Underground

Bog

I honestly can't write politics.

The writer F. J. Burnley-Hampton had this to say about democracy:

“People are arseholes.”

While my views are not as radical as Burnley-Hampton’s I believe that his words will resonate with most arseholes. 

From a purely theoretical perspective I approve of democracy. I think it’s a good thing that everybody gets to have a punt on influencing the circumstances that directly affect their very existence.

But I’d give it up in an instant if I could find a really cool dictator. I don’t have anyone in mind specifically but they’d have the following qualities: 

1. The dictator should be really good at politics (it’s really hard convincing people that tyrrany is in their interests).

1. And the dictator should not feel the need to pretend they like the same shit as ‘the hard-working people of Britain’. The hard-working people of Britain won't be offended.

1. Kissing babies is not necessary.* The gesture does not offer the baby any assurance that the economy is in safe hands. Babies don’t have time for politics. Tyrants don’t have time for babies.

1. The dictator must have an understated sartorial style that generates column inches in the best Sunday glossies.

1. The dictator must not kowtow to corporate interests, unless in doing so they are helping a great number of people (ideally, nice people). If businesses misbehave, the dictator has the right to confiscate their assets and only give them back at the end of the day.

1. The dictator should be a good all-rounder who respects the fact we’re canoeing into a sixth extinction and perhaps try to do something about that, yeah?

1. The dictator should counsel with the brightest minds and consult the populace as necessary. Perhaps he or she should establish a democracy in order to keep his or her power in check?

1. The dictator would basically do everything I want and not need me to articulate what that is exactly. They would need a kind of telepathy, ideally the kind of telepathy that I’m not aware of (it’s really off-putting in social situations when someone’s reading your mind: staring into your eyes and holding two fingers to their temple as they do).

I think I must retract my comment about my wanting a really cool dictator. Basically because I have no idea how that would work.

What I really need is lots of really cool people who can act as dictator-in-aggregate and help me with all this thinking. Even if they are arseholes.

*admittedly this is a campaign practice and would be a redundant exercise for a dictator.

Heatwaves

No, I’m not enjoying the sun. 

I was made for caverns. Caverns, tunnels, tube stations and Anderson Shelters. 

When I am in possession of sufficient wealth I will buy myself a bolt-hole in the country. This bolt hole will be bored deep into the side of a mountain: a glabrous temple of shimmering damp. It will descend into the mantle of the earth until that goldilocks zone of coolened peacefulness is reached. There I will make myself a cup of tea and practice my singing. On occasion, I will trek to the entrance and survey the flesh-knobbled lands before me. I will place my hands on my hips and laugh heartily, like in a Scottish Tourist Board advert.

But it’s not something that I can easily admit to in polite company.

“I prefer the rain,” I say.

“You are deeply disturbed,” they say. 

They don’t really say that. I’m exaggerating for comic effect. 

They actually say:

“Yeah…sometimes I like the rain., especially when I’m tucked up in bed and I can hear the rain against the window. Real cosy.”

Which is irritating, because I like that too and I’m special. So I say:

“There’s nothing like walking through town with your jeans soaked-through, your hair plastered to your forehead, and your feet making fungal soup in your trainers.”

“It can definitely be invigorating,” they say.

“It’s the rheumatoid arthritis that I like.”

“You are deeply distubed,” they say.

I place my hands on my hips and laugh heartily, like in a Scottish Tourist Board advert.

But seriously, I have tried to analyse why it might be that I am so helio-adverse.

Like the best neuroses, it stems from childhood:

If it was sunny, people went outside and played football; if it was raining, people stayed inside and played board games. 

I have no real interest in getting rained on, all I want is to play Scrabble.

The highly distressing case of the man who was hated by cats.

To this day we don’t know what made the cats hate him. The police records indicate that the victim had no memory of wrongdoing against the feline community. 

In the Autumn of 1997 Sam Lancaster, a twenty-four year old website designer, was leaving his flat to meet friends at his local public house. It had been an exhausting week: WebWinners had lost a major client and the dotcom bubble was beginning to rear its ugly iridescent head. Sam’s girlfriend was moving out and he’d had to cancel his holiday plans after forgetting to be administered the essential injections.

