Archive for May, 2006

28
May

Charmball & The Art of Appreciating Art

I hate art. There, I said it. Well OK, the art world perhaps. All the daaaahlings and luvvies and their ridiculously pretentious pseudo-talk thats vague, abstract and virtually meaningless. Although bizarrely I guess you could say that Im actually quite artistic, in that Im a music obsessive, love graphic design and am compelled by great theatre. I work with artists all the time, be they designers, musicians or filmmakers. But its the tender dross I cant stand the uber-sensitive, highly-precious fairyheads who are impossibly fragile and believe themselves to be a level totally different to the rest of us that get my goat. Two minutes with those types of people in somewhere like Sloane Square can bring to me to vomiting point.

Im the type of guy who would have to be dragged kicking and screaming into a gallery; in fact to be honest, an entire squadron of horses would be needed to pull me from the wall my back would be stuck to. I feign slight enthusiasm when my arty friends try to evangelise the cause, but I can never manage it for too long as my stomach is normally turning quicker than my mind can. So it was with great trepidation that I agreed to go with Kerri to the Tate Modern. Its been pissing it down with rain all day, so the thought of spending a few hours sopping wet with a bunch of other sopping wet blankets didnt exactly thrill me too much. But I have to say, it turned out to be a very interesting day. And Im not sure I still hate art as much.

So we made our way to the South Bank, and Im already backing up by the time were getting towards Southwark Bridge. Sheer willpower kept me going, but my god it was hard. The weather was foul, the storm clouds were gathering, I was turning a cold sweat and the sheer anticipation of a few hours of pretentious hell was beginning to eat at me. I got told to shut up about business and how I know the head of digital at the Tate organisation. The shit-eating grin went on. Kerris laughing at my discontent, as is usual for when were together. I love the girl dearly and shes one of my best friends in the world, but when it comes to this shit, its quite a sacrifice for me.

And apparently i need to stop being such a ruthless little shit and enjoy the finer things in life. A little culture would do me the world of good, allegedly.

All of my girlfriends have been artistic in some way, and all have attempted to help me understand art. To their credit, they have had some sporadic success. But I just dont get it. Its too arbitrary for me, too limitless. Its not that I want to put borders and structure on everything, I just find thats the way its easier for me to understand and organise things in my head by compartmentalising and seeing the birds eye view. Its not necessarily the right way, or the only way, it just happens to be the way my mind works. Art is like a wild garden of chaos that makes me feel lost and disorientated from all the possibilities. Sometimes I like being lost, but its rare for me as it also means vulnerability. Not my thing. I dont do vulnerable.

So our little adventure into fairyland started predictably with me making fun of the exhibits and the hilarious little notations alongside them explaining who the artist was and what inspired them to make it. But then it hit home. I know nothing about art. Absolutely nothing. Yeah I know the names Rothko, Matisse, Pollock, Picasso, but other than that, this whole world of subjective expression of madness has been going on for hundreds of years without me taking a blind piece of notice. Ive been a totally clueless, bigoted moron. Every genre ends in ism, and I didnt understand any of them.

And at this point, in the middle of our disorientation, we invented charmball.

Now Ive been called charming many times before, and in some ways Im flattered, but it usually has negative connotations around being manipulative or cynical. I dont tend to have those motivations because as soon as you try to be charming, its like a lighthouse beacon and you immediately get a giant invisible sign over your head saying greasy twat. My sisters friends all tell I have something about me or x-factor. I get told I have the gift of the gab a lot. My ex used to say I have this thing I do that is irresistible to either sex, but she never told me what it was despite my protesting for months (complete with threat of sex ban on top). Audiences say Im compelling and colleagues say Im charismatic. All that is tres cool.

I dont believe any of that personally. Im just me. I talk so much that I end up hating the sound of my own voice, not loving it. I put people off their stride, definitely, and Im certainly self-deprecating, which helps put people at ease. I have 2 friends I admire (Marcel and Jase) for this remarkable warmth and ability to build rapport with people in literally seconds. I wish I could do that, but Im quite defensive and not as touch-friendly as them. I can be good with words too sometimes, which means I can articulate things in an interesting way. All of these things contribute to being charming, and I do put people in a strange state somehow. Something my friends affectionately call being cameron,d (as in I just got cameron,d, or youve been cameron,d.

People supposedly find watching me in action hilarious. Im not quite sure what in action means as Im normally just gibbering on to someone and theyre laughing for some reason, but its their words and not mine, so Im happy with the definition. And so began the contest of Charmball, which involves seeing who can charm the most number of people in a set period. A bit like football, but scoring a goal by winning a smile or gesture of warmth. Props, weapons and accomplices are allowed, naturally. The most smiles wins. Normal sports rules apply, e.g. being offside (speaking to someone you already know), penalty shoot-outs (easy targets, e.g. fat or insecure women), own goals (putting your foot in it), half-time (sitting down for coffee and chilling) and so on.

Kerri went one-up in the first 5mins, but I followed closely with an equaliser in the form of a waitress in the coffee bar. Her natural skills (being pretty, having a great figure and fabulous boobs) meant she had the capacity to win comprehensively, but I was undeterred. As it happens, what we should have been doing was adapting golf rules where you play with a handicap (e.g. bag over your head or having to talk in a funny accent), as it would have been much fairer.

But slowly something weird happened. We started getting into the art. Our mindset shifted into gear as we were talking through what we were looking at. What the fuck was going on in their head when they did that? What the fuck was the gallery director thinking when they bought it? Nice colours. Looks like this, looks like that. Ooh thats a big exhibit and its a big overwhelming. That would look great if you hung it this way or that way. Wow he must have been so fucking trashed when he did that. I bet he was crying when he painted it the big gay. Cool picture, love the boobs. What the fuck is going on there? Check us out, were art appreciators now.

The thoughts then started creeping out. Some of these fucking exhibits are huge, some looked cool and some ugly as sin. But it meant different things to everyone there, and we all took something different back from each one which was different to the person next to us. The Rothko room was fucking amazing, as the first girl I loved used to love his work and I just loved listening to her talking about it. They had dark cinematic rooms that were so dark you couldnt see the person next to you which were uniquely powerful and disorientating. Art is so much better when you have someone to explain it to you and guides to help you understand what the fuck its about.

By now I was in full philosophy mode, so I was 4-1 up and teasing Kerri mercilessly. But never be fooled into thinking its forever, as she was about to strike back.

But underneath each piece of art in there is an idea, a thought or a feeling that is being expressed visually. Theyre trying to say something and make a point. And that for me is what you have to get to, finding the point, and the journey of discovery is all important as you come to your own discovery. I discovered, unsurprisingly, that I like passionate and dramatic pieces where the impact is profound and extraordinary. Im not so into the abstract crap that looks like a 5 year old has done it whilst in the fit of a tantrum, but it helps to imagine what the artist was thinking so you can work out why they were expressing it that way.

One of the pieces that hit me the hardest (and there were quite a few actually), was one painting in a series by Francis Bacon. It caught my imagination as it was a beautiful matt maroon that was visually stunning and rather big too. I remember hearing the incredibly brilliant Stephen Fry say on Room 101 that everything in nature is abjectly beautiful; that the hand of God painted beauty in all things, terrible and wonderful. But conversely, everything that man puts his hand to is revolting and ugly in comparison (e.g. tower blocks, roads, plastic machinery). This maroon was so beautiful it could have been from nature itself, but came from the hands and eyes of a man.

My brain was well away in thought, which is a euphoric state for me as any of my friends know (Ive been known to run out of the pub in some kind of eccentric quasi-Archimedian genius frenzy more than once to the bemusement of my friends). I was slowly realising that art is really quite my bag. It was making me reflect, consider and investigate as a deliberate trigger. Normally Id have to take a walk and get away from it all, but the gallerys whole deliberate purpose is to infer the same state, to open up your mind and find fresh perspectives on the things you already know and take for granted. Art, as the peaceful and benevolent of expression and thought, is the absolute opposite of genocide, the failure of reason and bankruptcy of evil human nature.

But its also full of pretentious idiots, in the same way that France would be great without the French people in it. We got arted out after a while. Theres only so much expression you can take without feeling your soul has been sucked from you. Or if youre Kerri and have hilariously sore feet from wearing open-toe sandals, and also have had to put up with your rather insane friend gibbering on about Shakespearean dialogue and wildly esoteric subjects for the best part of the last 2 hours. But she loves me, which makes it bearable. Its endearing and fascinating apparently. Im always sure I bore the tits off everybody I meet, but they say they like the stories, how I find everything fascinating and how I think differently to anyone they know. The flatterers.

So Im an artist now. Predictably, we quickly got back to piss-taking, and absolutely everything we did from then on was an artistic statement daaaahling. Like going up and down the same escalators several times (yes it lost its novelty very quickly), or talking in vague terms about anything and everything. The rain was bringing down our mood, and I was losing 5-4. Drastic times need drastic measures.

