Five years on

There is a reason why returned soldiers say 'never, ever go to war.'
There is a reason why they beg their sons not to go.
There is a reason why they commit suicide once they've come home to enjoy the peace.
There is a reason why 60 years later they cry at the recollection.

Here's an question for the Great Generation of World War Two: Would you rather be revered for being a participant or would you rather all your dead friends and relatives had lived?

Don't manoeuvre people into the peverse position of equating patriotism with losing sons and daughters in combat.

Don't conflate patriotism with nationalism.
A patriot fixes their own country and stands in direct opposition to nationalism.
A nationalist is one who uses patriotism to cloak ignorance, cowardice and a bellicose nature.
A nationalist doesn't ask if their country is wrong, or what is wrong with their county.
A patriot does.
Nationalists puff and bluster, but patriots have true passion.
Nationalism is mindless and serves no higher ideal.
Patriotism is constructive.

I am certain that the invasion of Iraq is the USA's greatest strategic blunder.
Militarily, economically and geopolitically.
But what did I expect from a bunch of people proclaiming 'Freedom' without understanding how it comes about.

The ideology behind the invasion was to trigger a domino effect of democratic liberalism throughout the middle east and sweep out despotism, inequity and barbarism. It would work because everyone wants to be free.

Right, so 'Freedom' means Democratic Liberalism.

Democratic Liberalism was born in the French Revolution. If everybody wants freedom (however you define it) why then did any number of European peoples oppose Napoleonic France?

Because nationalism is a stronger force than patriotism.

I saw a photo of a recuperating soldier meeting Dubbya. He was twenty five and the arm that wasn't prosthetic had only three fingers left. His remaining leg was scared and the stump of the other one was hidden by its prothesis. The fire that had consumed his head must have been a private hell: reconstructed lips, vestiges of ears and hairless scar tissue for skin.
Fifteen years from now when he turns forty he's gotta ask himself if it was worth it.

How many functioning limbs was a fair swap?
How many nightmares of burning?
How many pitying stares from his closest friends?
How many years of getting nothing but sympathy fucks from even prostitutes who blanche at his body?
How many aspirations, dreams and hopes rendered impossible by that roadside bomb?

But would he even make it to forty?
What about when he takes that gun a couple of years from now and thankfully finished the job, and the eulogists say that it was a bullet that just took 3 years to arrive', or that he was another 'sacrifice to the cause fo freedom', or a 'true patriot' because they are too cowardly to say 'suicide' or 'despair'?

Opposing the war while supporting the troops is a non-position.
If you support the troops you only send them to war when it is dead-set 100% neccesary. And you know when it's neccesary when those who sign the documents send their sons and go themselves.
Seventeen of the fifty six who signed the Declaration of Independence fought. Five were captured and nine were killed.

As for the Iraqi people, well here's an article from the future expressing disbelief and shock that a well dressed middle-class man blew himself up in Times Square. Seconds before he'd been seen crying and mumbling the names of his eight close relatives killed by US munitions. you can see the tears on the security footage released onto Youtube. the press will probably call it 'senseless' and 'cowardly'.

Words, words, words

I like books a bit too much.
But that's good because that means when I find a book I dislike I really hate it.
Like this one for instance.

It was the first in my New Attitude to Books: that some should stand as an example to the others. I let my displeasure be known, and now they all know.

What I thought was going to be a history of the Japanese doomsday sect was a poorly attempted dramatised thriller. Even allowing for translation problems the author doesn't know how people speak nor think, hence Unreadable.

And I think I spelled 'excrable' incorrectly too.

The next was one of any number of things that spring out two years after a conversation with LordMattressHamster40K. We were discussing doing a PhD in Rhetoric at Oxford University. When it came to the appropriate time there were two options in response to the question "How will you defend your thesis?"

a) a very angry "WHAT?!?!?" and storming out.

b) a smug "I don't think I need to" and walking out.

