The world will burn if Dawkins gets his way!

I was watching some programme with my mum last night after an impromptu popping in for dinner. Someone had bought, as a Valentine’s gift, shoes for a lady in one of my mum’s favorite Indian soap operas. Now I know for a fact, that shoes should never be given as a gift. What a mug! Doesn’t he know it is against our faith? It resulted in a terse conversation between woo-ee and woo-er. Now as westerners, you might think a pair of shoes would be a great gift for their missus on Valentine’s Day. And you’d be right, because all around the world people give shoes as gifts, and nothing terrible happens! This is just one of my issues with traditions (which I understand are separate to religion, but there is a big overlap!)

Earlier, over dinner, my father was describing to me how Vimto and Pineapple Juice tastes just like a Pina Colada. Ignoring my dad’s fondness for feminine drinks, we then talked about how my mum drank some rum punch on arrival to Antigua and really enjoyed it. She turned around, and said to my dad, you told me it was fine, and not alcoholic…I will never trust you again. I told her that she should relax, and it’s not like it is against our religion. She said it was, and I said religion’s problem is it has a vendetta against anything fun, and no wonder it was dying out as a lifestyle choice. No doubt my mum will phone me up, after reading this, and tell me off for telling this story, thinking it makes her sound like Frank Gallagher in Shameless!

Then I saw that Baroness Warsi was terrified about 'militant secularism'. Militant secularism is an interesting choice of words. Because last time I checked, no one blew themselves up because they didn’t believe in a god. Militant atheists don’t go around killing pro-life campaigners to make incredibly contradictory points. Sure, atheists are getting a louder voice, and sure there are enormous agitating douche bags like Richard Dawkins, but to call it militant is not strictly fair. It is demonizing to a group of individuals who, although unbearably smug, don’t really get a voice because to be honest, none of them cares that much.

Most the atheists I know (and I know a few), don’t hate people who have faith. They are staunchly of the live and let live ideology. My atheist chums don’t go around trying to convert people to atheism, and they certainly aren’t waging a campaign to drive Christianity to the sidelines, as purported by George Carey (ex-Arch bishop of Canterbury)

"There are deep forces at work in Western society, hollowing out the values of Christianity and driving them to the margins”

It all sounds a bit like a crappy Dan Brown novel. Like there are all these secret societies plotting and scheming. No doubt, somewhere, there is some sort of Albino ninja, just waiting, and self flagellating, until he gets a chance to take out Richard Dawkins in the name of God, but actually, he doesn’t realise that he isn’t working for a Christian organization, but an atheist one who wants to make Dawkins a martyr, and the cause all the people of the world to rally around his cause.

That will totally happen, I have predicted it now! (Although I think that might actually be the plot of the Da Vinci Code)

But the issue I have with this idea that secularism is in some way trying to destroy, or merely depose God is that it isn’t. All it asks is that certain things should not be decided on a matter of faith. As I have said before, faith is a wonderful thing, and if correctly positioned, can enable people to do great things for their fellow humans. But equally, it is appropriated by men and women, and used as a cloke and dagger to prevent things from changing, strike fear into those most vulnerable, or commit terrible atrocities.

I often think about how my dad’s view of the world has shaped mine. He is very much a fatalist, in that what will be, will be, and so there is no point worrying about it. If Christianity or whatever religions are on the wane, maybe that is for the best. At the end of the day, you don’t see people parping on about how the Ancient gods of Rome are no longer worshipped. Life and society is constantly evolving, and if people cease to align themselves with some medieval doctrine, and want to align themselves to reason and logic, well then that is just the world around us. Sure stuff will be lost in our collective shifting views on faith, but new things will be gained.

- Anand

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The Island Lies

The sea sashays up to his face, and then draws away. Hissing, it gets closer until it laps at his cheek. His eye opens like a trap!

How did I get here? He can’t remember. He barely knows himself.

The wet sand is heavy beneath him, he puts his weight on his palms and he pushes himself up.  The sky is low and grey, rolling and tumbling. His clothes are damp and he feels a chill, looking out to the sea, he sees a broken boat. It juts out of the gun metal water like a tombstone. Maybe he arrived here by that?

Shivering he looks inland and sees a cottage. It is run down, and from where he is he can see broken windows, pitiless pupils reflecting nothing. But it must be warmer than the beach. Wrapping his arms around his body, he walks towards it, hunched, and head down with his back to the wind that whips lashes across him.

His feet feel heavy, and he cannot remember a thing. At first it is an unsettling sensation, how can he not know who he is? But then the anonymity  becomes a comfortable blanket, he feels reborn. He picks up the pace and finally reaches the cottage.  The gate is creaking in its joints, slowly backwards and forwards, pull and push like a breath. He places his hand on it, and it becomes still and leaden, and he pushes it, and a rusty grinding noise squeals from its hinges.  He walks through and up the path to the cottage. Next to the path, just after the gate, he sees 3 mounds of earth, the final one which has a spade thrust into it, lies next to an empty hole. The earth looks freshly tilled, maybe someone lives here still?

He hears a quiet clattering noise, and looking up he sees hanging from the porch are small skulls. They seem to be those of birds, and rabbits and other unfortunate creatures, their eye sockets pleading him to turn back.  Turn away they whisper, turn away for we died here. He pays no attention to them or his imagination. It is cold, that is all that matters to him. Pushing on the door, it gives way easily, and he goes inside. He stumbles over a raised door frame, and falls to his knees. His hands splay out in front of him, and catch him from going face first onto the floor. It is dusty, and pulling himself up he looks around. He pats his hands together, and doesn’t realise how muted the claps are. Now he is closer, he can see that the windows are indeed broken in places, but also that the cottage seems to absorb all the light with little shining in its innards.

There is a small hearth, next to which a basic bed is laid.  A small paraffin lamp lies unlit by this, along with a scrap of paper. In the corner there is a crib, and as he approaches it, it moves, three shocking, jerking movements side to side. It is violent, and in no way caused by the wind. Then it becomes immobile again.  He knows better, but still he moves to it and places his hand on it. It is empty but for a raggedy doll inside it. One eye remains open, looking  out into the gloom of the cottage. A single grey eye, unblinking, the doll’s hair blonde and matted. He turns away, he cannot touch the doll, he is repelled by it.  A hint of a memory plays across his mind, but it is gone.

On the wall hang some skinned hares, they have pale red flesh, with strikes of yellow sinew mottling their haunches, whilst their blank dark eyes stare skyward to heaven.  He isn’t hungry, but he will have to eat at some time.

He sees on the window sill, a small transistor radio. Its aerial is broken, and he goes to pick it up. He turns it on, and there is no noise. He turns the volume all the way up, and turns the dials round and round.  Nothing comes from it, he opens the back and finds there are no batteries, and returns it to the window sill. He moves over to the bed, he is still shivering.

There is a tattered quilt, and a cracked picture frame, it is empty. He sits down on the bed, wrapping the blanket around him, and even though he knows it is a mistake, he lies down. Turning over he picks up the scrap of paper, it merely says,

And he fell to earth

He turns this over in his head. Maybe that is how he got to be here? Maybe he fell from a hot air balloon, or from heaven itself. Or more than likely, it is someone else’s memory which he is trying to take for himself. His eyes grow heavy and before he knows it, sleep has claimed him.

The wind whistles through the broken windows, and the bones clatter away like chirruping birds. He doesn’t hear them. As he sleeps, a hand he wouldn’t see, turns the radio dial to on. At first there is silence, but then the static noise begins to build. It starts as a faint hiss, but as the minutes pass it gets louder and louder, till the whole room is full of the white noise.  

He wakes with a start, covering his ears from the noise, which immediately stops.

It is dark. Night has come in, and a bright moon hangs in the sky, coating everything in a silver light. There is little for it to shine on in the cottage, but in the corner he sees 2 figures. One is small, and standing in the crib, it is holding the doll. Its head hangs at an odd angle, but even in the ethereal gloom he can tell it is looking at him.

The other figure is stood in the corner, with its back to him. He can see the long dark hair of a woman, and this apparition refuses to turn to him.

Then a voice, on the edge of hearing, plays from the radio.

His chest tightens, it is a man’s voice.

You can’t leave me! It says. You can’t, I won’t let you. You leave,  and I will have nothing!

Silence. A cloud passes in front of the moon and the cottage is plunged into darkness. He feels a thousand animal tongues licking at him, it is a sickening sensation.

