Ten reasons I had a wonderful day

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1. The sun shone even thought the forecast at the start of the week said it would be raining.

2. I found a 5 franc coin on my way to work (that’s about £3.50 or a little over $5) which is a decent sum in it’s own right and the coin had a pleasantly heavy feel about it as I dropped it into my jeans back pocket. I will spend it on something insensible.

3. My cat only woke me up at 6am this morning and then after a quick banishment from the bedroom she didn’t wake me up again until my alarm went off. This is an improvement from being rudely awoken at 4am by said cat banging on the wardrobe doors and consequently, on being shut out, banging on the main door at least once an hour until I’m supposed to get up.

4. Aside from a little hayfever, which is par for the course for me at this time of year, I woke up feeling completely chipper.

5. I met a friend for lunch by the river, in the blazing sunshine, and allowed my bare naked flesh (although I am only talking about my arms before anyone gets too worried about the idea of me over-exposing myself to all an sundry of Geneva) to feel the sun’s heat without the need for a coat. And I didn’t get sunburned. I also got to feed some sort of biting insect, so that’s wonderful for them, I guess.

6. The fiancé undertook the trip across the border to France to stock up on excitingly cost-effective (compared to Geneva prices) supplies for a party we are having this weekend. When I returned home the kitchen and cupboards were laden with supplies and best of all he knows me well enough to have got me some treaty things I could eat now (so I don’t eat all the party food before the actual party).

7. We actually have enough friends in Geneva now that we can have a party, which is nice as I’m going to be 30 soon and don’t want to feel like billy-no-mates as I transition to my fourth decade.
8. I had a very productive day at work where I could see actual progress on a couple of things I’ve been working on and the boss agreed I could work from home tomorrow to concentrate on a report.

9. My postal vote for the upcoming UK elections finally made it to Geneva and as I’m going back to the UK next week I can post it from there and be reasonably confident it’ll arrive in time for me to participate in democracy (Swiss post surprisingly not as reliable as I had expected).

10. As a result of the fella’s shopping trip we had a lovely, if perhaps not the healthiest, dinner of fancy hotdogs (proper sausages in fresh baguette).

Self-awareness in three words

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Whilst out with friends not so long ago one of my chums was commending another on her cartooning skills and whilst accepting the compliment, wholly unlike me in that regard (Ten reasons I can’t accept a compliment), she commented that drawing wasn’t one of the defining aspects of who she was. We pushed her on this and she explained that if she were too summarise herself in three words she would describe herself as ‘scientist, feminist, geek.’

The rest of us fell silent and I knew that we were all pondering the very same question ‘ how would I define myself in three words?’

My scientist feminist geek friend (let’s call her SFG for short) explained that as a frequenter of dating websites and an expat abroad she’d become accustomed to having to summarise herself in brief. Three words of brief. But in those three words she could convey an idea of who she was, what’s really important to her and put out the gauntlet that if you don’t like it move on or swipe left or whatever you do on these websites.

Whilst we sat around the table drinks in hands, starting at the smooth wooden surface for inspiration of who we are in three words not one of us came up with such a succinct description of ourselves. Everytime I mentally tried I’d find myself getting bogged down in meaningless adjectives or explanatory clauses.

It doesn’t help that I don’t have a career that lends itself to a one word summary. I’m not a doctor, a teacher or unicornologist. And I’m still not sure if the career I do have is the one I will want to have forever and a day. Just as I wasn’t interested in a career in law ten years ago it wouldn’t’ surprise me if there were other career options I haven’t even considered now that I might have a burning desire to do in another ten years. Certainly there are a lot of things I have an interest in and projects I’d like to do beyond the current scope of my existing work role.

When I returned to the flat, I decided that my fella aligned himself with me exactly so that he could be of use to me in these sorts of existential crises, so I asked him to summarise me in three words and he came up with the following:

Driven, friendly and … actually something else, it was a few weeks ago and I can’t remember.

