And Cracked it is - Review

Cracked. That’s the only possible way I can describe this book. Oh it made me angry. Livid. And I could only dream about ever being able to write as good and fitting a review as Andrew Solomon did in his essay “Smug about Suffering”, which I really recommend – beg, beseech, implore –  you to google and absorb. But I’ve got enough fury in me to add my own nickel of doom. I can only offer a few points because I could happily turn this into a dissertation, but I shall spare you.

The good bit, short and sweet: Yes, it was very readable, and as far as I can see, it has had great reviews (though I cannot possibly fathom why). And I am the first to agree that there might be occasions when people get overmedicated unnecessarily, and that it is a golden goose for the pharmacy industry. But something being profitable doesn’t necessarily equal sinister intentions.

The bad bits (and I hope you’ve got a few minutes, because there are lots): This has got to be one of the most one-sided, self-aggrandising, misinformed and irresponsibly polemic books recently written on the subject.

Another reviewer pointed out that a book written against the use of psychopharmaca and advocating an increased use of psychotherapy comes, I guess, at no big surprise from a psychotherapist. Talk about the sweet irony of applying Davies’ conspiracy theory of the pharmacy industry back onto himself. It works both ways, Mr Davies.

The one thing I agree with Davies on is that medication on its own often only masks the problem, and does not cure it – but no one has ever claimed it does. Though funny enough, that’s exactly the absurd accusation Davies hurls at psychiatry at various points in the book. Psychiatry is still in its baby shoes, the brain and mental illnesses largely not understood, but that does not mean we shouldn’t use the little knowledge we have to help ease mental suffering.

Demonising and attempting to discredit something which has saved the lives of so many of us in favour of something most of us only have limited to no access to is downright sinister.

Fact is, the therapy a lot of us need, CBT or whatever other kind Davies (rightly) makes his case for, we cannot access at all, because most of us cannot pay the outrageous fees in the private sector, or we have to join huge queues on waiting lists that often last a year or longer – and some of us haven’t got the strength to wait that long. The six free NHS sessions we are entitled to are done by counsellors, not trained psychotherapists, and due to government cuts, there are less and less mental health centres around, with staff in there hopelessly overwhelmed and under-trained.

The practical truth of the matter is, most of us have to do with pills. I should know. I’ve been on medication for nearly a decade, and several attempts to come off them failed. (Not because there was a problem with addiction, as Davies is quick to claim - it was simply that my old condition resurfaced and regained the upper hand.) Maybe if Davies is willing to come off his smug high horse and open a NHS mental health facility that provides care to those of us who cannot afford the insane fees he probably charges, he can talk again. But he probably won’t, and that makes him just another cafe activist.

In Davies’ view, psychiatry has become so reliant on and biased towards drugs that it perpetuates a treatment model in which therapy has been moved onto the back burner and people instead are stuffed with pills as a cop-out solution. Part of me wants to agree with that, but then he fires off the most outrageous claims and solutions. He quotes psychiatrist Duncan Double’s suggestion that “the only thing that is going to change things is if people literally stop going”. What does that mean? People stop taking meds out of protest?? The grassroots movement Davies dreams of would result in mass deaths, most likely by suicide. Baby and bathwater springs to mind.

Davies makes it appear that all antidepressants have terrible side effects and work not much better than a respective placebo. That is pretty much saying that mental illnesses treated with medication can just be “thought” away at random, again implying the old stigmatising thought that we need to “just get over ourselves”. Which is a terrible thought coming from a psychotherapist, and a Social Darwinist one to boot.

There might be truth in these side effects and not knowing whether meds will work. Well, sadly, in case of mental illness, you don’t get to choose the perfect option – because it doesn’t exist. Fighting mental illness is often choosing the lesser of the evils, weighing the drawbacks and benefits of both medications and the actual illness. For me, a few weeks of nausea and dizziness was but a small price to pay if it meant ending the agonies of permanent terror and black clouds of despair, numbness and emptiness. Finding the right medication, and the right dose, is often a matter of experimenting. I had side effects, but they went away once I got used to the meds. I have tried meds that didn’t work for me, and switched to others that do. Mind, I accept that some aren’t as lucky as I. But the pros and cons of medication is not something you can apply as a blanket statement over the whole of psychiatry. It’s down to working with individuals.