A creeping cold has come into the cottage. He thinks he hears the skinned hares chattering their teeth, but they are long dead.  Goose bumps trot up his arms, and he pulls the blanket closer round him.

I’ll die the voice says from the radio,  I’ll die and take you with me!

The voice is distorted. He can’t quite make it out.  Then it screams, it screams with an anger and horror that shakes him to his very core.

I’ll KILL YOU!

The cloud passes, and the woman’s face is inches from his, it has been caved in with some blunt instrument, a thick treacle like blood ebbs from the cavities, and from her hollow eyes, he sees a horror he can’t comprehend. The voice is screaming, both animal, and human. I’ll kill you it repeatedly shouts, as the apparition retreats from him into the shadow.

The screaming becomes the static and the horror overwhelms him and he passes out.

He dreams of the same cottage, but of happier times. He sees faceless people embrace. He sees a family who love and share the smell of the sea, the winds breath and all that is simple on the island. But he sees that for them it is not enough. Love will not save them. Clouds roll in, and then it begins to rain blood. Thick droplets cover the flowers and ground and people like tar.  They stand opposite him, and the woman without a face points at him and screams. She screams from her mouthless face  YOU! YOU! YOU! YOU! YOU!

He wakes, not feeling rested at all. He doesn’t feel safe in this cottage, or on this island. Who was this murderous man? This was obviously a murderers house, and he no longer feels warm or safe there, he gathers up the scrap of paper, the quilt and decides to leave.  Before he finally goes, he makes a fire and cooks one of the hares. It is gamey and tough, and provides him only with a feeling of sorrow.  Wrapping himself he goes to leave, as he opens the door, the mounds of earth have moved.  Having been at the gate, they stand by the building now. He almost steps into the hole next to the third mound. His grave it would rapidly become. It is raining, and it is filling with earth and water, thick brown slurry is filling up on it.

This island seems cursed.  Stepping gingerly around it, he goes to the gate and looks around. He sees in the distance telephone box. It is red, like in the picture books of London,  and he thinks maybe I’ll able to call for help.  It looks like it is around a 20 minute walk, so steeling himself he sets off. 

At first he thinks he must have just not estimated correctly, because 20 minutes seemed to have passed, and he seems no nearer to the phone box. Yet he is dogged, and continues to march on regardless.  It stands on a hill, like a beacon, so he trudges on. The path soon disappears and he is scrambling over the ground, it is wet in the rain, and it undulates in deep gouges.  Soon he winds himself in the bottom of one which feels like a devil’s cauldron, it rises up all around him and he can’t remember how he got there. He looks to the rocky walls that surround him, and he notices they seem to almost be bleeding. A trick of the rain, the light, and the lack of sleep. Yet the worst trick is yet to come, he looks down, and beneath his feet is no longer the ground, but an eye. A bloodshot, cataract eye. It seems to be looking both at him and through him. He screams as he tries to understand what he sees. Stumbling he runs to the cliff face and tries to climb. He can’t remember how he even got to be there, he was just going to the phone box.  His nails tear and rip against the sharp rocks, but he is oblivious as he scrambles up, never looking down, never looking at the eye beneath him. It never blinks.

When he gets to the top, he throws himself to the floor and weeps. He wails and cries, I don’t know why I am here, what have I done to deserve this? But no one answers him.

Finally he pulls himself together,  and looking up, he sees the phone box.  It has rained for hours, and he could do with drying off. Scrambling to his feet he runs to it, as if it might disappear or be another trick.

The rain is getting harder, a torrential down pour, and lightening splits the sky in two, looking up he see the two figures, on a hill far away, the smaller one clutching its doll, the faceless woman turning her head away. But with the next flash of lightening they are gone.

He smashes against the door of the phone box and climbs in. He slumps to the floor, and sobs again. How pathetic he thinks to himself. A grown man scared by tricks of the light. Standing he lifts up the receiver.

There is no dialling tone. Of course he thinks. What else should I have expected? But then an anger swells up, he begins to smash the receiver into the phone, and the booth! Again and again, and it feels so familiar to him. Why ?! He thinks what have I done ? He thinks.  The receiver has become detached from the phone. He puts it back into the broken cradle and slowly slumps to the floor. It is getting darker and he has no desire to go back to the cottage. He resigns himself to staying where he is for the night.

A thief’s moon rises, one which is cruelly clear, but before long the clouds come in and devour it, leaving a pitch black canvas through the windows of the phone booth.  Sleep won’t come easily to him tonight, he knows this, so he braces himself for what the island will throw at him next.

He doesn’t have to wait long.

He sees a glint in the darkness, a solitary glimmer, like that of a wild beast’s eye. It flits in and out of the darkness,  and it is getting closer until it is almost on him, then, without warning it disappears.  He searches frantically, looking around in the gloom, but he sees nothing.  He holds his breath, as if the creature can smell it, but it doesn’t still his heart which pounds like a frightened dormouse.

Then the first thud against the phone booth, a dull shake which he feels in his fillings. Then a second, and a third until it is a cacophony of blows, shaking the booth till it feels like it will topple over with him in it, and slide down the hill it sits on. Stop he screams with all his heart STOP! And it does. He is panting and scared, which is when the moon returns from behind the clouds, and there, directly in his eye line is the small apparition. Nothing but a young girl, only just 2 years old, her neck broken and head hanging to its side. Her single visible eye stares at him, unblinking, thudding her palm against the glass.  He recoils, turning away,  why is he seeing this terrible thing? Who would do this to a young child?

And then the broken phone rings.  He looks up in shock, and then back but the girl is gone.  He doesn’t want to answer it, every fibre of his being says not to, but he does. The static is there, but then he hears a woman’s voice. I don’t love you anymore, I don’t know what you have become. Let us go? And then the man’s voice, Never! And then he hears the screams. He hears violence pour out of the receiver and fill the booth. He hears violent yelling, and the thuds of a terrible force. Soon the screaming stops, and he hears just panting. Then, a baby begins to cry. Crackling from the phone, it gets louder and louder till fills his head, and the hands over his ears won’t stop it piercing through his heart. He attacks the phone like a monster, ripping at it with his bloodied fingers, and finally ripping it from the wall.

Silence fills the phone booth.  As tears roll down his face, and he looks at his hands. The darkness and quiet washes over him, and he falls to his knees, quilt over his shoulders. He doesn’t sleep, just kneels there in silence, waiting for the sun to come, for the sun to save him.

It finally arrives, he doesn’t know the time, only that the dark has been banished for now. Standing, he stumbles out onto the island. Heather, and gorse, and grass stretch in all directions. Looking around, he searches for anywhere else for him to run, and he sees, in the distance, a lighthouse at the top of a cliff. There must be some way for him to get help there, a radio, or telephone or something and so he sets off.

The island seems to not want to play games, and it takes him 30 uneventful minutes to get there. It stands there with a phallic brutality, jutting out into the sky as a tower of Babel. The door is open, and entering he sees a table set out with a feast of meats and wine. An inappropriate breakfast, but he doesn’t care. He is so hungry, nothing else matters.

However, as he begins to eat, a slow realisation dawns on him. Each chew tastes more bitter and rancid, and he realises the food is rotten. The food, which looked so beautiful , tastes putrid, and looking down he sees maggots crawling over the meat, and the wine like vinegar. He throws this from the table and wretches onto the floor. Again his temper overwhelms him, and he turns over the table and chairs. He doesn’t understand any of this.  When the rage has subsided, he looks at the mess, and the regret crashes into him immediately and unremorsefully.  He walks away, and begins to search for a radio. Having searched everywhere in the living quarters, he resolves that it must be at the light.

He gets to the bottom of the stairwell, which is dark, and lit by small porthole windows. He places his hand on the wall, and gingerly begins his ascent. As he does, he hears the faint sound of a baby crying, and he begins to run up to it. He cares not that it might be the horror who tormented him in the phone booth, they must know the answer.  The wailing seems to call to something paternal, and so he runs faster till he bursts into the light room.

Somehow it is dark, and he realises the island has chosen to play with him again. The baby crying should have been his clue. Dead moths, and birds are strewn across the floor, and the lighthouse light revolves slowly, a weak and feeble yellow light casting a jaundice pallor on him. He sees nothing.

Then, amongst the little corpses, he spies a photo and letter. Brushing the brittle skeletons aside, he picks them up. Innately he knows the answer is within in them. He turns the over and the obvious horror becomes apparent to him. There, in front of him, he sees himself, stood next to a woman who is carrying a beautiful young girl, within whose arm is a small doll. He knows them now, they were his wife and child. He knows, but he can’t bring himself to admit it.

