Stick to your strengths by all means but keep an open mind. What knowledge can I take on board that would allow me to bring out more of my strengths? How are my current beliefs limiting my potential?

This is a good point to address the most common objection among young people: I dont know what I want to do with my life!

As hinted above, not knowing what you want to do with your life is no excuse for not knowing what motivates and drives you. Knowing your strengths, weaknesses, values and more can help you. It will allow you to structure your life the way that works best for you such that everything you do is infused with a bit of your essential quality. You develop character. You develop a personality. You develop a sense of self.

However, it is not rare for some of the most gifted individuals to not know what they want to do until they are in their mid to late twenties. Don't panic!

Consider the following question, "What should I contribute?" If you were going to do various jobs, what would you contribute to each one? Which unique perspective do you have? Don't think about what others do. Don't ask if others have failed. Consider just yourself. You don't want to sabotage yourself. If all great people had looked at the dozens of failures that came before them and chosen to give up instead of having faith in what they have to give, the world would be far worse off. You can achieve great things with that unique thing, that unique way of looking at the world that you have.

Reframing the question is often a useful exercise. What don't you want to do with your life? Where dont you belong? What type of thing dont you want to do with your life?

Accept others

Other people have strengths and weaknesses. Im not going to spell this one out. Have a think about how the rest of this post ties in with this. How will you have to behave to get maximum results?

My objection to the self-improvement community at the moment isn't that it doesn't try and as a matter of fact do a lot of good. It's that there is a lot of waste. The number of people who see progress is very small. The reason for this is two-fold. firstly there is an emphasis on making people feel inadequate and like they need to change who they are. This is not true. You are enough. Secondly, there is a one size fits all approach which doesn't reflect the amount of different people. Sure, if you WERE X, Y, Z your life would be better. But people aren't all X, Y, Z. People are all different. We all have different aims, wants, needs, motivators, desires and passions. Any attempt to help people has to reflect this.

We all naturally have the gifts and qualities required to have boundless fun, success, happiness, money, sex, drugs, rock'n'roll and peace.

You are enough. Let's go exothermic on this shit.

Permission to Land

2009-04-07T23:43:00.006+01:00

Remember them? The Darkness. Guess what happens when you think rock'n'roll is about snorting as much coke as you can. You end up washed up after one melodramatic album. Long live RocknSnort.

Right. It has been WAY too long. I swear I was a different person when I last wrote a new blogpost.

Fasten your seatbelts we're going places. This is a very different post.

You have arrived. Enough is enough. You're in control. There is nothing more you need. I finally realised that self-improvement is ADDICTIVE. It's serious crack. It allows you to be introspective. It allows you to understand the world around you. It allows you to be harder, better, faster, stronger.

But it's FUCKING USELESS.

Weird, huh. Most of this blog is about how much better your life could be and I come out with wack shit like this.

"But Paul, Please lay down your crack pipe and give me more life crack."

You don't need it. Most of it is intellectually interesting without being life-changing. To a coach it is important. To a teacher it is important. If you are going to effectuate change you have to understand how it works. For the most part a few very brief things are necessary. It is still self-improvement but it's taking the bigger picture sorted. Get these sorted and tell me where the gaps are. There won't be many if any. Details, details.

Take these things. Apply them. See change. This is plug and play baby!

1. You are enough.

Listen, YOU HAVE ARRIVED.

Wherever you are in your life right now, it's enough. Whatever you're doing, whoever you're seeing, wherever you're working or studying, however you like. You are enough.

Give yourself PERMISSION to be the person you are meant to be. You intuitively know this. You dont need to work it out. Know it. Own it. Do it.

The only thing...like literally the ONLY thing stopping you from being who you can be is a switch in your head. Flick that switch and be that person. You dont need to fill your head with ideas. You dont need to have seen a thousand things. You dont need to wait till exams are over. You dont need to wait till summer. You dont need to wait till next week. You have arrived and you are where you need to be now.

Being a better person isnt about adding new things, it's about bringing what is already inside of you, out.

2. Love thyself more than thy neighbour

Listen, send me an email grotting if you want, I won't read it. Unless you put "HI WE ARE THE STROKES AND WE WANT TO PLAY LIVE IN YOUR LIVING ROOM" in the title.

If you are going to be the best person that ever existed you have to have decided that you are going to be the best person that ever existed.

Made that decision?

Great. You are the best.

I genuinely believe that whatever I end up doing in life I will be the best at it. There is no way I can fail. And guess what?

There is no way you can fail either. You are the best. The only way you are not the best is if you think you aren't. Fuck realism. Fuck being PC.

You are the best. The number one. If you go for something 100% you will get it.

Get it? Great!

3. Behave like the high value person you are

If you masturbate every day and you want loads of sex. Fail.

If you eat shit food and you want to lose weight. Fail.

If you don't care what you wear but want to look good. Fail.

If you lickadickaday and you want to be mature. Fail.

Ok just kidding with that last one.

Here's the point. When I get a new T-Shirt I treat it with ultimate respect and care for the first few washes. When it becomes old and less soft and shiny I toss it on the floor, tread on it and treat it like I do my maid.

How do you treat yourself? Like the New shiny, soft T-shirt or like a bitch. If you treat yourself like a bitch your subconscious will pick up on that and you'll believe you're a bitch. And that will show.

If you take care over your appearance, eat good food and exercise then you are treating your body well. If you are speaking your mind, going for what you want and have a strong sense of entitlement then you are treating yourself well. Your subconscious will go DING DING DING and you'll believe you're amazing on every level. This is called self-esteem. At first this might take some mental effort but do not shirk it. With every time your smash it you will find it gets easier and easier. It won't take long for your subconscious to pick up on your new identity. Then you will be effortlessly A*.

4. Have high standards for yourself and others

Quit being a bitch. What do you expect for yourself?

Do it.

What do you expect from others?

Bring them up to those standards or ditch them.

It's really that simple. If you want a further break down of this, you're thinking too hard. If you still want a break down here:

What do you value?

What do you want out of life?

Which emotions do you feel strongly and come up regularly for you?

How should you treat others and how should you treat others?

What, that is out of your control RIGHT NOT, are you appreciative of?

My next blogpost will be answers to these questions. They'll be MY answers so don't copy them. Get your own. That's the whole point.

Enforce the ultimate standards for your life now. You've got to live your life so give yourself the best. Don't deny that. Free it up. Now.

5. Stop giving a fuck what other people think of you

Stand up. Say it. "I do not give a fuck what other people think of me".
Say it 5 times.
Now say it louder.
Now louder.
And louder.
Now scream it.

WOW. There we go.

There's a great quote about this:

For the first 25 years of our life we care what others think of us.
For the next 25 years of our life we stop giving a fuck what others think of us.
For the final 25 years of our life (yes everyone dies at 75) we realise nobody was really thinking about us all along.

Look, everyone is too busy living their life to be too concerned about you. And that should be liberating. You and you alone are responsible for your life and you can do whatever you want with it.

Stop being a pussy and live your life the way YOU want to, not the way others want you to.

Thanks.

This is a picture of Matt Bellamy looking ugly. But guess what, noone gives a fuck because he's got a pink guitar and he's so fucking rocknroll. Learn.

6. ACT and FEEL, don't think

Thinking is bad for your health. We think too much. Stop it.

If you feel it, do it. Do it before that voice in your head looks to fuck you up. You are self-sabotaging all the time because you allow that little voice in your head breathing space. Drown it.

You have to learn two things to do this effectively. Firstly you have to learn to trust yourself. And you've already done that because you followed the above advice. Secondly, you need to learn to trust in a foreign set of bearings. In a way of doing things that seems unnatural or perhaps uncomfortable for now. That feeling of eurgh WILL NOT LAST LONG. Your body and brain is immensely adaptable and if you give it 100% you will be fine.

Seriously, you live in a country with the internet. There's only so wrong it can go.

Also, ACT. Act without regard for the consequences. If that doesn't make sense it's because you're thinking your way out. Stop it. Act your way out.

Right, the only other thing I need to touch on is GOAL setting. I will do that in a future post. I will also start fielding questions or interesting topics to write on. Don't hesistate to get in touch. My email address is Paul.Idioteque@Gmail.com

Similarly, don't be afraid to hit the blog up with a comment if you enjoyed it. There are loads of you reading it, so holler!

For now, allow yourself to be your best self. Give yourself permission to land.

Roles - The Bread and Butter of Human Interaction

2009-03-04T15:00:00.004Z

We are always playing a certain role. What's more, it isn't a passive thing. It's active. We are always looking to fulfill the role that's set out for us.

I've always found it funny how a lot of my Asian mates are chill one minute and the next the get a call from their parents and they put on a freshy accent.

Or how people in an office will put on a professional voice and use different mannerisms when they pick up the phone. Or shopkeepers talking to customers...

Or in social setting people will live up to the label you give them. The joker. The cool guy. The guy who always gets drunk.

Or when talking to children or babies or foreigners we speak far more confidently. Maybe even in a patronising, slow fashion.

Or the race who are told that they don't go to university and are scumpies who rob. Who then don't go to university and rob people.

Just about every young man has to cope with the blurring of roles that occurs with their father when they hit adolescence.

For years I wondered how my mum, the cutest most wonderfully generous woman in the world, held down a job in the chauvinist environment of a City Investment Bank. And now I know. She plays roles. When she's at work she's not the soft cuddly momobird she is at home.

Roles are useful. They create a standards for expected behaviour. A bit like table manners. They make life easier. They create conformity. And from this you might be able to guess how much I think they suck. They work on so many levels.

I got played out this morning taking some 16 yr old Greek students around UCL. I started out speaking slowly to them. I was told they were going to drag their feet. The look of boredom on their faces was palpable. Then after 30 seconds I realised that they speak better English than me and spoke normally. The switch went from disengaged to engaged immediately. They didn't expect me to dumb down. They are in England from a foreign country. They want to see what people in the UK are like. They don't want some cockbag assuming because they're foreign they're stupid. Everyone else gave tours about UCL being founded in 1826 by Bentham and yada yada. I took them round telling them statues were my relatives and telling them what life is actually like.

What happened?

Initially I was fulfilling the role I thought was expected of me. Paul morphed into STUDENT GUIDE.

Then I stopped. And I was just Paul. And I got a good response. If you want to stick out immediately, don't play a role.

Why do we play roles?

They're an externally validated ego-crux that give us security in social situations.

Long words are fun. Let me break that down:

Externally Validated - Your sense of who you are is determined by others.

Ego-crux - You project a made-up idea of who you are which you project into the world. I have had "the class clown" before. So I lived up to this and at every available opportunity acted like the class clown. It gave me standing. Seriously mean girls-esque. Watch it and understand roles.

Security in Social Situations - Comfortable social situations are those where everybody is secure in their social situation. Where everybody is happy and feels good. If you're trying to get one up on others then you aren't feeling good.
When stags compete for higher social status (to be the alpha male) they literally fight it out. It's fuckin epic. Check out these stags with a touch of downs battle it out:

Guys and girls can fight too. Usually it takes the form of busting on others or bitching. It creates uncomfortableness.

When I first started making a conscious effort not to be lame I found others in my social circle tried to put me down. The fact I was becoming cooler and more comfortable was uncomfortable for them. I'm not judging it. They were doing it with a positive intention.

Since then loads of people have come to me and said that they have outgrown friends as they have become bigger, better, happier people. It's funny because you might think they'd be happy for you. They are your friends. They want the best for you right?

Usually not. It's a shame. It takes a very cool person to accept change in others, particularly when it jeopardises their social status. A change in your behaviour will cause resistance in others.

Roles, and the sticking to these roles, create comfortableness.

Interesting aside. If you give someone a label or a role they will live up to it. Try telling someone that they are sad and keep asking why they are sad. Watch how their state drops. Notice it when others do that to you.
Also, try telling someone that they are a cool, laid-back person to be around and they will try to live up to that (and manage far more successfully!).

So now we've seen that roles serve their purpose, what's the alternative and why would you choose it?

The alternative is internally validated expression. See? It even sounds better!

Internally Validated - Your sense of self, who you are, what you want comes from within. Who sets the standard?
You. Or everyone else for you.

A really great way of discovering whether someone is internally validated is by watching how they use their time and energy. Someone who is internally validated typically uses their time and energy very well.

They don't waste time honouring crappy behaviour.

They don't tolerate shit from others. There are clear boundaries of acceptable behaviour.

They do the things they love.

They speak their mind.

They have positive energy.

They speak positively of others and themselves.

They have their own mannerisms.

They expect high standards of others but more importantly OF THEMSELVES.

They are focused on the present, not worried about yesterday or tomorrow. This means they don't have niggling worries. They get shit sorted right away. I cant feel good if I know Ive got an essay to do and I'm on facebook.

They look people in the eye and speak with authority.

They value their own judgement above others without making ill-informed decisions.

They aren't afraid to break rapport.

They're not afraid of making mistakes and don't bury their head in the sand when they do. You can tell a lot about someone by the way they deal with adversity. Everyone faces shit. The difference between the cool person and the uncool is the way the cool person deals with shit. It's weird when I hear people say "He's so lucky" or "Nothing bad ever happens to her". Trust me it does. They deal with it and move on instead of whining. Geddit?

I could go on. These are just symptoms. The question really is, WHO IS IN CHARGE OF YOUR LIFE?

This is what is means to be yourself. And when you're yourself you're not playing a role.

Why not play a role?

For a start it's easier and you feel better about it.

Secondly you become a compelling person to be around. You become different. You have spark.

Ultimately people respond well to people not roles. Being genuine is something everyone appreciates. You are far more likely to get what you want.

Too much alcohol is good for your nights out

2009-02-03T19:24:00.001Z

There's an incredible drinking establishment near where i live called the Cock Tavern. We've never been in because, frankly, it's named after the male appendage and has a hoard of men outside with various convictions for touching women/children/kittens innappropriately.

So Yesterday after me and my friend (we'll call him Goodman) finished a bottle of Cava we went to explore. It's got a lovely fireplace with a real fire. I took my shoes off and placed them by the fire. Ah toasty bliss.
Goodman: "This place stinks of piss!"
Three old men look up and stare straight at me: "Time for a strip?"
Pd: "Time for your mum"
The old man's friends cheer. Whatever.

We order our pints and exchange stories about going to grammar school. Did anyone else burn different types of polos on bunsen burners in an effort to ascertain the most flammable type?
Try it. Fruit polos are spectacular and result in you being banned from practicals.
We try to describe each other in a few words. I am given Narcissistic, Independent, Confident, Kind. I should have been called Nick!
In return I give Goodman, "Warm-hearted, funny cockbag".

At some point a dog comes out and starts playing with my shoes. I run over and just as im about to retrieve my shoe I slip and fall on the dog.
Old men 1 - Pd 1.
Then out of nowhere, and I coulkdnt make this up, a cat comes along to mediate between myself and the dog. It's like a jungle in here. I honestly expect a hippo to come charging round the corner to arrest us all. The cat doesnt seem to like me. I wonder off to the toilet. It's funny, but the toilet smells better than the pub. Maybe they put the wrong room odouriser in each room.

