Diary of a nobody

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 08:28:16 GMT

Stephen Fry, that highly overrated polymath, recorded a podcast in which he admitted to having consistently made an error in judgement in the past, and in which he announced a change of heart and exhorted listeners to do the same. That error was accusing American people from having no sense of irony. I sort of followed him, but the words of Bill Hicks echoed in my brain:

"That's what fundamentalism breeds, man. No sense of irony".

I'm not here to quote overrated polymaths or underrated messiahs. But I would like to do something similar here today.

Accusing the populace of Britain of being stupid has become somewhat of a national pasttime among just about any wannabe purveyor of humour who's ever finished an Austen novel. It's something I've indulged in the past myself. There are a lot of things wrong with our culture, and bashing everyone else for being "thick" is one way to console oneself.

It is also, of course, a brilliant way of telling everyone how clever you yourself are. Perhaps at first decrying the coarsening of our culture served a function as a bulwark against further attack, perhaps it was a call to arms to Orwell-readers everywhere to stand up and be counted. But now it is becoming repetitive, classist, self-serving, and tedious.

I am not entirely clear whether people are thicker now than they were sixty years ago. In a trivial way perhaps they are, scraping passes in GCSEs that wouldn't have taxed thirteen year olds' in times gone by, referring to "East Angular" ad nauseam. I don't know. I think perhaps in another trivial way the modern individual is more intelligent, capable of considering and integrating points of view presented in different ways by different media in a way that the more traditional education system never even envisioned. I don't know. There's a book about this which I have always suspected to be nonsense, but that shows what I know because I haven't even read it.

Regardless, there are two main points here. Firstly, accusing everyone of being thick does blunder rather across the minefield of what intelligence is and how it should best be measured. Doggedly insisting that intelligence best be measured with reference to the correct use of apostrophe is a view which, while not impossible to justfity, certainly demands justification, which nowhere will be found in the reams of "debate" and "excoriation" you find on this subject. Taking a longer view of intelligence, it can only really be defined (like height, say) with reference to the average of a population. Or, who knows, maybe everyone's packed up the apostrophe and prefers batting averages of the Sri Lankan test team now? Clearly we can argue which is better or worse, but blandly deriding the population for being "morons" does nothing to advance this debate.

Secondly, and crucially, one would hope that the presumed intelligence of these commentators might bring them to offer some analysis of why everyone is so "moronic" and what can be done about it. Talking about idiocy without reference to Murdoch, Cowell, Blair et al. is unhelpful and intellectually bankrupt. If cultural depth and erudition are so important (which, yes, they are) I would suggest that offering a way out of the swamp would be better than sneering and insulting those most caught in it.

I would lastly offer a little aside which is that, in my view, holding people who are largely marginalised from higher society and spoon fed cultural horse shit to keep them cleaning toilets for the higher echelons to be completely responsible for their lack of education and intellectual curiosity is naive and right wing in the worst kind of way.

Herends my m'accuse. I've done it myself in the past, but let's knock it off and let's not have any more sodding books about it (I'm looking at you, that unfunny guy I forget the name of who's released one for Christmas, of all marketing opportunities). Let's try to understand what is good and bad about our culture and the people who have to live in it, and let's be constructive and offer succour, not bile, to the malnourised minds of the populace.

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 15:06:44 GMT

I hate to do this because I'm going to post something very opposite next chance I get, but have a look at this:

http://www.quietriots.com/

It's some bollocks about getting things changed, as if anything on the internet ever made any difference.

But what is so striking is how petty everything is. Bank charges, Ryanair (not carbon emissions, extra charges), Jed-fucking-ward.

Oh boo-hoo Britain, you have to pay a surcharge on your credit card when you book your ludicrously cheap holiday to some godforsaken country where beer is 40p a pint and weekly wages are half that.

I don't mind people complaining, that's fine, and I'll be the first to say that people's real feelings about their own real lives are important no matter how petty they might seem to an African diamond miner who's had his legs blown (or sawn) off.

But the idea that any of this stuff is actually IMPORTANT to anybody else on the planet is just frightening.

Yet another exhibit in the forthcoming "Death of democracy" trial.

There's some quote somewhere about "you can judge a person by the size of their concerns", and I'm a big believer in that. Anyone who thinks credit card surcharges by Ryanair who are too cheap anyway, moron, is a big concern really needs to grow up.

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 07:11:53 GMT

The thing I was going to post isn't nearly as interesting as I thought when I started. Suffice to say I'm back on the exercise wagon after four weeks of foot injury/ evil chest infection (consecutively, when it would have been better to have them at the same time) and I'm feeling very good about life.

In lots of ways my life is much better than it was in my mythical mid 2004 pre brain tumour bliss and when I'm not being annoyed about being ill (which exasperates me so much because the brain tumour years saddled me with so much illness) or being annoyed about having a lot of debt (which annoys me because the brain tumour years saddled me with brief un and under- employment) I feel very good about things. So that's good.