Then there is Davies' outrageous claim about psychoactive drugs altering personalities. If you want to read the other side, read Kramer’s Listening to Prozac. And then let’s delve into personality theory and what constitutes that concept. Frankly, in my view it’s b****t. Most people I know who are on psychoactive drugs feel like they’re back to their old selves, they’ve got their life back, their own persona managed to get the upper hand over the vines of mental illness that choked it. Including yours truly.

Only once did I have a friend who told me she didn’t like the change in me. “I was not who I was before”, she complained (though she had only ever known me as depressed), making the assumption that that ill person was me, thus equating my illness with my personality. The thought that a friend of mine wished me to suffer so she didn’t have to deal with a (positive!) change in me was too much – and needless to say, I have safely removed that so-called friend from my life.

At times Davies goes as far as dismissing the agony some people suffer as nonexistent in terms of illness or dysfunction, arguing that life contains suffering and it is important to deal with it, claiming medication stops us from doing just that. This goosestepping kind of cruelty makes me sick. Yes, there is suffering, and yes, we need to deal with it. But there is the type of suffering everyone experiences due to circumstances, and then there is the pointless pain in mental illness, which does not need an external cause, or takes a minimal external cause and blows it out of proportion.

Another of Davies’ crazy arguments is that religion used to act as a tool to cope with life, and its increasing disappearance is partly responsible for the increase in mental illness. Well, I used to live and work in a religious community – and I have seen just as many cases of people suffering from mental illness in that sector as I have in the secular one. The only difference was that often their anxieties and despair took on a religious flavour, if not got exacerbated by it. Take OCD and depression and add to that the literal fear of hell and damnation, plus perhaps a delightful community that blames your mental illness on your lack of faith and perhaps on demon possession, and you’re in for a fun ride. I was just lucky enough to have a pastor who could see the difference between spiritual and mental health problems and advised me to seek medical help.

But it’s not just Davies’ ridiculous arguments that drive me up the wall. It’s also how he deals with his opposition. A fine (and much infuriating) example of how he tries to discredit them is seen in his interview with Professor Sue Bailey, president of the Royal College of Psychiatry, who talks sense, compassion and common sense, who sees it as her first duty to help suffering patients and not engage in the one-sided intellectual masturbation Davies seems to be so fond of. He describes her as some sort of ball-breaking harpy, as “impatient” and “irritable”, while he depicts himself as “gently pointing things out”, a humbly “mumbling”, “ear-rubbing” nervous grassroots fella taking deep breaths to not be run over by her. Oh poor martyr. He claims to struggle to understand what she is saying, when anyone with two brain cells to rub together can make sense of  “we should focus on the reality of what we can do as doctors, rather than having erudite discussions about the various situations of what DSM should have done.” Davies doesn’t seem to comprehend that this type of Michael Moore-ish writing only serves to discredit himself.

I could go on and on, but I shall stop here. Suffice to say, yes there are people for whom psychoactive drugs have done more harm than good. They have come off them and chose not to go there again. But that’s fine. Each person is different, and each person needs to make their own choice about it. But dismissing the entire thing is dangerous, cruel and downright murderous – to quote Andrew Solomon’s critique of this book, “Davies’s book will likely influence at least a few people away from treatment that could save them. Some of these people may commit suicide and others will live in dire pain. His arrogant, ill-informed attempt to discredit psychiatry leaves him with blood on his hands.”

If you want a really well-rounded, good book to read on depression, anxiety and mental health in general, read Solomon’s “NoondayDemon”. Now that man knows what he is talking about!

Meanwhile, Davies should give up his profession and try his hand at something he is really good at – the fearmongering, mass-duping, misinforming mutant of pseudo-journalism they serve at The Daily Mail.

Breathing

There is the old blonde joke about the blonde you have to tell to keep breathing.

But have you ever noticed how, when you become hyperconscious of the way you breathe, you walk, you move, all those automatic things your body is programmed to do without thinking, it suddenly becomes difficult to keep going without falling on your face, without suffocating?

