Is the world crazy or am I?

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

They say a week is a long time in politics and this week more so than usual. A lot has happened if you think that last Saturday there was very sadly a terrorist attack in central London. Theresa May the Prime Minister then made an authoritarian-sounding speech about dealing with the terror threat, talking about clamping down on the Internet and seemingly throwing out the traditional liberal values of British society in order to secure (at least the perception of) safety. Then came the election on Thursday and the message seemed to be clear. It was a monumental error to call a vote at this time (and so close to the Brexit negotiations). The Labour party surged in the polls and the Conservative majority was wiped out. The PM’s party despite still being the biggest in parliament now doesn’t even have enough seats to form a government in its own right and a coalition or deal is necessary to rule. This then brings us to the present moment, where despite her no-nonsense approach to te

A new era started on the 20th January 2017 with the Inaugaration of the 45th President Donald "big hands pussygrabber" Trump. So far it's taken less than 48 hours for something stupid to happen as Sean Spicer Trump's new press secretary chastising the gathered press for reporting the fact that Trump's inaugural address had worse attendance than Obama's eight years ago, accusing the professional journalists of false reporting. Later Kellyanne Conway one of Trump's senior White House aides later rushed to the aid of Spicer claiming that the flustered Press secretary had been reporting "alternative facts. "  Of course the fact that outright newspeak was now part of the White House's official press policy didn't go down very well. This of course has been better reported elsewhere so here follows a few alternative facts of my own as we now live in a world where anything is true if you believe it hard enough: Donald Trump isn't p

What does Brexit mean? Brexit means  Red White and Blue  because, you know, the flag and that. Brexit means Cricket.  The EU is just not cricket, whilst Britain is and literally invented cricket. This should be a self explanatory reason for leaving it. The EU is more like petanque or Korfball. Brexit means British self determination. That's right no silly French or Belgian people and their soft smelly cheese will start telling you what shape your bananas will be anymore. In fact you will have no representation in European affairs at all! Who can be bothered with boring MEP elections anyway and the hideously undemocratic EU commission? No instead everything will be checked over by our wonderful House of life-term Lords and the hereditary monarch as it always has been. God save the Queen! Brexit means Exacting control over our borders. That's right! No more can immigrants come and exploit soft touch Britain by stealing our jobs and claiming benefits at the same time. No

Having worked in PR and  before I've seen a lot of liberties taken with statistics. "100 people say this." "10,000 people can't be wrong," etc. Suddenly when you add a number bigger than 50 that takes on a suddenly more statistical credibility, whether or not its right or not. I think this group forget 11,339,446 voted for Hitler, 17,410,742 voted for Brexit, 59,000,000 voted for Trump (ok I'm not saying Brexiters or Trump supporters would have voted for Hitler, well not a large majority of them anyway) which is significantly more than the average PR story sample but in these cases we're often met with a coverall excuse to implement the tactic. The people have spoken. Let's put this into context. Democratic engagement is huge within social media and online polls. Sure they are open to abuse if not managed properly but they are showing more and more of an idea of what people in a certain group actually think no matter how biased or socially un

We say we're tired of experts and of people who claim to be smarter than us. So why do we have so many commentators like this and why did we elect someone like this to the White House (I said claim remember). To put this in context let's look at a couple of examples. I was thinking about the weird connection between Katie Hopkins and Donald Trump, besides the anti-Muslim rhetoric. Both were in fact involved with the Apprentice a topic I've written about more than once on this blog. A program where cocksure blowhards are brutally put in their place by failing spectacularly at simple but convoluted business tasks, with Hopkins representing an example of a contestant and Trump in fact portraying the big boss. Why have we given people from the Apprentice (a show which openly mocks the big headed bravado of smarmy business idiots) such influential positions in society. Just because Trump got to smack down the ego-maniacal sales-people doesn't mean we should put him in ch

One of the major criticisms of your government taking part in a major humanitarian effort is the common "we should be taking care of our own first" before worrying about the people with severe problems. I'm going to politely disagree with this idea and argue that in today's world that kind of closed-minded nationalistic (or tribal) attitude needs to give way to a more pan-global world view. Many countries want to retreat towards isolationism and damn the consequences of the outside world. America does it. The UK does it. Russia most definitely does it. Secessionist countries like Catalonia do it and overall it probably should stop. To argue that your needs and your families needs are more important than anyone else is a naturally programmed idea. We will all fall victim to this thinking in our lives but this doesn't mean we shouldn't aim to overcome it. The idea of nation states was really solidified in the 1800s. Old colonies were becoming new countri

The head on collision between reality and satire finally took place today, resulting in the merging of the two into one entity. I am referring to David Cameron's " assault on poverty " which was declared today at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester. Satirical newspaper NewsThump has simply published their reaction  with pretty much the same headline as the BBC because there's little warping of reality necessary to make what has been said sound ridiculous. To say Cameron walked into that particular punchline is damning with faint praise. Considering his leadership is already seen as being particularly harsh against poorer families, with tax credit cuts across the board, increases in food bank use and benefits cut for the poorest under-25s being approved under his leadership. The rest of the speech seemed to be punctuated with another ideological attack on his opposition counter-part Jeremy Corbyn, declaring him a Britain-hating, terrorist sympathis

A blockbuster originally started out as the name of a bomb designed to level a city block in wartime. Since then it has become associated with a major commercial cinema hit. This then became the name of a once booming video rental chain empire, an empire that came crashing down in 2013 in the face of complete technological obsolescence, irrelevance and Netflix.  Blockbuster’s hubris during the rise of Netflix is now legendary after the company turned down the opportunity to buy its burgeoning competitor due to fears that it would undermine its core rental business which is now a historical curiosity in the same way as TV rentals. Hindsight being 20-20 this is a great lesson for any modern media or technology company. Never underestimate your own relevance. I share this cautionary tale as we face the inevitable decline of televisual and media empires. The media empires have existed more or less the same way for about 50 years. Print and broadcast dominated the schema. Then in t