This article started out from a discussion of the portrayal of women in both the video games arena (in terms of female characters in games), and the wider perceptions and prejudices held in the world of the geek.

The conclusions from this were that, yes, there is an occasionally uncomfortable characterisation of women in the popular media held in such regard by the geek community (computer games, fantasy and sci-fi books, films and tv shows) – and whilst I think the traditionally cited example of Lara Croft as a sex symbol archetype can be justified [think of her as a female Indiana Jones], there is no denying that – more often than not – the sex appeal card is played without much regard for the character behind the boobs (sic), and when the game itself isn’t concerned with much beyond the trivial gratification of a beat-em-up, or point and shoot entertainment package, then it is easy to identify where the worryingly default female characterisations and stereotypes come flooding in.

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But why all this?

Why stop at the geek gaming sphere? Can the concern for female characterisation not extend into other art forms as well?

Yes, yes they can. Cinema was a supporting example in this cause – initially with the portrayal/glamourisation of the early Hollywood stars; and you could only argue that with the development of independent cinema, and the less mainstream offerings that you find in Europe and beyond Hollywood, is where you find better characterisation of women,.

Had I the dedication to this cause, I would cite further examples from probably every other artistic medium possible where you can demonstrate both poor one-dimensional over-sexualised examples, and – conversely – paradigm-shifting examples that move us further away from centuries-old archetyping of women in both physical appearance and mental diversity.

I think there is still a case to be heard that the games industry is particularly guilty of this approach; and – although the increased presence of women in the industry and buying into the products is slowly starting to change this – certainly the prevalent social sector on the internet (the aforementioned geek culture) are still unfortunately expert in recalling the misogynys of the past.

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It is probably easy to explain why such physical characterisations of women arise: e.g. In the games industry, there are specific technical reasons why women are created in the shapes they are – character recognition on the screen being the main one.
But less easy to explain why they are written as being vulnerable creatures that must be saved from <insert threat to her womanhood here> by a hero. Or why it is ‘acceptable’ for the female heroine to be threatened with (or even suffer) a sexual assault, when no such threats are made of the hero.

Now it is easily to divert here, and portray the predominantly male gaming industry as a sexist bunch of male chauvanistic aggressors, fueling a feminist movement for change.

But that would be akin to making generalisations based on limited facts – which is in fact where I think the true problem of the portrayal of women in entertainment media lies:

I am 28 years old. I have never been in anything you could consider a relationship with a woman. [Although pity is occasionally welcome, you should restrain yourself pulling out your violins at this point.]

There are a number of reasons why I am living my life unaccompanied; those one or two of you who have followed my blog from its inception will know my philosophical reasonings almost dictate that “true love” is an impossibility, which – for an impressionable young person in his early twenties – wasn’t too much of a concern because of the cloak of invicibility my reasoning at the time put around me.
This thought process can be put on hold for discussion at a later date.

But more practical and physical reasons (social awkwardness, an apparent non-attractive appearance to my phsically-biased late-teen/early-twenty peers), means this is the scenario I am living.

And – importantly – with the philosophical doubt to one side; I am not unique in this situation.

I would hate to actually research and discover the statistic, but I would suggest the amount of men and women who have had similar success in relationships with their preferred sex, is by no means an insignificant number.

{Aside: Has there in fact been a study which demonstrates the number of single versus partnered-in-any-way-shape-or-form adults in the world?}

My partly-self-imposed loneliness does of course mean that my interaction with women has been limited: Not to say any interaction I have had has been a bad thing – far from it – I am not advocating a monk-like existence here; I have just not actively pursued the complex world of relationships-that-are-more-than-friendships for various reasons.

Which means my frames of reference are limited: my data pool is very shallow. And – over time – has been ‘contaminated’ (metaphor extension alert), by the portrayal of female characters in the books I have read; the films I have watched; the TV series I have followed; the computer games I have played.

Very simply, I have taken the lazy option of – rather than risking emotional harm by throwing myself out into the real world of female relationships – I have been contented with my fantastical ideals of what my ideal woman would be, and have not let this get discoloured by interacting with any ‘real’ women.

To this point, there is an increasingly more apparent danger to this:

Even though I am notionally comfortable with not having a girlfriend at this time; when this possibility presents itself [even in the most limited and tenuous way], I have so very little to draw on that it gets ridiculous: My imagination kicks into hyperdrive, and – although I try to be as rational as possible in my thought process – it will invariably lead me to the wrong conclusions: social awkwardness ensues, and you end up kicking yourself in the friendzone – or worse; alienating yourself from a friendship group.

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But why should this all bother me?

Ultimately we’re all moving towards a very obvious and a very physical interaction with the opposite sex (or same, should you prefer) – so any “relationship” surrounding the intimacy is superfluous – right? I mean, the entertainments industry hold a bias towards the sexual, not because they are degrading and obsessed with the carnal; but because that is the most unifying aspect of our lives. Right?

