Leonard Cohen

I caught the darkness
It was drinking from your cup
I caught the darkness
from your little cup
I said, Is this contagious?
You said, Just drink it up.

I’ve got no future
I know my days are few
Ah, the present’s not that pleasant
just a lot of things to do
I thought the past would last me
but the darkness got that too

I should have seen it coming

It was right behind your eyes

You were young and it was summer
I just had to take a dive
Winning you was easy, baby,
but the darkness was the prize

I don’t smoke no cigarettes
I don’t use the alcohol
I ain’t had much lovin’ yet
but that’s always been your call.
Hey, I don’t miss it baby
I got no taste for anything at all

I used to love the rainbow
and I used to love the view (ahh)
I loved the early morning
and I pretended it was new
But I caught the darkness, baby,
And I got it worse than you

I caught the darkness,
it was drinking from your cup
I caught the darkness
from your little cup
I said, Is this contagious?
You said, Just drink it up.

Leonard Cohen - Darkness by leonardcohen

My Resolution

Man alive.

I just re-read my blog.

For a man who supposedly reads and writes a lot and has actually edited other people's articles, my grammar is atrocious.

Here is my resolution.

Edit before you post.

Get into Programming

Hey so I know absolutely jack shit about programming but seriously I have learned the basics of javascript in about 2 days flat. If you can do any maths which you definitely can because you've got a brain and you have to add up to do things like buy stuff then feel free to use this.

Then take your degree and shove it because stuff like this is probably more useful. Oh well.

Code Academy

A Memory of Liverpool.

Just a big NB. That anecdote at the end. It's not really mine. I nicked it like that British fella nicked Homer's sugar. If you are the one who told me it TOM, well it's my story now and I'm more handsome and stuff anyway so people will prefer it when it comes from my mouth.

Anywhere here's some things I have to say about my beloved Liverpool.

Oh hell yeah. Liverpool.

Liverpool is a place. An actual real life-place. You can go there on the train and everything. There are a few of you, presumably scousers who've never know any different. There are outsiders who've never been and are probably wondering why I'm bothering to highlight the bleedin' obvious and that's fine because you will never understand without going, the sheer what-the-fuckery of that city. 

The experience starts with the taxi drivers. Like most scousers, Liverpool cabbies are easy to talk to and like most cabbies they'll spin a few yarns whilst doing so. Thing is that everywhere else, the stories tend to revolve around, "That foreign fella what runs the corner shop." Here, they're a little bit more Lewis Carroll. 

"That grave there mate, you know why it's a spike. Because Gamblin' Eddie sold his soul to the devil for luck at the cards and when he was about to die he had himself entombed alive standing up so Satan couldn't catch him." 

You're in a city that isn't quite. A city teetering close to the edge of the world of dreams. 


Here, you can take a civilised picnic to a David Lynch film strung out across the wall of a church torn apart by bombings, before quickly strolling to FACT and lying underneath a Laser Cone where you will, there is no other phrase, quite literally trip balls. From here you can go to a gig in an old gym and flex your muscles whilst listening to Liverpool's burgeoning hardcore scene before costuming up and taking the 'world of dreams' theme literally in an explosion of light, music and colour in The Kazimer. 


Sure, you can visit the Tate and feel free to do so, there are some fantastic exhibitions, but Liverpool's real strength is the boldness with which it sticks its big fat artistic middle finger at anything that makes any sense at all. 

Liverpool changed my life once. I heard from a friend of mine who, whilst relieving himself in the Asda toilets saw a young-ish red faced man wander in. He dropped his trousers and small-clothes before shuffling towards the urinals. Naturally he tripped and as he fell, thousands of empty shopping bags cascaded from his coat. Pants round his ankles and tears in his eyes he begged my friend not to tell security and that "His heist wasn't over yet."

To some this would be an indication of the tragedy that narcotics and perhaps even poverty and abuse can have on the mind. But for me I was just confused and ponding this, I began my walk home past a shop selling 'Sunbeds and English Lessons', a Hairdresser that moonlights as a carpentry place and thought to myself that if I understood a single jot of the nutty stuff that happens there on a daily basis I would be infinitely wiser. 

This place exists.