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 10:34:14 GMT

Wow, I haven't posted for ages. I find myself with fewer and fewer of these great philosophical problems which I somehow find useful to ramble about on the internet. The problems remaining are, in no particular order:

1) Being socially adept without being massively arrogant and overbearing.

2) Stopping being just a fevered consumerist, not racking up debts but not really reducing the current debts at the rate I should. What terrible grammar. Can't be bothered to correct it.

3) Trying to figure out whose fault it is that I'm not like other people (e.g. not interested in travel) and what should be done about it.

4) Deciding whether I'm a callous psychopath or whether my family really are that annoying (hint: it's both).

Hopefully 2010 will see the arrival of a Chris Beeley Junior which I imagine will pose philosophical quandaries of its own while sapping the energy and time I have to answer them.

In other news, I'm doing some teaching on a forensic psychology doctorate next year, which is pretty exciting, and surely 2010 will also see me finally become a published author, which is less a good thing than the ceasing of something bad. Having a PhD for a year with not one publication to my name is a bit embarassing to be honest.

And I still hate doctors but that whole issue seems a lot less interesing now than it did when it first came up.

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 17:58:42 GMT

I've got a really great "why I hate doctors" post. But I'm too knackered and I have a horrible cough. I'm writing this to remind myself to tell the world why I hate doctors some time.

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 07:17:23 GMT

I've been thinking about this a lot anyway, but a conversation I had with my mum and then another one I had with my wife (missanthropii, I mean) made me think about it even more.

I was telling my mum the other day that I was pleased because all my career related effort can now be focused on career and not on increasing my pay grade, because I'm more than happy with the one I'm on now (although the pay does go up over time, so I'll be even more happy in a few years, but you get the idea). There have been some ludicrous moments in the last year when I've been doing things purely to try to get a pay increase and not because they were actually the best thing at the time.

Anyway she seemed decidedly nonplussed with the idea that I should be happy with the pay grade that I'm on. I forget the reasons she gave but I think it involved paying the children's way.

And the conversations with missanthropii seem to have the general form that childcare is very expensive and we both need to earn large amounts of money to pay for it.

We've already stepped up to the plate finance wise in paying for the mortgage. Now we have to worry about money in order to do what nature intended and reproduce. We're already comfortably past median income.

It's funny really. I look back on my childhood now and there was this perfect elision in the household between doing something worthwhile and earning a lot of money. How convenient that was. So I would dream about being a geneticist, and pretty early on my real frustrated career ambition (clinical psychologist) and I could dream about having lots of money at the same time.

Some people get to maintain this elision their whole lives, but I can't say I have. I've already turned down an invitation to apply for senior research fellow which would have been a SIX THOUSAND pound pay rise. So what are the attitudes of the people around me? Am I following a higher calling or just robbing my children?

(I should quickly point out now that nursing the vulnerable for minimum wage is A LOT NOBLER than what I do and my job only seems noble compared with other, more babylon, things graduates get up to. Like what (nearly) every single person I went to Balliol with does).

Real life reminds me of the Sims videogame. If you just have two adults in the house it gets too easy and before long the house is filled with super fit and hyper intelligent lawyers with huge TVs having casual sex. But when they die the house just stands empty. Having children is a good way of increasing the difficulty level in the Sims and also makes it a more fulfilling experience.

I'm down with that. I'm training for another marathon. I like a challenge. But this reminds me of another game (hold on to your hats everyone).

Rome: Total War. Now Rome: Total War is a fabulous game but it does have a bit of a cheat in it, in that it artificially makes it hard to build a big empire. Basically, the bigger your empire the more chaotic and expensive it becomes. Now I'm sure this is somewhat realistic but the game goes way over the top in how hard it is ruling, say, England and Greece at the same time.

That's what all this stuff with the children feels like. I've come through everything life has thrown at me, conquered the England of caring for my dad, vanquished the Greeks (PhD plus good job) and now the rules have changed again and there are some more (artificial) goals for me.

I think as I society we need to learn to say "Satis! [enough!]"

This relates to another topic I may come on to another day. I'll summarise it in a line for you.

The secret of happiness is low expectations. The secret of success is high expectations. You basically have to pick a side.

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 07:11:30 GMT

So, the inevitable post defending the BNP. We all knew it was coming, might as well get it over with.

My facebook page has exploded with condemnation of the BNP from people whom I wasn't aware had any political beliefs whatsoever. The only problem is, they seem to confine themselves to criticising BNP voters. Apparently they are "stupid", "tw**s" and "c**ts".

Well, stupidity, as I've said before, doesn't explain right wing views, immoral behaviour, or anything else. The only thing it explains is making statements that are obvious and popular but ultimately ill thought through (see what I did there?).