Well I am far from qualified to comment on this one; but my thought process is this:

Generally speaking (assuming the primary function for sex is to have babies, not all that fun stuff associated with it), the best years for us to reproduce are right from our late teens through to our mid-thirties. Of course there are thousands of exceptions to this; but ultimately you have to agree that sexual development generally leads to baby-making in your twenties or thirties, after which one of our most primary functions as a species ebbs away.
Ever the optomist, science is continually challenging this – but in general terms you take 20 years to grow up into adulthood, spend the next 20 years making and raising children of your own – and then that part of your life is over.

But, “thanks to modern medicine”, we live past these functional years, and we have therefore developed a belief that there is ‘so much more’ to life than our base desires.

And with our extended life comes our extended fear of death. No longer is human life a rush to procreate, provide and then die from exhaustion in your fifties (or by being mauled by a sabre-tooth-tiger in your thirties, if you want to go back that far).
Now we have the luxury of time to ‘take stock’ and think things through – to come up with new ideas about how to live our lives; and to spend time taking umbrage with those who disagree about it {and – if necessary – go to war with them about it </further aside>}.
And so as our years on Earth increase, so does our need for companionship, to prevent us from being forever alone; just for someone to be there with us as it all plays out – through the highs and the lows.

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I realise this has become a rather cynical tangent about the origins of “love”, and it isn’t my intention for it to be so – but bitterness is quite easy to add into these discussions, when you are yourself confused as to where this desire to be with someone comes from.

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To return to the premise of this article, in the vain hope I might regain some of my Sunday and maybe even nip out to the shops for another rather basic need; it started with a discussion on the portrayal of women within the geeky arts, and ended up with me whining about how it isn’t entirely my fault that I haven’t been in a relationship [the arts can intimidate your perception of ‘love’, as well as inform it; the crudest example being pornography, but everything you take in presents a new bias on things]. Impressive, huh?

Ultimately, part of me wants to get laid; part of me wants someone to ‘get’ me. Part of me wants to make it Morrisons in time before it shuts.

Right now, this is the best way I have to deal with these issues; sarcastic putdowns to any suggestion of actually braving the outside world and doing something about it; and pouring out my ideas onto the internet, in the vain hope someone will communicate back.

Preferably female.

Yes, there have been many more tweaks and updates in the past which you haven’t liked for a while, then got used to; but THIS ONE – THIS one takes the final jaffa cake.

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Okay then.

Remove yourself from Facebook.

Go on. It’s not (too) difficult.

Except that if you have had this thought of leaving Facebook, like I have; you will immediately be deluged by something along the lines of the following thoughts:

• But it’s how I keep in touch with most of my friends

• It’s how I observe the subtle nuances to my friends’ lives and I feel more connected that way

• It’s how I know what events are happening

• It’s how I keep up to date with all the news about my favourite artist/band/director/films/tv shows/cats

And it goes on.

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For me there is something inherently unsettling about the fact that Facebook has so much of an influence on how I conduct my social life; and yet I find it almost impossible to think of a way to get away from it.

More and more of the things I am interested in, tell me things via Facebook.

There are probably about 60 of my friends that I am only in touch with still, via Facebook (and even then it is just a passive reading of their occasional status updates).

So even if I were to jump ship to the marginally-more-preferable Google Plus; I would be losing touch with most of my ‘friends’, and no doubt missing out on ‘vital’ social events, and people will undoubtedly forget my birthday again (tested earlier this year when I removed my DOB from Facebook, thus removing the reminder to everyone about it).

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I do not like being in a situation where I have lost control.

Yes, I know, I have the ultimate control of deleting my profile from the site – but has Facebook become too ingrained in the way of everybody’s online life, that it is too late to leave?

I can only imagine how infinitely more nightmarish this would be if i’d opened up my profile to link to my wider family, and my work colleagues.

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So, I think I have a solution; and here it is:

Remove all of your close friends/family from Facebook

The thinking here is that your close friends you can keep in touch with via more ‘traditional’ routes – email and text (okay so not as traditional as ‘by post’, but I’m not advocating a return to the stone age here!).

You can let everyone of these know (via email, or a closing Facebook note) of your main contact details, so they have them if they need to get in touch.

And ask them to remember you when they organise those *really* important social gatherings.

Remove the ‘likes’ on all of your favourite things

So all those bands you really follow, or tv shows you want to hear more about? Find out through other means.

Every band you like will have a webpage at least – I trust you’ve remembered how to bookmark a webpage?

As for those things you’re not so fussed about anymore – just let them be. I doubt you’ll miss them.

Leave only your most distant (but still key) friends

So this is optional if you have people left on Facebook that you don’t exactly want to say ‘hey there, don’t forget my email/mobile number and to invite me to all your cool things’, but you might want to still get in touch with them one day.

My solution (for now) is to keep these people as friends on Facebook. Then you can just log in once a week/month to catch up on their lives if you need to – or just log in when you really need to contact them about something (but you just don’t know what at the moment).

