Nick Grant

This is a story about worthless paper...

Do you want to know how to make an infinite amount of money? First, you should obtain a boat. Then, take out as many insurance policies as you can afford the premiums of, on the boat. Then, sink the boat and claim on the insurance policies.

Why can't you do this? Well, because it's illegal to insure something more than once, for the very reason that it creates a financial incentive to go around sinking boats. People respond to economic incentives.

However, it is possible to take out as many life insurance policies as you want. The reason being, that it is assumed that because murder is illegal and suicide used to be (now it's decriminalised) then there is some protection from those who wish to profit from death.

But what about a company? Is a company a person-like entity? Should it be possible to buy life insurance policies for a company?

What is a Credit Default Swap? Well, the simplest explanation is that it's a life insurance policy for a company. If a company gets into a financially distressed situation where it can no longer repay its debts, then the Credit Default Swap will pay out. This is called a credit event. Basically, a credit event normally means the company is dying, because they can't pay their debts. A company that defaults on its debts is never going to be able to refinance themselves after a credit event, because their credit rating will be junk. Game over.

So, if you allow people to take out an infinite amount of Credit Default Swaps, betting that a company is going to go bust, aren't you economically incentivising that event to happen? If there's a bigger and bigger pool of money that is hoping that a company goes bankrupt, that is far bigger than the pool of money who want to see the company rescued, isn't the market going to quite naturally want to push that company under, so that almost everybody gets a big payday?

We know that markets can be manipulated, and because Credit Default Swaps are an Over-The-Counter (OTC) product, there is no market regulation. It's not possible to know who is dealing in these financial instruments, and who stands to benefit. They're kind of ideal for insider trading, because they just don't have the same kind of traceability of equities that are traded on stock exchanges.

The other un-nerving thing about Credit Default Swaps, is that there is no underwriter, and no need to prove that you have sufficient collateral to cover the paper that you have printed. It's possible for organisations to sell vast quantities of Credit Default Swaps, and have nowhere near enough money to cover the losses if the credit events happen.

In the insurance market of Lloyds, there are wealthy names who provide the collateral - cash, precious metals, priceless artworks, property, liquid assets (like shares) etc. etc. - to make sure that the money is there in the event of an earthquake, flood, fire or whatever massive disaster might affect the insurance industry in a major way.

However, in the derivatives market, only the mature products like Futures and Options would have margin calls and require collateral to make sure that losses never exceed one counterparty's ability to pay. Credit Default Swaps have been allowed to be printed completely without regulation, which is concerned with making sure that a credit event wouldn't totally wipe out the risk holders.

Some measures put the Credit Default Swaps market at about $16 trillion, however, when all the contracts were entered into the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation's central system in 2008, the aggregate notional value of the contracts was closer to $2 quadrillion ($1,700,000,000,000,000). That's a shit tonne of worthless paper.

But is it worthless? Well, when the collapse of Lehman Brothers triggered a credit event, the money that was demanded by those looking to cash in their Credit Default Swaps would have brought down massive companies like AIG as well as putting a deadly dent in the balance sheet of just about every investment bank with a proprietary trading desk (i.e. all of them) who had been foolishly dabbling with these stupid contracts.

Why stupid? Well, the whole idea of being able to make unlimited bets against a company is market manipulating beyond belief. Who's going to recapitalise a company and save it, when you can bet against it in secret instead? Why wouldn't anybody who gets the vaguest whiff of a company in financial trouble not rush off and place large untraceable wagers that it's going to fail?

Naked short selling is pretty bad, but there's only a certain amount of leverage that you can get, and you have to have the collateral to cover your exposure to the risk that the market might go against you. When you're talking about naked Credit Default Swaps, you're looking at the ability to get leverage of thousands of times the amount of money you're actually risking. That kind of potential profit has the ability to move the market, and collapse a company.

It's a simple moral question: if companies are like people, and therefore allowed to be 'life insured', should we be allowed to murder them so that we can cash in on their death?

Tags: #banking #capitalism #jpmorgan #derivatives

This is a story about ethics...

Imagine if you or I got caught laundering the best part of a billion dollars worth of drug money. We'd get sent to jail for a very long time, right? What if a bank got caught doing it, and there was so much evidence that there was clearly a case for criminal wrongdoing that could be prosecuted? Well, maybe you'd get given a chance to get rid of some of your dodgy customers, and nobody would go to jail. Does that sound fair?

