What a Monotonous World - Why all the roads?

I've just returned from a trip to Venice, originally the plan was to make a travel journal/post somewhat similar to the New York saga - though for the moment this has been put on the back-burner at best, skipped over entirely in all likelihood. Having said that, this post is inspired and will be heavily influenced by Venice and all the wonders that come with it.


A brief foreword to kick things off, travelling around Venice in my very brief experience is a combination of:

1. Boating to terra firma, around the islands, and through the canals.
2. Walking about sunlit squares (campos), through shaded (yet light strewn) alleyways, and across one of the unfathomable number of bridges.

My question is, why only Venice? Why does the rest of the world conform to the norm of this ridiculous idea that 'roads' are clearly, totally the way we should go. Noone can argue that roads aren't efficient, which surely is taken to it's logical conclusion in New York - a city with such an efficient road system that it doesn't even need road names any more (the corner of 31st St. and 5th Ave. doesn't so much use names as much as it does a grid location).

Walk forward for three blocks, take a left, walk another 7 blocks,
take a right, walk 3 blocks, take another right, walk forward for 7 blocks,
take your final turn right and then walk for 6 blocks...
You should see it on your left.

“Roads are devices that allow some people to dash from point A to point B very fast while other people dash from point B to point A very fast. People living at point C, being a point directly in between, are often given to wonder what's so great about point A that so many people from point B are so keen to get there, and what's so great about point B that so many people from point A are so keen to get there. They often wish that people would just once and for all work out where the hell they wanted to be.”

- Ever-so-slightly adapted from A Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams.

Walk forward. Go wherever the fuck you like, you'll enjoy it.

But is efficiency the sole reason for this normalcy of the construction of roads? I can assure you that income only makes you so happy and there are in fact a multitude of other pathways to that ever desirable position of being content. I, for one, much preferred the Venetian lifestyle in which I could jump on a vaporetto (waterbus) in the morning to buy a croissant and espresso; as opposed to the deathly boring monotony of trudging to a bus-stop to get on a U1 with 50 other people (conjuring up feelings of being sent a labour camp in the Easternmost reaches of Siberia) in order to grab a decidedly lacklustre sandwich from Costcutter. As far as I'm concerned if a city manages to make sitting at a bus-stop feel like a cultural and interesting experience they've done fucking fantastically.

Bus Stops -- Best served with water.

I'm sure Venice would be made a whole lot more 'efficient' if there were a road system and less of that pesky water yet I doubt even one Venetian would wish such a thing. I'm sure I would love boating to work every morning, sitting in a campo on my lunch break and sipping on a Spritz in the sun - who cares if the captain, the bartender and my boss are probably all in a persistent state of drunkenness? If I were them I would be doing exactly the same.

“For instance, on the planet Earth, American had always assumed that he was more intelligent than Venetian because he had achieved so much—the pretzel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the Venetian had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the Venetian had always believed that they were far more intelligent than American - for precisely the same reasons.” 

- adapted from A Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams.

I'm not advocating flooding the world and ridding us of roads, I know that would be a logistical nightmare that frankly could only be achieved with the efficient marvels of a functioning road system. No, all I ask is that we consider alternatives, all I ask is that we don't just assume that efficiency leads to enjoyment. 

Diversity. Diversity. Diversity

That is todays message. Imagine a tree-top city in which monkey-ropes and rickety wooden bridges were the means a travel; a city in which there were a legal minimum blood alcohol level because fuck it everyone should be more chilled out; a city in which all of your wildest dreams are realised - then build it, because I want to visit.

As a couple addendums :

1. I actually love New York.
2. I am a big fan of capitalism and apologise to it, as an abstract concept, for my slight faux pas in holding these beliefs.

What a Mistaken World : Revengeance

Come on now, seriously.

I know I haven't exactly been prolific in my blog posts but I've done a few, and frankly I think the response rate has been piss poor - I mean, the world is still mistaken, misguided and far beyond its carrying capacity of megalomaniacs. In, what I imagine will be, a futile attempt to remedy this I plan to re-visit a few of my earlier posts and perhaps .. expand their horizons somewhat. For instance this post in a previous life simply butchered and beleaguered the horrible, nigh-on catastrophic decision to name a shop 'bread and co' whereas now! Well, now it's back for Revengeance (Revenge we all know is a dish best served cold, vengeance swift - Revengeance I would suggest to you is best served flash-frozen into a smooth, delectable sorbet).

Now I'm not one to shy away from anger, as many of you are aware I somewhat relish the stuff - you could say it is my drug of choice, my poison, my raison d'être. But that is not to say it is without its faults, for mistaken, misdirected anger is the worst. I'm sure I've been the root of mistaken anger many a time, but I'm not here to point out my own faults - I'm here to point out the faults of the general public and boy do I intend to do so.

Revengeance is sweet.

Christ, I hate politicians.

Politicians are probably some of the most hated people on the planet. 'Rick Santorum, Margaret Thatcher, Gordon Brown and George Bush' is a sentence that will probably cause more angst and anxiety that any other known to humankind - and it's barely even a sentence! Imagine the hatred it could receive if it were...

But why?! Why is it the politicians fault that they're stuck-up, pretentious, rich bastards? If the same person were simply walking down the street I doubt they'd get half as much hate-mail and bad press. The only difference between that situation and the one we find ourselves in is the fact that the general public (you're one of them) has voted them into power. Voted them into power. Voted.

It's a thankless job for sure, unless you win a war of some kind but that's pretty hard to come by these days, and to be honest I'm far happier with some career politician who I may not get on with personally running the country than Joe Bloggs, my best mate from back home; or John Doe the captain of the football team I once played for.