And so we hit Selfridges, and I called in my most dangerous weapon. Armani Mania aftershave. After that there was no looking back. I was raging. That stuff is absolutely nuclear. Like my default staple (Zara For Men), it turns heads without needing any additional effort from the wearer other than a casual glance and a tiny smile. Kerri was done for and near to conceding defeat, which for me was a personal victory as it was more than a surprise win. The highlight of the day was the full charm offensive in Toni & Guy, which saw us both attack everyone there on all fronts in a kamikaze haze for the last remaining minutes of the match.

The subsequent evening (tonight) saw me behaving very, very badly indeed. But the long and short details of that, like some of the other parts of the day that have been deliberately omitted, are x-rated.

Suffice to say, today was a glorious indulgence miles apart from the typical mediocrity that weve all become so used to. It was something different that inspired and awakened me in equal measure. A bit like my beautiful Emma, who gets told she is like Lucy Pinder from FHM, to my disapproval. As I told her, you, licious, are the ambassadorial cocktail party to her backdoor slum chav knees up. And so it was the same with my wonderful and surreal day in the gallery.

25
May

A Storm Of Tiny Thoughts

Been a while since i did one of these, so time to catch. I feel ike death. God knows how i’m going to give my speech tomorrow :)

Enjoy!

1. What is the middle name of the first person you ever slept with?
I have no fucking idea. My head is a fog of man flu hell that means my brain seems to lack any coherent connection with the rest of me. I was 13 though, so surely i can be forgiven for forgetting someone i knew so long ago. Stupid bitch.

2. What kind of underwear are you wearing and what color?
Black Calvin Klein today. I would say i look hot, but the terrible truth is i look like someone out of a Hammer horror. I think i’m going to die.

3. Your most dramatic moment?
Having a 9 year old child soldier threaten to kill me with an AK-47 in Rwanda probably. Although being beaten by the police, being extradited and crashing head-on at 70mph into a tree whilst in the front of a mini rank up there too. My whole life is a fucking drama.

4. Do you prefer being single or in a relationship?
Right now, being single. I love being in a relationship, don’t get me wrong. Sex on tap, intimacy after i’ve got back from fighting the world and the wonderful bonding that means you don’t need to explain yourself because the other person knows you so well. But having come out of an intense 3 year relationship with a very damaged person that nearly killed me, and having a lifestyle that doesn’t allow me the energy to make the necessary emotional investment, means that its ot happening for me this year. I just don’t have the time or the inclination. There will be a time in the future where i settle back into one though. I get asked why i’m single a lot actually, guess i should be flattered?

5. What would your last meal be before getting executed?
Humble pie. Other than that, a beef roast or massive rib-eye steak, still on the cow. Being as nervy as i am would mean i wouldn’t be able to eat anyway, so i’d order the most inconvenient thing i could.

6. Beatles or Stones?
Stones, any day. The Beatles may have been great songwriters, but lets honest - they’re gay. The Stones have Keith Richards.

7. If you had to pick one person on earth who should die, who?
Only one? I’d have a very tough time deciding exactly who that would be as there are just too many people i wish death upon, as much as my dear mother says i shouldn’t. Why lie? Oxygen is limited and there are people who don’t deserve to have the existence they are blessed with. Especially as there are so many other pleasant, humble people who suffer so much. If i had to pick one revolting human being, it would probably be

8. Beer, wine or hard liquor?
Hmm. Depends on my mood, but i’ve been teetotal for 2 years or so now. Wine is just feminine and tastes like shit; beer is for a summer afternoon with friends, and spirits are for those times when you are bloated from the beer or in a setting that demands sophistication.

9. What is the thing most important to you about the opposite SEX?
Years ago i would have said eyes, eyelashes, eyebrows (my sis says i have a thing about devilish eyebrows), boobs, hip-ass swing ratio, legs, hair or other physical attributes. But nowadays its about rapport, charisma and “x-factor”. There are so many beautiful girls, and i’m lucky enough to know many of them. But beauty is superficial. I need more than that. I need someone who has something to say for themselves, to be mentally stimulated (not necessarily a brainiac either).

10. What are your plans for the future?
I have so many. Near term, get my venture funded, built and sold. Buy a fat house, get into therapy and get the amigo mission underway. Start the next company (teaching kids the cirriculum with video games), have a tonne of kids and reinforce the empire. End homelessness in one city. Go into politics. Donate a lot of money to charity and do some amazing things that thrill people reading their newspapers in the morning. Become the most powerful man in the world.

11. If you could have any super powers what would it be?
The ability to stop/slow down time so i could walk around in it as its paused. Oh the fun you could have - nothing beyond your reach and nothing impossible. Would make a great film.

12. Do you dance naked in your room?
Only if there’s someone else there to make them laugh. Otherwise no because i’d be deeply worried if i did. I take requests though…

13. How many drinks does it take to get you drunk?
Well not sure now as my medication makes me hyper-senstive to alcohol so half a shot would fuck me up good and proper. I used to drink 12-14 cans of beer a night easily a few years ago (living with crazy expats that does that as its normal to them). I’m not a heavyweight per se, but i can hold my drink pretty well.

14. What is something you do often?
Smoke, which i shouldn’t. Wave my arms when i get talking about the way the world could be if we tried. MSN. Write emails. Swear. Be flippant to build rapport.

15. Hair color you most like someone you’re dating to have?
Without a doubt, i’m a man for dark brown hair (Melanie is a rare exception to this). Depends on skin tone and other hair areas as lighter skin needs lighter hair otherwise you get the goth effect coming through. The Latin look gets me every time.

16. Blind or deaf?
Deaf. I wouldn’t have to hear half the shit that spews out of the mouths of the stupid asinine people i deal with every day. I’m a very visual guy, so blindness would cripple me.

17. Do you have any psychiatric problems?
I’ve been mis-diagnosed with many, but the one that plagues me the most is clinical depression. I’ve been classified as psychotic, maladjusted, malignant narcissism, megalomania, having ADD, possessed by the devil and god knows what else. I’ve known for ages that i need therapy and luckily i’m one of the fortunate ones that responds very well to it just through talking and reasoning.

18. Have you ever had a bad sexual partner?
Hmm my sex life has always been really good actually, as i read, research and actively try to be better. I’m no master but i’ve got a good rep when it comes to that. I can single out a few examples but i’m not one to kiss and tell. Primarily the problems were through not being able to let go or just not “connecting” with the other person. I’ve been known to be a slut too occasionally despite it being contrary to my nature.

19. Least favorite month(s)?
I hate August, just as i’ve had a serious run of bad ones. Its hot, nobody is around to get a decision from and the press is in full silly season mode. This summer is going to be amazing if all goes to plan, so hopefully that run will be a matterof history.

20. Favorite hateful thing to do to someone?
I’ve crucified many people in some very horrid ways, as i’m the kind of person who wouldn’t fight you there in public but sneak into your house and slit the throats of your family while they were asleep. I also have a unique ability to pick out someone’s thumbscrews and insecurities and turn on them at a moments to demolish them very quickly in public. Off the bat, weedkiller on the lawn (spelling out “cunt”) is good, as is hiding disgusting pornography on someone’s computer, setting them up etc. So many things.

21. First movie you can remember seeing as a kid?
I honestly can’t remember. Star Wars maybe? Flight Of The Navigator was the first filmi saw in the cinema.

22. Favorite person in the whole world?
Almost certainly my nephew, as 2mins with him can lift my mood and bring a smile to the darkest of days, As trite as it sounds, i’d have difficulty choosing one as i blessed with so many wonderful people in my life. Right now outside family i’d probably say Emma, because i just love everything about her. She’s beautiful, talented and just so delicious i could eat her in one sitting.

23. When’s the last time you went on a date?
Fuck, i don’t know. Depends on what classifies as a date really, as a lot of businesswomen i know take me out for dinner and behave like its a date. Probably Susan earlier in the year, although despite being a lovely girl, just didn’t quite move my soul as i need these days. I have a feeling i’ve been on a lot more dates than i realise without knowing it, as strange as that sounds.

24. Do you like violent movies or dirty movies?
After working for a porn company, dirty has lost its magic for me unless there is erotic ambience and build up to the sexy scenes. Bizarrely enough, i have little or no libido. Its a challenge to get my blood racing these days, although the right visuals and rapport works well if i’m in the mood. Violence is passe, but as a man i’m meant to say violent. My favourite films are the one that pose the question what if, and deal with concepts. Good example is V Is For Vendetta.

25. Fall or spring?
Probably Autumn as its a beautifully sublime season thats transient from the intensity of summer and the biting chill of winter

26. Person you most wish you hadn’t made out with?
i don’t regret anything specifically, although many of those kisses have led to some serious heartbreak later on. Most probably my friend Jess, as we were drunk and it ended up with me cheating on the girl i was with. I’d wanted to kiss her for so long, but when it came down to it, if was nowhere near as satisying as i’d hoped it would be.