Some days I'm so conscious of my breathing I suddenly can't seem to breathe. My body tenses and my lungs somehow seize up. Weird, eh?

Witney's got talent

So this guy wanders into our shop and approaches Sally and me. Needless to say, being all splendid at customer service, we're all ears, expecting him to want a recommendation or something sane like that.
But the man isn't here for books, nosireee. Instead, he asks, looking slightly sheepish, whether we could give our opinion on his singing. He wanted to go to an open mic night, but was shy and wanted to see a public response to his voice on a small scale before he put himself out there.
So obviously he came into a bookshop for that.
I could tell that what was going through Sally's head was an exact carbon copy of the content of mine.
(Whatever you do, don't laugh! Don't make eye contact. Oh shit, this could be the mystery shopper - do make eye contact. But in a strange removed way that does not allow him to enter your soul and throw a mental anchor, prompting him to come back every day. Do the dissociated helpful customer service smile. Pretend all is normal; as long as his dick ain't hanging out, it's fine.)

And because I thought it'd probably cause less aggro and embarassment and because I attract strange people A LOT and should be used to this by now, I agreed to listen.
(Sally, in an astonishingly quiet and inconspicuous way, managed to slither away.)

After much rationalizing and emming and err-ing, he started. And I pricked up my ears, waiting for the inevitable power ballad.
And he goes...

"Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes,
head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes
And eyes and ears and mouth and nose..."

INCLUDING the motions.

You know, when you have to stare and you know it's rude and you can't help it, and you don't know whether to laugh or back off and get the maze out and your every fibre just screams "OMGWTF"

Well, yeah...that.

He stopped and looked at me expectantly. Over his shoulder I could see Sally, staring with wide eyes and barely holding back hysteria. My eyes searched for possible mates of his who might have sent him in on a dare. No joy. I had to conclude he was mental and that it's best not to upset the patient.

"Well", I said, diplomatically. "This might work if they are all really really drunk...?"

And would you believe it, he thanked me and left?

Hell, at least I have met my quota for the month.

On the destruction of the geriatric metanarrative

I always had an inkling I would be a crazy cat lady. Dad predicted from an early age (mine, not his) that I would resemble my grandmother, something which I fought vehemently and yet find more and more applicable with the passing years. Nan stopped at every animal she encountered during her walks around town, making cute noises, and she always had some treats in her pockets for them. It was a source of embarrassment for me when I was young and foolish, but now I am just like that (well, I haven’t arrived at the treats yet, but I am sure I will get there eventually). It’s got to the point that some of my friends point and laugh whenever we watch that Black Books episode when Fran is labelled as “aunt Millicent, who lives in the crooked house with 20 purple cats, and she has sex with them all”.

I defiantly started collecting cows, but the truth is, I bloody adore cats. I don’t mind dogs but cannot abide the sucking up and emotional dependence. Cats are criticised to be fickle and “fuck you” , that they own their masters, but that’s what I like about them. They get what they want and then they go their own way. I wish I was more like that.

Anyways, the splendid year I lived with Kate, I also lived with two cats – a treat in the pet-unfriendly renting market of the UK. Dolby and Theta are old and wonky, but amazing, both in their own ways. They have mannerisms and personalities and cracked me up many a time... especially Theta, the old blind man with a penchant for getting spanked , sitting in impossible spots, nosing and nudging his way under duvets where he would sit purring like a 1920s car motor, and sporting splendid Batman ears and ballet feet. We always imagined him as a bowler-behatted English gentleman who has a sex dungeon and wears fishnets and gimp masks on Saturday nights.

Sometimes I just sit and observe them. And this is what happened one sunny summer afternoon in the garden, something so defining and Theta-esque, I had to write it down.

Theta blindly shuffled around the flowers that grew by the garden path, nosed them, investigated closely, while I watched, with the usual affection and amusement for his wonky antics. He looked like something out of an old ladies’ fantasy, flower-sniffing kittens and the like, the type you see reproduced on cheesy G&Ts greeting cards and who are only ever cute in real life.

