This is a story about having too much of a good thing...

Pills, pills, pills. A pill for every ill. We have so much faith in modern medicine at the moment, that we have medicalised boredom, depression, stress, when clearly these are as much a product of our environment, as they are a sign of anything pathological.

The very process of going to your doctor and getting sent away with some unnecessary pills, is well known to have a placebo effect. With the Internet and the possibility of self-diagnosis, we have turned into a society of hypochondriacs, who attribute every tiny discomfort to symptoms that require medical attention.

We have now overprescribed to the point that we have super-resistant strains of bacteria that can't be killed even with our last-line-of-defence antibiotics. Going running to your doctor because you've got a cough or a cold, and being fobbed off with magic beans that you believe can cure your viral infection, is just downright stupid, and now it's biting our arse.

It's the same thing with antidepressants. Because over 60% of us hate our boring stupid stressful crap jobs, we've been dishing our psychiatric medications like they're sweets. Over 60 million antidepressant prescriptions got written last year in the UK. That's enough for every man, woman and child in the whole country.

The number of people taking antidepressant medication for their clinical depression has doubled in a decade. There is a mental health epidemic that is driving so many other antisocial trends: alcoholism, drug abuse, isolation and loneliness, insecurity and anxiety, loss of productivity, loss of motivation, loss of drive to exercise and socialise.

What are you going to do if you work some dreadful zero hours contract for rock bottom wages and can barely make ends meet? What are you going to do if there's no hope of you getting on the housing ladder, or escaping from the financial situation you find yourself trapped in?

Of course people are going to turn to drink & drugs, to try to numb themselves from the painful monotony of working as hard as you can but never getting ahead. There is no light at the end of the tunnel for so many people. You just work, and then you die. None of your dreams will ever come to fruition. None of your hopes will ever be realised.

There's a disrespect for addicts and alcoholics, like they're taking the easy way out. Because there is supposed to be instant gratification in a pill, powder or liquid that contains psychoactive substances - uppers & downers - then it doesn't seem as worthy as those who physically toil for their fix of endorphins. However, how many 'legitimate' routes to happiness are there in the world, really?

There used to be a formula: get married, buy a house, have some kids, die. The first 3 you can't really do anymore, without cash handouts from the bank of Mum & Dad and/or the state. Who can really afford the lavish wedding that society expects us to have? Who can afford the deposit on some crappy tiny little flat, and afford the mortgage repayments, when you earn barely enough to survive? Who can afford childcare and all the other associated costs of childrearing, when you already don't have any disposable income?

All the hard work, industriousness, austerity, careful financial planning, saving, budgeting and diligent application of yourself to furthering your career, is likely to result in what? Maybe a few percentage points of a pay rise, if you're really lucky. Are you going to get promoted? Are you fuck. They're going to promote somebody incompetent and lazy, because they're older and they've been with the company for longer. Merit and hard work will get you nowhere.

So, pretty soon, you're going to get tired & depressed about it all. You tried hard at school. You turned up for your exams and gave it your best shot. You stressed yourself out and went to those interviews and got that job, and you worked your hardest, day after day, even though you could sense it was all utter bullshit by now. And for what? Where are you? What have you achieved? What are you ever going to achieve?

The enormity of it all hits you: you were sold a lie. You can't be anything you want to be. You're not special. You're not unique. You're not different. We're all just so much meat in the mincer. Turn the handle and out comes yet another drone just like you; prepared to do the shittest, most mind-numbingly boring and pointless work imaginable, for a salary that doesn't even buy you the basic essentials in life.

Why wouldn't you go running to the doctor, and ask them to dope you up to the eyeballs, so you don't have to live with the crushing realisation of the pointlessness of it all anymore? Why wouldn't you need happy pills, when you realise that the only way you're ever going to get the things that you were promised that hard work would bring, is by being given a council house or a cash lump sum from your parents. The only way you're going to ever be self sufficient is if Mum & Dad or the state top up your income... like you're some sort of fucking charity case... going around with your begging bowl.

How undignified. What an affront to human dignity it all is. Our parents and grandparents proudly tell us that they're "self made". They make loud proclamations that "nobody ever gave me a handout. I worked hard and I earned my keep". How shameful it is that we're twice as smart and work twice as hard, but we have nothing to show for it, except for a sneering generation telling us that exams are getting easier and that we're lazy and stupid.

Crippling debt and the crippling shame of not being able to live independently, not being able to be self sufficient and feel like we too are earning our money and contributing to the growth and wealth of the nation. It's all so crippling, so debilitating. Of course we need to turn to medications, drink and drugs.

You think it's about having a good time? Happy pills, and lashings of beer & wine? You think people wouldn't rather be happy by natural means, because they're fulfilled by normal things in their life: walking the dog, kissing their kids goodnight and paying the mortgage on their own home?

Antidepressants are a sticking plaster over a gaping wound. We have attempted to cover up the steady decline in the standard of living of young people, and mask the problem using happy pills, but the soaring suicide rates are just the tip of the iceberg.

Unless we face up to the reality that those who are suffering from many mental illnesses are the canary in the coal mine, we will reach a crisis point where most of the population are unable or unwilling to continue to maintain the status quo.

The mental health epidemic is the true breaking point, not immigration.

Tags: #mentalhealth #suicide #depression #politics #capitalism

This is a story about the debt spiral...

When the burden of debt in society is too great, and lenders are unwilling to forgive - to take a debt haircut or even write off debts - then there will be popular uprisings.

It's not that people don't want to repay their debts. In fact, most people accept that debt is a necessary evil in order to get the things they need when they need them, rather than towards the end of their life, in senile old age and infirmity.

And so, we become burdened with a mortgage, in order to give our family a stable roof over their heads. We become burdened with a car on hire purchase, so that we have a reliable and safe modern vehicle to be able to take the kids to school, and to get us to work without breaking down. We put our holidays and special occasions on credit cards, and pay back the debt when we get back, or after the festivities are over.

Most people diligently repay their debts.

In free-market economics, prices are able to fluctuate to find the point where affordability meets maximum profit. Do you think the cost price to the producer or supplier of the goods and services that you purchase, bears any relation to the retail price that you pay? Of course not. That's why a designer brand T-shirt costs at least 10 times as much as an unbranded garment, even though they come from the same sweatshop in the developing world.

In our consumer society, you are 'free' to select the goods and services that you want. However, in order to fit in with your buddies who are in a similar socioeconomic group to you, you will select the brands that they do. If you're rich, you'll do your supermarket shopping at Waitrose. If you're poor, you'll do your shopping at Asda/Walmart. However, the food you buy will have similar calorific content.

The brands become better and better at pricing their products so that you are just about able to buy everything you need, but won't have much spare cash left over. The brands know the income bracket that they're targeting, so they know the level where their consumers will become price insensitive. I literally don't care whether my coffee costs £2 or £4. If my coffee cost £5, then I'd think "blimey! that was expensive, I'm not going to go there again" but the £2 coffee shop could literally increase their prices 100% and I wouldn't even notice.

Once everybody has maxed out their budget, on the mortgage, the car finance, the credit cards, the overdraft, the store cards and some personal loans, where do you really go from there?

We demand that our corporations make increasing profits, but yet in order to do so they must hold down wage inflation and the cost of raw materials. We demand that our economy grows, but in order to do so, people must use increasing amounts of their limited pot of disposable income to drive consumption. What happens when everybody is just maxed out?

