The unbearable shiteness of being

Taking media scaremongers, profiteering pharmaceutical corporations, WHO and perhaps most tellingly, pigs and birds completely by surprise, droid flu has become the big killer of early 2010. I started incubating it the weekend before last, and lovingly brought it up to weapons grade within the warm mucosal embrace of my own sinuses, before releasing it on an unsuspecting public. Though I abided by international regulations, replacing my voice with a strange wheezing and gurgling noise to warn passersby, my mission was still a convincing success: I spread my creation liberally around my department, severely debilitating two coworkers. I even gave it to Sometimes Friend, condemning her to several days at home with dwindling supplies of orange juice, an oven full of flip-flops and only the company of her cats.

One and a half weeks later, I'm feeling much better. Thanks for asking.

Ordinarily I obtain all my health advice from adverts on webpages. Vital missives on the dangers of acai berries and the folly of paying to have my teeth whitened, wave cheerily at me from their positions next to the article I am reading on the resurgence of pleaching in the 19th century. I smile to myself, grateful that concerned citizens whose only interest is the wellbeing of others have made the effort to tell me about one simple trick to lose 60 pounds, no doubt surmounting substantial obstacles put in place by socialised healthcare and Princess Obama: they don't want the public to know, because otherwise the death panels will have nothing to do, and taxes will have to be lowered, shattering the communist dream.

This very yesterday I received, through my mail no less, a dispatch from a local dentist - not even my dentist! It was addressed to "Our Friends at [my address]". Slightly worried to learn of these dentist-chums living in my apartment without my knowledge, I decided to read on.

The highly informative "Dental News & Views (TM)" Vol 18 Issue 2, doesn't just provide ominous warnings about the dangers of not visiting dentists, it also furnishes the reader with charming stock images of people with very white teeth and very white vests. Actually all the people are very white too, apart from the the stock image of token minorities. They could have at least got the Asian girl to smile; I hope the agency didn't pay her. Sorry, wandered off on a tangent. What I meant to say was: it provides cold hard facts and the exclamation marks to back them up. Because some of your are in the Teapot Kingdom or other holiday destinations, and don't benefit from first rate healthcare-related advertising, like what I do here in Freedom, I thought I'd share some first world wisdom, so that you don't put all your faith in divinations based on chicken entrails or tiger giblet tonic or whatever. You can put your faith in God though. We're totally cool with that. Anyway, "Dental News" starts off strong with a big old title in several fonts, using what I think was called 'wordart' when computers displaying multiple colours were still novel. Apparently

Flossing IMPROVES
Your Overall Health!

That's right. Flossing what, or even whom, doesn't matter. It just works. We are referred to a recent article in the Harvard Dental Bulletin entitled "Floss or die: the link between oral health and cardiac disease". And you thought the climate science peer review system was in trouble. Presumably translated from Harvard speak for our benefit:

Research has linked advanced gum disease to serious--and even life-threatening--conditions like heart attack and stroke!

EVERY DAY COUNTS!!

Luckily for us, with our childlike capacity for information storage and retrieval, after a couple more lines of admonishment there is a summary.

Bottom line: Gum disease can lead to tooth loss, bone loss and health losses!

That's bold and italic! Holy shit balls, this is serious. After that bottom line, there are then several more lines going over the same information again. But not all hope is lost, because (at the end of page 1)

We can help!!

Phew.

Inside we learn that

It starts with "Mental Floss"!

and

...flossing your teeth regularly can make your "real age" as much as 6.4 years younger.

Most people report only 5.73 years though. On the back, printed in a big rectangle, that makes it almost seem like the whole thing is some kind of faceless mass marketing vehicle designed for local dentists to use in mail shots, is the address of a local dentist. The local dentist assures us that

You Won't Find a "Friendlier Staff" Anywhere Else!

Those are their capitalisations. And their quotation marks; perhaps "Friendlier Staff" is actually a euphemism for "Troop of Sadistic Barbary Apes in Possession of Drilling Equipment and a Reclining Chair".

Most of all, you should remember to "CALL NOW!" or at the very least to "Pick up the phone and call us NOW!!"

The oral bulletin finishes with a controversial complimentary close:

Yours for Dental Health

I'm going to bed now, to recharge my exclamation marks.