Let's think about the financial crisis of 2007/08, when reckless trading meant that the whole banking sector had to be bailed out, causing austerity for ordinary hardworking people. The people who have paid the highest price - with lower wages, job insecurity and cutbacks for frontline services - would never be able to go begging for interest free loans if they behaved so irresponsibly.

Bankruptcy is not a criminal offence. It's OK for a private citizen to run up huge debts, find out they could never hope to possibly repay their creditors, and declare bankruptcy. You don't go to jail for bankruptcy.

So, arguably, what the banks did in 2007/08 wasn't that bad. It wasn't criminal. They had their risk underwritten by governments, so why wouldn't they take huge risks with public money? They were economically incentivised to take those risks, because the precedent of the "too big to fail" bailouts meant that there was no downside risk.

But what about money laundering? What about facilitating payments for drug gangs, dealers, traffickers? If you or I were involved in any of that as a private citizen, the courts would throw the book at us. They'd lock us up and throw away the key. It's criminal.

So, what about the banks? If the biggest bank in Europe - HSBC - was well known to authorities for helping a couple of major drug gangs to launder the best part of a billion dollars in dirty money, wouldn't that be criminal too? Wouldn't people go to jail?

Well, no. Enter the concept of "too big to jail". Just like the financial bailouts that the banks received, banks can also receive Deferred Prosecution Agreements. That is to say, even though you got caught doing criminal stuff, you'll get let off so long as you take some steps to stop doing it in future.

And how long would you have to get rid of your dodgy customers? Well, say the US Department of Justice were thinking about prosecuting you in 2012, you might still be botching the IT project that is apparently 'essential' to get rid of your dodgy customers 4 years later... in 2016.

How much do HSBC really know about their customers anyway? Well, from their electronic records that they already have on file, they know about 6% of what they need to know. So basically, they don't know 94% of what they need to know.

Now, you might not be an IT project management expert, but you'd have thought that it's more important to find out the missing 94% of what you don't know, than even to bother with the 6% that you do know. Sure, it's pretty embarrassing to have to ask your customers where they live again, but what you really need to know is this: where did you get your fucking money?

In Customer Due Diligence terms, this is called Source of Wealth. You might have inherited the money (legit), you might have won the lottery (legit), you might have sold a priceless artwork (legit) and you might have trafficked vast quantities of illegal narcotics (not legit). Basically, HSBC had 4 years to ask all their customers "is your source of wealth drug money?". Did they manage this? No.

I'm quite spectacularly offended by just how badly they botched a simple project to ask all their customers to fess up: are you in the illegal drugs business?

Sure, it's true that HSBC had to cough up a couple of billion dollars in fines, but for them that's just the cost of doing business. Their profitability was barely affected.

Arguments were made to the US to defer prosecution, and to allow HSBC to keep its banking charter and continue to do business in the United States. These arguments were made on the basis of maintaining stability in the financial markets. The Deferred Prosecution Agreement came with stringent terms, that a court would appoint a Monitor to make sure that HSBC actually cleaned up their act. I can tell you now, Michael Cherkasky, that the project to clean up HSBC's customer base was a total sham. A shambolic waste of time & money, mismanaged to the point that the whole thing was laughable.

Do you think that message that is sent to "too big to fail" organisations, that they're above the law and they can never go bankrupt because they'll always be bailed out, is looking like the right one, today, now, in 2016?

The argument that has been made is that we need to prop up the share prices so that the pension funds are protected, and we need to maintain financial stability. Isn't that just utter bullshit, in the face of austerity and extreme volatility in the markets? We've had round after round of Quantitative Easing (QE) and other attempts to breathe life into markets that have lost their minds. There is nothing at all rational or efficient about the global markets that we see today.

And to round it all off, it's corrupt as hell. To allow banks to ride roughshod over the rule of law is the final step in handing over the nations of the world to the multinational corporations who have driven us into a position of financial ruin, much to the pain of the vast majority of ordinary working people. It stinks of the worst corruption ever perpetrated on Western civilisation, does it not?

Somebody has to call time on the lack of ethics and accountability for the too big to fail organisations, and their board members who are too big to jail.

When we allow the likes of Stuart Gulliver to be the CEO of HSBC, when he doesn't even keep his wealth in the bank he manages, but instead keeps it hidden in the Cayman Islands and Switzerland, clearly we have corruption right from the top down.