We're living in the age of low growth, high borrowing and low wage inflation. In order to sustain corporate profits, the cost of goods & services continues to increase. In order to prop up the capital growth of the pension funds, asset prices - such as house prices - have continued to be overvalued. However, the only way that the general population have been able to maintain their standard of living is through borrowing.

Ordinary people have not been profligate and stupid. People were promised pay rises and promotions, and instead they've been given job insecurity and wage cuts in real terms. If your wage increases just a few percent, but the cost of your housing, bills, food and transportation all increase in double-digit terms, then you're actually getting poorer.

If the headline rate of inflation - which is pretty much just concerned with wages - is low, then the value of your loans & mortgages is not getting inflated away. The baby boomers might complain about interest rates reaching over 15% in the late 1970s, but they forget that their wages were also increasing too. By the time the 1980s came around, people's mortgages were a tiny fraction of what they were earning.

What we see today is people's cost of living skyrocketing, but their wages are the same, which means they're earning less and less in real terms. If your wages stay the same, and your cost of living is increasing, that means you have less and less money to service your debts. So, you tighten your belt and cut back on your consumer spending, which in turn hurts an economy that is so dependent on spend, spend, spend!

What we see today is far worse than the Japanese stagflation that meant that the price of goods and services was getting cheaper, which encouraged people to become thrifty because they could buy things more cheaply if they waited. Instead, what we are seeing is people who have been promised growth, completely screwed over by a system that robs them of their wealth with no opportunity to do anything about it.

In a zero growth world, debts need to be forgiven or else ordinary people will become so unhappy that they will overthrow their idle creditors.

Tags: #banking #capitalism #politics

This is a story about natural remedies...

Sweat, tears and the sea: salt water is the cure for many of life's ailments, especially an aching of the soul. Sports that are powered by nature - gravity, waves or the wind - are often called freeride. The feeling of freedom is important for every human. We can't live entirely in the concrete jungle.

I've been talking about getting back into kitesurfing for 3 years now, but it's not been a symptom of my poor mental health that I haven't. In actual fact, I needed incredibly favourable conditions to get back in the game.

With 8 year old kites, no car, no wetsuit and an incredibly stressful home and work life, there was little chance that I was going to find the time & money to think about leisure pursuits, let alone the effort involved in re-equipping myself.

The fact that I'm hoping to ride the ocean waves once again, tomorrow, is symptomatic of an improved situation... hope. I'm not looking for kitesurfing to cure my ills, but the fact that I'm going to be doing it again shows that things have substantially improved in my life.

I still need to dig through my stuff to find my harness, pump, board, fins. I still need to pack my bag and drag my gear across London, to a friend's house, who has a car and has kindly offered to chauffeur me to the coast.

However, I am now buoyant with anticipation. I have elevated energy levels and enthusiasm. I will have no problem springing out of bed early tomorrow, in order to get to the beach. I know that I will be inflating my kite and setting my gear up with every bit of speed and determination that I ever used to put into the preparation for getting out onto the water.

I've had a hellishly boring week, which has been surprisingly stressful. The boredom has been punctuated with being given a hard time by both my boss, and my end-client. The rest of the week, I've just been trying to look busy, killing time. I've struggled to make it to work on time. I've considered phoning in sick. I've considered quitting and running away. I've felt suicidally desperate at times.

Now, tonight, I want to live. I want to stay alive so I can go kitesurfing tomorrow. I have my patio doors open and a steady breeze is blowing through my lounge. I know that the South-Westerly wind that's forecast for tomorrow is likely to be reliable. I know what the tide times are. I know which beach I'm going to, where we should park, where I'm going to set my kite up, where I'm going to launch. I'm visualising every step in anticipation, so I'm prepared and not a moment is lost.

It might be as much as 4 years since I kitesurfed here in the UK, but there's something very special about our murky choppy water, with its dangerous tides, overcrowded beaches and built-up foreshore.

So, tomorrow's not going to be some sun-kissed white sand beach in an exotic location, with warm water and a fresh coconut waiting for me when I've finished kitesurfing. However, I'm almost more excited about it. Sure, it's the weekend, here in the UK when the whole of London seems to head for the coast, and I'm sure every kook will be barrage-ballooning the popular kite spots. Just so long as I get a little taste of salt water again though, I'll be happy.

This is a watershed moment, for me.

Tags: #kitesurfing

This is a story about getting rich quick...

Don't get high on your own supply, they say. It's good advice, because weed seems to dull the wits of my friends, and to curb their enthusiasm for anything more than the getting of more weed, and the consumption of shit food and crap TV.

When I meet young people who feel like they're part of a counter-culture revolution, because they smoke a bit of marijuana, I think how easily they have been duped. How foolish you are, to think that you're fighting the establishment, through your choice of intoxicant.

Governments and the police are mightily pleased to have a stoned population, who are too doped up to be bothered to get off their arses and do anything about social issues, or involve themselves in politics. Chuckling at low-brow humour that is designed to appeal to the stoner brain, is never going to change the world.

The energy and passion of youth has been quashed by the dreaded weed. You're not cool or "fighting the power" by smoking dope. You're actually playing into the hands of the establishment. The cannabis leaf - that ubiquitous emblem - sells tons of merchandise. Camden Market is London's second most popular tourist attraction, and it's mostly because of drug culture.

But what hopes have young people got? They're never going to be able to afford a house, pay for a wedding and be able to support a family, without topping up their income somehow. For those kids with wealthy parents, they might be able to go with their begging bowl to Mum & Dad, but it's hardly the independent self-sufficient life that we should all be entitled to live, is it?

You bust your balls all through school, get some grades, and now what? You can get a massive student loan that will only cover your tuition fees, and you still have to figure out how to pay for accommodation, food & books for your 3 years of undergraduate studies.

Maybe you can save up money before you go to University, but under-18s will be paid £3.87 per hour. Do you think a 17 year old is less capable of stacking a supermarket's shelves than a 64 year old? Why on earth should a young person be paid just 54% of what an old person earns, for doing the same job?

While you're at University, you'll be paid slightly more for your bar work, waitressing or whatever part-time job you can get. You'll get a whopping £5.30. That's still 26% less than somebody with arthritic joints and early-onset dementia. Who would you want working behind a bar? The young attractive, energetic student, or the miserable old codger who shuffles around?

So, what do the most enterprising individuals do, to cope with the crippling debt burden that they face, with little hope of elevating themselves from a position of poverty? Well, some of them will sell their bodies, and sell drugs.

If you deny people a legal route to pay for a quality of life that they're entitled to, they will turn to a life of 'crime'.

The two bestselling commodities, in the history of humanity, are sex & drugs. Ugly people need to fuck, and people want to get high and forget about their shitty lives. The drive to get intoxicated is not even a uniquely human thing. There are plenty of examples from the animal kingdom of non-human species that get off their faces, using various substances.

You might think that demanding plenty of interest on your life savings and wanting a nice fat pension, is OK, because you're entitled to a cushy retirement. However, your young, beautiful and fresh faced daughter or grand-daughter might have few options to live independently, other than being a stripper, escort or 'flatmate with benefits'.

If you browse the London property adverts, you will see a shocking number of offers of free accommodation in return for sex. This is the society that has been created, by structuring everything around the pension funds, instead of investing in young people.

Can't get the job without the experience, can't get the experience without the job. That's the Catch 22 that entraps most young people into minimum wage jobs and living in shared rooms in atrocious quality housing in big cities. It's no fucking picnic being young at the moment, and weed is probably the only thing that allows people to forget the hopelessness of their situation.