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Ultimately – ask yourself this: Do I really care about what happens to this person in their life?

If the answer is yes, and Facebook is the ONLY contact forum you have for them, keep them on Facebook for that unknown day of contact.

Otherwise, delete them as a ‘friend’ and either embrace them as a true friend through – you know – old school conversation – or, at the other end of the scale; forget them forever.

Assuming this wasn’t some form of sexual deviancy slang, I duly nodded politely and waited for an opportune moment to look up Solipcism on Wikipedia.

Now the very fact that I had to look up something that – in a solipcist world – I must have already known and created already in my imagination, otherwise – as part of the external world – the definition can’t be said to actually exist; this is a pretty good way to start disproving Solipcism altogether.

However.

Solipcism has been a useful method of Philosophy for me, and is an important phase to go through (to my mind…).

Originating from the intial doubts shared by the likes of Descartes, questioning just exactly what is real is an important route to the inner thinkings of Ultimate Philosophy.

But assuming you have better things to be doing on a Sunday afternoon than running through a supiciously simple set of Philosophical principles, I will take you through a few ad-hoc thoughts that arose from this mis-labelling of me as a Solipcist:

1) Although it is flattering to think that everyone else around me is a figment of my imagination, I really do not have that level of imaginative power to conjur such a malestrom of diverse characters and encounters. [Of course, I could - subconciously - be the hyper-imaginative creator of the majestic fiction we call 'reality', but lets just leave that nightmare alone for the purposes of this discourse]. So Absolute Solipcism can be discounted

2) But what is important is that people do not disregard Solipcism altogether – as I say above – it is an important thought process to have (if only for a moment). What I believe is far more dangerous is the process that I would imagine 90% of the people in the world go through instead, and make the assumption that everything is not a figment of your imagination, and that the world is made up of certain fundamental objective absolutes, with a whole load more of absolutes that are assumed so as it is unlikely that you won’t encounter a counter to the absolute in your narrow-minded lives.

3) To expand on that last point a little more clearly – take for example the crowd of a large football match: Here you have a large collection of individuals, all gathered for the same broad purpose – to enjoy a game of football. Okay so there is one pretty obvious division in the crowd; one half are there to support the Red Team, the other half the Blue Team. But ignoring that difference, because anyone with a half-brain can understand that split; let’s focus in on the Red Team’s supporters:

Although they are all there for the same broad purpose; many of the crowd are of different faiths. Many of them have different political allegiances. Many of them are meat eaters/some of them are vegetarians. Many of them like action films/some of them like period dramas. Many of them prefer Coronation Street/some of them prefers to sit naked in front of Emmerdale whilst crushing digestive biscuits with their left hand. Some of them want to abuse you. Some of them want to be abused by you. Some of them were children of the 80s. Some of them were children of the revolution. One of them was born just last week, and has no particular opinion of football just yet.

This could go on for near infinity, until you break the crowd down into a finite amount of individual opinions/views/outlooks/biological make-up/favourite song, and the only thing that “unites” them, is the fact they are all in the same location, watching the same thing, for the same broad purpose [I could go further here and demonstrate how their specific purposes can vary quite significantly].

But – I hear you cry – the point is that they do share some common ground; a love of football in this case.

To me, that is such a generic and cliched expression, that it doesn’t hold any water with me; is it correct to assume that one definition means that anyone observing the scene through that definition knows exactly what types of people/opinions/beliefs are gathered for the match? Here’s another example; “they have a love of life” – what the heck does that even mean?

Humanity is far too ready to categorise and identify everything that we do or experience; and we are then far too willing to accept these categories/identities (or we are far too limited in imagination to see beyond the most common of stereotyping of both people and situations):

• We accept that there is a standard format to growth and learning – Primary School, High School, College/Uni-if-you-can-afford-it – and when you meet someone you didn’t take this route, they are instantly an exception to this system. Which then imbalances our subjective view of what many believe to be an objective truth, and you either regard the exception as an ‘outcast’, through your ignorance; or you adjust your world-view to compensate.

• I think that the best form of communication for these thoughts is on this blog; other people I know would have preferred a verbal discussion; some might prefer it written in a letter – some might be more receptive it was in the form of an opera; or a web-comic; or a message on the back of a cereal packet.

• Until recently it was accepted that world news events were carried to your door in the form of a printed newspaper – or also a 6pm television bulletin. Why did we accept this as correct, when some of us may have preferred to be verbally informed the news by a specially educated squirrel, parachuted into our garden in the early hours, who also made our breakfast for us in the morning?

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Before this gets far too silly for a Sunday afternoon stroll in the mental park, I shall try and anchor back to my original Solipcism-inspired thoughts:

No, I am not a Solipcist. I do not imagine for one moment {well, okay for the occasional moment when the world gets too crazy for my liking} that you are all figments of my imagination and dreams.

On the flip side, I do not see the need to imagine that I know each and every one of you inside out; or that the objective views of the world that get bandied around so readily, are indeed true – or even real.