Anyway, it seemed sensible to sometime, eventually find out what studying rhetoric would actually entail.
"A whole lot of wank" is the answer to that foray into the unknown.
So, I felt my laziness quite vindicated in my decision not to earn a degree in "making really crap shit up as I go along".
*This* is the humanities subject that the rightwing are always going on about, and I quite agree with them.

So what would happen if you combined these two books in some bringing together of the broken-signet-rings of Gross Incompetence and Literary Affrontery?
Wouldn't it be funny if there was a book out there that was as shit as this two books combined?

Shaza-am!


..which some evil bastard gave me for Christmas after getting it inscribed by the 'author'.

(Several years ago I received a letter containing a review and photo of that Reilly fool which immediately found a place impaled on an aluminium kungfu practice sword I had lying around.)

Which brings me to the best book review I have found. It is from September 10, 2000 and is entitled "Everyone has a book inside them... Sadly James Thackara's is terrible."
If everyone was this honest and entertaining the world would be an infinitely better place.
I wonder if the reviewer chortled to himself that it took a year and a day for him to find something perpetrated by man that was more horrible .

And on the third day

It hurts on the inside

Holy shit!
Princess Diana died!
Why didn't anyone tell me?
Way to bum the Happy New Year vibe.

Unfortunately the only gravestone I have handy for the occasion is this cool one a friend gave me for helping her shift furniture on Sunday.
It's the best I can do.


So, unlike Lady Di, I have started making plans for the new year. I have been experiencing that excited prospect of new adventures to be had, jobs to quit and new women to do whatever it is one does with women these days.

And I was reminded of an old adventure I had in the desert back in, ooh, 1998.
It was a camel trek out to a desert lake where there was boating and dinner watching the birds dipping before flying off to their nightly roosts elsewhere.
The boating was an unexpected delight. They were authentic feluccas from the Nile. Some eccentric had taken a fancy to felucca cruising in the fifties and had some shipped out to Australia. Somehow they ended up with this trekking crew and, after a bit of repair, became this excellent feature. The fittings were all African bronze and genuine Nile flax sails.
Sailing was a welcome respite from the argumentative and testing camels who only responded to violence. They issued us with proper camel prods, but one of the English guys had found a whippy stick that he employed to much greater effect.
As darkness fell our guide, Max, was folding the sails away and the English guy was flexing his whippy stick when it sprang out of his hands and struck the guide in the crotch.

Everyone was stunned: Max the flax stacker was smacked in the jatz-crackers by a backpacker's ersatz camel whacker!

Happy New Year

.
.

May your new year be prosperous and just a little bit gay.

I know mine will be.

How it all started.

The Cromagnon called Abu sat back on his haunches prouder than he'd ever been before.
'Hey Jom!' he called. 'I've just invented the wheel. This'll get cars off the ground.'
'Well, bugger me! You just invented the pun, too!' replied Jom, extremely impressed.
'You're right! I think I've just revolutionised civilisation as we know it.'
'Hmmm...Good on yer!'

And now there's me.
But I'm not here to revolutionise civilisation as you know it, or as I know it, or as the guy down the street knows it. Sure, not too many years ago I wanted nothing more than to bend the world to my will, but not so much now. That way madness lies - and (even today) sometimes dragons and beasts-without-name that serve a metaphoric yet cowardly purpose.


Humour is the single most useful way tool we have to push boundaries. Next to no-one sits down to wade through a massively detailed and compelling argument. They want instantanity. Hence those moments where everyone is laughing along and then the brain catches up, they stop, and realise: Ah.
It's magic.
And the person you have to surprise most is yourself.


If brevity is the soul of wit then that's fucking awesome!
How cool is brevity? I can't say enough about it.
Imagine if there was a Force of Brevity that acted like gravity and pulled two disparate ideas together using the fewest words possible.