A pint of beer in London is £5 or more. That means I can buy two pints for £10. For the same amount of money, I can buy a gram of super-strong skunk weed, and get dribblingly intoxicated for at least a day. Two pints would make me slightly tipsy, and because I'm well-off, I could then easily afford to have 3 or 4 more pints and get violent, abusive and urinate and vomit in the street. However, it's more economical - as a young person - to get stoned out of your mind and not do anything.

The girls who have sugar daddies, hustle for tips as waitresses and strippers or even sell their bodies - these aren't fallen angels, forced to prostitute themselves because they have a drug habit. Often times, the drug habit is a result of having to use what mother nature gave them, as a means to make money. These girls have a plan. They're smart. They've figured out that no amount of shelf stacking for a supermarket will allow them to ever escape poverty.

Our prettiest daughters and grand-daughters are living in luxury apartments in the city centre, taking taxis, eating in expensive restaurants and ordering cocktails at the bar... but how is that lifestyle funded? Every gorgeous pouting selfie you see on Facebook or Instagram... doesn't that say something about the sexualisation of an entire generation, through economic necessity, to you?

The boys will grow weed, or cut coke. The girls will strip or fuck. This is what we've wished for. The olds sit idle in their big empty houses, while their sons, daughters and grandchildren have no option but to pursue the most economically profitable path they can: drugs & prostitution.

I'm painting a bleak picture, but I don't think it's inaccurate.

"It's only a bit of harmless dope" right? Wrong. Can't you see that people's eyes are dulled. The fire has gone out of people's hearts when they're just sitting around stoned. Where is the energy and enthusiasm to change society for the better?

Tags: #drugs #addiction #society #politics #capitalism #sex #police

This is a story about bad news...

First and foremost, I'm a member of the human race, living on planet Earth. We all have the same needs: oxygen, food, water, warmth. The needs of our species are no different, depending on where you were born. We are virtually genetically identical, no matter what your passport says, and what colour your skin is.

Secondarily, I belong to the continent of Europe. I could probably swim across the English Channel to get to the mainland, and I'm certainly considering it in light of recent events. I don't know if you remember this, but we even built a tunnel under the sea, so that we could be connected with our nearest national neighbour.

What even is a nation anyway? What are these fake divisions that we create? What are these lines on maps?

Do you think I can tell Frankie - my kitten - that he needs to stay within some kind of imaginary zone, whenever I let him out into the garden? Do you think he'll understand that he's allowed to play with cats who were born on a certain patch of dirt, and not others? Do you think Frankie feels proud when he sees a Union Jack flag?

How do I explain recent political events to my cat?

Frankie was rather fond of the French and German cat treats, but now that we have to import them and the value of the pound has plummeted, he may have to settle for bland English cat snacks. How do I make him understand that somehow this is because a bunch of people voted to cut themselves off from our neighbouring nations? How do I deal with his sad eyes, when he sees that he's not getting his favourite food anymore? Do you think he's pleased that I'm "buying British" and feels proud when he sees the little Union Jack on the can or packet of food?

Also, people are starting to be mean to poor Frankie, because he's half black. Just because of the colour of his fur, people are shouting angry abuse at him. He doesn't know why. He poops on everybody's garden equally - he doesn't discriminate based on fur colour. In fact, he's kinda colour blind because he's a cat.

How am I supposed to console poor Frankie, when he comes home meowing with sadness, because he feels less welcome in his own home than he used to? It's not fair that he lives in a world of black & white, when he is neither pure black, or pure white... he straddles a border that has been invented by people who want to divide us all.

Shouldn't kittens everywhere be free to roam, as if there were no borders between one garden and the next? Isn't it better for a kitten to be able to play with whichever cats he wants to, without having to check their pet passport, and ask to see their family tree?

Where do we draw the line? I'm not even sure of Frankie's ancestry, because he's a cat, and we don't keep a record of the births, deaths and marriages of cats. For all I know, his parents were Pakistani stowaways and here in the country 'illegally'. He doesn't look like an alien, he looks like a cat, but perhaps he's not welcome, because of which particular bit of dirt he happened to be born on at any one time.

How do I explain to him, that because of his fur colour, people assume that he's not British, and he's therefore unwelcome in the place of his birth? How do I explain to him, that a bunch of people want to "send him home" when he's already home? Where the hell is his home, anyway? Where do you want to send him, you beastly idiots?

As the parent of a kitten, how am I supposed to explain any of this to such an innocent creature? He doesn't want to hurt anybody. He just wants to eat cat food, sleep in the sunshine and shit in your flower bed. He doesn't even want to hurt a mouse - he just likes playing with them and leaving them as little presents outside the back door.

Chucking Frankie out of 'your' country, because he's got a bit of black fur won't help you. Discriminating against my cat is not going to get you a job, it's not going to get you a council house, it's not going to reduce the queue at the doctors or reduce the class size at your school.

I have a cat because he improves my life. All those fluffy cuddle times. The relaxation I get from stroking his lovely soft fur. My life is better with a black & white cat in my life. I'm glad he's here.

Yes, sure, I'm scared about my job security, and whether any human children I might have will have everything their heart desires. But, I know that being mean to a bunch of innocent kittens isn't going to solve the problems in this country.

Cats enrich our lives, wherever they were born. Cats come over here, eat our food, take up space in our favourite seat, don't even work. But, I'm certainly grateful for what cats bring to my life. I'm happy to see their little whiskery faces, no matter what colour their fur is and where they were born.

Yes, OK, maybe it's not you who is being mean to cats, but your actions certainly legitimised the abuse of poor kittens. Because you sided with the bunch who want to discriminate against cats of a certain fur colour, you ended up supporting their cause. Because of your selfishness, cats like Frankie don't feel welcome in their own home, just because he's got some black fur.

You might think that you voted in the interests of your own kittens, but all kittens are equally fluffy, cute and loveable. Why do you think it's OK to be mean to my kitten, by trying to put the needs of your kitten ahead of the whole of the rest of kittendom?

All cats should be treated equally, and dividing them along lines that they can't even understand is barbaric. Cats can't read the nationality on their pet passport. Cats can't read maps and understand the concept of national borders. Cats can't sing national anthems or salute the flag. Cats are scared by the sound of guns. Cats aren't able to stupidly glorify war and killing.

Can't we all just celebrate the joy that cats bring to our lives?

Think of the kittens.

Look at the sadness in those eyes. Heartbreaking

Tags: #frankie

This is a story about respecting your elders...

Who's the responsible one round here? Who's got to carry the can, at the end of the day? Who's got to live with the consequences of bad decisions, and clean up other people's mess?

There isn't a class war going on. There's a generation war.

The baby boomers drove around in gas-guzzling cars, burnt dolphins to stay warm, dynamited the glaciers, blew up nuclear weapons under the polar ice caps, and generally whizzed around the globe spraying deadly chemicals on everything and saying "FUCK YOU GRANDCHILDREN, HA! HA! HA!".

I remember at school, when I was 10 or 11 years old, me and my friend Ben used to write long rhymes about saving the environment, and read them out at school events. We basically urged a modicum of control over the unmitigated climate disaster we saw all around us.

Growing up in the Thames Valley, huge numbers of my friends were asthmatic. Particulate emissions from internal combustion engines, gathered in the river valley, and in central Oxford the percentage of kids suffering from respiratory conditions was at the highest level in the country.