What artist could live there and not raise his game?

?

Here's something that actually happened in Liverpool.


POST SCRIPT
I was going to end this with a thought about how our government is robbing a recently revitalised Merseyside of her dignity, but I will not. Instead I implore you all to do one thing. Visit and immerse yourself. You will not regret it. 

More Certain Than The Laws of Thermodynamics

Where there is desperation, the vultures will flock. 


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Do you lack energy? Here is some spiritual mumbo-jumbo that'll perk you right up.

Want to ACHIEVE? 

Because if you don't purchase our products you won't. And if you do, well we can guarantee it will happen at some point... maybe... 

In other news, despite nosediving overall consumer demand, sales of snake oil have skyrocketed since 2008. 

This is a personal appeal. 

Look, I'm just as much of a mug as the next guy, in fact probably more of one. I'm pretty polite in most public situations which means for the most part that I'm exactly the sort of fellow to engage in genuine conversation with chuggers, hustlers, even telesales executives.... 

I don't tend to buy anything either, which I guess is actually worse for them since they've basically just had a little chat and taken time out of their day for absolutely no reason. Oh well. I don't mind, I really don't mind salespeople at all. At the end of the day we're all selling something and they've probably got rent to pay as well. 

But if there is one thing that I cannot stand it is the language of self-improvement. 

You know the books. You've seen them piled high in train-station WHSmiths: Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Begin it Now: You Have a Purpose, The Secret (particularly odious), The Game...

My dislike of these actually goes beyond normal dislike. You might wonder after all, what is so wrong with trying to do better by yourself? Most behaviour is learned and habitual behaviour takes a concerted effort to undo and if a book can help with that then what's the point in complaining? 

Honestly. I believe that these books are parasites. They buy into the culture of self-esteem and lack of respect and revel in it. The writers are loftily pompous. "You too can be like me."After all, who really cares about the irony of a relatively rich person finding their income flagging and writing a How To Get Rich book to maximise some new revenue streams?

Be fair who wouldn't want to be like this guy?

If you want to read mindless platitudes then fair enough, but please don't be persuaded to exchange cash for it. You can get that shit for free. 

Actually, it's not even this that really gets my goat. 

What I really really object to is the way that this language has infected every aspect of our lives. 

The other day I spoke to a recruitment consultant (another non-job) regarding my CV. Ostensibly he was giving me advice on the layout and so forth, but actually he was trying to flog me his CV writing services. 

"So I see you've got experience with SEO?"
"Yes."
"Well, CVs are like SEO. You know how when you're trying to optimise google searches you have certain key words that you have to type?" 

"Yes..." (No. SEO is complete bollocks from beginning to end.)

"Yeah well the same with a CV, what I really don't see are those key phrases, the real punch, the real deal you know?"

"Yes" (No.)

"Exactly Jacob, couldn't have put it better myself." (What?)"But Jacob, what you really need is for me to book you in for a consulation. Jacob, let me book you in. I can see you need it, you know you need it. In fact, I can make a cast iron guarantee that with my process your CV will be that much better and you'll really start meeting those personal goals."
"I see."

"Jacob. You have a problem. If you didn't, you wouldn't have come here. Let me fix it."

I really don't want to break down the logical inconsistencies of LITERALLY EVERYTHING this guy has just said but nonetheless this sort of salesmanship, the leading questions, the switching of the persona, the appearance that the salesman is just another good guy (by the by why the fuck do I have to speak to this bellend as a requirement of the jobcentre? This is what happens when you contract out to private companies.)

It is the final sentence that really gets me, and it gets a lot of people too. 

It get's you because it is rooted in truth. 

You do have a problem.

You have a problem that you would like to fix otherwise you would not be there. BUT and please remember this BUT, that does not mean that you have to buy their products. 

Now it's true that you might see some improvement through reading through and using their services. What you will find though, is that there is almost certainly zero science backing up their methods and why is this? Because you've basically just splashed a pile of wonga on something that a long and honest chat with your closest friends would fix. 

You're paying money for common sense. Again, please see the irony in this. 

