HOLIDAYITIS

This year I’m not going on holiday. Sure I’m having some time off, but I’m not going away because to be frank, I’m useless at every single aspect of holidays. Getting the timing right for one thing, I tend to exist in a permanent work bubble, fighting off deadlines and targets with my bare fists like some kind of cross between Bruce Lee and David Brent … in my mind at least anyway.

Then, when there's an eventual lull, I think, "Wow, I really need a holiday", and then my mother wades into the argument insisting I go on one, but by then it's too late. What's more, I'm currently and hopelessly single. Just how the heck, as an unattached 34 year old male singleton, are you meant to go on holiday anyway ?? I know exactly what it is that couples do on holiday: they argue. But I'm single, so who on earth am I supposed to steadily fall out of love with ?? I can't slowly poison my relationship with myself … can I ??

I know a few people who tried going on holiday alone, including one whose idea of a break was a week on the Trans-Siberian railway, where he read books and stared out of the window into a landscape of unending nothingness, until he wound up drinking vodka that was more percentage proof than jet fuel just to get it over with quicker.

He considered this a life-enriching experience.

Another friend I was walking home from work with the other week urged me to simply jet off somewhere random because it gives you an unparalleled sense of freedom; "Just stick a pin in a map and fly somewhere," was her advice, and it was such a stirring notion I was just about to fire up Google Earth and do just that when she added a small caveat. "Just don't go for more than a week, because you’ll end up talking to yourself."

It's the evenings, you see. It's fine during the day, because you can just lie on the beach, mooch around the sights or walk round museums with an iPod on, but in the evenings there's not much you can do except eat alone in restaurants or sit alone in bars. If you're a woman it's not too bad, because you may get chatted up every now and then, which can be amusing, but if you're not a woman, like me, or perpetually single, like me, then you'll have to just sit there reading a book or something. And eventually you'll get so lonely you'll start talking to yourself.

There are lots of other options, of course, adventure holidays seem like a pretty good idea as they help to both keep you fit and meet new people, although the idea actually fills me with horror. I really don't want to go trekking along a river with a bunch of strangers.

I mean, what if a really annoying jabbering, bearded bloke latches on to me on the first day and decides I'm his best mate and won't leave me alone, and I'm stuck with him in some Amazonian wilderness with the sun ferociously beating down and he's talking and talking and repeatedly breaking wind for comic effect until I eventually lose all control of my inhibitions, grab the nearest rock and lunge at him like The Incredible Hulk, roaring at the sky until the others dash over to pull me off him, but by then I've gone totally feral and start coming at them with the rock, but as I swing for the next one some self-appointed hero rugby-tackles me, but I'm still putting up a fight so in desperation they all stamp on my neck, then throw my body in the river and make a life-long pact to tell no-one the truth of what happened that day …

… what sort of a holiday is that ??

The final option is the simplest; a cheap and cheerful Bank Holiday Weekend with a group of friends or colleagues, but that requires a degree of planning and forethought which is, frankly, beyond me, so I just end up doing what I always do: arranging a lazy week off and spending it chilling out at home.

The closest I've got to visiting a far-off land is playing Test Drive Unlimited on my PlayStation, which does at least have a level set on a beach, which makes me feel approximately 0.01 % as though I'm on holiday, except rather than relaxing on a sun lounger, I'm blasting down a motorway in an Aston Martin DBR9 with the law on my tail and Soulwax’s “E-TALKING” blasting from the virtual stereo.

I am going on holiday somewhere, somehow, at some point in the near future. I just don't have a clue where, or how, or with who. Answers on a postcard to the usual address please, but preferably not on a picture postcard from somewhere glorious and sunny, that'll only enhance my crushing sense of failure.

And this is my way of unwinding ??

"Professional Idiot" simply does not do me justice sometimes.

THE RANTING BRUMMIE'S VALENTINE'S DAY MASSACRE

The signs say Valentine's Day is here. Then again they've been saying it as soon as the Christmas cards came off the bloody shelves. Heart-shaped chocolate boxes fill display windows. Dozens of fresh red roses all on special sale. But just what on earth is it about February 14th that makes the heart go wild ?? For all its glamour in support of love, Valentine's Day has few devout lovers of its own, least of all me ...

Back when I was a little kid in school, Valentine’s Day meant a class assembly, pink-frosted fairy cakes and a Looney Tunes card from everyone in the class. Nowadays, Cupid's arrow seems to bring more loath than love. Much of the enthusiasm that one generally associates with Valentine’s Day is lost in the anticipation of knowing exactly what to expect.

Or, as in my case, to dread.