We move on to various pubs. Eventually Goodman exclaimns that he hasnt drunk from a pitcher for a long while. So we get a pitcher. The Itbox has a game called "Are you smarter than a 10 yr old?". The questions are ******* stupid. I lose half my student loan on it. The pub is amused by my insults at the box. The final straw is when we are one question away from winning money and we have "Religions for 10 yr olds" left to answer. The question, for a few gold coins that any 10 yr old knows:

"Who is the hindu God of rain, wind, and some other precipitate?"

A_ Shivva
B_ Hamalangadingdong
C_Shoobedoobedoo
d_Balti

PD: WHAT KIND OF ******* TEN YEAR OLD KNOWS THAT? THIS IS STUPID? WHAT NEXT? 6 yr old science with questions on string theory? OH ...Wait.... Goodman...you used to be hindu!
Goodman looks at me...time stands still....
He clicks on B, Hamalangadingdong. WRONG. We have one more effort...he clicks A_Shivva.........

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

PD: Shivva...thats the name of a coldplay song...why do I hang out with you, you insolent cockface?
Goodman: This is a stupid game...it's none of them../it's a trick questiopn...where was the option for "This game is a pile of steaming ****?"

At this point Goodman realises he has just an hour to go before a Christian Union event. So off we go, pints in hand, back to mine.

On the way back we see two police officers. I grab a snowball and make my way oh so secretly towards them. They do the same.
BANG
The police officer ducks as I send a snowball screeching over his head.
BANG BANG
They retaliate hitting me in the chest.
Goodman doesnt play along. He was too busy hiding his pint so we werent arrested for being drunk and disorderly, stealing pint glasses and drinking in a public area.

I wolf down some food at home and dance along to electro house and muse. We leave for CU. I have the biggest coffee in hand.
Goodman: We're off to the pub!
Pd: WTF?
Goodman: That's where the CU event is!
Pd: I love you jesus!

When we turn up Im introduced to the whole group. The group looks like a world of warcraft meeting. What is this? NERD NERD NERD
I head to the bar.
As I do so three attractive Xtian gals approach Goodman. This is what Im talking about.
I return to the seated area, drink in hand, and plonk myself in the middle of them. In the space of an hour, most of it spent talking to alphagirl, I make it clear Im off my face ("Ive been drinking since three" in the least apologetic way possible), make repeated anti-semitic comments which I mitigate with the fact I dated a jew, hold a serious 5 minute conversation about Xtian's rationality, philosophy, alienate everyone from Newcastle, make it abundantly clear I dont like nerds or fat bitches and exclaim, upon hearing that a few of them do geography that, "But I didnt think they offered that past GCSE".

At some point my mother calls. I held it together really well. She phoned concerned about my illness. So I totally didnt let on that I was drunk. Until about 3 and a half minutes in she says, "Dont drink too much alcohol and Ill speak to you tomorrow". WOOPS

Most of the group leave and now it's just me, Goodman and two nerdynerds. I accuse the female nerd (who has a boys name...lol) of hitting on me, being stupid, and studying a degree of no consequence (psychology).
Goodman almost faints when...
PD: so you wanna be a psychotherapist?
Girl: No
PD: Stop loving me now...
Girl: ........
Pd: Or maybe a psychotherapist without the 'the'.

On my way home I chat breeze to my fbuddy whilst she's in the bath. She invites me to a party on wednesday. I inform her Im only interested in her for the sex and that she'd make a rubbish girlfriend cos she talks too much. I have an untameable obsession about how her muff is coiffured and repeatedly call her, bitch, hobag and whore.

My housemate heard a lot of the conversation and gave me the "Youve burned bridges" look.

We'll see.

On United States

2009-01-21T21:40:00.003Z

First of all what a terrific pun! Did you see what I did there.... You think it's gonna be on Obama or the US but NO...out of nowhere I pull out an article on emotions.

FUCK...what unadulterated genius!

Anyway. So we all have good days and bad days. That much is clear. Nobody ALWAYS feels shit and nobody ALWAYS feels amazing.

What is clear is that some people have more good days than other people. And not one or two more over the course of a year. But three or four more over the course of a week.

Why is that?

That's my quest (I fricking love that word...QUEST! ONWARDS YOUNG ONES! The future is ours!).

This much is key:

You must please yourself because nobody else is responsible. You alone are responsible for your happiness. If you dont make yourself happy you are relying on other people. See what happens when you rely on others?
If you make your happiness dependent on your environment and you are FAR MORE LIKELY to see peaks and troughs.

And let's look at the inverse. If you are constantly making yourself happy then guess what...you care going to be happy. And you are a constant in your life. You will always be there to make yourself happy.

What a SIMPLE and POWERFUL realisation that is. Deep, huh?

You have a sense of humour right? I do. Everyone does! What would change if you were able to express yourself freely and amuse yourself. It feels like an inward projection of joy, externally projected.

What would please me now?

When you think about it there really is nothing that you should be doing that doesn't bring you joy. Maybe a particular task isn't particularly exciting, but it should be for an exciting cause. If you can appreciate the bigger picture, why not be happy doing it?

"But I don't feel like Im the kind of person who can express myself freely."

Well, I get this. I see where people are coming from when they mke this objection. But when you are self amusing, you put yourself in a GOOD MOOD. Your state increases. And when your state is high you lose awareness of other people's reactions in any meaningful sense. It doesn't matter.

The one qualifier to this is that it must be UNWAVERING. If you amuse yourself and you're waiting to see how others will react then your state will DROP. Because inevitably they won't always understand what's going on. If you make a funny, quirky comment (that you like) and then wait to see other's reactions then this is reaction seeking and RELYING ON OTHERS for your happiness, which is exactly what we're trying to get away from. If you are reaction seeking, what is making you happy?
Not your self-amusing comment/behaviour but OTHER PEOPLE'S REACTIONS.

Unwavering, inward joy - projected outwards.

Try it. Make yourself happy. It's the shit.

Heaven Knows Im Miserable Now

2009-01-17T14:12:00.005Z

I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour
But heaven knows I'm miserable now

I was looking for a job, and then I found a job
And heaven knows I'm miserable now

In my life
Why do I give valuable time
To people who don't care if I live or die ?

Two lovers entwined pass me by
And heaven knows I'm miserable now

I was looking for a job, and then I found a job
And heaven knows I'm miserable now

In my life
Oh, why do I give valuable time
To people who don't care if I live or die ?

What she asked of me at the end of the day
Caligula would have blushed

"You've been in the house too long" she said
And I (naturally) fled

In my life
Why do I smile
At people who I'd much rather kick in the eye ?

I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour
But heaven knows I'm miserable now

"You've been in the house too long" she said
And I (naturally) fled

In my life
Why do I give valuable time
To people who don't care if I live or die ?

Hands up if you've ever felt like this song. There's definitely something very modern about the sense of alienation, the impossibility and fleetingness of happiness and the sense of disconnect with others. In the 21st Century it seems like these are pressing issues. In fact these are eternal issues. Concepts that man has struggled with forever.

To whom or what should we devote our time?
How do drugs and alcohol link to happiness? And to perception? Is it just escapism?
To quote Noel gallagher, "Is it worth the aggravation to find yourself a job, when there's nothing worth working for?"
Can having new things make you happy? Is money the root to happiness?

It's a lyric about meaning, purpose and happiness.

A few comments:

- Stuff in itself cannot make you happy.

- Acquiring things can but only if they fit within your plan for life and your principles. If you hate the idea of using children's blood to die your socks then working at Primark will not make you happy....unless you value the money more in your current life situation.

- Acquiring new things that sit happily with your values and your future plans will make you happy. Growth is important for a person to feel good. Are you growing?

- Money doesnt make you happy. Acquiring more money might. So long as it isn't at any price. Investing in evil dictatorships (Zimbabwe?) make most people squirm. It certainly isn't the root to all evil though. It's just a thing.

- Happiness is an emotion. If something doesn't affect you emotionally it will not lead to happiness. This is probably the most important point in this essay.

- What's your purpose? What do you want from life? Do you have a vision? Do you have that one thing that inspires you... That gets you truly excited for when you think about the future. If you have then you've found your calling and you're a lucky person. If not...what's stopping you?

What kind of person do you want in your life? You can't have choice until you know what it is you want to choose. Once you know what you're looking for you're far more likely to find it. Our brains have something called a Reticular Activation System (RAS) which tunes in to things of value.

Examples of the RAS at work positively:

1) When we buy a new car we start seeing similar ones everywhere.
2) Why certain articles stick out from the dozens we skim in the newspaper.
3) Why heads snap in the bar as a hot piece of ass walks by.

Conversely when things don't have value we blank them out. Examples of the RAS working negatively:

1) Our minds wonder to more pressing issues when we're sat in a boring lesson/meeting.
2) It is difficult to hear background noise/someone shouting when we're concentrating on something intensely.
3) We can't see our noses despite the fact we should be able to!

Each of us is born with our own little value radar.

Our senses can scan thousands of pieces of information but only consciously process 7+/- 2 pieces. Our RAS decides which pieces we are consciously processing. If you remind yourself regularly what you want out of life then it will increase those things' value. Your RAS will then effortlessly hunt out these things for you.

This is what is actually going on when people talk about The Law of Attraction.

Having more of what you want is happiness. Find out what you want, get what you want, find out what else you want. Wash, rinse, repeat. This is one small, important part of happiness.

Have a think about what you value. What do you REALLY value? How can you get more of it? What affects your emotions positively? What are your values? Welcome to the start of happinesss...

Thanks for reading. Coming up this week, as promised: A history of my studies/career

I kissed a girl and she liked it..

2009-01-09T22:42:00.002Z

Living in reaction muchly? What is this song anyway? Where is it?

A Piece of Mind 3/3

2009-01-09T18:37:00.004Z

My heart is pounding...my stomach feels heavy and sick.

“Go! Go! GO! Stop thinking... GO!”

The noise was suffocating. His voice pierced through... I felt physically sick.

There was no way back. I knew it. I had to go. The unknown isn’t terrifying...until you know it’s there. And then it grips you. Every nerve in my body was straining. My mind had gone cold. I was incapable of thought. In that moment I had died. Just as I was about to burst into tears, he pushed me firmly into my new reality.
This was it. And it hurt....

Talking to girls can be terrifying. Really scary. It’s easy to do when you’re blitzedfucked on lager. When you’re drunk enough that singing Wonderwall at 1000 decibels isn’t embarrassing, when you’re drunk enough that there are now twice as many attractive girls as there were at the start of the night, when you’re drunk enough that the world spins as the kebab comes back up, when you’re that fucked... talking to a girl is no longer such a problem. You don’t notice the funny looks. There is no resistance. You don’t care what happens because it’s not you at stake, it’s the alcohol. Tomorrow you can wake up and say, “Man I was so drunk! I did so many stupid things! I really pissed off those girls...”

It’s weird. When you’re drunk it’s socially accepted that you are no longer you. You morph into another being. “I was drunk” is a legitimate excuse for behaving in ways you’d usually be ashamed of as though it were a sudden bout of unexplained insanity. As if you didn’t spend half an hour getting ready to go out and half an hour getting there. As if you didn’t willingly spend £20 to make yourself lose control. It’s wilful destruction. And there’s nothing bad in that. It’s just curious that we disassociate ourselves with our actions when we’re drunk. It’s still us, right? It seems a poor defence to say your behaviour is mitigated by your lack of control when you had complete control of your actions in the run up to your drunkenness. No one held a gun to your head to coerce you to drink.

Flipping that on its head it’s funny how we get drunk to achieve an aim. We deny responsibility when we lose control. But we get drunk precisely to lose control. We drink to forget. We drink to remember. We drink to boost confidence. We drink to not give a fuck. And providing we can keep the drink down and keep our limbs under some vague semblance of control we succeed in forgetting, remembering, becoming more confident and not giving a fuck.

So all of a sudden when that crutch is gone your body and mind go into shock. That association between the loose state of mind and social environments is broken. The addiction is cut. The stress is immense. Emotional and mental states are addictive (literally: this is why change is so hard) and the body resists the change. Despite the fact you intellectually want to change, your body and mind emotionally and physically do not.

The alcohol served a great positive function. The ability to not give a fuck. Say stupid shit to self amuse. To speak your mind. To act with confidence. To not give a fuck how you are perceived. All these things are possible with alcohol. These positive, liberating states that can be so rare whilst sober appear, as if by magic, out of nowhere. Alcohol isn’t what’s popular. (Here you can substitute any drug). What’s popular is the effect of the drug: the new emotional and mental state. (This is why the prohibition of drugs, including alcohol, will never work whilst people have no knowledge of how to reach these states: it also explains why people are willing to take drugs despite the effects on health.) Too often we demonise the substance. It’s just a bunch of chemicals. It isn’t a moral agent. It’s ridiculous to say drugs are evil anymore than it is to say guns are evil.

Accessing these positive states is a need we all have. Most people fall into one of two categories.

1) Taking substances to reach these states as a matter of necessity.

2) Not getting these needs met and being frustrated, ending up in a negative loop. Being addicted to negative emotions.

I’d hazard a guess that 90%+ people fall into these two categories. There’s good reason for it: it’s easy. It’s far easier to buy emotional and mental states (just as people think they’re buying happiness with a new pair of shoes). If we feel good invariably sober, being tipsy guarantees a certain effect. It’s far easier.

It’s far easier wishing you could be happy.

It’s far easier setting goals you consistently fail to reach.

It’s far easier watching your New Year’s resolutions fly by.

It’s far easier watching other people having more fun.

It’s far easier feeling like others have it better.

It’s far easier needing validation from others to feel good.

It’s far easier feeling like you have tiptop potential but you might never reach it.

It’s far easier to dream the life rather than living the dream.

Only it’s not, right?
There’s this real sick reality where people are both addicted to negative emotions and want to cut the addiction...but can’t.

What’s the alternative?
The alternative, the place where so few people are, is to fight to cut the addiction. The alternative is to take responsibility for the way you think and feel.
The alternative means;

Being Happy

Setting exciting goals and hitting them

Having more fun than you can handle

Feeling like you life is pushing the Max. Counter

Realising the potential you thought you had is a fraction of what you can achieve.

Living the dream.

This isn’t easy though. It threatens to challenge your conception of who you are. If you want to habitually feel a different set of emotions and have different thought patterns then you are pushing your very essence to the limit. Whatever you think you are has to go. All of it. Whatever you think you are is your ego. They’re thoughts.
You’ve got negative thoughts now.
You want positive thoughts.
Your current negative thoughts have to go.
Isn’t that what it takes? Isn’t it? So those doubts, that cynicism, that resistance...those traits characteristic of negativity have to be replaced by acceptance, embracing life and flow.

A great first step would be to take yourself down to the cinema to watch Yes Man with Jim Carrey. It’s really good. What I got from the film is a sense of rolling with the flow of life instead of resisting.

Once more for the good times: It’s about taking responsibility. Dropping the sense of self. And accepting that any change, whilst needing firm goals as a motivator, should be process orientated. It’s easy to learn to play the guitar because your sense of self isn’t tied up with it (and even then: isn’t it easy to kid yourself when you don’t manage to achieve something by saying, “I never really wanted to do it anyway”. Which begs the question, why did you start?). When it comes to learning personal skills it is a lot harder.