I have a problem that I would like fixed. I would like a good career, to have a whole lot more cash, to be considerably suaver, to look better in the colour blue, to have a stronger jawline, to have slightly clearer eyes etc etc etc

Haha suckers this is actually me, I don't need any of that shit.

Let's not pretend that by whispering a couple of mantras to myself and engaging in marketing bollockspeak I'm going to be any happier though. And neither are you. These people, they aren't here to help you. They love that you wallow in misery and the crash of 2008 set them salivating with joy. Their bank balances doubled and whilst you lay awake at night worrying about the cut of your jib, they snoozed peacefully on their bed of cash. 

You have to wonder, what sort of person is it that you're buying from? What kind of shameless sickness is it that makes a person actively attempt to profit from other peoples' misery? Think you're going to buy One Hundred Ways to Get a Mad Six Pack and Make Yourself Financially Successful now? No. 

Here's some personal development advice. Get happy yourself. Because these people couldn't care less.

The Old Lib

In 1935, George Dangerfield published a book entitled ‘The Strange Death of Liberal England’ explaining the decline of the British Liberal Party before and after the First World War. 

Whilst it is true that today, 75 years on the Liberal Democrats have staged a sort of comeback, the minority partner in a government lead (by all accounts) a liberal Conservative, the electoral success and the root of these problems are all well detailed in his book. The rise of unions, though now diminished have created a powerful voting block from whence Labour can draw from and in truth, the Liberal party of the early 20th century were nowhere close to evolving beyond a certain type of liberalism- an effete, rather paternalistic brand that could never capture the imaginations of the people when confronted with the firebrand tradesmen and their upstart Labour party or the backlash of the morally outraged Conservatives. Again, in many ways not much has changed. 

As a philosophy, Liberalism has never died. It waxes and wanes of course and is subject to only one absolute rule. It is always favoured in opposition more than government.

'Paddy Pantsdown' The Sun. Also a damn nice fella.

I’m going to hitch my flag to the mask. I am a liberal. That’s with a small ‘l’. I am an individualist and a crackpot and frankly I think it’d be a lot better if more people thought the way I did because then the bastards wouldn’t get away with so much. 

Anybody who has taken the most basic politics class knows this. There are two types of liberalism: social liberalism and economic liberalism. The former is often associated with left-leaning economics, compassionate statism, welfarism, social democracy or as some would have it- 'soft socialism'. The other side is economic liberalism. Taking their cues from absolute individualists, from Adam Smith and Gladstone to their logical conclusion in Hayek and Friedman these were the inspiration for Thatcher, David Lawes and an awful lot of post-Berlin Wall eastern Europe. 

I heard this woman once ate a child's skin. The child was cute and had big eyes.

No smoke without fire. 

Sounds confusing does it not? Almost as if these two sides were diametrically opposed? Seems like it makes a little more sense now that, given that both these groups existed within the modern Liberal Democrat party, they’ve been able to say pretty much whatever they liked pre-election and not have to worry about putting it into practice afterwards. 

Though I should not tarnish my yellow friends too much. Boris Johnson has referred to the Liberal Democrats as having a form of schizophrenia. Imagine what he must have felt when his boss David Cameron pronounced himself a liberal Conservative? 

Cameron can do this by the way . He can say ‘liberal’ because to a lot of the public that is synonymous with other lovely words like: nice, but in his mind I reckon he thinks he can absolutely justify it. I think he rather means those other liberals, Gladstone and Hayek who inspired his predecessor Margaret Thatcher to change this nation forever. Oh by the way, Maggie ain’t no Liberal. And neither is Dave. 

Perhaps I should not have diverged. My point is this, whilst liberalism as a philosophy is held by people who on the surface vary across the political spectrum, it is still a deeply founded vision and a coherent one to boot. 

To its core, liberalism is about individual rights. To an extent, both major political parties in the UK support individualism, to sometimes a greater extent they do not. Despite the Liberal Democrats hold on power, their dalliance with the Conservatives means that even under their eyes, illiberal legislation is passed. 

The ultimate difference between social liberalism and economic liberalism is this. To what extent does the coercive nature of government and the practices of unscrupulous business hinder the development and ultimately the freedom of the individual to live as they wish, to have a life of freedom, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?