David Cameron, outgoing Prime Minister of the United Kingdom said, as recently as April, that "[I] can't point to every source of every bit of [my] money" but yet we would have the likes of you or I have to prove that our filthy lucre was not ill-gotten gains from some criminal enterprise. The corruption comes from the very top of both Government and organisations. It stinks.

Who is going to grasp the nettle and hold Government and large enterprise to account for having run us into economic ruin, while busily siphoning wealth offshore?

There needs to be accountability. There needs to be jail time for corrupt executives and government ministers.

Tags: #banking #capitalism #hsbc #politics

This is a story about writing stuff that people want to read...

Firstly, let's start with an apology. What I wrote yesterday evening was total rushed junk. I shouldn't bother writing if I only have a tiny bit of time sandwiched in-between other commitments, or if I've got somebody peering over my shoulder. I really dislike what I write when I'm pressured.

I was tired and cranky yesterday. I had planned to spend the day on the sofa watching the Wimbledon men's tennis final and the Euro 2016 final, while getting drunk. Instead I was at a restaurant where you had to stand and queue to order your food and watch it be cooked in front of you. There was limited novelty, when I would really rather have been sat down with a waitress bringing drinks to me.

Anyway, I've got a bunch of topics that I want to write properly about. I want to write directly about my experiences, rather than these long ranty opinion pieces that would bore almost anybody to tears.

Upcoming topics include:

• The Dark Web
• The paradox: hard work vs. high wages
• My ongoing experiments with abstinence from caffeine and alcohol
• The trials & tribulations of being unmedicated for Type II Bipolar Disorder
• Will this damn depression ever lift?
• Am I going to go hypomanic again?

Writing serves the purpose of giving my life meaning in an uncaring world and while working a day job that consists of endless pointless IT projects. Writing is my means of having some kind of insurance policy, in case I decide to suddenly end my own life. Writing is my mechanism for trying to articulate my distress and invite people to engage with me once again. Writing means that I'm an open book, and you can dip in or tune out, as you please.

My purpose has been very confused. Am I writing to shame and embarrass my parents, in retaliation for everything they inflicted on me? Am I writing because I'm lonely, depressed, suicidal and I've run out of ideas for how to connect with the world? Am I writing to have a soapbox, in order to broadcast my opinions? Or, am I writing in order to share my colourful life experiences, in the hope that others who are going through tough times might benefit. Hopefully, it's the latter.

So, as I now start to think about the final couple of months of daily writing, to round off a complete year, I'm starting to figure out when is a good time of day to write, to fit with my work schedule and other commitments. I'm starting to figure out things that I'd like to write about, not because I've got an ulterior motive, but because I've got some interesting experiences to share.

I might have totally turned off a bunch of people whose opinion I value very highly, and made this piece of writing into an impenetrable rat's nest of deeply troubling psychological issues, but perhaps I can start to shape and hone things.

I've prematurely declared that I'm going to turn over a new leaf and bury the hatchet too many times, so I'm not going to make any more proclamations of that nature. However, I don't regret going on this extremely eccentric journey, and the incredibly personal things I have revealed about my twisted psyche.

This could all be summed up as writing therapy that has been done in the public domain. But isn't it so much more interesting and a little exciting, to let it all hang out in the breeze? How more publicly could I wear my heart on my sleeve?

"For God's sake, don't encourage him" I imagine people saying. This makes me chuckle, and spurs me on to dredge the depths of my deeply repressed painful memories. Where will it lead? I have no idea.

Tags: #writing

This is a story about a feeling at the pit of my stomach...

How often do we think "I want to help, but I've got so many of my own worries"? How often are we held back by the bystander effect... assuming that somebody else is going to step in first, so that we don't have to?

You'd hope that nobody would have to be in hospital alone, uncared for, while they're in pain and discomfort. You would think that even somebody who has been infected with Ebola, has loved ones who have come to wave through the protective plastic bubble.

Leaving aside my own obnoxious family, doesn't it set alarm bells ringing for you, the fact that we have a society that can so easily turn its back on undesirable members?

Whether it's the benefits cheat, disability scrounger, mental health basket case, junkie, alkie, hobo... whatever. There are plenty of people who have been demonised by the media. We have even descended to the depths of attacking our economy-boosting immigrant population, with terrorism as the brush with which we tar an entire Muslim community, for example.

This whole "look after number one" isolationism, along with "take our country back" and "look after our own" misguided silliness, is rather telling of a wider trend: everybody is just being selfish as fuck.

