Agent Provocateur

I am a slut - I am proud to be a SLUT! - proclaimed the placard.

This, better said after the watershed, statement had been written in what looked like lipstick and was slowly moving down a busy London street along with a few thousand other, equally in your face, placards.

The ladies carrying these placards were dressed appropriately for what was Slutwalk, UK.

Slutwalk has now spanned the globe.

It all started when an extremely ill advised Canadian policeman told some students to avoid "dressing up as sluts" to avoid unwanted attention.

All over the world, well the US, Canada and now the UK (its not taken off in Iran apparently), women are dressing up, or down as the case is, to march though the streets demanding that the abusers and not the abused are blamed, and quite right too.

Of course there is a but coming and without coming across all Ken Clark I would like to ask the simple question - where is good old fashioned common sense in all of this?

I totally get that just because a lady is wearing sexy clothing it does not mean she is in any way asking for attention.

I get, to paraphrase another placard, that Cleavage is not Consent.

I am also fully on-board with everyone should be allowed to wear whatever the hell they like without fear of abuse or worse.

They are all correct, the world should be a perfect place and if I decided to walk through the Bronx, at night, wearing my finest Etonian school uniform I should be left in peace to go about my business. Unfortunately, however, the last time I looked it isn't and I most definitely wouldn't - why not? Because I would be using my common sense, the skill which helps me out when faced with difficult dilemmas such as, do I really want to swan dive off that cliff, or should I really stand up in the High Street and sing out loud just because I feel the urge, which I do often.

If you go out looking like Britney wearing nothing but a few stick on stars then you are going to get looked at, laughed at and potentially worse - so why would you? I am not in any way condoning such behaviour, but I am wise enough to know it goes on and frankly so should you Britney-woman.

If, god forbid, something bad did happen to Britney then of course this is wrong, it would take a particularly low minded person to say she had it coming, but why would you want to put yourself at risk in the first place?

A few years ago, my wife and I were walking outside the Egyptian museum in Cairo, skirting the square which was the backdrop to the recent riots. Walking towards us was a couple of young women, basically wearing clothing which would have been seen as risqué during the Slutwalk - i.e. very little. As they passed I overheard them complaining loudly about the looks and derogatory remarks they were receiving as they exercised their god given right to sightsee almost nude in a fiercely muslim country.

It baffles me, it really does, why common sense is not used more often. It works, its free and in general most people have it

However correct the banners and ladies parading through London were I doubt very much they will do much to change the situation. Until the time we can all live how we want, where we want and ebony and ivory are in perfect harmony, side by side on my piano, I will continue using common sense to avoid undesirable situations.

I would suggest everyone else does the same.

Judgement Day

So apparently the world was due to end, as I sit here typing, yesterday.

Looking around, the sun is shining, the birds are singing, the little stream next to my house is babbling and my son is trying to figure out if our pet rabbits like to eat stones. All in all, if this is the end of the world then I’m not sure what all the fuss was about.

I have to add that scheduling it on a weekend was also pretty thoughtful of god.

No, of course the world didn’t end yesterday just because some mental preacher from the arse-end of America decides this will be the case. Apparently he worked out the date of damnation by interpreting the bible, in particular the concept that one day in gods time = 1,000 years in human time. A similar concept to dog years, just a bit longer.

This god-year concept allows Harold Camping, the stupidly named evangelist at the center of these claims, to calculate forward from the flood of Noah - the date of which according to him has been precisely proved at 4,990BC. This date is completely accurate his website states without offering any further proof.

From this point, with these facts (wild assumptions) it’s a case of straightforward addition which would brings us to May 21st 2011 - judgement day. This is the day a great earthquake will shake the earth, then 150 days from this earthquake the world will be destroyed.

Now it’s easy for me with the benefit of hindsight to point out that nothing happened yesterday but that aside there are some other, minor flaws, in what is otherwise a clearly well thought out and robust theory.

1. The concept of god-years, this is taken from a passage quoting god which reads something like ‘for me a day is like a 1,000 years’. I for one don’t read this a definitive proof that god years exist, I say shit like this all the time. That meeting went on forever. The weekend flew by – it only felt like a couple of hours. Could it be that god was just pointing out, given all the work he needs to get done, that it just felt like a 1,000 years.

Perhaps the task of Creation was so fucking dull it just felt like a 1,000 years.