27. Would you fuck the person who posted this?
Adele? Not sure. She seems nice enough, but assuming she’d let me (which she probably wouldn’t), i’m not the type to casually contemplate that like i used to be able to. There are a lot girls i’d make love to at the flash of a hat though.

28. If you weren’t straight, what person of the same sex would you do it with?
God i don’t even want to go near contemplating that question, despite being quite comfortable with my own sexuality. The guys i wouild say are classically good looking are the typically stereotypical examples like George Clooney, Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt etc. God i feel queasy at the thought.

29. Where do you want to live when you are old and brittle?
On a small luxurious tropical island declared as my own independent country. I’d have a James Bond baddie-style mansion with massive communications infrastructure, complete with black chair and white cat. I’d like to swap between multiple houses in different places of beauty across the world. I’d make sure i had a nurse for the obligatory sponge bath and to annoy by pretending to be deaf.

30. Who is the person you can count on most?
Me. I don’t trust many people fully, and have varying levels of that trust for each person. If i’m upset, i know i can turn to Beth and Kerri. If i need to speak to someone who understands the turmoil i’ve been going through, i can turn to Shaun or Jase. The friends in my life are uniquely loyal and individual characters who have proved themselves to be reliable despite all their human failings.

31. If you could date any celebrity past or present, who would it be?
Queen Elizabeth I for her strength, dignity and incredible legacy, or someone vacuous like Marilyn Monroe. Celebrities are like mannequins for me - its hard to find them attractive as they are just too perfect. What i find charming are the little idiosynchrasies and shortcomings, a bit like when a girl wakes up with crazy hair in the morning or when she walks out the shower.

33. What’s a word you would use to describe your life?
Supernatural. It would compete with the likes of: chaotic, predetermined, tumultuous, dramatic, driven, disruptive or lethal. My life is a bizarre cocktail of fantasy mixed with philosophy; of defiance and nervy insecurity; sometimes desolate and empty, and sometimes just plain ridiculous.

34. Favorite drinking game?
Can’t remember the name, but you construct a tower of drinks alternated by drink mats and roll the dice round the table. if you throw a six, you take a layer off the tower. My god i’ve never know anyone to survive it when you do it properly. I remember playing it, throwing up straight after downing a shot of rum and then throwing a six again to have to drink another layer straight away. I couldn’t move for days afterwards.

35. What did you dream last night?
I didn’t. Bizarrely enough i really don’t dream much, or if i do, i don’t remember what i dreamt. i find women’s preoccupation with dreams fascinating, from the way every one wishes you sweet dreams and if you you appear in theirs its a telepathy/spiritual thing.

36. If you found yourself in the THUNDERDOME who would you most likely fight?
No idea what that is, so can’t answer.

37. When was the last time you got laid?
That will remain a secret, but as i’ve already said i’m single, it was this year in February. I’m not suffering too much though thanks to the low libido.She was amazing, but there’s a very serious reason i can’t name her.

38. Would you like a free personality test?
No i fucking wouldn’t, as its a tool used by scientologists to enslave innocent, curious and vulnerable people into their disgusting little cult. I’m the world’s expert on me. i can see the value in having an external perspective though, despite my megalomania and despotic tendencies. Why would anyone need a test provided by someone else to know themselves?

39. Favorite sexual position?
Not answering that as my sis is reading, but lets just say i don’t do missionary unless its a variant of the coital alignment technique (CAT). If you haven’t heard of it, google it! Whatever the moment demands, although a lot of positions aren’t favourable to the woman, which kills the passion as the other person has to be experiencing the same pleasures you are fo rit to work. I’ve read the Karma Sutra several times, researched tantra and learnt about the practices of ancient civilisations, so i guess you could sayi have a wide range to choose from in my head.

40. If you were a midget, what kind would you be?
An angry one with a serious attitude problem, like the guy in jackass. I spent hours in meeting joking about my bizarre affection for dwarf porn. Makes me think about little people as garden gnomes and how amusing it is :)

24
May

Homelessness As A Business Problem

Today I had a profoundly moving experience, out of nowhere. It often happens in my bizarre life. Ill be sitting there blissfully unaware of the juggernaut about to crash into me on the most mediocre of days. I was sitting outside Cafe Nero in Charlotte St, which as most people know is my default choice for meetings when I’m tired and like, today, sick with the man flu. So I’m there discussing the world and its problems with the CEO of a very big digital media company, waxing lyrical about social justice, the infinite potential of the new knowledge economy and how the Mocha I was drinking was much better at Starbucks.

Then came along a homeless woman asking for change, as is quite common. To my shame, I brushed her away without thinking, but Adrian (the CEO) stopped her and emptied his wallet for change. I was taken aback, as hes one ruthless fucker. To my irritation, she decided on having a chat, despite me being in full flow. That was the last time I will be that selfish.

I feel guilty, like everyone does, when I walk past a person on the street. I ask myself if Im really doing all I could. I could give them my clothes to sell. I could go the cashpoint and give them all the money I have, as I know Id get it back in spades. I could talk to them and help them find their way with the things I know. I could employ them or pay for their shelter. I try to buy food when I can, instead of giving money, especially if they have an animal.

What started as us humouring her quickly grew into a very long conversation about the economics of homelessness. Right now as I write this Im furious. Im enraged at the incompetence and inertia that keeps people on the streets, because its a disgusting injustice that has an end which nobody seems to want to see it meet.

My caught my attention when she was talking was her head for figures. Being in full business mode, I progressively realised she was a very, very talented businesswoman and deeply personable. I’m ashamed of my own prejudices that blocked that for me initially. She told us shed been asking people all day for money, simply to raise a paltry £8 to pay for her homeless shelter. Shed managed 30p so far until Adrian gave her his change, which amounted to about half of what she needed.

Apparently, it’s £8 per night to stay in a hostel, of which the charity takes £1. That effectively means that rent for a homeless person in London works out at £240 per month. Shed eaten 2 Cadbury’s Fudge bars all day. Even at a conservative £3.50 food allowance per day (which is impossible to live on), it costs £105 per month to eat. The basic living expenses in the city total £345 per month. Which is £345 more than any homeless person has.

So we turned to income. Naturally you cant get a job if youre homeless, which means you need to rely on state welfare to survive, unless of course you turn to begging in the street, which is what most do. Income support relies on having a fixed address, which again no homeless person has. So lets say you jump that hurdle and somehow manage to get your giro check. At the very most your income is £90 for a fortnight, or £180 per month.

Do the maths. It doesn’t work.

To top it off, apparently Westminster and Camden’s answer to the problem of homelessness is that middle England staple of out of sight, out of mind. The current trend is to issue persistent homeless people with ASBOs so they just move around more so you dont see them. It goes without saying that it does nothing to help. She hates Tony Blair, because she claims they have made it all worse than it has ever been. Its not hard to understand how desperation drives them to crime just to survive.

Whats even more interesting is that she also hates the charity Shelter, and says they are useless. Thats an interesting viewpoint as I happen to know the CEO of Shelter very well (Adam), and I told her right there and then I will be bringing it up with him next time I am down that way (and believe me, Ive already sent him an email and I will go through with it). Most of the hostels in London are for men, and many of them are only for young people (i.e. under 25). Again it goes without saying that women need protection more than men at night. If you have a child its much easier as you will be placed in a council property as priority. Shed been beaten, raped, brutalised and spat at. God knows what horror shes seen in her 14 years of desolation.

Our friends story is tragic, but typical. I asked her what the original trigger was that caused her to be on the street. Bear in mind this was an articulate, pleasant, calm and charismatic woman who was dressed as well as she could manage and not manipulative or cynical as many can be. She smokes but doesn’t drink or do drugs. 9 months ago she lost her brother (also homeless) to heroin. The hardened amongst us would be sceptical of that claim, but I was there. I listened and I believe her.

She was put in a children’s home as a child, to be bullied, abused and forgotten about. No parents, no support and no development path. Naturally she didn’t have the chance to gain an education, so GCSEs and A-Levels never happened. She was too busy trying to just survive her environment to be able to develop any skills or qualifications. From there it was a rapid descent onto the streets of Glasgow, where she is originally from. No qualifications means no job, and no job means no income. No income means no home or career training. Shes been where she is for 14 years and has little hope.

So between the various supposed support establishments that we pay for every day, each one has failed her, and failed us all. Every one has passed her and all the others on for someone else to deal with. No-one cares about these people. There are tens of thousands of them. The doors of the churches are shut, which should be the very first place they should be able to go to be safe, warm and sheltered. The door is shut everywhere. People dont give money as they (quite legitimately) fear they are paying for a drug habit.

Its true that wherever there is poverty, you will always find a drug dealer, a bookies and an off licence. These people feed off the weakness of the vulnerable and profit from numbing their despair. They are trapped in a deadly destructive circle of dispassion that only gets progressive worse, like being in a well where nobody will offer their hand to pull you out and the walls around you get more slippery every day. Homelessness is not a choice, nor is it comfortable, despite what many fortunate middle class armchair philosophers believe.