I don't know a sole single guy who remotely likes, or looks forward to, Valentine's Day. If they tell you they're into it, don't believe them, they are lying through every possible facial orifice it is possible to lie out of. Valentine's Day is the yappy-dog-that-fits-in-a-pocket-book of holidays.

If it was a Top Gear presenter, it would be Richard Hammond.

Couples, if nothing else, at least have a set code of conduct for February 14th. Dinner. Gifts. Being extra cute and cuddly. And yet, then the next day, it's back to business as usual ?? It makes one wonder why this single day is supposed to define a relationship as opposed to the other perfectly good 364. And by the way, don’t you people know that there’s an economic recession / credit crunch on ??

However, unless couples can keep the romancing up throughout the entire year, Valentine's Day will last just as long as it takes the roses to wilt or the credit card bill to show up. And all this expense spent despite the fact the classic Valentine's date usually barely extends past the tacky FD Hinds bracelet to the fancy dinner.

For singles, Valentine's Day can do significantly more damage to the heart than good. No other holiday singles unattached people out so deliberately. And disenchanted singles like yours truly have heavily promoted the cause against Valentine's Day for years. One look on the Internet and one often finds hoards of ‘stop-the-sappiness’ commentaries and advertisements for Single's Awareness Day. I should know, of course, because I joined most of them on Facebook back in the day.

The history of Valentine's Day itself is also a vague one - there's more than one story about the martyrdom of St. Valentine, and it seems the only thing that can be agreed upon is that he was a total prat / utter imbecile / complete moron / deluded idiot hopeless romantic.

How Valentine's Day even came to fall on February 14 has its own debate: is February the month of romance; or the anniversary of St. Valentine's death; or was the middle of February a time for purification being it was the beginning of spring in ancient Rome ??

We can't even decide who the hell St. Valentine actually WAS, let alone why in the world February 14 has been labelled his ‘day’, so why in the name of all that is holy has our culture made such a production out of it ??

But, let me see if I actually understand this myth correctly. Sometime around 1,500 years ago there may (or may not) have been a priest or a monk that married soldiers, joined a cult, scared off dogs, and resurrected some dead cherubs. Just what exactly does this have to do with little cloud-dwelling angels firing arrows and stuffed animals holding flowers ??

About as much as "Fifty Shades of Gray" has to do with writing, plot and good fiction. In other words, slightly less than bugger all.

There is no getting away from it; Valentine's Day is just bloody rotten. If someone truly cared about you, I think you'd hear it more often than once a year, presented with a heart shaped cardboard box filled with cheap chocolates made with oils and lard and a recycled card picked up for £1.50 in a petrol station.

And just how did they decide to use this to decree that we singletons are left to spend this day feeling utterly miserable, desperately vulnerable, immensely frustrated, deeply resentful, bitter, lonely, angry, hurt, and helplessly inadequate ?? And for those who are bereaved, lost someone close to them, or have experienced relationship breakdowns, particularly if it is a recent loss, Valentine’s Day can stir up many emotions, some of which can be really distressing.

Certainly for me it does.

But the main reason why I truly dislike Valentine's Day actually isn't because of the cheap cards, the flowers that decide to shrivel up and die within 12 hours or the overpriced heart-shaped-boxed choccies. The world's expensive enough as it, thank you very much.

I don't like Valentine's Day because it has become used as an excuse for us as a species to be utterly lazy with such a crucial and fundamentally important human emotion; love. Love is not an achievement, it's a responsibility, as humans we thrive on shared experiences, in fact, it’s what we’re all about. And Valentine's Day completely undermines that with such balatant commercialisation it makes my blood (and most of my other bodily fluids come to think of it) boil.

Valentine’s day is supposed to be a day to celebrate love, but it should also be a day to celebrate different kinds of relationships. People who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or asexual, transgender or who desire or are in an alternative relationship, may also struggle with the damned day either because they do not feel able to be open about their alternative sexualities, lifestyles or relationships; or that they want to be but know that this would lead to problems. 

For example, the only gay or lesbian couple in a restaurant full of straight couples on Valentine’s Day night might feel threatened – or even worse, be met with hostility and abuse from others.

And for a day that's meant to be about love, that makes it even more pathetic.

It's nothing more than a pathetic justification for people to scribble a message under a soppy verse written by a faceless employee in a mass-produced Chinese card factory, say it's "romantic," and figure that they've done their part for the year. Ice cream and teddy bear factories around the world must be rolling around in our grudgingly-given money, but as The Beatles famously sang; “Money Can't Buy You Love."

It’s no co-incidence that Valentines’ Day this year is directly preceded by the unluckiest, most dreaded, and most feared day of the year ... Friday the 13th.

If you ask me, they complement each other just perfectly.