Finally he gingerly, ever so carefully, set a paw in the midst of the feathery bush of blossoms that grew by the path, then the other, then finally the last two, blinking, until he stuck out of that floral lump like a feline, short-sighted garden gnome, pretty as a picture. He looked like he was trying to play the trump card in his and Dolby’s never-ceasing battle for my affections. And it nearly worked.

“Awwww Theta, you darling...” I managed to say - but then he lowered his behind ever so slightly and stuck out his tail. And when his ears pulled back into Batman formation and he squinted concentrated into the dusky distance, I knew what was coming. Shattering my granny fantasies, he unceremoniously dropped a huge dump into the virginal blossom crown. I could almost hear them scream like prissy maidens.

With little regard for this violation, he hopped back onto the garden path, blindly located the epicentre of his business and then, in a vain effort which was barely more than a symbolic gesture, he ruffled the flowers around it a little to cover up the deed and then scampered off.

I love that cat. Have I mentioned that?

Black Books's got nothing on him

Just around the corner from where I used to live is this old little bookshop. Just as it should be, in a side street, nothing flashy and high-streety, full of obscure old titles mixed in with your grubby second hand book.
It's been there as long as I've lived here... but what I didn't know until a little while back is that it's actually quite famous. Famous for all the wrong (which, in my book, makes them right!) reasons.
It's because the owner, Rodney, was absolutely bonkers. Some found it endearing, some entertaining, some terrifying. I personally adore a shop run on abuse, it's the ultimate novelty and gives a nice break from the annoying suck-up customer service we've all been violated by at one point or another.

By now I have met quite a few people who had either been served by him (doesn't this give 'serving' a whole new meaning) or worked in the same business. The professionals usually say that Rodney has pissed off quite a few people. He has certainly creeped out a few.

My friend Iain told me about how he was browsing for poetry books one day, and, as he was leafing through a Shelley book, found Rodney peering over his shoulder.
"Shelley, huh!" grumbled Rodney. "Dead, i'n't he? His 'eart's buried in Bournemouth!"

Rodney had a go at me once (which extracted internal squeals of delight from me) for using the word "dissertation": "It's a thesis, goddamnit!"
He also regularly abused his bookshop minion, his "Igor", if you will, that freaky little man who once pretended that the clock integrated into a giant hideous painting (weird paintings was another thing they seemed to sell in there) was his wristwatch.

All in all, Rodney is the antithesis of all that the Waterstone's Get Selling campaign stands for.

However, the younger generation, with a few exceptions, loved and adored him. The man has his own facebook fangroup, for crying out loud!
It even went as far as a team of TV production students filmed a documentary about him.
In case you don't believe me about how equally nuts and endearing Rodney is, watch it.

Friday the 13th and the influx of psychopaths

Getting up on a Friday 13^th is a bit of a wary experience at any time, but that we were going to encounter a class A psychopath was something I never expected. As a disclaimer, I need to point out that I have exaggerated nothing in the following description… he really was that intense.

We had barely been open for 30 minutes when this big burly guy wandered in. Late 20s, shoulder-length wispy frazzled hair with a receding hairline, leather jacket, thin wire glasses. When he greeted us, he had a thick Eastern European accent… possibly Russian. I require you, dear reader, to apply this accent to everything he says, to fully appreciate the experience.

He was quite loud in an overcompensating way, and meandered around the shop. “Have you no cards for Valentine’s Day?”

I dutifully pointed him to the shelf.

“The student shop, they have nothing, just five cards, just all about love!” he complained loudly, half to himself, half to us.

“To be fair, mate, it is the holiday of lovers”, I said.

He looked up at me with a wild expression. “I was online, on internet, and there was, for lovers, for friends, for boss! I researched, I’ll go out on computer, I show you print!! I’ll prove it!” For a second he reminded me a bit of Borat, on a massive aggro trip.
”Nah, that’s alright, mate”, I said. “I believe you.”

“They have them on there, for friendship, for teachers!”

“For teachers?” I repeated, incredulously, with a little laugh. “Slightly inappropriate, perhaps?”