But what struck me the most was that solving the problem is like solving any business problem. And the tragedy is that its so preventable. Its beatable! If we tapped into 0.05% of the intellect (not money) of our capitals workforce, the infinite resource that is used in offices every day, we could solve the problem in weeks. Charities have so many people applying to work for them that they cant cope, yet for some reason this problem persists. No-one will commit to solving it, even the charities.

I spend a lot of time with those charities, offering them help with their technical systems and finding new ways to beat old problems. One of my all-time favourites is Fareshare, which is an incredible organisation. One day when my other half and I (my ex) were having a coffee at the Excel conference centre in the docklands, we saw Costa pour hundreds of fresh sandwiches into black bags and throw them away. Perfectly good food that was delivered that day and not sold by closing time.

So I decided to cal every homeless charity I could find and ask them why the fuck that food wasn’t being given out to homeless people who need it most. Fareshare was the one mentioned more than anyone else. So I paid them a visit at the Bermondsey depot, got them coverage in a few periodicals (Private Eye, amongst others), and still admire their work now.

Want to know why that food is not given out? For fear that a homeless person will eat something beyond its display date, get sick and sue the supplier.

No, seriously.

Fareshare are the next generation charity, as they operate like a business does and are self-sufficient. They charge retailers half market rates for disposing of their rubbish to generate their income, and then distribute the material all around London, almost like modern day Robin Hoods. Their problems are numerous, and from time to time I drop in to help where I can. I have technical and commercial expertise that they so desperately need to make things happen.

Finding people shelter cant truly be that hard, neither can giving them medical assistance or a fixed address from which they can claim income support. I wonder why we dont have donor card that they can use to buy food in supermarkets that is subsequently debited from a persons bank account as a donation to them. I wonder how hard it would be to set up educational centres that helped them qualify in basic literacy and computer skills. I wonder how hard it would be to find them mentors to rebuild their lives, or even just give them jobs in public services.

But all charities need this expertise. Its not money (yes its important), but its ideas that change the world. Its people that come up with those ideas, give their time and generate social change. What these organisations need is expertise, time and intellectual resources to create new systems and build innovative new ways to solve old problems. Technology can help, but its not everything. Sending money is another thing, but it doesnt create ideas or effect change. We have hundreds of thousands of workers in our capital that could donate their intellectual capacity and skills to empower these charities and give them the resources they need to bring hope into the darkest of places. Pity only goes so far.

When you look at it, its a simple equation. People want to give back to their communities, and charities desperately need the specialist expertise they use in their office every day of their working lives, be it technical, commercial or compassionate. There is currently no way to match the two. Employers love tax breaks and the PR value of working with charity. Wealthy men work their way into political power with their charitable donations. Forgiveness in the press is usually accomplished by giving to a charity. What they need most has little monetary value, is free and in overwhelming supply.

People often ask me why Im doing what I’m doing. I get awards, praise for being some kind of genius and other things I dont deserve which elevate me to far more than I am. I know many very wealthy men, and I have so many opportunities in life to do the things I want to do. All came about because I learned to change my thinking. Of course I want to secure a future for my family and pass on a legacy to my grandchildren, but the main reason is that I want the power and resources to put things right. It occurred to me today that I can solve homelessness.

I’m not naive to the complex dynamics of the problem, nor do I think I possess some kind of superhuman quality that I alone can yield for some recognition as some kind of heroic figure. The capacity to do it is within all of us, as individuals and as a culture and community. The criminal negligence is the lack of will to have done it by now already. We all feel compassion and pity, but there comes a time when practical and meaningful ways have to be devised to solve it, just as in business. If we can do it in business, why cant we do it in life where it is far more important?

Our conversation ended with her saying for 5 minutes talking to you both Ive felt like a person again. To which I replied remember my face, because I promise will fix this for all of you. Meaningless to her perhaps, but words I intend to stand by. If I can build companies, raise millions and make millions in the corporate world, then I can damn well do something to help these people.

Einstein said that intellectuals solve problems, but geniuses prevent them. His predecessor Archimedes (who invented the first laser, and calculated the circumference of the earth with a stick) famously boasted Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world. To most it was arrogance and simple vanity, but to him it was simply a question of physics. And homelessness is a problem of economics. Give your mind, and I will solve it in 90 days.

22
May

Myths For Misogynists

Do i do it? Btw if you want to play the speech game, let me know! (Thats where you give me something very random to say and i get it into the speech itself somewhere - nothing obscene, but the weirder the better).

———————————————————————————————

Sent: 22 May 2006 16:25
To: alex.cameron@xxxxxxxxx.tv
Subject: FW: you know you want to
From xxx.xxxxxx@xxxxxxxxpr.co.uk

Alex,

Bored this afternoon so we did this between the 3 of us for our client’ss event next month. Its going to be a lot of drunken fun and very tongue in cheek. Copy is attached.

So anyway, we talked it over and all agreed there is only one person on the planet we know who could deliver this! And so I give it to you the most powerful of the Jedi. We will owe you many beers if you would do it. Not sure if you’d get a standing ovation for it though!

See you @ NMK on Thurs. The word is you’re going to blow the roof off the place? Rach says hi and you owe her dinner.

Tia x
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Some rants and accumulated experience about women. Men in happy marriages or stable relationships don’t need to read this; neither do men who get laid every week (or even every month). The “truth” I’m putting out here is for all of those men who, like me, worship women and can’t figure out why they keep getting screwed over and dumped. The myths are things that I used to believe before I wised up.

MYTH: Women want love and affection. Women want to be treated well. If you treat a woman well, she’ll treat you well.
Young women want whatever other young women want. They’re herd creatures. If you lavish a woman with love and affection she’ll think you’re doing it because nobody else wants you (which may be true) and she’ll dump you. In fact, if you do anything that betrays that you’re a loser that other women won’t touch, she’ll dump you. Why? Because she wants to impress her friends with what a great catch she’s made, and if she thinks that they wouldn’t want you, then she doesn’t want you either.

There are only three exceptions to this rule. The first exception is psychos, otherwise known as “witches, bitches, and crazy ladies.” They’ll stay with you because nobody else wants them, or because you’re the only one who put up with their abuse. The second exception is women who like to “fix men up”: those women who like to take “broken” men and turn them into the man they want. These women are single because a mature man will recognize that these women don’t want him… they want to turn him into someone else. The third exception is that once in a long time you meet a woman who isn’t psycho, still wants to stay with you when she finds out that you’re not super stud, and doesn’t want to change you into someone else. This is the one you marry.

BITTER MYTH: Women are out for money.
Women are out for status and fun or for security, depending upon their age. A few women are out for cold cash, but not too many. Status-seeking women aren’t ready to settle down. They just wanna have fun, and they want their girlfriends to know it. They’re looking for a guy they can dangle in front of their friends and say, “Look what I got!” You don’t have to have money to be that guy, you just have to come across as desirable. Of course if you have money you don’t need to do anything else, but having no money isn’t the end of the world. The women who are out for security have had their wild fling and want to settle down. They want a guy who can provide a stable base for the future (and that includes finances).

All in all it’s sort of like what guys do (and women whine about endlessly): when you’re young you want some bright, bubbly thing with huge tits, a nice ass, and a trimmed bush who screams like a banshee in bed, although you’ll settle for much less; when you’re ready to get married you want a nice girl who isn’t going to break your balls. They’re usually different people unless you’re very, very lucky. Young women want bad boys who will show them a good time. When they’re ready to get married they want some guy who is going to be able to pay to keep them comfortable.

MYTH: Women are out for looks.
See above. Women are out for looks, after a fashion. A guy in good physical shape who wears decent-looking clothes is attractive because he looks after himself and probably isn’t a wimp or a whiner. She can convince her friends that he’s a “catch.” A guy who looks and smells like a laundry bin, or who can’t climb a few flights of stairs without a rest had better have some spectacular attribute to show off to her friends (like being a genius) or he’s not worth her time. Any guy can compensate for lack of looks or lack of money with showmanship. He doesn’t have to be a catch, just seem like one. All he has to do is make her friends think, “Damn, I wish I were going out with him instead of the loser I’m with.”

MYTH: I should find one woman I like who likes me, and stick with her through thick and thin.
This is the biggest mistake I ever made. I used to be loyal to whomever I was with, even when someone better came along. All that happened was that I missed out on some great opportunities while I hung on with losers that ended up dumping me anyway. Do this if the two of you are getting married; once you’ve tied the knot it’s a whole other can of worms. However, if you’re just dating, do exactly the opposite. In very subtle ways you have to let her know that although you like her, there are lots of other women out there and you still notice them. Glance at tits and legs. Smile at and chat with pretty ladies, even while she’s with you (you’re just being friendly, of course). This is the most important thing I’ve learned about dating in a decade. I even thought of dating WASP bitches again, so long as I could keep this in mind. Never, never let her know that she’s the only game in town. As soon as she believes that she’s your “everything,” she’ll start whining and bitching and making demands.

