In Another World

It would be strange if, instead of taking certain attributes from each parent, we inherited every characteristic from both. So we'd have twice as much hair, some blonde, some brown; four eyes representing both parents' eye colour; four arms (two slender and feminine, two hairy and ropey); four legs.

Of course, as time passed, the human race would have hundreds of legs and arms and eyes, through cumulative evolution. We'd have massive bodies with a multitude of appendages. As more generations would lead to more advantages, it would be in our interest to reproduce as often as possible. Which would be very very often, as everyone would have loads of penises and vaginas, and hundreds of wombs to grow our young.

Of course, soon we would out-grow the world, and resources would run out and we'd die. Also, we'd have loads of brains, which would be a bit cluttered and confusing.

Furthermore, the design of our bodies would be more jumbled, so we'd look a bit like massive flesh pom-poms, rolling about.

God probably got it right.

***

There's nothing more annoying than people my age, complaining about current kids TV. (There are several things more annoying than this, but I like to cling to hyperbole)

"Today's kids' TV is shit!" they say. "There's nothing as good as Thundercats or Mr Benn nowadays!"

Nonce.

Every generation has probably thought that about the kids TV of the age. The reason we don't think kids' TV is any good now, is because:

WE'RE NOT CHILDREN.

When this generation of children grows up, they'll say the same thing about the futuristic kidz tv of the future - all virtual reality and robot dogs.

People who try and deify the programmes of their youth are usually students; ones of so little substance that they need to look back fifteen years to find the last time they were able to bond with their contemporaries.

Having said that, Muppet Babies was a work of genius.

Ha! Aha! I turned it around with the last sentence! Irony! I've never done that before! Ha! Comedy!

I wear a crown of irony (upside down) and sit on a throne of irritating, tortured metaphors!

I AM KING BLOG!

2007: The Year in Shitty Bullshit Shit

It's the time of year when everyone forgets about being original and thought provoking and just lists stuff that's happened over the past orbit of the sun (that's how it works, right?).

But I feel that I can't really remember much of what I've done this year. If it was interesting, I probably would have written about it before.

I don't seem to have listened to any new albums this year, or seen any films, or reached any profound understandings about my life.

But I'm nothing if not lazy, so here is my Review of 2007:

Life-Changing Event of 2007

I grew a beard.

It hasn't caused me much trouble, but it has annoyed me that I don't grow hair on the bits between moustache and beard. It has also made me look a bit like a terrorist, which can only be a good thing (I don't travel by tube).

Film of 2007

Hmm. What have I even seen this year? Potter, Simpsons, nothing much. I suppose the award should go to the new Futurama DVD Movie, Bender's Big Score, which I got for my birthday. It's a bit long, but very funny.

TV Programme of 2007

Charlie Brooker's Screen Wipe in a walk. Although I am enjoying DS9 repeats.

Number of 2007

A tie between 8 and 9.

Celebrity Sighting of 2007

A comedy workshop with Adrian Edmonson. Although he didn't stab himself or fall through a window, so it was a bit of a disappointment.

Best bit from my Review of 2007

"Although I am enjoying DS9 repeats".

Prediction for 2008

More blogging, drug habit, success and failure.

And giant mechanical rats.

***

New character idea:

Blackboard the Pirate.

He's a pirate up to his neck, then his head is just a big blackboard with pirate slogans written on it in chalk.

I'm so inventive I could be the next Stan Lee.

Which reminds me...

Interesting Fact of 2007

I can do a good impression of Stan Lee, but no-one knows what he sounds like, so I don't get any props.

'Nuff Said, True Believer!

Fantastic

A couple of nights ago, I had a weird night where I kept going over an idea for a comedy sketch. I was half-dreaming, half-awake, and seemed to go over various permutations of the same idea in a nightmare vortex.

Unlike many of my ideas, it is not completely nonsensical, but I'm not sure if it's funny or not.