Will Smith always seems like a happy guy. So happy he doesn't know how to spell happiness.

That's real happinuss. Har har har. I'll stop now.

Take for example Scandinavian social democracy and compare it to the constitution of the USA. I’m not going to go in to what is or is not corrupt about the USA, you have Michael Moore for that, or if you’re a little more sensible, your own research. But suffice to say we are all familiar with the limits of the scope of individualism in the USA economically. We also know though, that unlike here were community order offences are used as an excuse to block the demonstrations of poppy burners, far-right rallies and even basic protest by harmless old beardies, in the states anybody can pretty much say whatever the hell they like. It is often difficult for Europeans to get the 2nd amendment too, the right to bear arms, but for Americans it grows from the very soul of their being: the right of someone to defend themselves, raise their own family and live as they so choose. Of course it is more complicated than that. The USA was built on the back of thousands of slaves, her are elections hampered by special interest groups and her tolerance of alternative lifestyles is often tested. 

Sweden on the other hand runs a little differently. Unlike the USA, taxation rates are purposefully high to spend on a vast welfare state and the government owns an awful lot of infrastructure. Denmark even more so. Yet as happy and collectivist as lots of Anglo thinkers like to believe them to be (it is often hard for them to imagine differently in a world where politics is formed through the endless struggle of industry and class division), the Scandinavian nations are as nakedly ambitious, individualist and free trading as their transatlantic cousins. They keep their state manageably in check through a brutally open system of government where members of parliament are kept as open as it is possible for them to be and through their investment in the sciences and education, monoliths like Nokia and Ericsson have formed. Again, this is not the whole story. Nationalism is rife in Scandinavia, the state is often sluggish in its response and has tied its hands in investments it cannot wholly afford, though it should be noted nowhere near the level of most of the rest of Europe. 

Google Images says this is what Swedish people look like. 

Don't believe that brunette bird's from anywhere near Scandinavia though.

I’m going to be a dreadful fence sitter here and not come down on the side of either. Denmark rarely has to keep up on the big ticket items like a national defence, and it really is not worth expounding on problems with the USA. 

All people from Denmark look similar to this. 

Both of these nations are on my side in their own ways and since I’ve been such a fantastic fence sitter beforehand, I’m going to tell you straight up if you’re on my side. 

If you do not believe in freedom of expression, then you are not on my side. I’m not saying that you should feel free to be a dick... oh wait actually, I absolutely am. Feel free to say literally anything that comes into your head. A good amount, in fact most is complete nonsense but as I think I’ve made clear in my previous posts, that’s something to be celebrated or derided or both. 

Two. The moment you start dealing with people you’re going to make a few judgements based on them. That’s fine, but tell me what’s wrong with this next sentence. ‘Speaking as someone with an unconventional background I can see that your assumptions are bullshit.’ 

See what I did there? I basically just assumed that all people with ‘unconventional backgrounds’ whatever the hell that means think the same way as me. We’re all going to succumb to groupthink at some point, but if you decide that “as a man who is also a builder and a Russian I have the following opinion...”, you’re not on my big groupthinky side. Please, at least back that shit up with something else. 

Of course liberalism doesn’t deal with that intense joy that you find in being part of something together. One good experiment to test this is to sit underneath a television in a packed testosterone fueled sports bar and watch the strained faces of a hundred men collectively ejaculating over a particularly good goal.

What liberalism is good for, is in examining those eccentricities of character- those joyful little things that makes everyone just that little bit different to the next. It can create a mindset of incredible empathy because, if you don’t just relegate someone else to some group and assume that because of this they will behave a certain way, you might start assigning more complex human processes to them and who knows where that might lead...

This is just a little overview into the way I think of course. If you want to really run a state then obviously the choice I threw up earlier between libertarianism or social democracy is a big one, and one that I’ll go into at a later date in a post called something like ‘My Uninformed Views About How People’s Lives Can Be Made Less Shitty. Specifically Mine. Give Me Some Free Stuff.’

But for now, I'll say goodbye.

Probably the least funny post you'll ever see on comedy ever. In the world. Ever.

Did you hear the one about the argument between the dentist and the manicurist? They ended up fighting tooth and nail. 

Badoom- tssshhh!