His hands are shaking as he tears open the letter, and pulling it out he reads it. It talks in a pitiful language of what he did. His jealousy, his cowardice and then his crime. It talks of his brutality in murdering his wife, and then, he can barely read the next sentence, how he murdered his daughter. His daughter who knew nothing of hate or violence. And he took that from the world. He did this. And this is his punishment. This godless, grey, lonely place is his punishment! These phantoms will never leave him, never let him forget what he has done. Large, contemptible tears fall to the letter, blotting the letters and making them ineligible.  He did all of this. He did it.

Standing, in the low light of the lighthouse, he opens the door to the railings outside. The moon looks down at him with no pity, as he stands on the railings. He wants it all to end, and as he throws himself from the lighthouse, he doesn’t look back. For if he did, he would see his wife and daughter, as beautiful as they ever were in life, but they don’t smile. They just watch as he crashes into the black tumult of the sea.

It is dark, but the sea moves his body gently till he is deposited onto the beach.

The sea sashays up to his face, and then draws away. Hissing, it gets closer until it laps at his cheek. His eye opens like a trap!

How did I get here?

He can’t remember that he is in Hell.

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I wish terrible things upon this man

I am only going to do intermittent blogs this year, life has got busier in a good way so I can’t spend my evenings writing pap! However I cannot let something that happened recently go by without showering my full ire on it. No, not Yachtgate with Michael Gove (It would be easy to just write a simple 3 word blog about this man, and it would read: Michael Gove - tool), but the inexplicable rise of the adult Onesie

What is this trend of onesies I hear you cry? For those who don’t know what they are, they are what that dick head above this blog is wearing. Something that makes a grown adult look like an oversized baby.

At what point does anyone think it is a good idea to wear the above?!

I don’t know how this trend even started, but I have a feeling some knob from something like TOWIE or some shite like that wore one. Maybe ironically, maybe for laughs, but someone out there thought, ‘that is a great look’. And now, shops are selling them. How long before designer onesies turn up? How long before budget ones turn up? How long before I am on the buss, and I see someone wearing one, and I go postal?

What if it is like wet look jeggings, where lots of people wear them, and they all look awful and no one tells them? Lots of people think it is a good idea, when actually all it means is blokes with slight pot bellies will wear them, and won’t realise they look like Albert Steptoe?

Now there are photos of men and women wearing them popping up all over the net, along with twitter being awash with comments about them. I work in Shoreditch, which is an area rife for this kind of crap. No doubt boat shoes and lumberjack shirts will become par say and will be replaced with the onesie. Can you imagine, ironic glasses, ironic moustache, ironic onesie…jesus there is so much irony there, that it stops being ironic. There is only so much irony one can take before it stops being ironic, and all you want to do is smash the person’s face in with the bottom of a fire extinguisher whilst ironically singing  some vegan crunk anthem in a warehouse where lots of telephones hang from the ceiling because…well just because as it is sooooo Dalston.

Surely any woman out there with any sense of humanity, and I mean ANY woman out there, would say to a man who wore one of those, Yeah, I thought you were cute, but now you are just pond scum. You don’t look adorable in that, you just make me feel really weird being here with you now. Please delete my number, and never call me again!

Why has this happened? Why did all of us take our eye off the ball, and let this happen? Surely what should have happened is that whoever the progenitor was of this trend, should have been seen in public and lynched. We should have taken a collective stand. I know what has happened. Some bloke was going to a fancy dress party as a baby. Turned up at said party and one girl, who was full of gin and self loathing, copped off with this bloke. She probably woke up, disgusted at herself, and made her excuses and left. Oh but the damage had already been done!  That bloke probably woke up, rolled over to his iPhone, tweeting: Gots me a onesie, scored with a babe (sic) LOLZ M8!!!

His mates met him down the pub, and whilst they played giant Jenga, he told them about how he scored dressed as a giant baby. They probably thought about it, saying it was well meta, cause like you dressed like a baby, she probably wanted a baby, then you did sex, which makes babies. Man that is so meta! And then they went home, onto eBay, and bought themselves some. Maybe an ironic camouflage one to show how manly they are, ironic cause they hate war. Then they got a Superman one, and a banana one…and then tweeted pictures of themselves, and their mates laughed. Then one girl ‘liked’ it on Facebook, and all his friends thought they should get one as it could result in sex! And the vicious downwards spiral opened up like the staircase in the House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski!

What is fashion? It is a way for us to part with money, to buy clothes that make us attractive to the opposite sex. So oddly primal is this that people seem to by-pass comfort and any other rational thought, to take part in it. But here is where we should all take a stand against fashion. Against trends. Against this abomination!

Vive la anti-onesie revolution!

- Anand

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I recall a holiday I once took to Dubai with my family, it is the only time all of us have gone on one together. We went to a lovely 5 star hotel, ate phenomenally well, sat about in the sun, and in general relaxed. I still hate the place. It feels like a soulless desert obsessed with consumerism, but it did give me one thing, and that was an utter love of Sherlock Holmes. I took two Penguin classics with me of Arthur Conan Doyle’s work, and needless to say, I became obsessed.

You can imagine my excitement when I heard that Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat were to be making a modern adaptation. Gatiss I have followed since League of Gentleman, and I have also started to watch Dr Who (mainly due to Karen Gillan tbh). After the mild disappointment that was the Guy Richie Sherlock Holmes project (fun, but missing much of the stuff that makes Sherlock such a popular figure) I was slightly wary at first of this reinterpretation. But that was misguided, and I should have had more faith in the writers. It looked great, with lots of nice little modern touches and many tweaks on the Sherlock tropes were given a fresh flavour in the modern setting. As a self confessed geek, I loved spotting the little in jokes, the references to other titles of short stories. The Geek Interpreter being my personal favourite.

They got the perfect actor in Benedict Cumberbatch, with his slightly alien looks, and wonderful voice, to play Sherlock. I hadn’t seen him in anything prior to this, but you can see why he is in huge demand. He was brilliant in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and I am interested in seeing how he fairs as Smaug the dragon in The Hobbit, and as the principal villain in the new Star Trek film. In Martin Freeman the producers had the archetypal everyman, a cypher for all of us. People sometimes frown on actors like Freeman, as if what he does is a lower form of acting, but that is ridiculous. Watching the Office, he was all of us as Tim, and as Watson, he was like everyone else, in awe of Sherlock. And unlike camply suggesting that there was something ‘up’ with their relationship, or lampooning this, the writers wrote genuine affection for the two leads.

On an aside, for those who question whether Martin Freeman speaks for us all, look at his reaction here to the news that The Only Way is Essex wins a Bafta.

I am unashamed to say the final scene made me well up a bit, but I think that is because regardless of what anyone says, guys love a good bromance. We think of all our friendships, and wish that we could be back at school, where you knew you had at least one person who had your back. As you get older, you lose those people, they are whittled away, so to watch a programme about two adults in this scenario makes us all go a bit misty eyed. Or maybe I am just soft. Probably the latter.

Then you have the brilliant Louise Brearley playing Molly. Some would say it is a minor role, but I disagree, the moment she turned up in more than one episode, you kind of knew she would have a key part to play. And I am 100% certain she is the one who <REDACTED TO KEEP SPOILER FREE>

Basically, if you haven’t been watching these, go out and procure them. The dvd of the first series is out, pick it up cheap, and watch 3 lovingly crafted, intricate stories. If not you will be missing out on something that is really special. The new episodes are on BBC iPlayer so you really have no excuse.

Of course you could just watch Celebrity Big Brother.

- Anand

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This weekend, on the Sunday to be precise, my parents will have been married for 38 years.

38 years! More than half their lives have been spent together. They have seen their 2 children grow up, one of them get married and give them a grandchild, and the other one, well that is me.

In 1973 they got married, and my dad tells the story as follows. Now I may make the odd omissions, but this is how the story goes.

My dad was travelling down to Tanzania with an uncle of his. I can’t recall why they were going down there, maybe it was all a ruse to make my dad meet my mum. Whilst they had stopped in Dar Es Salaam, they were recommended a Brahmin families home where they could refresh themselves. Apparently they sat in their living room, my mum came in to serve them all tea, and then left. After a while, my dad and his uncle left. As they were walking away, my dad’s uncle turned to him and said, ‘So, what do you think of that girl?’ My dad, observant like a hawk, replied, ‘What girl?’ ‘The girl who served us tea?’ My dad said he didn’t recall her so they went back to the house. He was cajoled into a room to talk to her, whilst the family sat in the other room. The questions went along the lines of this: Do you like the Cinema? My mum asked, my dad said no…even though he used to bunk off to go to the cinema he loved it so much! Then she asked if he liked reading. He said no, he doesn’t, that was the truth. Then she asked if he liked the Beatles, I think he said yes. That was it. He walked through the doors to the waiting family, and in a miracle of understatement, he just gave a thumbs up.