As for being the other two things, well, I'm not sure. I've never tried living on an estate where two generations of residents have been unemployed. I've never been made redundant from a shitty job in a factory and languished on the dole for two years while my kids' shoes slowly approach their total destruction. And I haven't spent my whole life consuming right wing media written by loads of rich Oxbridge graduates that is designed to somehow align me to their low tax low regulation worldview despite the fact that it not only offers me nothing but ultimately harms me.

I'd walk a mile in their shoes first, personally. I decry as "tw**ts" and "c**ts" those with good educations, nice lives, people whose views are their own, and not forcefed or borne out of adversity. People who should know better.

I would advise all my facebook friends to do the same. And, of course, the BNP owes a lot to the Daily Mail.

Ooh, one more quick thing. We got this massive union jack poster through our door regarding the European elections. I showed my wife and got her to guess the party. She guessed BNP. The slogans were all correct for BNP too- "fairness", you know, all that bollocks.

It was Labour. They have totally abandoned the socially progressive left wing as far as immigration, the EU and taxation goes. So I blame them partly too.

Fri, 08 May 2009 06:35:29 GMT

Lest we forget:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2006/jun/22/politics.economicpolicy

In case you can't be bothered to read it, it's Gordon Brown fellating the bankers and idiots who would shortly lead us into global catastrophe.

He's a lying murderer too, of course.

Mon, 04 May 2009 13:25:37 GMT

Post the second:

Once I started my keep fit life and my physical tone began to improve I dreamed that one day I would be able to put up two pictures of torso(e)s [what is that damn plural of torso?]- mine and Justin Timberlake's. The idea being that they would be equivalently attractive and mine would win because it had a PhD.

I have kept this dream alive for 6 years. However, I have finally accepted that the reason that people mock me for having moobs is because I do, in fact, have moobs. The moobs definitely have pectoral muscles underneath, but they are, in actuality, fleshly protuberances. Ditto my belly which contains powerful abdominal muscles but also has a soft layer of flesh over it.

The reason for this of course is because of the amount of food that I eat. I love to eat huge pizzas and massive bags of crisps and drink litres of Coke and all the good stuff. I mean, mostly I eat very sensibly and moreover vegetarianly but I do like the occasional pig out. I do think that considering how active I am (nearly all weeks containing at least four training sessions, sometimes as many as six) I have a fair balance between my love of food and my activity levels.

So in this post I would just like to say that I think the standards of appearance we have in this country are way too high and that it's no wonder people go round hating themselves all the time. I'm pretty rock solid in pretty much all areas and I still regularly get mocked for my appearance. My legs are composed of four cylinders of bone and muscle and nothing else.

It seems likely that people choose to mock me because they sense that I consider my appearance to be satisfactory. But still. Their mocking makes sense in the cultural context where it takes place, and I think that this is a sad thing.

I shall continue in my quest to become so super fit that I can eat loads of crisps and pizza and not have moobs. But I'm not sure I fancy my chances.

Mon, 04 May 2009 10:14:37 GMT

Post the first:

I've had some money problems for a while, what with the mortgage and the end of my PhD and whatnot. I've still got a bit of credit card debt. It was all a bit horrible for a while. But I'm now on the payscale which will feed and clothe my children for life and the debts which I have (car, student loan, credit card) are all slowly dissipating over the next few years.

So I feel all right about money. I'm not quite at the trying to give money away stage, but I'm not too far off.

And I'm known as someone who likes nice things. Big TVs, 60 pound bottles of scotch, PS3s, all that stuff. It's just none of those things really costs all that much to an adult. What I'm NOT known as is someone who dreams about Audis and Jaguars and all that bollocks and £600,000 houses.

My dad was always one to cultivate the idea of having enough. I'm not being pious and congratulating myself for living in penury. I have a very comfortable pleasant life. But what the fuck are all these people who earn four times as much as me and still desperately need more doing? They often seem to justfiy the rewards by talking about the long hours and hard work.

But in that case why bother? Why not just get a car that works, but doesn't replace your penis, a house that comfortably holds the people and the stuff in it, and have a nice job that doesn't have long hours and all that bollocks?

It's not even greed, really. I'm greedy, insofar as I want a PS3 and an HDTV. And to eat out occasionally. I'm very greedy for those things. It's just I'm not greedy for £60,000 cars. People who are? Well, they're idiots? Or something?

I'm getting vague here. But it's very strange. Doubly strange when you consider that our whole economy runs on greed, and that my wages are paid with greed. The stupid kind, not the normal kind.

Hmm.

Sun, 05 Apr 2009 15:42:12 GMT

Sometimes I feel like I've lost the point of this Live Journal, and the fact that it exists and that I don't regularly update it bothers me. I've just been thinking about this and re-reading some previous entries. Hey, they were great. Who am I to chop off such a source of wisdom and (rare combination) erdution?

So yes, this month's theme, which, inevitably, comes from A Book (two books):

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss_w_h_?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=tammet&x=0&y=0

Daniel Tammet is a majorly cool dude whom you may have heard of, an autistic savant who learnt Icelandic in a week and can tell you what 82 to the fourth is without too much difficulty.