“Why not teacher?” he said. He looked dreamily into the distance and quietly mused to himself: “”My teacher… she is very young…”

“erm… ok”, I said, with a slightly panicky grin.

He handed me a card which he stated was “very nice” (the Borat comparison immediately sprang to mind again). I rang it through the till. He wandered off again, looking at more cards, something that irks me in customers, especially if there is a queue behind them (which there wasn’t in this case, but it was still rude – kind of the equivalent to walking out of a room mid-conversation. It irks me as much as customers drumming their fingers while you ring their stuff through. Makes me want to chop them off!! But I digress.). Get on with the transaction, mate!

“My teacher…”, he said again. I looked at the card. It was covered in little hearts, saying “Gorgeous”, “Sexy”, “Kiss me”, “Hug me”.

“If that’s for a teacher, you might want to reconsider”, I said and read it out to him.

“Fuck me??”, he burst out loudly, repeating a misunderstanding. I shrunk back, creeped out, squealing internally. I glanced at Max, who stood behind me on a computer, trying to look busy and not involved by typing frantically, trying really hard not to laugh.

Psycho Boy picked another card. I voided the first transaction and put that card through, instead.

“I will pay you!” he said gravely and pulled out a little velvet bag (where he must keep his booty, surely). He dug out a few coins and threw them at me in a too-wannabe-nonchalant way. “Yes!” he muttered intensely. “Let’s do this, Christopher!”

I gave him change and a receipt. “Thank you!” he said, gracefully (in his own mind).

Then he leaned on the counter. “Have you got 'Lolita'!”

“Erm, no”, I said. “But I can order it for you.”

“You haven’t got 'Lolita'!”, he said, in exaggerated horror.

“No, but we got a lot of other books.”

He looked around and spotted the 'Grindhouse' book, a ‘Making of’ book of ‘Death Proof’ and ‘Planet Terror’. He went to leaf through it. “Quentin Tarantino!”, he said appreciatively. “One day I’ll be as big as him. A filmmaker.”

I suddenly realised who he tried so hard to be. He seemed like someone who had decided to completely reinvent himself as a tough shit guy from an action movie, and would, from now on, only recite bad movie lines. Maybe this whole psycho act was intentional? Except that it was more of an 80s version of a psycho, but possibly perceived by him as the latest psycho chic, as it just had made it over there to Mother Russia.

“Keep this book for me!” he ordered. Then he turned around and wandered towards the exit. “These books have nothing to say!”, he muttered. “But I, Christopher, I do!”

Show me what you read and I'll tell you who you are

A boy came into the shop. He bought these two books.














This is even funnier when you know that the Tax book is 78 quid.

I couldn't stop laughing for half an hour.

Cadbury's is creepy, too

Let me say that right away, Cadbury's chocolate is no friend of mine. I have harvested abuse from the island monkey Cadbury worshippers (little do they know of what real chocolate is made of...) for spewing anti-Cadbury propaganda, but the stuff just tastes like the milk they use is off.

I have to give them some credit, though - Cadbury's know how to do an advert, even though this one is a direct rape of my subconscious and has already given me a nightmare.

Creeper

Today, a creepy old man was in the shop, fingered this book for quite a while and then bought it.
It makes my skin crawl, knowing that what initially must have attracted him was the cover.
It may sound prejudiced, but when my creepy old man radar beeps, I am usually right.

*shudders*

Out of his Head

So Brian "Head" Welch converted. I can virtually hear the fundies break out in what they call praise and jubilation, another “closet Satanist” in their trap, another score for Jesus.
I have no problem with people finding a spiritual path that they find suitable, but why do they have to propagate themselves like this? Of course, they claim it is “for the glory of God”, but come on, who are they kidding? So Brian Welch went from cool to another Jesus wannabe – what is with this cover picture??! I mean, the audacity to portray yourself as Jesus, and pulling the old “humbled and contrite” face, when the whole photo session to achieve this cover was to display him in a certain light. Would Jesus do a photo session and write books about himself? Nothing has changed… just the target audience.This is what winds me up so much about evangelical culture, this whole pretension to be all for God’s glory, when it is blatantly about PR for the self. If at least they were honest about it, it would be less annoying.