2. Let’s assume for a second that god years do exist then my next issue is - why doesn’t this apply to the 150 days between earthquake and destruction? If he was to tell me that actually the world will end, not this October but 150,000 years from yesterday I would be distinctly less twitchy. Alternatively, perhaps he got his decimals confused and what god actually meant to say was 0.15 days or roughly 1 ½ hours (god time). With such ambiguity existing can you imagine the panic and confusion back when god is proclaiming all this:

A hill somewhere dusty and desert-like. Dark leaden clouds hang heavy above - awaiting a signal from the almighty. There’s discord within the assembled crowd, one brave man, bearded and wearing a dust covered sheet steps forward.

'With the greatest respect god, erm, but that’s not really giving us much time is it?'

God looks down at the man and around at his gathered flock, he smiles at their childlike logic.

'But lo hear me proper my child, for me 1 day is a thousand of your earth-years. 1 ½ hours is 150 days' he smiles warmly

'No I got that piece god, but still, 7 days, 150 days? – it’s not that long, really. Is it 7 days and 150 days of your days or our days? – its sorta, kinda, well, important you know'

He smiles again, this time trying to understand the confusion
'My days' he says quietly and then whispers to a nearby angel hovering at his shoulder 'It is isn’t it?'

The crowd visibly relaxes, after a few seconds a particularly smart small child shouts out proudly '2011?' (or he would’ve shouted this if he knew that that day was actually recorded in reverse around a date nearly 5,000 years in the future when someone called Jesus would be born).

God looks down at the small child and booms loudly 'well done my child'.

There is back smacking and high 5'ing all around, people are starting to move away, relieved and the cloud still sits there, intact.

The child meekly approaches god.

'So if that’s right god, then the actual, real, bonafide, end of the world will be, 2011 plus 150,000 years, right?'.

God looks to the angel, the angel just shrugs.

A little irritated now he responds 'My child, do not worry yourself with such matters, mathematics, science and logic are not part of the deal. Faith in your lord is all that matters, ok?'

The child looks up disappointed 'ok, I guess' and then starts to walk away, kicking the sand, deep in thought. He suddenly turns around, a big smile on his face.

'The year AD152,011?'

'Shut the fuck up would you?' With that god ascends back up, pissed off.

It starts to rain.

If the world is to end then so be it, if it was yesterday or in 150,000 years from now, there is not a lot you or I could do about it so what’s the point of worrying, or for that matter knowing about it.

I would suggest that given I am capable of typing this in the sunshine on a balmy Sunday afternoon Mr Camping will be keeping a very low profile right now.

I am also very sure that anyone who converted, in a last ditch attempt to cover all bases, will be significantly less likely to do so again and this leaves me wondering as to the motivation to speak out in the first place…

Alexander vs Osama

So they got him - the worlds most wanted man is dead, hurrah!

Some will mourn, a lot will celebrate but most, like me will think good and then move on. Lets face it he was a very bad man and deserved to die but regardless, I feel slightly uncomfortable watching the crowds high 5-ing outside the White House.

A breathless, red faced, Buck Howitzer, truck driver from Minnesota, someone who lives at the bloater end of the portly scale, perfectly captures my unease - "fuck yeh, we got him, God Bless America, Navy Seals, yeh, fucking murdering rag-head and anyone who disagrees with me is a homosexual-liberal-communist, ok?" a thin sliver of saliva runs down his chin(s) as he shouts at the night sky.

Its that same cringing feeling I get when see the Sun's infamous headline the morning after the Belgrano was sent to the bottom of the South Atlantic- probably a good thing but certainly not a wild celebration moment.

Anyhow, does anyone know who is now number one?

I assume this will be the person who has been rather anonymously sitting at number two all this time but other than this simple deduction I have no idea who he is. I am assuming he or she will probably have a beard, be brown-ish and most likely live in a country ending with "istan".

Its not really the worlds most wanted man though is it?

Its the US's (and their friends) most wanted list, I doubt very much Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would subscribe to the same list. He probably has his own list chock full of Israelis, Kim Jong Il 's will have everyone squashed into a top 10. You can imagine the question - does a nation of 240Million count as 1 or do we need to create a top 250Million?

No, to be more specific its the FBI's most wanted list and having just browsed through the mug shots I know know who is number 2 (or number 1 now). Firstly I was very wrong about his colour and ethnicity - its a very white chap called James J Bulger or "Whitey", yes really, to his friends. He is wanted for doing bad things, a lot of bad things, Goodfella style, back in the 1970s.

Looking down his list of crimes, 19 counts of murder, drugs, organised crime, jail, girls and pasta - its all there waiting to hit the big screen soon. James will be shown as a bad man of course, but with a good heart. He only kills when necessary and only other criminals, never civilian people and never, never women or kids. Yes he has his faults, yes he is a bad man but we will root for him right up until the end when the "good" guys get him or not as the case actually is.