Think of it like buying a car. If you let the salesman know that this is your dream car, that you’ve stayed awake nights thinking about buying exactly this car, do you think the price will go down? Of course not! He’ll jack the price up as high as he thinks he can go and still have you buy it. If you tell your girl that you’ve dreamed all of your life of going out with someone like her, do you think she’ll smile and kiss you and things will go on as before? Of course not! She’ll realize that you’ll put up with more of her bad habits, and that she can put up with fewer of yours, and the bitching will start. She’ll try to make the relationship as comfortable for her as possible and still keep it going. Remember the car salesman? Remember the attitude that “this is a nice car, but there are hundreds of other great ones, including that one across the street”, even as your heart is thumping and you’re practically drooling? If you’re just dating, this is the attitude to take.

MYTH: Having a girlfriend / fiance / wife means being able to tell someone my problems.
Nobody gives a shit about your problems. Nobody ever will. I know that sounds harsh, but it’s the reality of being a man. Want to tell people about your problems? Get a sex change. Or join a men’s group; the flip side is that you have to listen to their problems, but it helps. I know of only two kinds of women who want to hear about your problems: ones with far more problems than you have, and ones who fancy themselves amateur psychiatrists and like “fixing” men. Neither is good company. Let’s face it: many women spend all day whining to their friends about how awful their lives are and listening to their neurotic friends responding in kind. The last thing they want to do is go out with you and hear more of the same.

To make matters worse, women simply don’t “get” many of men’s problems. Women have problems with things that don’t even bother us, but they expect us to be understanding or at least tolerant; we have problems with things that don’t even bother them, and no amount of explaining will cause the light to go on or elicit any sympathy.

So why not just commit hara-kiri now? Because it’s not that bad. You get over it. In particular, once you figure out how to handle women a lot of your problems seem smaller and more manageable.

MYTH: Having a girlfriend / fiance / wife means someone will finally understand me.
Understanding takes decades. If you spend most of your time with the love of your life trying to explain yourself, she will have nothing but contempt for you, for two reasons. First, because she doesn’t want to hear your whining (see above). Second, and more important, women want to maintain the self-delusion that they already understand men. Women everywhere claim that they understand men and that “men are simple creatures.” The truth is that women haven’t a clue where most men are coming from and furthermore they care only insofar as they want to control us. Nonetheless, they want to maintain the fiction that they have us figured out.

It’s a pride and status thing. A woman who doesn’t “understand” her man can’t control him, and a woman who can’t control her man is a loser. The more you try to explain yourself, the more complex and multi-dimensional you become (a.k.a. “difficult”), and the less she can claim to understand you.

Besides, most of the time you’re explaining yourself to her you’re really trying to figure yourself out. Go do it in a corner, hire a professional listener, or join a men’s group. She doesn’t want to hear it. If you master the art of keeping your problems to yourself she will complain bitterly about this. She will bitch and whine that you’re not open enough and that she has to drag things out of you. She will also secretly love this. It gives her one more thing to complain about to her friends.

MYTH: If only I could meet the right woman, my life would have meaning.
If your life doesn’t have meaning right now, when you’re single, then a relationship isn’t going to help. You’ll pile too much baggage on top of the delicate emotional bonds too early, and the whole thing will collapse like a house of cards. Want to see this in action? Watch women: they do this all the time. In particular, women who whine about men who can’t make a commitment are probably doing exactly this: looking to a man to make their life mean something. It doesn’t work.

The only way to have a happy life is to develop one for yourself, then leave an opening for someone else to come and share it with you. Neither of these two things is easy. In particular, it’s too easy once you’ve developed a life for yourself to end up with someone who was doing exactly what you were doing before�waiting for Prince Charming (or in your case Lady Love)�to come and rescue her life. People like this end up draining away all of that energy you’ve worked so hard to build up, leaving you exhausted and frustrated.

Take it from me: I waited for Lady Love for decades. Finally I gave up, got angry, got off my ass and tried to make a life for myself, and suddenly I was surrounded by women who wanted to date me. After a while I met someone who was very special to me and I married her. Now my life is about the same as before, but I have someone with whom to share it. As much as I prefer being with someone, I must tell you that having her with me doesn’t make my life any more or less meaningful. I’m pretty much where I was before, only now I have company, which is nice.

[P.S.: After two years she turned into one of those people who was waiting for her life to mean something, and she drained away all of my good energy. Oh well. Some things just don't turn out as planned, no matter how hard you try. Rats.]

MYTH: If I treat a woman well and listen to what she says, she’ll stop complaining
Women never stop complaining. For them, it’s a sport. Some complain more than others, but none of them will ever stop, any more than one day men will stop discussing football. Men have built civilizations, created law, invented husbandry (that’s keeping domestic animals by the way, not marriage; women invented marriage), built skyscrapers, invented cars, washing machines, antibiotics, toilets, computers, and microwave ovens, and generally dragged us out of caves and into condos. Don’t kid yourself: men did it all. If it were up to women we’d still be living in caves and dying at 20. I know that men did it all because I know why they did it: they hoped that it would stop women complaining. It didn’t.

If you listen to your girlfriend’s bitching and try to make everything better, you’ll suffer the same fate as all the men who came before: you’ll run yourself ragged, and at the end of it all she’ll still be bitching. If you ignore all but the most important complaints, she’ll bitch about that, too, but you’ll feel far better about your life.

MYTH: Men don’t listen to women because men don’t care about women.
Men ignore women because women normally have nothing worthwhile to say. This is not a condemnation of women, but rather a difference in what talking is for. This is one of the few areas where John Gray has something useful to say. Men mull things over, organize things in their heads, then speak. Men have to do this because they have to get things done, and if they blabbered all day long about nothing in particular then eventually other men would pay them no attention. Men talk to communicate ideas, negotiate compromises, and secure cooperation. Life and experience has taught men to be brief and pithy.

Women talk to organize their thoughts. It’s the difference between doing the math problem in your head and writing the answer at the top of the page, and scribbling all over the page in order to arrive at the answer in the bottom corner. Women want men to listen to them. Women want men to follow along as they scribble all over the page, not just wait for the answer. Quite frankly, who cares? As I mentioned above, there are lots of things that women don’t want to hear from men. If you want to talk about these things, you’ll have to find some other men who want to listen, because she sure as hell won’t. If she wants to attach her mouth to her brain and vocalize all of her mental processes then she should find someone who cares to listen, in other words another woman.

MYTH: She said she loves me. She must think I’m really special.
When women say, “I love you” it can mean almost anything. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you,” “I’m desperate to get married and have babies and you’re the best thing I’ve come across so far,” “You’re better than the last jerk I went out with,” “You’re the best guy I’ve come across this week,” “All my girlfriends are in love and I want to be too,” “I have a million problems and I want you to feel obliged to listen to them,” “I want another date and I want you to feel like you have to ask me out again,” “It’s time I put my foot down and started controlling you,” and any number of other things. OK, most women think they mean it when they say, “I love you.” However, remember the old saying, “It’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind”? She loves you this minute. Maybe today. Maybe this week. Maybe even this month. However, this says nothing about how she will feel next month, next week, or tomorrow.

One of the biggest problems men like me have is that when we say, “I love you” to a woman we want to really mean it. Like “I love you forever.” Men don’t understand that a woman can say, “I love you forever” and change her mind next week. All she does is convinces herself that in hindsight, and despite everything you’ve ever said or done, you never really loved her, so all the times she said, “I love you” didn’t really count. You have to learn to use the same language. Go ahead and say, “I love you,” but inside your head say, “I love you right now. Tomorrow may be a different story.” When you break up and she screams that you said you loved her, tell her that you did, but she did this and that and now you don’t love her any more. When women say, “I love you” they aren’t promising eternal devotion, so why should you be? One day you’ll meet a woman who says, “I love you” and it’ll really hit home. You’ll test her love a bit and it will hold up. That’s the one you marry.

MYTH: Women understand relationships; men don’t.
This myth is perpetuated by women, pussy-whipped men, and psychiatrists. If women truly understood relationships… that is, if they understood relationships with men… then we wouldn’t have a 45% divorce rate. Maybe back in the pioneer days women understood relationships. These days, they have coffee with their girlfriends, talk about “men”, examine and dissect relationships, study interpersonal dynamics, talk, talk, talk about what works and what doesn’t, then go out and perfectly screw up their next relationship. I know. I’ve watched it happen from the sidelines.

Women spend more time analyzing relationships; they talk about them incessantly, and in doing so discover more truths than men know. However, all of this talk in a vacuum also means that their heads are filled with more bullshit and myth than are men’s. The combination of superior insight and copious nonsense puts them right back where we are. Men tend to see what’s going on in a relationship more clearly, but have no idea how to express what they see or what to do about it. Women would probably know what to do about it if they could only see it as it truly is, instead of through a fog of preconception.