My friend Ben's parents had responsibly given up smoking for the health of their children, but mine would not listen to my pleas to stop wasting a significant proportion of the family income on something that was destructive to the health of us all. It was selfishness, plain and simple.

I still vividly remember one time when I begged my Dad to stop taking drugs. "Do you expect me to be a boring old fart?" he asked, incredulously. The tragic thing is, that I didn't need him to take drugs to look 'cool'. It was his own insecurity and pathetic attempt to impress young family members like my cousin Sue, that meant that he thought he was some kind of counter-culture hero, just because he took addictive drugs.

My Dad was adamant that I should not get to go to University, nor my sister, even though him and my Mum both enjoyed a free University eduction. My sister and I were both educated in state schools, even though my parents enjoyed the option of private/selective schooling.

My parents had substantial financial help from my grandparents to purchase their first home. No such help has been forthcoming from our parents, and indeed I bought my house without any financial support from my parents, as well as paying for my wedding & honeymoon out of my own pocket. My sister has - as a percentage of her income - possibly been even more financially independent than me.

As kids and adults, my sister and I have certainly been very economical, responsible, mature, in ways that my parents don't even come close to. We've paid our own way in life. We've grafted harder than my parents could possibly imagine.

And for what? So that my parents' generation can tell us that we're profligate, reckless with money, irresponsible, lazy? My parents' generation tell us we should save money for a rainy day, when the pensions that they draw bear no relation to the actual amount of money that they've saved up. The baby boomers are hoping to have hefty final salary pensions that far outstrip the amount of money they've paid into the schemes, to the point of causing a massive black hole in the nation's finances.

The upper-class Victorians used to say "children should be seen and not heard" but those children were reared by wet-nurses, nannies and au pairs, plus all the other servants. If you don't have servants to rear your children, you don't get to say such obnoxious things, because you're the only person in your child's life.

Infant mortality used to be very high, so ordinary Victorians cherished their children. Having a healthy child was a blessing, and something to be celebrated. There wasn't this strange culture of worshipping people with old-fashioned ideas, who sat idle for 30, 40 years, just criticising everything. Yes, we'd all like to retire and just sit around in our favourite chair reading shit newspapers and being mean to everybody, but the retirement age was always supposed to be just 1 year more than the average life expectancy.

Our economy is structured around the 'grey pound'. After the banks, the most powerful institutions in the country are the pension funds. These massive piles of money, managed by asset managers and institutional investors, for the benefit of their pension-drawing clients, decide everything about how this country is run. When we talk about things being run for the benefit of shareholders, those shareholders are mostly pension funds.

If anybody ever says to me "what have you given back to your parents?" or  "be grateful your parents gave you the gift of life" I'm going to struggle not to scream in their face with rage.

My whole life has been generating value for shareholders. Every penny and pound of profit that I have generated for my masters has gone into dividends and higher stock prices, to inflate the asset value of a pension fund somewhere. My whole life has been toiling to allow the baby boomers to have a life of idle luxury, not that they're fucking grateful.

But you know what? Things have gone way too far.

The older generation has fucked up the environment, fucked up the economy and demanded that young people suffer austerity, University tuition fees, job insecurity, wage stagnation, eye-watering rent, impossibly over-inflated house prices and listen to a sneering arrogant bunch of lazy grey-haired cunts telling them they're lazy and stupid the whole fucking time.

They say you should be nice to your kids because they'll choose your nursing home. Damn fucking straight, but you don't get to have 20 years of idle luxury before you go so damn senile that you have to be put in a home, so that your hard-pressed children can continue working all hours to pay for your profligacy, laziness and arrogance.

Yes, it's true that a huge proportion of wealth has been diverted into the hands of a few eye-wateringly rich families. However, WHO THE FUCK WAS ASLEEP ON THE JOB WHEN THAT HAPPENED?

Why the hell is it me who has to go on political marches, to demand that wealth is more fairly redistributed? My parents were too busy sat on their fucking arse taking drugs and reading books and newspapers to actually get off their lazy backsides and engage in the political process, for the good of the country and the good of us kids and grandkids.

Don't pretend like voting to leave the EU is somehow in the best interests of the country and future generations. One lazy pencil cross in a box doesn't make up for the idle years spent enjoying a free University education, job security, high pay, reckless drug taking, low cost of living, great housing, foreign holidays, new cars, superb pension and lots and lots of disposable income. YOU HAD IT FUCKING EASY, YOU STUPID OLD CUNTS.

As you can tell, this is a fairly calm and measured response to being sold down the river, and having my future destroyed by a bunch of people who won't be around to suffer the global warming and economic depression.

Literally, almost everybody I know my age or younger suffers from depression and/or anxiety. What a legacy!

We used to sing "he's got the whole world in his hands" but where is your fucking God now?

Tags: #parents #childhood #oxford #family #politics #capitalism

This is a story about national identity...

I will never be accepted in my place of birth, because I can't speak Welsh, I only lived in Wales for the first few months of my life, and I have English parents. I will never be accepted as a Yorkshireman like my Dad, or a Lancashire lass like my Mum, because I've never lived in the North of England, and I have a posh Home Counties accent. I will always be a Grockle (tourist) in Dorset, because I wasn't born there, just as I will always be a 'blow-in' in London, because I wasn't born within the sound of the Bow Bells.

So, I find all this talk of British national identity a bit laughable. This talk of a UK Independence Day, and "take our country back" is a joke. If you were to look at my passport, you might think I'm descended from Gauls, given that I was born in Wales where some of the oldest ethnic inhabitants lived... who perhaps escaped genetic mixing with Vikings, Saxons, Romans, Normans... but we know that's ridiculous.

The thing I like about London is that most people don't care who you are or where you've come from. It's a fairly meritocratic place where you can seek your fortune without being too held back by too many prejudices. It's a big enough place that any mishaps and misdemeanours can be overlooked.

I hate small-minded localism. I hate that "you're not from round these parts, are you?" idiocy... like it really matters where the hell you're from. I hate people who aspire towards some kind of backwards step, to a time when we lived in tiny villages and hamlets, in pockets of blissful ignorance. It's a nice fantasy, but it's never going to be a reality.

I've been that immigrant kid, bulking up a classroom that's already full. I've been in the minority, with a different skin tone from all the others in the classroom. I've been in the family that talks in their mother tongue, whilst living in a community that doesn't speak our language, and not observing local customs.

I know that while things are economically prosperous, there is joy in welcoming people of other cultures into our communities. There is novelty in observing and interacting with the outsider, and exploring the interesting differences between each other.

But when things turn sour and you're afraid for your job and you can't afford a house, and you start feeling pretty hard-done-by, it's natural to start picking on the odd-one-out. We're programmed to weed out the members of a herd that are different. As predators we look for the weak, the elderly, the young. As asexual beasts, we look for those who are most genetically normal, and reject the oddballs who might have undesirable mutations. We want those who share our genetic material - those who look the same as us - to survive at the expense of those who look different, who probably aren't part of our extended family, and therefore share our genes.

I get it. I understand this "look after our own" thing from the point of view of the selfish genes. There is no altruism, when push comes to shove and we feel threatened. And we feel really threatened at the moment. Housing, education, jobs, transport, healthcare, the economy... everything is screwed.