Buck of course will be watching intently, BBQ Chicken Licken sauce dripping off his fingers as he secretly wishes he was running around New York in the 1970s.

I am not, of course, comparing this man with Osama Bin Laden. He was a man to be feared and planned the deaths of innocent people indiscriminately. However I am questioning who or what determines when someone is shown as a hero, anti-hero, villain or monster.

Alexander the Great is remembered as one of the greatest leaders of antiquity, revered even, but was responsible for at least, at least, 250,000 non-combatant deaths - basically that's women and kids to you and I.

No matter which way I try to spin this I find it pretty hard to shine a positive light on this but somehow Alexander has managed to do so.

Perhaps in time Osama, Hitler and Stalin will be seen in a similar light but I somehow doubt it.

Churchill hit the nail on the head when he said that "history is written by the victors" and this in the long run will prove to be Osama's undoing - he lost.

Banana Skin

I stood there, coffee in one hand and money in the other.

Walking away would have been the simple option, but I stood there waiting to pay my $1.50 for the coffee. No one came. As I waited a very tall, very well dressed man walked by, we nodded quietly towards each other as men do.

"Excuse me, you don't happen to know where I should leave my money do you" I asked him indicating to the coffee in my hand and the unmanned booth.

He turned and looked at me as if I had just told him I had slept with his mother and you wouldn't believe the things she did.

"I don't work here" he replied staring me down, he was considerably bigger than me.

"Ok" I said sheepishly and quickly turned away.

What I hadn't realised and was only quietly told later by a colleague, in that hushed, I hate to tell you this but your B.O is a problem sort of way, was that he actually thought, I thought, he worked there because of the colour of his skin. You see, what my stupid Scottish brain hadn't taken into account was that I was in California and the tall, good looking, well dressed person I had asked was, as a friend of mine once said, not quite white or in other words, very black.

The underlying message here was, don't assume I serve coffee just on account of the colour of my skin. The problem was I didn't and hadn't.

Eventually I just left my money next to the sugar and walked away, too scared to ask anyone else.

That was California, probably the most race sensitive place on earth. I should have known but being the stupid, teuchter that I am I just did what I normally do and that is treat everyone the same, regardless of race, which I sorta thought what was supposed to happen.

The Tartan Army fell foul of this at the weekend. A banana skin was thrown onto the pitch at some point during the Brazil v Scotland game and the new Brazilian superstar in the making Neymar shouted racism. He complained that he had been jeered throughout the game and there is no place for racism in football.

Absolutely Neymar, we all concur with that sentiment along with the Miss Iowa winner who states that she wants world peace - both very worthy sentiments.

You see the problem is, they weren't jeering you because of your skin colour Neymar. They were jeering you because every time someone brushed against you you fell to the floor like your legs had been cut off, they were jeering you because you rolled around the grass in agony then jumped up to take the resulting free kick.

Oh and they were also jeering you because of that stupid fucking haircut.

Now, another thing about being Scottish is that we understand our place in the footballing world. We are the underdog, we are going to lose, we know that, however we will also make a lot of noise and party as hard as if we had won - that is the point of the whole thing. If we win every so often then even better but ultimately we are going to have a good time, win or lose. The abuse from the terrace will also be racially neutral - you will be abused regardless of your skin colour.

The verbal discontent Neymar felt on the pitch on Sunday was 100% because he acted like a total fanny, had he not done so and played as well as he did, then he would probably been applauded by the Scots, however he didn't and he definitely wasn't.

There is a good lesson to be learned from this - don't act like a small girl with a stupid haircut in front of 40,000 drunk men in tartan skirts. If Elton John had walked on to the pitch do you think he would have received a better welcome, probably not and the last time I looked he was white.

I sincerely hope Neymar learns from this but I somehow doubt it.

The banana skin was thrown from the Brazilian supporters end, by a German.

Not sure what that says about anything, nothing probably, but its what actually happened.

The Queue - Part 2

Doncaster, Sunday night, very late.

His thumbs were a blur of teenage texting and the girl leaning on the counter had a face caked in what looked like at least an inch or two of make up. It was an immature attempt to look natural and/or sexy but had exactly the opposite effect - she ended up looking like a sulky, latex, balloon faced caricature of the ugly teenage girl which she was.

They spoke in their own feral language which at times vaguely resembled English and were so utterly absorbed in texting, chatting and sneering at the world, in fact anything but their job, that they failed to spot the large, well dressed, but crumpled looking man waiting to be served.

His face was the picture of stress and he nervously kept glancing at his watch. He was the only customer and after standing there for a while it became clear they had very little interest in serving him.