Whenever you kid yourself that you’re something that you’re not you become inauthentic. Progress stalls. Before I began the journey I never really had to look at myself in a serious, objective way. You can be whatever you want in the moment. You can say what you like. Integrity doesn’t really come into it because there’s nothing at stake. No progress to see. Just a fluctuating self based on mood and environment.

Change isn’t easy but it is possible. One reason why people don’t change is because the opportunity cost, the mental strain of changing is greater than the perceived benefits. It really is massive. I can’t imagine anything with a greater cost than your sense of self. The reason why it’s worth it is the benefits are priceless. You can’t put dollars on a life well lived. On happiness. On escape from time and pain.

Another reason why people don’t succeed is because this isn’t an on/off switch. To change the way you behave and feel isn’t binary. You don’t have pain and then work hard for ages and then find yourself in a place of prosperity and joy. Not overnight. Not after 2 years. It’s a slow, gradual process. Everyone wants happiness but not everyone wants the stages in between. And there are far more stages in between than the final stage. Every time you walk that path you know that you’re not where you want to be yet. Every single bloody day. This is why it’s vital to take pleasure from the process and not just the end goal. When a sense of self is tied up with the journey you are going to fail. No ego. Process not result orientated.

Here’s why. If you’re not process orientated you’re never going to be happy because you’re never going to get there. Once you commit to the journey you commit to it for life. This isn’t a one day travelcard. The choice is all or nothing. Your whole life or never. Once you hit the goals you originally set out for yourself (more confidence, more friends, more women) you’ll realise they aren’t as great or special as you originally thought. Your new reality will feel exactly the same as your old reality did. We don’t believe that having the strength of gravity we have is weird because we’re used to it. People from another planet might feel we’re nuts to want to live in a planet with such a strong gravitational force field. Just as people from the Amazon might think we’re nuts to want to live surrounded by concrete and tarmac instead of surrounded by the beauty that is nature. States are addictive and our current set of skills and norms (our comfort zones) as well as all the things that comprise our life (house, cars, kids, university education) don’t make us feel good in themselves.

What makes us feel good is growth and acquiring new things. Rich people aren’t any happier than poor people. Do you feel blessed because you sat GCSEs? More than likely you feel it’s normal. Think of a skill you have that not many other people have( it can be anything from untying difficult knots to speaking a foreign language to being able to sing). Chances are you don’t feel special because of it. It’s just normal. And yet there are people out there who would love to have that skill. The same applies with something like confidence or the ability to get your freak on in a club. Once you have that it will just be normal. Like yeh.
And that feeling of normalness is the same for everyone.

The exhilaration comes from having a flow in your life. From growth. So to keep that buzz you will need to keep improving. And if you keep improving you become one of the elite, happy, successful people. A well rounded individual.
It’s a journey for life. Do you accept the challenge? The opportunity...?

Confronted with the scary prospect of having to face the realities of my life unaided I froze. I knew I wanted more. I googled chat up lines. I went out and used them. Eventually I found stories which I could tell to people to arouse intrigue. I thought up my own stories. I wasn’t there yet. The emphasis was on the words. The impression left on others. I wanted people to like me. I had decided that. It seemed natural to do things that would make people like me.

If you want a coffee you go and do something that’s going to get you some coffee.
If you want people to like you then you go and do something that’s going to make people like you.
It makes sense, right?

As an extremely logical person there seemed to be a click. My whole approach to life was based on logic. And as such anything that seemed to be counter intuitive was dismissed. The problem is that “respect”, “love”, “fondness” are all emotions. They aren’t ruled by maths and digits. Like our morals there can be no rational basis for these basic instincts. They just are.

So whilst I was on the right path I was a million miles off.

I went out with a guy called Ozzie who literally pushed me into girls and taught me a lot. A lot that boils down to, “Just do it”. And that’s all there is to it. I started having glory nights. Nights where the whole club would know and love me. Nights where sex was a game of pick’n’mix.

The difference between social success and social failure is social experience. If you’re not going out and being social then you fail to gather the required reference points. No amount of rationalisation will help you. Being social isn’t an equation. It can’t be understood. It’s a feeling.
All that can be understood is that you must be prepared to change and accept a process.

It lasts forever.

For all the times I asked “What did he say to get the girl?” (and others have asked me the same question), it isn’t about the words. It’s not about the superficiality. It’s about a state of being that can only be felt when you’re prepared to open yourself to the moment. To be present to what’s going on. Above all it is a willingness to fail a million times.

A willingness to be ignored when you go and say “Hello”.

A willingness to be told you’re weird.

A willingness to be told to fuck off.

A willingness to not be accepted.

A willingness to be given dirty looks for existing.

In NLP there is a great saying. There’s no such thing as failure, only feedback. If you don’t have a good understanding of this then you will fail. But progress you will make. Slowly the odd night will get good. You'll have fun 1 in every 3 nights. Then 1 in every 2 nights. Then your very best nights become your worst nights. And then you're overflowing with that sense of joy and laughter every time you even think about clubbing. It’s totally possible..

Sometimes you meet someone and you have that flow with them. That amazing smoothness. Someone that brings out your best self. I found that in a Jew. As an athiest this is a little like kitten falling for an alsation. Nobody dates Jews. Not even Jews. They just get married by some divine sort of osmosis.

They are horribly cliquey.

They eat loads of cheesecake.

They listen to music even my dad would be ashamed of listening to.

In many ways they still live in 1826.

Yet there are lots of appealing things about being Jewish. The strong communities they’ve developed as a result of their constant ostracism through history provide security. Everyone knows everyone. Being a Jew in North London is like being Postman Pat. Jews have festivals every 4 days. It’s incredible that they have so much to cheer about. But cheer they do.
If life just wants to survive, then Jews graduated with honours.

And in this simple Jew I saw so many positive things. A cute naivety. A tight little body. And some integrity. Compared to the dozens of club girls I felt like I had found a gem. A little Neolithic treasure. Unaffected by civilisation. A kid like state despite the maturity. Passionate. Compassionate. Intelligent. Silly. An utter paradox.

These are all rationalisations. Of course it happened nothing like this. I didn’t know why I wanted her beyond the fact I thought she was hot and wanted to be inside her.

When I first got to know her I still came from a place of wanting the other person to see my best side. It didn’t really matter what anyone thought of me so long as I put out my best self. I still think it’s important to always put out your best self. But it has to come from a pure place of doing it for you. What’s more you shouldn’t be afraid of your bad points. A failure to do so is a bad ego trip. We all have bad points. We all have good points. It’s human. A failure to see that in yourself and others is a failure to appreciate our humanity. Our frailty. Everyone has bad days. Social persona is the surface not the depth.

She helped me to see this distinction in many ways. One positive way was her lack of bragging. It is a macho thing that everyone who went to a boys’ school or grew up with competitive siblings has: that desire to show off all your good points. She didn’t. Every time we met I saw a new side to her. Something else that was cool that she had done. And she expressed it with humility and matter of factness. This is high value behaviour.

High value people are on their path and do things for them. There’s a centeredness to their actions.

She was far from perfect. She had dozens of faults and insecurities. She still has. But she’s human, right?

From the start the context of our relationship was awkward because of the religiousity gap. The first few months we saw each other informally. I asked her out once. She turned me down. I persisted. We continued seeing each other. The immense click we felt together was contrasted by the awkwardness of her Jewishness. Whilst we were together though we existed as too humans. Two kindred spirits alive together. She couldn’t tell her parents about us. She couldn’t tell her friends. I was her secret. She lived at home and I never met her dad. I met her mum once whilst we were friends.

Whilst at uni she had the perfect chance to come and see me. We spent days and nights together. Sometimes days would go by and the only person I would see that I knew would be her.
For all the good times we were both living lies. On some level we knew it was wrong. There was a pressure. It wasn’t a waste of time because we both got so much out of it. We can truly say we left each other in a better state than we found each other. And isn’t that a beautiful thing to have?

I learnt a lot about my standards in a relationship. I will never be in a relationship again that asks me to alter my route in life. My calling is always the most important thing. A girl doesn’t complete me or guide me.
More than intellectually understanding it, I felt for the first time, that I am responsible for my happiness. Nobody else is. I’m not responsible for anyone else’s happiness. When she desperately clung onto a relationship that I didn’t feel was working I stayed. There were some rocky times. Still I stayed because I felt responsible for her and wanted to protect her. This was mega noble. Ultimately she has to be responsible for her happiness and me mine.
We’re still friends, a fact I very much appreciate.

Mmmmmmmmmmmm! The sweet taste of capitalism!
I defy anyone not to like that tune. Catchy times.

Looking forward.

From 18-20 I went out clubbing twice a week and I was sharp. Intensely social – liiiiiive! I want to get that back. More than that I feel a broad base will be important for my future. I’m going mix it on student nights, cool clubs, smart clubs. I’m going to mix it in rock bars, at gigs and on the scene. I’m going to do the after work crowd in the city. I’m going to do a week of every type of social environment I can think of. Even the tube. 5 times a week without fail. Good times.

I want to continue to be ego free. I’ve had guys ask me to take them out to meet girls and I’ve accepted but it just fuels ego. I know nothing. I’m not defined by my normal reality. Anyone can do or be anything. I just am.

Just do it man. 2009 is the year of exploration. I still can. Im hella young and until September at least I have a lot of time on my hands. I don’t want my youth to be wasted on the young.

Cheers!

The Misguided Economist

2008-12-29T18:08:00.010Z

When I was 16 my mum got me The Economist: The World in 2004. I expected it to be funny. It wasnt. Not quite the same as the Beano's Annual Review. Although to be frank that was never as funny to me as it was to other kids.

The World in 2004 had funny captions. I won't deny that. But as is the way with serious publications most of the magazine was text. Next year I got The World in 2005. This time I found it hilarious. I don't know why. Maybe the writers were on a high because the global economy was doing so well (remember those days?).

Over time I have grown to respect the The Economist for its liberal views and coherent journalism. It benefits from being a weekly newspaper: it doesn't have the same drag towards sensationalism that even traditional stalwarts such as The Times have suffered from in recent times. There is far less reactionary journalism in The Economist which I respect.

I'm currently living with an Economist. At first all I found amusing was the odd caption. Now I find him hilarious. He suscribes to The Economist which means I get my weekly fix. Great! When he had gone home to Cambridge and his parents to gorge on duck terrine and roasted ricotta and pinenut tortillas he left behind the Christmas edition of The Economist.

The Christmas edition of The Economist is a big deal. It's like the Radio Times: it's big enough for two weeks. And you get a beautiful insight into the people who write the paper. They talk about music, science and roasted ricotta and pinenut tortillas.

The one thing it deals very badly with is sex. It's not a great surprise though. Maths and sex meet at one point: "I'd like to be your derivitive so I could lie tangent to your curve!". A bad line. (Ok...it is kinda funny!). Economics and Sex's sordid relationship begins and ends at the price of a prostitute. It comes (heheh) as no surprise that The Economist takes a scientific approach to sex. I have no objections to this. Sex is, afterall, an evolutionary device to pass on genes.

It's a shame that The Economist fucks up so badly. It approaches sex in the same way they deal with fiscal policy in Singapore: in a detached emotionless way. It seems funny when dealing with relationships and people that you can contemplate looking at the issue in a purely theoretical way.

The first moment that made me wonder whether the author of this particular article had ever set foot in a club was, "Men [show off to attract members of the opposite sex] more than women" before dropping a reference to women wearing hats at ascot. Like what? This theme runs throughout the article. WHAT? I know that guys bullshit and brag a lot. Im not retarded/pinnochio. And the article acknowledges that both men and women show off. But HATS AT ASCOT? How fucking upper middle class. How about clubs and pubs across the country every Friday and Saturday night? The average guy makes sure he has a nice shirt or a cool tshirt on and some jeans that have no visible coffee/spunk stains and might put some gel/perfume on.

Girls spend aeons in the bathroom getting ready. I was ready to go clubbing with a girl to an annual rave in 2006 and we only just made the 2007 edition. She looked hot though.

Makeup. Clothers. Hair. It all has to be acknowledged. It's as much to be better than the other girls (the same "bragging" that guys are accused of in the article) and for their own self esteem as for guys (Im not deluded about this). But the time that goes in to making a girl attractive is far more than that for a guy.

Then in the club they're shaking their cute little ass, making squealing noises and flaunting it all over the bar. When girls make out with each other in the club it isn't to pay homage to their personal hero Katy Perry. Clue: Attntn

Anyway. My real beef isnt here. It's kinda irrelevant. It's just so far off the mark I had to point it out. It illustrates (good word!) how far off the mark the guy was and what sort of place he was coming from (Ascot! hahaha...i cant get over that one!). Incidentally, scientific surveys on sex and attractiveness make me laugh. Researchers are PhD folk in universities. Professors. Old men. Remember the geekiest kids at school...they were SCIENCE geeks. The least likely to put their Johnson in anything that doesnt belong to them. And these guys with 10 years more nerdiness rubbed into them are going to explain sex to us? C'mon! haha It's funny, right?

"Status" said the Ascot-wondering economist "is mediated by money".

hahaha. I hadnt cottoned on to just how funny this article is. It's almost satire. Terribly Dickensian old sport!

On an individual level we obviously get that that isn't the case. There are exceptions, of course, but attraction, love, sexual desire (whatever you want to call it) is not based on money. It just isn't. We accept that it's shallow and it's shallow for a reason. Because humans just dont fall in love with other humans because they have money.

On the level of societies it's wrong as well. Between different groups of people it doesn't matter. Kids from deprived areas aren't trying to get rich so they can be like the queen or Peter Jones. As the articles points out they are doing it be oneup on their peers. But even here this is looking at the surface and not the depth.

What is status?

Status is social position. Being high status means you have a high social position. You can have high status in one group and have low status in another. So status is best understood as a relative. It isn't something you can point to. Status isn't like a chair. Or a rock. It exists in the minds of people and relates to people and groups. This is really important. Reread it if you have to.

What's curious about status is that it is accepted and recognised by everyone. You dont need to be a member of a group to know who has status. You dont need to know the people. You can walk up to a group of strangers and know who is top dog and who is submissive. Its an engrained ability we all have to notice the leader and where we likely stand in that group. Consciously. Or subconsciously. And this effects how we behave in that group. The person who views him or herself as being highest status is the most free, natural and cool person. Because they give themselves permission to act like that. The person at the top doesn't bend for others. They dont care if the group takes them or leaves them. They are who they are. Other people react to them.
And the further down you go in terms of group status the more you react to others, the less you feel like you can express yourself and the more worried you are about how you will be perceived by others.

Is it the case that you can quickly recognise who has status in a group? Yes.
Is it the case that you can quickly recognise who has the most money in a group? Sometimes. Often not though. Within one group of friends it is hard to tell the vast majority of the time.

It seems to me that group dynamics are important in determining who mates and who doesnt. A woman is far more likely to want to match her egg to the sperm of a high status male than a low status male.

Isnt that the case though? Isnt it!

Money can often be a factor in who allows themself to be high status. But high status is just a free state of mind.
Status is in a sense determined by each individual. Each individual has some power of decision over whether he is going to be fun, positive and stick to his sense of self no matter what social pressure there may be. With practice (experience?) it becomes easier.