You might think it's in your family's best interests to hide behind your locked front door, and assume that the world is filled with rapists, paedophiles and murderers, but actually the whole of civilisation is coming to an end, because of the fear and mistrust, and reluctance to help one another.

That's a big statement, isn't it? "Civilisation is coming to an end".

Well, let's examine that a little more carefully. What even is civilisation? Surely, civilisation is not leaving anybody to die of starvation or exposure to the elements? Surely, civilisation is caring and sharing with one another? Surely, civilisation is working together, not acting like a bunch of individual animals, fighting with each other?

So, when I think about going back to work tomorrow after an excellent weekend of looking after number one, I can't help but have a heavy heart, thinking that my job is simply to make the rich richer. I might have a big paycheque but I certainly don't think that means I'm delivering good value to humanity. On the contrary: I know that I'm propping up a very broken system, and I hate it.

Yes, it makes sense for me to take the money, and to stuff my mattress full of filthy ill-gotten lucre, but it's painful. It actually makes me unwell, to know that I'm part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Once you get some skin in the game I guess it becomes a little bit easier to justify the unjustifiable. Little Hugo needs his ballet shoes, after all, so you'd better go off to work for the capitalists who are intent on destroying the world. How could you possibly help the homeless, when you need that money to get bright special little Alice into that slightly better primary school? Perfectly understandable.

Maybe our children will catch poverty. Maybe children will catch mental illness. Let's not take any refugees, and let's allow people to starve and go homeless, because surely we're living in a jungle where only the fittest will survive. Isn't that what life's about? Have as many children as possible and fuck everybody else?

Doesn't it seem a little primitive to you, this way of acting that is tribal, nationalistic, isolated, don't trust your neighbour, fuck the refugees, fuck the poor, fuck the sick, fuck everybody who isn't me?

I know that I could easily do a "fun run" or a sponsored "do something enjoyable that I was going to do anyway" in order to salve my conscience. Maybe I can get a partial lobotomy, so that I can forget that charity has completely failed to do anything about poverty and inequality, and it never will.

It's people's attitudes that suck. It's this whole "it must be somebody else's problem. It's certainly not my problem" thought pattern that sucks.

The point is: it's everybody's problem.

Tags: #politics #capitalism #career #depression

This is a story about helping each other...

How does one go about putting Humpty Dumpty back together again? The idea of some patriarchal figure - e.g. a king - has largely failed. Instead, we see that complex psycho-social problems are better solved by a community that is filled with mutual support and respect.

In order to get me to the point I am at today, it's taken a social worker. But not a social worker who was employed to help me, but instead a loveable Kiwi who was sleeping on my couch, who took it upon himself to think about my welfare.

It's taken a psychologist. Not a psychologist who I pay to sit on the couch of, while I pour my little heart out, but actually my beloved flatmate, who listened to me while I brain dumped in the small hours of the morning, or coaxed me out of whichever corner I was backed into, suffering almost PTSD-like symptoms.

It's taken a bunch of fellow people with mental-health problems, who "get it". They know that a "positive mental attitude" is just utter bullshit, and you can't just snap out of a severe depression or whatever ails you, when you already know that what you think and feel is irrational, and you would really rather not be feeling the way that you do, if it was a simple choice.

It's taken a bunch of addicts. Not necessarily needle-wielding junkies in the throes of active addiction, but people who aren't so holier-than-thou that they don't admit to their own fallibilities and judge you, lest they acknowledge the demons within themselves. Non-judgemental support is essential, for any way forward.

It's taken all my friends, from all corners of the globe. You might not think that a simple 'like' on social media would mean much, but the implied support has been my lifeblood. To say that I've been attention seeking is plain wrong. Everybody needs to feel that they have people that like them, support them, wish them well.

It would be massively premature to declare things a done deal. I need to make it through a winter somehow, without incident. Current thinking is simply to take off for the Southern Hemisphere for a while... follow the sun.

The plan has always been the same, since I decided to cut and run from my ex wife and Bournemouth: get back into IT contracting for the banks, go kitesurfing. Obviously, you also need a place to live and be on top of your finances. Obviously, you still need the occasional bit of midweek socialising to get you through to the weekend.

Am I some Goldilocks type character, who demands that everything is "just right"? No. I don't think that's true at all.

I accept that there is going to be loneliness, boredom, stress. I accept that things are going to take time. I accept that things are going to go wrong. I accept that it's highly improbable that everything will be going OK all at the same time. However, my basic life formula is pretty simple: work & play.