It goes thusly:

Scene 1:

A scientist in a high-tech diving suit discussing shrinking himself down and entering a patient's body in a Fantastic Vogage/Innerspace-style sci-fi expedition.

Scene 2:

Caption: 1 HOUR EARLIER
A lab assistant accidentally spills a can of Coke over the suit, causing it to crackle and seem to malfunction a little. The assistant checks to make sure no-one saw, looks worried and leaves.

Scene 3:

Caption: 1 HOUR AND FIVE MINUTES LATER
The screen is red, then the red is wiped off the scientist's goggles. Zoom out to reveal the scientist covered in blood, in the lab sprayed with plasma and vital organs, standing in the exploded torso of the patient. He then either says:

"Has anyone got any paper towels?"

or, more simply,

"Bollocks."

Does that make sense?

I'm sure it does. I could be the next Little Britain.

No. Well...

I've been informed that my last post sounded really miserable. I'm not! It's just easier to write negatively. There's more humour in hate than in love, which is weird. Maybe humour is a dark emotion like jealousy or spitting. It's great anyway!

In truth, I'm feeling quite optimistic about things. I'm looking forward to all kinds of cool things in the weeks and months ahead, like being back in Oxford and eating turkey (I almost capitalised Turkey there, which would have led you to believe I was going to eat the country. This would be false. My plans have yet to be finalised.)

Christmas is coming, the goose it getting fat. And yet there are no sensationalist news stories about a Goose Obesity Pandemic striking the country. I suppose it's because after Dec 25 or so, the problem seems to vanish for some reason.

Christmas has too much symbolism and myth. A little bit is fine, but it's a bit overboard. The Nativity is fine as your crazy mythical basis. Then you throw Santa Claus in there and things get cluttered. With both Jesus and Saint Nick in the mix, there's an excess of ego.

Then you throw in snowmen. And Rudolph. So, with this orgy of iconography, what do we put on top of the Christmas tree?

A fairy.

Jessus Christ, what more do we need? The Noel unicorn? Snowy Loch Ness monster? Jingle Bell Great Auk?

It gets confusing. Easter's the same, what with old JC and the Bunny.

I'm going to add an extra character to Halloween. He's called Humperdink the Asthmatic Hedgehog, and he creeps around at night leaving toothpicks and dirty syringes on childrens' pillows. And Chocolate Keith who's 800 feet tall and is enraged by brevity. That'll show 'em!

'#You'd better not move!
You'd better not talk!
By sunrise you'll barely be able to walk!
Humperdink is liquored up and pissed off!#

I can hear the children sing.

Many Happy Returns

I suppose I should write about my birthday.

I'm not doing anything special. In fact, I'm at my desk, at work, and it feels just like any other day (except I've been decorating Christmas trees). But still, I am 25.

25 years.

It seems like a pretty long time. 25 is really the first of the landmark birthdays to be a negative one. 18 is fine, it means you can legally drink. 21 is a coming of age thing. 25, though. You're grown-up then. At 25, I could be on Friends (the first series).

I think your prime decade is probably 25-35. After that it's essentially downhill. And I haven't really got as much going on in my life/career/experience as I'd like. By now, I should have toured with a punk band or invented a cylindrical waffle or made my first million. At this rate of income, I'm not going to make my first million until I'm around 100. And that's if I don't spend any of it, which seems unlikely. The chance of me resisting ordering a Domino's pizza for the next 75 years isn't high.

I'm not crazy about birthdays. I think the mother should receive gifts on the anniversary of their child's birth instead. They did all the hard work. Except my mum had a Caesarean Section - lazy.

My disinterest in my birthday is made worse by the memory of how excited I used to be at this time of year. I couldn't sleep. Birthday then Christmas! Brilliant! But now I feel cynical and old.

25.

To be honest, my age doesn't really bother me. But lack of achievment is. I think the coming year will be a big one. I'll be sending off writing everywhere and trying to find some calling. In a year's time, if I'm still writing this blog, I'll be able to see how far I've come.

