Is the world crazy or am I?

Photo by  Rachit Tank  on  Unsplash Living in these strange times of isolation has given further rise to one of the most eccentric facets of domestic life: the neighbourhood Whatsapp group. For some, this is an essential lifeline to social bonding and local happenings. However, for others, it’s a persistent annoyance . Considering, that with technology we’ve never been so apart and yet so together at the same time it’s normally one or the other without much room in the middle. If you’re very much in the latter camp and want to stay out the drama, bad joke and gossip tornado that is a Whatapps group between local residents, don’t panic. For fun, I’ve hypothesised a few solutions to help you avoid a phone breaking deluge of bad viral comedy and residential rivalries. Approach 1: Avoid your neighbours The first option is also perhaps one of the easiest in the current situation. You’ve got the perfect excuse in social distancing not to speak or go near any of your...

I’m pretty sure editors and sub-editors everywhere rubbed their hands in glee at the news that a McDonald's in Edinburgh close to a location where Nigel Farage was giving a speech had effectively banned milkshakes . There’s no doubt, it’s a story that gets people’s attention and eyeballs on newspapers. And the social shares, just imagine the social shares. Naturally, as with anything nowadays, the discussion on the “weaponised Milkshake ban” polarised straight away into two camps and was seized for political purposes.  The far-right's was for me the most interesting with its  screeching about political violence. Let me explain a little about why that caught my attention. Why do those people I keep trying to destroy keep doing mean things to me? The right’s reaction has interested me as it smacks of phoney martyrdom. One commentator calling it political violence was one of the alt-right's loudest contrarians Paul Joseph Watson, who  made this statement whilst bla...

Dry January is something people do at this time of year. It primarily exists as a reaction to the heavy drinking of Christmas and New Year and the fact that lots of people like to try and start the new year with a healthier perspective in mind. Whilst some people join a gym or start crazily prohibitive diet plans to lose weight, some people just stop drinking; for a bit. This year I was one of them. Statistically speaking most New Year's resolutions fail between February  and March. No matter whether it's in the UK or the USA  we mostly just run out of willpower in about 3 months. With that in mind 30 days is an achievable goal almost anyone can manage. I felt up to the challenge of this. However, 30 days without alcohol doesn't seem like much but it is a surprisingly long stint when living it. I don't consider myself an alcoholic by any means. I don't tend to drink by myself at home or holiday and it's normally confined to social occasions at weekends (wi...

Preface:  I wanted to write about this subject as I felt particularly moved by the memory of of the Great War as we reach 100 years since its end. It’s not a subject I think about much. Maybe because it’s easier not to think about the horrors of this war. However, when I thought about it recently and considered how little we really remember of how bad it truly was I felt compelled to write something. I always remember feeling particularly humbled by the trenches and war graves in Flanders and from what I studied at school and wanted to try and put that into words. The annual poppy pile-on It’s poppy season, that strange time of year where people manufacture crises over people not wearing poppies disrespecting poppies or claiming Muslims want to ban poppies . I’ve had a strange relationship with the remembrance poppies myself, as they’ve seemed hijacked by nationalists of late. This has always seemed an unfair reflection on these somewhat benign symbols of memory. Alth...

Countries. There are 195 out there including tiny independent states like Vatican City, Monaco and Lichtenstein. While the 195 we know are (for the most part) rooted in reality, it's sometimes fun to imagine the fantastical possibilities of countries found in fictional stories. With utopian philosophies and systems of government or futurism as ideas to play around with when creating fictional lands, these are the five which I would love to see in the real world and (perhaps) as part of the UN. Anvilania For those of you not in the know, Anvilania was a fictional country which featured in an episode of Animanics. It was a medieval style feudal Kingdom where the society and economy was built completely around anvils. The country itself was also appropriately anvil shaped. Whilst it has a famously droning national anthem , an anvil based country could be a laugh. Wakanda If the movie Black Panther has proven anything, it's that an afro-futuristic country is an intere...