The other big difference between the sexes is that women are absolutely certain that they know what is going on, whereas men make no such claim. The last man who claimed to have his own radical theories about relationships was Freud, and nobody pays any attention to him any more. It is women’s ideas about relationships and why they do or don’t work that have been imported lock, stock, and barrel into the field of psychiatry. Most male therapists you’ll meet are basically honorary women with university degrees, and as such they don’t really understand relationships either.

MYTH: Women are fairer and more even-handed than men
Nothing could be further from the truth. Traditionally men have favoured the same rules for everyone: “He who lives by the sword dies by the sword.” Women on the other hand make up the rules as they go along. Although women’s approach is patently unfair, it was valuable when they had to be the ones to point out that the rules needed to be changed, or that the rules should be bent in some cases. Back then they did this for the good of everyone. These days men still feel bound by rules, but women are in a conflict of interest. They still keep watch over the rules and break them as they always have, but now they modify and break the rules in their own favour.

Men’s justice is often harsh, but it’s fair. Women’s justice is arbitrary and these days often self-serving. (Liberal “situational ethics” are essentially the same as women’s ethics.) You’ll find this out quickly in a relationship. The joke going around about “The Rules” and how women change them all the time isn’t such a joke. It’s a documentary. If you doubt this, think of it this way. A man caught breaking or bending the rules of good behaviour will become either defensive or repentant; his wife will beat him over the head with his transgression for months, if not years. A woman caught modifying the rules of good behaviour to suit herself will giggle and freely admit it. She thinks it’s a game.

MYTH: Women do a lot for the relationship; men do a lot for themselves
My ex-girlfriend invented a little ditty that made her puff up with smug, self-satisfied pride. It went like this, “Women think of ‘we’; men think of ‘me’.” OK, so e.e. cummings she wasn’t. The point is that she actually believed this, and a lot of other women do, too. She thought that she was living and breathing our “relationship,” while I was just kind of hanging around and taking up space. Meanwhile, I drove her everywhere (she couldn’t drive), I spent hours making her gifts and writing her notes, and I spent hours thinking about what was going on with us and where we were going.

The truth of the matter is that women don’t think of ‘we’ any more or less often than men do. Women think of their own needs most of the time, too. The difference is that women redefine their own needs as being those of “the relationship”. For example, when a man needs to talk to his belle about something, he says, “I need to talk to you.” When a woman needs to talk to her beau about something, she says, “We need to talk.” Notice the difference? Suddenly what she needs becomes what we need. Women do this all the time, and then pout and whine that they work so hard at the relationship and you don’t. In fact they’re just playing with words.

The other truth is that there are two relationships: the one you’re really in�the one that exists between you and her�and the one in her head. Remember how women are always talking and theorizing about “relationships”? Well, much of what she defines as “our relationship” is really just a collection of theories and prejudices from past conversations with her girlfriends, and has nothing to do with what’s going on between the two of you. In that sense, even if she is doing more for “the relationship,” it isn’t necessarily anything that concerns her real relationship with you.

MYTH: Women are more involved in the relationship; men are more aloof.
Finally one that’s true. The false part is the assumption that being deeply involved in the relationship is always a good thing, and that aloofness is fatal to relationships. If you doubt this, look around you and find a couple in which both people do little else but sit around with each other and talk, and watch how fast the relationship blows itself apart. Every relationship has to have a balance between looking inward and looking outward. Most women who complain that their men don’t pay enough attention to “the relationship” aren’t seeing the relationship clearly and/or are buried in “the relationship” up to their necks and so are creating more problems than they solve. Recently I was skimming a book by Dr. Laura and saw a chapter that gets this one right. Where is it written that when a man wants to go back to college and a woman wants to get married, and she gets angry that he’s “not thinking of the relationship” that she’s automatically right? Maybe the right thing to do at that moment is for both of them to go back to college for a couple of years. Women confuse obsessing about “the relationship” with healthy involvement, particularly considering that half the time they’re seeing stuff that isn’t even there. Sometimes your relationship needs more attention than you’re giving it; other times she’s smothering it. The assumption that more involvement equals more love simply isn’t true.

MYTH: When she says no, she means no (so why am I so confused)?
Nobody means no every time they say “no.” Think about it: do you? You’ve never said no when you were too shy to say yes? You’ve never said no because you were nervous, didn’t know what you were getting into, and didn’t really have time to think about your answer? You’ve never said no because you thought that was the right thing to do even though you really wanted to say yes? You’ve never said no and then changed your mind? You’ve never said no as a joke, just to get a rise out of someone, when you really meant yes?

I’ve done all of these things at one time or another; most men I know have, and most women I know have as well. However, for men there’s a catch. If she’s prone to saying no when she really means yes, then you should dump her. Immediately. Especially if she’s told you in no uncertain terms “no” and then starts dropping huge hints that you’re supposed to ignore this and go for it anyway. Dump the bitch. This is just far too dangerous. If you doubt this, imagine sitting in court, accused of rape. “Did she tell you no, Mr. Smith?” “Yeah, but afterward she tried to rip my pants off, then stripped naked and sat on my face!” “But did she say no, Mr. Smith?” “Umm… yes she did.” “Case closed.”

I once went out with a woman who told me, on our second date, that there was no way she would sleep with me, that her ex-boyfriend was coming to visit and that it would be “too complicated” if she were sleeping with me when he came to stay. On our third date she did everything to let me know that she wanted me, including lying on my bed, making comments about removing her clothes for a nude massage. Spooked, I drove her home, dropped her off, and never went out with her again. I consider it one of the smartest things I’ve done in my dating life. (Incidentally, apparently so does she. Every time I meet her she asks why I don’t call her any more.)

MYTH: Women are social geniuses; all women get along well with each other, while men just fight
I lived in a mixed-sex dorm for two years in university where each floor was segregated by sex. It alternated: one floor men, one floor women, one floor men, etc. A few nearby residences were completely mixed. A couple of the men’s floors looked much the worse for wear at the end of the year. You know, men are so destructive. The women’s floors all looked perfect. All the girls were smiling and friendly. Talk to any of them, however, and they’d tell you that they hated living on an all-female floor, and every last damned one of them was moving to the mixed dorms the very next year, and not with each other. According to them, underneath the tidy rooms and smiles were claws and forked tongues. Every day was a quiet, mannerly, pitched social battle. The men, on the other hand, got along just fine with only a few exceptions. Most of us were quite happy where we were, the only complaint being that we didn’t see the ladies enough.

One thing that is true along the lines of this myth is that any woman will defend another woman against a man, even a woman that she doesn’t know. Start bad-mouthing women, even a particular woman that isn’t known to “present company,” and you’ll find women defending her even though they have no idea what’s going on. If anyone�a woman or another man�verbally attacks a man, other men will not jump in and defend him. Why? Men assume that other men can look after themselves and, after all, they’re competition. Women assume that an attack on one woman is an attack on all women.

BITTER MYTH: Women are all the same.
Women are not all the same, and in particular women change with age. A woman who wouldn’t give you a second look at 15 may be asking you out at 35. In part this is the dreaded “biological clock” at work, but in part it’s also changing priorities. At 15 she wants to impress all of her friends with her “catch” and she is starting to learn to control men. She wants variety and excitement. At 25 she wants to have fun with no strings attached and wants to hone her controlling skills. She wants more stability but she doesn’t want Ward Cleaver or Bill Gates. At 35 she realizes that the fun days are over and it’s time to settle down and get serious.

Boring, nerdy guys who were dog meat at 15 can be studs at 35. The guys grow up and mature, they learn to need women less, and they settle into a life of resigned solitude, which means that they cheer up because they’re no longer striving for something they can’t have. The field narrows, and there are fewer single guys with no divorce history. Finally, her priorities have changed. She’s no longer impressed by “bad boys” on motorcycles with a few convictions for petty crime. She knows that her friends aren’t impressed by flashy, fast-living rogues any longer, any more than they’re still impressed by fashions from Suzy Creamcheese. She’s more interested in building a nest than impressing her friends anyway (and she knows that building a nest is what will impress them). So, just because you can’t get anywhere now doesn’t mean that your whole life will be a write-off. Take a clue from me: I never had a single date in high school. I had one girlfriend for a year in University. Ten years later I was beating women off with a stick.

19
May

A Window To The Soul

Carl Jung defined the concept of synchronicity when trying to explain the inexplicable the experience of having two (or more) things happen coincidentally in a manner that is meaningful to the person or persons experiencing them, where that meaning suggests an underlying pattern. When you finish sentences for someone, where you sense them, where you are in tune with them.

Yes, she is beautiful and magical, and the extraordinary person she is is just so captivating for me. But there is a greater feeling that fascinates me about us that which Jung tried so hard to define. Its easy to put labels and tags on things, to try to break them down in their constituent parts to see how they run. It almost always succeeds in destroying the magic of the situation and fails to get us any closer to understanding these mysterious times.