Sadly the power of my imagination does not allow me to experience this existence from any other central point than my own – so whilst it would be great that you were all figments of my imagination {in which case, why don’t more of you want to come to bed with me ¬_¬ }; or that there really was a wholly objective nature to the universe, in which case we can all connect through one absolute unified experience of reality – neither of these viewpoints are true.

Imagine that!

At least most of the time, this is referring to cultural diversity, as opposed to the dance troupe of the same name.

By “ways of making our workplace a better place to work”, ‘diversity’ is being embraced – there’s a diversity group I believe that meets every week, to no doubt discuss diverse things – and perhaps the most obvious development in this area has been the opening of a ‘contemplation room’.

I think it is fair to say that the predominant use of this room will be by our employees who are of the Muslim faith [and technically any Jewish employees also, as I understand they have to pray 3 times a day], as opposed to any Christian believers – largely becuase Christians aren’t obliged to pay multiple times in the day, and also because I think it is a fair generalisation that UK-based Christians are less religiously active moreso than ever these days; certainly in an ‘actively practising your religion’ kind of way.

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It’s probably worth at this point reminding anyone reading this of my Personal Disclaimer – what follows is a free-flowing chain of thought, with no specific target or undertone:

I wonder if the aim of ‘diversity’ in our workplace has been thought through.

Cultural diversity I think I can understand – finding out more about the countries/regions colleagues originate from; their food; their music; their literature; their traditions (at a stretch).

But inescapably packaged into this will be religion – as the contemplation room example indicates; whilst some of this initiative is all about ‘we are one world’, ‘embrace each other’ (casual observers can understand why this sort of thing is applauded); part of it is also about tolerating the diversity in the sphere of religion – which is not always immediately applauded.

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Part of me wonders what would happen if I were to take 10 minutes out of my day each day to sit in quiet in the contemplation room.

Not very much I would expect – the people I work with are more than pleasent enough, and were I to sit idly in the corner at the same time as a Muslim call to prayers, I would be accepted; and I would in turn respect their observations.

But would I feel entirely comfortable making use of the contemplation room, for nothing more than quiet private thought? I wouldn’t be praying by any means – but I would be exercising my lack of beliefs in nothing more than myself; which is surely part of our diverse culture?

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You might have heard David Cameron recently declaring that multiculturalism in Britain has failed; whilst I have no desire to analyse the intracacies and reactions to this speech by the PM, I am spurred by this to take the buzzword of diversity in my workplace, through to a logical conclusion:

Let’s start from a simple fact – every workplace/society/group/organisation/etc. are as diverse as it’s constituent parts (no intentional double meaning on ‘constituent’ by the way) – the place where I work is already pretty diverse to my mind – we have an ‘emerging markets’ team that focusses on the Eastern European markets – it’s a bewildering department to walk through in a morning, with a multitude of languages flying across the phones! – a strong presence out in Asia, with offices right through Europe and in North America, and a bit of South America.

We’re pretty well spread in-fact – with a comparitively impressive placement of women in all areas of the business, many leading key teams of people. I don’t have facts and figures to hand, but feedback from incoming colleagues indicate these points in a positive light.

I think what concerns me about the ‘diversity’ word being banded around (off-set to Cameron’s claim that multiculturalism has failed), is that if you take it through further, we need to start having an open discussion about differences in social, cultural and religious traditions – and then start to find common ground/answers.

And I’m not sure if that is where the diversity team realise they will have to ultimately go – it is all very well, making allowances for every social, cultural and religious viewpoint – it’s a nice thing to show off about your company; “look, we’re letting a multitude of opinions and faith be brought into our workplace, which means no-one will be offended!”

BUT, and it’s a big one this; the only way in which you can acceptably have all this in the workplace, is if these practices/ideas are offered up for debate as well. Things like different foods etc., the merits of cultural traditions are usually easy to debate – but people back down a little when different religions are discussed – and whilst there should be support for this platform of discussion in the workplace (if we’re being completely diverse here), I am not convinced that there is.

Certainly the way in which the contemplation room was introduced was rather full of “yes, well, essentially we’re giving Muslim employees somewhere to pray, but we couldn’t call it a prayer room because that would be excluding other viewpoints, but essentially that’s how it got to this.”

My feeling would be to leave everything of this nature outside of the workplace – focus purely on the challenges in hand [and there are always plenty to go around] – i’m not talking about a pure and relentless focus on the bottom line and nothing else – but what I am talking about is that you should either have a blanket removal of all diverse non-work-related elements from the workplace, or you have a complete embracement of these elements – including the more radical views that may well challenge existing beliefs/precedents/social and moral levels.

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In similar news, I have started my own religion – which is designed to spark these very discussions that I am almost afraid to conduct in my diverse workplace.

The way I see it – religion is ultimately an excuse for ways in which people behave and (more often than not) the ways in which they treat other people. And it is a poor excuse, and reeks of lazyness of thought on the individual’s part – so my new religion attempts to address that, albeit in a hopefully light-hearted way.