During my holidays this year I paid a visit to Wroclaw, Poland's 4th largest city (and an underrated gem in terms of Polish city breaks). This was a personal as well as a touristic visit for me as I have some historical ties to the city. It was a trip that really got me thinking about some of the things happening in the world and how the history of this city could provide a little context, and perhaps also, an alarming warning about the direction that Europe and the USA is heading in. A little about Wroclaw Wroclaw today is a pleasant city with impressive historical architecture in its centre (especially impressively well maintained as we'll come to see later). It has a vibrant modern feel with a large student population and feels both old and new at the same time. Wroclaw is a city with a complicated past however. Firstly, it hasn't always been called Wroclaw, despite being founded under this name. This is as the city has been the possession of numerous powe...

World Cup 2018 has officially kicked off. This of course means that many other news and events take a temporary back seat to the festivities of people waving England fans, shouting "Come on England!" in increasingly desperate tones and deluding themselves into thinking that England will win the World Cup if they move past the group stages. Part of the experience of the tournament is also the music. Most of the time when novelty world cup songs or football songs in general are made, they are made by professional musicians and performed by well-known singers or celebrities. However, on occasions footballers have tried their hand at crooning too. Often with quite poor results. Today we're going to have a look at some of the more bizarre and terrible examples of this. In no particular order we have: Sergio Ramos (2016) There's very little argument about Sergio Ramos' prowess on the pitch, however when it comes to singing there's no amount of pitch t...

In what seems to be a continuing theme on this blog of negative attitude philosophy I've begun to wonder how many things that people do, which whilst impressive or conversation worthy are utterly pointless. I'm guilty of this too as much as anyone but with the constant stream of human interest click bait on social media about spectacular if somewhat useless achievements coupled with the fear of missing out (FOMO); seems to create an attitude that makes people guilty for not achieving something they never wanted to anyway. I don't think this is necessarily a new phenomenon, people have been chiding themselves for not doing things they feel they should be doing for social appearances for generations. Many of us were forced to do such activities by our parents in a well meaning but ultimately misguided attempt to socialise us into society with a skill we either didn't want or need, before completely abandoning the practice once we get out of the family home or rea...

It's PC gone mad etc etc A lmost as inevitable as wet bank holiday weekends and obligatory repeats of Ben Hur is the annual controversy about the PC attack on Easter, religion and the alleged lack of Easter on Easter Eggs. I've only really noticed that this has become part of the periphery of Easter-time in the last couple of years, with pundits, the public and even the Prime Minister Lady Vicarsdaughter weighing in with a view . Let's take a look into the situation in a little more detail and see the EGGStent (of course I'm going to use egg puns!) of the issue. When did this moral panic about Easter Eggs begin? Honestly, it appears to be a very recent thing. Obviously following in the footsteps of other favourite festive conspiracies like the all too many  EGGaggerated ' Christmas is cancelled ' stories comes our more contemporary 'Easter is being removed from Easter Eggs' panic we're seeing today. From what I can tell ...

Life is all about experiences, as without experiences we are just empty vessels going through the drudgery of life. Everything is an experience or a journey nowadays. For example, a cup of tea is a experience, going to the toilet is an experience etc. Obviously the nuance of the experience may depend on the experience in question. After all an exciting new tea experience is infinitely better than a terrifying toilet experience. People are always making lists to finish the year by telling people what they should feel guilty for not doing, calling it something like 10 things to do before you die (for example you have permission to die if you do everything on the list, I'm about halfway through 100 songs to listen to before you die and I think if I just keep putting off listening to all the U2 stuff long enough I can increase my lifespan almost infinitely), so I'm going to be lazy and do just the same but with pointless or impractical experiences to have in 2018. So in th...

It's nearly 2018! As we count down to the end of 2017, a year that didn't have to try very hard after the dismal 2016 and yet still turned out to be disappointing somehow, we can cast our minds forwards to what's in store for the next year. I've been having a think of how the news cycle in our age of fake news, pretend outrage and other tiresome buzzwords everyone repeats due to a lack of imagination or interest with the topics at hand, might look in the coming year. Also the internet loves predictive lists in December and listacles are really easy to write. So here's how I think the hierarchy of news could look in 2018 going from most important to utter rubbish: Real news - Wars, explosions, coups, political corruption, beloved celebrity turns out to be massive bell end prolific sex offender etc. Sport - Almost real news, at least involves something happening. An influential person says something they shouldn't - Whoops someone wasn...