Is a girl going to want the genes of a totally cool, at ease, principled, solid guy or a rich one?

Money is laughable in this context.

In any event people tend to mate with others in their social circle. Social circles tend to have little disparity in terms of wealth. Eton boys dont hang out with bros from the hood. Ya get me?

At the risk of having constructed a strawman perhaps The Economist wanted to make a comment not about the status within a group but between groups. Practically this is irrelevant anyway as guys and girls go for girls and guys with whom they have commonalities. Meeting partners through social circles is extremely common.

This needn't matter though if low status social groups want to fuck/mate people from higher status groups.

First it needs to be explained what low and high status means. On the one hand it's not clear that gangsters want to fuck spoilt brats. Maybe they do. Maybe they dont. It certainly doesnt seem like they do because they're high status. On the other hand Brad Pitt (high status) attracts a lot of attention from women (far more than he would if he was working at Wall Mart anyway). How to resolve this tension?

Well first off we would do well to disassociate social status/evolutionary value with social class. Social class is related to money. It's hard to see what else it is. Social status is a different kettle of fish. What makes Brad Pitt particularly attractive? Why do we say "get laid like a rock star"? It's not cos they make a lot of money. It's because people the world over are reacting heavily to the way they behave. They are in control through their acting and performing. Same goes with sports stars. When you've got 80,000 people in the stadium and millions at home cheering, booing and being emotionally involved in the actions of someone, then that someone gains a lot of social value. They become socially important on a vast scale. This is why these guys are so attractive.

If people from what Victorians would call (and let's make no mistake about it, no right-minded person in the 21st Cenutry would) lower status groups want to earn more money it isn't because they want to swap hip-hop for classical music. Humans love to belong to a group (racial groups, gender groups, sports teams, music genres) and the aim is to appear as higher status within that group as possible. Idols for an average inner-city black teen might be the guys who run the estate or Kanye West. Kanye West lives the good life within the context of being a black male. He hasn't got rich and famous and decided that actually The Good Life isn't for him and he'd rather be producing piano concertos.

Kanye West is a brilliant observer of class by the way. "The people highest up got the lowest self-esteem/The prettiest people do the ugliest things", "I ain't saying she's a golddigger, but she aint hanging with no broke nigger" and finally, most pertinently,

"Some people graduate but we still stupid
They tell you eat this, read this, don't look around...
And after all that you receive this".

Kanye's no Shakespeare. He sips champagne on planes not at the opera. He'll never be caught at Ascot. And he certainly aint eating pine nut and ricotta tortillas. He hasnt received this, but he's got it. Cos he opens his eyes.

A different global view: 2000 and now.

A Piece of Mind (Part 2/3)

2008-12-22T14:16:00.006Z

Sat in a car in the South of France, whilst the crickets were chirping and our team leader was indulging his alcoholic tendencies, I became great. I smoked my first spliff.

I guess smoke is an exaggeration. I breathed in and spluttered turning 12 shades of red and purple before vowing never to do it again.

I was on an International Work Camp. God, that sounds like Auschwitz. It wasn’t. We had to wake up at 6am, make our way to a field on a hillside and build stone walls.
I’m not helping, am I?

In the afternoons we got to do a range of activities. The boys didn’t care what we did because the girls wore next to no clothing. The girls didn’t care what we did because they got attention from the boys for wearing next to no clothing. It was the perfect symbiotic relationship and resulted in us going to the beach most days.

Gregory came from Poland.

Sara and Francesca were identical twins from Italy.

Monica, the crazy bitch, was from Slovakia. Gregory told me that in Poland they say that when Czechoslovakia broke up the intelligent people went to the Czech Republic and the stupid people went to Slovakia. On my statistically significant sample of one I am inclined to agree.

Karima was the half-Algerian half-German hotty.

Chancelle came from an impossibly boring town in Western France. She was cool.

Pritam was a black German who liked lesbians and dance music.

Marc was from Tours. He was only there so that he could get a good report from his social worker and avoid prison.

Pierre came from Britanny. This explains why he had issues. At the end of the second week another volunteer camp organised a party for all the camps in the region. We went. We were the only underage camp. We drank anyway. Pierre got smashed and ran away. He was found a few days later by the police at the central station in Paris. He had been very close to Marc. Marc considered leaving but I persuaded him to stay.

That same night I attempted to play football whilst tipsy. I fell and hurt the top of my leg. I couldn’t walk so I couldn’t work. I really didn’t miss those early starts. Especially now that I was smoking.

I stayed back at base camp and helped to shop and prepared lunch every day. I didn’t know what it was at the time but I’d find brioche and chocolate unusually appetising. Marc would stay at home with me to help me prepare lunch or, as was actually the case, to get proper fucking stoned in the sun.

We bonded hard. He told me about life back in Tours and introduced me to French hip-hop. I creased him up by saying silly things. By the end we had a real bond and he invited me to his if ever I was in Tours. I told him not to hold his breath.

The first two weeks had been very different. I had hung out with Gregory. All the girls had loved me. By the last week they felt I had sacrificed who I was. I had pandered to Marc. I had started using des gros mots. They were right.

There’s a big difference between feeling cool because you are a part of a group and being cool.
Being cool says “Fuck being part of a group, I’m following my own path”.
Pretending to be cool means pandering to whichever group you can and doing what it takes to gain acceptance.

Being cool is about internal factors not external factors.

Deep.

Back at school for the final year I started hanging out with a guy called Alan. We got stoned together in the woods with another boy Isaac. Pretty soon we were drinking and causing carnage in South London. He would tell me stories of running down train tracks and passing out in bushes. I loved the idea of freedom. It was exciting. I started getting drunk for the first time ever. Wreckhead.

Just as I was getting off the ground and enjoying the turbulence and vomit that discovering your freedom brings, I had my Oxford University interviews. 4 interviews for Law with French law over 3 days. I bought Pablo Honey by Radiohead: it’s a really cheery album with lyrics like “Im better off dead” and “there’s no ripcord” and

“I don't care if it hurts,
I wanna have control
I want a perfect body
I want a perfect soul

I want you to notice
when I'm not around
You're so fucking special
I wish I was special

But I'm a creep
I'm a weirdo
What the hell am I doing here?
I don't belong here”

I struggled massively during the interviews. I didn’t have the confidence to assert myself in the face of stern questioning and found myself justifying rape and murder in an interview with two female American professors. I stayed in my room for most of my time there except to wonder the streets listening to Radiohead on my minidisc player.

When it was time to leave I was happy. Running late to get the coach back to London I bumped into a girl almost bundling her over. I barely turned round, apologised under my breath and continued on. I took my seat on the coach just before it was scheduled to depart.
The coach was delayed.

A couple of minutes after it was scheduled to leave the girl I bustled into strolled down the aisle of the coach. She was stunning. She had flowing golden locks and sizeable firm breasts. She was tall and thin but curvaceous. She was a bit indie and a bit out of my league.

I prayed she wouldn’t sit down next to me.

As she came down the aisle she looked at me and sat in the seats in front of me smiling as she sat down.

Ten minutes into the coach journey I plucked up the courage to say something. Kinda cocky. Kinda funny. She laughed and we got talking. Incredibly everything I was saying met with a good reaction. I wasn’t talking to chat her up as I didn’t really believe I stood a chance. I was talking because it felt right. Something inside of me was telling me it was the right thing to do. I chatted to forget my endorsement of rape and murder.

She invited me to a gig a friend of hers was playing in.
We parted ways at London Victoria train station. Without each other’s contact details. She was surprised when I turned up to the gig. More than that she was attracted to me. I left with her phone number.

We stayed in touch by text message for a few months and
We kept in touch by email. We wrote the most long, exquisite emails. With hyperlinks. Colours. Different sized fonts. We sent 37 emails to each other in the space of 2 months. I still have them. We met up occasionally to see gigs in Camden and further North. It makes me warm to remember those days.

One night, after going to a gig for the same band, I ended up back at hers. Her mum was out and it was safe. We played a crazy Indian board game and stared into each other’s eyes.
That was as far as I got. I slept on the coach that night.

The next day we went to Kew gardens with a friend of hers. We walked together. We all three got hammered off cheap wine. It was an exquisite day. Just glorious! I adored her. She adored me. And yet nothing had happened. I hadn’t dared to make the first move. Her friend kept trying to hook us up. Here is how I recalled it in an email to her:

“Truth or dare (A wild attempt by a rather drunken Sophie to make our friendship awkward for a CHEAP THRILL BABY ! I adore you in the same way I do my brother and perhaps the personification of radiohead- a rather peculiar sentiment of extreme purity. A deep respect for the p.e.r.s.o.n. A sense that the world is somehow better off for having that person in this world. A hope that their future is everything they want it to be. A gladness that paths c rossed. An appreciation. Somehow. Somewhere. )”

To disguise my true feelings for her and save my ego from the self-imposed truth that I wasn’t good enough for her, I told her that she was like a relative. That my feelings towards her were platonic. I didn’t realise what effect this would have on her.

A week later a good school friend of mine had a party. I invited her. This time I had just discovered Origin of Symmetry by Muse. ROCKING! A world away from Radiohead.

She agreed to come. I picked her up from the station and we went to my school before heading onto the party. We were emotionally close. Physically distant. I was hot that night. I felt good. People responded well to everything I said and did.

It was Bliss.

She saw that I was the centrepiece and at some stage when I was being chill she pounced on me. We kissed. 10 minutes later I told her, quite naturally, that we were going home.
As soon as we got home I put The Bends by Radiohead on and we fucked for an hour.

In the morning we woke up light headed and stinking of vodka. I gushed at her and told her how lovely she was. She jumped on my dick to shut me up. We fucked again.

A bit later my brother and sister came in intrigued by this curious specimen. My mates all give me massive props for my hot lay. It didn’t mean so much to me but I enjoyed the attention.

A few weeks later Alan and I went to a gig with her in North London. We then bought drinks and took some Ritalin. It works like Speed.

Four of us ended at hers listening to my new album, Radiohead’s Amnesiac, in her room. Her friend from Kew gardens kept trying to get us to go to the spare room to fuck. She told me that everyone fancied H and I had to too. It’s true that we could barely walk down the street without someone asking for her number. H was into me apparently and I just had to make her mine. I had really got to her when I had said in an email that I saw her as a sister-like figure.

Wow.

When Alan and I left in the morning I would never see H again. It wasn’t for want of trying. I emailed her. Once. Twice. Eventually she responded with the following:

“Paul! I am awfully sorry for my lack of reply

I am currently very scared about

Looming exams

And have locked my computer away

In a secret place

So that I might not play on it

And I might learn, instead

And such an act has severed much communication

I shall reply properly

Soon

Much love

H”

I took this to be a monumental blow off. It was the end of me and H. I was confused. Slightly angry. I had blown her off but that didn’t matter. Cos I really wanted her. Now she had blown me off it was all over.

I was living inside her world and not my own. It was doomed to cause me pain. I was hanging on her every word and treating my own words as being insignificant.

And here’s the irony. To her, despite all my obvious failings, I was a cool, high value guy. She hung on my words. I hung on hers. And nothing ever got done. All it would have taken was for me to take the initiative and she was mine. Beautiful as she was she had a fairy spirit about her.
She wasn’t about to fuck just anyone.

I played guitar and wrote a song for her. When I finished I broke down in tears. Looking back it was actually pretty cool. You know how when you gush as a kid snot comes out and your face swells up? And then as an adult the most you can muster is a few salty water droplets... well this was a proper snotfest! Rocknroll!

So self-absorbed was I that her reinitiating conversation with

"Paul!

My exams are all finished! I am freeeeeeeee!"

five weeks later was received with a shrug of my shoulders. A few exchanges later I stopped replying. I had blown her off for a second time. I was scared of success. Foolishly turning away the happiness that was mine to take. All I had to do was say OK and it was mine. To the end I assumed she wouldn’t want me. My problem was internal.

Self-sabotaging is a weird thing you know...it makes no sense when viewed from an outside perspective. But aren’t we all guilty of it at some point? All you have to do to get something is go for it and be in touch with your desires, simply and honestly. Instead we invent all sorts of excuses why we can’t get something.

Our egos dictate the way we behave. Instead of pure expression we invent excuses for not getting what we want, pretend we never wanted it at all, go for things half-heartedly and don’t tell people about our desires. They are suppressed. And if these things were put out there simply we would probably get them. We all dream internally. It’s those people who dare to dream externally that succeed.

I remember my mum telling me that when she was 13 she told her dad that she didn’t know what she wanted to do when she grew up. She did. She wanted to sit in the attic writing poetry (something she had an extreme gift for).

You only live once.

I think that’s a great litmus test of whether you’re going to succeed. Can you honestly imagine telling your friends and family your hopes and dreams?

If not then what hope have you of both admitting to yourself what you want and making it a reality?

I started uni a few months later and by the following summer my wreckhead tendencies had slid and I was gobbling down pills.

I remember thinking, “Leah Betts...Leah Betts...don’t do this”. Then doing it.

I got in to do law at UCL (a better university than the Kings I had faked as a teen...it's funny how reality was better than fantasy) but my mind was on smoking weed, sleeping and getting mashup. A group of guys and gals used to go raving. Our favourite place, Whirl-y-gig, was in a church in Bethnal Green (it has since moved). It was full of hippies, children, balloons and parachutes. Glory times!

There were a couple of loud guys who dominated the group. I was quieter. They created their own clique. They decided what was funny and told the jokes. Anyone else who tried to tell a joke got ruthlessly put down. They had a little cartel. It was trenchant. They were a couple of years older than me and I didn’t have the social experience to hack it.

And yet put me in certain environments and I was kind. I gave myself permission to be who I wanted to be. I grappled with this situational confidence without much luck.

University was tough as I was living at home. I hadn’t met the people others had and the law society was cliquey. Taking so many drugs meant my mood was erratic and I lacked the motivation to commute every day.

I maintained a moderate level of success with women and I had a reputation among some friend’s as a ladies' man. I wasn’t. Not really. It was more a reflection of their lack than my abundance. I didnt really understand women. I just concentrated on enjoying myself and having the balls to do stupid shit nobody else dared to.

A hint of 13 year old ADVENTURE Paul persisting.

The drain continued. After I had ended my affair with H I had vowed that things would change. I would never be hurt by a woman again. Having touched such greatness before I believed that I was destined for greatness in my relationships. Despite everything else I had this deep inner conviction that I was going to have plenty. Things were gonna change. This time it was for real.

I had google on my side.

On Education

2008-12-03T17:16:00.003Z

Go to 6:25. You'll love it!

There is a widely held belief that knowledge is power. We live in the information age: the age of vast libraries, universities, think-tanks, computers and the Internet. Information is everywhere. Our education system is based on acquiring knowledge. If we are correct in our assumption that knowledge is power then education empowers. My contention is that it does not. It is because knowledge is so easily obtainable that its value is diminished. The way forward lies in stark contrast to the status quo.