But you know what? You know who's really pushing you around? You know why you really feel threatened? It's because London is disproportionately represented. There's this little microcosm of politicians, lawyers, accountants, consultants and other highly paid professionals, who pretty much decide the fate of the rest of the country... not some bureaucrats in Brussels. You think the EU is why we have such a ridiculously financial-services centric economy? Is it fuck.

I know that in London I'm going to have the best of everything. All the tax breaks are going to go in my favour. All the infrastructure investment is going to be for me. All the political attention is going to be focussed on my concerns.

Yes, housing is a massive issue in London, but it's going to get addressed. Nobody dare let the concern of the City worker go overlooked, lest our precious position as a major centre for floatations, international litigation and the headquartering of some of the world's largest enterprises, be threatened.

However, 5 out of 6 people in the UK are not well represented, because we are so London centric. Do you think anybody much cares about the NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training) on some God-awful sinkhole estate on the outskirts of a depressed Northern town, who is pissed off about their lot in life? Of course not, because they're neither economically nor politically active.

In actual fact, the tracksuit-clad pasty white housing estate resident, who drinks too much, smokes too much and abuses drugs, whilst having too many children that they can't afford to raise, is perhaps far more representative of the average citizen of the United Kingdom, than the suit-wearing, briefcase carrying City worker, with their well remunerated job in the service sector.

Yes, it's a liberal cliché to wring my hands with worry about the great unwashed masses. The voiceless angry mob outside London, who are in socioeconomic groups that mean that not even the advertisers care much about them, let alone the policy makers. However, something has captured the imagination of a much broader spectrum of British society, in this EU referendum.

Just as the killing of Mark Duggan was the catalyst for rioting in Tottenham, then in Croydon, and indeed all over the UK, it's clear to see that the motive for the vast majority of the rioting and looting was not to do with police action and race issues at all. It only took a trigger, for a wave of violence, vandalism, looting and rioting to be unleashed. People who would never think of running for Parliament or lobbying their local MP were literally voting with their feet, as they kicked in the windows of their local consumer goods vendor, and helped themselves to the merchandise.

I want London to feel as close to Berlin or Paris, as it is to Newcastle or Swansea. I want Europe to be united, but we are ignoring the fact that London feels very different from depressed towns and cities across the United Kingdom that are severely economically distressed, and politically ignored.

London cares more what the leaders of fellow European nations have to say, than what the mayors of other major cities do. What, for example, is the position of Liverpool in the whole Brexit/Remain debate? Nobody cares, in the newspapers that are written by London-dwelling journalists, nor in the benches of a parliament that sits in Westminster.

Distancing ourselves from Europe is the wrong thing to do. Bringing the rest of the UK into the decision-making that centres almost exclusively on London and financial services, is the right thing to do.

Tags: #europe #politics

This is a story about dirty tricks...

The Government and affluent Londoners have completely misread the public mood. There is a complete disjoint between the media, politics, and the concerns and struggles of the general population.

Youth unemployment, ballooning student debt, a lower minumum wage for people aged 18 to 24, unaffordable house prices, ridiculous cost of living... these things don't just affect young people, but also their parents. Parents are waking up to the fact that their kids aren't lazy & stupid, but in fact millennials are far better behaved than any previous generation. You just have to look at falling alcohol consumption, smoking and teenage pregnancy rates, to see that today's young people are far more responsible than their parents and grandparents ever were.

Meanwhile, there's a population bubble that is coming up to retirement age and hoping to collect a final salary pension - an income that is not at all linked to how much they have paid in and asset values - that is causing a massive deficit that nobody is talking about.

Everybody's dug into their trenches.

Students quite rightly demand the same standard of education that their parents received, but must get themselves tens of thousands of pounds into debt, and there isn't even the guarantee of a good job at the end of an expensive education.

Pensioners quite rightly demand the same retirement age as their parents, but are going to live much longer, healthier, lives in their retirement, and expect to continue an extremely high standard of living: 3 foreign holidays a year, new cars and large empty houses, with expensive luxury kitchens & bathrooms, lavishly decorated.

Parents quite rightly expect their kids to move out, live independently, get married, have some grandkids. But that's not going to happen unless parents share some of their wealth, and many parents are already worried about whether they have enough money to maintain their high standard of living. So, the reality is kids never leave home, never become financially independent, are never able to escape the demeanment of being dependent on their parents.

Driving this drop in living standards is the fact that the West has been exporting its inflation for years. The postwar boom years were achieved by abandoning the gold standard and printing money. The only way that the value of the Pound, Dollar, Euro and Yen have been propped up is by an agreement called Bretton Woods, which defined a basket of so-called "hard" currencies.

Now, the people of the developing nations are demanding payback. These people have worked far harder and saved far more money, than the arrogant West. These people are quite rightly dissatisfied with being economically enslaved by a culture that broadcasts its profligacy to the world. If Hollywood is to be believed, we all live in mansions, drive supercars, fly helicopters and know the President of the United States of America, personally.

People want everything they were promised, but reality is a real let-down.

Even in London, where the streets are paved with gold, we live in tiny damp flats, with paper-thin walls where you can hear every little noise your neighbours make and the din from passing traffic is incessant. We are like sweaty sardines on a dangerously overcrowded public transportation network, working the longest hours in Europe, in the hope of affording some ludicrously overpriced piece of real estate. Pollution and crime is all around us. Yet, we are high-brow Guardian newspaper readers, who deign to patronise the ordinary working people outside the M25.

Nobody in the provinces gives a shit about a few malnourished brown people. They just want the cushy life their parents had: with a free University education, a seat on an uncrowded train, a 9 to 5 job that has a big enough salary for one parent to work, buy a house, pay the bills and raise some kids. However, that dream is never going to come to fruition.

People have been disengaged with politics for years. The disillusionment with the instruments that maintain the status quo, has reached crisis point. The wealthy elite have been too greedy for too long, and they have completely misread the public mood, the will of the people.

We're going to have problems when even the middle classes become squeezed, because their kids are a massive drain on their finances. The middle classes are the ones who still wield some political clout, and can even become somewhat radicalised.

Finger-pointing at immigrants will fool some simple-minded folks who didn't pay attention at school and who fail to see the spine-chilling parallels with the rise of far-right fascism in 1930s and 1940s Europe. However, it's only going to buy a very small amount of time, before the UK descends into all out chaos and destruction.

While one generation goes on strike, to demand that their final salary pensions aren't touched, and the protection of jobs that have become unnecessary due to technological advancements, another generation will have their lives made ever more miserable. Young people have to suffer train strikes, on services that are already overcrowded and cost a significant proportion of their income, in order to get to a job where they're paid less simply because they're young, and their money disappears into the black hole of the pensions deficit, with no hope of ever owning a home and having the luxury of going on strike themselves, for fear of losing their job.

We are being turned against one another, and against minority groups like immigrants and Muslims, when the real culprits for our suffering are the public-schooled wealthy elite, who become career politicians and rule over us. The real culprits are those who take out more than they've paid in. The real culprits are those who expect us to work harder than they would work themselves.

The enemy here is inequality, not immigration. The thing that we should be correcting is the rich:poor divide, not dismantling the safety net of social welfare, and blaming people who suffer long-term disability, or immigrants.

We have been manipulated by the media and politicians into voting against our self-interests. We have elected politicians who have massively increased national debt, while at the same time making people more insecure in their jobs, less financially well-off.

Now, the politically inactive class have become radicalised, in voting for right-wing policies, and for relinquishing politically progressive ideals, which had given us greater protection for ordinary working people.

