South Park-ify yourself...

South Park is crass, rude, offensive and appeals to the basest of humours... all of which makes it very hard not to like, in my view. Ever wondered what a South Park version of yourself would look like? Then check out this Shockwave offering at southparkstudios.co.uk/avatar and find out. Just hope you don't end up looking like Kenny, as we all know what always happens to him...

I am a bag man...

Is it just me, or does anyone else notice that whenever you buy something in a shop here in the UK it's bundled into a plastic bag almost by default? Without so much as a ""Would you like a bag sir?" Unless you're in one of those less-than-convenient convenience stores that charges for bags, that it... But do you really need a bag? The answer to that is "probably not". But even if you do, can't you put your purchases from subsequent shops in the same bag you were given in the first store? The answer to that is "yes", by the way...

If you buy things in ten shops on a trip into town, you don't need ten bags, I promise you. One will do. And when you get home and have unpacked your offerings to the gods of consumerism, you don't need to throw the bag in the bin. Why not tuck it away somewhere and use it again next time you go shopping? And if you can't bring yourself to do that, have you ever noticed that plastic carrier bags make excellent (and free) bin liners? At least that way you're still putting them to some good purpose.

We produce, use and discard plastic bags and other packaging materials in vast and ludicrous quantities. UK shoppers alone get through 8 thousand million bags per year - to make it clear just how big a number that actually is, it's 8,000,000,000 bags a year, or 134 per person, just in the UK! In case you still don't understand just what a phenomenal number that is, if you were to count one year's bags at a rate of one bag per second, it would take you over 250 years of non-stop counting to get through a year's consumption of bags. By which time you'd have a back-log of 249 years' worth of bags to count...

And what happens to all those bags? The vast majority are used once, then go in the bin (and not as a bin liner either). Bury a plastic carrier bag in a landfill site and, chances are, it will still be there in 100 years. Makes you think doesn't it.... there has to be a better way. There used to be (and might still be, for all I know) a campaign called SNUB - Say No to Unwanted Bags - there's no good reason for getting through so much pointless packaging. You can choose to make a difference... like everything else, "reduce, re-use, recycle" applies to plastic bags too.

Easter bunny? Not funny...

Now I'm not what you would call a religious person, by any stretch of the imagination. Apart from weddings, christenings and a funeral, the last time I went to church was probably nearly twenty years ago. Although I see no scientific or rational basis for believing in an all-powerful, omnipotent being I'm not going to rule the existence of one out, so I guess that makes me agnostic. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that I have no religious axe to grind.

I do have a slight problem with the modern Western take on Easter though (didn't you just know I would?). Whatever your religious beliefs, the accepted (and celebrated) raison d'être for Easter concerns the son of God giving his life for mankind, and being resurrected. New life, new beginnings, new faith.... all of the above. So I can see the symbolism of flowering daffodils, even of eggs... but where does the Easter bunny fit into this picture? Likewise Easter bonnets? And yes, eggs might well symbolise new beginnings, but nothing ever hatched from a chocolate egg, so I'm guessing the only symbol Cadbury's, Nestlé, Mars and the rest are interested in is the "£" sign...

As an aside, I wrote last month about how song lyrics from your youth stick in the mind better and longer than any others. Curiously, Alex James of Blur writes about exactly the same thing in his column in Uncut magazine this month... perhaps I should sue him for plagiarism...?

A life in lyrics

I guess we're all familiar with the last song we hear in the morning sticking in our heads all day. Sometimes that can be quite annoying, depending on the song. But what's less obvious, I think, but equally true is how easily lyrics pervade our consciousness... is it just me or do we find ourselves unintentionally dropping lyrics into every day conversation? Well I certainly do, and all the sodding time too. This can be a good thing, or equally can make you look like a complete loon, depending on the quality of the lyrics in question. The other potential problem with this is the risk that someone might spot your lyrical name-dropping, in which case you inadvertantly run the risk of looking like a pretentious fool. And I say inadvertantly because the whole "life through lyrics" thing is unintentional - the words have just worked their cunning way into my subconscious and come out whenever they feel like it, with no conscious effort on my part. To make matters worse, I find the songs I learnt in my youth are those that stick with me the best, and consequently are those that spring, unbidden, into my daily conversation. I've found myself "quoting" XTC, The Jam and The Smiths this week, which tells you all you need to know about how old I am.

It'll also tell you all you need to know about my state of mind at the moment to learn that lately I've been mulling over the lyrics to "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want This Time" by The Smiths and "The Blower's Daughter" by Damien Rice... happy, uplifting stuff then...

Hobson's choice...

...is defined as a choice without an alternative, i.e. option 1 or nothing. The term is possibly derived from the name of Thomas Hobson (1544-1631), who kept a livery stable in Cambridge and required every customer to take either the horse nearest the stable door or none at all. All very interesting, I'm sure you'll agree.

So what has prompted me to write about such a choice? Unsurprisingly, facing one of my own. Which is best, I wonder: to stay in a relationship that makes you unhappy (but at least have some companionship) or to separate and be totally alone? Okay, strictly this isn't Hobson's choice as there are two options, but since neither is desirable... what's a boy to do? And no, before you reach for the email, I'm not actually looking to you for an answer, okay, I just ask the question here rhetorically and to provoke a little thought. But really though, miserable alone or miserable together? Maybe it could be argued that separation is the best choice, since it leaves the door open for meeting someone else that perhaps will make you happy... but it's a brave man who dives into the icy waters of loneliness with no concerns about meeting someone new. Brave or arrogant, perhaps. Add into the equation the fact that once, like me, you get to a certain age all the best alternatives are taken, or have baggage, or are on their second or third time round the track... like I say, it's a brave man...