She is in pain tonight. I knew before she told me, and I just don’t know why. But I also know how she is feeling right now as I’m feeling it too. And that is what I find fascinating above all. She and I have never met, we’ve never been within a mile of each other, but geography is irrelevant as I sense her. She wrote that she sensed me when I went to see her, and I know she did. I don’t know her like her friends or family do, nor will I ever know everything. I have no idea what goes on day to day in her life other than what she chooses to share with me. But I sense her.

How is that possible? Is it just melodramatic and implausible? Maybe its just knowing someone or picking up on the generic signs everyone else gives. It can be dangerous to overstate things and delve into the fantastical. It can be easy to exaggerate and believe that what is not the truth but an extension of your own desires and fantasies. But I don’t feel that, and neither does she. But there is a connection I cant explain. I feel stupid for saying it, like I’m believing what I want to believe. But she feels it too. I’m no lovesick puppy. A spiritual junkie perhaps.

Finding that connection with someone is incredibly rare and precious. Many people spend the best part of their lives seeking it and missing it. Thousands of pages of romantic novels have been written about it and girls grow up in quiet despair that they haven’t found it yet. Thats what makes our situation so strange and powerful. Whatever happens, we’ve had a time in our lives when we bumped into someone who shared that moment with us, in mind and spirit. That in itself is something to treasure.

I can feel it in my chest and on my shoulders. She feels vulnerable, alone and like her usual layer of protective skin has been removed. Shes touch sensitive. Ive been there too. We all have. I’m hurting because she is. The world of the last few weeks has been a painful hurricane thats knocked her off balance and made so much feel so uncertain. I felt the same today, like I was unsure of my footing. I didn’t need reassurance; I just wasn’t sure if I had a foothold or was doing the right thing. The air always feels slightly cold and everything around you so fragile.

Ive seen my share of tragedy; in fact many might say that Ive seen some of the most horrific things imaginable. Ive seen men scream for their mothers as they burned to death in front of me in towers of car tyres soaked with petrol; ive watched a 14 year old boy kicked to death in front of me on the side of the road and a 5 year old drop down dead from malaria moments after thanking me for what I had taught him; Ive seen police officers deal the drugs they confiscated from someone they has just arrested; Ive seen friends committed to psychiatric wards in the midst of total psychotic breakdowns that left them tremoring and convulsing; Ive seen politicians you know from the TV pick up prostitutes in Westminster in their stately cars.

Ive been there when my girlfriend woke up screaming in terror from the trauma of being abused by her grandfather and gang-raped in school; Ive seen junkies inject themselves in places doctors wouldn’t dare; Ive seen more than 8 friends paralysed with grief from their fathers suicide and their descent into despair; Ive seen a man murdered by having his face destroyed by a broken glass bottle; Ive seen families paid off by businessmen to cover up their crimes and protect their charitable reputation; Ive looked 3 paedophiles in the face as they told me what they did to the children they abused and laughed at their trauma as if it were a sick game; Ive seen the knowing smiles on the faces of priests who have abused infants without being reported.

Ive seen the rotting bodies of children lying on the roadside after the genocide in Rwanda and the torture cells; Ive been beaten by police in cells in the middle of the night and listened to friends describe how they watched their parents gunned down like animals with AK-47 fire; Ive taken the beating for friends who were attacked by racists and denied their rights for what they believe by those in authority; Ive watched a homeless man saw through his own forearm bones as a begging tactic and seen more of them lying in their own vomit from drinking surgical spirit; Ive seen the blood on the knife of a psychopath who disembowelled someone on the street 5mins before, only after being out of prison for 5 days; Ive been there as friends watched the silhouette of their girlfriend fucking someone else and spitefully enjoying it.

I could go on, but my point is not to list all the evil Ive seen in my life. I don’t claim any kind of kudos from it. I never chose to be in any of these situations.

The point is that its all relative. No tears are worse than any other. No-one suffers less because what has happened to them is less severe than anyone else. Children in Africa don’t suffer from not having TVs, as they never had them in the first place. We only miss what weve had, not the things we imagine or want. To have something for a short while and lose it is considerably more painful than not to have had it at all. Its very easy to lose faith.

A lot of suffering is legitimate. Scott Peck claims all mental illness stems from the attempt to avoid it, and that healthy depression is a normal fact of life and comes about as the unconscious mind has already noticed that things have changed and the conscious mind hasn’t. Suffering produces wisdom and perseverance. Its a lot easier to wait if you know somethings on its way and what is happening. My own disease is clinical anxiety and depression, which is a major pathological disorder associated with chronic lack of the necessary neurotransmitters in the brain. It can cripple you if you let it, and feels like you’re wearing grey-tinted glasses. Some days the black overwhelms you, sometimes its a good day.

But above all these things, there is truth. The truth I know to be real is that good and evil cannot exist without the other. Day cannot exist without night. Without one we cannot appreciate or understand the other. Where there is pain, there will be joy. Where there is grief, there will be consolation. Where there are tears, there will be laughter. Where there is cruelty, there will be compassion. Where there is despair, there will be hope.

The world will sometimes be against you, and there will always be those that disagree with you. There will be friends and enemies in equal measure, those that you can trust and those that will betray. There will be sadness that makes the world seem like a place where there is no colour or happiness. Ive felt rage so extreme that Ive worried I wouldn’t survive it and joy that I cant express in words. There are days when the noise from the pain drowns out the wonder of whats around you. But there are no small things. The tiniest actions can have the most profound effect because we live interdependently with each other.

There is always hope. The sun will always rise and start the dawn chorus. You will laugh, you will smile and you will love again. The morning will always close the last chapter so it can start a new one. All of this will pass, just as it did before. The dark will surround you but you will break through it. You don’t have to fight, just don’t give up. I believe in you. I believe in you no matter what mistakes you’ve made, how terrible things look now and whether the world is about to collapse in and destroy everything you thought you knew. Ill be by your side so we face the horror together. Ill carry you when you’re tired and when you have no more energy to fight. When you fall there will be arms to catch you and keep you stable as you stumble.

I will cover you when you want the ground to swallow you up and hide you when you don’t want to be found. I will break down the doors of those that threaten you and brush the hair from your face when you want it to conceal you. There will be times when you feel anything anyone says will hurt you beyond all repair and you cant bear to be near anyone as you’ve already given everything you have. The air may be squeezed from your lungs by the weight on your chest and it will feel like nothing will ever change no matter how hard you try. All the faces and memories of the past may haunt you, but you will live through this because you were designed for it.

The cold has no resistance to warmth, and evil breaks apart in the face of love. Fear has no power over hope and can make no prisoner of what does not allow it to be its captor. Today will be the day when you decide how the rest of your life will be. The decision you make now will set the tone of the days to come. There is nothing you cannot do, only the fear that makes you believe you cant do it. The world is waiting for your smile to set fire to your soul so you shine through what is hurting you now.

There is someone who cares. There is someone who knows what you are going through and feels what you feel. There is someone who loves you even when you feel more alone than you think you have for a long time. There will always be more than one, even though you cant see them and theyre not here now. Right now is just the place where you are sitting at this very moment, but later you will be somewhere else, with someone else. Pain washes away like waves and ripples that slowly get less intense and further apart as time pushes them along. The reason you are here now is that you need to be here to be the person you are about to become.

I wrote this for a lot of people. I wrote it for my son, when he runs up to me and grabs my trouser leg. I wrote it for my sis, who has never had the peace of mind she deserves. I wrote it for me, for when the walls close in. But I also wrote it for everyone I care about and the people I havent met yet. I believe in every one of you.You and i will change the world. We already have.

17
May

She’s Definitely My Muse

So today I found myself with time to kill before I walked to the Strand for my 2pm meeting. I took some time out to rest in St James park and was thinking about art, the beauty of nature and how inspiring a connection with someone can be. It occurred to me that all the great poets have always penned their works through trying to describe how they were feeling, illustrating and stimulating the senses through crafting metaphor, imagery and symbolism. So I decided to explore what was in my black hole of a heart, and how I would feel if she was right there, right then at that exact moment. Bit of an experiment in my hopefully-not-too-feminine side you might say. Inspiration hit hard like a burst of erratic gunfire, and I wrote what came to mind.

And this is what flows through me when I imagine her there within breathing distance. This is what I feel she is to me. Whatever happens I’m going to sound utterly pretentious here, so apologies in advance. Im going to end up feeling like this is a poor rendition of some nonsensical Manic Street Preachers song. Thats not quite what I had in mind, as I was trying to describe a feeling, perhaps the beauty of the things I was imagining.

