THIS ISN'T GOING TO END WELL …

It's the company works do this week, there are few activities quite so vexing as the Office Christmas Party; that obligatory gathering of bosses and subordinates, cronies and rivals, back-stabbers and back-stabbees. Plus a horde of husbands and wives who spend the entire night planning their escape.

But, in all seriousness, there's been a bit of a darth at the pub on a Friday night in recent weeks, and now the comic-con circuit's over for another year it's a chance to have some poncy food, drink like a fish, and all with the approval of the top brass.

I often even make my annual attempt of dancing.

Still, as we all know, there are the usual hazards involved in the office bash. This year for example it's the first time in year I haven't knocked work immediately afterwards so any potential for relying on memory loss for any indiscretions will not be a suitable back-up plan. Also it means less potential opportunities for 'doing a Sherlock' and sneaking out early. It all starts before when trying to pick your best outfit, in my case it's also a partial cosplay, aimed by teaming by Twelfth Doctor outfit with a casual shirt. It basically turns the evening into a cross between 'Time Heist' and '24-hr Party People', only without a sonic screwdriver.

So what if you slept with Rose from book-keeping. That's okay, maybe nobody knows. Maybe they didn't notice you were the last two to leave. Maybe she didn't burst in this morning announcing it to the room.

Throwing a decent party itself isn’t rocket science – New Year's Eve seems to get it better than Christmas itself for some reason - just provide drinks and snacks, assemble an upbeat playlist, have a few activities in your back pocket if people seem into it, ask everyone to dress up a teensy bit fancier than they would normally, et voilà: you have a room full of people enjoying themselves.

It should be simple enough. But that formula tends to fall apart like Birmingham City's back four when it comes to the month of December and your place of work. One December, a friend’s office Christmas lunch was booked at a central London hotel. There was great excitement all morning. Colleagues put on party frocks and snowman jumpers. The occasion promised unlimited prosecco, food and an afternoon off work.

But on arrival she found the equivalent of a Christmas party industrial complex. The banqueting hall was set for hundreds of Christmas lunches for staff parties from many companies. The turkey, sausages and roast potatoes were served from an assembly line, slopped out by bored kitchen staff who had seen it all before, and were about to see it all again.

As she ate her pale lunch, she was struck by how boring the conversation was. So she topped up her glass, then had another. When the meal was over, everyone exchanged Secret Santa gifts. Hers was tat. Then she watched as a colleague discarded her carefully chosen present. She then quit in the new year.

The 1980s Xmas party was premised upon colleagues meeting outside of the workplace, 'letting down their hair' and acting out the fiction that their relationship was founded upon friendship, not economic necessity. An essential part of that ritual was to engage in behaviour that was not permissible in normal office life - starting with public drunkenness, telling truths that could not be uttered elsewhere, misuse of the photocopier, etc etc

Most of us are now aware that work colleagues don't evade HR rules by putting on a paper hat. The rules of normal office life are seen to apply at all times. Colleagues now have more diverse perceptions of what is acceptable. Views about alcohol differ, and any joke can be misinterpreted as aggressive, or demeaning.

Still what's the worst that can happen, eh ??

HATE TO DATE ...

Whilst looking for something on TV to throw my slippers at the other week, (I don't actually WEAR slippers BTW, they are literally just for throwing at the TV at things that get on my nerves, it's a better substitute for a coffee mug or a whisky glass at least anyway, it certainly saves money on television sets) I came across Channel 4's romance simulator programme "First Dates".

My god, what a loathsome programme, and like most of these shows, the emphasis is typically NOT on not so much if any permanent couplings or happy-ever-afters emerge, but on how the woman feels about the misguided imbecile across the table, promptly followed by a polite description about how she 'only wants to remain friends', based purely on the standard of his stomach muscles, and no, I don't mean the ones used to digest the horrible poncey, overpriced food he'd just forked out for in the vain hope of only being rejected half as badly as the last time he tried this massive waste of time.

In the episode I watched, a woman was so unimpressed by her date, who was doing absolutely nothing wrong other than trying to match up to the impossible standard he was being set, whilst being judged solely on how many inches his trousers and wallet packed respectively, that she spent 10 minutes in the toilet and even plotted her escape in such a way I'm surprised Charles Bronson didn't suddenly burrow his way up from underneath the pseudo-vinyl flooring armed with a bunch of gardening tools.

Having re-entered the restaurant for her date, she spent her time telling the poor dopey sod that was losing a day's hard-earned wages in the vain hope of being allowed near her pelvis on a sub-rental basis that would have Blockbuster Video sobbing into their cornflakes, that she was looking for the opposite of him , before eventually being won around and agreeing to meet again.

This got me thinking.

Generally speaking feminists seem to want to encourage women to date and have sex casually from 21-28 ... while they focus on their 'career'. The trouble is that when these women do decide that the grind is too hard and start looking for an out, at 28 they are doing so at exactly the point at which it is perceived that their market value is passing it's peak and heading into terminal decline as the 'biological clock' starts ticking and they need to start dropping sprogs.

Bull.

If men who are 28 were to realise that 28 wasn't a good 'time to buy' as far as women are concerned, the game would be up. Women wouldn't be able to leap off the career ladder in their late 20s and early 30s with the ease that they presently can.

In addition I have always found it fascinating that when an older woman dates a younger man it is celebrated by everyone these days. It's a subgenre of both film and adult entertainment all on it's own, yet when a 46 year old man dates a 21 year old woman, it is still mostly demonised, it's made me think even more consciously about what minimal age of the girl I could potentially engage with is, as I'm knocking on the door of pre-middle age. I even have second thoughts about the age of girls I add to my social media accounts these days.

What I find funny in both of these situations is the fact that nobody seems to question that maybe both people actually like one another, or if the younger girl is manipulating the older man. I hear all the typical shaming that goes along with older men dating younger women. Co-incidentally it happened to someone I know a while back, and it actually sounds she was damn lucky not to have joined the ranks of single parenthood as a result due to his global philandering.

All this flashed through my mind as I read about Hatr, the very latest 'hot new dating app' that launched last week and promises to bond potential lovers over the things that they loathe. Overturning the traditional cheery positives (“Love the cinema, ice skating and anonymous sex behind a bin ?? Meet Maisie, 34, from Bolton … ”), Hatr allows eager singletons to form relationships based on their mutual aversions instead of what actually floats their boat.

Boy, oh, boy, that sounds right up my street. Romance through ranting, dating for the post-Brexit, Trump era, let’s really get that negativity out there, more openly expressed misanthropy in the world might just be what we need. Brendan Alper, the ex-banker who founded the app, says: “What we hate is an important part of who we are, but it’s often swept under the rug.”

Sounds interesting, as this very blog is founded on the principle that I think that rolling up your sleeves and having a damn good rant on everything is a key part of a modern, civilised society. I have always said if there's one thing I know to do, it's how to moan about things I don't like very much.