11 days later, my dad married my mum, and the rest is 38 years of history.

It hasn’t been plain sailing, life generally isn’t. And really, would anyone want a life of non-incidence? Yet through my dad’s chequered medical history, my mother has been his lighthouse. Guiding him through and being there for him. I sometimes think about the sadness we have in our lives, and how they define us more than any joy. I know for a fact that my dad loves my mum more than anything else on this planet. It is a morbid thought, but I have always thought that if my dad goes first, my mum will survive, it will be the loss of something indescribable, but she is so resilient. My dad on the other hand, if my mum goes first, he would collapse like a house cards. Why? Because she is everything to him. She is the reason he wakes up, I honestly believe that. 

So congratulations to my mum and dad. I hope I can find someone who I can spend 38 years of my life with. Maybe it is seeing what they have is one of the reasons I am not rushing into the same decision, I want it to be a one time bet like it was for my mum and dad.

- Anand

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Recently it feels like I have fallen down a well. Whilst at the bottom of said well, I slipped like some Murakami novel, into another world. A world that looked exactly like mine, people behaved almost exactly like mine, except they were all in an uproar. They were so angry, and it seemed Britain was going to hell in a hand basket.

It seems no one listens to anyone’s point of view anymore. You are either with us, or against us. You can’t be reasoned, you are just a fence sitter then. If you understand even one aspect of someone’s point of view, then you are my enemy. You either agree with the Daily Mail which makes you a frothing at the mouth racist, no better than that boss-eyed Mr Toad lookilike Nick Griffin. Or you side with the Guardian, making you a bleeding heart liberal who is the very reason this country is in the dumps, and why they cancelled Last of the Summer Wine.

At least that is what it seems like.

People talk about the loss of Britain, and the loss of England due to all these foreign hordes. As if we are losing in a war against a tidal wave of Johnny foreigner. What I want to know, is what version of England is this? Is it the one after the war, where everyone lived off powdered egg and drank 3p pints? BRING THAT BACK! Is it the one of the 60s, which was all about rebellion against the post war austerity? Maybe it was the 70s, where Punk and Unions roamed the land. Or the 80s perhaps, with its Greed is Good mantra, and white dog turds in the street. That is not a racial comment, it is a ‘dog turds out in the street so long they turned white’ comment.  It can’t be the 90s, because that was when political correctness came along and ruined everything. And it sure it wasn’t the noughties, because that was when we were given our hand basket to go to hell in.

So why are we angry? Why? Because of fear? Fear of poverty, fear of homelessness, fear of getting ill, fear of the other, fear of children, fear of strangers, fear of the future, fear heaped upon fear. With a side of fear. And what do we get from the so-called leaders? More fear. What do the newspapers and news channels give us? Fear. Fear paralyses all of us, and so we retreat into our idyllic versions of things we used to know but may not have ever existed.

Other people may say it's got nothing to do with the current government, the current economic crisis etc. Its technology, ROBOTS TO BLAME! Blame the way in which people can be outraged on a daily basis and immediately comment on it. We have a news system that requires many more small stories in a day. It's mainly because of how the  internet behaves.

I wonder how much publicity any of these recent situations would've got if Twitter didn't exist and journalists had better stuff to do rather than to report on the latest Twitter trends. It isn’t really news. It is some bloke (Clarkson) saying something mildly offensive. It is some drunk woman, shouting hate at someone. Yeah, not pleasant, but there are far bigger fish to fry.

I was looking at a Victorian map of my area, and on said map was written: "Witches burned here in the 18th century". People were actually burned alive, because someone didn't like the way the looked, talked, acted, etc? We have actually come a long way. In that context a young woman shouting abuse on the Tube is reprehensible, but at least she's not a slave owner or actually physically oppressing or injuring anyone. Maybe someone should sit down with her and ask her why she hates foreign people so much. Only way we can help surely? Maybe you are thinking, SHUT IT HIPPY! She was right, send ‘em buggers back. Last time I checked, the only way to get to an island, is from off it. All those who are so keen on booting out those foreigners because they weren’t here all them years ago. Sure, lets all do that. Lets all live in our ‘own’ (sic) countries. Sure you may get rid of us, all 7 million of us,  but you are going to get over 24 million back from America, and 10 million back from Australia, and then you have the countless millions retired in Thailand, Spain, all them places! And which of them are going to be cleaning office blocks for a fraction of minimum wage? Or sweeping the streets?

I guess its symptomatic of the times; we seem to have a very nasty, selfish group of people in charge. They are then supported by their mates in the press, who perpetuate all the myths about who is to blame. Immigrants who take "our" jobs, never the bosses who employ vulnerable people on below legal wages. Dole "Scroungers" who are "stealing" public money, never the rich, who are stashing their money in tax havens. We'd rather spend money on systems for killing people (Trident) than money for saving people (the NHS). What kind of civilisation does that? I am not against people becoming stupidly wealthy, and I wholly think they should keep the lions share of it, but they should equally pay a proportion, not be able to pay accountants to hide it.

Our moral compass is screwed and it is all our faults! And the worst thing is it is cyclical! In the 80's, it was the unions and communism, now it's immigrants and 'political correctness'. There will always be someone to blame for why we aren’t all Jordan, or Posh and Becks, and whilst they are photographed coming out of the Ivy, we sit at home with our Findus Crispy Pancakes and Spaghetti Hoops wondering why we didn’t try harder at maths in school. Then at least we could have been the bankers growing rich, rather than whatever shitty job we do.

And don’t get me started on the word Multiculturalism. I hate how that has become a bad thing. Sure, some people don’t like foreign muck, but others do. I love houmous, and falafel, and other things from other countries that aren’t chick pea based. Now how ever, it is made out that it is a bad thing. Something shoved down our throats by lefty do gooders. Maybe a better way would be to be painfully ignorant about other cultures and the social morays of other people, because then when our governments went over to bomb them for their natural resources we’d feel less bad.

I am going to leave you with a story about something my mum taught me when I was a kid. I came home once, and was exceedingly happy. My mum asked why, and I said that the teachers had told me that as I wasn’t a Christian, I didn’t have to sing hymns anymore. To which my mum, a god botherer herself, ‘You will sing those hymns. We live in their country, so you will live by their rules. You respect what they believe in because it is important to them. It doesn’t hurt you to listen and understand.’

We don’t do that anymore. We don’t flex to other people. We just carry on with our lives, and tweet abuse to the people on X Factor because it is easy and pretty anonymous.

Hell in a handbasket!

- Anand

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It seems that turning 32 has resulted in some sort of secret mobilization by my friends and family to find me someone to settle down with. In the space of the last week or so, 3 different people have come up to me, and offered my blind dates with people they know. I have ostensibly said yes to all of them, but I would rather I took them on one at a time.

Normally I would be quite narked about all this, some strange part of my ego rebelling and thinking I can find my own thanks, but actually I need to throw myself into this endeavor like I would writing something, or a painting, and take every opportunity.

So what do I know about these girls, well lets break it down.

Girl 1: Is the friend of someone I went on a date with, but we didn’t have a spark. However we did get on, so she reckons I would be suitable for her friend. That is all I know. I did the usual Facebook search, but I swear everyone I am ever set up with either has some sort of idyllic beach scene or them in a mask as a profile photo. I can’t judge, my profile photo currently is me sporting a giant fake Santa beard).

Girl 2: This is through a family connect. I know is that she is based in Leicester, is an advanced practitioner in radiography and plays electric drums and is part of a band. Now that sounds kind of cool. Electric drums is strange, but a musical person could be cool. However, as the only fair way to do this is in a chronological way, she will have to wait before I email her. See how Girl 1 fares first.

Girl 3: Now we are at today’s nomination. A colleague at work said she knows someone of ‘average attractiveness’ who might get on with me. What with me being at best ‘averagely attractive’ – like Macaroni and Cheese … not exactly Michelin standard, but still pretty good looking on a winters day because all you want is stodge – I would be happy to meet her.