Anyway whatever the final word was I definitely didn’t resonate with the first two as that particular day I’d had a very unproductive day at work, where I seemed to be at the mercy of distractions and I was feeling pretty grumpy (possibly as a result of being unable to label myself in three words) so neither seemed appropriate at that time.

It’s not that those two words are terrible per se, and if that’s the image I project to people that’s not so bad, it’s just that they are transitory in nature. I can be driven, friendly and whatever. At different times I can be lazy, grumpy and something else. The words the fiancé picked can’t always be applied to me and don’t really give a sense of what’s important to me in the way that SFG’s words did. I’d hold him to account for his poor choice of words but as I probably didn’t really explain what I was looking for and couldn’t come up with anything myself I’ll let him off.

Adjectives alone aren’t enough if I’m going to summarise myself in three words, I need to find something that is a stable part of who I am regardless of whether I’ve spent the day grumpily writing a 10,000 word report or an entire day on the sofa cheerily watching an entire season of my latest Netflix addiction.

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If I don’t know who I am right now I think I can pick out the three words that best sum up who I’d like to be:

Counselor, Polymath, Humanist

My interpretation of these terms may be a bit different to dictionary definitions so I’ll briefly explain:

Counselor – because I have always wanted to be there for and to help people and, whilst I’m still toying around with the best idea of how to do that on a consistent basis, that aspect of wanting to help has always been a part of me.

Polymath – one of the reasons I find it so hard to summarise myself in three words is that there are so many things I am interested in and would like to know more about in the future (for example history, politics, art, drama, writing, law, psychology, cybertechnology – ironic considering I’m quite the technophobe, photography, languages, to name but a few). Whilst this will probably prevent me from ever becoming an expert in a single thing I’d rather embrace that multidimensional, eclectic part of who I am.

Humanist – by this I just mean that I believe in people, we can do terrible things, we can do awesome things. I think that given the opportunity most people are pretty decent. Perhaps this makes me naïve but I can live with that.

So in conclusion I don’t know who I am but I know who I’d like to be. How would you sum your current and/or future self up in three words?

Ten reasons blogging is bad for your health

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1. Everyone knows only narcissistic types that give too much importance to their own views write blogs. So if you write a blog that must mean you are one of those people and if you tell people you write a blog then that means they know that you are one of those people too.

2. You might think you are being original but actually when you are staring at a blank computer screen you’ll find yourself skimming through thousands of other seemingly original blogs to either outright steal their ideas or at least use them as a trampoline to your own inspired ramblings. For example: this post is ripped-off from inspired by AOpinionatedMan’s ‘why my blog sucks’.

3. It’s easy to treat blogging as an online journal type thing, except the beauty of old-fashioned book type journals is that no-one else reads them. On a blog you might accidentally let slip all sorts of secrets and weird aspects of your personality, such as strange zombie imaginings, for anyone to see.

4. There are already so many great ways to waste your time (like reading, watching tv, endlessly Facebook stalking old school friends) blogging is just another excuse to go to bed later than you should do and to waste free time that could be spent on more productive things (like cultivating understand through literature, catching up on relevant popular culture through visual medium and investing time in becoming reacquainted with the lives of old friends).

5. Most bloggers aspire to have a popular blog read by more people than their mum, and want to feel the ego boost of being loved and admired far and wide. However if your blog does actually become popular then you can become a target for jealous angry types (who I understand have brightly coloured hair and live under bridges) who might tell you you aren’t as wonderful as you think and may even use mean words to try and hurt your feelings.

6. Blogging is the ultimate delusion. We’ve all heard stories of people who started blogs and now get millions of pounds a year on the back of their humorous wit and whatnot, but thinking this might happen to you is as unrealistic as dreaming that you are distantly related to a rich prince of a made up country like Liechtenstein, who will die and leave their country, castle and ridiculous wealth to you, because somehow they like you more than any other distant family member (maybe they are a fan of your blog).

7. Blogs give you a platform to talk about anything you want, but some things you don’t need to talk about. Seriously who wants to read about when you are feeling sick, worrying about getting old and the fact you like to eat weird shit?