The sad thing, now that he is converted, his music has blatantly turned crap. Christian rock. It’s like a job requirement to suck.

To a T

When I was in Berlin this January, I sat on a train at some point, just looking outside, so I didn't have to look at the creepy cockeyed old guy opposite me of whom I had no idea whether he was staring at me or out the window. And while I watched the incredibly depressing scenery of Warschauer Strasse area roll past, I spotted this wall, which was dominated by two graffitis.

FUCK and BLAH.

Funny enough, I have never seen anything that so accurately describes the current German Zeitgeist.

Nightmares Part 2

Moving from ventriloquist dolls straight on to spiders. I've had my share of creepy arachnid experiences, but I have just read a (true) story on Weird Tales that makes me NOT want to go to Japan.
It's the truly magnificient tale of

"The Year of Ninja Spiders"!!!

I am alternating between goosebumps, shudders and hysterical laughter, so you should give it a read, trust me!

And if you're still not creeped out by then, check out the giant "clock spider".
Don't forget to read the comments, too.

The stuff nightmares are made of...

I've always been spooked by clowns, and positively terrified of ventriloquist dolls. I dunno what it is, but even though they are meant to entertain and make you laugh, there is something deeply sinister about them, in a way that stops you sleeping and stare into the dark with your eyes bulging with terror, waiting for one of them to grab your ankle from under then bed or just suddenly be there at the edge of the bed staring at you when you turn around and open your eyes.

(You never know... tonight, when you're in your bed, they might just be there... do you dare to turn and look...?)


Because I apparently like to give myself more nightmares than necessary, I googled "ventriloquist doll" and found this:



Considering that I fear pervy old men as much as I fear these dolls, I am not gonna get much sleep tonight.

What were they thinking???

It's like something out of Modern Toss. Mr Tourette would be proud.

(P.S. For the tourists among you, this shop is in Southampton, in Burgess Road. You'd think after hundreds of people stopping by, crippling themselves with laughter and taking photos, they would have changed the sign, but no...)

Postmodern postmodernism

So I started this discussion group on myspace called "The Postevangelicals and other reluctant believers". It's targeted at people who once used to be fundamentalists but have become disillusioned and outgrown their former evangelical views. In other words, a postevangelical, by the definition that Dave Tomlinson coined in his book, is someone who is anything but fundamentalist. You could even say that postevangelicals are religious people who have accepted the inevitability of postmodernism.

And now this guy posts a request on the discussion board, in this group, of all places: a Christian filmmaker wanting to interview fundamentalist Christians.

Ironic, if it wasn't so ironic.

*slowly bangs head against wall*

Your friends at Jack Daniels remind you to drink responsibly

(leaflet in the package of a hipflask)

Nothing against my friends at Jack Daniels (although their booze is terrible), but if you have gotten to the point of using a hipflask, you have long moved beyond the point of drinking responsibly.

But then, that’s not news to me. I just bought one the other day, heh.
It was an impulse buy, because maybe I like the idea of whenever I'm stuck out in the cold somewhere, I have some warming booze handy.
On the other hand, that is quite worrying, isn't it? I've been worrying about the booze intake for a while. Maybe I'm a hypochondriac, but I think sometimes my liver hurts. And I have the cravings.
Last night I just refused to have anything, which wasn't too bad, because Stella and I got pissed the night before, chatting and watching TV. It was great fun, but I felt rough the next day. Rough enough to not like the sight of wine. But by the evening the hangover had cleared up enough that I muchly felt like having a glass, but my pride and my New Year's resolution pricked my conscience enough to not do it. Yet, I couldn't deny the craving. Especially since Abi and Mike were having a glass because it was Mike's birthday. For the first time I knew what it was like to stop smoking. The cravings, and the substitute eating. Just being at this point worries me.
It is bloody hard to quit drinking in this country, where drinking is so much condoned among young people, where the motto is "Ah fuck it, let's get smashed!"

I read Allen Carr's book about controlling alcohol, but all his arguments are really hard to apply. Alcohol isn't nasty. It tastes nice. And I like it. I don't want to stop drinking... I just want to drink less. Except that it isn't as easy as "just".