Stop dancing to Little Richard and write your blog

Snow is now probably the only form of white supremacy widely regarded to be a good thing. In fact, as you are no doubt aware, snow is both 'epic' and 'awesome'. It may cause some minor inconvenience if you are a victim of progress, and are required to travel further than walking distance to work, or indulge in absurd luxuries like actually goddamn flying to other countries just to have a nice time. Back when farmers and manual labourers still existed, it was probably a nuisance to them too. Yet these factors pale into insignificance when weighed against the white stuff's epicness and awesomeness.

As you may be aware, it has been snowing here. Snow come get up in y'all business, if you know what I mean. It is also an exciting opportunity for jenuwyne Merricuns to drive around in trucks, ploughing the snow into big piles, while their Hispanic and Sub-continental serfs toil with shovels clearing the paths and steps around apartment complexes. This only after said serfs have willfully wasted precious time, digging their way out of their hovels in the sticks so that they can be driven to where the rich need them. Unions will be the death of this once great nation. If the paths and steps aren't clear, how can decent folk get out to frolic in the snow with their children and pets?

Some renters and homeowners don't have teams of workers to do simple chores for them and are faced with the indignity of actually spending time clearing their own properties. However, on encountering such adversity the truly courageous will rise to the occasion, using their traditionally superfluous SUV to propel themselves straight over the snow in the drive and all the way to the gym. One simply can't afford to let clearing snow get in the way of that all important morning workout.

It doesn't snow all that often in this part of Freedom, so the last few months have come as something of a shock to many. Thankfully, the necessary precautions and behaviour relevant to such vagaries of the atmosphere are hard coded at the genetic level. Locals react instinctively and promptly to any news of snow, by descending on grocery stores to buy all the eggs and milk they can carry. Without dairy, can a nation truly call itself civilised?

Through the naive eyes of an external observer it might seem that purchasing candles and matches would be more pertinent, as one can guarantee the electricity will go out at some point, a consequence of the artful juxtaposition of low slung provincial power lines and trees weakened by ice and snow. However the native has learnt to see very well by the light of a radionuclide rich omelette. Three Mile Island just keeps paying dividends.

Though the ruling junta cancelled classes and told 'non-essential' staff to stay at home the day before the snow came, they were loathe to interfere with the University's primary mission, namely, holding sporting events. So it was that I found myself attending a free basketball game, as a stand-in for real fans afflicted by weather related travel difficulties. Undoubtedly at some point there was a game played by absurdly tall men with a ball, but this was but a sideshow compared to the overall spectacle with its dancing girls; booing and cat calls in the finest traditions of sportsmanship; cannons for firing free t-shirts into the upper stands; halftime diaper derby; multiple spectator competitions to win ipods; juggling seals and singing bears. An honourable mention must go to the smoochcam, picking mixed gender couples to display on the big screen and pressuring them to kiss, therefore enforcing the ideals of the heteroarchy.

Further delight was to be found in the student managers. Resplendent in their team polos and slacks they swing into action like a well oiled, or at least greasy, machine at each of the innumerable timeouts, bringing towels and folding chairs for the players to sit on while the actual managers rush to the centre of the court, because that is the only place where tactics may meaningfully be discussed. Once the timeout is over the student managers pack up the chairs, suck the towels dry and return to their important task of checking that the gatorade is stored under optimal conditions.

In the afternoon of that day I went sledging (or sledding if you have trouble with difficult words, like 'aluminium' or 'burgled') in the nearest park with a decent hill. On the way we joined a column of students marching in the same direction. Amongst the usual characters in their combination of pyjamas and expensive snowboard gear were, somewhat surprisingly, Elmo and Ernie.

Sledging is difficult when you don't have a sledge, and we watched the fortunate few enviously while making do by using empty beer boxes, or wearing large plastic bags in a manner similar to over-sized incontinence briefs. Things improved significantly when a friend of a friend of a friend turned up with the box from a plasma screen tv. After some important structural work with duct tape, we were tearing down the slopes in an environmentally friendly manner. On one descent, I and my co-passenger managed to deal withering blows to two slow-moving undergraduates with our hiking boots. So snow isn't really all bad then.