A large fist banged on the counter and that got their attention. They sulkily put away their respective phones and looked in his direction.

‘Uhuh?’ this was all long way from the ‘good evening Sir, my name is Chaz, welcome to McDonalds, how can I help you?’ they learned in fast food school, day one.

‘I need chicken nuggets, 3 portions of chips, 2 quarter pounders and three diet cokes. Also can you be quick as I need to catch a train in 10mins?’

He had travelled for 7 hours by train to end up in this restaurant. 4 of these hours were spent stuck in a field with no power, no heating, no food, it was sub zero outside whilst the men charged with fixing the overhead lines which had come crashing down 30mins into the journey idly rubbed their respective chins and drank tea pondering the problem.

He had two children with him and had just spent the weekend desperately trying to recover the sense of fun which had been promised to them for months. The weekend was a write off and now the journey home was starting to become serious.

They eventually called up a reserve engine, one which doesn’t depend on overhead power, and were dragged up to the grimmest town in already very grim North.

At least Doncaster had a fast food option next to the station as they waited 10mins for their connection.

It was -10c outside, the kids were tired, hungry and their sense of adventure had disappeared a long time ago.

Suffice it to say balloon face had chosen the wrong time and wrong customer to play sulky teenager with.

2 days later, Lille Railway station, very early.

‘Noh!’ French Chaz replied through her nose, her lips didn’t move, a particularly annoying ability, unique to our Gallic neighbors which basically said fuck off, piss off, I am better than you - lazy English pig, all with a snort of the nose.

He just stood there staring back at the frog-bitch, Parley vous English had been his seemingly innocuous, albeit slightly pathetic, question.

It was 7.30am, he had been travelling for 2days trying to get home.

A HD, plasma, flat screen, Technicolor fantasy involving a machete and her skull was running through his head. Please just give me the fucking coffee.

He wearily held his hand out and she snatched the correct coins before eventually passing him the warm drink.

This was the final leg of a journey which started the moment he waved goodbye to the boys on the train. At least they are safe he thought as their train pulled away, little knowing they had just embarked on their own adventure.

He took the coffee and trudged towards the TGV, crowds of people rushed around, similar to himself, large trolley bags all sporting the same white tags. A three letter acronym which marked them - LHR.

Finding his reserved seat, he relaxed, sipped his coffee and idly watched as the train pulled out of a depressingly grey and frozen Lille main station. As he did so his mind pondered the weekend and the catalogue, the bumper Littlewoods Christmas edition, of problems they had faced.

The Friday night 8 hour marathon flight from Zurich to London, the last minute round trip Allan had to take, London to Glasgow and back with the boys. The ice-skating car park which should have been the M25, the cancelled football match and the unscheduled overnight in picturesque Reading. The cancelled US trip, the 12 hour marathon broken train journey they had to endure, the ferry, the snow, the cold and the ice.

It was a weekend to remember or forget but more than likely remember, the highlight being a trip to the cinema and after totting up the bill it could easily be the most expensive night at the movies ever.

I have talked about the fragility of our current lifestyles before and this pre-Christmas weekend only serves to reinforce my view. It only takes the slightest of complications and the world as we know it stops. A dusting of snow in certain places can ruin a whole holiday period, a decent dump of the white stuff can stop a city or two. An unpronounceable volcano can interrupt the whole of Europe.

The Chaz’s of this world don’t care and why should they? Most people do however and I sometimes wonder what would happen if other things we take so much for granted suddenly stopped working – or more specifically the things we have only recently started taking for granted – computers, the internet, low cost airlines, Skype, Nespresso, Simon Cowell.

What for example would happen if the internet was taken out by an e-snow storm and was down for, say, a month due to a global shortage of e-deicer?

It’s a frightening prospect isn’t it and I find myself thinking how could I protect against this? The problem with this type of thinking is my thoughts start shifting along the lines of a mid-west, nuclear bomb shelter dwelling paranoid eejit with a gun and 6months worth of supplies at the ready.

So that’s it and as I see it we have 3 options:

1. Pray it doesn’t happen again or at least not when I am travelling, am online or watching x-factor.

2. Buy a gun, go live in the mountains and shoot anyone who comes within a mile of my property.

3. Become Chaz and don’t give a shit.

Guess I should start caking on the make up now then but one thing is for sure - I guarantee I will do a better job than Chaz.

The Queue - Part 1

London, St Pancras. 5 days before Christmas

Hunched, hands pressed deep into their pockets they shuffle along. Dragging their belongings behind them as they try to hide from the unrelenting, biting, cold. A wind whips up snow and ice and children cower next to their parents, eyes wide with a fear of being separated. Their tiny hands tightly grip the torn and ragged overcoats which cover their parent’s painfully thin bodies.