He's written a book about how HIS brain isn't amazing, EVERYONE's brains are amazing. Statistically, this isn't true, of course. But his general point is that while his brain concentrates its efforts on numbers and grammatical constructions, most "normal" people's brains are highly adapted for face and social processing. The whole thing reminds me of a book which I haven't read:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Outliers-Story-Success-Malcolm-Gladwell/dp/1846141214/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238944721&sr=8-1

I really like this argument because it resonates with something which I have believed for a long time, which is that people are basically what they want to be (notable exceptions notwithstanding).

So people who CARE about literature and classical music and mathematics and whatever other "clever" stuff aren't actually clever in any truly meaningful way. They just like clever stuff.

People who CARE about the plot of Eastenders and CAN'T see that it's just LOADS OF SCREAMING and DISASTERS roughly STITCHED TOGETHER by MORONS aren't actually "not clever" in any meaningful way. They just like "not clever" stuff.

Any argument which denigrates or elevates people who engage in either type of activity in favour of the other pre-supposes superiority of that relevant form.

Now this is an argument that we can all have. You can tell from what I've written that I don't like Eastenders. I wouldn't say that I go around perpetually consuming classical music and mathematics all day or anything like that but I certainly like to expand my mind in that way (there is another kind of mind expansion associated with Eastenders watching, the details of which I refuse to give here).

But we're getting into the realms of opinion here, clearly. You can't DEMONSTRATE the superiority of one over the other. Neither camp should try. I'm arguing for a kind of happy relativist utopia where it isn't true that nothing is true but it IS true that nobody knows for sure what's true.

People don't arrive on earth labelled with "opera" or "Corrie". People basically live the lives they want. People who can run fast want to be able to run fast. People who can read about calculus without shuddering want to read about calculus without shuddering. And people who want everyone to love them for their ability to stand around in bars talking nonsense want to be able to do that. No need for emnity on either side.

Stereotyped notions of ability and superiority actually just boil down to choices. That person over there has different taste as to what constitutes a worthwhile life to you. He or she could easily clamber over the fence and stand on your side, but they'd rather eat their own flesh.

Daniel Tammet enshrines this principle brilliantly because his whole brain is wired way over to one side. But reading his writing you can tell that he's had a good old walk on the other side, and he liked to visit, but he sure as hell wouldn't want to live there. Good for him, I say. Truly an inspirational geezer.

Oh yes, one last thing someone said to me once: two kinds of people in the world, those who are interested in politics, and those who are interested in soap operas. Says it all really.

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 13:10:43 GMT

It's funny, working, which I do enjoy, nonetheless gives me an urge to shop. I never think about the new PS3 titles Killzone 2 and Street Fighter IV at the weekend, and by 12pm on Monday my finger's hovering over amazon.

I know work exchanges boredom for money, but does it need to have such literal consequences?

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 18:39:18 GMT

I had a great idea for Tesco. Instead of messing about with those Vouchers for Schools and all that nonsense why don't you just

PAY YOUR TAXES, WHICH WILL BE SPENT ON SCHOOLS, JUST LIKE ALL US DECENT FOLK HAVE TO.

Just a thought.

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 17:10:40 GMT

I've had an ethical consumerism post boiling away for ages now, so I'll get it out now.

I'm vegetarian, I don't know if I ever mentioned that before, but I am. I have been for about 13 years now, which when you put it like that is a very long time. I started out very strict, but to be honest I have always thought that we have dominion over animals (e.g. in medical research) and over time I've become a bit lazy, eating gelatine, that kind of thing.

I skinned and ate a rabbit a few years back on a survival course, on the grounds that it was shot cleanly through the neck and didn't suffer. That's always been the thing with me and vegetarianism, it was the cruelty, not the death. I've always said that if I kept the animals myself, gave them names and killed them cleanly, I would totally eat them.

I've really lost my way now, I eat loads of fish (in restaurants at least) and I can't bring myself to give a toss really. I can feel my vegetarianism slipping away and if I wasn't married to one (and certainly if I was married to an omnivore) it would be gone.

I know this isn't very interesting so far, but there's a point I want to make. Vegetarianism is a kind of ethical consumerism. I have always hated ethical consumerism, quite apart from the fact that it is some kind of hilarious oxymoron. There are two main reasons.

The first reason that I hate ethical consumerism is that it represents a tiny amount of global trade and essentially just hides all the evils of production from thick white middle class people. So ethical goods are all made with oil. You can't avoid oil, oil makes everything now. They make oil into food and food into oil. Even if they're not made with oil, the money that buys the ethical produce is itself unethical. So the ethical industry parasitises the efficiency of the non ethical sector. It takes wealth and energy created with unethical means and turns it into cliquey niche crap for stupid middle class people. It makes no sense.

