Another Triumph of Human Reasoning

I expect that in the three years since my last post, a good many of my dedicated and admirable readers will have suspected my sad demise.  'What has happened to him?', they will have sobbed to themselves, weeping bitter tears over the lack of pithy insights and worldly wisdoms habitually found on this blog.

I am pleased to announce, however, that I have returned with excellent news to impart.  The news is that of definitive proof my own existence which, for some reason, a few 'internet commentators' have doubted since I began this blog.  'No!', I say to them.  And in any case, who are they to doubt my existence?  Those sad degenerates, sitting at their keyboards and tapping away, deluding themselves that the inane wittering of their substandard minds constitutes some lasting contribution to the sum total of human civilization.

Attentive readers might detect here a note of hypocrisy and, yes, it's true, I have spent an inordinate amount of my time away from this blog on futile projects: from attempting to turn base metals into gold using a technique based on hair replacement technology, to my failed attempt to teach a flock of geese routines from Guys and Dolls, endeavours which I now understand to be somewhat unfortunate investments of the limited time I have left in the world.  But I stand by my own efforts on the grounds that they were definitive attempts to intervene in the world  - to actually change something - rather than to pronounce mindlessly on other people's actions and opinions via a keyboard.  And this leads me to the key message which is the product of many years of secluded contemplation: some of the opinions and activities on the Internet are not very well thought through.

To celebrate this triumphant breakthrough in the history of human reasoning, I returned to my local bar the Spangles which, when I last visited, had mutated into a fishmonger-themed bar.  Amazingly, it was doing a roaring trade and full of revellers making demands and shouting enthusiastically at the barman/fishmonger.  'The only thing on the menu is sardines', he was saying tearfully, and the mob were responding with jovial threats and playfully waving their chairs above their heads.  Was a heartening sight this was; it's the kind of thing to make you pleased to be out in the real world, rather than on your computer reading other people's nonsense.

Overwhelming Feeling of Panic

"I can't be bothered to update this blog." These are the words that I screamed from my window at three in the morning.

I was having one of my periodic existential crises. You know, the ones where you become overwhelmed with the absurdity and pointlessness of your existence. I was totalling up the achivements of my life, and this is what I came up with:

1. No-one in human history has simultaneously consumed raw fish and alcoholic beverages on as many occasions as I have.
2. I have been arrested on 47 occasions, mainly for disturbing the peace, obstructing the police and offences against rhyming poetry.
3. I fathered a child after a 17 hour drinking binge.
4. Every word I have ever uttered is treated with unmitigated ridicule and barely-disguised contempt.

This doesn't add up to much, I suppose. But this blog was founded in the intention of combating this last achievement - for I know, secretly, that there are thousands of people hanging on my every word, nay, living their very lives by the wisdom of my insights. But this led me into paradoxical territory: does the blog advance my fame, or negate one of the achievements of my life?

I was in turmoil. So I decided not to post for a while. And then tell you about it.

Released from Prison

This post represents both a triumph and a great sadness. A triumph because I have overcome terrible adversity and appalling bad luck to return, conqueror like, to the scene of my fame and glory. But sadness because, in my long absence, I missed the one reader who has seen fit to record her appreciation of my genius: 'good words', she quipped in a comment to an earlier post. This tremendous and spirited acclaimation of my brilliance is as overdue as it is true. But let me explain myself.

After the terrible misunderstanding outlined in my previous post last year, I had the misfortune to be declared mentally unstable. This seemed to be most unfair, especially as I was said to be 'obsessed with surfing the internet' and 'addicted to blogging', accusations which show a fundamental misunderstandng of the purpose of this blog. It's a blog which expresses my hatred for bloggers, every one of whom is a self-obsessed and deluded fantasist, trapped in the prison of their imagined importance. But these pleas were unheard, and I was sentenced to be incarcerated 'for my own good'. I had apparently become a danger to others, a conclusion which was no doubt based on the video evidence of me making suggestive gestures from the back of a public bus - footage which was taken without my knowledge and presented in court completely without context. Confronted with the potential failure of my historic mission to write a blog which exposes the idiocy and stupidity of bloggers, I broke down and wept. 'Will no one think of the blog?', I wimpered, which was all the evidence my anatgonists said they needed to prove their point.