During World War I a Chicago newspaper published several editorials calling Henry Ford an “ignorant pacifist”. Objecting to these statements he brought a libel case against them. When he stood before the court the prosecution sought to justify their claims by asking him dozens of questions about the American civil war, astrology and maths. He could answer few of them. Eventually he snapped: “I may not have as much knowledge as you, but tell me: Who is more powerful, you who knows which year the steam engine was invented or I who can summon in an instant a group of men who may bring me the answer to any question I seek to know?”. Ford, one of the most successful men of the 20th Century, had a keen appreciation of what it meant to be educated. Education (whose root comes from the Latin ‘educo’ – “I bring out from within”) is about the application of knowledge. There are an infinite number of facts out there which the keenest scholar will know but a fraction of. The skill is to be able to collect and apply information effectively and to a specific cause. It is with this in mind that we should teach our children.

Let’s take the average child. They start school aged five and are instantly hit with a healthy dose of colouring in, maths and English. As they get older the dance, banging on washing up bottles and singing is replaced with more and more maths, science and other analytical subjects (even English is assessed on your ability to analyse passages with very few marks awarded for your ability to write well). Curiously this is true of every education system in the world. In a global climate where creativity is prized – both in the arts and in business – it is bizarre that we train children out of it. And when some people resist the curb on their creativity and dare to think outside the box we hail them as geniuses! Perverse? I think so.

When a child hits 13 he faces a barrage of tests year on year each of which he is told is the most important he has ever sat and will determine his future. Is it not strange that we tell a child aged 15 that his life will be determined by a knowledge of tectonic plates and osmosis? Does anybody really believe this? Apparently so. And do we believe that success in life hinges on such trivial knowledge (how many 40 year olds can tell you what a subductive plate is likely to result in – having got an A* in both geography and science I can’t tell you aged 21...Deep sea trenches!? ). At the very least this signals an ineffective system.

I believe that there are two legacies that the education system should aim to impart to students. First are the skills to be able to deal with life: the skills of success and those of happiness. Secondly they should be encouraged to think: to challenge their beliefs and those of others. I shall discuss both now.
The first priority is to help young people, those who will shape the future, to gain the happiness and the success they deserve. The psychology of happiness is a burgeoning field (most psychology before the 1970s understandably focussing on the mentally ill and the correction of unhappiness) and so the answer isn’t straightforward. Some things are clear: contributing to others, love and connection and growth as a person all lead to happiness. All should be encouraged. Success also has keys and these should be handed to young people. Henry Ford wasn’t the most knowledgeable person but this didn’t impact on his success. His ability to set himself high targets and work tirelessly to get them contributed to his success (and I daresay his happiness). Creating motivated people who appreciate the options they have in life should be a key aim of the education system. It should not be, as it currently is, a straight path from nursery to university. Think about it for a minute. Really think about it. As a young person on Planet Earth in most countries, the height of achievement is a university degree. Blank your mind and consider whether that is the best that can be someone who aged 21 is at the peak of their powers. Is that the most they could have achieved? Are they in the best possible position to meet the challenges that lie before them? How much more effectively could those 21 years have been filled?

The second aim should be to cultivate an open mindset where beliefs are formed and challenged then formed again. And then challenged. Intellectual beliefs, moral beliefs, social beliefs. They must all be built from the ground up with just one golden rule: assume nothing. Spoon fed citizenship classes where communism, drugs and rap music are bad don’t wash with young people. The problem is exacerbated when young people try one thing they are told is bad, discover that actually it’s not all bad (and probably quite good...isn’t the forbidden fruit always sweeter?), and then question everything they are told by authority figures. Instead of creating taboos we should be encouraging young people to think for themselves and create their own considered beliefs. What are we afraid of? Original thought? Our beliefs being challenged? God help our egos. If we stop being prepared to reconsider our beliefs and the way we approach the world we stop learning and we stop progressing. Greater flexibility of behaviour leads to faster results (and results are what we all want, right?). Young children (creative young children!) learn so quickly because they experiment. They aren’t afraid to be wrong. And when they are wrong they haven’t reached failure – they’ve just got feedback from the world about how to do better next time. Can you imagine you as a toddler trying to walk, realising you couldn’t do it without falling over and giving up? NO! That’s because you didn’t. You fell over once. You fell over twice. You fell over dozens of times. HUNDREDS! And then got some success. Then a bit more. Until you were running down to the end of the garden to pick mummy’s prize roses. And guess at which age you learnt the most the most quickly? You got it. When you had that approach. When you had the clearest mind, the fewest preconceptions. The fewest beliefs you weren’t prepared to give up. When anything was possible. When squiggle monsters looked up to a smiley sunshine. When fairies and cupboard monsters existed. When plastic models were terrifying beasts roaming the earth and your hand could transform into a gun in nanoseconds. Do we have something to learn about that approach to life? Perhaps what the T.V. says, perhaps what mummy says, perhaps what PC Plod says is wrong. Who says he’s right? Why is he right? Because I said so? Really? REALLY!?

Name me one person who has pushed our world forward, even in the most analytical fields, who has let the past chain down their desire to reach the future NOW. Einstein, whose greatest work was done on radioactivity, nuclear physics and maths said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge”. Why does a teacher with a 2.2 in Physics know better and insist on pounding right and wrong into our children’s brains? It is because children are so open-minded that they accept the idea that there is a right and a wrong, a correct and a false so easily.

So we should abandon an education system with exams where there is a right answer and a thousand wrong ones. One where creativity is suppressed. One where the pinnacle of achievement is those three letters PhD. In favour of what? No knowledge? No maths? No science? No school? No. Just a different type of institution. One where exams aren’t the barometer of success unless one chooses that academia is the way forward. The first 13 years of school should be spent teaching children knowledge: Maths, English and Science. These things are important. They are useful. They should be taught alongside creative subjects. Music, dance, art. Concepts should be explained rather than regurgitated. We should not just be taught about plate tectonics and osmosis but HOW we came to know that there are such things as plates and osmosis (for if we are to go out and discover more about the world then it is the approach to discovery that is important). From 13 there should be less emphasis on knowledge. From 13-16 there should be an emphasis on how to acquire knowledge (how to tap into the Internet effectively – how to summon, like Henry Ford, a dozen wise men at a moment’s notice), what is required for success and happiness and how other cultures do things. Basic learning of knowledge should be maintained: stagnation equals regression. Once you have the basics and the knowledge of how to gather more information, becoming learned is easy. At 13 people should have a clearer idea of what their calling in life is. It may seem early but is a better place to be put in than graduating in their early 20s with a piece of paper but without a clue. Or worse still, aged 13 and disillusioned with society. By 16, armed with an open-mind and flexibility of behaviour, real choices can be made. Choices about your life that can’t be made with 12 empty certificates. It is curious that aged 25 plumbers can have a mortgage having left school at 16 whilst the guy he bullied 9 years ago can graduate with a 1st in Classics from Oxford with more debt than clue about what he wants from the rest of his life.

From 16 traditional academia can resume. I’m not against that. Doctors, engineers and scientists all require high levels of training and are fundamental to the economy. This is great and should be encouraged in those who feel their future lies there. But the education should be a means to a related end. A chemistry degree is training for becoming a chemist. Or a career in pharmaceuticals. Or because chemistry is genuinely interesting. Not because you can’t get a job without a degree and you did well at Chemistry A-level. On a pragmatic level, who would be better suited aged 23 to being a journalist – someone who went to school sat A-levels and has a 1st in English or someone with an open-mind and creativity that left school aged 16 to travel and explore other interests? Assuming both have an interest in being journalists because they love writing, a young person equipped with the skills of success and motivation and in tune with their desires (something not afforded by education systems as they stand) is in far better stead. Traditional academia can be resumed. But specialised knowledge and EXPERIENCE (that which can never be taught) is infinitely preferable in most fields. If we want to know things for their intrinsic value then being armed with the skills to research we can: Google really can be our friend, Wikipedia our librarian.

Such an education system seems wacky now but it is where the future lies. 50 years from now school will be as far from what it is today as we are now from school rooms of the 1950s complete with canes and learning by wrote. It is a sad truth that we are not disposed to creativity and happiness – like some sort of cruel genetic lottery – but rather trained out of it. The core of an education system should promote rather than penalise such beautiful, innate qualities. If we are to see the progress that we can achieve, reform is necessary. Old school is out: New skool is in. Instead of clamping down on creativity and the challenging of beliefs which are so crucial for progress we should encourage them at every opportunity. Which school would you have rather gone to? Which school would leave you in the best position for success? Tectonic plates and osmosis or freedom and empowerment?

A Piece of Mind (Part 1/3)

2008-11-29T17:49:00.011Z

So it’s conceivable that I could have done a worse job of updating the blog. I could have drunkenly edited previous posts to say “Flange” and “Crotch” after each sentence.

So much has happened since the last update. My parents have moved from London to Swansea, I’ve done over 150 hours of coaching for free and I’ve taken on my first ever Landlord, a Mr Patel. He’s great. He has the same first name as the greatest Pokémon trainer of them all.

I turned to the blog again for two reasons. The first is that a friend, Anna, is furiously writing a novel. I've heard reports that she's evolved cat’s eyes and a tail to cope with the strenuous task of writing 3000 words at 2am. I remembered how much I love writing. Plus, I really want cat’s eyes.

The second reason is that I feel my life grinding to a halt. An account of the past three weeks would read like a sojourn in Guantanamo Bay complete with sleep depravation and white noise (does Kid A count?). My brain and body are creaking. All the optimism of the summer is fading as the colours turn to grey. So it’s time to hold myself accountable for my life: this blog is a very good way of doing this. It’s a productive release.

Reading back at previous posts I see a lot of sense. A lot of writing to internalise. Like I’m giving myself advice...

If this blog is going to be back with a vengeance I have to be honest. And if I’m being totally honest there’s going to be nothing vengeful about my blog. I just like the phrase.

It’s worth being honest with myself and if I’m not ashamed of who I am and what I think, feel and do then I won’t mind there being the potential for others to read...

So I’m splitting my life into three sections: relationships, career & studies and contribution. I will review each one in turn. Totally openly. And deeply. I think this acceptance will help me face the future with more humility, drive and purpose.
Not so much irreverence. An intense bout of postage.

.................................................................

My heart is pounding...my stomach feels heavy and sick.

“Go! Go! GO! Stop thinking... GO!”

The noise was suffocating. His voice pierced through the clouds... I felt physically sick. There was no way back. I knew it. I had to go. The unknown isn’t terrifying...until you know it’s there. And then it grips you. Every nerve in my body was straining. My mind had gone cold. I was incapable of thought. In that moment I died. Just as I was about to burst into tears, he pushed me firmly into my new reality.

This was it. And it was going to hurt....

How had I got here?

Some of my earliest memories are of nursery school. Being the king of the castle. Running around Edmund Waller primary school. It seemed so fresh and alive. Located in New Cross, a deprived Inner City suburb of London, it was hardly idyllic. But that doesn’t matter. As a child you are free of the judgments that plague you as you grow up. There were bushes to hide in. Climbing frames to fall off.

Pens.

Pencils.

Paint.

People.

Beauty.

The freedom to run was all I craved.

My class was comprised of a dozen girls and, myself aside, one boy. Luck didn’t favour him: his name was Hector. He was asthmatic, lactose intolerant and had a curious aversion to answering his name in the register. I’m sure he was given a gold star for answering the register, ridiculously unfair when you consider I had to cover my page, the table, at least three walls, four sets of pigtails and the better part of the playground with paint and glitter before I got even a sniff of attention. In any event when the two nursery groups were merged for Reception Class I was slightly flummoxed by the new breed of louder, more physical human. It was no longer as easy to win the running races. I wasn’t the most obvious king of the castle. I wasn’t even the worst painter. The girls from the other class were different too, having reacted to the boys' brashness by being 30% more giggly, loud and facetious than the girls I was used to.
When they teased the boys, the boys laughed in their silly, little faces.

As a five year old this change came as a shock. Children are totally adaptable as they aren’t set in their ways. They have less reference points. Fewer expectations. And yet being thrown into the cold pool of Reception Class still stings. My first ego defences were put up.

In Year 1 my first negative feedback hit me. There was a clique of 4 “it” girls. Their table was the coolest and they chose who got to sit on it with them. They would allow a few boys on. I was best friends with the coolest boy, Bryn, a well-spoken, dashing figure. I’m pretty sure he’s now advertising toothpaste. The friendship served me well and meant I was often with the cool, cruel girls. I remember one art lesson they went round the table deciding whether marks on our faces were moles or beauty spots. They seemed curiously undecided about mine. At first it was definitely a mole. By the end of the lesson it was a beauty spot and wasn’t it hot!

Regardless, I came to accept that my impression of myself could be decided by others.

When I wasn’t on the cool table I was sat with a boy called Arlun. Girls found him attractive which is funny because his face looked like scrunched up newspaper. I was convinced he was descended from aliens although that might be influenced by his stories of the weird late-night sci-fi films he would watch. He would ask me if he had seen them but I never had. Still, the plot lines were utterly predictable even to a five year old and he was genuinely shocked when I guessed that the end of one of his anecdotes ended with a man showing his bum bum and willy.

He accused me of having seen the film and sulked.

In future I told him I had seen the films so as not to upset him. He seemed to think I was many times cooler after that and happily I was free to foretell the endings of his stories with impunity.

I came to accept that lying to appear cooler was healthy.

In many ways primary school was a weakening experience. Many things that had seemed natural to me (being honest, being kind, expressing myself) were eroded and replaced with coping mechanisms to ensure that my peers saw me in a better light. They never really did. Not in any meaningful way. It was like I injected my peers with a brief sugar high during which they respected me and thought I was cool. But I lacked the easy-going lightness of the past.

I was far from alone in feeling subjugated: a kid called Daniel bullied all the boys. It wasn’t fierce. He’d demand to have the icing from our cake at lunch and if we refused he’d thump us. Standard playground fare. A couple of years from the end of Primary School a boy called Alex arrived from Africa. He was bright and sociable but had very limited English. He obviously came from an extremely unsophisticated place because he refused to be bullied. We didn’t see much of Daniel afterwards as he was forever chasing Alex round the playground.

Daniel is now a gentle, honest university graduate. Really sweet guy.

Alex is in jail for manslaughter.

My dad saw this and in Year 4 (aged 8) he wanted to take me out of school. He was disillusioned with the English education system. He said we would do 5 hours of work together at home and I could play for the rest of the day. School was a waste of time for me. My soul and intellect were being drained.

I refused. My mum said I needed the social interaction. To see other kids my age.

Dad was right.

And he was wrong.

At home I did hours of work in maths to bring me up to scratch anyway. So much so that a boy from an Inner City Primary School got a place at one of the top grammar schools in the country (state schools with hugely competitive tests in English, Maths, Verbal and Non-verbal Reasoning to gain admission). I needed one year of Secondary School without my dad’s help to bring me up to A* GCSE level in maths.

This inevitably put a strain on our relationship. Our bond was over simultaneous equations and logic puzzles rather than emotion. My parents worked hard and were always tired. School was a haven from the hard work at home. I wrote a melodramatic, hormone-fuelled poem as a 14 year old reflecting on this time, “All I ever wanted was to watch Blue Peter/All you ever gave me was Blue Marks”. School was a refuge from home.

The highlight of our relationship would be going to play football with him in the park. He was great in goal and had a powerful shot. It was those summer days spent saving his powerful shots in the garden or at the park that helped me become an able goalkeeper. This in turn gave me acceptance at school.