Whether the practicing of my new religion would be accepted within the ‘diverse’ culture of my workplace however, remains to be seen.

If i’m being honest with myself, the mystery project is unlikely to see the light of day: It started out as a bit of sillyness, and developed into a brief foray into the world of CSS style sheets [fascinating I know...], based around a historical epic from the mid-1970s, mixed with the social networking site du jour

Have you guessed what it is yet?

No? Well here’s a screenshot of what took far longer than the idea itself – the main reason I haven’t put the hours in to get it completed.

Shame really

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But fear not! For I have been working on another mystery project – all freakin’ day in fact! Inspired by fuck-knows-what, but possibly seeded by the forthcoming census (religious question optional), I thought it was high time I started my religion. Obviously.

Lolism is what I hope to build into a new world religion. Okay, more accurately, it’s an attempt to get under the skin of the major religions, and find out why they still pervade our world – a world where anyone enlightened can easily see that religion is a questionable but controlling power in the world – that doesn’t really need it.

To be clear, i’m not talking about belief here; I understand the power of imagination and the beliefs that come from this, rather well (if I don’t say so myself); but religion is a topic that I am starting to think more and more about – check back tomorrow (hopefully) for thoughts about how it integrates into our society.

And by lol, I’m going off on one, when in fact I should just be promoting a fledgling website, and asking you to give it a chance.

It’s on facebook as well don’t'cha’know.

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More updates as the site develops!

Make of it what you will – but let me know what you make of it.

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I want to leave this life of mine behind.

And I don’t mean that in the suicidal sense (though I can see how for a few it might) – after all I have a pretty good life as it is: My job is challenging but enjoyable; I have a mortgage and a house; and I have great friends and family who love me.

But I still want to leave – and go on a big adventure. I don’t mean one of those bullshit journeys where I travel to the centre of the congo and “find myself”. I know exactly where I am, and who I am.

It’s just that I am tied down to a number of things, that means I can’t run off and do whatever I want, or be wherever I want to be.

I guess it’s a natural protection that starts with your parents – they, lovingly, install you into a safe environment of familiarity (note the word connection – familiar/family) – one of education, growth and routine.

And the safety net provided by your family, and later your friends, becomes your default ‘safe place’ that you always return to, more often than not.

And, like my family, I love my friends.

This year i’m seeing four sets of them get married (one of the pair is technically family also), two of whom I am to be best man for.

So for me to leave now, would throw that all into disarray – potentially distancing friends, maybe even turning them into enemies.

Oh and I can’t leave my house. Not after all that paperwork I went through – especially now I have a stable and decent-paid job, that cuts down my debt to Barclays Bank plc, slowly, over the remaining 24 1/2 years.

I actually thought about packing all my posessions and driving them back to my parents’ house and cramming them all into my old room, then not having to worry about what the bank did next:

There would no doubt be an argument at this point – with my dad I think – not really for ‘throwing away’ the money they loaned to help me buy the house; but mainly for renegading on a property deal that would give me some financial structural stability over the next decade or two.

And then there’d be an argument with mum, because I’ve set off dad, which would eventually turn towards (somehow) how I’ve ‘given up’ on God – and my whole catholic upbringing – something we’ve never discussed directly, but which is starting to be raised as a topic, stealthily, like the model snowman I got at Christmas, which – when opened up – contains the nativity scene.

And I couldn’t even begin to do this to my parents – at least not yet.

But I’d still want to leave.

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Of course, without paying for a house no longer, there wouldn’t be the need to keep on at my job.

A job which – when engrossed – I enjoy to a great degree; I get on with my colleagues – we connect on a number of basic levels, that suffice for the functioning of our erratic department.

Often, I still want to leave – mostly just for the drama of showing them (in my head) how much they would miss me and my skills – if only for a while.

But sometimes I take one or two further steps back, and remember; ultimately I don’t want to work for an organisation that perpetuates the notion that profit is a catalyst, above others.

At most times, it’s not like that – people there are generally working with good intentions – but the occasional comment strikes a warning dischord.

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So why don’t I leave my current life?

A lot of it is not a fear of the unknown – outside my current life – but the warm embrace that the ‘known’ provides when my brain gives over to autopilot, and when that happens I am content with life’s routine.

Another part is rooted in these routines – they, on the whole, keep me happy and only occasionally wanting for the stereotypical highlights of “living” that the movies show us, and the lotteries promise us.

The final part is the respect and love I have for my family and friends – I don’t want to upset the applecart and throw people’s plans into disarray: I’ve been asked to be at my best friends’ side as he marries his bride – and I don’t want to disappoint.

After that thought, it is difficult to escape the ‘known’ – virtually impossible on your own.

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But what if there were someone else with me?

A companion – maybe something more?

Someone who would fill me with enough confidence to travel away from all this – to finally leave it all behind – to journey with me into the unknown?

And I think that might be what love is.

About five years ago, I used to think love was taking an existing friendship and secret crush, to the next level with someone.