I tried to take direct action in somebody's life - Frank - when I returned to London. That was a relatively short burst of time & effort, and I can't tell you precisely how things worked out there, although I did see Frank about 18 months later and he was doing really well.

To round off my own story in a satisfactory way, I need to show that things are sustainable, I need to show that I'm not just mooching off people in order to continue on a reckless and irresponsible path through life. I need to close things out neatly: with integrity.

I know people are rooting for me, and it's nice to say that presently, I have a great place to live, a well paid job, and I'm getting back into the hobby I'm passionate about. I'm also increasingly getting back in contact with long-lost friends, as well as hopefully improving the tone of my communication: from bitter and negative, to philosophical, positive & hopeful.

My friend who drove me to the coast today, and has consistently been a pillar of support for me this year, always reminds me that recovery is nonlinear. I know that bad days and setbacks will follow an amazing day at the beach. Monday morning will be miserable, and life has a fully stocked arsenal of slings & arrows... but things seem a little bit better when your skin is salty from the sea and glowing from the sun and the wind.

It's oh-so clichéd, but that Beatles lyric seems apt:

I get by with a little help from my friends 

If it doesn't seem like I've acknowledged your help & support here, I apologise. Every little message, text, email, comment... it all adds up. I do appreciate it. I do appreciate, respect and love every one of my peers. Thank you.

Tags: #friends #kitesurfing #frank #mentalhealth

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 pressured speech...

A lot of my life has felt like driving with the handbrake on. When I'm finally released from the crap that's been artificially holding me back, I go off at breakneck pace, because I don't know when the next time is, that I'm going to be thwarted by somebody who is simply getting in the way and slowing things down unnecessarily.

Teachers at school need to pace their lessons so that most of the kids in the class can keep up. I'm not saying I'm the brightest, but school certainly didn't stretch and challenge me to the point where I really had to concentrate or try hard. I had plenty of spare time to draw cartoons, write rhymes and stories, and to mess around with computers. It's lucky that it worked out like that, because my computer skills have been far more marketable than any academic qualification ever would have been.

I entered the world of full time work at age 17 as an experienced computer programmer who had written games, simulations and produced websites. It was a painful transition, because now I had layers of ineffectual middle managers, incompetently pushing paper and trying to justify their pointless existence. There's one job: build the fucking software. I don't need some pleb to 'manage' me.

When you make a computer game or a website, it's a fairly creative process. You have to design the look & feel of the software, as well as actually write the computer programs that make it work. The success of a piece of software hinges on how useable it is by people. If people can't intuitively use your software or website, it's a failure.

Making games is hard. If you can make computer games, you can do anything. Honestly, having written software that guides torpedos to blow up ships, I can say that computer games are way harder.

So, I found the world of work to be extremely frustrating. I learned how to program in machine code at college. That's the very lowest level programming language there is. All other computer programming languages compile down to machine code.

Programmers try to keep themselves entertained by inventing more and more abstract programming languages... C becomes C++ and C# etc. However, it's all just instructions in machine code that are executed by the computer processor... it's all ones and zeros at the end of the day: boolean algebra.

Am I blinding you with science? Really, please don't switch off... it's easier than you think!

The whole logical thinking part is the easy bit. The hard part comes when you start thinking about how a human is going to use your software. You can guarantee that somebody will click the wrong button, or type something that you just weren't expecting them to type. Attempting to guide and constrain humans into a machine interpretable set of predefined steps, is the biggest challenge, not the logical processes that happen in code.

What happens when your whole job is to control the variables, and make software into something functional and boring... no weird and wonderful bugs... no unpredictable behaviour? In a way, once you have a few strategies for solving these problems, there is no challenge left in the job. It becomes a paint-by-numbers.

There are probably more ways of developing a website than there are atoms in the universe. I pity the poor web developers who have to know tons of User Interface frameworks, but their job is essentially always the same: what colour do we want the fucking buttons?

I could take no joy from the 'creative' side of being a web designer. There's no creativity. It's just listening to the dumb ideas of your client, who has shit taste and no idea about what good design looks like. The client always wrecks the creative process, along with everybody else in the entire world, and their mother. Everybody's got an opinion on something so subjective as the look & feel of a piece of software. You can't take any joy in creating beautiful looking apps and websites, because you'll never please everybody and the person paying the bill will always wreck things.

So, having neglected my cartoon drawing for many years, I return to writing.