The lunchtime code of ethics

Take the time and find the space in your hectic modern life to unwind, by sharing lunch with your favourite colleagues, away from your desk and in the relaxing environment of a good quality restaurant. While there, be certain to answer the first question that comes your way related to food with the word 'placenta'. This stimulates healthy conversation and will help you return to the office feeling refreshed; ready to tackle another afternoon of mindless tasks that pay the bills while unrelentingly crushing your aspirations.

Mormon Replacement Therapy

I'd like to share some advice: if you are female, don't tell almost spherical drunkards in bars that you are a polygamist. This is even more pertinent if you are not actually a polygamist at all, and are standing between two of your male 'friends' at the time.

Oh yeah, and this.

I arrived late to my own talk because someone had arranged their car on the rail tracks, but overall this was doubleplusgood, because I can't pay attention to what I'm saying for a full hour anyway, and eventually slide into scornfully describing much lauded discoveries as 'the second coming'.

There is a standard format to talks in my field, which goes something like this:

1: With the help of the seminar organiser, spend 15 minutes pissing around with the projector, rebooting the computer and jabbing buttons randomly. Only really necessary if your computer bares the sacred sigil of Gates.

2: Start by insincerely thanking the seminar organiser for inviting you.

3: Go through an unnecessarily detailed talk outline slide, which people will either immediately forget, or use to plan the time of their escape.

4: Attempt to explain what you've been doing while simultaneously fielding questions from the demented, the firm graspers of the wrong end of the stick and worst of all those who understand better than you do what's going on.

5: Finish with a clear summary slide for politeness' sake, so that everyone can pretend they understood something. This helps avoid awkward silence when the organiser invites further questions from the audience.

I think it went rather well. When I got back, I met a man on the street who asked me for money so that he could buy hot water. Then, on recognising my accent he sang me a song by his favourite English punk band. And he threw in some bad jokes for free. I think he said his name was Dope.

On Saturday I went to a birthday party, where I listened to couples talk about houses and children. Afterwards we played one of those games where you have to describe a famous person without using their name and the rest of your team has to guess who it is. In the spirit of continuing equality we were split into boys versus girls. The boys won round one, demonstrating their superior descriptive and interpretive skills. In round two we were only allowed to use three words to describe the person, and I was the first, though not the last to demonstrate an inability to understand simple rules. The boys won again, though by a far smaller margin, demonstrating a similar ability between the sexes to recall tawdry celebrity information. In round three, no words were allowed and the name had to be guessed from actions alone. Performances of 'Monica Lewinsky', 'John Edwards' and 'Rihanna' were especially moving. The girls dominated this round, demonstrating their far superior abilities at pretending to be people they aren't. Then we wrapped up with a display of basic innumeracy.

Term has started and the students are back, writhing through the streets and choking the bars and coffee shops. As always, I am above all dismayed by the return of the joggers; ponytails, tits and knees ricocheting everywhere like marionettes hewn from enraged weasels.

Charles and Eddie's greatest hit

I'm the one on the right.

While I was away over Christmas the leasing agency showed someone round my apartment. It has just struck me that they might have found the bog rolls a little unusual.

Meet at the Orangutan

I have now accepted my job offer, and am now waiting to see if my acceptance was accepted. All being well, I will then write back accepting their acceptance of my acceptance, and following this pattern the time will just fly by until the position is due to start this Autumn.

My new job will be at a great big lab, where I will help answering the big questions that face mankind such as, which is worse: fat hipsters or fat goths? We'll be forcing sullen neckerchiefed pillocks with a gut into skinny jeans and sullen eyeliner-wearing black-hair-dyed porkers into full length leather jackets, before definitively measuring our disgust using a jug and our own vomit.

I went on a road trip this weekend with 'sometimes friend' and a certified facebook friend, to see things in the South (mainly waffle houses). Just after we crossed the state line, we passed some houses and saw a curious figure at the road side. Closer inspection revealed it to be a full size sculpture of an Orangutan, or possibly Neanderthal, with a runny nose, holding aloft the stars and stripes. For a moment our love of liberty and our pride at being a part of this great nation surged, filling our hearts, and we all wept.

En route, the friend in the back received a phone call from a relative asking what she was up to. She explained that she was in a car, driving hundreds of miles south to see nothing in particular and, to make it clear that she wasn't being insane alone, named the people she was travelling with. The driver's name was well known to the caller, but clearly mine wasn't, based on what came next:

"Who is he? Uhh..... he's a techno dancer."