And so I found myself in a rehabilitation centre. I was told that my problem with blogging could be solved by talking, just as other people's probems with incoherent and excessive talking to no-one in particular could be similarly solved by blogging. 'You no sense make!', I twittered, and I was therefore initially mistaken for a 'problem-talker' rather than a 'binge-blogger'. The centre, you see, specialised in disorders relating to the intenet: it even ran an on-line support service for people addicted to web-surfing. The philosophy of the place was 'There is no problem that cannot be solved, or caused, by the internet'.

I won't bore you with the details. But suffice to say, it's an system which combines screaming therepy, cannabis smoking , rhythmic leaping and interpretive dance to inspire some truly unworldly and harrowing forms of behaviour. And the good news is that, a year later, I'm basically cured of my obsession with blogs and blogging. It's such good news, that I wanted to tell you straight away, within the first few hours of my release.

Back from the Brink

Recently, I read an article about a man who had become so addicted to the internet that it killed him. It's a tragic case. Apparently he sat, day after day, staring at the screen, neglecting all other aspects of his life. Eventuallyl he perished, a martyr to whatever private cause he was engaged in. Was he continually updating and modifying Wikipedia ariticles on topics which obsessed him? Was he trying valiently to get to level 88 in some all-consuming role-playing fantasy game, living out some otherwise unrealisable dream of a life he never had, as a medieval barbarian or a wizard or something? Was he constantly poking 'fantasy friends' on Facebook - an oddly similar activity? Was he continually updating his blog, in the deluded hope that someone was reading it? No-one knows these things: they are lost in the secrets of time and in the misinformation intrinsic to the systems of communication that both caused and reported his demise. Did he even exist?

But I am not that man! For I have been shunning the computer in an attempt to liberate myself from its addictive clutches. 'Computer!', I would say, 'you are diseased and unsavoury! You are worse than the rotten flesh of a three-week-old dead beast!'. And thus I hurled the monitor three stories onto the pavement, where it shattered, injuring a passerby and causing a minor road accident. I did this to prove that I am not addicted. I did it to prove my sanity.

But, alas, 'ever are the mightly misunderestimated' (as the poet said). For this liberation ended, paradoxically, in my incarceration, an irony which struck me repeatedly as I laughed and cursed and was repeatedly struck in the police station. To cut a long stort short, I was compelled to do community service. 'You're a remarkably self-obssessed man', said the judge as I checked my hair in a pocket mirror, 'and furthermore, your strange behaviour for the sake of self-publicity is grossly inappropriate'. I must confess that I agreed with him and replied to that effect, delivering my apology in rhyming couplets while performing a traditional dance of my own invention. The court was unimpressed and I was 'sentenced' to 1500 hours community service cleaning the streets. But I was liberated from the computer, which, after all had been my objective - so I reinterpreted the whole episode as part of my own glorious triumph. I walked the streets a proud man. And that's what this whole episode has given me: self-satisfaction.

Return to The Spangles

Both readers of this blog will recall my trip to a local bar 'The Spangles' some time ago. On that occasion, the bar had a DIY theme. It was bedecked with hammers, saws and Ikea furniture, and frequentedly by burly men in hard hats who talked about self-tapping screws and shelving units. But upon visiting the bar agan recently, I was shocked and scandalised by its brutal transformation. Gone is the rickety furniture and the fake-oak panelled bar! Out with the eccentric dress-code (high-visability jackets only)! Instead, The Spangles has become a fishmonger.

Well, I say fishmonger. There's still a bar there, but it doubles up as a fishmonger's counter. Nowhere else on earth can you order haddock and watch it being gutted while sipping on a Guinness. Nowhere else can you survey the carcasses of the creatures of the sea while refreshing yourself with a lager. I spoke to the new manager, Simon, cousin of my friend Derek, who has pioneered this revolutionary new approach both to the selling of raw fish and the consumption of alcohol. Simon takes his role so seriously that he wears a mullet on his head.