The queue moves with glacial speed and cars slow down to watch their progression amazed by the sight. A refugee trail as far as the eye can see.

Riot police quietly herd them in the right direction, the only direction. They have come prepared for a violent outburst, but it never comes. They are too weak to rebel, compliance is now the only option. All hope has been lost, every turn they took was blocked by a bureaucratic brick wall and they all end up in the same place, the queue. Across the country the scene is repeated, blanket TV coverage ensures we are all aware of what is happening in our country. Politicians condemn everyone except themselves, the guilty make excuses and run from roaming reporters.

London, somewhere near Heathrow

“What happened, why can’t you resolve this?” a devil horned reporter thrusts the snow covered microphone into the face of a scared and panicking young media-relations manager

“We were surprised by the ferocity of it, it caught us unawares” he mumbles back.

“With your pants down?” the cloven hoofed one replies.

“Well I wouldn’t put it exactly like that, but we were surprised, yes”

“You don’t care about your customers”

“Well…”

“You didn’t invest in infrastructure”

“Well, that’s not entirely…..”

“It’s true!” he cuts in forcefully “You are making money hand over fist, millions, no billions, but you invest nothing!” pushing his tripod into his chest.

“Well, no, not really, last year the profits of…..” The demon cuts him off again, switching tack

“What do you have to say to all the people out there watching this going on?”

“ummm”

“What do you have to say, WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY?” goatee-beard is now standing with a foot on the throat of the ill prepared young man.

He looks defeated and with a hopeful tone he replies “Sorry?”

A pause and then he continues “But it was, it was, well, umm, the wrong sort of snow you see” His jugular is now exposed in anticipation of the killer blow.

Pausing, Satan glances at the camera. Aware the whole country is watching he savours the moment. He smiles knowingly and his eyes glow a deep dark, blood red. You can almost hear the cries of Kill him! Kill him! from behind the camera which silently blinks red.

“I presume by that you mean the cold kind of snow?”

The queue shuffles onwards, never stopping, never reducing and the mercury drops another notch.

Procrastination vs Motivation

I often wonder why it is some days I wake up, full of energy, have breakfast with my family all smiles and sunshine. I arrive at the office, the day is a flurry of to-do list decimation and output. In the evening I enjoy dinner with my family and later fall into a deep happy slumber content with my day. The problem is the following morning I wake up late, tear strips off my face as I rush shave and go to work looking like 2000yr old corpse just pulled from the Siberian permafrost.

My work day is spent wishing away the minutes and hiding from any form of productive activity. I have an argument with my wife in the evening and decide to stay up late drinking.

Why is one day the polar opposite of the other, they could easily follow on from each other, Monday happy, happy, happy, Tuesday Dr Death?

What is it about my motivation which allows such swings. Is there a difference between motivation and mood?

What is motivation?

A simple definition is the minimization of pain and the maximization of pleasure but I think it’s more deep rooted than that, some days I simply can’t be bothered and other days I want to conquer the world and there is no other external differences to the day.

Its 30 years since Mark Chapman decided to take a gun to the Dakota Building in New York and murder John Lennon, why? What was the motivation here? It’s easy to say he is a mental, a mental with a gun or even worse still, he was a motivated mental with a gun. Yes I am sure he has some form of psychiatric disease but a lot of people have that problem, I am sure to some extent we are all a little unhinged. Instant fame? He was a nothing man, a nobody going nowhere and the few seconds it took to change the world of music guaranteed we still know his name 30years after the tragic event.

Simply writing it off as an act of madness is convenient and simple but it would be the same as saying it was because God willed it, doesn’t really explain anything other than allow us to move on and ignore it. Is it random or can we as individuals, increase or decrease the levels of our own intrinsic motivation? Is it learned or genetically inherited?

I don’t know the answers to these questions but I do know that when I hire someone motivation or perceived enthusiasm is very high on my list. Be careful with this approach though, an idiot with motivation is simply a motivated idiot.
Take this blog for example, its now been nearly 3 months since I made an entry. Why do I sometimes post 3 entries per month then other times leave it for 3 months to do another?

Its one of those things which becomes self fulfilling - I haven’t done anything for so long now, one more day wont matter. Smoking is the same, if I smoke one cigarette in an evening then 30 more wont do any harm, I have broken the smoking rule anyhow – in for a penny. Its nonsensical I know but I never said my brain was straightforward.

Perhaps the fact that I have the motivation to think and write about motivation tells me everything I need to know.

It’s a bit sad and I should simply stop, now.