She eclipsed this remark later when we'd stopped at a park, by suggesting we set up a booth for people to "meet an Englishman", because "that's how the circus started".

Tardition

Apple-Oh-Gees! I actually started writing this the day after ChristHiggsBoson, but was interrupted by lethargy and being drunk. For two weeks. Looking back at this paragraph, I think I can safely say it is amongst my feeblest work.

Certain things must happen at the end of the year, unless you're one of those who practice their subtly different crazy-backward-nonsense-rooted-in-superstition at some other point in this insignificant rock's dance round the star.

Critically, or perhaps fatally, you must spend time with family. This would be great if all my family lived in one place, but they don't, so it isn't. Instead of coming home for Christmas, I leave what I consider to be my home - defined as the place where I store the largest amount of underwear - and travel across the sea to tour Britain on my trusty steed, the rail replacement service bus. My tour stops at various sites of cultural interest including my mother's house which doubles as the U.K. Department of surplus weapons grade cushions and scented candles; a high security holding facility run by my father, wherein visitors can be mauled by ferocious two-year-olds; and most astonishing of all, a pub in Oxford packed with female midgets. The male midgets must have got the wrong address. I used to have to visit my grandparents too, but they have thoughtfully simplified my travel arrangements by expiring.

Of course there are also the debilitating tv schedules, and one simply must watch computer animated animals voiced by racial stereotypes going CRAZEE, 'comedies' with names like 'How to Lose a Day in Ten Guys' or repeats of last year's repeats of repeats. The needless repetition is not confined to broadcast entertainment though. Oh no.

When I began to write this part, I had intended to vent my bile purely at the female members of my family (no mean feat and requiring years of training in manipulation of the gallbladder) but then my father ruined everything by engaging in similar behaviour. Imagine you have just sat down at a large table for a family meal. Amassed ahead of you are legion serving dishes, piled high with dead things, both animal and vegetable, resplendent in their various juices and over the soaring peaks of which you can just make out Great Aunt Ethel's blue rinse. The host will now say something like, "Please help yourselves". Cunningly, serving spoons have been provided for just this purpose. The host will then sit down and immediately get back up, leaving the table to collect another unfortunate prior example of Earth's rich biodiversity, lying roasted, yet forgotten, in the kitchen. By the time they have returned everyone has managed to stop dribbling and plates are either filled or well on their way. The host now sets about disturbing your preparations.

"Do you want some potatoes?"

"I already took some thanks." They are potato shaped objects on your plate.

"Sweet corn?" The dish is thrust in your direction, despite it having been easily within reach.

"No thanks, I'm fine at the moment."

"Are you sure?"

Are you sure? Of course you are bloody sure. This is why, one, you didn't take any sodding sweet corn in the first place and two, you politely declined the needless offer. The whole family are able-bodied, and yet still the host finds it necessary to entertain the possibility that you are incompetent with a spoon or otherwise unable to fulfill your own desires vis-a-vis deciding what you would like to put in your mouth. Despite a transmission of total disgust and disbelief via eye contact, you know that this amusing scenario will be played out again and again during the meal, reaching its apex when you finish your plate and the possibility of suggesting you help yourself to seconds - it is after all polite to wait for approval - is discounted by the host in favour of offering you every single item again. One at a time. And always followed by: "Are you sure?"

Meanwhile across the table, the traditional telling of the anecdotes has started. Of course you have heard them all before, but are willing to overlook the transgression because they are funny and gain something from being recounted out loud. What is aggravating is that various other family members who are as, if not more, familiar with the tales as you, act as though they have never heard them before. Whether a mass attack of senility or disingenuousness, this is still troubling. Do you really know these people?

And yet the torment of the Christmas period can be utterly transformed into elation on boxing day by the traditional family walk, as one hour away from the car park, you are passed by a haggard father dragging a brand-new shiny red bicycle, upon which sits a teary, disgruntled and exhausted toddler, whining that he just wants to go home. Oh the joy of giving.

On the subject of selfless charity and in a surprise move, someone has offered me a job. It's for three years and situated in picturesque Crushingly-Soullessville.

I also received some other mail: a 2010 membership card for the NRA, albeit with someone else's name on it, and a letter from the Federal Department of Personnel with 'Have a Nice Day' printed on the front of the envelope.