To drink or not to drink. It’s Friday night. I’ve been telling myself not to drink, or at least to drink less. It’s not good. It’s not fun drinking anymore... well, it is, but I do feel the consequences so much that I can’t ignore what it’s doing to me.

I dunno why I drink. Because it’s fun? Because I’m bored? Because I’m lonely? But I always drink in the company of people. I don’t have any social anxiety. Maybe it’s because it makes me feel something. Somehow not anxious. Somehow strong and enthusiastic. But at the same time, soon enough the opposite kicks in. I feel empty, bland, not bothered about anything, and the anxiety kicks like an angry malicious baby in my stomach.

The door just slammed shut; Stella and Mandy and Charlie have gone to the pub, and immediately the loneliness kicks in like some nausea. I haven’t gone, because I lack the funds till Wednesday, and because I am too tired to go out. But funny enough, I think I am tired because I drink too much. Drinking essentially prevents me from drinking some more. So I put on some suicidal-indulgent Haendel, and here we go, blog-whinging.
Welcome to England.

Yours truly,

the boozaholic

Prostitute yourself for charity

Last week was quite a hard week, and Friday night I did some overtime to finish off an account sale (imagine entering six pages of ISBNs, making sure you make no mistake with the amounts and quantities, otherwise you have to start over again and it’s really gonna fuck up your stock. Yes, it sounds as fun as it was! But I was in the zone, man! I was in the zone!).

Needless to say, I needed a good drink, and since we had been sold raffle tickets for children in need, I just thought I pop up to Dylan’s after work, spend my last fiver on booze and see if I won the jackpot. Hah.
Dylan’s was heaving. Loud annoying dance music, butchered remakes of classic 80s songs, lots of girls dressed like 1920s prostitutes (hey, it’s Bournemouth, don’t expect too much!) and a guy who got his head shaved for charity. Or just his head shaved. Fuck knows.
Thankfully I had some proofreading to do, so I sat down on a counter somewhere with my booze and my paperwork. Well into a few pages and near the end of my first glass, this guy comes up to me. “Hey, you alright, you look all lonely and sad.”
“It’s just my face”, I said. “And I am just havin a lonely drink by myself because I’m pathetic like that.”
Well, I thought he was just being nice, so I tried to keep the sarcasm at a minimum. But then he really pulled it off.
“Do you know what’s going on here tonight?”, he said, in a slight sales pitch that made me suspicious. “Naaaah...” I said.
“It’s the Bid for a Date night!”, he said enthusiastically. “And this young friend of mine”, he presented a young chap who perfectly fit into the category of all I despise about Bournemouth boys, “is one of the candidates to be bid for. How would you like a date with him?”
The prostitute smiled like a right smarmy git.
“Oh, so you aren’t trying to be nice, you’re just trying to pimp that guy!”, I said. “Well, thanks a lot!”
“Well?”, the Pimp asked.
"Alright..." I turned to the prostitute. “Go on then, sell yourself!”
Smarmy git in a shirt, gold necklace, boyband-style hair, clearly thinking he is God’s gift, cocked an eyebrow and, with the gesture of an aging, used-up model presenting fake jewellery on QVC, he said smugly “Do I need to?”
“Well, yeah!”, I said, flabbergasted at his narcissism, and he, vastly insulted, cosmo male model hissy-fit-esque, wandered off.
Bournemouth men.
I'll just buy a rabbit. And adopt, after all.

"Vertrauenslehrer"

In the schools where I grew up, there was a weird concept. I don’t know how globally widespread it is, but it has to be bizarre wherever you go. At least from the kids’ point of view.
It’s the idea of the “teacher of trust”, how we call it: The teacher assigned to be a confidential to students. I mean, how can you be assigned to do that? The thing was, most of the teachers I knew who had that position were exactly the kind of psycho bastards that traumatised you on a daily basis and made something like a Vertrauenslehrer a necessity:
The p.e. teacher, an infamous sports nazi who has no qualms about chasing you 3 miles at high speed during a summer heat until you fainted, shouting slogans like “In a healthy body lives a healthy spirit!”
Or the sadistic math teacher nicknamed The Pig, and not just for the shape of his nose, who laughs at you when you explain your being late with having to take your ill pet to the vet to be put down.