The second reason that I hate it (hate IS rather a strong word, isn't it? Blame Marie Claire) is that it takes intelligent ethical consumers away from industries and bundles them into a special niche where they can't do any harm. So we're all buying organic free range eggs and that leaves all the poor stupid people to buy battery.

This is just not good enough. There shouldn't be any battery eggs at all. My buying organic eggs at triple the price just makes me feel moral. I know the EU is banning battery cages, but the alternative is also still really cruel, so that's not the point really.

We shouldn't be demanding free range organic eggs. We should be demanding pictures of the chickens on the boxes. And pictures of the pigs on packets of bacon. Then let's see people buy them.

The whole thing just smacks of "yes I know people are being murdered in their beds by oil companies and chickens are basically being tortured their whole godforsaken lives, but I've tokenistically avoided one or two of these products so I've done my bit". Governments need to regulate these things and if it means we can't have chicken two nights a week, then so be it.

And that's why I don't think I should be vegetarian. Because I'm opting out and doing more harm than good. I think I should buy "ethical" meat products, but more than that, demand that no others are made or sold in my country. I know I'm undermining my own argument by suggesting that I should buy ethical produce. I'm buying it for taste purposes (I mean moral taste, not real taste, obviously). The difference is that I'm not pretending that it's really "ethical" or that it really achieves anything other than making me even more smug.

Oh yes, that's the third reason why I hate ethical consumerism. Because it blames us, the poor twats who work for a living, for all this waste and destruction. I'm forever being told that I'm being a bad person for buying these products, Nestle or whatever, but it's really not my fault is it? I'd love to vote for someone who promises to rid the world of all these capitalist demons, but since our democracy is broken and our newspapers are owned by disgusting evil plutocrats I can't even do that. Wait until I actually CHOOSE this world, with all the famine and death, just so I can have a cheap chocolate bar, then berate me for it. But since all this shit was pretty much set up when I got here and I've done nothing but criticise the whole set up for the last 19 years I don't really see why I should have to share the blame just because I like chunky Kit Kats.

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:38:50 GMT

My 30th birthday was very enjoyable. There were quite a lot of people there, quite a disparate bunch really, and I would say most of them give a toss about me, which is nice.

Ever since, well before really, I've been really pondering about what it means to have friends and to be a friend. People talk a lot of fine words about friendship, but I don't buy any of that crap at all. I've heard so many stories of people who just get dumped by their whole friend group, out of the blue, for no good reason. It sounds truly awful, without wanting to exaggerate too much I think I probably wouldn't bother with friends any more after that. I'm not good with rejection.

So let's start from the top. People talk a lot of fine words about romantic relationships too. That's basically all crap too. Romantic relationships serve a function, they are based on reciprocal altruim, and 99% of the time when that reciprocity is broken, that's it, no more relationship.

So my new rule of relationships is absolutely based on only one thing. Hypothetically, tirelessly nursing the person as they die from a brain tumour and lose all their intelligence and personality. That demonstrates non-reciprocity. Anything else is just horse shit.

Okay, so where does that leave friends? Nowhere, really. No-one is going to tirelessly nurse their friends through brain tumours. I hope I've laid enough foundations for the argument for it to be clear that I am suggesting that they are based purely on reciprocal altruism.

But we do have a lot of fine feelings about them. And we do talk a lot of fine words about them. Personally, I consider myself to be A Good Friend insofar as I treat my friends (relatively) unselfishly. But then I bet everyone says that.

I'm intrigued also about this because it seems like in our society having more friends is something to be proud of, and contrariwise. On the face of it having more complicated nets of reciprocal altruism doesn't seem to be much to write home about.

Of course, the reason why people have more friends is because they are in some sense superior in certain ways to the people whom people don't want to be friends with. When you listen to people talk you would think that the characteristic of being "nice" determines a lot of this, but this is of course complete nonsense. In the main I would say people have friends that entertain them, regardless of how nice they are. That's why there are loads of nice lonely people and loads of people who really should be burnt in a ditch who have loads of friends.

I would characterise friendship, therefore as:

Reciprocal altruim + Reflected glory.

I know in my heart this is true, and yet I can't help having all these really profound notions about friendships that would evaporate as soon as either of those components even took a brief holiday. I don't know why humans lie to themselves and others so much, but it really twists my melon.

I should point out to close, incidentally, that I am not really meaning to denigrate the way that humans relate to each other. People are basically selfish. Pretending otherwise, even in marriages, never mind about friendships, is just silly. Plus treating your friends substantially better than you treat everyone else just because they like the same type of books as you is a bit crap anyway.

I think I would rather defend the actual transactions between humans on a day to day basis, which can be quite profound, rather than the institutions that have sprung up around them, which as I've said here seem to really just be myth.

And other more abstract institutions seem more defensible, as well. Like the law, under which everyone is equal, even if they are a bit shy. Or the principle (not enshrined anywhere that I know of) that the world belongs to everyone on it and is not to be selfishly exploited by any one individual or country.