I sit at my desk at my boring job, and I write. But I'm always looking over my shoulder. I'm not supposed to be writing. I'm paid an unspeakable amount of money to manage a software project, but I know that I'll basically just make the lives of my developers fucking miserable if I micromanage them, so I just let them get on with things while I write.

However, I'm always wary of who can see my screen. Is my boss going to suddenly appear at my desk and ask me what the hell I'm doing? How can I relax and write away, when I should be 'working'?

And so, I hack away as fast as I can, to produce something before I'm interrupted, or somebody asks about what's on my screen. I need my little creative outlet, or else I would go insane. I need to write.

But, it's frustrating as hell, trying to get all my creativity out in snippets of time that I grab in the dead time on the run-up to lunchtime, and before I need to prepare my evening meal and go to bed to start the whole miserable cycle all over again the next day.

You might think that writing is a luxury, but it's actually a necessity for me. It's helping me to organise my thoughts and process what just happened to me. It's helping me to deal with the fact that I have to work the most depressing boring easy job in the world, just to plump up my finances again, after a traumatic couple of years.

So, I write, and I write lots. You might think that it's self indulgent, and maybe you've got a book in you too, but you don't have the luxury of sitting around writing. Well, if you were serious, you'd do it. I could rattle off 50,000 words in a week, I reckon. The words just have to come out.

What's super frustrating right now is how the quality really suffers, the more pressured I am. When I'm at work, when somebody is trying to talk to me, when I've said I'll go out and meet somebody in the evening... it's fucking agonising to have to rush. I write as fast as I can, but I don't get the enjoyment from the creative process that I should do. I don't get the full benefit.

I've already written once today, but I'm writing again because I'm not satisfied. I'm not satisfied because I never got to consider my words. I'm not satisfied that I because got to review and refine what I wrote. I'm not satisfied because I was so rushed.

But if I don't get this stuff down, the lack of creativity and challenge in my day job is going to kill me.

Tags: #writing #career #computing

This is a story about terrorism...

Do we take stability for granted? In actual fact, I think we do a remarkable job of Keeping Calm and Carrying On, in the face of the threat of violence.

I often think about Britain's role in my lifetime, as a diplomatic and tolerant nation. We made great strides in the Northern Irish peace process, and IRA bombings and bomb scares had almost faded from memory. We managed to protect Salman Rushdie, when he published the The Satanic Verses, while at the same time maintaining a good relationship with the Islamic world. Acts of terrorism, like the Pan Am bombing, were committed on British soil, but yet our nation never stumbled as a respected statesman in foreign affairs.

However, perhaps our politicians took our position for granted.

Entering into an illegal war against Iraq was just downright arrogant and stupid, on the basis of supposed intelligence that was never questioned within the corridors of power, despite the fact that the public were obviously not convinced by the outlandish claims.

Surely nobody can deny the fact that Britain's recent foreign policy has made our nation a target, rather than a safer place for our citizens. The war in Iraq was cited by the 7/7 bombers, as the reason for their attack. Our MPs voted to bomb Syria, further compounding a refugee crisis, and angering the Arab world. Then we held a referendum on leaving the EU, which threatens to derail the Northern Irish peace process as well as unleashing a tidal wave of racist hatred & intolerance.

London needs to remember that Britain is a European nation, and Europe has land borders with the Middle East. We are not the USA, with a massive body of water - The Atlantic Ocean - that separates us from those who want to kill us.

It's OK for the USA to meddle in the affairs of Ireland, Europe and the Middle East, because they are the best part of 4,000 miles away. So long as the Arab parts of the Middle East don't get intercontinental ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads, they're more than happy for Britain to idiotically make itself unsafe in the process of protecting American interests.

Our Irish neighbours who believe in the re-unification of their island under a single republic, can quite easily take a short ride on a car ferry and come and blow us up. Have we forgotten that? I can't really tell you how my fellow Brits in Belfast feel, but I certainly don't want to offend my friends in The Republic of Ireland, by making them feel like Britain is yet again becoming a viciously violent imperialist, at the expense of European peace.

Britain has long had a tradition of multiculturalism, and offending our Muslim population seems unwise. We can't deport people based on their religion. Many Muslims are second or third generation. They're as British as you or I.

The USA can send Israel guns, bombs, tanks and warplanes, in order to illegally occupy Palestine and oppress the Arab people. The USA can do this, because they are thousands of miles away, across vast oceans, from the vast swathe of the planet that they are committing atrocities against. Muslims are just 0.9% of the population of the USA. However, in England, 5% of the population follow the Muslim faith.