8. Starting a blog is a bit like buying a pony on a whim. You think blogging will be a fun diversion from stresses and strains of everyday living but before you know it you are devoting more time and energy than you have to spare to this thing you have created and find yourself regularly questioning whether you shouldn’t have thought the whole idea through before just jumping in.

9. It’s easy to blog, so easy that there are millions of us doing this. So many in fact (of the probable-but-in-no-way-substantiated-by-actual-evidence kind of fact), that if you asked every blogger to hold hands there’d be enough of you to circle the globe 300 times over.

10. There is so much blogging advice out there (you shouldn’t write lists, lists are popular, you should only write posts of less than 300 words, if your blog isn’t at least 2000 words no-one will read it, you should post at least every day, you shouldn’t post more than twice a week, etc. and contradictory etc.) that if you try to follow all this you will develop mental health problems.

The food shaming incident

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Kids can be mean, we all know this and have probably all both been a) the subject of a kid’s meanness and b) one of the kids being mean at some point in our lives.

Let me tell you the sad tale of the day I was subject to the meanness of other kids and shamed for asking for a hula-hoop. For those of you that aren’t British or are otherwise unfamiliar with the snack, hula-hoops are a kind of crisp, they are little potato rings you can fit on your fingers, so both fun and edible!

First things first, you need to understand that I have always liked my food. I’ve also never been a fussy eater and like to try most things, there is perhaps a handful of foods I don’t really like but even those I can eat if the occasion calls for it and it would be rude to decline (if you are wondering these include: fruit cake, normal trifle, marzipan and horseradish).

I come from a family that likes food and would rush to eat our dinners first in the hopes of being first in line for second helpings of whatever was on offer. Trying to distract family members at dinner-time so that you could steal what was on their plates was quite routine. But woe and behold if you got caught stealing someone else’s grub!

Once when I came home late after some activity my parents were out, but my brothers were there to ‘look after’ me. As I sat down to eat my reheated dinner my brothers sat either side of me and the eldest would sneakily take a piece of pasta from one side and as I turned to him in a rage my middle-older brother took a piece from the other side. Doubly mad at the middle-older brother, for joining in the food theft game and for copying the eldest brother in doing so, I stuck a fork in his head. Don’t worry I didn’t commit fratricide at an early age, I didn’t even draw blood, I did teach both of my brothers a valuable lesson and neither has stolen food from me since, or at least not that I know of.

Please don’t take this as an indictment of my parents, we weren’t squabbling over food because there wasn’t enough to go round, or we only got fed once a week and were left to fend for ourselves from scraps elsewhere for the other 6 days of the week. We were just a family who liked to eat.

As I do with almost everything, I tend to assume that everyone else is just like me until confronted with evidence to the contrary. Therefore I assumed it was perfectly normal to show a healthy love of all things edible and to try to get as much as possible.

Capture d’écran 2015-04-09 à 15.02.33The Hula-hoop incident must have happened when I was about nine or ten. This was before, or perhaps the start of when, I became conscious of body image, a desire to look like girls in SmashHits! Magazine and a realization that being yourself can at times be dangerous.

We were eating lunch indoors and I went to the bathroom, when I returned one of the girls, let’s call her Tanya although that’s not her name, opened up a bag of salt and vinegar hula-hoops and one of the other girls around the able asked if they could have one, quickly followed by another girl and then another. When everyone else had asked for a hula-hoop I naïvely asked if I, too, could have a hula hoop? At which point all the other girls, I think there were eight of us around the table, burst out laughing!

It turned out people, or Tanya at any rate, had noticed that I had a habit of asking to try other people’s crisps and they thought it would be amusing to lure me into a false sense of security by following their lead in asking for a crisp, before cruelly pushing me into their devil pit of mockery!

There’s really nothing worse than having other people point out to you habits that you had, up until that point, been blissfully unaware of, but are now unable to forget. Since that day I never ask anyone, with very few exceptions, if I can try their food. If people voluntarily offer me their food I go into automatic child survival mode, sense a trap, and will usually decline at least once or wait to see how others respond before I judge whether or not I can indulge myself without fear of ridicule.

