Romance

Yep, even I, the queen of cynicism, watched the highlights of the royal wedding and couldn't help but think that, despite all the pomp and blatant money spinning of the thing, it was quite romantic. Looking at the couple it was hard to believe that it wasn't the real deal. So, if romance can exist under the microscope of the sordid British media, then why the fuck is it so rare in the real world?
Is it the daily grind of soul crushing banality that destroys romance? Or are we just a bunch of spineless lazy buggers?
All this stuff in the media about men being out for 'just one thing' doesn't wash with me at all. People who say they just want a shag and nothing else are full of shit. That's just cowardice speaking. These people are just too frightened of looking foolish to admit that they'd like a bit of romance and wouldn't welcome the prospect of genuinely being in love and having someone being in love with them.
Yes, despite my unfortunate penchant for young flesh, I too relish the idea of romantic love. I'm just not too sure that it actually has room to exist in our society. Especially for a super cynic like me with massive boobs!! I bought a new bra today, it was a fucking size 30 G. That is just not right. How on Earth is someone like me ever going to be taken seriously with a tiny body and two massive melons stuck to the front of it?
Anyway, I'm not about to presume to know enough about the world to solve this little riddle. I'll probably just carry on chasing disturbingly young men and then realising that they're just not right for me. Oh well.
Hmm, I suppose that makes me a shallow person who dreams of romance. How...paradoxical!

Small World Syndrome

This condition had always seemed innocuous to me. Yeah, talking to sufferers was a serious bore but I never really saw any harm in them, until now.
I find myself surrounded by people who occupy very small worlds. They don't seem to think the world exists outside of the little triangle formed by their house, their work place and the local supermarket. Hobbies and interests are just things other people have as far as this crowd are concerned. They go to work, they come home and they bore the living shit out of people by wanking on about themselves and their families.
As I said, innocuous enough. However, this little world does not satisfy them so they have to make entertainment for themselves and as they can't look outward to find things to occupy them, they focus on the people around them.
Small World Syndrome sufferers love a squabble, love conflict and like to fuck with people. They also like to put people down so they can big themselves up. The reason for this is to try to escape the fact that they have no life.
Some of these folks like to just sit back and watch this stuff unfold, revelling in the little details and developments; others like to create hassle and disturb the peace.
It's really quite disturbing to see how people with small lives can begin to lose their humanity to the point where they can treat other people appallingly just to make up for the smallness of their worlds.

Hurray for Hobbies

I try not to be judgemental. I try very hard to think 'each to their own' but when I see all these people who go to work everyday, come home, watch TV and go to bed, I can't help thinking that it's not right.
I've also noticed that there's a weird general attitude about people who have lots of hobbies - it's almost seen as a bit sad - that people who do these things should 'get a life'. How fucked up is that?
I wonder what they think having a life consists of. To me it seems like they think that what you need is a steady job, a spouse and maybe some kids. Doing stuff like martial arts, going to reading groups, doing amateur drama and doing evening courses is seen as what people do when they can't 'get a life'.
Fair enough if all people want to do is watch TV and hang out with their spouse but I get the feeling that they are being made to feel like that is what they're supposed to do. I've noticed that people like them are often the types that read newspapers and believe what they read.
I get really disturbed when I see how easily people's opinions are influenced by what some stupid small minded journalists say. A good example of this was during X Factor when the public went from loving contestants to hating them because of what it said in the tabloids and what the prat judges said.
They also seem to talk about characters in soaps as if they were real people.
Yeah, it's their choice to live like that but is it really a good thing to live in such a tiny world when there's such a big world out there to experience?

On the Character of Love

Yes, that's right folks, I'm getting cynical about love. It's a sad day when this happens, but I think it happens to us all eventually.

Love is not a entity which knocks on your door like Despair. Love stands aloof and distant in a crowd. It has one of those faces which looks gorgeous from a distance. Huge eyes, sharp features and a sleek sinewy body. But when you get up close you realise that those eyes are a little too big and there is something unsettling about its beauty.

It moves like that ninja cat on youtube, getting closer when you turn your back or even blink. Before you realise what's happened it's pounced and rational thought has left the building.

There's this whole thing about how you're meant to trust the one you love. How can you trust someone when you can't think straight?

Once Love is in town it brings paranoid in its train and a crippling fear that something is going to go wrong. Yeah, of course there's all those warm fuzzy feelings following along with Love.

An evening in with Love goes something like this:

Remember that Love follows you around. Once it's got you it doesn't pop in and out like Hope and Despair.
Love sits quietly on the settee while you watch Doctor Who, it nurses the same glass of beer throughout the whole episode. It's quiet and undemanding. Just sitting quietly with its overly big eyes and elegant physique.
Once the show is over though, it starts to get a bit more chatty.
It subtly suggests ways in which the person you love might not want to be with you anymore.
It's easy to ignore though because its voice is soft and face beautiful but its persistent. It plays on your mind until its following you round the house shouting in your ear about how you're going to be traded in for a younger better specimen. Eventually a touch of rationality creeps back in and batters Love back for a while.
Then, when it's dark and you're all alone in your little bed Love creeps in next to you and starts laying out intricate scenarios about how your own love might die and how you'd feel about it.
It's only when the person you love is around that Love stands there with a little genuinely happy smile on its face and gives you a nice warm hug.