A vote to leave the EU is further playing into the hands of wealthy property owners, who want to see the clock rolled back to a time when there were no labour unions, worker rights and there was no job security or opportunity to better yourself. Brexit is vote to increase the power of a bunch of Eton-educated toffs, who have never done a hard day's work in their lives.

Yes, things need to change, and things need to change quickly, if we are not going to suffer a terrible rebellion by a hard-pressed working public, that could sweep away most of the advancements that our society has made, at great expense.

However, reversing the result of a referendum that was already held once before, is not the way forward. The House of Commons should be just that: representative of the common person. Getting rid of EU gravy-trainers simply hands more power to the wealthy elite, who have presided over a shameful decline in the British public's standard of living, for far too long.

Voting Brexit sends completely the wrong message to the elite, and to nasty bigots, like UKIP's Nigel Farage. Voting Brexit emboldens those who wish to divide and rule us.

Tags: #politics #capitalism

This is a story about reproduction...

A flower is the sexual organ of a plant. A bunch of flowers is a bunch of genitals. They're a lot prettier than a man's meat & two veg though, admittedly.

Apparently, sending a picture of your manhood to the object of your affections is an accepted part of the new modern courtship ritual. A friend once told me she thought it was basically the same as "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" except completely unsolicited. I shudder to think what it must be like for girls on Tinder and Snapchat.

I guess I'm almost an ultra-conservative. I actually aspire to have a relatively old-fashioned relationship. I think gender roles are not actually a bad thing. The expectation for women to carry the unborn infant, give birth and be the primary caregiver, whilst also being expected to take the lead in maintaining domestic bliss, and have a career to boot, is too much to ask of somebody. Whore in the bedroom, chef in the kitchen, maid in the home, nanny to the kids and power-dressing bosswoman.

Men like to feel useful, needed, but frankly, once you've ponied up half a teaspoonful of baby batter, in order to impregnate somebody, your job's pretty much done in this society where women do it all. Is it any wonder that it's acceptable for men to be the butt of so many jokes: we're truly the weaker sex.

I feel like I might have offended a couple of my friends who are parents, with my bitter rants at my own parents. There's been plenty of times that I've written about the neurology of parenthood - the endorphins that are released in order to bond parent with child - and it has perhaps seemed like I've been attacking the 'magic' of parenthood by reducing it to its chemical nuts and bolts.

Believe me, I'm a sensation seeker, and just about the only thing left on my bucket list is to know what it's like to become a parent. I'd love to be so reckless and irresponsible as to just take a wild leap into the unknown, on the assumption that everything would be just fine. "You'll find a way" people say, and "there's never a right time".

Yes, that's right, there's never a right time. I've been thinking about population growth, and how much faster the human population has grown than anybody would have ever predicted. 60 years ago, the population was predicted to have grown to 3 billion by the year 2000. In actual fact, the population was over double that.

We now have over 7 billion mouths to feed on planet Earth. Not only that, but we all want to drive our little darlings around in gas-guzzling cars, have a pet doggie, take the whole family away on exotic holidays and fill our homes with cheap goods manufactured in the Far East. Something doesn't add up.

We talk about economic austerity, but the reality is much, much worse. The standard of living that we've all enjoyed, needs to take a massive nosedive, but nobody wants to hear it.

I desperately want to have some kids of my own, and a pet dog, and probably a cat too. I desperately want to return to the jet-set lifestyle I enjoyed a few years ago. I want to buy another car, another speedboat. However, just recycling a few bottles and buying a Toyota Prius is not going to offset the global impact of these selfish choices.

If there's one thing I know about experts, it's that they're usually conservative in their estimates. If the weatherman says to prepare for a gale, you should get ready for a hurricane. If the population experts say that the world population is going to be over 9 billion in 2050, we should assume that it's going to be 12 billion. If climate scientists say that global temperatures are going to increase by 2 degrees centigrade, we should assume they're going to increase by 4 degrees. If tide gauges show that sea levels have risen by a foot, we should expect them to rise another two feet in the coming years.

We have a culture where we're encouraged to think of our little nuclear families as little fortresses. We have double-locked front doors, and fences round our gardens. Our homes are our castles, and we view the world as vicious place, full of paedophiles, rapists, robbers and other things that are "out to get us". We are not only individually selfish - thinking about the immediate gratification of our reproduction and nurturing instincts - but we are collectively selfish, in that we put the needs of our family ahead of the needs of our species.

Yes, you're damn right, I would love to be a dad and to have a best friend in the form of a dog. I'm sure nothing could be more fulfilling than the feeling of adoration from the animals I feed. Many scientific studies have proven that it's nice to feel like the alpha, the leader of the pack, and nothing epitomises that more than the domestication of dogs. Dogs are pack animals, so they are genetically predisposed towards seeking approval of the 'alpha'.

However, dogs and babies are polluting. Disposable nappies are convenient, but make up a huge component of landfill. It's said that if an alien race were to come to Earth in a couple of hundred years time, when we've all died, they'll assume that we were a civilisation of incontinent midgets, because the mountains of nappies will still not have biodegraded.

I certainly wouldn't want to raise a kid without modern parenting aids. I certainly don't hanker for the days where we all died prematurely of preventable diseases and of starvation when the crops failed. However, where is the responsibility?

Dog ownership is the very pinnacle of irresponsibility. These are predatory carnivores. The meat we need to keep them means that huge swathes of arable land is used to grow animal feed, in order to keep our pets fed. Nobody can argue that keeping these animals as pets is a good use of finite resources. Having a dog is more polluting than having a car.

City living is responsible living: where we are entertained by culture rather than wiping up snot and vomit and spawning more mouths to feed. Where we are able to move around using mass transit systems that only work where there are economies of scale. Where we are able to be fed in massive refectories. We can have vast variety of food with relatively little wastage, because the population is so dense. Where the distances we have to travel are far less, because we build upwards, not outwards.

Yes, I feel unfulfilled, not having a nurturing outlet. I'd love to have some kids, a dog, a house in the country. However, it's irresponsible.

Just doing what your parents did, what other people do... that's sheep-like behaviour. Saying "well they did it too" is no defence, when you know you're acting recklessly, irresponsibly. We have birth control, we have planned parenthood, we know the problems we face as a species, as a planet. Do you want your kids and grandkids to starve to death on an infertile, polluted and inhospitable Earth?

Tags: #politics #climate

This is a story about imitation and flattery...

What's through that door? Well, probably my entire career and every golden opportunity that will ever be presented to me, throughout my adult life.

That North Oxford house, if I've identified it correctly, used to be the headquarters of Daily Information. It was here that on one midweek night, computer games ceased to be a solitary bedroom activity, and instead became an opportunity to socialise.

So important was this place in my childhood, that I can still remember the code for the door behind the front door, that would lead up to my friend's parents' office, which was above the offices of Daily Info.

The main office itself was a fascinating place. There were zillions of flyers and posters pinned up on the wall, as examples of the desktop publishing and reprographics business, which also produces a popular "What's On?" guide for the Oxford area. There were also instructions on how to operate the many pieces of equipment and notices for the staff who worked there. It was a complex ecosystem, so unlike a home stuffed full of static ornaments and pictures.

There were piles of photocopier paper, and cardboard sheets in all colours and sizes. Printer cartridges, ink ribbons, toner, and daisy-wheel heads were piled up on shelves, or stacked nearby the cream-plastic machines that they served. Half-finished print jobs lay on the tops of every available flat surface.