My grammar school was for boys only. I don’t think I spoke to a female outside my family for two years. I had a great time at school. I was popular, outgoing and funny. I was the guy who would do the wack shit no one else would. We went on a week away to our school’s fieldwork centre in Wales and I hid a kid’s (the eventual head boy) clothes in the ceiling tiles whilst he was in the shower. I’d answer back. I’d make funny jokes. I was the class clown. Fooling around gave me the widespread acceptance and the voice I had lacked in primary school.

When I was 14 I discovered internet chat rooms. My favourite band at the time was Travis. Their chat room was a hub. It was 2001 and they were immensely popular having just released The Man Who. On their chat room I was Mr Go-to. In the two years I spent there, masquerading as an 18 year old Kings College law student (hah the irony!) I had a 36 year old blond hottie begging me to come visit her in her new flat for 3 months, a leggy 18 year old blonde in Liverpool offering to pay for tickets for me to come visit her, girls in Scotland telling me what they were doing to themselves (it wasn’t brushing their teeth), a girl in Birmingham hitting on me and a 6th former from a posh private school on London who was about to go to read law at Cambridge introducing me to The Strokes and asking me for advice. Oh boy!

Guys and girls reacted to me.

And aged 14 I couldn’t act on any of it.

I remember one day being dragged away from an MSN conversation with the Liverpudlian and a student at Leeds to go to a drama class. I sulked and frowned like only a teenager knows how. My mother had had the audacity to take me from my fun world where I teased and self-amused and spread the love free from my ego to a world with real fucking people. Girls! The world where I was King was imaginary. It was a delusion. I wasn’t studying law. I wasn’t at a great university. These sources of value that gave me permission to unleash my true personality on the internet were lacking in real life. The internet is a fantastic place like that.

And yet in the real world I didn’t have that. There was nothing to hide behind. I was a 14 year old kid who only interacted with boys and Championship Manager. I wasn’t cool. I wasn’t at parties. I was masturbating to porn and talking on MSN. There was a real tension. One that seemed to fuel my ego. In some sense I had experienced what it was like to be cool because I was getting the great feedback from others online. I had felt what it was like to be cool. I had that reference point. But it was extreme situational confidence.

The coolest I got in the real world was whacking on Definitely Maybe and pretending to be Liam Gallagher. He was fooking cool. He didn’t give a fuck. He was having it. Large!

At drama class I fell over during a dance routine to the amusement of the 10 girls that made up the rest of the group.

I never went back.

Of all the girls I spoke to online the Brummie was the most intelligent. And she liked oasis more than me. This was a little confusing. I had to see her.
She came to London. I didn’t want my parents to know I was meeting up with a girl from the internet so I booked a hotel for the night in Croydon. I was 15. The hotel was just 15 minutes walk from my house. Ridiculous.

I paid £180, carefully saved from lunch money, for two nights in a hotel.

The first night was the first time I had ever kissed a girl.

The second, I lost my virginity.

It was romantic. She was lovely. We had an amazing time doing all those things that grownups do and kids don't. That sense of carefree abandon was exhilarating.

We were cool. Together.
We walked. Together.
We talked. Together.
We held each other. Together.
We went for meals. Together.
She smelt lovely. Just her.

Losing your virginity at that age is a big deal. It’s built up to be like taking an ecstasy pill in man heaven surrounded by steaks, testosterone boosters and unlimited candy. Like the best.thing.ever.

Better than sex.

In reality it was brief, not particularly pleasurable and forgettable. I remember my first kiss but not losing my virginity. I do however distinctly remember feeling that jerking off was way more pleasurable. I mean...girls just don’t do it right. Yeh...if you want a job doing properly, do it yourself!

I got the opposite of what I wanted: an anticlimax.

I learnt something important for once: sex is not the Holy Grail.

We would talk every day over msn. Eventually over the phone. We understood each other so perfectly. There was a fantastic click. We both felt we were so lucky. We proclaimed our love for each other. We laughed at everything the other said. I was loving. And cool. And funny. I gave her everything she wanted.

Eventually our parents found out which gave us greater freedom to be with each other. We could stay at each other’s houses over weekends and holidays. No more hotels. Train fares were paid for us by our parents. Everything was sweet.

About a year in I went to her house for New Years. Her parents were out for the evening so we made the most of it.
We cooked my favourite meal. Spaghetti Bolognese.
It was delicious.
We drank wine. Well...she drank wine. I found an ingenious way of shortcutting my mouth so that the wine went straight from glass to throat without having to taste it.
We played oasis loudly and got more and more stewed. It was romantic. Blissful.
We started making out on her sofa. Then it got more and more intense and by half eleven I was properly fucking her. It was the best sex ever. Like a porn film but more pleasurable. I was hammering at it. She was yelping.

This is why sex was built up. Fuck. Yeah!

Hormones I had never experienced in large quantities were running through me. I had never been this drunk. We changed positions and...

What. The. Dickens.

There’s blood on my dick and I think I’ve torn something cos I’ve been railing her so hard. Woops!

Whatever. She hasn’t noticed.

We keep going.
We change position again.

Now there’s even more blood. I must be drunk cos I can’t feel any pain. I expect to see a mutilated tortoise down there but there’s just a bloody dick and now it’s dripping on the couch and...
She notices. It’s her.
She’s crying.
The room is on fire and she’s crying. I’m still so horny.
I tell her it doesn’t matter and stick it back in her.
She’s crying.
The room is on fire and she’s crying. I’m still so horny.
Panic.
This time it’s over. I comfort her. I’m still so horny. But I love her. I hold her and tell her everything’s going to be OK. We sit there in silence. I’m not entirely sure how to cope with it. She’s not saying anything.
What seems like an hour passes as we sit there cuddling on the sofa in silence.

5 minutes have passed.

We turn on a music channel and 2003 is counted in. I pour some champagne. We sip it.
My head is spinning.
The intense fire of the night is dying.
I have to do something. Anything. It doesn’t matter what. I have to make her happy. I crack a few jokes. She’s laughing. Like a dying glow stick.
Finally I manage to have some lucidity. I pick up the courage and ask her.

“Will you marry me?”

There’s a pause for a few seconds. She’s noticed a slight quiver in my voice. I’m erratic. This is so me. But it’s romantic. She’ll feel better.
Im giving people sugar highs again.

“Are you sure you’re not doing this just to make me feel better?”

No. I wouldn’t do that. I’m not like that.
“I love you...I mean it...” I got down on one knee and proposed again.

It’s 10 in the morning and my body feels like the end of the world. There’s a moment in every good (read: bad?) teen movie where a dorky, weedy guy gets drunk for the first time and wakes up in the morning next to an outrageously hot girly. There’s a brief moment of confusion and a cartoon expression on his face.

I felt like that.

I’m being poked lightly in the back.

“Do you remember?” she sighs.

The world is spinning far quicker now than it was last night. Only it has an emptiness. Like vertigo. I’m falling. My chest is heaving. My world’s imploding. My first hangover.

“What?” I reply smiling lovingly into her.
“You asked me to marry you...”
Silence.
“Did you mean it?”
Silence.
“Because you know you can always take it back if you want...we were drunk..I’d understand...”
What.
The.
Fuck.
Of course I didn't mean it. Im 16. There's no way I can be married. Im about to hurl. I keep it together. This is madness. Say no and it will all be better.

“No...I meant it.”

A few months later I turned 17. I broke up with her. I had tried once already and failed. She had come to London for showdown talks. I hadn’t had the bottle.

The distance was a chore. The commitment was a burden. “I love you and I’ll be with you forever and ever until my dying days...and our children will be called Herbie and Bertie...and we’re engaged...and this is true love!” My brother revels in reminding me of a bet we once placed. He bet me that Helen and I would broke up because all young people think they’re in love and think this is it. Forever. I bet him we’d stay together forever and accused him of not understanding. Of being too young. This was special and we can be the exception. Some people have childhood sweethearts and why shouldn’t I? I couldn’t understand why he was being so damp.

He was right. I had put too much pressure on the relationship. I wasn't enjoying it for what it was but for what it could be.

Meanwhile my best friend at school had left when I was 16 (to Birmingham of all places) and I had started hanging out with a Muslim kid, called Aqeel. We went everywhere together. We were in the same Maths and Economics class. We spent lunch times together. Break times. Every time. We were both going to apply to do law together. We were proper fucking tight!

We would hang out in the office of a kind, intelligent teacher at lunchtimes. We had an obsession with the Israel-Palestine conflict. Eventually I slid into his world and found myself poking fun of a Jewish teacher. Just kid stuff. Nothing serious. Caricaturing Jews as having big noses, being stingy and stooped. All this was anchored in our perceived injustice in the Occupied State of Palestine. How dare Israel, this big country, oppress an innocent people? Stones vs. Sub-machine guns! How dare they steal land? How dare they be backed by big American corporations? We launched a boycott of all goods produced by companies who gave money to Israel (we're talking McDonalds, Starbucks, Nestle... not Moshe's bakery). Not content with backing the Jews, America was now waging war on Muslims in Iraq. Fuckers!

One lunchtime I phoned a Jewish learning institution asking them about the security barrier.

The man told me it was a fence.

I said it quite patently wasn’t. I had Google up on the screen and could see it wasn’t. Did this guy think I was stupid? A fence is what you have up in your back garden...not the partition in the West Bank.

He insisted 90% of it was a fence.

I made a wise crack about circumcised penises. My Arab dad is circumcised. But it’s still funny. Hehe! Willy!
I was way too mature for Arlun’s jokes aged 6 but now I was 17 it was way too funny!
What had happened to me?

I knew deep down it was wrong. But that same thrill I had always got at school from being the clown, daring to do what others wouldn’t kicked in. That rush. Encouraged by Aqeel I kept going. I don’t remember exactly what I said but a week later a dozen of us were called in to see the deputy head.

She told us that someone had made a prank call and the police were involved. A Jewish Centre had called in extra security and if we didn’t own up the police were going to use voice recognition tests on all 12 of us to find the culprits. The 12 of us were chosen because they had CCTV footage of us near the room the call was made from. Some of the people called in weren’t in school that day. It was bollocks. Were they calling our bluff? The school stood firm.
I began to rehearse excuses in my head. I blamed the Jewish Learning Centre. It was their fault! Why had they called security? It was clearly a prank! What fuckers! How dare they do that! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

We had 24 hours.

After the meeting Aqeel and I bunked class. We went to the library. We were frantic. To own up or not to own up? As with the prank he refused to take the lead. It was down to me. I had just come out of an 18 month relationship and yet things were going well. I was an Oxbridge candidate. The school held me in high regard. I was put on the provisional list to be a Prefect. I was bright. I got on with the teachers a lot better in the 6th form.
And yet the threat of the police was too much.
My heart was racing. This was the end. My parents would kill me.

I decided. We were going to own up and take joint responsibility. It wouldn’t have happened had both of us not been there. We had a super strong bond. We’d split the blame. It would make us stronger.

Fuck everyone.

Fuck this school.

It doesn’t matter. I’ll do it on my own.

I became extremely driven.

My parents have never been so mad at me.
I was ostracised by all the teachers. They didn’t want to know. I was a racist. Scum. I had brought the school into disrepute. My heart was in my stomach. I was afraid to be in school. No allowances were made. In ordinary circumstances you can get away with a lot at school. The teachers are your pet. I felt like I was destined for great things: who the fuck were these teachers?

I had no respect for the people who were going to help me achieve greatness. I failed to see that they were humans.
So I got the backlash I deserved. Trust me, when teachers want to make your life difficult, they can. The students’ power is illusory.

My official punishment, a far lesser one than the academic ostracism I received, was a 3 hour detention on a Saturday morning. My birthday was the following Tuesday. Great timing.

When it was over my parents greeted me. For some reason I was in even deeper shit. They were yelling and screaming and crying. Even my dad lacked composure. I didn’t get it. Why were they so mad now? They had been mad enough to begin with and that was fair enough. But now they were in anguish. I had broken them.

That afternoon I discovered that they had been just about to leave home with my brother and sister...as in standing in the hall with the front door open...when the phone rang. 60 seconds later and they would have been gone. They were going to come and collect me to take me out for a birthday meal to reassure me and let me know that everything was going to be alright.
Peace. Reconciliation.

:)

It was school on the phone. They had spoken to Aqeel and his parents and more accusations had been levelled at me. I had been the instigator. He was trying to absolve himself of blame in front of his parents who had no doubt lied to about the whole affair.

I have no idea exactly what Aqeel said to the school. My parents never divulged what the school told them in that fateful conversation. Needless to say it was bad and I was hurt.

Why hadn’t the school spoken to me whilst I had been in detention?
Why had Aqeel lied?
Regardless of whether what he had said was true why had he not stuck with his best friend in this dark hour?

I refused to speak to him after that day. We never again had an amicable conversation. We still haven’t.

What came to the fore during this experience was a steel. A decision that my life henceforth was going to be values driven. That I was going to understand what was right and what was wrong for myself and hold myself to these standards. Nobody was going to convince me to do anything ever again that I didn’t think was right.

Look at the pain bowing to Aqeel’s stupidity had caused. Screw that. Look at the pain and hurt MY stupidity had caused.

The Jewish guy. The insults.

The Jewish organisation. The paranoia. The fear.

The school. Its reputation.

My parents. The suffering.

Myself.

Nobody won. Everybody involved lost.

In that moment I resolved never to let anything like that happen again. It was time to become a man...

Is This Art?

2007-12-26T18:26:00.002Z

Mum got me some art books for Jesus' Birthday. I looked at them all What The Fuck Is This Shit?
I cant even draw stickmen...but I could do some of modern art.
"I could do that" the masses cry.
"But you didn't, did you?!" Damien Hirst replies.

Fair play mate.

Hirst is greatly respected. No comment.
I LOVE
how art is about conception...ideas...
"The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living".

You know it. It's a shark in a big tank.

The title combined with the work is fantastic. Thought-provoking.
A few years ago the shark started to disintegrate and had to be replaced. When asked whether it was the same piece, Hirst had two answers.
Wow. How artistic of him. "The jury is out" and "Yes". Art is about the idea according to Hirst. Not about the tangible.
I agree with him to a large extent.

Critics of Hirst too often take the wrong approach. This Daily Mail headline is hilarious: "For 1,000 years art has been one of our great civilising forces. Today, pickled sheep and soiled beds threaten to make barbarians of us all."
MMmmm. I can just see is become barbarians because of an artist.
...
Wooops...too late. Baying.for.blood=barbarian

Stuckism International Gallery used the example of a shark kept in the window of an electrical store by its proud owner as deafening proof of Hirst's idiocy...without understanding what Hirst is about. Surely the shark kept as a proud memento was the precursor to Hirst's amazing piece? It's identical!
Funny, as Hirst remarked about his shark that the tangible wasn't important..it's the idea that counts. so without an idea behind it it isn't art. In any event, maybe the electrical store owner's shark IS art. Who's to say it isn't? A representation of sadistic modern tendencies and the pointless sick trophies we keep? I would agree with these feelings...

