Is the world crazy or am I?

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We live in interesting times to quote a very dully repeated cliche. The problem with interesting times is old assumptions go out the window. The British voter is not a monolith. People vote based on circumstances as much as they vote the way their parents did. Assuming everything will stay the same is a fool's errand. The local elections are proof if it were ever needed that the Conservative movement has wedged itself between a rock and a hard place and it is at risk of being pulled apart in a Labour Lib Dem and Green feeding frenzy at the next election. The signs bode badly for Rishi Sunak who after inheriting a wounded, yet still well-placed Conservative party with a good majority in the House of Commons has seen the economic outlook go gloomy. Let’s be clear. We’re a long way away from the Boris bounce and the ‘stonking’ majority election victory of 2019. The party now finds itself pulled between its past and present with no one looking to the future seemingly. The past being i...

Fans expressed shock when 33-year-old Sebastian Vettel revealed his new “aerodynamic” hairstyle on his first day at Aston Martin. Yet, the history of Formula One features plenty of follically challenged participants. Male pattern baldness has been with us for millennia and it would appear from his first snaps in his new Aston Martin colours that Sebastian Vettel is the latest victim.  Whilst many will joke that this is a result of his 5 disappointing years at Ferrari or from too many hours wearing a crash helmet, this is a very common thing to see from a man his age. Not only that, but it’s good to see that he’s dealing with it on his own terms, rather than trying to hide it with increasingly fiendish comb-over tricks.  Nevertheless, F1’s newest hair-challenged hero is in good company. Some of the greatest and best-loved drivers in the history of the sport also experienced similar challenges.  Stirling Moss Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_Moss It’...

  Photo by  Rocco Dipoppa  on  Unsplash The name of this article seems a little illogical coming from someone who is and always has been pro-remain and anti-Brexit. Yet I increasingly believe the issue that I’ve seen as a negative force will actually unite my country again (in a way). To be clear, I am sure of the fact Brexit will be incredibly damaging. There’s little to mitigate against that now. It’s a reality.  There’s no more posturing on what Brexit could potentially mean. It is what it always was, a huge shock to our system. In some ways, this is welcome as it shakes us awake from complacency but also forces us to sober up and truly see our place in the world without all the pomp and bluster.  Brexit is no longer hypothetical, it’s real! We’re outside the EU, the Single Market, Customs Union, and we have a thin deal which prevents the very worst outcome from this whole exercise. Everything Brexiteers wanted h...

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 ...