I actually, and somewhat ironically, hate the principle of online dating itself from a start, seeing as it would be perfectly possible for me to use a profile picture of Ryan Reynolds and tell a load of complete and total lies about myself to the point where anyone logged on to my profile, they'd be gobsmacked if they met me in real life that I'm not a gay 1970's pornstar-cum-astronaut.

But to be able to set up a profile based on the stuff that really grinds your gears and really, REALLY gets up your nose ?? Brilliant. I can now legitimately use my dislike of reality TV, Justin Bieber, Harry Styles, environmentalists, the EU, the Green Party, people who vote for Jeremy Corbyn, people who think Comic-Cons are for nerds, ham hock, horribly overpriced coffee, gym wankers, girls who are obsessed with guys with six-packs, burnt toast, cosplay snobs, Aston Villa Football Club, Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club, internet pornography, Simon Cowell, Jean-Claude Juncker, the E! Channel, late trains, cauliflower cheese, shoe shops and fashionistas to potentially find a romantic partner.

Nothing could be more destigmatising.

And yet, and yet, it fails to escape the fact that is one of the key dangers of the internet; this irresistible hobby of giving everything a verdict. A judgement, a thumbs up or down. One minute you're giggling as you hate 100 concepts in a minute on Reddit, the next you’re giving a hotel no stars on Trip Advisor, roasting a friend’s wedding photos on Facebook, trolling columnists on the Guardian website and voting down all the solo songs from the members of One Dire Erection.

Again, just a typical day for me.

It’s easy for the first thought on anything to be negative. It's something I face at work everyday. It takes a small effort to push through into kindliness. With a five-minute pause, you might wonder whether the lady who forgot to put a syrup shot in your coffee at Starbucks was feeling a bit lonely, or suffering a bereavement you didn’t know about, and choose not to damn her business in public for all eternity, just in case.

I have quite a serious crush at the moment on a seriously pretty barmaid at the pub me and my colleagues go to on a Friday night, not that I'd ever tell her, but also because she can be quite comically bad at what she does (she's a true Penny from The Big Bang Theory in every sense of word), but that doesn't stop you from planning what University your kids are going to go to.

Ironically, that's what stopped me from actually making any further progress with the only girl I ever snogged, at the old pub we used to go to, almost three years to this very day. She's now going out with a Norwegian man-mountain who looks like he eats raw hippos for breakfast and could chop down a tree with his bare hands.

Why ??

Because at the end of the day women as a species are still amongst some of the biggest absolute sheer f***ing hypocrites you'll ever meet. A few years down the line, you’re welcoming your beloved through the door with an exhaustive chorus of everything they’ve found annoying, depressing or loathsome that day, dumped at your feet like so many litres of old bin juice, transforming the evening into one long, grim, joke-free episode of Room 101.

Maybe I should mention that when I set up my Hatr profile …

GENERATION GAMES

Voting eh ?? What a messy business. As the dust settles on the second General Election in three years, it seems that anyone who actually won was considered to be the loser, and those who lost were running about clutching their parts waving their hands in the air claiming the kind of victory not seen since we sent the Germans packing in 1917, 1945 and of course, 1966.

In my last post I made a point about the older generation needing to vote the save the younger generation from themselves and their idea that we can live in a something-for-nothing, everything-can-be-free world, arguing that a Labour government would chase all the wealth and inspiration out of the country, forcing anyone with savings and a job to pay through the nose for so many things that other people want that they wouldn't be able to buy anything for themselves other than a cheese sandwich and a packet of Smarties, even if they did double overtime every day for the rest of their lives.

Even though the final result of this election meant a bloody nose for the forces of common sense, I thought about how much of the coverage seemed to focus on the views of the very old vs the views of the very young. A bit like the parties themselves I suppose, both having plunged off so far to the left and the right that I'm amazed nobody has thought of the term 'cleavage politics'. Until now. Maybe I should form the first political party to fill that particular gap. Our campaign slogans would be something to behold …

Anyway, opinions differ as to the exact parameters that define each group, but the "baby-boomers" are generally thought to have been born between 1946 (the results of the post-war 'baby boom', when people were so happy to be back home alive after six years of fighting and being bombed the bejesus out of that they jumped, en-masse, into the sack and literally shagged for Britain …) and the early 1950s. The millennials, on the other hand, are usually defined as being born either around the turn of the millennium, or a little earlier.

The boomers don’t like the millennials because they think the younger generation are spoiled, impractical, feckless, whiny, easily-offended SJW's glued to their mobile phones, scared of hard graft and obsessed by reality TV and status, disrespectful of the sacrifice of their parents in wartime and more interested in posting a selfie to social media and playing video games than getting a job and doing anything useful with their lives.

The millennials, on the other hand, see the boomers as a bunch of racist, Alf-Garnett / Victor Meldrew-esque` old fogeys that have pretty much ruined everything for them. They’re living too long, taxpayers’ money is gushing into looking after them. They’ve ruined thier future in Europe, kept house prices high, meaning young people can’t afford to buy. Workplace pensions are rapidly becoming a thing of the past. They're against gay and interracial marriage and keep buying music in a physical format.

Boomers are, by and large, Brexiteers and Tories. They remember when they were young themselves at a time Britain was great when, in the 80's, under Thatcher, your house was worth more than Egypt, and think that coming out of Europe will be a doddle. Millennials have never known a time when we didn't have to bow down to meddlesome foreign politicians, there was no channel tunnel for immigrants to sneak into the country through, Calais was a holiday destination, and how much of a fuss there was in order to JOIN, never mind want to leave the EU.

Not me though, or a large number of us that are currently more concerned about the here and now. The ones that always have to end up paying no matter who comes out on top. The ones living out the consequnces of the actions of both.

So then, who are we, if we’re not boomers or millennials ...

Why, we’re Generation X of course.

And when the whinging, moaning, slapping and fighting is all done and dusted, we’re the ones that are going to save the world. Generation X-ers were born from around the first third of the 1970's to the early 1980's. The children of the boomers. We didn’t even get a name until Douglas Coupland wrote a novel about us in 1991, and for a long time people thought Generation X meant we were a bunch of greasy-haired, weed-smoking, baggy-jean-wearing, Hooch-drinking slackers who would never amount to much. But, oh man, we’ve come of age now. We’re mainly in our late thirties and early forties, and boy, this is our time.

Generation X has the benefit of possessing the best characteristics of both the boomers and the millennials, and few of the downsides. We know how to work hard and we know how to play hard. Generation X-ers are very industrious, because we went to school to learn, not to be lectured to.

Boomers don’t understand the internet, millennials were raised on it. But Generation X created it, then dove into the glittering waters of this brand new thing, and made it what it is today. We walked around with phones the size of rucksacks, playing snake, and sent the first text-messages. We knuckled down and worked hard and now we write books and make TV shows and direct movies based on the things we used to love when we were kids ourselves, to preserve them for the millennials whilst they try and come up with something new. We stream the new series of "Game Of Thrones", but binge on our DVD box sets of "The X-Files".