Britain is in no position to act like the USA, in terms of foreign policy. Britain is in no position to make itself an enemy with its neighbours and its own citizens.

Horrible racists like Donald Trump might talk about "the ban" on people of the Muslim faith, and this might even be sadly workable, because of the popularity of the policies in a predominantly isolated nation. However, Britain is an island trading nation, a multicultural society, and close to the great landmass of Europe, which borders Asia and the Middle East. We don't have a Panama Canal to the south, and an Arctic wilderness to the North. People quite regularly swim across the English Channel.

To use the language of the USA is ridiculous. We can't talk of imposing our own brand of freedom on people, and riding around the world in war machines, blowing up whoever we like, and then acting all surprised and upset when a few people fight back.

The UK has increased and increased its reckless stupidity with foreign policy that threatens the safety of every peaceful law-abiding citizen. I don't want to live in a country where I have to be mistrustful of the Muslim community, the Irish community. I don't want to go back to the days of bomb scares and terrorist attacks.

Britain and London's great success has been in welcoming visitors to our shores. I feel safer in a multicultural London, than I would in a sea of angry white faces, all chanting jingoistic racist nationalistic tosh, at the expense of national security.

You can't use violence and aggression to bring peace. All that warmongering foreign policy, and racist domestic policy, will accomplish, is to alienate the many cultures who had previously felt at home in Britain, and turn ourselves into a proxy target for those who seek to hurt the imperialists that oppress them.

Having Tony Blair as Middle East peace envoy was a dreadful insult to the Arab world. What on earth is Britain doing, other than painting a big target on its back?

Tags: #terrorism #politics #london

This is a story about haters...

Nobody wants to be called vain. Nobody wants to be accused of being a narcissist. Nobody wants to be seen preening, or self-admiring.

However, how are you going to get a girlfriend or boyfriend, if you think you're unattractive? How are you going to pass that job interview, if you're not self-confident? How are you going to feel that you even deserve to be alive, if you're denied the right to at least feel that you have a little bit of value?

There seems to be this irrational paranoia, like we're all going to fall in love with our own reflections, and it will somehow be the end of the world if we allow shallow selfie culture to take root. However, I think there are a generation who have been denied the right to feel good in their own skin.

For sure, people are taking things too far, in an effort to look good. Addiction to plastic surgery and other cosmetic procedures has reached epic proportions, and some people look like a real train-wreck due to the amount of money they've poured into their appearance.

However, why don't you get your teeth straightened and whitened? Every time you see your smile in the mirror and in photographs, you're going to feel a little better about yourself. For sure, why don't you let yourself get a bit of a tan? Everybody looks healthier and happier with a rosy glow in their cheeks.

Do you know what will happen when you stop letting people tell you that you're narcissistic and vain for wanting to look good? Well, you'll start feeling a lot more comfortable in your own skin, and other things that you struggled with will fall into place. Instead of hating yourself for having that extra slice of cake and not going to the gym more often, you'll find that your weight, or at least your perception of your weight won't be such a problem.

We've all heard of body dysmorphia, right? Well, nobody can deny that there are curvy women who are just as sexy as the skinny ones. There is no absolute body size that is attractive or unattractive. Attractiveness is more a function of self confidence than something quantifiable.

I'm sure we've all looked at a couple and thought "why the hell is she/he with him/her?". There appears to be a shocking disparity in looks. However, one partner might be very secure with their image, and hence not looking for somebody to validate their own worth, while the other might need to feel that they're punching above their weight, to compensate for cripplingly low self-esteem.

It's also possible to internalise low self-esteem. Instead of buying a fancy sports car, wearing expensive jewellery and luxury clothing brands, and having a trophy partner, there are a bunch of people who become introverted in response to their low self esteem. They are shy and avoid eye contact in new and unfamiliar situations. In fact, maybe they avoid new situations altogether, because it's too much of a painful reminder of just how unpopular and unlovable they feel.

Nightclubs are the very epitome of the introverted person with low-self-esteem's idea of hell. The idea that you should basically flirt with eye contact and barely perceptible body language hints, in order to pair off with somebody through an entirely looks-based evaluation of each others attractiveness, is frankly ridiculous, if you don't think you're exactly "hot stuff".

But it doesn't take much to tip the balance. Getting drunk, having a sniff of cocaine or having your teeth whitened and a trendy haircut could make all the difference. Feeling good in your own skin is about self-perception, and it can take surprisingly few tweaks to feel completely different about yourself... it's just that you're not letting yourself do those things, because you think it's vain.