These ideas aren't just based on being nice to people who pretend to care what you think by asking lots of questions, then maybe engaging in a bit of reciprocal altruism for 9 months until you get bored with listening to them and replace them with some idiot who drinks too much and ruins evenings by disagreeing with everyone.

I've started off on one, so I'll stop now. You get the idea.

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 21:46:10 GMT

Eep, I forgot all about lent this year, I've been so busy.

I'm going to give up fags, for one thing, because I'm training for a marathon and just because.

And me and the wife are giving up buying plastic. Any plastic we already own is okay, and anything that we are given that is wrapped or made of plastic is okay, we are just not allowed to acquire any.

Except for bread and milk, which we clearly need.

It makes absolutely no sense at all, even less sense than the junk food year I had, but it will be interesting to marvel at how shit our lives are because we can't buy plastic. And it will keep me off buying computer games until my pay rise, which occurs just before Easter Sunday.

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 09:24:18 GMT

Quick film review:

Go see Bolt. It reminds me of Toy Story a bit, but it had me and my wife crying tears of joy (the ones you get when you watch the Simpsons) pretty much the whole way through.

It's fun in 3D too, and at Cineworld you can get in for the same price as a normal film if you go in before noon.

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 08:34:32 GMT

It's my 30th birthday today (well actually it's tomorrow but I'm pretending it's today because it's V's day tomorrow and we're all getting wasted tonight) so I thought today would be a good time to do my usual spiel on how I should behave.

Things are quite different now from how they were just 2 or 3 years ago because I'm a lot more confident now and I've written on here before about how people tend to treat me differently now and how I was worried that I was becoming this big scary egoist and nothing more.

Well I've digested some of this material now and here's what I've come up with. I find this material quite interesting insofar as I think it illustrates the wisdom of being yourself and being confident but also being open minded about how other people feel (this is called empathy in the less verbose version) and how you could improve. Most importantly though, how you should not let your emotions take the job of your brain.

So what is my place in the world? Well on the "bad" side of things, it's pretty clear now that I am very confident and pleased with myself. I don't worry too much about what people think and I do like to take the piss and wind people up a bit. The part of my brain that needs to be loved is, while not malfunctioning, I think turned down very low.

On the "good" side of things, I think I have definitely established myself as the kind of person who lends and borrows money in an honest way, stands his round, doesn't piss and moan about bills in restaurants, that kind of thing. And also as someone who can be turned to in a crisis and who will take the time and effort to try to help out a bit.

That's not very much on the good side, of course. That's only got me as far as "not an asshole".

And the thing that I've spoken about on here before that worries me is that people don't generally seem to derive much support from me. They usually go to non threatening female sources, or possibly someone else, I haven't been following everyone round or anything.

I strongly suspect the reason why people don't come to me about these every day things is that I am... Well hang on. There is another reason first. The first reason is that I am pretty Asperger's and sometimes do the wrong thing. Apparently I watched someone cry instead of hugging them the other day (I would never touch anyone out of choice) and this was A Bad Thing. Personally I would rather be left alone when I'm crying but I guess that's just me.

Anyway, I think the second reason is that I'm just not vulnerable enough. People don't like showing any weakness around me because I don't show any and it's just not a good environment to show weakness when others aren't.

So should I show weakness, then? I'm sure I could learn. But I want to balance this with being genuine. And actually I don't want to go around showing weakness to give other people permission to show weakness. There are loads of people doing that. I want to go around showing pride and strength to give people permission to do that. Hardly anyone does that. I sincerely believe that everyone contains virtually infinite untapped potential and I suppose I like my aspect towards these people to be more in the line of "Come on then. Impress me".

I'm quite satisfied with this. The only slight contradiction, and this is a pretty fundamnetal point, is that people often think that if you're proud and strong, they can't be. I know from studying psychology that people rarely make absolute judgements, they make relative ones, especially concerning people. So everyone's just going to have to go on a journey where we're all proud and strong. Or not bother, obviously.

This might sound like a load of pointless nonsense, but it makes me feel a lot better about things. I feel like I have a bit of a purpose now, and that purpose is to reflect people's strengths, not their weaknesses (while acknowledging that it's a good thing that there are people who do it the other way around).

There is an emerging strand of psychotherapy based on this, it occurs to me, based on positive psychology, which I have to say I'm quite taken with. So that ties up too.

And I will just illustrate the point about potential by saying that when I was born, I was a shy weakling with a big brain. Whereas now I'm a strapping black belt with loads of friends and a big brain. An even bigger brain. So it just goes to show even a tosser like me can step outside of their box.

Happy birthday everyone!

Sat, 10 Jan 2009 10:01:52 GMT

"Once upon a time there was a tree. This was a special year for the tree because this was the year when he would finally become a grown-up tree. This was a big year for any tree and they always made sure that they had the most splendid foliage on the big day.