We still get up early to go to work, and we come out in the middle of the night to fix your burst pipe and reset your wi-fi. We appreciate the finer things in life, but know how to take our brains out of gear and have a laugh. We grew up with few people from outside our ethnic group, but because of that we didn't care about racism, because it wasn't something we manically obsessed over.

Culturally, we never had it so good. Generation X invented indie, grunge, Britpop, dance, techno, and any bloody musical genre of worth that you care to name. We transformed the Eighties and we owned the Nineties. We had alcopops and ecstasy and we were fearless and stupid and happy, but we still got up for work on Monday morning, no matter how bad we felt. Ours was the era of Cool Britannia, the last true, genuine, pre-Facebook people's movement, and we didn't care who was along for the ride, because everyone was welcome.

(Mind you, we also thought that MySpace and the Nokia N-Gage was going to the be the next best thing, but hey, nobody's perfect …)

Boomers live in the past and fear the future. Millennials feel they ARE the future and are ignorant of the past. Generation X acknowledges what has gone before, learns from it, and resolves to shape the future into something better without tearing everything up completely. We don’t throw our hands in the air and say the job’s a bust, let’s give up. We don't create viral memes and whinge and moan on Instagram. We know we can’t go back to those mythical halcyon days, but we still take time to be nostalgic about it, even though we know we can’t just rip it up and start again. We work with what we’ve got and try to make it better. We change things from the inside out.

We're evolutionists, not revolutionists.

Yes, Generation X had some things easy. We were paid by the state to go to university. We remember when it was easier to get a job, not having to compete with floods of unskilled immigrants. Then again, we remember three million unemployed. We remember the systematic destruction of UK heavy industry. All without Facebook, Twitter and Wikipedia.

However, we also remember the stories our parents told of us the 'Winter of Discontent' that was caused by a Labour government just as left wing as we are seeing the party today under Corbyn, how it nearly brought Britian to it's knees, how it almost left our parents homeless and how much we want to avoid the same fate. We remember how happy we were to see Tony Blair and New Labour in office in 1997, then were also shocked to see his support for the Iraq War and how much uncontrolled immigration he had allowed, arguably triggering the very path of history culminating in the events of this week.

Generation X is unique because nobody has had lives like we’ve got. Boomers were old by the time they were 40; millennials have ages to go yet before they hit that milestone. Generation X is pushing back the envelope, of getting older like never before. We can do the shopping, still go to comic-cons, but still read books, pay the bills, read our comic books and play video games. We can be 'adult' all you like, but we’re still kids at heart.

The problem with you millennials and boomers though, apart from the fact that you both think you're right and you're both robbing each other of each other's futures, not that you’d never admit it, is you’re too alike. You’re both insular, in different ways. You’re both selfish. You’re both so blinkered and blinded by ideas of your own personal utopias, and you think you’re the only two factions in this petty little fight of yours.

But you forgot about Generation X. The children of the boomers and the parents of the millennials. We're not going away, we’re still here. Working hard, playing hard, innovating, learning from the past and planning the future. All with a healthy dose of irony, humour, cynicism, experience and wisdom. So have your little generational war, let the rest of us get on with our work, and when you’re done, don’t worry, we’re Generation X, and we've got this in hand.

Just don't expect us to have to pick up the bill for BOTH of your mistakes …

WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE MY ENORMOUS ELECTION ??

It's funny, but for ages I've been under the misapprehension that Britain is a democracy. I suppose I've concluded this from our electoral system. The parties present their manifestos to the nation, and after we've studied these* and compared Mrs May to Beardy Comrade Corbyn, Mr Squeaky from the Liberal Democrats, the balding racist from UKIP and that awful, pixie-haired, baggy-breasted woman from the Green Armpit Party who wants us all to have wire wool haircuts, hairy toes, no wi-fi and to all have to go to work on the back of a moose, we vote. Whoever gets the most votes, and the most seats, is judged to be victorious.

*(At least, those that can be bothered to ...)

Democracy works in many other ways as well. If six in a group of eleven fancy a pizza, and the remaining five a burger, we head to Frankie and Benny's and not Maccy D's. Provided those with the responsibility of casting their votes know what they are doing with them, it all seems very fair and clear-cut to me.

I do NOT want the Labour party to win this election, as anyone with a job and savings will simply get squeezed until they bleed, then squeezed some more, then ordered by men in brown coats to give away all our houses and otherworldly goods to people whose idea of first-class travel involves a rubber dingy followed by the underside of the Eurostar. And if we protest, refuse or so much as raise our hands to say "errm, actually …", we get labelled with lots of things about us that are not true from people who have time to do such things in lieu of having any meaningful full-time employment.

However, if enough of the general, sensible adult population fails to come out and cast enough votes to stop the millennials from having their way and allowing a man who openly hates our own armed forces into Downing Street, I shall accept the decision, albeit in bad grace, and then move to a country with some common sense.

If I were to approach my local council for funds to start a theatre group, they would turn me away, arguing I was too middle-class and not apologetic enough about the human rights record of countries where they host Formula One races. The money would go instead to someone who promises to charge a fortune for a (recycled) cup of lukewarm fair trade herbal tea and a commitment to employ at least three dolphins.

Now, if the majority isn't really affected by a minority's aspirations, then it doesn't really matter that much and if we can do a little bit to help out, then fine, it must be part of living in a caring society, I suppose. But when a minority wants, no, demands something that is deeply offensive to majority, it should simply be told in no uncertain terms, to bugger off.

But what matters more to the country is surely the quality of Mr Corbyn’s ideas. And while he has been accepted by many as a nice, if naïve, man who just wants planning permission to build a bit of Jerusalem in England’s green and pleasant land, the reality is quite different. The man is an economic dinosaur. Ebenezer Scrooge and Bob Cratchit would be a better choice to run the economy. Corbyn favours printing money to finance increased expenditure – an idea that even sent poor Zimbabwe back to the stone age.

Corbyn paints himself as a progressive figure, but one glance at this manifesto and you see he's about as progressive as Pink Floyd. Maybe in the sense that he sees the future and wants to help all Britons to enjoy its fruits, but No: he is a nostalgia addict. And not in a 1990's Britpop way.

It’s like finding out your old geography teacher just got a new job. The one you half remember, and then only because of that time he cried because some kid pissed in his slippers on the school camping trip. If Jeremy Corbyn is the limit of our political imagination then we are well and truly stuffed. He might well be a nice bloke, but the Labour Party have long been enemies of the kind of mass working class self-organisation that is needed if there is to be any meaningful change in our lives.

As a single, white, heterosexual male under the age of 40 with aspirations of home ownership [i.e; the very people that actually FOUNDED the Labour party] and with no wife, mortgage, kids or car, I ought to be at least SOMEWHERE near top of their agenda. But now it seems that I'm the last person on earth who the Labour party THEMSELVES even actually WANTS voting for them, as demographically speaking, I'm just simply not interesting enough for them any more.