But, the main event, and the thing that a group of geeky and otherwise introverted kids, had gathered there for, were the many computers. There seemed to be screens and keyboards everywhere. There were PCs and there were Macs, and they all had mice and colour screens, which was a big deal back in the 1990's, when people still used to do word processing on green-screen terminals that couldn't play games.

Yes, it was the computer games that we were there for, and between my friend, his mum, and a few willing staff members, they had always managed to coerce all the computers into playing amazing computer games. It was like the most fantastic treasure trove of an amusement arcade, with unlimited tokens to play again and again.

There were single-player games, like Shufflepuck, where you had to play air-hockey against a whole host of fascinating characters of increasing difficulty and deviousness. This was an interesting use of the computer mouse, which mirrored your hand's movements with the on-screen mallet, to try and send an air-hockey puck sliding into your opponent's goal.

However, the thing that I enjoyed the most, was co-operating with other kids to try to solve puzzle games. These were mainly of the point-and-click variety, where you guided an animated character through a world that you could interact with, using a number of verbs, like "push", "pull", "open", "close", "pick up", "walk to" and "use". These delightful creations included such titles as The Secret of Money Island and several Indiana Jones inspired games.

We would would pair up, with one of us operating the mouse, while the other pressed keyboard shortcuts to choose the different operations, while you tried to figure out how to solve the puzzles, which generally involved walking around, opening doors and boxes, picking up items, and then figuring out what to use the items on, or how to combine them together to make some new kind of object.

I idolised this friend who ran the event on a midweek evening, and tried desperately to imitate all the things he seemed to do so effortlessly. I read the same books. I tried to write and contribute articles to a school magazine that he had founded. I tried to learn how to become a programmer, and to create music using a MIDI keyboard, plugged into a computer. I wanted to play all the computer games he liked, which were often the Lucasarts point-and-click adventures, rather than 'shoot-em-ups'.

The bitterness that is so evident at times in my writing, could have ended up repressed and perhaps revealing itself in even more ugly forms, had computing not become a social experience for me, as well as a creative outlet.

Writing has never been my strong suit. When I was about 13 years old, I wrote an article about a computer game that I'd never played, in a desktop publishing program that I was learning to get to grips with. It got horribly mangled as paragraphs got moved around. "Were you on drugs when you wrote that?" my friend asked me, having reviewed it with another friend of his who I never met, on account of him going to a different school. I was put in my place, although not maliciously.

Everything I ever did was a pale imitation of what my childhood friend did, however, it was still immensely fortuitous that I had this role model in my life.

By writing computer programs nearly every day throughout my teens, I gained enough experienced to get a job as a junior programmer, some 3 years ahead of my peers. A few years later, there was a skills shortage because of the Y2K millennium bug, and I was able to get a very lucrative contract. Having held a graduate position for a prestigious corporation, and also been an IT contractor before the age of 21, I was then able to break into financial services and banking, which is normally off-limits to anybody without a good degree from one of the top Universities.

It should be remembered that there are many talented geeks, plugging away at code in their bedrooms. The difference between those who are 'tame' and able to play nice with others, is whether they have had adequate social contact. I was certainly rather removed from healthy social bonds by too much screen time, spent in isolation in a darkened bedroom, hunched over a keyboard.

Through people like the friend I idolise, the joy of computing became a joy of using technology to have a shared experience, to use computers as a mechanism for social bonding. Even though I had to move away from Oxford because my parents relocated the family, I was able to reproduce a little of the magic I learned at Daily Information and the social group that clustered around this one charismatic friend.

I learned how to connect computers together using coaxial cable, and I used to have groups of friends get driven over to the family home, with their PCs. We used our paper rounds and washing-up jobs, in order to buy the equipment necessary to allow our computers to 'speak' to each other, and so we were able to play co-operative games, with each of us operating our own computer.

As a bunch of 14/15 year old spotty nerds, having these early "LAN" (network) parties was amazing, even if we were cooped up indoors for whole weekends, waging virtual warfare against each other. Games like Doom were popular with us, where we just attempted to kill each other, but the pecking order was soon established, and the one-on-one combat soon grew tiresome.

We moved onto games like Command and Conquer where we could have two teams, each in their own "war room" connected by an extra-long cable that I had bought for the specific purpose of separating us, so that we couldn't hear each other's tactical discussions. A game would last over 12 hours, with us playing right through the night.

Because of the inspiration to write and to publish, plus the few social skills I had developed and the exposure to the reprographics and 'typesetting' industry, as a teenager I was confidently able to get a Saturday job for a little company that was like a smaller version of Daily Information, in Lyme Regis, called Lymteligence (yes, it had one 'l' missing, which wasn't very intelligent).

I had used money from my washing-up job at a local hotel to purchase my first modem and get connected to the World Wide Web (Internet) after a rather crappy old modem had completely failed to give a connection to my friend back in Oxford, who I was desperate to stay in contact with. For hours, my friend had patiently allowed his phone line to be tied up, while I tried to coerce some antique piece of hardware that I had bought at a car boot sale, into connecting with my distant friend's computer, but alas, he finally convinced me to give up.

At Lymteligence I learned how to author websites, writing the code by hand. I created a website for The United Kingdom Men's Movement. I remember feeling ethically challenged, as I typed up some of the bitter words of men who had suffered painful divorces. Thinking about it now, I feel that I myself could have been driven into the arms of this movement, had I not had a healthy social outlet for my technological skills.

Although it's shameful to admit, and a little creepy, I would try to keep tabs on my friends I had left behind in Oxford, by being a bit of a lurker on the rapidly developing Internet. However, by doing this, in a way I was able to stay abreast of advancements and trends that would otherwise have passed me by.

"Social media" means Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, today, and perhaps Snapchat and Vine. In fact, there is probably a movement that's already begun that's going to kill these technology giants, that I'm not even aware of yet. I've always been a bit behind the curve.

However, back in the day, social media meant bulletin boards, forums and websites like Friends Reunited. I have no idea how I managed to maintain a toe-hold of social connection with old friends, throughout the disruption of moving away and then our adult lives, but the Internet always provided a way.

It used to be the case that the search engines, of which Google didn't feature prominently until surprisingly recently, used to be very good at digging out which particular corner of the Internet your friends were hiding in, provided they were using their real name, and that name is quite uncommon... and my role model friend is blessed with quite a unique name.

Now that we tend to do most of our Internet social activities on Facebook, you'd be surprised to learn that your privacy is actually very well protected, and you have a reasonable level of control over what people can and can not find out about what's going on in your world.

In 1999/2000 I was living in Winchester in Hampshire, UK. Things were going well with my career, but I was struggling socially. Through a housemate, we ended up in the NUS (student) bar at Winchester University. I was leaning up against the table football table, when somebody behind me challenged me to a game. I turned around and realised that it was one of my fellow Daily Information computer club friends, and a guy who I went to school with since about the age of 5.

Reconnecting with an old schoolfriend was great. I had been back to Oxford, in order to show off my company car and boast about how well my career was going, but it was crushing inadequacy and a sense of loneliness that had driven me to go back there. I had even been quite evil and immature, and had wanted to exclude certain friends and monopolise other friends' time, in order to try to salve my insecurity. I was still a deeply troubled, lonely person, expressing that in very unhealthy ways.