And to close the loop on the earlier Valentine's day post... well, I'm not going to go into what I did and didn't do myself, other than to say it involved ordering flowers, cancelling flowers and then making a last minute dash to the florist, all to offer affection to someone who, suffice to say, doesn't actually want it. Beyond that, let's just say I didn't get any cards at all...

The other Valentine's Day massacre...

It's almost that time of the year again - you know, the day when whatever you buy for your other half is, in some way, not right, or not thoughtful enough, or not as romantic as whatever her friend's other half bought her for Valentine's Day. This is also known traditionally as the day on which people can declare strong feelings for someone, perhaps accompanied with a week's salary worth of flowers, only to discover that the other person just likes them as a friend. Coincidentally, it's also the day on which some people eagerly check their mailbox (the one in the front door or the email variety, these days) in the hope of receiving an unexpected message of love only to find none there, as the rest of the western world swoons in a point-making carpet of hearts and flowers...

As you can see I am the tiniest bit cynical about Valentine's Day. Sure, I'd like an card from a secret admirer as much as the next man, and I may well have sent one or two in my time. I've even been known to do the whole flowers/chocolates/jewellery/lingerie thing. It just seems a bit much sometimes. Maybe I've just been listening to too much Morrissey lately, but it seems to me that, inevitably, the person who likes you is often someone whose feelings you just can't return, and equally that the person you like doesn't return your feelings... of course, you don't find this out until after you shell out on flowers and choc's, until after you've spent all day writing an awful, mawkish piece of cod-poetry in a tacky card that comes in a lurid red envelope, until after you've laid your heart on the line...

What will this Valentine's bring? I don't know, to be honest, other than a hatful of our consumerist cash for the companies that churn out the aforementioned cards, inflatable message balloons, chocolates, flowers, and all the rest. Why I get a card? Will I send one? It's only four days away and I don't even know the answer to that myself just yet. Maybe I'll feel moved to write more here next week on the subject... and if I'm waxing lyrical about romance and the joys of Cupid's arrow you know I'm a happy bunny... but if I'm further slagging the whole exploitative, commercial nature of the event you know that there were no envelopes on my door-mat that morning...

It's no occasion, it's no story I could tell

What is love?

A nice easy question there then, and not one that is likely to be answered in a couple of trite paragraphs on some no-mark's 'blog. But here's the thing that's been troubling me... you think you know what love is, and you think you're trundling along in love and knowing that life isn't all hearts and flowers, but that's okay because this is real life, not some Brit-flick rom-com. But then something happens... and all of a sudden you start to wonder if what you have is just extreme care and friendship, and a lot of shared history. Does that make it love though? Does any of that make the pulse quicken? Does any of that cause adrenalin to surge through the body? Do you yearn for any of that when it is not there? And does the loss of that leave a gaping hole in the very centre of you, a chasm where your insides used to be?

I thought I was in love with someone.... but what do you know, it turns out I'm not. What triggered this realisation? Well, you don't actually expect me to commit that to writing, do you?

Funny old world, isn't it?

Nice guys finish last

I know it's a cliché but it's true isn't it? Nice guys finish last. It doesn't matter how hard you try to do everything right, or how much you hope that this approach will pay dividends, it sometimes seems very hard to avoid the conclusion that the nicer you try to be, the more life f**ks you over. Why doesn't the nice guy get the girl? Outside of Hollywood, that is... Why doesn't the nice guy get the top job? Why doesn't the nice guy get to be happy?

Yes, I am moaning. Yes, I used the f-word in the last paragraph. Yes, I am angry at the world, and yes, I drove to work this morning with The Smiths cranked up to 11 to further my maudlin angst. And finally yes, none of the above matters because no f**ker reads this 'blog anyway. Here endeth the lesson.

Unsettling, isn't it?

My thoughts often turn to the concept of "settling down" with someone, probably because I seem to find it so hard to do. To me, even the use of the word "settle" seems to imply that this might not be a desirable thing to do..... settle... seems to suggest "put up with" or "make do". I don't want to put up with something or someone, and I certainly don't want to make do with someone just because I haven't yet found anyone better. But then maybe that's what settling really is: the realisation that, although not perfect, the person you're with is as good as can be expected or hoped for.

I think the thing that worries me most though is the thought that if you settle down with that special person and then someone or something better comes along, undoing that settling process is going to be a difficult and generally unpleasant process... so maybe that's another ingredient of the settling process, the ability to close your eyes to the world and be so pleased with what you've got that you stop noticing everything else around you. And don't start telling me that you've met the one person in the world who is right for you, I'm not sure I buy into that. Do you know how many people there are in the world? Are you really trying to tell me that you couldn't be just as happy, or even happier, with someone else?

The upshot of all this rambling is that I don't want to settle for something that's just okay or even good, I want something with someone that is brilliant. I accept that it might not be perfect - what is - but I need to be able to feel that I've done the best I can in life, and that includes all matters of the heart. Maybe this is why so many people in the UK are leaving it longer and longer to get married, or at least one of the reasons... and maybe it's also why even now, when I'm as close to settling as I have ever been, my roving eye is still lighting upon uncharted waters and I'm still wondering, "What's beyond that horizon?"