It's true that one does tend to get naturally more conservative as you get older as you have gained more in life and therefore have more to lose, but it's a desperate sign of how much ground we have lost at the centre of British politics that Corbyn is considered radical at all.

By promising the return of British Railways, powerful trade unions and even the coal mines, he offers a return to the Seventies when he imagines Britain was happier and more equal, but I suspect those who struggled to bury their loved ones or climbed through piles of rubbish during the Winter of Discontent probably remember it less fondly. My parents certainly do. We don't live in an age where socialism works anymore. We now have social media, of course, which is now one of the most powerful political tools this generation has ever known, but it started out as just a whizzier version of Friends Reunited.

But socialism doesn’t work anymore because it no longer reflects current human nature. This unnatural state of existence, by the way, is what makes socialism nothing more than an ideology – it doesn’t reflect what’s real, it only reflects what’s imagined. And in Corbyn's imagination, we'd all have no choice but to drop our trousers and surrender ourselves to the Borg. Turn ourselves over to the Empire. Worship His Divine Shadow. Give our consent to the Monks.

Corbyn's aims are quite clear. He wants to lead a Revolutionary Socialist Party of Great Britain which will one day gain power when the established order has collapsed. The one thing he does not want is a democratically elected Labour Government. He wouldn't know what to do with it. The elder voters of Britain therefore have a duty to save the millennial generation, who have never lived through a Winter of Discontent, from themselves before they realise that whilst socialism may seem a great idea, it only works until you run out of someone else's money. And because all the people with any money, along with ambitions, aspirations and desire will have long since buggered off, once again it will be down to those with a job and nothing else to foot the bill.

Yours truly, in other words.

And before anyone asks, I'm still holding out hope for a Monster Raving Loony Party Candidate on my ballot paper on June 8th. Don't forget, it was their idea for passports for pets.

Even Jeremy Corbyn probably never thought of that.

SO LONG, AND THANKS FOR ALL THE FISH - ING QUOTAS

In the midst of the fug I am currently going through about my lack of having a girlfriend (and having potentially missed out on one yet AGAIN !!), there are few things in life at the moment that make me truly happy. "Doctor Who" is finally back on our screens, Guinness, pizza and whiskey also feature pretty highly, as is having lots of money to go to comic cons instead of spending it on relationships, pensions, mortgages and children.

But nothing, oh absolutely nothing on God's green Earth, makes me happier about voting for Brexit last year than hearing that snivelling, slimy, odious, pathetic, perverted little bourgeoisie twat Jean-Claude Juncker's bitter and arrogant response to our perfectly democratic decision to bugger off out of his distopian little pseudo-Soviet empire / Borg collective / Fourth Reich last year.

He is undoubtedly shitting himself, because if the European Union collapsed, he would probably struggle to get a job on a parish council in Norfolk. Had this hare-brained, feeble-minded, not to mention horrendously ugly love-child of Bernie Ecclestone and Sepp Blatter got his way, anyone with a job and an independent, free-thinking lifestyle would have been squeezed by the parts until they bled. And then squeezed a little more. Then, eventually, men in uniforms would have come around to your house to take it away along with all your money, your blu-ray players, iPods, and children to give to people who make pipe bombs and drive around on pavements, killing people in urban city centres.

The man probably masturbates over the prospect of a federal Super-state with him as an ultimate, unchallenged, Palpatane-esque` ruler in his sleep,. If ever there was a symbol of the arrogance of the European Union, and its utter contempt for the personal liberty of its own citizens, it is this man. I'd love to punch him in his snidy little mush, then kick him in the bollocks as hard as humanly possible with a steel toe capped boot covered in rusty old nails.

This half-man, half-turkey hybrid. My God, he's ugly. He's really got a face only a mother could love. And that's if his mother had cataracts so bad they could be sent to a glass blowers and turned into marbles. Talk about a welder's bench. His father must have been a vulture, given how he looks and acts like one. Someone from CSI run his DNA please, because it cannot possibly be 100% human.

The reason that pricks like Juncker, Tusk et al are mouthing off, is because they’re becoming increasingly nervous. Their jobs depended on the UK voting to stay in the EU, but instead of trying to sweet talk us, or use facts and logic, they chose to use threats and insults. An out vote in France, should it happen, will bring about the end of the EU, and their vastly overpaid, cushy, unelected jobs of sheer pointlessness. As I said, that scares them, because it means they lose their undeserved positions of power. In a strange way, they’ve actually managed to prove Boris Johnson right, of all people.

Juncker the Joker is spiteful, he is petty, and he seemingly wants to cut his nose off to spite his face. He has shown his true colours, his view is clear: everyone must stick to the same, sterile, staid, standardised, outdated rules. His rules, even where they may irreparably damage you and make about as much sense as putting a handbrake on the Titanic. Should you leave, we will damage you further. Like a fire escape surrounded by an alligator-infested moat covered in barbed wire.

What a complete and utter bellend. The man’s a sadomasochist in a boring, ill-fitting suit. Stalin after a shave and with new spectacles. The very embodiment of Fifty Shades of Grey. That must make Nicola Sturgeon the modern day political equivalent of Anastasia Steele. Wanting to leave the UK in order to jump back into the EU is like divorcing your husband because he's little bit clingy, then marrying Max Mosely instead.

Earlier today, Juncker turned to Nigel Farage and asked him why he was still there. What a prick. It was a moment that shone a spotlight on what this waste of blood and organs really feels: he wants Britain to go so he can pretend the EU’s problems aren’t there, like George Osborne spending the last few days under the stairs pretending the economy wasn’t there, and start building his new little Soviet empire.

The problems of the EU, however, are only growing larger, and they do so because men like him refuse to change. Refuse to acknowledge. Refuse to act. Refuse to listen to the fact that ordinary, working-class people are sick to the back teeth of being told what to do by a simpering little coward who never had a single vote cast for him to get to where he is, and are voting across Europe with their feet to tell him to fuck the fuck off back to where he belongs, and to fuck off even more when he gets there. Even if he ended up on the dark side of the moon, the moon would be telling him to fuck off even further.

You would assume that the most powerful politicians in all of Europe are democratically elected, but no. The European Commission – the face of the EU and sole proposer of legislation – is entirely appointed. That alone makes them more faceless than a TOWIE actress and, unsurprisingly, it has led to the creation of a bureaucratic behemoth.

Even Adolf Hitler stood for election. People actually cast votes for one of the most reviled dictators in history. This means that Jean-Claude Juncker, the laughably-titled 'President of the EU', has more in common politically with Zaphod Beeblebrox than the man who wrote "Mein Kampf", started the Second World War and initiated the Holocaust. Come to think of it, the EU was Hitler's idea in the first place !! Juncker's not just a moron, he's a bloody plagiarist to boot !! Condemn the UK if you dare try son, but at least we now have the chance to ensure we are no longer lectured to by an absolute cockwomble like him, and I, for one, am delighted about it.

