Shubha and Shem.

What’s this about Nazi Fundamentalists Shubha? It’s true Shem, they figured it out. Suddso, the cow pee we add to Israeli wine, the lot. Shubha I know I know they know; do they know we know they know other people know? I mean other than the people in the know. What? You know, like do we have tactical nuclear weapons. Yes. Yes I know we do Shem like the people in the know know, but what about the others? Ah you mean the people who don’t know? Exactly. Do the people who don’t know know and if so do they know if we know they know. The others I mean, not the ones that know? Good point. You don’t know do you? Well. Shall I take that as a no? Yes. OK I’m glad we got that one sorted out. OK, so we know they bug your office right. Yes. So we could have a conversation. They could hear us say we know or they could hear us say we don’t. Right. If they find out we don’t know we could carry on listening to see what else they know. Good point. But if we let them know we know we can say it’s a big joke and deny it. I mean if they didn’t know we knew it would look a bit suspicious if we came out with a denial about something they thought we didn’t know. Excellent.

(Later) You stupid shmuck Shubha. Now they know we know they know. They were only supposed to know we knew. Sorry Mine Heir. And you lapsed into the z’s and v’s a few times. Yes Mine Heir. This changes everything. Shall I check with our surveillance guys? No way I trust those guys, no go on You Tube, try ‘Wikileaks.org’, those guys have got principles. They’ll know if the people who don’t know are getting to know stuff.

(Later) Good news Shem. Wikileaks don’t have a bug in my office. Great Shubha. They’ve got CCTV. I didn’t know you were shagging my secretary. Well I… I don’t think your wife will like hearing about that Shem.

Karl and Kurt.

Did you get that Karl? Loud and clear Kurt. He’s gone too far this time. This pig penis plan makes me fucking sick Karl. This is the fucking Nazi fundamentalist scum we’re up against. You got that right Kurt. Don’t your sister use Suddso? Yeh but I can’t tell her, she loves the stuff, and anyway it’s classified. I tell you Kurt, when I imagine her in the shower all wet, rubbing Suddso all over her body you know, over her breasts, up her thighs, round her… Karl! That’s my sister. No, I’m just saying Kurt, it makes me sick to my stomach. Well when I, I mean if I imagined humping your wife in the shower covered in suds, and you’ve got to admit it Suddso does give a great silky feel, you’d be upset wouldn’t you. That’s true. OK lets get back to the national security issue here. OK. OK so we can’t tell the nation we’re all using pig dicks in the shower right. Right. We can’t bomb the factory because it’s in Tel Aviv. We can’t.. Hold on Kurt, Tel Aviv, Israel!? Nazi fundamentalists in Tel Aviv? Oh come on Karl, we both know that’s where they all went after the war; remember boot camp, “best place to hide shit is in the toilet.” Israel’s run by Nazis. And the Jews? They all live in New York. Come on Karl, where’s your history. OK so we can’t bomb the factory. It’s such a god dam shame Kurt; that cute chipmunk, all those butterflies, the woodland glade and that hot naked woman. I don’t know, I’d miss Suddso you know. It’s like we grew up with it, it’s part of or DNA. Fair point Karl; when we were ten all my sis wanted was to be the Suddso girl and I wanted, well you know. And it’s not like it’s hurting anybody washing with pigs dicks; and it’s like a part of the animal that would otherwise go to waste ain’t it. True. What say we pay this Stiffmouse a visit, make him an offer he can’t refuse to keep a lid on it? Right. Fancy a shower Karl? Fine by me Kurt. Got the Suddso Karl? Yep. 

My Soap Superior.

I’ve just realised who I am. Do you want to know who you are? We are not the noble meerkats of Russia battling through civil wars to compare insurance prices, we’re the tossers in all the other adverts; the one’s who’re overjoyed at getting pennies for our old jewelery, whooping with delight to be offered an even bigger loan than the one’s we’ve got already, tickled to death by an insufferable, overweight opera singer. That’s us, that is. Of course we’re lesser beings than the celebs whose sitting and chatting obviously warrants being watched by millions of us, but less than shampoo and car insurance? It’s to do with cart and horse. The cart, us, needs to be pulled by the horse, product. It used to be we were important purchasers, rightful customers, but when we were doing the pulling we could as it were make the wrong decisions. We sometimes took it into our head to not buy Suddso because it’s crap and International Soaps Inc. didn’t like that. “It is not enough zees days to appeal to our customers, ve must make zem realise zay are the stupid ones and it is our zoap that has the intellectual power to improve zair sad existence.” But how Mine Heir? “Ze actors must portray zem as stupid, mindless imbeciles who are guided only by zeir emotions. Zay must be shown as dim-witted losers whose only chance of happiness is to love our zoap.” But will they not like that portrayal of themselves? “Hanze, Hanze, zay will not even realise ve are stamping zeir self-worth into za dirt like ve did za Polish Jews, zay will laugh and learn to love us. Zay vil look up to our zoap as zeir superior, even though it is made from rendered svine genitals. Think of it Hanze, all those young ladies viping zeir faces with pigs penis. Oh how ve vil laugh on za vay to za bank. 

Dole-versity.