Probably none of those girls remember their lunchtime prank. It wasn’t exactly the worst thing kids have ever done, and undoubtedly I’ve indulged in worse to others, and they probably weren’t aware of the effect it had on me. But that was the first time I felt shamed for my eating habits and became conscious that certain behaviours, i.e. showing an appreciation of food, were not okay. Worst of all though I never even got to eat that bloody Hula Hoop!

Ten reasons I’m glad I’m not a zombie

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(…even if I sometimes feel like one)

This is an Easter inspired post, no really, you know, the whole rising from the dead thing that Jesus had mastered, as reinterpreted through popular media into the whole living dead franchise! (Definitely less tenuous a link than comparing the eclipse and Bonnie Tyler)

1. It’s possible Zombies aren’t a real thing, and that if I were dead that would actually be it.

2. I’m not convinced that human flesh and braaiiinnnsss in particular are all that tasty. It seems sad to lose my carefully developed appreciation of fine culinary experiences like melted cheese and potatoes (here’s to you Swiss cuisine), fiancé-made ginger Mojitos and best of all warm salty popcorn and Galaxy Minstrels combined (do not knock it until you’ve tried it)!

3. It sounds pretty frustrating, we all know Zombies tend to lose much in the way of brain function when they come back to life. Some might say that’s a fair trade off, chance to live again versus decreased intelligence, and there’s definitely truth to the old saying ‘ignorance is bliss’. However, it’s got to be a bit annoying that when there is a nice tasty human hiding in a nearby room, you can’t get at them by just simply using the handle to open the door but instead are forced to smash a window and potentially hurt yourself just for a bite.

4. It seems a shame that rather than loved ones being all excited to see me again after my untimely demise, they instead rush to bash my head in with old records, cricket bats and tubes of metal piping (where do people find those anyway?).

5. If you were one of the first Zombies it’d be cool and novel and trendsetting but then as everyone starts copying you, you’d move from minority to majority and then be less unique and special and no-one would know whether you were one of the originals or a copycat and would continue to try to destroy your brains without giving you any credit for originality.

6. Communication will be so much more difficult when your vocabulary is limited to a range of moans and groans. Future blog posts would be limited to things like ‘grooaann GRRooaaaaaannnnnnn, groan, groANnnn’ and that’d probably be a bit tedious and lose me readers.

7. Personal hygiene really goes out the window. I’ll admit I like the odd day where I don’t have a shower and might bum around in PJs for an entire day every now and then but I really don’t want the whole rotten flesh stench following me around all the time. I’m not sure that even Febreeze could hide that.

8. It sounds quite exhausting, constantly on the move searching for food, having to tear open people to get at their yummy intestines. You never see Zombies sleeping or going out to a nice restaurant where people just bring the food to you, do you?

9. You are constantly being judged negatively. With very few exceptions (not discounting Nicholas Hoult winner ‘Warm Bodies’) zombies are generally cast as the bad guy and no-one living is prepared to give them the time of day (except psychopathic children in The Walking Dead but they aren’t the best endorsers).

10. I’m afraid I might try to eat my cats, which would make me feel bad. Eating the fiancé and other friends and family would be quite bad but trying to munch on the four-legged fluff monsters would be a travesty!

For more Zombie related blogging you can check out my post ‘The zombie wedding I wasn’t allowed to have‘, if you want to.

Ten reasons it’s easy to be a recluse in the modern era

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1. Virtual social life obscures lack of actual social life

You can pretend to have an active social life, be fully engaged in the latest details of the lives of hundreds of contacts just by posting the odd status update on Facebook or wherever and clicking a few random ‘likes’ here and there. There is no need to actually engage with anyone. Should anyone intrude on your personal space by making a comment on one of these updates you can just click ‘like’ until they go away again. I call this the virtual unreality.