So long, Jean-Claude, and thanks for all the fishing quotas.

Because that is the only thing that history will ever remember you for, you arrogant, smug, narcissistic, nosey, odious, slimy, creepy, snivelling, smelly, hand-wringing, sodden, simpering, fat, rude, irritating, bullying, ugly, senile, pathetic, small-penised, drunken little Luxembourgish cunt.

NOT-SO-WONDER WOMEN

As you know, I am approaching 36 and I’ve never had anything even remotely approaching a girlfriend. When Damon Hill was 36, he won the Formula One World Championship. When Frank Bruno was 36, he won the World Heavyweight Championship. When Steve McQueen was 36, he made "The Great Escape".

When I turn 36 I shall probably make some tacos and cocktails and spend all day wondering my my belly button, having previously been an 'inny' ever since I emerged into this cruel, dark world of ours, is threatening to become an 'outy'. Now, I’m pretty unremarkable in most respects – neither fantastically attractive (if only), nor absolutely hideous. I’ve got plenty of friends, male and female. They always express confusion and disbelief that I’ve been unable to get a girlfriend in the 20 years or so I’ve been interested in the idea.

Admittedly, I am a burnt-out, hard-bitten, cynical cliché of a man. And, like most misanthropes, what has fuelled my pessimism - ironically - is my optimism. When you go through life expecting intelligence, honesty and fairness, but you get Made in Chelsea, The Only Way is Essex, and Prop 8 ... you should be in the least bit surprised that you tend to become a bitter grump.

Apart from this, I’ve lived a full and active life, but somehow this particular aspect has passed me by. It’s a cliché, but it really did seem seem like one day all my friends were suddenly shacked up with a partner and squeezing out kids right, left and centre. The older I get, I don’t even know how to go about meeting women – I work in an almost exclusively male environment and most of my interests are male-dominated activities. I’ve heard the advice about salsa dancing for instance, but I think I’d be so awkward that my desperation would be obvious ( seeing as I have the rhythm of a drunken octopus and the flexibility of a bungalow ).

Just as Groucho Marx famously said, “I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member,” men famously do not want what they can have with ease, especially women (can you imagine if men selected fruit using the same criteria? Durian sales would go through the roof). Because women as a species are so fundamentally and intrinsically aloof emotionally, although not necessarily physically, they become the giant stuffed unicorn at the sideshow ring-toss game. Even when the action’s fixed, winning the prize becomes an obsession, and guys keep on playing, long past the point of reasonable expenditure.

So while I’d love to be able to introduce a girlfriend to family and friends, the chances are surely becoming smaller the older I get. And fatter. The problem is simple though. Women seem to assume that a "nice guy" who doesn't get far with a girl is merely using a dating strategy whilst really being an arsehole underneath, and I think this is overly cynical. Yes, that's rich coming from me, but hear me out for a second.

Some guys just get genuinely nervous around girls and don't portray themselves in the best possible light even though, underneath it all, they are decent people. Sure, there are predators and passport-seekers out there, but to follow the logic of women is to just not give any guy a real chance whatsoever because of the amount of power they have bestowed upon themselves. I think this is actually a big misunderstanding - people have different definitions of "nice". Women for example, seems to define a nice guy as someone who is agreeable and inoffensive, whereas I and many others would describe him as someone with integrity who has good morals and really sticks to them.

But of course this is real life. You're not attracted to someone just because you think they're morally good. But at the same time it does feel like a kick in the teeth when you have to hear incessant whinging from your female friends about their arsehole boyfriends when you're still single despite their praise of you. It just doesn't seem to add up. And if we weren't really nice guys, they wouldn't even want to be friends with us. Plus there are a hell of a lot of girls that I know that I don't necessarily fancy but who insist on staying with guys that treat them like crap.

Yes "nice guy" behaviour is significantly motivated by a desire to find a girlfriend. However, the fact that this is turned into an accusation is completely ridiculous and typical of women to flex the muscle and power of rejection that they crave and desire to delpoy so often and so much.

Most men have an instinctive desire to have sex with women. This is why our species still exists. However It's not all about sex. I don't think it's even mostly about sex. There is massive external and internal pressure on men to have female attention. A man's status and, as a result, frequently his self-esteem depends greatly on his success with women. Also, there is a level of emotional connection which men in general cannot get from other men. As such, female attention is a major motivator for men in general. Not just "nice guys". A great deal of male behaviour, whether consciously or not, comes from this. Why is this desire only considered sinister when it is expressed by being nice?

Personally, I never felt entitled to anything for my being nice. In a race, everyone but the winner will feel some disappointment. Does that mean they all felt entitled to victory? There's nothing wrong with having high moral standards just because you women don't. It just sets up a situation where the nice guy cannot see why he is compared unfavourably to another guy who isn't as nice. Nice guys are just generally men who lack a little bit of 'confidence'. This is probably the primary reason they are unsuccessful but it is also the reason they choose the nice-guy strategy. Because of way the women wield the power of rejection around like He-Man waving his sword about, they feel they don't have anything to offer women except being nice.

This is why I am so upset by these attacks on nice guys. Do we build them up so they can be what women actually want? Nope. We kick them while they are down. Shaming them for daring to want a relationship with a woman and eroding the little 'confidence' you unfairly demand they have and then going off of your power trip shoving rejection in every decent upstanding guy's direction. And whilst we're at it, it probably would be a good idea for every woman on this planet to get a dictionary and look up the differences between the words 'confidence' and 'arrogance'. You'd be surprised how much of a chasm there is between them.

Bitter, much, but I think the truth is that attraction is separate from morality and it cuts both ways. I'm not attracted to women who I don't feel at least some physical attraction to even if they are nice, and likewise some guys just aren't good at getting their good points across to girls. Just don't assume that the unsuccessful "nice guys" of which you speak are really just "jerks in disguise.

And here's a little bonus tip whilst we're at it … when a guy takes the time to remember your birthday and buys you a card … DO. NOT. EVER. TELL. HIM; "That's so sweet, you're so cute …", then excitedly tell him how much you're looking forward to the red-hot date you've got lined up that night. Unless of course he has a hardly-read blog on the internet, in which case thanks for the material and the inadvertent inspiration. I hope your date went well, but remember that hair wax is a bugger to get out of your pubic hairs and cheap aftershave can really sting your labia.

Mind you, it might also make for some handy emergency contraception just in case you've forgotten to ask if your date actually has any (or if he can even spell the damn word) whilst gazing absent-mindedly at the dopey sod's rippling abs that are the expected minimum standard in order to be allowed to have sex at all these days.

Now though, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to watch "Only Connect", a highly-intellectual television programme hosted by a blonde-haired woman who has very large breasts and an equally big I.Q to go with them.