'It all started, when I got drunk one night on a beach', Simon said, with tears in his eyes. 'I was staggering around on a seafront, when the twin smells of rotting fish and stale beer assaulted my senses. This is an interesting experience, I thought to myself, and I waded into the sea to catch a fish to knaw at like a savage beast. I sobered up pretty fast, I can tell you: there's nothing like a near-drowning to wake you out of a drink induced delusion. Anyway, there I was, floundering around in the icy waters, when I cried alound: "Why not combine the two components of this near-death experience - beer and an unneccessary desire to kill fish". I kind of liken it to a religious revelation, like stroking the face of God, or something. After that, it all fell into place quicker that a lemming running off a cliff. I only had to remortgage the house and spend my life savings and it all became a reality. I've made a drunken dream come true and there aren't many people who can say that, are there?'

'Indeed not', I said, though I secretly thought about the circumstances leading to the birth of my son. But not wanting to spoil the occassion with that grim thought, I duly drank to Simon's health. The problem is, it's the business that needs the defibrilators: in a week, he's only sold three sardines, two lemonades and a packet of giblets. But Simon's undeterred. 'I'll show them', he slurred, 'they shaid thed be na market fur it, but we'll shee. I'll do whatever it takesh - I'll do a deal wiv tha Devil himshelf if needsh be'. Now that's what I call selling your sole.

Thrilling Update

Since my last post I have recieved 241 emails asking why I do not update the blog more regularly. The simple answer is that I cannot be bothered.

Does that satisfy you?


Ironically however, Google (praise be to our Lords and Masters) wouldn't allow me to post the above on its own. So, in the true spirit of blogging, I shall fill up the rest of the post with a load of old rubbish:

Rubbish, rubbish, old rubbish, lots of old rubbish, misinformed rubbish, ill-considered ranting, tedious and bigoted opinions, foolish nonsense, random wittering, misconceived and erroneous lies, shambolic and badly-expressed idiocy, second-hand and ill-thought-through ideas, misinformed and utterly worthless speculation. Rubbish.

No, I am not dead

Fear not! ForI have not perished. Instead I have been engaged in the most difficult task for a modern day man. Yes - living without the internet.

Of course, the fact that I am writing here at all is an indication of my abject failure. But for a few glorious months, I tasted freedom - the joys of not checking your emails every half and hour, only to find it full of spam about invasive surgery and money laundering; the delights of not feeling compelled to look up stupid and misleading nonsense on wikipedia; the thrills of socialising with real people rather than anonymous 'friends' (that is to say, strangers) on Facebook. Instead I wandered, lamb-like, through the countryside, saying 'Good Morning' to every man and beast I met, indulging in the simple pleasures of the bracing walk, the rotting animal carcasses in the road, the appalling stenches, the desperate scramble home in the dark with no flashlight, the panic-stricken screaming on the hill-side at one-in-the-morning, the emotional rescue by the mountain patrol, the arguments with the same emergency services over the precise definition of the word 'timewaster', the tearful return home, the consumption of vast quantities of alcoholic beverages, the drunken collapse by the fireside and the consequent minor burns.

Enthused by the lifestyle of yesteryear, I composed a beautiful poem:
In the city, I am defined by my internet connection,
But the country is much better for the complexion.
So to the Earth I bow down in genuflection,
'Til it's bulldozed for a motorway intersection.
As you can see, it's quite sublime and an honest appraisal of my capabilities.

But to return to the point. My time away was a revelation, not least because I gradually came to realise what a loser I was, writing a blog that no one cares about. Have I received one message of support or enthusiam over the last few months? One single question or indecent proposition from a fan? No. Well, that's just fine, because now I'm liberated from the internet, unlike you. Yes, you, reading this rant: get back to your fairweather facebook mates, you pathetic creature, back to the mindlessness of emailing peoplewho work three metres away, back to posting absolute drivel in blogs that no-one will read. I'm better than all of you. I'm not addicted, I'm in control. I'm a Poet, a country-dweller, a Sophisticated Man of Quality. And if you don't like if you can fuck right off.