So maybe when the Winter party season is over, I can start working my way through the motley crew above … mental note, never show any of them this blog referring to them as a motley crew, or the term working through them. Makes it sound like a job, like taking the bins out, or sewage technician, 2^nd class.

I am just digging a hole here.

- Anand

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So this weekend recovering from a birthday party on my sofa. As a result I spent a lot of time thinking about my story, The Wolves of Autumn. It is going to be a Sci-fi Band of Brothers, so I spent a bit of time watching an episode of that, and also just reading the paper, seeing what is relevant now. Good Sci-fi is always a mirror of its time. It allows you to talk about things which you may not be allowed to in a general piece of drama.

I used to, when I was a bit younger, just write for the sake of it, if a little idea popped into my head, I would knock a short story out as soon as I could. But now, since I wrote a novella, I have taken a different tack. I have chosen to do more planning, as I find world building makes things far easier when writing. You give yourself a set of simple rules, and as long as stuff sits within that comfortably, then it is all gravy.

So what are the rules that help me write?

1. Number 1, the golden rule, is fiction is about emotion. There is no other reason to write fiction. Some people say story and plot is more important, but they are wrong. The Old Man and the Sea is about a man going fishing, and his relationship with a young boy. Nothing else, and it is possibly the greatest story ever written. I have been thinking about characters for the Wolves story. At first it was quite James Cameron. Over the top weapons and stuff, but then I thought, technology gets in the way. Lets strip all that out. This is a bunch of grunts, out on the edge of space. Far more to be gained from that than guys with giant space hammers and super soldier programmes.
2. Have a mood to the piece. What is the tone? My sci-fi mood is going to be 2 pronged. It is going to be about the morality of war, but also the loneliness of space, and how time and distance affect us. All description is an opinion about the world. I recommend finding a place to stand.
3. Never open with weather. The only book that has ever done this successfully in my opinion was The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. Everyone else thinks it sets a place for piece. It doesn’t, it just makes you think of weather. Benefit of being a space thing, there is only one type of weather, cold and dark.
4. There is nothing wrong with the word ‘said’. Some people obsess that they use it too much, and so go for things like ‘gasped’ and ‘sighed’ … try sighing and saying something. You can’t! Said is fine! Dialogue is tricky, you try to make it sound natural, and inevitably it comes out written. So think about what they are saying, and then say it out loud till something sounds right.
5. If it sounds like writing, rewrite it. That might sound strange, and it is because it is difficult to self edit. But take some time, step back, and then have another read. If something feels like you are shoe horning in descriptions and adverbs, get rid of it. I use the Hemmingway rule, is the word vital to the sentence. If not, get rid of it. With screenplays it is doubly important. A lot of well regarded series are about what is unsaid. That is what I will try and not have any of my grunts go around exclaiming.
6. Share it! Giving stories to people and listening to their feedback is the only way to make it better. Never take it personally because you have asked them for this, and the only way you can make something better is with criticism. I know some people who love some sci fi, so I will give it to them.
7. Stop writing when you still have a bit of you that wants to continue. When you have story left in your brain. That way, when you wake the next day, you can hit the ground running. I am still in the planning stage. This normally means me doodling in meetings, drawing characters and thinking about their stories in my head. This can take 6 months to a year, but then it will all coalesce in my head.
8. Listen to music whilst you do it. If it is linked to the mood of your piece, all the better. I generally listen to quiet music because it blocks out the other noises, and lets me think clearly about being my characters. I have been listening to some string guitar / blues to try and capture a sound in my head for the show.
9. Get a note pad. Write in it things you read, things people say, the way they move. For fear of sounding like a stalker, watch people. Watch people arguing, watch people catching buses. The greatest thing a writer can do is make an observation that everyone knows, but no one ever mentions, be it the way a pretty girl puts her hair behind her ear when she likes you. Or the way a parent wants to talk to you on the phone, but also always seems preoccupied with something else.
10. Disconnect the internet. You cannot write with the internet being sat there. Luring you with trivial things that stop you writing your story. I honestly believe if I wasn’t so lazy, my handwriting so terrible, and the thing taking too much effort, I would write whole things by hand. Writing a story deserves you give it all of your attention. This is probably why I take ages to think about a story, because when I knuckle down, it is all I allow myself.

I am not even a published author or anything, so the above are just some things I do to help me. I love reading, it is one of the few ways we can totally leave our mundane lives and do something terrible, or wonderful, or anything in between. So go write yourself a story, you probably haven’t since you were a kid, and you will remember that it used to be fun.

- Anand

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Jeremy Clarkson's Sex Face?

21,000 people have complained about Jeremy Clarkson saying on the One Show:

"I'd have them all shot. I would take them outside and execute them in front of their families."

What is massively tragic about this is that if you go to the Guardian site , 3 of the top 5 stories are in regards to his comment. Lefties love to moan.  It is number 3 on the BBC News site. If you do a search on Google News, 1229 articles come up about this topic in the last 24 hours (1,229 +1 if you include this one). So whilst the economy continues its nose dive and Britain and Iran posture on the brink of something grim, most people are upset about some curly haired Tory, and his outlandish statement on Unions and striking.  The NSPCC launched a campaign to make a point to the Government for better post natal care called the All Babies Count which has had 6,000 people sign up. 21,000 people care about some dinosaur and his right wing opinions, and a fraction of that care about the future of the children in this country. Now I understand that the media exposure Clarkson got dwarves what the NSPCC are capable of, but still, you wonder why this country is so preoccupied with such trivial stories.

Have we, unwittingly, all signed up to something that means we don’t really want to get angry about stuff that matters, and would much rather get angry about little things. Clarkson is nothing more than a Tory version of Frankie Boyle, a man who wants to say the most outlandish thing to get exposure. That this latest comment coincides with a soon to be released DVD says it all. Clarkson isn’t stupid, all this exposure will mean that 21,000 people will complain, but 200,000 will buy his DVD. Quids in. And those calling for the BBC to sack him, that is naïve. He saved Top Gear, made it into a programme that has a global audience of 350 million. Will they sack him so he can go do his same tired schtick somewhere else? Will they bollocks! That is like them shooting themselves in the face with a turd gun!

Then you have the sycophantic papers like the Daily Mail saying any complaining about this is ostensibly like attacking Freedom of Speech. Surprise surprise them siding with him. When did this become a free speech issue? This isn’t 1960s Alabama! What Clarkson said was just massively unpleasant, which funnily enough is exactly what the content of the Daily Mail is. This is a paper that attacked voraciously Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross for a joke (where was free speech there), but are now saying this is ok. Maybe a comedian saying he said he had sex with an actors grand daughter is more repellent than someone insinuating the murder of thousands of people in front of their families. The last thing anyone needs is Clarkson to turn into some sort of high waisted jean wearing free speech martyr.

I used to like Top Gear a lot, and even though I find Clarkson reprehensible, I find some of the stuff he says funny. Not in an ironic way I hate to say. It is also one of the best shot programmes on the BBC. But it has, in much the same way its predecessor did, become tired. How many races can they do? How many comedy challenges of turning a Caravan into a tank can we sit through? Maybe it needs a proper break, but I can’t see that happening.

As for Clarkson, the man knows what he is doing, and that people are getting so angry about it is sad. Whenever stories like this get traction, I try and look around at the other news, to see what the Government is up to, see if they are stirring up a furor about it to cover them I don’t know, making it mandatory for all wind farms to have lasers attached to fry hippies or something.

As much as I hate it as a phrase, at the end of the day, it is a man, who said something knobby on television. That happens around 800 times a day I reckon. Some people see it, others don’t. Do we really need to make a mountain out of a mole hill? Sure the sentiment he expressed isn’t pleasant. But then the Daily Mail headlined an article which said: Fasting Muslim Kills Swan. Now if that isn’t offensive scare mongering I don’t know what is. Especially considering swans are probably killed all the time.

The Daily Mash have a very funny take on it ( on Clarkson, not Swan murderers, be warned it contains some colourful language).

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/outrage-over-reaction-to-clarkson-reaction-reactions-201112014617/

- Anand

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Unfortunately the earth has spun the requisite number of times around the sun for me to be 32, worse luck! I apologise now, but this mighty be a bit mushy in places, and result in serious gagging!

When you are a child, you don’t think of yourself as a 32 year old man, mainly because that would be so weird.

Mum: Anand, you have turned 10 today, and we have got you a NES

Anand: Yeah, thanks, but the problem I have with the Unions and striking is that it doesn’t really achieve anything, does it?