She's married to the comedian David Mitchell.

Go figure, ladies.

Go figure.

PITNICKING

I used to believe we are, by nature, flawed. One look at my body will tell you that alone, in the sense that as an example of the male of our species, it's got more flaws in it than one of Donald Trump's gaudy, chintzy hotels.

Whilst attempting another half-baked manscaping exercise the other day in preparations for Birmingham Comic Con (... damn you, Christopher Eccleston, why did your Ninth Doctor's outfit have to consist of V-neck t-shirts ...) I decided that to believe that thinking we aren't is the ultimate narcissism. It would mean that out of all creation, we, and only we, are inherently broken.

Instead, I have come to believe that western culture, beginning ten thousand years ago with communal agriculture, is the thing that is flawed. When humankind abandoned hunting and gathering, and began to work the land is when it fell from grace. It is when we were expelled from Eden and began our endless search for meaning.

You can laugh at the human predicament. You can laugh at yourself. You can laugh because the alternative is crying. You can laugh because a truism has been exposed. You can laugh at the weakness, stupidity and failures of others. You can laugh because you identify. You can laugh to be polite. You can laugh from surprise. You can laugh from nervousness. You can laugh at the futility of it all. You can laugh at the antics of animals. You can laugh because it hurts. You can laugh because others are laughing. You can laugh at tragedy if enough time has passed. You can laugh at the statement, "This is no laughing matter".

When tribes became villages, became towns, became cities, became nations, is when we descended into insanity. Which probably expalins how we ended up with the EU. The destruction that followed required us to invent laws and dogma to curb the madness. But we are not by nature mad. Unless you're Donald Trump of course. We were driven to behave madly by a culture we created and then forgot we were in.

Which raises the question, what now? A return to foraging doesn't seem like much of an option. The wisdom needed to support that lifestyle took thousands of years to accumulate and is now long forgotten. Perhaps a constructive first step might be to simply acknowledge that the fabric of our existence is badly torn. And that the tear began long ago, when we lost faith in the world. When we decided this miraculous garden would not, or could not, provide.

Step two would be embracing the fact that there's nothing inherently wrong with us, that we are masterpieces of biological engineering. And step three ... well, that would be a new way of thinking. One that is not sickened by a zero-sum culture. Sadly, if you're reading this, you will not be the one thinking those new thoughts. You probably won't even recognize them when they come. If anything, they will appear as a threat to you.

And just to be clear, I include myself in this group. We are all hopelessly shackled to the old way of thinking. Perhaps a child is being born right now who will make the breakthrough. Or perhaps it will emerge from some form of artificial intelligence.

Our salvation lies within ourselves. Within our own ingenuity and determined effort. "Make America Great Again" and "Take Back Control" are bumper stickers for victimhood. But we are not victims. We are the creators of opportunity. Sure the system's rigged. It always has been. So what?! We as a species have always consistently ignored the rigging. You won't let us join your club, we'll start our own club. You won't let us go to your school, we'll start our own school. You won't let us earn money your way, we'll earn it our way. You won't give us a chance here, we will go elsewhere.

I have long believed that if there is a purpose to our existence, it is to bear witness to the mystery and beauty of creation. My thinking, as always, was simple -- a universe unobserved is just a wasted effort. What's a play without an audience? Going forward from that understanding, I further believe that the key ingredient for conscious living is curiosity.

What will happen next? Why is this happening now? How does that work? Where did it come from? Where is it going? To be curious is to be in the moment. To be in the moment is to be in a state of grace. And yet, the older I become, the more I'm inclined to look away from what is and seek refuge in my staid ideas of what should be. As a result, my daily challenge is to resist the siren song of nostalgia. I was created to stand in awe and wonderment amidst the spectacle of eternity.

In the meantime … gee, I don't know, I guess we sit and watch reality television instead of good stuff like Doctor Who which might actually make us think. Actually, best to not contemplate that too much, given the path that this disposable razor sitting in front of me is about to take …

See you all at Comic-Con !!

ONCE AROUND THE BLOCK

Sometimes I have conversations with people who are not there. Not out loud conversations. No Thorazine yet, thank you very much. But I definitely catch myself having spirited debates and heated arguments with folks who exist only in my head. Which doesn't stop them from speaking forcefully, and, at times, eloquently on their own behalf.

On occasion they are people I know. Other times they are purely fictional creations, brought into existence to question my thinking, my actions, or just piss me off. (Because there's not enough real people pissing me off, I've gotta make some up.)

But I've recently become more fascinated by the idea that there is no self at all. The memories, emotions, thoughts and attitudes that combine to create the self are finally recognized as nothing more than ripples on the surface of a pond. And the truth of what we are, collectively and individually, is the pond itself. That which silently embraces the endless dance of form.

Deep. Clear. Still.

Reflecting the infinite and eternal, while receiving with equanimity both the beauty and the ugliness that falls into it - even the critical inner voice which is talking to me right now. It seems to me that the biggest, most momentous choice of our lives is the one that none of us gets to make. I'm talking about the decision to be here, to be alive. Now before we digress into the choice of leaving this life, a subject best suited for handwritten notes left on the bed stand, let's investigate the initial premise.

Simply put, we all arrive here screaming, crying and covered in goo, without prior consultation. Or so it appears. If in fact we were part of the decision to become cognizant, the memory of that process has been completely wiped from our consciousness. But what if it were retrievable? What if we could become aware of the primary decision to live, the fateful choice to participate in the world of time, energy and form? Wouldn't that improve our daily condition? No matter how difficult and confusing life was, we would always be clear on one thing, "I asked to be here. This is my choice."

Of course, there's another option to consider. We are here against our will. The unending cycle of birth, life and death is a sentence. We are souls in prison. But that grim, Matrix-like scenario falls apart the minute you ask how hell on earth could possibly include single malt whisky. Or Doctor Who.

The things I have spent my life depending on are undependable. Because they are things. And things are, by their very nature, subject to change. This applies to people as well. People change. People leave. Inevitably we all leave. The world, therefore, is essentially an unstable, uncertain environment. That's why I choose to believe in, and depend on, an unchanging, eternal, omnipresent non-thing.

I prefer not to call it God, because the very word tends to thing things up. So I try not to call it. I try to experience it.

Easy to do looking out at the ocean. Hard to do looking up at the ocean. Easy to do when you look at a baby. Hard to do if the baby is next to you on a long plane flight. Easy to do when you look at a pretty girl. Hard to do if you once loved her.

Clearly what blocks me from transcendence is judgment. If I were able to suspend having an opinion on drowning, other peoples' baby's vomit, and separation anxiety, if I could simply see these things as they are - actions devoid of meaning until I give them meaning - I could experience some semblance of union with the infinite sublime. The human mind is very adept at labelling. Left to its own devices, it will label situations, things, places, and people. It's a pretty handy app. 