Im inside the war I would give my life to win, an electricity through my chest and sparkling under my skin; she is the glimmer of light in the shard of a broken mirror, the scent of broken flowers in the spring; a tiny planet of mystery orbiting around my sun, the smile in an empty photograph and freezing cold rain on my face; a lightening strike in the most violent of storms, a tornado of flame that breaks down doors to a passionate crescendo of melody; shes the deadly exotic poison running through my veins, the erotic canvas where I paint the profane; the brightest star in the moonlight, a vine in the rose garden and a palace of colour in my Eden; shes the consideration in my compassion, the meaning in my empathy and the eternal essence of my sympathies; shes the crashing waves of emotion breaking against our shore; shes inside the gentle radiance of my reticence, a changing season of my spirit and a soprano harmony in the chorus of my indignation; a frame for a vignette within the flickering embers of my cigarette; burning with the incandescence of candles in a haunted chapel, the ecstasy in the opium and a blinding flash in the cloak of black; shes the drifting sands in my changing desert of decadence and the swirling threads of smoke rolling off my phoenix; the angel who opened their eyes to fly and their wings so I could sing, the excited rage of my adrenaline; a mesmerising collage of future memories, the agent’s instrument of revelation, the waterfall of my epiphany and the resonating frequency in my symphony. By the way, great boobs.

Yes, Im a romantic fool. But what is language other than a tool to express thought?

Thats probably the nearest Ill get to poetry, as the mere mention of the word makes me think hormone imbalance and melodramatic angst. I share my good friend Andy’s love of the English language and his passion for its meaning and application. Or maybe I just love the sound of my own voice, which is probably more accurate.

Ok, so I probably need to get out more as all this talk of business models and added-value offerings is going to my head and the poet in me is screaming to get out. But when school is over and your eyes glaze over from the heavy drudge of the 9 to 5 working life you need to exercise your mind. So I took mine out for a walk, most appropriately whilst I was in the park. Im a firm believer that the mind and body are intrinsically linked, and in the same way that if you dont exercise or control your diet you get fat, if you dont exercise your mind you get very bored and apathetic.

What immediately struck me when I read this back was that it was similar to one of my favourite passages from The Bards Hamlet, although possibly diametrically opposite in mood and far superior to anything my mind could conjure:

I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition, that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promotory; this most excellent canopy the air, look you, this mighty o’rehanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire; why, it appeareth nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, how like an angel in apprehension, how like a God! The beauty of the world, paragon of animals; and yet to me, what is this quintessence of dusk? Man delights not me, no, nor women neither.

Also reminded me of the song You bring My Beat Back by the excellent Mann Friday:

Lost between rhyme this feeling of falling; my measure of moments keeps on stalling; This life is a stage no band to back you; clicking my fingers inside this vacuum; You bring my beat back with one smile though I’m always tied into your tempo, crush the signature of starlight into me; It’s the death of all discussion, the count-in kiss of your percussion you drum your hope into my heart; you bring my beat back. It’s what you hold, your metronome wont leave me alone because all that sound you spread around could make my life just this simple; Swim a little longer if you’re too dry, run a little faster if you can’t fly, laugh a little louder if you’re too shy to sing yourself sleep; How can you sparkle if you don’t shine? What would you play in the concert of life? When would you leave and where would you go If you tuned yourself to the groove inside us all? One more time your pulse in my bed, you wear a white verse of song in my head; You wrap it in rain and golden refrains. All the rhythm of the reasons why you colour in a butterfly; Your chords played in my church, your words when they’re healing all the hurt Your eyes when I realise I’m just not made for corporate gray days; Can’t face the fear of being flat or the solitary sound of a mistimed clap quantize of my dreams and make this seem I’m all on track;You bring my beat back;

08
May

Does She Exist?

Maybe i’m just another romantic fool grieving a lost era.

Girls always try to portray themselves the same way, especially on MySpace - they’re crazy, whacky, love clubbing, love dancing, are really happy/positive, love their family and friends and just love life. If only it was actually true and not a crock of shit designed to make them seem attractive. Spend 5 minutes with any one of them in real life and you’ll quickly find out that they’re almost always miserable, attention-craving, childish and bordering on psychotic bunny-boiler when they have the hint of feelings for someone. They have difficulty holding a proper, genuinely stimulating conversation, and seem to think its hilarious to act like a clueless bimbo with an IQ of 15 and a half. Most don’t have an opinion on anything unless its featured in Heat. They’re utterly controlled by their emotions and so wrapped up in the fairytale idea of “love” that they can’t see what’s right in front of them. Give them a few minutes alone in your room whilst you’re in the shower and they won’t be able t resist checking your text messages and/or email.

Give me a girl like this below and i’ll arrange the queue outside her door. Ladies - be a little more like this and you need never worry about your boyfriend straying or ever needing to do something to make the guy you like stay around for longer than it takes you to get undressed. Its the simple things that matter and English girls just don’t seem to have the elegance they are famed for anymore. They seem to be on a one-way suicide mission to appear air-headed, superficial and illiterate. Not every guy is that though either, so maybe its not fair to generalise and stereotype so widely. But let me put it this way - if you don’t fit that stereotype, why aren’t more visible?

Does this woman even exist any more? Is all hope truly lost?

She can write and spell properly
I know i’m going to sound really, really anal when it comes to this, but personally speaking this is symptomatic of a much larger malaise. There’s nothing more tragic than meeting a lovely lady who you later find out can’t articulate themselves and has no intend of trying to. Text message language screams out 14-year excitable happy-clapping child and all they entail. Our girl is a virtual poet who crafts her words and uses them as weapons in her war to charm the world. Simple punctuation and grammar don’t phase her - “their” is not spelt “there”, and apostrophes are all in the right places. The way she communicates is as important as her mascara.

She’s not stooopid
What is it with this whole dumbing down thing? Its not cool to be stupid. I look at some girls’ profiles in utter disbelief when i hear they don’t want to put that they like reading for fear of appearing little no-life social retard. Gullibility is one thing, not even bothering to engage your brain or even taking 2 seconds to think before you spew crap out of your mouth is another. The girl every man wants has common sense, is intuitive and can pass a basic common maths test. Who wants to go out with a blow-up Barbie doll? Intelligence is sexy, because the mind is the greatest erogenous zone.

She has something to say for herself
Having an opinion is better than not having one at all. Nobody’s asking you to be a Nobel Laureate, but knowing where 25f your salary goes and/or what happened in the last 10 years goes a long way towards being someone. Our dream girl is aware of herself, her environment and gives a damn about what goes on in the world, even if she can’t do anything about it herself at that moment in time. Hopefully 2 decades of life on this planet has given you an idea of what you think is OK and what’s not.

She knows how to have a conversation
Conversation is a lost art. An art that for centuries determined your social status and reputation. Small talk is great for cocktail parties, but its meaningless in any other circumstance. By all means feel free to ask me asinine questions you’d ask any other person on a park bench, but don’t expect me to think any more of you than i do the average doctor’s waiting room patient. The girl who hopefully exists knows that the essence of irresistable flirting is the ability to be creative and seductive with words. Taking part in a stimulating conversation requires effort, which is why people don’t bother with it any more. Stimulating doesn’t mean intellectual - in fact, some of the best conversations are short, rapid-fire madness.

She’s in control of her emotions
Being in control doesn’t mean being cold, it means not acting like a raging sociopath and losing all contact with reality when your buttons are pressed. Some girls are so driven by their hormones and emotional baggage that its impossible to get through to them once the fire has been lit. You can’t help thinking thet they are partially to blame for a large proportion of their problems, as taking 2mins to get yourself under control is not exactly a stretch. Our girl is a feeling and deeply passionate person that knows that feelings are not truth - they are feelings and they must be moderated according to their context.

She’s grown up, independent, confident and doesn’t play games
Wow. Give any guy the chance to have a relationship with a girl like that and you’ll be seeing speed tracks. Thats right - if you’re clingy, co-dependent, have an inferiority complex or are a manipulative little shit, then you can bet all your boyfriend’s mates think you’re a real dick and wouldn’t touch you with someone else’s barge pole. Something happens to girls in their teens that sends them mad, meaning they take all their more violent experiences from the volatile formative years and use them as templates for adult life. All girls play games, whether they admit it or deny it - why? Whats so hard about being a big girl (read: low maintenance) and communicating like a normal human being? If you have hang-ups and issues, get some help for them. Nobody’s going to damn you for it - in fact, to the contrary, you’ll deserve praise for getting it together.

She’s modest and grateful
Life in the western world is sterilised, safe and essentially uneventful. Complaining about daddy getting you the Porsche in green as opposed to red makes almost every guy i know cringe. Nothing is more irritating than listening to some spoilt, attention-ceaving rich/middle-class girl go on about how bad their lot is in life when in the back of your mind there are TV pictures of African children with flies on their eyelids or Balkan children who have been made orphans. Our girl is balanced, knows her strengths and weaknesses and genuinely cares about those who don’t have it as we all do.

She thinks superstition is stupid
Having a mind that works rationally means that if you don’t have any evidence to back something up, you don’t subscribe to it. Luck doesn’t exist. Many would argue religion is equally futile, as are silly pastimes like astrology. The lady of our dreams treats these absurd gimmicks with the contempt they deserve because she’s grounded and out of her teens. She realises that all of these things exploit our insecurities and chooses to address hers in more constructive ways that are considerably more dignified.

I know she’s out there. I may have already found her. But if i have, i won’t be sharing her…





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