Mum: A NES Anand!

You think of yourself in epochs, child, teenager, young adult, adult, parent, grand parent, dead. Being an adult is so far away that when you reach it, it kind of happens in a surprise. You go from young adult to adult in a snap. At first you don’t even notice it. The creep begins when you start thinking about your journey home from a night out before the party has ended. That turns into leaving early to catch the last train rather than getting the night bus. Before you know it, you are leaving parties before you are even drunk or partied out because ‘you just don’t feel like it’. When you are 20, all you can think about is the next time you are going to be out . When might you get an opportunity to flirt with the opposite sex. When will you get so drunk that some hysterical story will tumble out of. When you are 30, all you can think about is the one time in the year you get to properly let your hair down. The rest of the time is filled with bills, and mortgage rates and the value of good insurance.

I am not griping, I am happy to have gotten this far in my life. Lots of people don’t, so I guess that is a pretty good achievement. I am utterly privileged and proud of my friends and family. People say they love these kinds of people all the time, and it sounds easy to say, but I cannot stress enough that I wouldn’t be half the person I am with out them. Which is a worrying thought ! But I really don’t even demarcate that much between my family and my friends, they are one and the same. They are the people I rely on, they are the people I would do anything for.

I find it important that I have these relationships, more important than anything else, because they are my scaffold for when I am wobbly, and my diving board when I am not. As the quote that makes up this blogs title attests, no man is an island.

GAG WARNING ALERT : The following could be see as twee and nauseating, so please don’t read on. But I had a think about my birthday wish, and I came up with the following.

A friend of mine is going through an absolute horror of a time. They are having to deal with something so nasty that it is one of those things you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. I can see them visibly changing from the person they were, a brilliant, funny, loving person, into someone who the world is trying to wash away. It is throwing one curve ball after another, and they are taking each knock. They are tired, physically and emotionally, and they are suffering to a certain extent, on their own. If not truly on their own, I expect they feel that way often. If I could have one birthday wish, it would be for them to have all the happiness that is due me go to them. I want them to wake and just have a day of uninterrupted happiness.

That isn’t too much to ask on your birthday is it?

Thank you to everyone who has wished me a happy birthday also, it truly has made my day! 

-         Anand

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I am going to be 32 in a couple of days. I suppose it is inevitable that you reflect on how your life has gone. Why would you not take a convenient annual opportunity to assess how you have done so far in your life?

Lets do a little report card, and deal with the elephant in the room…

MARRIAGE! - I have failed, I had planned in my brain to be settled down with someone by 28…looking to be married by 30. I am now at least 4 years out now. That is shocking, if I were to grade this, it would most definitely be a D or an E. Basically I need to resit everything for this one.

JOB – Sure, I am not as far along in this either, but at least I am now in a field which I want to develop in. I have a 2 year plan for this new role, hoping to establish myself as king of Innovation in the UK. Actually that part of it might take a bit longer than 2 years. But grading wise, I would say C+ or Maybe B- on a good day. If I was to compare myself to my friends, it would drop down a couple of notches, but if life has taught me anything, it is that cheese is god’s gift to us, and that comparing yourself to others will only result in unhappiness.

FRIENDS – Yeah, they’re alright. What? There isn’t much to add there. B+ / A- with that.

FAMILY – Pretty much ditto above, I am trying to be as supportive as I can, if I was to grade it, B+ I reckon. I snapped at my mum on the phone today, gonna have to apologise about that.

HEALTH – Well I am almost the skinniest I have been since 1999 which is ok, but I could still do with losing a stone I reckon. But I will be coming up to my 2 year anniversary of gym going. There are

MONEY – Yeah, we could all do with more, but would that make us cheerier? Yes, yes it would. I wish I had more cash! At least I am saving properly at the moment. Hopefully a frugal Christmas will enable me to take some time off for a holiday. Firmly in the C camp.

Why am I writing this? Well I thought about my first ever report card at secondary school. Of all the subjects, for both effort and attainment, I got A* (hark at me) apart from Religious Studies. In this I got an A* for attainment, and a C for effort.  Now as any reader of the blog will attest, I am not exactly the world’s biggest fan of religion, but I do respect it. I remember thinking at the time (and I still do to a certain extent) How can I be good enough for an A* in attainment, and not in effort. What more could they want from me? Now Mrs Franks had a weird eye, you couldn’t tell if she was looking at you, or someone else, but I couldn’t understand why she had given me such a poor effort grade. I mean I didn’t act up in class, I engaged, and was interested in learning about different religions. Then I realised, actually what she had taught me was that some people you just can’t please. Especially if they have a boss-eye. I can’t really please myself, because we are always our own harshest critics (apart from Mrs Franks in this case). I doubt I will ever be rich enough, or healthy enough, or happy with my job … enough (??) It is just the way of things. What I would be better off doing is continuing to make little changes that I can, and bugger the rest. The grades and all that shite, none of it matters, so come Thursday, when no doubt I will be a bit glum, it is just a passing moment. And then come Friday, when I have all my chums around me, and Absinthe, things won’t be that bad. Life is just a series of these moments. Some good, some crap, and we bob along like rubber ducks on the waves.

- Anand

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There was really no other topic I could write a blog about today. Not exactly the cheeriest thing for a Monday, but it is one of those things that seems to have affected a lot of people. A lot of my friends, and a lot of people out there, seem to have been knocked for six. You think of suicide being the last option of the lonely, yet that doesn’t seem the picture painted of Gary Speed.

I was sat on my sofa on Sunday, just mooching about, watching some telly. I flicked over to my laptop, and as I loaded up the Guardian site, I saw my phone flashing. A friend had texted me just saying, ‘Gary Speed is dead, WTF!?’ The page came up in synch, and there it was. At first I thought, maybe he had a heart attack? You hear about sports men with that kind of thing happening. Super fit in life, taken early. But then I saw on a Google news stream that he had hung himself. A young man, with a wife and 2 children, must have either hid a depression spectacularly, or had something eating him up that he couldn’t share. But this speculation isn’t healthy, or appropriate. We do have a morbid fascination, as a nation, with the death of people.  Do we really need close-up pictures of Shay Given in tears? Sure, it was a powerful image, but really, that was very hard to watch.

I remember during my sixth form, we went to a Samaritan’s training day to see how people were trained to talk to people who were suffering from depression. That was my first real exposure to the idea that people needed help to stay alive. That the world can become such an overwhelming experience that you want to give it up and end your life. Listening to the counselor recount how they had heard people die on the end of the phone. People who had phoned because although they wanted to die, they wanted someone in the world to know that it had happened. It still hurts thinking about it now. About how resilient these people are, who support these people who have given up. Sure they try and stop it happening, but sometimes words can’t change anything. And I was amazed at how non-judgemental they were, and how I couldn’t be them.

My only other experience of suicide was strangely at work. Quite early in my time at the NSPCC, I was walking from a building to my office. Next to us is a large multi-story car park. As I walked, I saw a flash of something fly past the window. Normally I wouldn’t pay attention, but it was large, and looked quite pink which is an odd colour for something that seemed to be flying. I didn’t hear anything, as the glass was double glazed, but then I heard people screaming in our building. At the window, I saw why. There, in a broken, awkward shape, lay the body of a naked young man.

It was the first time I had ever seen a real dead body. It sounds trite, and cliché, but there was an element where you could see that life wasn’t there. It wasn’t someone posing as dead. There was a real motionless feeling, that it would float on an ocean, and then slowly sink to the bottom. But the screaming and crying was getting louder where I was, and I realised the selfishness of the act. Sure, he must have been terribly sad to have reached a point where he felt no one was there, but he killed himself in a public way. He affected all those people who saw him die. People were sent home because of what they saw, and I doubt in his sorrow he cared about that. You could argue why should he, but we impact other people’s lives in a constant way. Our presence and absence hugely impacts all sorts of people in ways we can’t comprehend. Like words, action and inaction, everything has a power and a weight that we can’t fully understand. It reminds me of the whole Schrödinger's cat paradox. Until we are observed, we both exist, and don’t exist. Maybe in their final act, a suicide is observed, and they exist.

We all feel so disconnected at times, but there are ways to get help, and so many accounts of the horror and sorrow depression can lead to. Whether it is through professional help, the Samaritans, or just family and friends. We need to build these scaffolds to get us through the day to day. Winston Churchill referred to his depression as his Black Dog, which hung around constantly. This was an immensely powerful man, who fought long and hard, but it was always there. I end with a quote by him, to show how it is always there for sufferers of depression and mania.