Except when it comes to people. Over time those labels tend to solidify. They become all we can see. They become what we experience. The true depth of a person, the breath-taking miracle of their very existence, is replaced with a word. A sound. An assemblage of vowels and consonants. Ink or digital letters on paper or screen. Which is why I sometimes try to look at people and see them, witness them if you will, without immediately attaching a mental label. This is especially fun to do in a crowded public place. After a few minutes of practicing non-judgemental looking, I find my heart filling with affection for total strangers.

It's an extraordinary experience. I encourage you to try it sometime. Be warned though, when you feel affection, you can't stop smiling. Even when you find yourself looking through the wedding photos of someone you loved once. Well, you've both made it this far, so kudos on successfully navigating your first trip round the sun together.

Just keep right on …

20 QUOTES ABOUT WHY VALENTINE'S DAY CAN F**K ITSELF UP THE A**E …

1. “Love stinks.” - J. Geils Band

2. “Love sucks. Sometimes it feels good. Sometimes it's just another way to bleed.” - Laurell K. Hamilton

3. “Valentine's Day is for couples. Us SINGLES have the other 364 days of the year to enjoy ourselves!” - Unknown

4. “Love is only a dirty trick played on us to achieve continuation of the species.” - W. Somerset Maugham in “A Writer's Notebook”

5. “I'm single because I was born that way.” - Mae West

6. “Some people are settling down, some people are settling and some people refuse to settle for anything less than butterflies.” - Carrie Bradshaw in “Sex in the City”

7. “Happy Valentine's Day! And if this is news to you, my guess is you're probably alone. Valentine's Day is often times a, well, it's a manufactured day that really doesn't mean anything.” - Jon Stewart

8. “Happy phony, romanticized, overly commercial, sucks to be single, pretend that it's love, day!” - Unknown

9. “Today is Valentine's Day. Or, as men like to call it, Extortion Day.” - Jay Leno

10. “I don't understand why Cupid was chosen to represent Valentine's Day. When I think about romance, the last thing on my mind is a short, chubby toddler coming at me with a weapon.” - Unknown

11. “I wish that Valentine's Day came with a fast-forward button...” - Unknown

12. "Everyone has a knight in shining armour, mine just took a wrong turn, got lost, and is too stubborn to ask for directions." - Unknown

13. “You cannot be with someone just because you don’t want to hurt him. You have your own happiness to think about.” - Melissa de la Cruz, in “The Van Alen Legacy”

14. “The last thing you want to get addicted to is someone.” – Aruho Marvin

15. “I think, therefore I'm single.” - Liz Winston

16. "EX means: Thanks for the EXperience. Our time has EXpired. Now EXit my life!" - Unknown

17. “The course of true love never did run smooth.” - William Shakespeare

18. "Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable." - The Wizard of Oz

19. “Being single is pretty good. It's a nice sense of irresponsibility.” - Michael Douglas

20. “Instead of celebrating Valentine's Day this year, I'm celebrating National Simon Pegg Day.” - The Ranting Brummie

Now listen here all you fucking loved-up cretins, love is not a £2.50 Clintons card and shitty tasting chocolate covered pre-diabetes. Love is not 2 dozen roses to overcompensate for your lack of affection the other 364 days of the year. Love is not a competition with your co-workers over who received the best flower arrangement, the prettiest necklace, or the biggest teddy bear. Love is not a 2-hour wait, and a £200 mediocre meal for two in a poncy restaurant.

Love is not a show, or a feeling to be obnoxiously celebrated once (maybe twice) a year. Love is hard work, commitment and determination. It is not instant. And it is certainly not a charade designed solely to achieve the goal of improving one's personal living prospects. Love is not any of those things.

Now enjoy your cheap choccies, overpriced flowers, your pointless sappy cards that were made in a Chinese card factory, and your heart-attack-inducing fizzy wine with more gas in it than Jeremy Corbyn's arse, celebrate your vapid, shallow 'relationships' and ALL JUST FUCK OFF AND LEAVE ME ALONE !!

Happy fucking Valentine's Day, you BASTARDS !!

THE REVENGE OF THE RANTING BRUMMIE ...

A week earlier than usual, this is my annual bitter, misanthropic rant about Valentine's Day, or as I prefer, an excuse for me to really become a totally agitated grumpy bastard for 24 hours in February and whinge and moan about the fact that I am still romantically unattached and have rodgered less than a recently-laid-off airline co-pilot. The reserve-team goalkeeper at Kidderminster Harriers gets more action than I do for fuck's sake !!

Seriously, during the damn stinking whole day I am about as welcome as George Osbourne at a food bank, about as communicative as Kimi Raikkonen in a monastery and about as angry as a very angry young man during an Angry Anderson concert. I am not to be approached, unless you are the sort of person who likes sneaking up to a pack of wolves and tries to poke the alpha male up the rectum with a cattle prod wearing a suit made out of raw bacon.

I fucking hate Valentine's Day, fucking, fuckity-fuck fucking fuckamoley fucking HATE it !! It’s time to face facts, people. Valentine is a hateful shitstorm. Even if you’re happily settled down, it’s a point-by-point, retail-enabled deconstruction of everything you’re doing wrong. It doesn’t matter how successful your relationship is, or how happy you are together – it’s appearances that count.

Christmas might be Santa’s busiest day of the year, but come Valentine’s Day, Cupid might as well be on a booze cruise to Calais, because there’s fuck all for him to do here. Woe betide anyone who wakes up on Valentine’s Day and doesn’t have a hastily scribbled card, envelope still damp with morning-breath saliva, to hand to their significant other. That’s after spending twenty minutes in the card shop, trying desperately to find something that doesn’t make bile catch in the back of your throat.

Try to ignore the fact that most card manufacturers show a crushing lack of awareness about how people in relationships actually talk to each other. So swallow your pride, hand over your three quid, and try to imagine that the term ‘love machine’ might actually apply to you, rather than the battery-hungry accessory that lives in the bedside cabinet.

So yeah, I'll rant about it because that's what I WANT to fucking do. This year in particular is going especially painful, so it's my life and WILL piss and moan about all those cruel seasonal reminders that I'm yet to find that 'special someone' (or at least manage to hold on to her long enough to stop someone from swooping in and stealing her in order to secure themselves a change of personal circumstances), and if I want to pass the blame onto the happy couples who choose the window seat, presumably so that passers-by can see them demolishing a chocolate fondant with a single dessert fork, then I fucking damn well will.

So let’s take another look at that happy couple in the restaurant. See how close they’re sitting. Well, that’s because the restaurant decided to cram a few extra tables in to take advantage of the increased cover charge. What looks like intimate body language is more likely to result in a slipped disc than any under-the-covers action.

And when they’re not shifting uncomfortably in their seat like he's got piles and someone's swapped her sanitary towels for sandpaper strips, you might notice that most of their time is spent stifling yawns, refolding napkins and trying to talk about anything other than their day at work. They’re feeling the pressure as it is – they’ve been put on show in the window seat, so they’re struggling to act as if they’re enjoying themselves. Deep down, they’re worried that everyone else looks happier than they do. One of them is wondering when babysitters got so expensive, and the other one is probably working out how much money they could have saved by having the same meal at home.