Right. That’s exactly the person you want to tell your deepest, most emotional secrets to.
No wonder us Germans are fucked up.

Damn kids today!

Bloglag since: 07 Aug 06


Somnetimes I honestly wonder whether kids today are really just annoying little shits (with exceptions, of course, to prove the rule) or whether that’s just a perception I have because I have grown older. Our media studies lecturer mentioned that it’s just a perception because we are bitter about losing our youth, and maybe that is a possibility, but to be honest, I think in most cases it’s complete bollocks.

Just now I came back from the shop, in complete shock. There was this mother with her kid in front of me in the queue; the mother a proper chav, the kid just an unruly little wanker, maybe 9 or 10 years old. There is always a stack of beer on offer piled up next to the till – half of them Carling cans, the other half Grolsch six pack bottles. And this little midget shit started poking at the cans to pierce the clingfilm they were wrapped in, and the security guard who stood nearby said: “If that falls, it’s gonna be expensive, lad!”
See, if that kid had been me, at the latest then I would have shushed. But this little poo wouldn’t stop. The mother, of course, wouldn’t do anything to keep the kid in order.
The stack started wobbling a bit, and the security guard put his hands against the bottles to steady them, and gave the kid another word of warning, but before he could finish the sentence, the stack of bottles dropped and half of it shattered on the floor. The kid just ran after his mother and hollered: “It’s his fault!” And all the mother had to say, with hardly a look over her shoulder, was to echo her kid: “It wos his fault.” (The security guard’s.) And off they went, leaving behind a mess, without a word of apology.
Maybe the kid didn’t knock it over directly, but his fuckin around with the stack surely set things off, and I’m appalled his mother didn’t even have the decency to reprimand him or apologise.

Man, it does my head in. Seriously, I don’t care what our lecturer said, but I do not remember ever treating things I didn’t own with such disrespect. Or thinking I could get away with acting shit like that. Back in the days, if you broke something in a shop, you had to pay for it, and no one ever thought that was unfair. It wouldn’t even occur to you to whinge about it.
But customer’s rights these days have just gone too far, and all it leads to is people thinking they can get away with murder, and not face the responsibilities for their actions. It drives me mad.

But then again, I went home and had a nice experience to outbalance that little bundle of asshole genes. Our internet had been busted for two weeks, and that night, outside his working hours, one of the guys who fixes stuff up for our landlords, came round and sorted out the problem. He is a really nice guy, and he brought his little daughter (5), who is painfully shy but apparently loves being around her dad when he is working. And all us girls start fussing over her because she is too cute for words, and offer her juice and chocolates and god knows what. She is a lovely kid, and kids like her give me hope that our future is not just gonna be populated by fuckwits and wankers who only bang on about their rights but never about their responsibilities. She looks like she is gonna turn out a really decent person. One can only hope.

Trojan

When I walked home from work the other day, I nearly stepped on an empty box of condoms lying in the middle of the sidewalk. I grinned, wondering how it got there... did someone finish it off in the hedges somewhere? I mean, I always wondered how that happens, how people manage to lose a shoe without noticing... and for that matter, why an empty pack of condoms ended up not at home in the bin, but square in the street.
And then the name.
Have you ever thought how bizarre and funny that brand name actually is?
I mean, Trojan! Think of the associations.

Trojan. A BIG WOODEN horse built to create trust and then slyly ENTER – penetrate, if you will – a “fortress”, a city, just to ejaculate little mean creatures. The invaded will be hopelessly and mercilessly BANGED to pulp.
What a metaphor for rape, if you’ve ever seen one, the feminist fatale screams. This is so blatantly named by a man. Quite possibly a man with a small penis and a big need for compensation.
And what a metaphor of truth, any ever so slightly streetwise (i.e. blokewise) girl would say. Isn’t it the classic fuckwit strategy to get into any girl’s knickers?

I can’t actually think about it without giggling, which basically means that every time I wanna get jiggy, I have to choose a different brand condom to not ruin the mood.