2. If you can’t be a part of everything you might as well not exist

There are so many social media platform that if, say, you only really use Facebook and created a Twitter account for the sole purpose of thinking it’d somehow make your blog cooler there are so many other online arenas you are completely failing to engage with. When it comes to Tumblr and Pinterest and other things you don’t even know the name of you might as well be living in a cave.

3. Fisticuffs over Facebook will lead to societal meltdown, or at least intractable family divisions

I envisage that future wars will not be drawn up over boundary or ideological disputes but over those pro- and those anti-Facebook. Seriously, I’ve had some pretty heated exchanges with my brother about why he bothers with sending words via Twitter and images via Instagram when he could just combine the two in Facebook, he argues that FB knows more about me than my fiancé. One of these days it’ll come to fisticuffs at dawn.

4. Your social life depends on your smartphone battery, so its doomed

If you have an all-out power failure or maybe just misplace your phone charger your access to a social life will die in the amount of time that’s left in your smartphone battery. So that’ll be about two hours then.

5. It’s now so much easier to flake on people

It’s easy to ‘forget’ to actually meet people. Remember a life before smart technology when you used to meet people by making plans on Monday that you’d meet on Saturday at the waterfall in the shopping centre at 11, and somehow that actually worked? Now if you don’t confirm and reconfirm plans at least twenty times you have a legitimate excuse to just not show up by saying ‘I’m sorry, you didn’t facebook message me two seconds before I was going to leave the house so I assumed you weren’t coming’.

6. You can be a hermit without anyone noticing

You no longer need to leave your house. Ever. You can work remotely. You can order clothes and food online to be delivered to your door. You can attend online networking events. You can study online. You can meet new people online. You can even Skype friends and family if you really feel the need to look at someone in real time. Once you’ve mastered hurling your bin bags at the bin collection spot there’s no need for you to actually set foot outside ever again.

7. Too much homework to hold an actual conversation in the pub.

There is so much information online, Wikipedia articles, YouTube videos, virals of an elephant riding a horse balanced on the helmet of a man on a skateboard that if you try to go out in public without knowing what’s #trending you will be shamed into looking like a moron and lose any real friends you thought you had.

8. Cybertourism removes the need to actually go anywhere

Ever wanted to see the Pyramids, the heads of Easter Island or just the British Museum? Once upon a time you had to work bloody hard, save up loads of money and then you could go on an awesome trip none of your friends had done and enjoy bragging about it when you got home. Now everyone has already been everywhere that you can see what these places are like through friends pictures online or using GoogleEarth spyware, getting a drone or just doing one of the online tours tourists attractions are offering. Why get out of bed and risk encounters with the stinking masses when you can feel like you’ve had a productive day by having a quick online tootle around Parliament in your pyjamas whilst eating Marmite toast in bed. No-one can see you to judge the butter in your hair and crumbs on your face.

9. Reading the Daily Mail Online increases fear of the outside

Certain highly reputable yet overwhelmingly popular sites, in the UK it’s the Daily Mail online, I imagine in the US Fox news has some sort of online equivalent, would have you believe that the world is a terrifying place full of disease ridden immigrants, violent immigrants, insane immigrants, volcanic eruption-causing immigrants, traffic-inducing immigrants, financial-crisis-inducing immigrants and just bastard-stealing-candy-from-a-baby immigrants who make the world such a terrible place you might as well stay indoors.

10. Being a recluse is really what everyone wants

Technology has been designed to help people lead easier lives (and also to make us think we need expensive things to lead meaningful lives). Cave men lived in caves, which was great but in the age before technology it was realised it was actually easier to live together in commune to get more stuff done in an ‘I’ll milk your cow you give me a turnip’ sort of mentality. Nowadays we don’t need other people for comfortable lives but we still cling on to this concept so all this great technology helps us to transition away from old fashioned ideas of friendship, family and community and to progress towards single unit living, like the single-cell amoeba we all came from.

Ten Reasons ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ was better than the actual eclipse

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In case you were in any doubt I am comparing Bonnie Tyler’s song to the recent astronomical phenomenon in Europe, which was, at least in Geneva, massively disappointing where cloud cover obscured anything that might have been vaguely interesting.