Those couples who don’t fancy braving the hordes and paying over the odds for a glorified set menu, can easily replicate the same magical ambiance at home. Marks & Spencer and Waitrose are both running their popular twenty quid ‘Romantic Dinner For Two’ promotions. Remember, nothing says “I would lay down my life for you” like microwaving a couple of mozzarella stuffed chicken breasts and choking back a bottle of Cava that could put the shine back on your serving spoons. Of course, if you’re going to stay in, convention dictates that you’ll need to set the 'right mood'. Time to clear all those unopened bills off the dining table and light some candles. Not the scented ones either – they’re far too sickly if you’re eating. Now, look at what you’re wearing. I’m afraid onesies, sweat pants and t-shirts are all out.

It may just be another wet Tuesday (or at least I HOPE it'll be pissing down with rain and foggier than the average woman's brain when confronted with a choice between legitimate effort or a whirlwind pantomime show), but you need to dress up as if you’re modelling for the fucking Kays catalogue. Oh, and you’ll need to think about the soundtrack for your evening, in order to line up the first shag you’ve had since the clocks went back. Thankfully, the record labels are on hand, helpfully repackaging the same shitty ballads in a new 40-track compilation, as if anyone in their right mind needs another copy of Emilie fucking Sandie's latest demographically-engineered splurge.

Conclusion: Because of all the pressure on couples it becomes exceedingly, bleedingly obvious who has a significant other and who does not. Thus, the real purpose of Valentinesween is revealed: Shaming those who don’t have significant others. It’s pretty obvious who is who.

Moi.

Now, normally, I don’t encourage people to burn down flower shops (but if you do, make sure your firebombs are wrapped in pink packaging), hunt down and eviscerate candy-company executives (just like their cheap-oils-and-lard-based products, despite their hard exterior they’re totally gooey on the inside), or use VD cards to give Hallmark employees a million little papercuts (be sure to bind their wrists with salted caramel so they can’t move), but because February 14th is apparently so different, I’m going to make an exception.

I’m working on some candy-themed weaponry for next year, including a railgun that shoots Smarties and a rose-thorn chainsaw that is more fantastically bloody and painful than effective at sawing through limbs. The R&D budget is quite high because of all the money I’ve saved from not having a girlfriend. This means the Napalm-based chocolate hearts are right on schedule (Terry's Chocolate Agent Orange version coming soon ... !!), I’m still working on the engagement rings made out of depleted uranium, but the VX-based wine gums are deliciously deadly (I suggest getting the sampler pack).

You can’t say I don’t get into the spirit of the holiday. Besides, as Nazareth taught us, Love Hurts. Of course, in this case it also causes 3rd degree burns, internal haemorrhaging, vaporised limbs, blindness, cancer, liquefied flesh, post-traumatic stress disorder and some zombie-ism.

But hey, at least it comes with free gift wrapping !!

HEY GIRL, HEY BOY, SUPERSTAR PRESIDENT ?? HERE WE GO !!

This Friday, Donald Trump will climb up some steps in front of a big white building with a big dome on it, put his hand on a bible and after uttering some words that make little sense to anybody who isn't American, becomes the 45th President of the United States of America. He gets to do so because he won the Presidential Election which was held late last year. All seems pretty straightforward and fair enough to me so far. Not that you'd know it.

Six days after Trump's election, after much wailing and gnashing of teeth that would have made you think that they'd elected Donald Duck rather than Donald Trump, the world press were reviewing their comprehension of what the people of their own countries really want. The polls predicting a Hillary win were blind to reality. And the reality is that working class people, and nationals of each country, are fed up with being forced to be part of a system of globalism that doesn't include them, the working poor, with traditional values.

The working class feels that 'globalization' and a tender hearted response to refugees are values that don't include them - the base of each of their countries. Why should a working class person feel that Uganda and Lybia and Ecuador should be aided when working class people live under the same daily pressures? 

And why shouldn't a country's borders keep out others? That's why a home has a fence and a locking front door. Being theatrically concerned with the plight of others is a false concern, when one doesn't have the power to help those others. The IMF or World Bank may have the power to help such people, but not a wage slave who is month by month in danger of losing their home.

Liberalism has become an abstraction of compassion, manipulated by big money just as so called conservatism is an abstraction for the conservation of the home front first - the farm - the crops - the nation. Conservative today means rich and predatory. Perhaps conservatism gained its original meaning from the Depression days or even from earlier log cabin days. 

But conservatism isn't conservation today, it's a blind behind which the wealthy operate to take money from the only place it exists - other people. Just as liberalism isn't compassionate in action but only in lip service when there is no power to back it up.

What is happening with this global self searching, prompted by Trump's election, is that working class people are desperate enough to elect a billionaire, even if not intended that way, because he represents them as outsiders, and shown the little people themselves that they have power. And that's what a 'progressive' movement wanted. That's what was wanted by Bernie Sander's revolution. 

Is Trump a clown or does he have any real shared values with common people and not just star power? Will he betray the very people who elected him? Time will tell. But the people that have both voted for him and the ones that are still weeping in the streets about his election, have gained a self awareness - that the outsiders have power. That in fact these 'outsiders' are actually the political body.

Martin Luther King's words; 'let it be that one day we judge a man by the content of his character and not by the colour of his skin '- applies as well to sexual alternatives. Be judged not by your sexual or gender preference but by the content of your character. Difficult to do so when there is Fukushima, global warming from carbon emissions and the murderous, predatory wars against small countries for their oil and resources, as well as poverty and synthetic and poisonous food production as issues to attend to.

The populism and nationalism that has just shocked the world with Trump's election, and that is spreading to other countries, is not necessarily a celebration of Trump himself, but is the expression of a vast swath of humanity that has had no representation because liberalism and conservatism have become hive mentalities divorced from critical human concerns. Home, family, nation - then world peace - is the natural sequence of concerns and for which there is no spiffy title like liberal or conservative.

A liberal trait that is commonly seen as true, is that an abstract sentimentality for humanism sounds good, but without the power or the resources to do something about it, is just empty and self serving lip synch. People have long resented such lip service without concrete action. To help others we need to accumulate some strength ourselves. There is one common enemy of humanity and it's the greed and self service of the plutocracy in whose shadow we all live. 

The rich like to be painted as humanistic and concerned because they have to walk the streets and be photographed for the magazines. They also like to own the press and divide and conquer with hollow words like conservative and liberal. But to realistically help all struggling people and nature, and to accumulate the strength to do it, we can't eviscerate any one of the components of humanity. 

So, we've got four years of the Donald whether we like it or not. Let's let the man get on with the job, however much we may or may not like it, and I can get back to being funny.