I went to the Chinese gardens to ponder the complex beauty; enjoy the serenity; and curse other people's children.
If you hold them under the water long enough the thrashing stops and the serenity comes right back.
I thought how nice it would be to have a Chinese garden of my own - with waterfalls, boulders, pools and fish.
But not koi. Koi aren't my style at all.
Coy?!
I don't wont coy: I want hussies, long-finned skanks and siamese slut-fish! I want fish that are so sexy that when sun-adled sailors come over they have delusions that nude women are in the water.
Hell, I'll just go the whole hog and hire wannabe models to swim around.

Not that I entertain sailors - that sounds a bit gay.
I prefer flyboys anyway.


Some of you might say I'm a bad person because I only read the articles about missing college students if they were secretly internet porn stars.
Find your own level, people.


I was thinking about the Helen Hunt/Mel Gibson movie 'What Women Want'.
What do women want?
Babies.
Just saved you two hours there.


Also, I think you'll find that chicks love whopping great generalisations.

Retrospective Adventurerering: Standup 2000 or 2001

Imagine if your mind was stolen.
Your life taken from you.
And your body ...duplicated
You would have to buy ... more socks
You would use underwear twice as fast
And other people would probably get a bit confused.

This was how I started the most successful of five Raw Comedy attempts. This time I'd taken along my workmate Gino to share in inevitable victory, fame, fortune etc. It was a very simple three step plan.

I was doing an impression of that irretrievably annoying movie trailer voice-over guy ('It was a time for men. It was a time for heroes'), and expressed how happy I was to hear he had died, and how interesting it was when the pastor got up and said "There is a time to sow. There is a time to reap"

Gino chipped in with a similar rant about the over-caffeinated extremely loud guy from the late-night furniture clearance adverts.
Then we grabbed a random woman from the front row and, each holding one of her hands, serenaded her: me as voice-over man, and Gino as the yelling man.

Unforgetable that's what you are... unforgetable
BUT I CAN'T HELP FALLING IN LOVE WITH YOU!
Fish gotta swim,... birds gotta fly
MY GIRL, MY GIRL, TALKIN 'BOUT MY GIRL!
Darling I, cant get enough of your love... baby
NEAR! FAR! WHERE EVER YOU ARE I BELIEVE MY HEART WILL GO ON!
Memories, light the corners of my mind...
MEMORIES!
Nothing more than memories
YOU'RE THE WIND BENEATH MY WINGS!

Every time Gino contributed she took a startled half-step backwards such that we were against the back wall by the end.

Then we seamlessly introduced the idea that Ang Lee should get into porn and make...

'Crouching Doggie, Hidden Sausage'.

'Womb Raider'

(This joke is now even funnier because Angelina Jolie now goes around the world collecting babies.)

'The Bridges of Madison County'

and finally 'Pearl Harbor'

The transition to each new pose was tai-chi-like apart from Pearl Harbor which simply involved Gino leaping sideways. This was how he got carpet burn to the face.

And then it was time for props, drug jokes and aliens.

H: Why oh why do aliens fly eight million lightyears just to stick a probe up some guys arse?
It makes no sense whatsoever.

I went on to explain that the only way this could happen was for aliens to get stoned, go to the kitchen to make prawn crackers, and get inspired by kitchen utensils. We put on antennae, knelt and mimed this.

AlienGino: Dude! Right, right, lets go to earth and...and.. and stick this (see photo) up someone's arse!
(Both explode with drugged laughter)

H: So they fly down to earth at 40k's an hour...
"look out for that asteroid!"
"arh the planets are getting closer"
"Satellite! Satellite"
...occasionally bumping off things.
And land on earth, where they go up to a human and...
(Harry stands and takes antenna off) Can we have a volunteer?

We grabbed a guy from the audience, again holding a hand each.
I asked him questions whilst Gino repeatedly shouted "Take me to your leader!" and jabbed him in the arse with the probe.

I know what you're thinking.
You're thinking that I am a genius.
It's true. I am.
And it's also true that Destiny was so obviously smiling upon us that night for not only was there a spaceship on the backdrop but it matched my shirt!

We didn't get to the next round.