Today as many of you have probably read, Catalonia declared independence from Spain. Obviously the how's and whys have been better reported by professionals so I won't waste time in repeating the story, it's been told already. I've been living in Spain and Catalonia specifically for the last 3 and half years and I've had a good chance to familiarise myself with many of the arguments, opinions and actions of both parties. Unfortunately, this doesn't leave me with a lot of confidence in a sensible outcome. Madrid has proven itself time and time again to be utterly tone deaf without a hint of diplomacy. I wonder if this has something to do with the brash fairly outspoken nature of Spanish culture, which even in it's linguistic choices favours a relatively blunt unconsidered way of approaching an issue. However, I've been surprised by the fact a leader of a G20 country such as Rajoy, could not see that while remaining firm it is possible to use softer...

After witnessing a disruptive but overall peaceful and fairly well tempered General Strike in Catalonia (well from my office outside of Barcelona) I've just seen all the catharsis lost by a completely inflammatory and unhelpful speech by King Felipe VI of Spain, the head of state and then another announcement from Carles Puigdemont that an Independence announcement is imminent. Without mentioning anything of the ludicrous police brutality, which is sadly becoming a theme from the Spanish government, the King made claims that Catalonia had "scorned" Spain with its actions and talked about their contempt of the law in the country with bluster such as "inadmissable disloyalty," which is discourse that belongs in another century quite frankly. To only portray a very biased side to it as this is just bizarre and clumsy by today's communication standards. Now I don't disagree that the referendum was invalid but the bigger picture is that it didn...

It's fair to say we are living through strange times and days don't come much stranger than today. At time of writing the news is reporting somewhere in the region of 770 injured people across Catalonia after being attacked by armed riot police, whilst participating in the referendum for independence from Spain. It is a sad day in many ways as what started broadly as a protest against an austerity government and endemic corruption has descended into a constitutional crisis that has blown up spectacularly. It must be said that both sides have been stubborn and unable to form a dialogue to help serve everyone (with pro and anti-independence opinion being pretty split down the middle) but In what was an utterly tone deaf response to the threat of secession from Spain, the Madrid government led by Mariano Rajoy effectively threw petrol onto a small bin fire by allowing national police in riot gear to seize ballot boxes in polling stations across Catalonia leading to image...

What's happening? A large proportion of people in Catalonia want independence and the Catalan regional government has called a referendum on 1st October 2017 and the Spanish government has refused to let it happen, claiming it's illegal under the Spanish Constitution of 1978 . Who are the Catalans? They are people from Northern Spain with their own language, culture and (some) of their own public institutions. How did it get to this? The short version is that after various rebellions and civil wars Catalan autonomy has been curtailed over time. The worst being the most recent episode where under Franco (a Spanish arch-nationalist) Catalan culture was basically driven underground as the language was banned in public. It's complicated because... Since Franco's death in 1975 there has been democracy and a new constitution however, the transition happened in a strange way. Basically, democracy was reinstalled by King Juan Carlos I (Franco's anointed succes...

The rusty cogs of government have finally begun to creak into life as the Brexit negotiations begin, and people finally have to put their money (some say £350 million for the NHS and some say a £100 billion EU divorce bill) where their mouth is. A lot has happened in just a year since the shocking result. Of course, there was division and anger and then just confusion over what Brexit means. There was a new Prime Minister in Theresa May, who promised not only Brexit but Red, White and Blue Brexit, which would surely give the EU stationers some minor headaches finding the right colour paper. Finally, there was another twist in the tale as May then called a snap election expecting the kind of majority that Thatcher would have licked Michael Foot’s arse on TV to get. Then another shock, May lost her majority after fronting one of the most lacklustre campaigns in living memory, maybe only tying with the kind of complacency of Hillary Clinton’s Democratic campaign. Rupert Murdoch then v...