Muse and Lame Cunts

WARNING: VERY ANGRY POST

Right, I feel it necessary to clarify how I feel about Muse. This is not anything like what I went through as a teenager about Metallica or Aerosmith.
Seeing Muse play live is like a religious experience. The man made world is basically pretty beige and shit but then Muse play and a wonderful world of beauty and awe springs into being.
Mankind is still creating magnificent things - that's what listening to Muse tells me. It's not past with the death of Oscar Wilde, not everything has turned to shit with the stupid insipid Beatles and lame as fuck Pink Floyd. Disinterested, heartrending beauty is still being produced in the modern world, doesn't that just totally shake your world? It does mine.
It's dangerous though. That music speaks to me and says fuck the normal lame-o life, fuck a miserable day job and routine, beauty exists, revel in it.
That's how profoundly the music of Muse speaks to me and down right nearly shouts at me when I see them play live. I want to start a revolution right then and there.

Now, on to the Lame Cunts part of this little rant. Excluding the Mooneys (that includes you, Nick big time) everyone I know is a lame cunt. I'm absolutely sick to death with being surrounded by lame cunts. How do people lives with themselves being so prematurely middle aged and dull?
No one has any fight in them. No one has a single fucking ounce of passion. Everyone is completely brainwashed by the media and CAN'T FUCKING SEE IT. It drives me round the twist.
Sex has been completely corrupted by porn. Relationships have been completely fucked by Bridget Jones and Sex and the City. Friendships have been murdered by the same programmes. Everything needs to fit into categories now. We are living a cocksucking sociology lesson.
My emotional response to Muse is overblown, over dramatic, extreme and real. Fucking real, dammit. I'm sick of being fed the way I am supposed to react to things. FUCK THAT!!! Too many people are sucked in by this shit. Everyone I know in fact, bar the Mooneys. Why are we Mooneys so resilient to this? I really don't know.
Isn't it a difficult and lonely life when everyone has been brainwashed except you?


(Nick, you're lucky to have your kids untainted on your side of things.)

Oddness

Do you consider yourself odd? No? Me neither. I don't think many people do but I've been called odd on many occasions and by many people. Maybe I am odd.
What is odd though? How do you define odd without defining normal? Ever tried defining normal? It never works.
My favourite band, Muse, are generally considered odd. Certainly Q Magazine likes to get in a froth about the gorgeous Matt Bellamy being odd, but they're still one of the biggest, most popular bands in the world. So surely, being odd doesn't mean being unpopular. Well, it does in my case apparently, but let's not dwell.
I had a friend come to stay with me at the beginning of the week and I got the impression that he thought Brighton was an odd place. Being from Birmingham I suppose he's used to things being useful and practical rather than beautiful and a pain in the arse (no pun intended).
We certainly have some people that would be classes as odd by others and we do have shops that sell nothing but cup cakes or fashion for dogs which is probably unusual, but odd?
There are negative connotations with 'odd'. My mum says people don't like me coz I'm odd. No one would say I was 'unusual' in that context, would they now. No, they'd say 'odd'.
So what makes something odd rather than just unusual? Where does the negativity come from?
I think people who queue up to get into Yates or Walkabout are odd so maybe there's a touch of distaste in finding something odd. Even weird is better than odd, I think. I'll certainly admit that my beloved Muse are weird but I'd never say they were odd. There's almost something cool and interesting about weird, but not odd.
Odd is distasteful and something to be avoided. That last sentence sounds odd, it stops too abruptly or something.
So, all I can really conclude about oddness is that it's like weirdness but with a touch of distaste added in it becomes something negative rather than interesting.
How odd.

To Feel or Not to Feel

For Nicky and Darren

Here's a question I recently discussed with a boy I know. A beautiful boy, I might add.
Is it better to feel pain than to feel nothing at all?
I recently broke up with my boyfriend of three and a half years and it hurt. It hurt lots. When I thought about the relationship in retrospect I realised that it generally hurt quite a bit and often but I don't regret a minute of it. I don't regret it because it's these painful experiences that make life real. I know people say they're character building and all that shit, but I don't really know about that. All I know is that these things we feel are real. They aren't informed by society or the media, they're our real reactions to a situation or person.
According to some theorist dude called Fredrick Jameson, we are suffering from media saturation to the point where everything we see and hear is perceived through a media filter. For example the type of people we find attractive are often the people that the media tells us are attractive by putting in these fanciable roles in films and stuff.
At least when we feel pain we know it's real and it's not what we think we aught to feel because of some subliminal pressure to feel a certain way. Another example of this is the way people get all sentimental over things, like babies or views of fields and cows. Do these things really mean anything to us? They may to some people but they certainly don't to me and I get called a misery or a cynic because I don't go all gooey over these things. I can't help it if they mean nothing to me and I'm not brainwashed enough to think I feel something.
The bottom line of this argument I had with this beautiful boy was whether it is worth allowing yourself to feel something even if it results in pain.
I say it is because feeling nothing is the pits.
Sure, if you don't allow youself to feel something profound for a person you won't get your heart broken but what's the bloody point of being alive if you don't allow yourself to feel?