And I'll realise that I'm still an office temp with delusions of grandeur, and I'll pierce my temple with a stapler.

Oh well, at least Lucy's made me a spectacular cake!

(That's made a cake for me, rather than making me into one. Although, rest assured, if I were a cake, I would be fucking spectacular.)

Home Secretary Material

In addition to being able to see fights for free, travelling by bus lets you feel superior in other ways. The main one is that public transport is more environmentally friendly. So I can afford to look down my nose at people in cars, tutting at the fact that they're pumping a proportionally higher amount of fumes into the world than me. I can also feel smug about owning a car; I'm noble like Rob Newman in choosing to walk everywhere (and it's certainly not the case that I don't drive because I'm poor and inept, oh no).

I don't have a bike, so I can criticise cyclists too. It's the best of both worlds! Except that it's very, very cold today, and self-satisfaction can only heat me up so much on my long walk to work.

Anyway, drivers are cunts.

I don't need to support that with evidence, you know it's true.

I hate it when they park in bus stops, blocking the way of the bus. It's not like it's unmarked or ambiguous. There's fucking big lettering on the road saying 'BUS STOP'. There's little room for misinterpretation there. But drivers are cunts. I honestly believe that if you park in a bus stop, the bus driver should be legally allowed to plow straight through your vehicle, destroying both it and any children/pets inside. It's only fair.

I'm a big proponent of the idea that the punishment should fit the crime. This is a way to solve our prison crisis. In my system, the only people in jail with be those who have illegally imprisioned others.

More creative options are available. As well as the bus rule, Lucy has suggested that if you park in an ambulance zone, not only can you be killed, but your organs should be up for grabs. I think hospitals should have snipers on their roofs, and if anyone infringes the rules, they get picked off and have their innards harvested. You'd have to be accurate with the shot, so as not to rupture any useful equipment. Shoot for the chin, perhaps. No-one wants a chin transplant.

On a similar vein, if you park in a disabled parking space, any inconvenienced driver is able to disble the illegal parker to the same extent. If a paraplegic person can't get to their space because of some able-bodied nonce, they can cripple them. Obviously, this gets a bit more difficult with mental conditions like Down's Syndrome, but I'm sure we can work out some compromise (probably involving a hammer).

Finally, if you spit chewing-gum on the ground, your family is killed and you get repeatedly raped with a jagged bit of metal.

I hate chewing-gum.

He came unto me

I had a very powerful dream last night.

Generally, I find hearing about other people's dreams really tedious. Mark Lamarr did a good stand-up bit about the kind of people that think the thoughts in their heads are of any interest to anyone else. ("And they always say the same thing: 'But this one's a really good one!'")

But, as writing a blog is essentially an exercise in self-indulgent masturbation (as opposed to heroic masturbation for the greater good), I thought I'd write about it.

I think it came as a result of reading A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and bombarding myself with religious ideas. I've spoken about religion quite a bit here recently.

Anyway, the dream was long and convoluted and distressing, and at the end of various meaningless bullshit, I found myself in a church.

I'd accidentally wondered in there, away from a talk on wrestling in another room: indy wrestler Chris Hero giving a talk about blading (cutting yourself open to draw blood). If you know Chris Hero (and I'm 100% sure you don't) the idea of him giving a presentation, perhaps with accompanying PowerPoint slides, is a good one.

So, I was in the church, and it seemed to be a Catholic ceremony (lots of Latin) and loads of people from my school were there. I was getting distressed by the service, and they were all bored by it and started giving the priest the 'slow clap' of contempt. I felt, even though I didn't want to be there, that we should be a bit more polite.

Anyway, the crux of the dream was that after all my nightmare tribulations, I tried to leave the church, but was overcome by a fit of despair and began to weep. I was right at the front of the church, overcome by sobbing.

Although I was weeping because of the situation (or because it was a stupid dream) I became terrified that the priest (who was Dax from Deep Space Nine, but that's not important) would think that I was having some kind of spiritual epiphany or revelation. Not only that, but I was afraid I WAS having something like that. I looked into the face of the statue of Jesus and was really afraid. Luckily he didn't wink or spit or anything.