1.Durability.  The single was released in 1983 and it’s still widely known today 30+ years later, whereas the eclipse only lasted a few minutes.

2. A Solar eclipse blocks out the sun’s heat and light, on the contrary Bonnie’s song brings warmth and light into the hearts and lives of so many.

3. Bonnie’s song features the memorable, if somewhat bizarre, lyrics ‘turnaround bright eyes’, which implores bright eyes to turn around so she can look at the brightness, but you can’t look at the brightness of the eclipse without risking sight damage. Although judging by those in the music video their bright eyes might in fact result in or be the result of sight damage.

4. Bonnie is something that Welsh people can be proud of and unite around that is more impressive to non nationals than leeks and daffodils and less reputationally damaging than sheep. The eclipse doesn’t really belong to any one group to get all teary eyed and emotional about.

5. You don’t have to wait decades to listen to Bonnie Tyler, you can play that single whenever you want whereas the UK seems to be averaging an eclipse every 12-15 years (last one 1999, now 2015, next one 2026). Please note I take no responsibility for any legal action that might ensue if this blog post inspires you to play the song on repeat at 3am and your neighbours decide to sue.

6. ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ has sold over 9 million copies, which probably amounts to more money than people selling eclipse glasses made.

7. The single probably inspired loads of girls, and boys too (no gender sterostyping here thank you very much), to pursue dreams of singing their little hearts out. If the eclipse inspired anyone it’s to eat so much they become rotund enough to create eclipses for people on a daily basis by eclipsing their view at the bus stop or wherever. This is probably a less healthy aspiration than wanting to be a famous singer.

8. According to Wikipedia, ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ was meant to be a Vampire love song and everyone knows that vampires are cool (literally, because of the whole dead thing, and figuratively, because I’m old enough that I still think cool is a cool word to use). So the song is Vampire friendly, which is non judgmental and inclusive. But the eclipse wasn’t vampire friendly because it wasn’t a total eclipse so it’s not like vampires could even come out and have a look at it if they’d wanted to (unless we are talking sparkly Twilight vampires, but we aren’t because that’s just silly).

9. You can bond with friends by loudly shrieking the song lyrics at one another, you can’t bond with friends as a result of the eclipse because either the eclipse wasn’t rubbish but you couldn’t see them or it was such a non-event you weren’t sure it was really happening and there was no moment to inspire communal karaoke.

10. And finally, my absolute trump card which is worth all the preceding nine reasons put together, and really the only reason I started this ridiculous list, is that Total Eclipse of the Heart wins hands done because it’s whimsical music video inspired the truly fantastic literal version of the video. If you haven’t seen it already check it out and prepare to snort out your tea with amusement.

 

Would you go to Mars?

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I’m not sure how this related to Philip Roth’s American Pastoral, but at the latest Geneva Book Club meet somehow the mission to mars came up and was quickly dismissed as nothing more than crazy fantasy for unstable persons.

If you are unfamiliar with the mars mission in summary the idea is that a self-sustaining human colony will be established on Mars. From 2024, missions of four people at a time would head out to the planet every couple of year for a one-way trip. Thousands volunteered for the mission.

Internet connectivity should be available so colonists can keep up with friends and family and so that some big brother-esque entertainment show could be broadcast to those at home (‘this week vote for your least favourite missioneer to get sucked into the universal abyss…’).

At the post-book-club drinks we returned to the subject and the general consensus was that firstly, it was never going to happen  and secondly, even if it were actually possible, you’d have to be insane to volunteer. Clearly I fell into the insane category.  

My fellow book-clubbers already suspect I am a little odd. When asked as an ice-breaker question ‘what we’d most like to be remembered for after we die?’ some replied loyalty, sense of humour, writing a great piece of fiction, etc.. My answer? ‘I want to be remembered for saving the universe.’ Not even just the earth but the entire universe. I added that this was what I’d wish for the future, not something I actually thought I’d already achieved in case their nervous laughter was a distraction technique whilst someone snuck out to call the men in white coats to come and take me away.