My advice: do it. It could make all the difference to your self-esteem, your confidence, how outgoing you are, and ultimately how happy you are.

It sounds so shallow, but what have you got to lose?

Tags: #mentalhealth

This is a story about my family...

What better example can I give you of the way I've been treated by my family, than the one from last night. At 2:15am - the wee hours of Monday morning - when I have to get up before 7am, to catch the train to work, I receive a phonecall from my drunk mother:

"You look fucking shit"

Yeah, thanks for the continued abuse. Because that's what it is. There's no beating about the bush here. When drunk drug addicts beat up on their kids, physically or verbally, that's child abuse. Your offspring are your children, and as a parent, rule #1 is don't fucking abuse your kids, OK?

My sister didn't arrive in this world until I was 10 years old, and my Dad was in too much of a drugged up haze to realise that I wasn't like his pet dog. You don't obedience train a child. A child is not a subservient pack animal, that can be taught to roll over, play dead, beg. You haven't got a bad kid, if you find that your human child can't be trained to perform tricks. You've got idiot parents who think they're training a fucking animal, not raising an infant.

Was I badly behaved? Was I fuck. Ask my teachers. Ask my work colleagues. I'm polite and well mannered. I'm courteous and considerate. That's why I got good exam grades and always had top jobs. That's why I was successful enough to buy my own home, pay for a lavish wedding & honeymoon, enjoy a playboy lifestyle with all the luxury trimmings, while my own misbehaving parents have amounted to nothing: not even able to support their children, and with inadequate pension provisions for themselves. In short: they fucked up.

What could be worse, than having failed your children?

If you offer your children worse opportunities than you yourself enjoyed, you have failed. If you expect your children to miss out on school trips and accept a worse education than you yourself enjoyed, you have failed. If you have prioritised your own alcohol and drug abuse, above your child's welfare, you have failed. If you expect your children to go without, because you can't be bothered to get a proper job and work hard to give your children the life that you and your peers enjoyed, you are a selfish failure. If you take out your frustrations on your children - abusing them - then you have failed.

This is what I look like, right now. I just went out onto my balcony and took a photograph of myself, so you know exactly what I look like, right now. This hasn't been Photoshopped, airbrushed or anything. This is me. Warts 'n' all.

Do I "look fucking shit"? Do I deserve to be phoned up and drunkenly abused, in the middle of the night? What did I ever do to you, other than interrupt your fucking drug binge?

It's fucking hard going, being abused throughout your childhood. You start to doubt your self-worth. You start to feel like you deserve the bullying and abuse. You start to comply with the victim-blaming. You start to think it's OK to be used as a convenient scapegoat for your family's problems and shortcomings.

But you know what? I came to London, and I escaped from the horrible household where I was always to fucking blame for something. I was always the bad kid. I was always in the wrong. Nothing was ever good enough.

And you know what else? I forgave myself for all the shit my parents never said sorry for. They never said sorry for treating me like shit, for being abused in their drunken, drugged up rages that they don't even fucking remember. They never said sorry, and they never will, because they're a lost fucking cause.

I forgave myself, and now I don't think that I "look fucking shit". I'm not shit. I'm not a bad kid. I'm not badly behaved and I'm not to blame for all the things that have been pinned on me.

I'm just me, and I try hard, and I work hard, and I take chances on people, and I try to improve the lives of others, rather than just pointing the finger of blame and abusing those around me. I certainly don't phone people up in the middle of the night and tell them that they "look fucking shit".

You want to know what looks fucking shit?

Yeah, that's right. The injury you did to me looks fucking shit. I have to look at this scar every day, and it looks fucking shit. Maybe this is what you're referring to? You're right. It does look fucking shit. It's fucking shit that parents would injure their child like this. It's fucking shit.

You did this injury to me, because you're abusive parents, rather than people who treat their children with the respect that they deserve. Rather than treat another human being with the respect that they deserve. That's fucking shit.

So, like a cancer, I have cut my parents out of my life. I have blocked their phone numbers. I have set their emails to go directly to the trash can. I have unfriended them on social media. It's goodbye and good riddance.

I've tried for long enough to be the peacemaker and leave the door open, but if this "you look fucking shit" abuse is the result, then it's over.

It may sound harsh, but I think it's more than fair.

Tags: #parents #childhood #injury