So then I woke up.

Possible interpretations:

- a simultaneous respect and disdain for organised religion
- a fear of the existence of God
- a determination to hold fast in my atheism
- Terry Farrell is really God

If I was religious, I'd probably think the vividness (vividity?) of the dream meant it was a message from God. He sometimes speaks to people in dreams, apparently. Of course Chris Hero also spoke to me in a dream, so I don't know what to believe.

I've been having loads of long and densely symbolic dreams lately (dont worry, I won't write about them anymore). I don't know why. Maybe I should stop swallowing an Edam whole before going to bed.

And a whole Eagle at lunch.

***

To appease the Almighty, I'll engage in some Christmas activity.

Paul's Christmas Wish List:

A Nintendo Wii (I know you can't find them anywhere, but I'm dying to play Super Mario Galaxy. Maybe I'll steal one...)
World Peace
An end to famine
Socks
Pyramint
A secret underground cave full of cushions and high-end electronic equipment
A tiger cub
For Santa to NOT fulfil this list (Paradox! Paradox!)
A really tall hat with a snake inside

I'm rubbing my hands with anticipation.

Well, I say hands...

A fight at the bus station

There was a fight at the bus station on Tuesday night. Which I'm sure will come as no suprise to anyone.

I don't know if bus stations are designed to be the most depressing places in any city, but they certainly are (although the Oxford one isn't so bad). I think they might be architecturally designed as a kind of antenna (like the building in Ghostbusters), channelling and amplifying the scum of the world.

Sitting in a bus station, at night, when it's raining, I feel like I'm in Bladerunner or something. Except I'd never sit, because I'd get stained with blood and vomit. Gangs of foul-mouthed youths prowl around like jackals, old women shiver; jovial, luminescent-jacketed bus drivers are at once upbeat and desperate. Chewing gum is everywhere.

Of course, the reason bus stations are so bad is that only the worst kind of people need to go there: people who are either too stupid to drive (me), or have lost their licenses after a drunken rampage, and people who are too unromantic and lacking in billowing scarves to take the train.

So, there was a fight. It was more of a scuffle really. Words were exchanged. A few thrown punches. And of course one of the participants got on my bus.

I get all worked up about fights. It's partly because I'm a natural coward, and partly because I hate the fact that cunts like that exist. I want to make the world a better place, but I'd never have the guts to do anything, so I just sit on the bus with my music on loud, and run through loads of propesterous scenarios in my mind where I'm challenged to a fight, and I'm cool and flick a toothpick and make a quip and pull out the assailant's eyeball or something.

I'm really too sensitive to be allowed out in public. Let alone the bus station. Maybe I should start carrying a knife and, if stopped, claim I'm on my way home from a catering class.

***

As a counterpoint to my bus station hell, I was eating my lunch outside when a robin landed on the bench next to me. It warmed my heart.

I really like animals. Really like. REALLY like.

No, not really.

But I find something comforting in their presence. I also enjoyed seeing strange birds on the beach with Lucy (I'm no ornithologist), and squealed like an eleven-year-old girl when I saw a tiger cub (cub? I'm no zoologist) on the news.

It made me think that i should do something with animals (to clarify: not sexual) as a career. but the only animal jobs I can think of are zookeeper (imprisoning animals) and vet (dealing with sick, disgusting animals and sometimes killing them).

I tried my hand at being the next Dr Doolittle, but when I tried talking to a squirrel I accidentally started sucking it off.

This blog is a electric confessional, and you are the Hyper-Priest.

Forgive me.

Hypocriss

Yesterday, I went to the supermarket, and at the checkout there seemed to be some woman supervising the check-out guy, writing notes on an electronic clipboard.

Because it looked like the staff member was being assessed, I tried extra hard to be polite and look impressed with the service. I stopped short of saying "excellent, really excellent, thank you!" or just shaking my head and smiling in astonishment, applauding.