"I don't like standing near the edge of a platform when an express train is passing through. I like to stand right back and if possible get a pillar between me and the train. I don't like to stand by the side of a ship and look down into the water. A second's action would end everything. A few drops of desperation." - Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

- Anand

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So I went through a bit of a purple patch recently regarding my writing. I got out around 250 pages done in the space of a couple of months. I am very pleased with that, but since then I have been coming up with potential ideas for things to write but none of them are spiraling away from my brain like the ones I normally like so I thought I would throw a few of them out there. Some are ideas for telly programmes, others for short stories, and as for novels, I am kind of scared to go there as they can become all encompassing. That and they are harder to finish. You can knock a draft episode in a day.

So on with the shows!  

The Wolves of Autumn – A show about a set of space marines who are sent to various world to either resolve conflict, or just generally kick some ass. It is a Band of Brothers meets Firefly meets some other stuff. The Autumn is their ship, and the wolves are the group of soldiers. Could be a nice ensemble piece. I have an idea for their armour which I think sounds quite cool, and I would want it to be about the characters more than the set pieces, the back ground of what they do and why is less important that them and their family / personal relationships. I am a bit of a sci fi geek, so sue me!

Paradise Inn – This is a short story that I am currently working on at the moment, it is about a robbery in Los Angeles. It focuses on a motel on Washington Boulevard. I kind of see it as Resevoir Dogs kind of feel, but most specifically, I want it to be sort of a retelling of Paradise Lost by Milton. That was obviously an epic poem, I am trying to condense the idea of theft into a crime caper. I don’t think it would be hyper violent, but the act of thievery is key.

Orson Grey – I have been thinking about this story for the last 8 years. I had the idea of telling the history of the 20^th Century in Britain through the eyes of a baby who was born at the turn of the century. Yet I didn’t want to tell his life directly, so I thought I would write it in relation to Orson from other people’s view point. His doctor, his daughter, his school friend. This would give me more scope to play around with tone etc.

The Con Artist – This is a story about a con man. To be precise, it is about 3 lives that the con artist, none of which are the truth. The story begins with the line, ‘these are almost all lies’. I like the idea, but what the story and the cons are I am not sure. I have a vague idea, and I think there is a lot of fun to be had here .

The Last Bison – This was going to be a family story about a bunch of native American’s, and how they relate to modern America. I have done a large amount of reading around the struggles this group of people suffer from, and I feel it could be very powerful, but I worry it could be too worthy, too serious, and to be honest, too bleak.

Let us know what you think

- Anand

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My sister is a year older today. A year wiser, and no doubt a year grumpier! If there is one thing Modha’s do better than anyone else, is have a good old moan. No doubt, when she woke up this morning, she was probably grizzling about being a year older. I always find it strange that my mum is so optimistic, yet her offspring and husband can be a right cranky bunch of turds. She must often wonder where she went wrong.

But in my sister, give or take, my parents went pretty right. Sure, she is a godless wonder, stubborn as the proverbial mule, who married out of the faith, and didn’t become a lawyer / pharmacist / house wife or any other suitable role for a young Indian woman. Instead she became a fierce Modha woman. An independent woman, with her own thoughts and opinions. Anyone who has met any of the Modha daughters will know what I mean.

This makes her sound terrifying, but she isn’t, unless you annoy her, then she is.

But what she is, above all the little jokes above, is someone who cares for those she loves, like few others. Very much my father’s daughter, she does things in a quiet, and understated way. She is 100% reliable, and will never let you down. She never looks for anything in return, other than the respect and care she shows others.  

I love her very much, and she has looked after me a lot. Since I was a kid, through summers, when she would make Maca-bean-a-ghetti (a mixture of macaroni, backed beans and spaghetti….sounds disgusting, tastes like a hug would). When I went to university she helped pay for me, with money from her first job. When my dad was sick, and I felt massively alone, she was there for me, pointing out how close we were. When my mother was exhausted during this time, she looked after her too.

I was glad that this summer we got to see They Might Be Giants together, something I know she has wanted to do since 1989. I got her a signed Alan Partridge biography for her birthday. But all these things will never be able to make up for all she has done for me.

I remember once, I had called a cousin a ‘privvy and a pranny’, who then went and grassed on me to my dad. He got angry, and ordered me into the living room to get a caning. I don’t honestly believe he was going to do it, for starters because he formed an audience of some of my other cousins, and because he had never hit me before that. Then  my sister, four years older than me, can’t have been more than 11, stood in front of my dad, declared he wasn’t going to hit me, grabbed the bamboo from him, ran into the back garden and threw it over the fence.

That is my sister, and I will love her always. Because whenever I have needed her, she has been there in a heartbeat. That and she has given my life the wonder that is my nephew Sachin.

Happy Birthday Kiran

- Anand

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Warning, this blog contains some strong language

My sister said she didn’t like my cheery blogs recently. Her and my friend Anish said they decidedly didn’t like the one about how to be happy. Which is all fair and good. They will probably be happy today, because my blog isn’t about being happy. It is about being positively furious.

I awoke as most people do on Fridays, with a sense of optimism that the weekend was ostensibly only 8 or 9 hours away. I can deal with whatever comes within that space of time. Got washed and dressed, and off I went to work. Now I am never in a rush to get to work, it will always be there, and if you are late, well, that sometimes happens. As I have this sanguine attitude, I never take risks when crossing the road. Yet this morning, having pressed the button, and waited patiently, and then saw a big gap. There were no cars 50 metres either side of me, and so I jogged across. A white van man to my right had just over taken a small white car, so I sped up, but I had ages. Then I saw this gold mini (it was the colour that all cars are in the Middle East). It was blatantly doing at least 55 miles an hour. Bear in mind that my block of flats is by a school as well, and you can realise this lady was a massive tool. I sped up to the other side. 

I easily crossed the road, as I heard the beeping of the lights turning red behind me. I turned because I saw some animation in the Mini, some arms flailing, so I looked across and saw she was shouting and waving her arms at me.

Now I had a choice here, I could ignore her, which is what I should have done. I could have stopped and asked her why she was so angry, or I could stick up a finger at her. I checked, and there wasn’t some man in the car who’d had his arm chopped off and so she obviously wasn’t in a rush to A&E. I checked there wasn’t a poorly child either who might need to get to the doctors super speedily. So she was just on the way to work. Having assessed the situation, having decided she should have stopped at the red light anyway, I did the mature thing and flipped her the bird.

Bad idea.

As I walked off nonchalantly, she wound down the window, shouted some more abuse, and then called me a ‘paki c**t’. There goes the Friday good mood! Again, I had a choice, I could have jumped over the railings, kicked of her wing mirror, and thrown a disproportionate wobbler like she did. I could have just walked on, turning the other cheek and being all biblical. Or I could turn and confront her.

I don’t know if you have ever been racially abused, but there is a weight to it. Mainly because it is like they are boiling you down to a pointless aspect, and using that as the stick to beat you. I stopped dead in my tracks, and turned. As I walked, calmly, to the barrier, she shouted a few more expletives, and then, even though the light was red, drove through the crossing, almost hitting a kid.

At first I felt bad, maybe I shouldn’t have crossed, and just waited. She could have jumped a red light, and then I could have thought to myself ‘I hope she wraps herself around a lamppost’ like I usually do. But then I thought, NO! She was a racist, and this was just one of the times for her to vent it. She is probably the kind of person who says ‘I am not a racist, I have 2 black friends’, yet she had no qualms about calling me a paki, which is both offensive and wrong. I am from Barnet.

It kind of made me think about the whole John Terry thing. For Sepp Blatter to say that Anton Ferdinand should just shake his hand and forget about it is outrageous. This stupid woman has made me angry today, I have already snapped at someone else because of her, I need to go make a coffee, and let this hateful woman’s opinion not bother me anymore. If that woman had been in my work place, it would be less of an issue. The repercussions for her actions would be swift and harsh. This is what should happen on the football pitch. It isn’t international waters for crying out loud.

- Anand

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A majestic creature… and an eagle.

I was going to do a blog about the Occupy Wall Street and Occupy London but I need to do some more reading about what they are protesting about. So instead, after a conversation with someone at work, I thought I would write one about Sir David Attenborough instead.

People go on about national institutions, like Stephen Fry, but I feel the true voice of the nation, the person who truly embodies the best of what it is to come from this island, is Sir David.