Walking along Penrose Avenue, Sam saw Marmalade sitting in the middle of the road. A car had stopped in front of the ironically-named Persian Blue and the driver was blasting her horn metronomically. Henry thought it amusing that this cat had stuck itself so resolutely in front of the Renault Clio. The driver clearly had no intention of leaving the vehicle and so Sam took it upon himself to manually remove the cat from its path. Marmalade was a lot heavier than he had expected; he could feel its guttural purr. He would later liken that sensation to placing one's hand on a washing machine door during a spin-cycle. The driver waved her thanks and drove on. The Persian mewed quietly as Sam finally set her down on the pavement. He stroked her head and continued on to the pub. 

When he arrived it was his friend Simon who would be the first to notice Marmalade. She jumped up to the barstool, onto the bar and, resting her forepaws on a pump of Stella Artois, fixed a stare on Sam. Everyone agreed that it was LOL - worthy and in some small way Sam was flattered by the attention. He explained that he had just saved the cat from the path of a Renault Clio; naturally the cat now owed him lifelong servitude, he joked. Except that’s not quite what happened. Sam sensed that Marmalade disapproved of the story.

After the initial surprise was over, the Landlord asked Sam to kindly escort his cat off the premises. Sam, feeling a certain degree of guardianship, scooped up the persian and took it back to Penrose Avenue. As he lowered her to the pavement she shifted in his grip and began to cling to his arm. The nails were drawn, just enough to hook into his shirt. The cat purred heavily. Sam gently teased her claws from the shirt material and pulled the cat down onto the pavement. Marmalade rolled across the pavement and righted herself to her feet. She pounced and clamped to Sam’s leg.

Sam would not return to the pub that evening. He would spend the rest of the evening knocking the doors of Penworth Avenue and surrounding streets in a search for the cat’s owner. It was only at the final door that a resident asked how he knew the cat was called Marmalade. The cat didn’t have a collar, there was nothing to suggest that she should be called Marmalade. But Sam just knew. Smiling wanly, the resident slowly closed the door on Sam and Marmalade.

On Monday, Sam would arrive at work with Marmalade sitting victoriously on his shoulder, and in their wake Mildred, Sampson, Milan, Tigger and Fleapit. They had gathered over the weekend.

“Why haven’t you called pest control?” exclaimed Sam’s team leader.

Sam sucked at his lip. Marmalade and Fleapit were on his shoulders, providing rump ear-muffs. 

“I don’t know. I think it’s because they have names.”

“Why have you given them names?”

“I didn’t give them names.”

The Team Leader tickled Fleapit’s chin. “I think there are probably some health and safety concerns here. You know - for the workplace. I think you really need to get rid of them.”

But they kept gathering. And they all came with names: Byron, Tiffany, Ziggy, Ginger, Malcolm. They established themselves in Sam’s flat, turning it into a fluff-nest of svelte nimbleness. They were surprisingly well-domesticated and made their own meals. Like a furry typhoon they slurped Sam up in a vortex of love. In a week or so, Sam made the decision that he would need to take drastic action: he left his flat and moved into a childrens’ playground. 

It was at this point that the police became involved. Sam was becoming a public nuisance. The local media called him the Cat-Lover but Sam didn’t really love the cats, he only felt a degree of responsibility. And still the cats continued to amass. Imagine iron filings around a magnet. It’s a pretty basic metaphor but it captures the impossibility of severing the connection. The playground was cordened off as the clowder swelled around Sam. The fire department were eventually called in to brush the cats off Sam but they defended their territory (Sam) with slashings and bitings. 

I won’t be able to go into detail here but the necessary action was undertaken. 

Sam was shaken, and for a brief few weeks he was fully alone. The cats stopped coming. They knew death as well as anyone else.

In the next few months the owners would finally come forward. A graphic designer from Shoreditch, was the first to knock at Sam’s door. He sat opposite Sam and rubbed his eyes: “Fleapit was a kitten when my sister dropped him off. You know, I fed him. He was a good cat. But you know how busy things get.”

Byron: “We’d bought him for Dad, for companionship, after Mum died”

Tiffany: “I’d always wanted a cat. You know we weren’t allowed pets as kids?”

Ginger: “When the children left for University...the horses took up most of our time.”

Malcolm: “We travelled a lot.”

And so each of the owners visited Sam’s flat in pilgrimage. 

The final visitor was the driver of the Renault Clio: “I just couldn’t return Marmalade’s love. She was so needy. I thought cats were supposed to be independent. She needed so much of my attention.”

The cats had ruined Sam's life; he was a broken man. It was easier to admit that they had hated him. 

The 100s of things I won't do before I die

What follows will be my personal take on experiential materialism. I will begin with an evocation of the cultural artifacts both indicative and promotive of such a disposition, attempt a little insight, drop some drole remarks and end on a metadiscursive throw-away.