This whole debate is really a very simple question: What Is Art?
Even if Hirst's work fails as art, the fact his work has caused such polarisation of views imbues his work with artistic qualities.
It is clear that art has been primarily concerned with ideas and meaning for the past century. It is no longer clear that the act of sitting in a darkened room with a naked princess and a canvas is enough for art to exist. Most of the criticism seems to be from people scared of not understanding what is going on when they enter an art gallery. If art isn't just what you can see and touch (if the security guards aren't looking) then how can we know what the work means? Do we have to know the idea behind it? Do we have to interview the artist? Or is our own opinion enough? What if our opinion is at odds with the artist's? Does a piece of art lose a meaning or its meaning? If we don't believe in Christianity do the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel lose artistic value? If not, and beauty is the prevalent determiner of art is a photograph of a sunset art? Or a really beautiful shade of blue on canvas?
All challenging questions. The fight to understand what it is we are doing when we do art is on. I don't have a definitive answer to the question, "What is art?". Does anyone?

What perplexes me most is that people are willing to spend millions of pounds on something which is not aesthetically pleasing. People choose nice shades for their walls. And put plates on their walls (whilst the rest of us are happily eating off them). And if you're a Pope you get a great Renaissance artist to paint biblical scenes on your wall.
Some pieces of art have little aesthetic value. They may be great pieces of art but they have very little aesthetic value ( a skull or an unmade bed for instance).
I doubt that millions are spent on an idea either. A good philosophy book contains far more challenging questions and makes many more provocative statements than a piece of art could.

It seems to me that people spend lavish sums on art because of the name behind. As an ego thing...
People do it for pretty, functional things as well...
A Porsche because of the name (they're uncomfortable and you cant break the speed limit anyway...most sports cars purchases are a waste of fucking money).
Designer Clothes.
Designer Makeup.
Designer
Designer
Fame
Fame
Fame

So I have very little value to give SO I'M GONNA BUY VALUE. How fucking perverse is this?
It's a sick fucking ego game. Maybe people will like me if I have this. Or have that. Or say I have this. Or say I've done that.

We're bombarded every day with "YOUR LIFE WOULD BE BETTER IF YOU HAD THIS..", "YOU WOULD BE SEXIER IF...", "YOU WOULD BE COOLER IF...".
So we go out and buy it. Then 6 months later we need to buy a topup by getting the latest fad again..

And are we ever actually any happier?

Not really.

Time to start offering real value instead of fake, showoff, superficial, artificial value?
I think so.

Write a blog or something..

Why girls are wrong and boys are wronger

2007-08-23T23:57:00.003+01:00

Because I said so. :D

HuntingforwitchesBlocParty

2007-08-13T15:31:00.000+01:00

I was sitting on the roof of my house with a shotgunAnd a six-pack of beer, six-pack of beer, six-pack of beerThe newscaster says the enemy's among usAs bombs explode on the 30 busKill your middle-class indecisionNow is not the time for liberal thoughtSo I go hunting for witchesI go hunting for witchesHeads are going to rollI go hunting forIn the NinetiesOptimistic as a teenNow it's terrorAirplanes crash into towers, into towers, crash into towersThe Daily Mail says the enemy's among usTaking our women and taking our jobsAll reasonable thought is being drowned outBy the non-stop baying, baying, baying for bloodSo I go hunting for witches…I was an ordinary man with ordinary desireI watched TV, it informed me[lolllllllllllll]I was an ordinary man with ordinary desireThere must be accountabilityDisparate and misinformedFear will keep us all in placeSo I go hunting for witches…I was an ordinary man…

[Cussing the Daily Mail and Nailingterrorism,,..//beepsqueak
r.e.f.e.r.e.n.c.e.sRADIOhead. "Ill be waiting with a gun and a pack of sandwiches""Im a reasonable man get off my case"]]]]]]]]]]]][error/]

Respect your Elders, Save the Church

2007-08-09T16:04:00.000+01:00

I went to the library today. Good move, right?

WRONG. Wow. You've got 100% of questions wrong so far. Let's hope you fair a little better with the rest of the test, else Im gonna have to fail you.
Sure, I got the books on my Philosophy reading list. But the library is full of NICE people. It is just a NICE environment. Mr and Mrs Chode work there. Choding away. I walked in and Mrs Ordinary was walking in front of me. With the most ordinary fleece. And ordinary jeans. For such a bland place with such bland people it is awfully hard to describe what they were like.
Imagine being on some hard, mud. There's a thin layer of dust on top which gets stuck in your eye every time the wind blows a little (-10 points if you laughed at the word "blow").
Now imagine that this stretches out all around you for as far as the eye can see. That is how bland and mildly irritating it is.

OK. Ive had a cup of tea. Im feeling a little better now. My real irk isnt how bland 50 year old middle class women can be (Let's Go To A Rave!) but actually anyone aged 50+. Be you male, female or with no meaningful sexuality. Middle class, working class or the Queen.

Here is an exhaustive list of everything old people do/have done for society:
Walk really slowly.
Try and fail to eat solids.
Kept the Scottish economy afloat through insane consummation of porridge.
Complain about how much fun young people are having.
Complain about how poor they are.
Waste precious emergency service time by asking paramedics tocome and draw their blinds.
Talk shit.
Are incredibly pedantic and then send you letters confusing "there" and "their".

Of which only one is good. Talking shit.

My grandparents are hilarious. Particularly the grandmothers. Some classics:
"We should neuter all the people in Africa so then there wouldnt be so many problems.." I love this one. Both my brother and I had a friend round. I was severely hungover the day after my end of school ball. Live 8 was on. CLANG.
"Tony Blair is a tart". I cant explain this one.
"When I was 8 a 10 year old boy threw rocks at me when I was riding my bicycle so I got off and clomped him and broke his nose and rode off". Said without pause for air. Brilliant.
"Hungry have the best mechanics in the world". My French grandmother is a budding Jeremy Clarkson.
"I bet he only came to see me to claim dammages!". I went to Paris with my English grandmother to see my French grandmother because they needed a translator. My French grandmother BEGGED me to come. And then after I've left that she drops that clanger.
"Black people take up too much space in the road! Sarkozy was right...they're scum!". Says my French-Algerian grandmother.

OK. That's enough for now. EVERYONE has dozens of these crazy quotes and stories.

But you know what? WE LOVE our grandparents anyway. OK, they're as batty as nutcakes and fruity as jampies but actally they are cool. They bring us a large packet of Werthers Originals when they come to stay. They have the kind of undying, blind love for us that makes Romeo and Juliet seem like infatuation.
And they talk to animals.

But please Dorris, next time I go to play with Descartes and Plato (-10000000000 if you laughed at that) in the library, don't sit there playing with your dentures.

(Test Results: If you got more than 0% -10000000010 then you must be old ergo Im deducting you 99999999999999999 points. For having no control over your bladder, if nothing else).

Green Tea and Ecstasy

2007-08-08T10:39:00.000+01:00

Why won't people see who I am,
Locked up in my own world,
Maybe he was right..?!

risING UP ABOVE away from
A packed room, people chewing gum
Maybe he was right...?!

Contorted, forever distorted
Swallowed and then snorted
Something out there comes

And you feel like your world's expanding into everything you want to exploding in your world
Cos you want to feel free every time you breathe asphyxia passes this time you've struck gold

It's not fair cos you dont even want to, I dont even have to
Say GOODBYE
But it's time for us to go our own ways, you must have your own way
So must I

Lights dim, surrounded by those people
Your world becomes an iceberg,
Floating out to sea

Heavy, stomach clenching madness,
An overriding sadness
Someone set me FREE

Cos you feel like your world's imploding into everything you once knew miracles will cease
And the world turns please turn out the lights so the colours turn to grey oh someone give me peace

It's not fair cos you dont even want to, I dont even have to
Say GOODBYE
But it's time for us to go our own ways, you must have your own way
So must I

Cos you feel like your world's imploding into everything you once knew miracles will cease
Cos you want to feel free every time you breathe asphyxia passes this time you've struck...

subtle irony of taking drugs to set yourself free but by the end you want to be free from the consequences of your actions. it enslaves more than it frees. hints throughout but summarised in closing two lines.

High, Nice to meet you!

2007-07-23T10:24:00.001+01:00

OK...so it's been a while.

There are several things that I could talk about.

I could talk about The Daily Mail running a headline about a white dude who is suing for racism (but the dozens of non-whites who sue isn't news at all...?).
I could talk about setting boundaries for yourself.
I could talk about the trials of family life.
Or the schizophrenic weather we've been having recently.
But I will have plenty of time to discuss these.

Instead I want to discuss drugs. DRUGS.

I have yet to read an informed argument about drugs along these lines, so I am making an awesome positive contribution to the academic literature in this field. In fact, I fully expect a PhD through the post from Yale. By courier.

If I don't I shall get really drunk.
Did you recoil in horror at the fact I said I was going to get drunk? Did you ghasp at how immoral I was behaving?

You probably don't think it's a very rational response right. Sure you're gutted that I didn't get my PhD from Yale for this epic of Shakespearean proportions, but getting drunk won't make me feel better. All it will do is make me forget my worries, and possibly cause some damage and make a scene. And then I'll wake up with a headache, a mouth like a badger's arse, half a kebab down my front and a raccoon/girl/road sign lying next to me.
And then Ill have a cup of tea and a spliff and I'll be well on the road to recovery.

The majority of the population would be more incensed by the smoking of one marijuana cigarette than the folly of drinking. There is an uproar about binge drinking and the smoking ban has polarised people, but drugs are still seen as an incomparable menace. Let's have a look at why this is (with due regard to ALL drugs):

a) It is wrong to change the way your body works. Let's get something straight: alcohol, nicotine and co, sugar and caffeine are all drugs. They all chemically affect the body in a certain way. Rare is the person who has not experienced a sugar rush after eating too much chocolate (which, btw, binds to receptors in the brain in the same way THC in cannabis does) or a McDonalds. Rare is the person who does not crave more after the high.
LSD (acid) leaves the bloodstream after 20 minutes. MDMA (purified form of an ecstasy pill) is as toxic as vitamin C. One guy took 40,000 in 10 years and suffered mental health effects but did not die (it's amazing how many people think ecstasy is a killer, like tens of thousands of ravers would really put their lives on the line week-in, week-out). And 40,000 is TEN pills a day. FUCKING HELL!
Anyway, I could harp on all day about studies which show ecstasy has no appreciable long-term impact on the way the brain works and other such facts, but enough has been said.
Society accepts changing your chemical balance in some situations but not others. And it seems to me 40,000 Big Macs in 10 years or 40,000 Starbucks would do far more damage.

Incidentally, I do not class sugar to be a drug in these debates. It is found naturally in a wide variety of foods and it is necessary, if not vital, to take in sugar in order to survive. I would consider the recreational consummation of sugar in the form of manifestly unhealthy diets (such as those who binge on fast food and chocolate) as a drug. It is exceedingly difficult for those hooked on junk food to ignore their cravings. A bit like a nicotine addict. Or a cokehead.

b) Drugs are dangerous/bad for you. I wont overboard and discussed this partially in the last point. Lots of things we do are harmful. Climbing a ladder is dangerous. Eating too much is bad for you. Working too hard is bad for you. Drinking too much is bad for you. Being a builder/pilot is dangerous. And yet we do not ban these things.

These two points act like The God Delusion (a superb book by Richard Dawkins). If read by everyone it would rectify a lot of faulty thinking. As most people have weak worldviews and together they have the power to change the world (democracy and all that hippy shit) this would make people change their minds.
But it doesn't tackle the strongest possible case against drugs. So this is where I nerd out and do just that.

c) Drugs are necessarily bad for you. There is a direct link between taking Drug X and Harm Y. This is not the case with being a pilot or climbing a ladder. But it is with drinking too much, huh!

This is the best point semi-frequently raised.
Essentially it says that there is no utilitarian benefit to society in smoking a joint (indeed often it demotivates people and makes them lazy). Driving planes and climbing ladders (assuming this is never done for recreation and only for something constructive) has a benefit on society. It does good things. A cost-benefit analysis is conducted and the benefit of being able to fly around the world is worth more than destroying the planet and putting people at risk.
Furthermore there is a raft of health and safety legislation to protect people who do dangerous jobs e.g. in a kitchen where there is a constant risk of being burned or cut in a high-pressure environment.

This does something interesting. It places a positive obligation on all people to act to benefit society. Nothing can be sanctioned by the law unless it actively benefits society. WOW!

Can one not choose to live a life of subsistence in a little field in Yorkshire should he wish?
What about if one sees a house burning down. Should one be under a legal obligation to call the police or help in any way he can (actually in France yes, but not currently in the UK)?

I think people often confuse morality for what the law should be. And often this manifests itself in absurdity: "It is wrong to lie" turns into "It should be illegal to lie" (Note: in tort and contract it can be "illegal" to lie, but generally it is not).
People should be encouraged to benefit society as much as possible (e.g. with recycling or volunteering) but it should not be forced upon them.

Here is the crux of the debate: there are competing rights at stake. Whenever one is trying to justify a right or obligation there must be an analysis of the competing rights.

In general one must be as FREE as possible without unduly curtailing another's freedom.

Thus I might want to throw a large legal textbook at my brother, but this would impact on my brother's right to be free from undue harm. People often forget that in protecting my brother, what the law does is RESTRICT my freedom to behave as I want. It is a necessary restriction, and most would argue a fair one, but it is a restriction nonetheless.

If I was of sound mind, I would be allowed to to throw the book at my own head. Nobody else's rights are being affected.
If I want to jaywalk, I can. It may well be dangerous and involve an element of risk, but the law in the UK posits that as a right-thinking adult I am free to assume that risk.

So where does this leave drugs? Taking drugs does not, in the vast majority of instances, benefit society. It is done for the pleasure of the individual.
It is worth noting that drug use has been a great creative influence for people as varied as Aldous Huxley, Dali, Bob Dylan (who gave The Beatles their first spliff) and reams of others... Drug use does have positives. Let's be clear.

But most people never do anything constructive with their drug use. So any claim that drugs benefit society is blind to reality and hopelessly optimistic. Indeed I very much doubt anyone who started taking a drug (including alcohol) thought, "Hmmm...maybe drinking 6 cans of Stella will make me a Rock'n'roll Star!" ........................................... "Oh LOOK IT FOOKIN' HAS! I'M LIAM GALLAGHER! HAVIN IT!"

Not.

But drug use doesn't have a negative impact. Not on society or others anyway. And certainly no more than alcohol does. Alcohol is physically addictive. Putting it in the same bracket as crack, coke, heroin and...nothing else. If one is addicted to alcohol and one is made to go cold turkey, then one will surely die (oooh I'm really getting into this Shakespeare thing!). This cannot be said of speed, ecstasy or LSD. Indeed LSD has NO addictive qualities and it is impossible to fatally overdose on it (ask the CIA - they conducted tests on citizens in the 60s with doses dozens of times more potent than your average tab).
Drug use affects the individual.

Much can be said on the pragmatic consequences of undermining criminal gangs. This is a well-trodden argument so I won't repeat it. I will rebuff the common retort that "Oh but the gangs will always find something else to turn to to finance their criminal activities". But this is really no excuse at all. So you WANT criminal gangs to have one more, extremely easy and extremely profitable way of making money?
They make money off people who have no interest in committing any crime than having a good dance on a Saturday night. Prostitution and gun crime will always be looked down on by the vast majority of people. These crimes (particularly gun crime) are rarely, if ever, victimless.
Imagine also if the American prohibitionists had made the same argument about the gangs making money from alcohol. Then alcohol would never have been re-legalised! "Oh but the gangs will just turn to something else...they might as well have alcohol AS WELL!".