I think i’ve now realised that way of ‘love’ is merely an embellishment of familiarity – of taking a Venn diagram of ‘you and her’, and squishing them together, so the circle where your love crosses is enough to carry you through the years.

But i’m not sure that’s for me.

I need someone who I can leave my current life with, and get out and live the life I’ve always wanted.

Life is starting to get too familiar around me – it even scares me a little.

But when we’re all scared, we crawl back into the foetal position, and return to what we known – the friends/shows that always make us laugh – the kindness/joy that family/colleagues sometimes bring.

It’s a cliché catch 22, but in order for me to leave things behind, I need to overcome a fear of the unknown – and I don’t think that I’m strong enough to do that on my own.

So for now, I’ll abide by the familiar – and continue down this path.

But when the time comes for me to leave; I do hope there is someone who wants to go with me.

And then I went and said something stupid; I can’t really recall exactly what I posted, but it offended someone/some people, and I got reprimanded by the moderators.

The thing is, I hadn’t meant to actually offend those people that read my post – I was simply posting in the not-quite-real-world of the internet. Some of the annonymity that the web had afforded me, had allowed me to open up my feelings and thoughts – and express ideas that I had never felt comfortable expressing before.

And being reprimanded by the moderators really annoyed me.

I hadn’t said the things that I said to that person’s face – I hadn’t forced them to accept my opinion using threats of real violence – all that my internet alter-ego had done was to post his contraversial opinion, for other internet alter-egos to read and comment on.

Despite trying to explain the context of my remarks to the moderators, they still struggled to see my point of view. And so I came to the significant understanding of how text can be mis-understood over the internet.

Shortly after this, I put together a disclaimer which made it clear to anyone reading my posts that I didn’t actually mean actual distress to them – I was merely posting my opinions in the interest of having a lively discussion about every single thing that crossed my inquisitive teenage mind at the time.

It’s a disclaimer I still carry today, in some form – because I want people to be aware that everything on here is my opinion – a stream of conciousness thought – it is not a threat to your good self; unless you find the idea of having your own views challenged, a legitimate act of war upon you.

Going further from that – everything I say and do in real life is also my opinion, not a statement of fact that threatens your very worldview.

But the reason I’m posting this today, is because of the farcial events of the Twitter Joke Trial, which have resulted in an innocent man losing his job (and then a 2nd that he applied for after his conviction), and – more fundamentally – is an apparent attack on our individual rights to expression.

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For those of you not following these events, it all started out with a – perhaps misjudged – but clearly-flippant remark by Paul Chambers on twitter:

Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You’ve got a week to get your shit together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!!

Here’s the key reaction points to this:

1. This tweet by Paul to his followers (amongst them @crazycolours whom he was looking to date at the time – and to get to her, he was going to fly from Doncaster airport*), was picked up by an off-duty member of said airport, by searching for the phrase ‘Robin Hood airport’ in the public twitter streams (what you post on twitter is publicly searchable by default – had Paul been serious in his threat, he would have taken the steps to STOP it being publically viewable, or – maybe! – not posted about it on a public blogging site at all)
2. The off-duty member of staff reported the tweet to the police, as a matter of procedure – and the police stated that this wasn’t a serious threat, and that there was – I quote! – “”no evidence that this was other than a foolish joke”
3. As pointed out more recently on twitter – why would terrorists blow up a closed airport anyway?! Another poster even did some detailled analysis of the joke tweet

Despite these key points, the Crown Prosecution Service went ahead with sentencing Paul Chambers to a criminal record, and fines that – currently – lie between two and three thousand pounds [an amount that has already been covered by donations from the public; although Stephen Fry has also offered to pay for the full amount].

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It was frankly rather disheartening that Paul’s appeal to this conviction was quashed yesterday – and brought back memories of the forum moderators censoring my comments, just because I said something that someone took issue with.

Having my comments on a forum wiped, and having my wrist slapped is one thing – but when the same principle gets blown out of proportion, and a man (and his now girlfriend) have their lives ruined because he expressed comical outrage about being unable to meet the woman he loves – it actually scares me about the nature of the society I am living in.

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Which is what made it all the more heartening when, after picking up on a trend at around 11am today, I took part in the mass-reposting of Paul Chamber’s original tweet – under the banner of #IAmSpartacus

First hundreds – then thousands of us all posting the exact same words that Paul Chambers had back in February, that caused the CPS to bring about this woeful action – many of us also expressing the fear that there might also be a knock at the door from the police, asking us to accompany them to the station. [As an aside - out of interest - how did the police reconcile Paul's original tweet with the human being known as Paul Chambers, and link the two?]

But the overall point of the posting – as well as expressing a protestation about the sorry state of affairs – is that, either the CPS commit to their line of prosecution and arrest all of us who posted the tweet again (for which I would be more than happy to stand trial) – or they too will have to admit that their line of approach is indeed a sham, as the rest of us can plainly see.