As many of you who will read this sentence know, I am a thirty year old man. In my life so far I have done some existing: this has been largely unavoidable. 

When I was twenty-three I worked in Waterstones - at that time a concession in one of London’s favourite corner-shops, Harrods. Owing to its popularity as one of London’s favourite corner-shops, the store attracted many celebrated customers. While televised personalities were content to drift about in non-exciting ways; the foreign dignitaries demanded a degree of pomp and circumstance, tuggings of forelocks, etc. No one really took it as seriously as I think we were supposed to. Luckily, there was a shitload of dignitaries so we had plenty of practice: look impressed, don’t smile too much. 

It was on a Sunday afternoon and I was already woozy with celebrity; I had earlier heard Rod Stewart sneezing over a walnut table in the antiques department. Later that day, our manager speed-walked in and speed-whispered, “The *** of *** is following behind me. Best behaviour.” I'm not referring to the *** of *** because I intend to keep his real name anonymous, I simply can't remember. I believe he was from Saudi Arabia.

Several minutes later, the ‘*** of ***’ sandalled in, looking insistently ridiculous in blazing Nike finery and wrap-around Bono shades. After breathing-up the store he made a beeline for a thick stack of books, the ‘1000 *** to *** before you die’ volumes arrayed on a centralish podium. While he rifled through them, his assistant selected a column, their personal shopper picked up the column then shuttled that column across to a trolley attendant. Though of course the *** of *** could have inspected the merchandise in some luxurious grotto deep down in the building he clearly felt the need to stretch his legs. Something of interest caught his attention at the till. It was a copy of ‘Crap Towns’. Though I couldn’t see his eyes, he seemed irritated. He called his assistant over and they leafed through the book, stopping to point at the names: Luton, Corby, Bath. His assistant looked to be attempting to appease him and finally and quickly took the copy of ‘Crap Towns’ and added it to the 1000 column.

Now, I didn’t know what was going on exactly. I didn’t know why  the *** of *** seemed so upset by this compendium of disappointment, so much so that he needed a copy; he seemed personally affronted. The full title was Crap Towns II: The Nation Decides. I looked it up on the stock-checker: the first edition of the series was entitled Crap Towns: The 50 Worst Places to Live in the UK. 

Had he felt compelled to visit the 50 worst Places to Live in the UK? He had exhibited a familiarity with the '1000 *** to *** before you die series (I think he might have just been buying the column for friends and family). Maybe he thought the 50 worst Places to Live in the UK was part of the series. Maybe he had visited each of the worst places and now, with heavy heart, accepted this new edition's unspoken command to visit the sequels. With sufficient wealth, it really wouldn’t be beyond one’s means to actually do all that stuff before you die. 

Luckily, my level of affluence is such that I can only really dream one hundred dreams before I die. I can also completely disregard any intention suggested by a single sentence.  Like most normal people.

Light-hearted Extinction Event

In the film 'The Day After Tomorrow' it gets cold real quick. It’s very exciting.

In the film 'Climate Change’ (working title), the temperature rises 2 - 4 degrees over the course of several decades and features a multitude of heroes who, over the course of 80 years, carefully recycle their waste and ensure that electrical appliances are turned off when not in use.

Michael Fassbender will star as a white goods salesman burdened with the insurmountable task of selling energy-efficient refrigerators to fast food outlets. Tom Hiddleston - his antagonist - will command a group of loft-insulation saboteurs. 

It will be directed by M Night Shyamalan and will feature a surprising twist.

I’m not going to spoil the twist but it will probably be along the lines of ‘we’re already dead’.

Because, in many ways, ‘we’re already dead’.

Already dead because we’re too stupid to save the world from mass extinction.

And why are we too stupid?

I don’t know. I am too stupid.

“Daddy, what did you do in the Great War against global exinction?” my imaginary future daughter asks as I dandle her on my knee. I stare wide-eyed into the distance, a barren land of powdered death and emptiness. 

“I wrote a mildly amusing blogpost.”

Her brow wrinkles, “What’s a blogpose?”

“Post,” I correct her.

She giggles. 

I had not realised that in her precocity she was deliberately punning and suggesting that my blogwriting was little more than intellectual posturing and, as such, symptomatic of the largely individualistic basis of capitalism, the result of which prompted the demise of our environment and species. If only it was that simple.

I begin to hack off my arm for dinner.