Jokes are incredible aren't they? Not that joke. Never that joke. But jokes really are absolutely bloody great. I like to chuckle at them and frankly, if I could spend a good 30-40% of my time splitting my sides with laughter I reckon I'd be pretty much the happiest man on the planet. 

If you're suspecting that this might just be a rehash of my last blog post, well you're pretty much right except there'll be less crazy men and more of the old soul-searching bullshit. If you prefer crazy men then feel free to fuck off back to the last post. 

I met a guy in Africa once who called himself Wario, or Mario, or one of those characters anyway. He hailed from just outside Harare and liked to fish. This is all background gumph though because he basically had one characteristic: the most infectious laugh of anybody ever. He did it all the bloody time. He'd be talking about the size of elephants, or the taste of his beer and then he'd smile, throw his head back and give a hoot of extraordinary laughter. It was almost giggly in its childishness, but with the presence and clarity that can only come from an adult voice-box. He did it washing up, or driving his truck, or complimenting women, or scrubbing mud from his boots or even in the many confrontations with bribe-hungry police officers we met. We spoke as much as we could. His English was passable, he knew sentences and conversation but certainly his grasp did not extend to allegory or word trickery unless you explained the jokes to him. He didn't care if you explained. He would crack up exactly the same whatever happened.

Suffice to say he was one of the best people that I have ever met.

Interestingly, what we define as humour, the Japanese pretty much just accept as part of life. Their words ‘Tatamae’ and ‘Honne’, respectively the difference between reality as we understand it and reality filtered through what society expects of us. I actually got this from a humour site by the way, so all credit to them- but I thought it would be good if I could elaborate further. Apparently the Japanese don’t consider either of these realities any more ‘true’ than the other, they just accept it as part of life. That’s a very noble sentiment, and certainly if you look at a lot of UK fiction influenced by Japanese philosophy like Cloud Atlas by Merseyside author David Mitchell, you can see the power of following that kind of philosophy in literature. Personally, I actually like that we see the difference. 

Maybe it’s our history of class struggle, our straightjacketed Victorian past clashing with enlightenment thinkers, our history of literary jokers and satirists from the Swift and the scribelarians to the Pythons, but I’ve come to the conclusion that one of our greatest assets is our ability to look at ourselves and see the absolute ridiculousness of it all. 

That’s all very well, but let’s have a quick look at the Man Booker prize. Ok, we all know that the Booker is a piece of shit and nobody cares about it, but why in this new quest for readability or whatever, could we not at least have a few bits of comedy. After all, what do people like more than laughing? Or would that be pushing it too far? After all cynical sniping is all well and good, but something that actually brings genuine joy to somebody... 

We’re not talking simply about salesmanship either, though I think there’s a reason that the new Pratchett just cashed in on something silly like 400’000 copies, and this in the day when publishing is supposed to be dying a death. 

But I do think that overtly insulting swipes by authors like McEwan on the nature of comic novels are out of line. Just to rejig the old memories, he recently wrote an absolute piece of crap called Solar. A bunch of presumably soulless trainee accountants loved it so it still did OK. That and McEwan is “a good writer” (I do like some of his books so I’m not just being a prick for no reason) so he can pretty much do whatever the hell he likes these days. Just to rejig your memories, McEwan basically said that he didn’t like a lot of modern comedy because it wasn’t subtle enough and included to many ‘in your face’ jokes. 

That’d be the funny bits then. The bits that Solar completely lacked. And you know who’d agree with me? Shakespeare. Yeah, that’s right. 

In his refutation of the Marlowe conspiracy theory on the origins of the works of Shakespeare, Bill Bryson touches on one of the most important points (apart from the fact that Marlowe was y’know, dead), that Christopher Marlowe was about as funny as quantity surveying. No offence to quantity surveyors. 

Shakespeare was the master for two reasons: he could make us laugh and he could make us cry. Emphasis on the first. But more importantly he could do both. 

That’s why the following link is the best ending of any comedy series ever. 

Do you know what, I’m going to get off my high horse. Comedy awards are bloody ridiculous anyway. 

Though there is one more thing, there was this Englishman, Irishman and Scotsman who all went into a bar...