You could say I have delusions of grandeur, I prefer to think of myself as just being very ambitious.

I’m not saying I would volunteer for the Mars mission but I wouldn’t absolutely rule it out either. I don’t deny that leaving friends and family behind never to be seen again would be a massively difficult undertaking even if you knew that you could still stay in virtual contact. The hardest part of being in Switzerland is not being able to regularly see loved ones in the flesh and that’s just an hour’s plane ride from the UK. Even with super rocket technology I’m pretty sure it’d be more than an hour’s ride away from Mars and in any case there wouldn’t be the possibility of going back. Ever.

But throughout human history examples can be found of people leaving everyone behind for a new journey from which they never expect to return. I doubt those on the Mayflower setting sail from the UK to the newly discovered America at the start of the seventeenth century ever expected to return to those left behind. The thousands of individuals every year who give up everything and leave everyone behind to undertake the dangerous journey to try and enter the US or Europe illegally might harbour some slim hope that their families can one day join them but probably know the chances of that happening are pretty unlikely.

So there is a human precedent for leaving people behind but the challenges wouldn’t end with those final farewells. The danger of getting there and trying to survive would probably be an hourly toil. So much could and probably would go wrong it’d be like a never-ending sequel to Gravity with nail-biting tension, just waiting for one disaster from the next to strike. As much as they are trying to prepare for all eventualities the planet is such a mystery that they can’t even know what the eventualities could be? Oxygen and food supplied running out are at the obvious end of the spectrum, monster mars sea storms chewing you up and spitting you out into a black hole like an expert pool hustler could be at the other.

martian poolBut, even so, the idea of going to Mars is absolutely amazing and maybe amazing enough to outweigh the negatives. To be the first colonists on another planet is just the tip of the Doctor Who imagined future I’d kind of like to be a part of.

That sense of discovery that must have sent shivers up the spines of those watching the first moon landing in 1969 multiplied into a scale as incomprehensible as the very idea of living on a different plant is really kind of awesome. It appeals to that sense of childish adventure I never really grew out of and whilst I no longer race to climb as high as possible up the nearest tree, that fear of falling has got in the way there, I am still drawn to that hidden entranceway or obscured cave or clearing or whatever presents the opportunity for secret discoveries.

Undoubtedly I’m also influenced by my love of Doctor Who and classic Sci-Fi my dad subjected me to including Blake 7 and old school Star Trek, which makes it probably a bit easier for me to imagine life on another planet than someone more grounded in reality.

On a good day I tend to think I’m both the centre of the universe and an insignificant speck in the history of time so perhaps the idea of literally being swallowed up into the unknowable fathoms of the universe but whilst leaving Earth as a hero etched, at the very least, into the genealogical tale-telling of future distant relatives (if not remembered by all humanity) does pander to my sense of (in)significance.

If I were to go I would fully expect my fiancé to come with me. I mean he came to Switzerland so it’s only right I should expect him to come with me to Mars as well, right?

What do you think? Am I a complete nutter who needs to be locked away for the sake of humanity and/or my long-suffering partner, or would you too be tempted to go to Mars if the opportunity presented itself?

Ten Reasons to Just Keep Going

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(when you’d rather curl up in a ball and sleep until it all goes away again)

1. Sadly hibernation isn’t an option. Unless you are a bear. If you are a bear, then firstly kudos on your unacknowledged reading skill and secondly, I suggest you find yourself a nice cosy cave and sit this one out.

2. You cling on to a blind, and in no way scientifically substantiated view, that everything will be alright at the end of the month/once you have won the lottery/after you’ve reached retirement/etc.

3. It’s easier than stopping to acknowledge you have no time to stop and shouldn’t have wasted precious moments stopping to think about this.

4. Consequences of stopping might prove detrimental to career, health and relationships. Some might argue not stopping might prove detrimental to the very same things but I haven’t time to stop and think about that.

5. The vague memory of when you didn’t have to make yourself keep going motivates you to keep going until you reach a point where you don’t have to again. Crystal clear? Peachy!