Other nations must be sick as pigs if they get Oprah Winfrey narrating a programme that was previously narrated by Sir David Attenborough. I remember I wrote a comedy sketch once all about how a man had his entire life narrated by Sir David, but thinking about it now, makes me feel slightly blasphemous to have done that.

There is a clear reason why I can say, without any shame, that I love Sir David Attenborough, and that is because ostensibly I have grown up with him. I remember having had my bath as a kid, I would get into my Knightrider pajamas, run downstairs, drink some cocoa and watch whatever Attenborough programme was on with my dad. It was like watching a programme narrated by a fictional granddad. If he was in Africa, my dad would regale me with tales of his childhood.

Unlike the other presenters on stuff like this, he rarely anthropomorphized the creatures. He just described their actions in regards to survival. Unlike cack like March of the Penguins, humanizing them and their mating for life business. A colleague at work got upset about how some Orca bosched up a Minky Whale, saying how they were the bastards of the sea. I pointed out that if they didn’t kill that one Minky, 6 of them could have died. Just because the Minky is some kind of sea hippy, whilst the Orca’s are some sort of capitalist scumbags. No, it is just survival of the fittest. Sir David taught me that at a young age, when some pride of lions tore a zebra apart.

I don’t think I would be exaggerating if I said I think he is in the top 5 people who have shaped my world view. His focus on science, and rigor, and how important it is for all of us to care for the wildlife in this world.

People have tried to misappropriate his programmes. One showed a hummingbird moth that had evolved to feast on a specific orchid in a rainforest. Intelligent Design lobbyist went on about how that wasn’t coincidence, and how a designer must have been involved. How beautiful and great god was to make such an interlocking puzzle. Sir David was wonderfully pithy in his response.

‘When intelligent design lobbyists go on about the designer, it is always the beautiful examples. They never talk about the fly that lays its larvae in the eyes of children in Africa, larvae that blind them. What creator would make it so?’

His latest series, Frozen Planet, started with an image of the 85 year old in Antarctica, at the south pole, talking about how fleeting and precious the poles were. In a week when ‘TV legend’ Jimmy Saville passed away at 82, there he was, in minus 20 degrees, talking to camera about our place in the world. In that inimitable voice of his, the gravity and fear of the situation was transmitted without pomp or circumstance. Rather than the over the top orchestral accompaniment that seems to be key to every nature programme now a days, I would much rather we just had Sir David’s voice and the images, because they are staggering (the images…not his voice, although he gets your attention by just saying WOLVES).

I could prattle on about this all day. If I could meet one person alive at the moment, it would be a toss up between him and Dennis Bergkamp, but I would choose Sir David. And I know that the day he actually shuffles off this mortal coil, will be probably one of the worst days of my life. I will undoubtedly cry. But I leave you with a great man himself. When asked once what his favourite mammal in the world was, he said,

‘women.’

Absolute legend!

- Anand

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Me with a ridiculous moustache!

It feels a tad rich coming from me, what with me being a bit of a curmudgeon, but this is a little blog about being happy. The following is not an all encompassing guide in how to be happy, more some things that make me happy, and which if you do them, may make you happy. Why am I writing this? Well because it is a beautiful late Autumn day, and that makes me happy.

Thing No. 1: If you feel like doing something, do it. Now I am not talking about how murdering someone would make you feel happy, but more the little things. For example, if you are listening to your iPod, and you love that song, and you want to sing it, then sing it. Be it on a bus, or walking down the street or on the treadmill at the gym. Ask yourself the following question, if you saw someone walking down the street, singing along to what they were listening to, would you think they were mad? No. So why don’t we do it more? I do it all the time, but maybe that is why other pedestrians give me a wide berth.

Thing No. 2: Kick piles of leaves / mantle over barriers. Sometimes when the mood takes us, we feeling like being a bit childish. Like when it snows, it seems the only time we are all legitimately allowed to act like children, and enjoy the world around us. To play in it. Why don’t we do it more? When you see a pile of autumn leaves, kick them. If you see a low wall, don’t walk around it, vault over it. I do this thing, where as I walk, if something is within reach, I touch it, be it a wall, or some fence poles. I feel these things, and listen to the sound they make. It makes me feel part of this world.

Thing No. 3: Hug someone, or tell someone that you love them. I do this everyday. Sure most of the time it is a family member, but again it is to do with feeling connected to this world. The universe is a huge space, mainly empty, but we have our lives, and they intersect with others, and that is a wonderful thing. Reinforcing that thought makes me happy. All of this life is fleeting, and if I go in my sleep, I want the last thing I said to them, to be something about how much I care for them. I sleep much better like that. It sounds trite, but don’t go to bed on an argument.

Thing No. 4: Spoil yourself. Ah, retail therapy. I know we live in a material world, but this isn’t purely about accruing stuff. It is more about how we spend our lives thinking of others, and as a result neglect ourselves. Every month I treat myself to one thing. But through out the month I do other things. I make sure I eat well. As my dad has always said, other than clothes and somewhere to live, food is the most important thing, so you might as well enjoy it. No one wants to eat 3p value baked beans! If you can’t look after yourself and make yourself happy, how can you do it for anyone else?

Thing No. 5: Laugh! This world is ridiculous. From our pursuit of money, to the war mongering of nations, to recessions and the such like we live in a world that is ripe for ridicule. So laugh. I don’t know if it is a male thing, but I know my friends and I are in a constant battle to amuse each other. To make them laugh is a real triumph. I am not saying you have to joke all the time, but when you can see the humour in something, it makes the rest of it seem less bad.

Do something for yourselves today

- Anand

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Right, a disclaimer.  I have utter respect and gratitude to those who serve in the armed forces. It is something I would and could not ever do, so I am glad that they exist to protect me, my family and my friends from whatever threats there are out there. There is something inherently sad about how they are always young men, sent to their potential deaths by old men, but that is another topic altogether. I may not agree with the actions of these old men, and their rampant need to spread their idea of democracy, but that in no way should reflect negatively on those who serve. Those who believe they are doing the right thing for others.

However, my respect for them, is just that, mine. People are wholly entitled to their own opinion. I have friends who abhor the armed forces. They find their actions fuelled by greed, and they cannot separate those who serve, with those in command. They find their rampant need to spread ‘democracy’ crass and misguided. The thing is, they are entitled to that opinion. They find the fact that we even need an army galling.

Which brings me to the issue that I have with the humble poppy. I have no issue with those who wear them. In fact, I wear one (I bought a pin badge version), because I believe the sacrifices made by those in the world wars should be remembered. There is a solemnity about the ceremony at the Cenotaph that we rarely get to see in a mass way in this country. What I can’t abide however is the fact that people are almost press ganged into it wearing one.

Newsreaders don’t wear any other charity symbol through out the year, regardless of cause. They don’t wear the Aids ribbon. They don’t wear the NSPCC full stop badge, but it is alright for them to wear the poppy. Those who say it is a ‘British’ thing, and linked to our identity. Last time I checked, the NSPCC protected ‘British’ children, is that a less important than the dead? Oh but they protect and support current forces I hear you cry. Well if that is the case, then it ceases to be a charity logo, and instead becomes a political symbol. Because there are a lot of people out there who see the British armed forces as nothing more than an oppressing force.

I have a deep hatred of Nationalism and papers like the Daily Express, because often the very ideals that many countries are founded on, are ignored due to some misguided need for purity or other such ridiculous ideas. That and it pre-supposes that one piece of dirt upon which some apes lives, is better than another. Yet these people found it absolutely repugnant that FIFA would have the audacity to enforce their rule of NO POLITICAL SYMBOLS on the shirts of nations.

So what did the British do? They got Prince William, lovely, bland Prince William to write to the ‘FIFA fat cats’ to ask them to reconsider. They found a compromise, allowing the poppy on the player’s black armband, but not on the shirt. Everyone seemed thoroughly pleased with this, and so the whole thing all but disappeared. As one Guardian journalist tweeted after the decision: This is why England will never get to host the World Cup again.

But there is another side to this whole thing which I don’t like, and it is the sense that everyone should buy one, wear one, and if they don’t, they are some kind of scumbag. And if you don’t have one, what is wrong with you?! What? You don’t like ver army? You fink vey ain’t important? Vey fought in the war for us!  Well as I mentioned earlier, there are lots of people who don’t think they are important. It is a personal choice, as with all things.

I will leave you with one of the most wonderful tributes to those who gave their lives. One of the finest pieces of writing of all time, and one which shows the madness of war and what we are remembering tomorrow.  

- Anand

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