The tree was therefore very busy all year soaking up the sun's rays and making sure he had the best foliage ready for the occasion. After a while a caterpillar wandered into his branches. "Morning, tree", said the caterpillar. "Morning, caterpillar", said the tree.

"Tree," said the caterpillar, "what lovely foliage you have. I wondered if I might eat some?"

The tree hesistated because his coming of age was only a few months away. "Help yourself, caterpillar. There is plenty to go round." The caterpillar ate rather a lot of the foliage, which worried the tree a little, but he still had plenty of time to grow all the leaves back.

A month later the tree was busy growing his foliage again when a squirrel scampered into his branches. "Morning tree," said the squirrel. "Morning squirrel," said the tree.

"Tree," said the squirrel, "what lovely acorns you have. I wondered if I might eat some?"

The tree wasn't really sure about this because his coming of age would be so soon. But he didn't want to offend the squirrel so he agreed. The squirrel took rather a lot of the acorns, which really worried the tree, but he wanted to help the squirrel so said nothing.

A month later and the big day had almost arrived. The tree hadn't grown as much as he had wished, and he wondered about whether he should have let his new friends eat so many leaves and acorns. Just then caterpillar and squirrel both came back. "Morning tree," they chimed. "Morning caterpillar, morning squirrel," said the tree.

As the tree feared, caterpillar and squirrel had both come back looking for more food.

This made tree very upset. Didn't they know that his big day was just around the corner? Didn't they understand that he needed all his foliage ready for the ceremony? "I'm sorry, no. I need them all for my big day in a few days. I don't have enough as it is." The tree started to cry.

"Oh, tree," said the squirrel. "We didn't know about the ceremony. We would never have taken so much if he had known." Caterpillar agreed and explained that he had not known about the ceremony either.

On the day tree didn't look as splendid as he hoped he would, and tree was a little sad that he had not explained to his friends caterpillar and squirrel sooner. For their part caterpillar and squirrel felt a little awkward knowing that they had taken too many leaves and acorns, but they really hadn't known how important it was to tree.

Tree told himself to be generous in future, but vowed sometimes to be generous to himself as well."

That should be my final word on the subject, although there is another story I could tell which is the other way round from that one. Perhaps I will tell that one another time, I'll see how I feel.

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 20:59:54 GMT

And will someone PLEASE say something about this:

http://alii-cat.livejournal.com/2008/12/16/

I'm dying to hear if anyone else can figure it out, or even if they agree, or if it's hilarious, or whatever.

I'm dying to hear anything really. I like hearing things. Oh yes, that's another post. I'm going to drag myself away now before I really wear myself out.

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 20:56:51 GMT

Meh, I've been ill for ages now. I can't exercise or read any poncey books. Every day I do my job badly (because I am knackered and have a headache), play on the PS3 until 6, play Warhammer online until 9, and then get bored, watch a bit of telly, and go to sleep.

The whole experience is making me really glad that I took up martial arts and reading poncey books arts (wait, hang on, so that's Minervan arts, cool) because I'm getting really bored.

Obviously I am aware that fully 90% of the planet's population would love to have this to complain about (is it 90%, er, so that's 5.4 billion, leaving 600 million not complaining about it, I think that's roughly there).

I'm going to tell you all about how great MMORPGs (like World of Warcraft) are another time, I'm too tired at the moment. Whenever I start a story with "I was playing Warhammer online..." or "There's a guy in my guild..." which is only when necessary people very excitedly tell me what a pathetic geek I am. Obviously I am a pathetic geek, but I want to tell you about why that's a good thing.

I certainly wouldn't be in the least bit worried if my children (not that I have children now, but later) played a lot of MMOs, put it that way.

Dammit, I'm starting the post. Must... resist...

Last thing is that MMOs are way less crap than TV, and I'm polite enough to just listen politely and smile when people suggest I should broaden my viewing from the Simpsons, Sopranos, Peep Show, and HIGNFY. Maybe I should start saying

"What?? You watch "[insert name of stupid programme here]". How boring! God!" etc.

I do watch the IT crowd, yes I know it's crap. I just love all the geekiness of it. That brings the post nicely full circle.

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 14:30:05 GMT

Someone described me as modest at work yesterday. That made me laugh internally. I'm dedicated to destroying modesty. I guess I am though, at work. This is partly because quite a few people go round telling everyone how marvellous I am (I should point out that these people are only doing me a favour and are far more important than I am, so it's not like a big ego boost or anything), so there's no need for any self promotion really. Not sure why I don't get this service in real life, hint hint, anyone listening to this, I'm looking at you, missanthropii.

The other reason why I'm modest at work is because it's a bit of social fluff to make sure people like me. I wouldn't dream of using it around anyone that I actually had a meaningful relationship with. That would be insulting.