Herein lies one of the most shocking hypocrisies. It lies in differentiating alcohol from many other drugs (notably cannabis, speed, ecstasy/MDMA and LSD). Yes cannabis is linked to mental illness. No one is pretending to it is GOOD for you. But neither is alcohol. Neither is smoking. And they are both legal!
And besides, we should have a right to cause ourself harm so long as nobody else's rights are being infringed. And nobody else's rights are infringed.

Burden on the taxpayer through health bills? Cigarettes make the NHS £7bn/year.
If money were the only issue, drugs would be legalised tomorrow.

A theme throughout this post has been expounding facts most people would concede they weren'taware of. And this is precisely the point. There is an insane amount of misinformation about drugs. Leah Betts did not die from ecstasy poisoning. She died from drinking 4 litres of water in half an hour having been told about the risks of dehydration.
Misinformation kills.

Most people are against the legal status of drugs not because they are objectively critical of them. But rather because they lack information. They know nothing. They confuse drugs. I bet most people ccouldn'ttell you what the effects of crack cocaine are and how long it lasts for (insane high which hits in 2 minutes after smoking...a high which lasts 20 minutes and a vast amount of vomiting afterwards...until a ttolerancehas been built up...those with a ttolerancecan have a normal telephone conversation). They ddon'tknow vaguely what LSD does. They are just clueless. They buy into the social stigma.

So what am I saying?
TAKE LOADSA DRUGZ IT WAYA KOOL!

Not quite. Intoxication using drugs does not form part of the ideal lifestyle. I am a firm believer in building on the self whilst sober and trying to make your life as happy and fulfilled as possible. Why waste money on drugs?
I guess the odd experience can be cool. But if you are happy whilst sober, there is no need for drugs. Drugs fill a void.

Maybe then you say LEGALIZE DRUGZZZZZ</DIV>

Well I certainly think all drugs save crack and heroin (whose addictiveness and life consuming potential are so high that it is nigh on impossible to take the drug and not wreck your chances of living a vaguely normal life) should be legal. [I ddon'tknow enough about crystal meth to pass any sort of comment on it].

But I think it was a mistake to prohibit them in the first place. The act of legalising them would act as tacit encouragement by the government to take part in a less than ideal mode de vie (Ive got the French in now: Shakespeare...read and weep!). So illegal they must remain but with reduced sentences for mere possession and an honest, intelligent approach to education.

Anyway, my PhD from Yale has arrived and I haven't even finished writing this. They must be high or sommat...

Butterflies and Hurricanes

2007-07-15T14:12:00.002+01:00

I'm having an administrative day. Every once in a while I realise that there are about half a dozen really boring things that need to be done. One day I will have a harem of women and an army of dwarfs to complete all mundane tasks for me. They will tidy my room. Pair up my socks. Pour milk onto my cereal. Make career decisions for me.

And then this morning - whilst I was cursing the Sock-thief Monster - it hit me. Even if one day I wont have to tidy my room, pair up my socks or pour milk onto my cereal, my career will always be forged by ME. This had never really struck me before. Which is odd.

I have long since acknowledged that if you want something done at all - let alone properly - it is best to do it yourself. Most people sadly lack any drive or determination. They float like algae. The competition for those with a bit of steel is minimal. This means that if you want something badly enough and constantly push towards your goal, you will ALWAYS get there.
Sure, there are a lot of people who really desire something. I don't doubt that a lot of people want to be rock stars. Or doctors. Or lawyers. Or want to go on holiday to Barbados this year. They really want it. They feel it in their gut.
But what do they do to go about achieving their dreams?
They sit on their ass chomping on crisps in front of the TV. Or surf the Internet. Or play Oasis songs on an old acoustic dreaming of playing to a sold out Wembley Stadium. But as Noel Gallagher himself said, "You gotta make it happen".

The more effort something requires, the harder you've got to work. Too many people do the opposite. They come across difficulties and work less and less hard. Or GIVE UP.

I mean, WTF?

You want to do or get something and instead of working harder you give up? How is that going to get you what you want? It's not. So the excuses come rolling out: "Oh but I didn't really want it" or "I'd rather do this instead" or (most common of all) "It was SOMEONE ELSE'S FAULT". Sure.

If your objectives change then it is intelligent to change your approach. To run headfirst into a wall is not cool. The only thing you'll get is a migraine. A more subtle recipe is needed than brut I WANT IT GRRRR LETS GO. Shear desire alone is like putting 15 badass wrestlers onto a rugby pitch. Sure they'll have the aggression and strength but they won't have the skill or intelligence to win against even a mediocre rugby side. Studies have shown time and time again that keeping the end result in view and constantly refining your method of achieving your goals is the most effective way of accomplishing something.
Say your goal is to earn as much money as possible during the summer holidays. At first you cannot afford to be selective. Print off 100 CVs and go EVERYWHERE you can think of and drop of your CV. Every bar. Pub. Shop. Agency. Anything. If you want it badly you will be out the house by 9.00 and you wont return till you've handed out every CV you brought with you. And you will do this every day until you find a job. Then someone offers you a job on the minimum wage. ACCEPT. Earn money. Then every hour you are not working you hand out MORE CVs. Everywhere. Then something else will turn up. Then something else. And through sheer persistence you will find yourself a job which pays you a wage you are happy with. But notice what this entails:
1) Devoting your LIFE to harassing people and handing out CVs for as long as it takes.
2) Giving up a lot of free time to have fun.
And what you gain:
1) A JOB. You will succeed.
2) The satisfaction of knowing you gave EVERYTHING you could to reaching your goals and that there was nothing else you could have done to find a job.. and most importantly:
3) The knowledge that you can succeed with enough effort. You can shape your own destiny. Your freewill is an oiled and sharpened instrument. Most people do not determine their own futures. Their futures our out of their control because they let other people knock their life about.
This idea is repulsive to me. There is no fucking way I'm letting other people control my life. I want to get shit done without other people knocking my dreams about like a divine game of pinball.

EURGH.

And I know as well as anyone how easy it is to make excuses about not getting things done. I remember one day my mum came home particularly stressed after another day in The City. She was working exceptionally long hours and was tired and slightly fragile emotionally. The kind of state where everything is alright until someone drops a teaspoon on the floor and all of a sudden it becomes the biggest deal ever. WW3 explodes and even the dog is cowering in the corner.

After dodging exploding words and poisonous looks, I wondered....

What the hell is it all for?
I mean, we can have a very well-paid job and still be unhappy. In fact, we kill ourselves for a cause we don't believe in (who really cares about stocks and shares? There's no emotional attachment there!) and we end up with this tiny plot of land on this big green planet. People are unhappy!

Or in the words of Noel (again!), "Is it worth the aggravation to find yourself a job, when there's nothing worth working for?"

But, of course, people are unhappy because they refuse to take control of their lives. And what we DO is more or less irrelevant to how we feel. We can be happy doing the most mundane tasks. Isn't it so much easier to do the washing up, tidy your room or pour your own milk when you're in a GOOD mood!? When you're feeling down or depressed just getting out of bed is a chore...

I have (had?) friends who used to complain about society. About capitalism and how it "raped" the poor and was there for the benefit of the rich and famous who propagated the myth of Working Hard For A Better Life (like this is a good excuse to sit around at home smoking weed all day anyway..). I agree that it is certainly tough and that there is not enough fluidity in the classes (or between the rich and the poor or whatever you want to call it). But this argument begs the question. Isn't it ironic that for people rejecting the system (with no better alternative, by the way) they assume that life is all about moving up in the world? Sure you might not really care about stocks and shares. Or Big Macs. Or any number of things you might work with. But this is not the point. Dealing with stocks and shares is an intellectually stimulating pursuit. There is a rush of adrenaline from working with so much at stake. A similar rush to hunting a mountain lion or an angry woolly mammoth (I speak from experience). It is competitive. There are interesting interactions.

The value comes from how your work makes you feel. Not what it is you're dealing with. In any event, people with a negative filter on the world are always going to be unhappy. People who are optimistic are always going to lead happier, more fulfilled lives. Expecting the best is almost the very definition of cool (Ive just discovered the italic function and am having great fun with it!). I'm sure I could be happy with very little in the world. As it was I was born with a great many advantages, including, most significantly, an intellectually and emotionally nurturing family. Once upon a time I saw happiness as the number one goal in life. But now I know that I am going to be happy whatever I do. So why settle for less?
Put it this way. It was possible to be happy 1000 years ago without living in a castle. And aside from an ox and a couple of goats, you wouldn't have had much in the world. No ready meals. No TV. No football. I mean NO FOOTBALL! C'monnnn. That's insane! And yet it was possible to be happy and I'm sure many people were happy. Even the King didn't have Sky+ and an endless supply of Internet porn. So it is clear that it is not how many possessions you own or the absolute quality of your life which dictates happiness. Nor is it comparative wealth: the rich are no happier than the poor.

Perhaps it might have something to do with YOU. Who YOU are. Eh?

To be happy means to know who you are. What you like. What you want. To be able to look people in the eye and say THIS IS ME. To say to a group of Trekkies, "I don't like Star Trek". To have your own standards for acceptable behaviour. To do things FOR YOURSELF. This does not mean be selfish. But it does mean not supplicating to other people or doing something to get a reaction out of other people. This is a DEEP point and we are all guilty of it to a greater or lesser extent.

You are not a performing monkey. You never have to impress anyone else. Do not lie to yourself.

Change everything you are
And everything you were
Your number has been called
Fights and battles have begun...
Your hard times are ahead

Best, you've got to be the best
You've got to change the world
And use this chance to be heard
Your time is now

Don't,
Let yourself down
And don't let yourself go...

Thank you Mr Bellamy. I almost forgot. Your hard times are ahead. Installing new habits and beliefs isn't easy. Especially for someone not used to getting things done (90% of folk). But to make it easier, the very first behaviour you should adopt is that of TAKING ON NEW WAYS OF THINKING and BEHAVING and GETTING THINGS DONE. So start with little things. Make yourself brush your teeth twice a day no matter HOW tired you are first thing in the morning or just before you go to bed. Wash your face whilst you're at it. Always eat breakfast.
You're no good in the morning?
Bullshit. Become good.
You don't have time?
Bullshit. Wake up 10/15 minutes earlier.

If you are struggling with this then you really do need to work hard to take on this new mindset. But don't give up. WORK EVEN HARDER AT IT.

Then after maybe 2 weeks you will have been brushing your teeth and washing your face twice a day for a week. And eating breakfast.

And you'll think to yourself, "Holy shmuck! Two weeks ago I didn't do this and through a bit of perseverance I succeeded and adopted new behaviours! Yay".

Then ride the high.

Join the gym. Go swimming. Join a club. Do this hobby 3 times a week without fail. NO excuses.

Then you will have accomplished enough things to change what you want in your life. To have the confidence to say I can make changes to who I am and how I move through this world. My life is not out of my hands.
Other people's lives are.
Mine isn't.
I will therefore only concentrate on changing my life and making my life better. What is it that I want?
I'm gonna go get it..

Think of it like this. If you fail, then all your hair will fall out. And you will look like a doofus. And you wont be able to look yourself in the eye.

Succeed and your confidence will grow. And you will be blessed with hair like David Ginola. ;)

I guess I was told most of this when I was 6 years old by my dad and it didn't really clock back then. Not in any real, meaningful way. So I guess that if you are ready to mature and take control of your life you will do it.

Your life is ending one minute at a time. Or in the words of Thom Yorke, "IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE ME SELL YOUR SOUL!". Have you got anything to lose?
Is your life going where you want it to?

If you always do what you've done, you'll always get what you've got.

Once you stop chomping crisps and watching TV, once you stop procrastinating your life away on facebook, when you've finished reading this and you log off...

I really hope you take action and live the happiest and most fulfilling life you can.

Peace :)

So here We are

2007-07-13T12:52:00.000+01:00

Congratulations. You're reading my blog. It's not so much the fact you're reading this blog which is worthy of praise - if you hadn't I would have summoned a dozen ninja penguins to give your ass a good woopin - but rather that you can read. Well done on being able to read, chum! 1% of people in the UK can't.
Yeh sure. It's insignificant. But that's 600,000 people. That's a lot of people! Say you've walked down Oxford Street (Congratulations! 0.1% of people don't have legs!) from end to end and passed 1,000 people. TEN of them couldn't read. WOW!
Actually that's bs, because 599,999 of The Illiterates live in Liverpool. The other is my next door neighbour. And she's blind.

Anyway. That's enough vitriol for now (no harm caused: they won't be reading this anyway!). Time for an introduction.

I always wanted to write a diary. I started one when I was 15. At the time I thought it was funny, but I found it again a few months ago and it read something like this (I don't have it with me for reference):

blahblahblah That person in Neighbours is such an ASS blahblahblah OMG The
newscaster made a grammatical error blahblahblah I love nutella and yogurt...isn't it great!
p.s. I had Chicken Kiev for supper.

Only there was far more swearing. Still...at least it lasted a long time. A lot can happen to an adolescent in two days.

I have always loved writing. I wrote a journal when I did Work Experience at Matrix chambers (modern, eminent set of chambers whose barristers include Cherie Booth and Rabinder Singh, and a red pill or a blue pill) and it went around the office. I was told by all that I must write a book. "You could be like Alistair Campbell."
What a compliment. hohoho.
The same summer I went to Malta with my brother, sister and grandmother. I kept a diary about the hilarious times we had with the snorkel man who looked like Wario, grape wars with the locals, fat Geordies who had never heard of steak and watermelon the size of my head. It still provides endless amusement to me and my brother.
I aim to be published one day. Bill Bryson was an inspiration to me. A bigger inspiration to me than Nelson Mandela and Gandhi combined. This is a good starting point [edit: the blog, not rejection of historic luminaries].

But now I'm temping at Fitch Ratings in hospitality. I told a friend and she nodded appreciatively as I told her a few stories. After a few minutes she asked me whether I had seen many dead people. I gave her the "Are you tripping?" look for a good 10 seconds, before realising that she didn't understand the difference between analysts in the city and a place you go to sit around for 3hours/months before being prescribed the same antibiotic you're always prescribed.
I'm being paid £9/hr to sit on the Internet and eat gourmet sandwiches. Occasionally I deign to do some work and place a couple of glasses and bottles of Evian in a meeting room. It's not so much that I'm lazy, but that there is NOTHING to do. Monkeys could do my job. Indeed 2 monkeys normally DO do my job.

This blog is here for me to write. Because I have SO many thoughts it would be a shame to keep them to myself. I will post lyrics. I will post comments on society. I will post experiences. I will post about ME. Because ME is someone I love. Someone I respect. Someone I care for...

For the moment this blog is just for me and myself. I don't know when I will advertise its existence. Ill wait a few posts...

Finally, this FIRST entry is dedicated to our distant cousins The Illiterate in Liverpool. My neighbour's not worth a dedication. I swear she shot me a dodgy look this morning...

Have A Nice Day