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*Incidentally, I refuse to affiliate Doncaster’s airport with the famous Nottinghamshire-based outlaw – for that they really do deserve to be bombed! LOL ONLY JOKING… ¬_¬

Well, okay, not that lucky – but I did get up close and intimate with a celebrity…

That (lucky?) person was Simon Amstell, performing a warm-up gig for recording his DVD in Dublin in the near future: I got lucky by buying the very last ticket; I got up close by braving the front row; and intimate because – well, quite frankly, a lot of his material hit home.

There was no mention of his Popworld/Buzzcocks history (through which I’m sure many of you know of him) – instead we got a raw insight into “the real Simon Amstell”, as twee and sickeningly OK Magazine that sounds.

He took us through the embarrasement of approaching his first until-then-secret crush in a shop, and – instead of communicating in the usual manner that ‘normal people’ seem to achieve so well – he yelled out their full name across the shop, and – having gone that far – could only proceed to communicate with them even louder.

He introduced us to his overtly Jewish family – and how a mis-assumption about why his brother’s fiance was absent from his diabetic grandpa’s 80th birthday party, caused an almighty ruckus when he brought this up in passing – ultimately causing his grandpa to burst into floods of tears; partly because of the arguments that broke out, and partly because he couldn’t eat the enormous birthday cake.

He also introduced the over-arching concept of pulling the universe of ideas into reality – and how this doesn’t often work out the way you think it would: He revisted the shouting-at-his-first-love-in-a-shop tale, pointing out how that didn’t go how these things go in our heads. And he citied this concept as precisely the reason why, when he went to see Sarah Silverman in London, and he went backstage and found out that Keanu Reeves was there – when he was offered the chance to meet him; he didn’t take it.

He felt that if the actual event of him meeting Keanu Reeves happened in his world, it wouldn’t go the way as how it might in his head – as he’d found out when attempting to make pleasent conversation with his crush in the shop, and it came out all wrong.

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I should point out that all of this was hilarious, and I am just terribly bad at relaying comedy to people.

However – the moment that killed me the most, was shortly after he disclosed that, after sex, the only thing he could think of saying to his partner (rather than the world of romantic possibilities you see in fiction, in films etc.), was “well done”.

He stressed this wasn’t his catchphrase.

Then, when talking to a couple down the row from me, he joked that, whilst their relationship was 7 years old (although they were “now paying him £17 each to remind themselves what laughter felt like…”), it would end eventually; that death is coming.

Oddly (although not that odd if you are into your black humour), that got a laugh: It got an even bigger laugh from me (and everyone else!) when he yelled “Death is coming!” three times at the couple, paused, and declared “That’s my catchphrase.”

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Like I say, I can’t ‘tell ‘em like they did’, but I assure you – this moment of staring the harsh reality of life, truthfully in the face, was really very funny indeed.

And this got me thinking… {he said in a suspiciously pre-fabricated segue into the second half of the article}

Death is life’s only certainty.

This has two associated points:

1. This can be used as a good argument against suicide – why bring closer the only thing you know for certain anyway (that you are going to die), and waste the intervening time that you would have had, otherwise spent doing anything else. In fact; if death is the one thing you have no control over, and the rest of your life is entirely within your hands; suicide is a complete reversal of that – you gain control over your ultimate end – but lose all power over what else could happen next
2. People aren’t wearing enough hats. It has been quoted before (Meet Joe Black being a recent example, of something that must be a long-established-phrase) that there are two things in life – death and taxes: I think a review of reality would surely show that (for the super-rich at least) this is certainly not entirely the case.

As part of my human nature, I haven’t really thought about death that much.

I’ve been indirectly involved with it of course; both through family members passing on, and – less emotionally so – via the news channels and suchlike.

Other than by taking direct action, however, it’s the one thing we can be fairly uncertain about. And Amstell’s advice (taken from a Yoda-esque taxi driver) is to not get hung up on it; you can’t do anything about it.

Which is all very well being said in a light-hearted discourse in a Soho theatre; or whimsically typed out here – but, in practice, I think death hangs over a lot of our lives:

• We know that we have a rough timeline on Earth
• In fact, by the time we’ve realised this, we’ve probably already used up a quarter of that time
• There are certain blueprints for ‘living’, often lain down by our parents or peers – find someone, marry them, buy a house, have kids, retire and enjoy what you’ve got left of it all
• In order to fund these ambitions (apart from the ‘purest’ – finding love), we must earn a living – often by conventional means – to earn enough to achieve the steps in our ‘life journey’
• By assuming we’ll be dead at (say) 80, you start to plan out your life – marry at 30; house & kids on their way by 35; be finally rid of them by 60; enjoy a few twilight years at work; and then retire to your dream home (hopefully still with your spouse) and await the end [well, okay, look forward to coffee mornings, baking cakes, entertaining grandchildren etc.]

Do we think that if we don’t achieve all, or even some, of these targets, we’ll have ‘failed’ by the time death comes to us?

I’m beginning to think so.