You wouldn't believe how annoyed I was yesterday. Apparently missanthropii moved away from me because I was so annoyed that she thought I might forget what I was doing and accidentally smack her one (this really sounds like something you hear in a family court, but I think she really meant it. Well I hope she did).

I'm afraid to say that I have this lake of bile inside me which, very occasionally, gets plugged into my brain.

Anyway, probably should get back to work really.

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 22:35:47 GMT

I'm really annoyed today. I just wrote a really vile entry about it which I have now deleted because I don't want to vomit venom on here any more like I used to when I had real problems. Writing it was quite therapeutic though, although not as therapeutic as smashing up the entire house which is what I feel like doing. I'm going to bed before I do smash anything.

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 16:04:18 GMT

You have to look at this. It's just too weird.

Okay, here is some educational charity thing which apparently has links to the Fabian society:

http://www.commonpurpose.org.uk/home/aboutus/ourconventions.aspx

Look at that first. It looks really innocuous, just some left leaning graduate programme thingy.

Now look at this, a website dedicated to destroying this red menace:

http://www.stopcp.com/index.php

I can't make head nor tail of any of it. There must be some reason why the website hates them so much, but they're not really clear exactly what it is, other than stating as fact that they are marxists who seek to impoverish and destroy us all.

If anyone figures it out, do tell. And you must watch the video on the latter site it's really hilarious, loads of old soviet propoganda, piles of skulls from Cambodia (tells us everything we need to know about communism, which is a bit confusing because it also tells us everything we need to know about Nazism, George Bush ism, the Mayans, and more besides. All that from a pile of skulls) etc.

I'm a bit worried writing this that they're going to hunt me down and kill me, but I guess they have bigger marxists to fry before they get that far down the list.

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 16:58:35 GMT

I forgot to tell all the good people of LJ land, I finally got awarded my PhD on Wednesday, although you probably feel like I have told you that I have 10 times already, it actually happened on Wednesday.

For those of you who don't know, in order to be awarded a PhD you submit a thesis of around 80,000 words (varies a bit with subject) and then have a viva, where you argue for and defend your thesis with two experts in the field (well, I say experts, it varies. Each of mine was an expert at a fair chunk of the work, although to be technical I'm probably one of about 10 experts in the whole country for the whole work, because it's so bitty and obscure). Depending on the quality of the thesis, and how well you defend it, the PhD is then awarded:

a) Just like that, thesis goes straight into the university archive and the British Library. This is quite rare and is a good achievement.

b) With minor corrections, tidying up of text, slight reanalysis, insertion of extra sections or sub-analyses, etc. Amount of time varies, at Nottingham they give you three months to submit. This is the most common category, certainly among people who have been properly supervised.

c) Major corrections, where significant revision is required, again varies but they usually give you a year.

So anyway, mine was awarded subject to minor corrections, and they are pretty minor really. They didn't much like the way I had presented my tables, and they also wanted me to spell out more clearly the ethical clearance I had been granted to perform the research, and that's pretty much it. Oh yeah, and loads of typos, which I am quite embarassed about. But the cool thing is that I am Dr. Alii_Cat now, even before the corrections are in.

There is a good reason why I'm glad I got the award on Wednesday, because I have a big important meeting to go to on Friday where I am bidding to do a big piece of evaluative research and I want my name badge to say "Dr." so people will listen to me a bit more.

I was absolutely terrified going in to the viva and had no confidence at all really (quite rare for me obviously). Without being Mr. "Oh my life is so hard" to be honest the work was mostly done under bad circumstances and I couldn't quite shake the loser-ish-ness from how I felt about it.

But it was actually really fun, it's not like they thought it was the most amazing research ever or anything, but they clearly thought it was well written, interesting and well carried out and they clearly also found that I spoke knowledgeably and engagingly about the theoretical, methodological and ethical issues which underlie the research. If they hate your work, or even if they're not sure, it can be pretty punishing but I actually really enjoyed the process, so all credit to them for being friendly and putting me at my ease and all that stuff.

I should point out that if you're wondering why even bother having a viva one of the reasons is to check that the thesis is your own work, i.e. do you understand it.

And how cool is it that it goes in the British Library? I didn't know that until they told me, I knew there was an archive somewhere but I didn't realise where. Almost feels like publishing a proper book, although of course as an achievement it is many times of magnitude lower.

And I had a great time getting drunk after, which was cool. So I am a happy alii_cat this year :-)

With a black belt, a PhD and a half marathon in 2008, 2009 will seem a bit quiet. Probably for the best. 2009 should see my get my 10K time to less than 40 minutes (not great, I know, but I have to aim somewhere not too hard first) and do the Edinburgh marathon. That will do. Oh yes and I need to negotiate my salary one more time, then I'm set, so that will involve a certain amount of being good at my job for the first half of 2009 (although I hope I will continue to do that in the second half).

Then it's all healthy children and domestic bliss for 2010-2030.

Then VEGAS!