I'm thoughtful like that. And weird.

Weird and thoughtful.

***

I've been thinking about hypocrisy.

It's strange that hypocrisy is such a terrible quality to have. People seem to tolerate all kinds of behaviour, but not that.

"Well, he killed that kid. But, to be fair, he never said he was opposed to killing kids. So I can't complain."

I think I was started along that track when reading Stephen Fry's blog about an argument he'd had when someone called Al Gore a hypocrite.

I suppose people resent a having standards imposed upon them by someone who can't meet those standards. That seems quite intuitive. But why?

What's to stop us desiring standards above our own? If I rape the Queen mother's corpse, isn't my criticism of someone raping Helen Daniels From Neighbours's corpse still valid? I think it probably is. I don't like the idea of having to embody all of my highest ideals of perfect morality in order to criticise others. I'm not a hypocrite if I want other people to always be friendly, even if I'm sometimes a little tetchy/stabby myself.

It's a war between two (probably substanceless) statements:

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"
vs
"Do as I say, not as I do"

There is still something unpleasant about hypocrisy though. I think it's acceptable to desire better behaviour in others than in yourself, but it's not acceptable to chastise or punish them for their failure.

If you lash me for talking with my mouthful, and you go un-lashed for taking a shit in the gravy boat, that's just not fair.

But I still feel that the loathing of the hypocrite is a little disproportionate to a crime which is surely not even as bad as lying.

If a drug-addled young mother chastises, cajoles and pleads with her son to ensure he doesn't go down the same road as her, she may be a hypocrite, but I'm happy to shake her by the hand.

Wearing gloves, obviously.

The Kiss of Death

I've done it again. When they say the pen is mightier than the sword, they ain't kidding. Admittedly, I'm not using a pen, but the point remains the same.

I killed Evel Nievel.

I wrote about him below, and he drops dead. I'd like to say I'm sorry to the whole Nievel family. I'm sure that if he's in heaven, he's wowing the angels, or if he's in Hell, he's stunt jumping over the lakes of fire and brimstone and blowing Satan's mind.

I was a bit annoyed by him suing Kanye West, but they seemed to have gotten along eventually (I'm sure a large cash settlement helped the situation).

Anyway, the reason I don't think my writing about him on the day he died is a coincidence is I have a precedent.

When I did stand-up in London, I told a joke about Richard Whiteley. I say joke, it was really just abuse. Here it is:

I’ve gotta tell you, it really pisses me off when people make generalisations about students. Ok, I did sleep in till 1pm everyday. I did eat Pot Noodles and beans on toast. But I never ONCE watched Countdown. The only time I want to look at Richard Whiteley is through the scope of my sniper-rifle. Moments before I send a bullet hurtling through that big melon of his, mercifully cutting off one of his fucking awful ‘humorous’ monologues, sending fragments of brain and skull flying all over those geriatric audience members and messing up Carol’s face with blood. Here’s a conundrum for you, Richard. How are you gonna put your FUCKING face back together?!

To be fair, it's not that funny written down. When I did it out loud it worked better.

Anyway, I wasn't to know at the time that he was on his deathbed. He died a few days later.

I felt guilty. I feel guilty now. I suppose the odds are that someone I joke about will die every now and then, but I'm still going to be careful about who I make fun of from now on. If John Nettles dies, I'm going to become a monk and take a vow of internet silence.

***

Speaking of death, why are people always on their deathbeds? If it was me, I'd get up. If someone told me I was on my deathbed, I'd ask to be moved or something. Or have some kind of protective sheeting fitted.

When I'm seriously ill - fuck it - I'm going to sleep in a chair. No-one's ever on their death chair, are they?

Unless they're being electrocuted, I suppose.

***

As well as being a Death Omen, I'm also something of a neologist. My latest creation.

Mithanthropy - The hatred of people with lisps

***

I might try and kill someone I actually don't like next time.

"Why isn't the Pope pronounced Popey?"