What’s missing in my life, in particular, is a fearful recognition of the ultimate power death does hold over me.

Maybe it’s a residue of my Catholic upbringing; maybe it’s Maybelline.

All I know, is that I don’t currently fear the reality of death happening to me one-day (although hopefully not soon – just enough time in the future for it not to worry me); so I don’t have a defined view of what I want to do with me life: It doesn’t seem under threat in particular, so I have no reason to really take a think about what the hell I am doing with it.

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Which all seems an odd state of mind, that I suspect i’m not alone with.

Here we are, a collective brain the size of a planet, and we don’t realise a) how lucky we are to actually exist, and b) how limited our existence is – and so we should treasure every second.

As Amstell would put it – we really should stop spending so much of our time dwelling on what has already happened (the certain things); stop spending so much of our time worrying about the things we can’t change (death is coming, electricity bills); and explore the curious world of Going Out There And Trying Stuff Out Until You Find Something You Really Enjoy.

Well, okay, his show concludes ‘Do Nothing’, but I think that is mis-interpreting his (and my) ultimate point:

You inhabit your own wonderful universe. It looks out into other people’s universes, and shares some common themes – but ultimately you are the only person who can truly experience whatever you pluck from ‘outside’ and experience for yourself.

Now if I could just contract a lengthy-but-terminal disease and free myself of a base reliance on generating funds directly, I would be all set…

For me – national politics was a joke that I didn’t find particularly amusing, or particularly offensive; it operated outside of my social circles, my circus of ideas; it was something for other people to be interested in.

To be quite honest, I can’t even recall if I voted in the last national election – I know I voted locally, because that’s where I believe it matters – but national politics never seemed to matter.

The amount of bureaucracy, red tape, cliches, endelss fuel for the tabloids, and – above all – blandness – of political influence at a nationwide level, just seemed irrelevent: I’ve likely had the good fortune to not have to live through the Thatcher Years – but politics, particularly in England, seems stuck in the old days.

The fact we’ve flipped between Labour and Conservative for the past 65 years seems akin to those years when your options on television were ‘this side or the other’. Even when Channel 4 and five came along, it was still a reflection of a largely bland offering of opinions/ideas/scheduling – with just the occasional moment of erotica or hard-hitting satire flashing across our screens once in a while.

Have I Got News For You was the comedy stalwart of Friday nights on the BBC (and even then it was on BBC 2 until late 2000), of which I was (and still am to some extent) an avid fan – but one of the mainstay jokes was that anything other than Conservative or Labour in government, was a ridiculous concept – and even when a politician with a sense of humour turned up – then LibDem leader Charles Kennedy – his self-deprecation and ‘new’ thinking, would be swept under a short clip of his inability to bowl a bowling ball; prompting howls of laughter from the audience.

Okay, so if you run the whole video it turns out he makes his second shot; but that just wouldn’t be as funny.

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But now we are here, in 2010 AD (In The Years of Dave) and there has been an explosion of ideas – first the interwebs, and then across the world of digital tv, and now filtering down into the world of UK politics.

There is talk amongs my friends and peers about ‘who are you voting in the election?’ – something that prompted me to actually think about this upcoming opportunity.

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And when I thought about it, I realised what disillusioned me so about national politics:

+ I can see the value of local politics; enabling local government to do what needs to be done to keep things ticking over; maintaining the roads; taking away our refuse; ensuring house fires are tackled as quickly as possible; managing the yearly task of getting kids into education

+ What I don’t see from a national level, is how I have any say whatsoever in decisions taken about the place I happen to live;

+ Sure I get a vote every 5 years or so – but look what it’s worth!

+ And, thanks to our history of Red or Blue power since the end of World War II; my options have been limited; I couldn’t necessarily vote for the party I want to – a protest vote wasn’t really even an option, seeing as my local protest vote was BNP!!

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It turns out, Proportional Representation is what I am after – or Single Transferable Vote.

This system moves the UK more to the true notion of democracy than it has ever had.

Ultimately, my suggestion is for us not only to be able to vote for any party we want – unconstrained by our location in the country – but for us to get more input in the way our country is run – either ‘in through the top’ at Westminster, or through our local powers.

I should probably expand on my idea of allocationg 50% of our taxes – but that is for another day.

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In case you’ve missed the hints in this article – the first steps towards proportional representation are by voting LibDem at the upcoming election – forcing, at the very least, a hung parliament.

They might not share all of your views/ideas – but if you want to live in a Britain that DOES embrace our galaxy of ideas/views that are on offer in the UK – they are the ones who promise a move to that STV system: They are the ones who can bring about real change.

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As that was extremely frighteningly like a Party Political Broadcast for the Liberal Democrats, I shall now distract you with this poster what I made…

I can’t go into much detail right now (I really must get some sleep for one thing), but suffice to say this is an extremely silly project that I wish I could devote more of my life to right now. But it’s so new, that it doesn’t even have a banner picture for it yet.

Details of the project will be revealed further (including it’s name!), the closer I bring it to fruition…