6. Everyone around you is also keeping going. If you stop to ask them why and then they stop to think about this and stop someone else to ask them why, you could effectively cause the entire universe to grind to a halt and then where would we be?

7. You secretly suspect that hints of whinging about not having enough time is something that people who have enough time to whinge about do and that those who really don’t have enough time just get on with it. So unless you want people to think you are simply a pretend busy person it’s best not to say anything.

8. You can use this as an excuse to reward yourself frequently. For example ‘just keep going for another X hours/until so many words have been written/everyone else has gone home’ and then as a treat you can watch another episode of a trashy tv show/have a cat-napping break (cats optional)/make brownies (and then use next just keep going until X break to eat brownies). Whatever floats your boat.

9. You can’t go back, standing still gets tedious so might as well keep going.

10. You hope if you use the phrase often enough and repeat constantly as a mantra to yourself the slogan will either be adopted by a major brand for which you will be paid millions or people will think you are crazy and no-one will ever sit next to you on the bus again. It’s a win-win situation.

just keep going - bp image

Fiction: Beware of politicians bearing gifts

Standard
I wrote the following for a short story competition but figured I can put whatever I like on my blog so am apparently now including a bit of fiction along with everything else.

Skinny and squinty - bp image‘New jPhone X2 for UK Partiality Party Voters!’ read the Underground ad, accompanied by some illegible small print.

“What do you reckon?” asked a skinny young women, hair scraped back to show off earrings with the word ‘freedom’ scrawled within large gold-coloured hoops.

The curly haired girl in the orange jumpsuit squinted at the poster and replied “if it’s in writing it must be legit, right? Otherwise we could sue or something.”

*

newsman - bp image‘I can confirm that the United Kingdom Partiality Party are the new government after a landslide victory. They really found a new way to connect with the voters but what isn’t clear is what policies the new government will look to implement …’

‘Turn it off, will you?” huffed the scraggly haired man, reclining in the easy chair with the tattered blue throw. “I can’t believe that whim of a party got elected, what do they even stand for anyway?”

“Well, if they were so bad you should have voted for one of the other lot,” chirped the smartly suited woman, still looking fresh after a day of helping the common man. She added, “anyway they were chosen by the people and can’t be any worse than what we’ve currently got.”

Scraggly glared but Suit was too distracted trying to fit the SIM into her new phone to notice.

*

Skinny squinty talk - bp image“Haven’t seen any of our usual dealers by the chicken shop for a while. Mind you haven’t seen the owners of the chicken shop either. Did they get shipped out under the Alien Liberation Act or whatever it was that flashed up on my phone?” wondered Squinty.

“Nah, ‘chicken-2-go’ is like a national institution, probably just on holiday or something.” replied Skinny.

“Can’t you call someone to sort us out tonight?” said Squinty, “my phone’s not working.”

Skinny shrugged “nah, I’ve got a connection problem.”

*

skinny jail - bp image“You can’t just shut me up in here! I’ve got rights,” wailed Skinny as the Surly officer shut the door behind her.

Surly sneered, “don’t know about your rights but I let you keep your nice jX2 didn’t I?”

“But,” she sniffed, “it doesn’t even work anymore – only lets me call through to the UKPP guidance line or access their home page!”

*

skint suit jail - bp imageIn a crumpled suit, the overworked lawyer looked nervously behind her as the door locked into place.

Skinny demanded to know when she’d go free.

“Look,” Suit tried to explain, “when you accepted the phone you signed a contract and that’s legally binding. Without the EU or UN anymore, I can’t do anything. You’ve been classed ‘undesirable’ and under the National Re-Ordering Act section 1, paragraph 29.3(a) the government has a right to keep you indefinitely.”

“Indefiwhat!” exploded Skinny, “you’re useless! I want another lawyer! Give me your phone, I’m calling Citizen’s Advice.”

Suit rubbed her temples wearily with the hand supporting her head. “You can’t. Citizen’s Advice was abolished under the NGO Compliance Act,” she sighed, “and anyway, I’ve been having problems with my phone recently.”