My young stepmouse Tom is at Uni studying creative writing. It’s a subject that somehow reminds me of Plumbing for Accountants. It’s hard to say why. Anyway Tom posted this Facebook page, “Uni is like being on the dole but your parents are proud of you.”  Universities can thus be applauded for bringing forth such irony in their protégés. One thing though these ironic youngsters have overlooked. On the dole you don’t have to pay back the money, they just give it to you. Stick that up your monkey on your back for the next ten years student loan. Which has just ignited an idea, how about ‘Dole-versity’? At Art College the staff came a not very close second to our own inter student rivalry. We got better incrementally by looking over each other’s shoulders and thinking ‘I can do better than that.’ Free of the forty something failures struggling to maintain their self-respect we practiced and read current magazines. Worked a treat. This week I got involved in an e-mail fix of some guy’s motorcycle. Was it the carb or a leaky vacuum tube to the petrol pump? Time will tell. I guess my point is going to Uni is not some magical osmotic process; one learns via an intent, a reason, the pursuance of one’s unique personal objective. Without it one learns only what one needs to to fulfil the objectives of the institution, which usually revolve around bums on seats and the avoidance of staff redundancy. Maybe that’s why Tom et al’s pals mostly post about pissups and pictures of ‘about to fall over faces’, because they have fulfilled their obligations by simply being there and paying their fees. The Internet has given us an amazing connection to vast amounts of knowledge and a wonderful inter-connectivity with our peers. Armed with that, the dole and a personal intent to become amazing who needs a Uni? Join the Dole-versity revolution; you can still damage your brain in the evenings.

Should Postman Pat Walk?

England manages to draw against two great footballing nations. Nothing could be more apt than my last blog in explaining England’s performance. There is something about how the mind functions in the wrong conditions. It must be well documented somewhere that under conditions of expectations, censure and lack of autonomous control the mind is provoked into dealing with an extra set of considerations. Whether these are contained in the conscious stream or in the unconscious background they take precious milliseconds of operating time and disrupt what Csíkszentmihályi calls ‘flow.’ In flow the whole of cognition is involved in the present activity, being out of flow results in stress and poor performance. The England team are perfectly capable of performing well but show all the signs of stress. In the few milliseconds it takes to prepare the body for a cross or a shot on goal the players are losing a vital percentage to inappropriate considerations, and accuracy plummets. Flair is replaced by scrambling to retain control. This is now endemic in the English psyche. Where South American supporters make loud enthusiastic noises English supporters make the moaning sound of defeat. As supporters we deflate our team with ready criticism and overblown expectations, but far more important is the managers roll. Postman Pat in his workmanlike professional approach has produced a highly managed workforce, each with a strict roll and job description. His stressed out workforce will, if they get to the later stages, be playing teams who are managed and allowed to play as artists. We don’t stand a chance. We will all be frustrated, stressed and miserable until we learn to fly; until our team, though organised, will be set free to enjoy what they love doing. My they play their games without fear of their supporters or manager.

Our illusory Tribe.

TV ‘Tribal Wives’. Woman, single, 40, spends month with family who have just enough of very little. She knows having, achieving and failure, and they know living. The exchange is rather one sided. I have been through that same training as the woman, of avoiding not having, avoiding not achieving and avoiding failure. I’ve been very good at it. I have, as we might say, been successful. Yet the family introduced a sort of nebulous irrelevance called living. It was repetitive, hard, simple, focused nose-to-nose contact with their daily reality. Not romantic, nor humdrum, not exciting nor boring; it was, as the mother said, “walking your life without fear.” That was the lesson the woman and I need to learn; that life is an embrace, not an arm wrestle. In effect we are ‘the have nots’ because we judge ourselves on the many elements of what we do not have, where those who have little judge themselves on what little they have. It’s exam time and thousands of youngsters are trying hard not to fail. Their teacher may invite them into the wonder and beauty of science and literature, but by being examined they learn only what’s needed to not fail. It’s an endemic state of mind that produces, wait for it, Failure, or the merest modicum of success. It becomes life without heart; a potato plant genetically modified to produce one potato as the minimum proof of what it is. Without fear of reality we make fear in all our unrealities of failure, of how we might be judged. Because of all we have we can afford to be humdrum, not romantic, boring, not exciting; we can be nose-to-nose with our own illusions. But the good news is illusions won’t kill you, only reality can do that. May you walk your life without fear. 

Other people's Poo.

The animals waste quite a lot of hay dropping it on the ground while they’re eating it. I used to thing OK they’re just dumb animals, what do you expect, but we sell cups of grass pellets to feed goats, donkeys etc for £1 and today I spent an hour scraping up a mud of dropped pellets from outside their pens. Probably about £20 worth. So much for human superiority. In fact all of them are showmen; I’ve been watching them work the crowd. No food, no interest. “Move along if you’ve not got pellets; cup carriers only thank you.” If you’ve got a cup they’re as cute as hell but cupless, bugger off. Time and time again today people have come up going, “Oh look at the baby goat’s poking their heads under the fence to feed off the ground.” Don’t believe it, it’s a con! It’s just another cute ploy. Their parents tell them to do it so they’re clear to eat what comes over the fence, and basically you can’t fill up a goat. They may look bony but they can digest food quicker than you can feed them. All they do is shit more, which is why I was in with them all afternoon. In fact I’m getting quite resentful. There I am cleaning up after the bloody things and all these young mothers can do, some of which are quite tasty, is go all gooey over the stupid shitting grass eaters. What about me! I’m not only intellectually superior, good looking and roughly the same species as them, I’m knee deep in goat excrement out of the goodness of my heart! No ‘oh look at the cute farmer man, what are you doing after work?’ No, I’m the one covered in poo. Well it’s not mine!