Shortly after that chance meeting, I picked up a local newspaper and read that somebody had been electrocuted, while trying to take a short-cut underneath some parked railroad carriages, in order to get back to his University halls of residence. It was our childhood friend. Killed, through a momentary lapse of judgement, while under the influence of alcohol and the excitement of a fun night out in town. Tragic.

This put me - the lurker - in a really strange position, in terms of grieving. I later discovered through the Internet that my friends were attending the funeral, but because of the sense of distance and the shame of admitting that I had been somewhat jealously following our old social group from afar, like a stalker, I didn't know what to do. I procrastinated until it was too late, and the funeral was over.

There used to be so much stigma associated with using the Internet as a means of human connection. Admitting that you met your partner through Internet dating was likely to instigate stifled sniggers and snide remarks about axe-murderers and weirdos. I guess I am a weirdo though.

I don't know whether it's a British thing, or perhaps a function of a lonely childhood and being a needy, oversensitive person, but I'm kinda always struggling to articulate my needs and ask for what I want. I don't even admit to myself, what my fears and unmet needs are.

Writing this blog has been a journey for me, but it's taken me further than I would have ever expected. One leg of the journey was 5,351 miles, and took me to the hometown of a bunch of my idols and role models.

Is it creepy, is it weird, is it an unpleasant amount of pressure, knowing that in some sense, a friend is looking to you for guidance and direction? It must be, a little. Why the hell do I never seem to have grown up and gotten over childhood infatuations?

For me and at least one other friend, our mutual friend has provided at least some of the inspiration for our careers. In a way, I at least owe this friend a debt of gratitude for my financial security and the fact that a lot of doors are open to me, for career opportunities. I know that he shared with me at least a twinge of regret for having perhaps nudged one of our friends down one particular technology path.

Who knows what are going to be the knock-on effects of the connections we make with one another. Who could have foreseen that I would have taken the wealth that I generated so effortlessly in the highly paid tech sector, and use it to implode so spectacularly in my mid-thirties.

Of course this is not about blame, but instead, I feel this great sense of responsibility. I feel that there are certain individuals who I am crippled with shame, to imagine reading my sorry tale and thinking "what kind of monster has this guy turned into". I imagine their disappointment, and it slays me.

Where do we look for guidance and inspiration from in the world? Our parents? Well what if your parents don't provide it? In fact, what if your parents provide a cautionary tale for how not to live your life? I don't want to go into the details again, of why I don't want to follow in the footsteps of either of my parents, but suffice to say, I've always been looking to people outside of my family, to provide feedback and inspiration in my life.

So, I'm fessing up. That's what this whole blog has been about. I'm playing up like a kid and wanting to test my boundaries. When is some parent-like figure going to stand up and say "stop that!" so that I know I've gone too far? When is some authority figure going to step in, and tell me that I'm out of line, and give me some guidance on how I should think, act, speak?

Being given stacks of cash, relatively few responsibilities and no social structure around you, to tell you when you're taking things too far, when you're getting yourself into trouble, when you're wandering too far from the flock, when your ideas are getting too outlandish, when unpleasantness is rearing its ugly head. You probably take it for granted, the checks and balances that exist around you.

So, I'm making an appeal, to people from every period in my life, from every stage in my development: from childhood to adulthood, from Oxford, to Dorset, to London, to Cambridge, to San Francisco, to Prague, to France, to Brazil, to New Zealand. I'll travel round the world a million times, if somebody can just reach out and give me some kind of reality check.

I'm pouring my heart and soul out into the chasm of the Internet, hoping to make a connection with people, hoping to trigger some kind of response. I have no idea how I'm received. I have no idea how I'm perceived.

Yes, it's needy and yes, it's kinda pressuring people to say something where it seems impolite to even ask for feedback. We have lots of phrases that kinda shame people into keeping their mouths shut, like "emotional blackmail" and "attention seeking". If somebody even came out and accused me of such things, at least I'd have something to reflect on.

Everytime I ask somebody a direct question, they seem to think that the kindest thing to do is to spare my blushes, but I don't know whether to trust my own instincts, or actual concrete feedback that I've received.

For example, I was living with some friends, and it was only over dinner one night, when I had moved out of their house, that my friend finally let me know what he really thought and felt. The fact that the truth was suddenly unleashed was brutal. There was real pent-up frustration and having it all released all at once was too much to bear.

I just contradicted myself, didn't I? What an awful, needy, demanding person. I want honest feedback, but I want it little and often. I'm asking for people to give me a reality check, but I'm also admitting that the last time that a close friend fired both barrels at me, I nearly committed suicide. Who wants that kind of responsibility?

But, you know, the takeaway from this is that I didn't commit suicide, and even though that friendship was really badly damaged, at least it moved things along. I was in limbo before... really unsure of what was real, what I'd overheard, what was being said behind my back. It's an impossible way to live, like that.

I'm adrift in a vast ocean, with no tether to any fixed objects. I have no point of reference. I couldn't tell you which direction is which, and where I'm travelling from or to. I'm rather lost.

A friend got in contact earlier in the week, and offered their impression of something I wrote - noting that I had become bitter again - as well as some advice. I can't stress enough how this was like gold dust to me.

I'm not sure you realise how disconnected from the world I've become. I don't have any normal healthy friendships anymore, or regularly see people who I've had a long-term relationship with, knowing me for years, so they can comment on how I've changed. So many people have become just another 'like' on Facebook.

As a friend who I chatted to via Facebook messenger today said, we know what all our Facebook friends position on Britain leaving the EU is, but we don't know what's going on in the lives of those who are not sharing anything personal, except political opinions. There's a vast difference between the occasional reminder that somebody is still alive, because they're active on social media, and actually looking somebody in the eye, when they give you the British knee-jerk reaction of "I'm fine" when you ask how they are.

I appreciate I've written a lot, and huge amounts of it is virtually unreadable. Also, long bitter rants are not exactly pleasant reading, nor do they paint myself in a particularly favourable light. Who wants to know that angry venomous twisted person, hunched over their keyboard, blindly firing resentful and blame-filled missives into the void.

If you've persevered this far, I'm ashamed of myself. I think about all the stuff you must've read, and what you must think about me, but of course this is conjecture. I admit, I am trying to cajole you into giving me some feedback.

You know, I often think about how immature and childish I am. I often think that everybody is in the same boat, and we're always going to be left wondering how other people perceive us, and what people really think about us, to some extent.

It's easy to dismiss a lot of what I'm wrestling with, as just a standard part of the human condition. I'm also reflexively programmed to offer up neutralising statements, as standard, such as "I don't think I'm special and different" and "I know that my life is no more stressful and turbulent than yours".

The engine that drives this verbal diarrhoea is the fact that I do feel insignificant and worthless. I'm driven to try to anchor myself back into the world of the living, given that I have been hospitalised so many times with suicidal and self-harming behaviour. In a lot of ways, I feel justified in telling people who want to guilt-trip me into suffering in silence to shove their "you're not special, shut up" statements up their arses.

How does one go about fixing the very real and practical things, such as figuring out how to live amongst your friends once again? Sure, I can reconnect with people, but if they don't like who I am and what I say, what hope is there of there being any lasting relationship?

Anyway, this stuff is always cringeworthy and difficult to read, so I'm going to leave it there, as an open letter to my friends and acquaintances. An appeal to human connection, and the feedback that is essential for social bonds.

It's mighty cold when you're out in the thin atmosphere of the outsider, frozen and clinging onto life.

Tags: #friends #childhood #oxford #career #computing #socialmedia #suicide #depression