The face of trust. The face of reason. The face of BoJo

God, I hate the sh** that makes the news these days.

Honestly if I had a Russian Ruble for every time I heard that I'm pretty sure I'd nearly have an entire Great British Pound by now; I know, I've heard it shed-loads. How dare the news company tell me that Amy Winehouse dying is breaking news when thousands of people died of famine within the last hour?! Oh, well this has no comedic value, but my point is that news companies have to make money like everyone else; they're hardly to blame.

But all hope is not lost! The general public still holds the power, if only NewsCorp knew that we wanted to hear about the actual news rather than celebrity gossip. Wait, no.. I got confused again. If you wouldn't mind backing up a couple sentences I'd just like to rephrase 'All hope is lost! The general public still holds the power!'

Hypocrite I hear you shout! I moan about people moaning about the news and then degenerate into moaning about the news myself? It's okay though, Don't Panic, for my anger is directed firmly at the masses, the swarm that guides NewsCorp in their ever-hardening struggle to appease the mob.

Happy Days, right?!

Jesus H. Christ, Why does that person think that that activity they are performing is acceptable in any way?! They look like a Class-A-C***.

I realise this is pretty vague, but I couldn't exactly cover every single eventuality in just the one blog post. Consider this a template which you can apply to whatever, whenever you like! I used to think this, this pretty much ran through my mind on a constant loop (Obviously along side other things, it didn't really require any conscious sustenance. It just sort of chugged along at a pretty steady state not really bothering all my other thoughts and then sometimes would just chime in 'What a prick - that's not okay') but I like to think I'm passed that now. It's not that pricks fault that society deems that activity acceptable, he just doing the best he can in what is a ridiculous, broken world. Far better, I feel, to simply pity them for being such a mindless drone because certainly one day they will look back at the Red 1995 Renault Clio 1.2 and realise that they weren't G, despite the sick speakers they installed and the way they constantly shredded the neighbourhood. 

(did I use that right? 

Shreddin' (v) to tear up the streets or otherwise act as a gangsta homeboy; 

to continuously roll in and out of various establishments; 

to roll deep)

Yeah, nailed it.

Bitchin'

What a Conformist World

It seems that I've been extremely distracted as of late; I've barely posted a thing and when I have it's been about New York and leaning strongly towards the positive. Whilst there is more to say on the topic of America, I feel I have to return at least for a short time to the roots of this blog and can only apologise for straying so far up to now - perhaps I'm just a happier person these days.

'All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy', you know what else makes Jack a dull boy? Being the same as everyone else. I like to back up my points with a popular quote, none really fitted so I had to be creative.


The problem I have with conformism is that it inevitably makes the world a more boring place, a 1984ian, dystopian place made of grey concrete, one fashion, and a short back and sides. I pretty much blame this whole thing on two words. Two words that are fine on their own, but together they cause me a world of angst.

Most Popular

www.baby-names-guide.com

The words that you can almost guarantee seeing on any internet marketplace, or even news website, or games website. According to Google there were about 2.5bn hits for the words 'Most Popular' but thankfully, so I didn't have to trawl through all the unwanted pages, they offered to filter them down to the Most Visited for me - how kind. I may be being unjustly harsh on the two words though, they have collaborators - Bestsellers, 'Our recommendations for you' and various other ways of pinpointing exactly how you can follow the crowd. 

I need to stress that I have no problem with fashion, I'd much rather people were fashionable than sport some overly worn 1990 Reebok classics as casual shoes. But fashion can still lead to independence, fashion does not pinpoint that everyone should wear a khaki military style shirt, some beige-brown trousers and some black boots (those of you on the edge can wear some military jewelery) as ASOS would suggest. 

Incidentally, military jewelery? If I had my ears pierced I would not choose to get a small silver hand grenade put in them, but that's just me.

I'm aware that I'm not being particularly coherent here. I think the problem lies in the fact that there are less distinct cultures now, there are few punks, few mods and few rockers. Instead there seems to be an inundation of Indies who somewhere along the way have lost the meaning of the word independent.

This man. This man is an Indie.

There have been a few instances lately which have highlighted this problem for me.

I visited a website, with the specific purpose of allowing the visitor to design their own t-shirt, or design their own anything, why on Gods' green earth did they give me a list of their most popular designs?!   If I wanted t-shirts that other people had designed I'd have gone to topman, I want a shirt that I have designed hence coming to www.yourdesign.co.uk.

I met a man. In the platonic sense. He was a practicing Sikh though repeatedly told me that he didn't believe everything the Sikh faith had to deliver. So why would he call himself a Sikh?! Why did he decide that his beliefs had to be assigned to one of a few major religions? Clearly he had thought about the religion and decided that some of it wasn't for him, so why still put himself in that category? It's not like politics, you don't have to vote for a religion despite perhaps not liking it in its entirety. But no, in some bizarre move of conformity he had decided it would be best to stick within the mainstream religion. Clearly, I didn't tell him this, instead I allowed my confusion and slight annoyance to build until I had this opportunity to vent.

Notes From a Small Island III

And It's here. Once again the Gods of Fate have smiled upon me and given me the opportunity to write another post. After weeks of full-time work, it took a brief hospitalisation to give me the chance to blog again; but here I am, having returned home and finding there is little to do but blog. It's my pleasure to tell you we are still on the topic of New York, now a month past the event but still fresh in my mind (I'm hoping). And this one's going to be a special one, this post will focus entirely around an eventful trip to the ballpark to watch:


The Mets vs. The Yankees in the 2nd Subway Series of the Year.
Wow.

The Game

Now being a small town Brit going to this game was a bit of a risk, I wouldn't claim to have known all those little intricate rules of baseball that I'm sure are crucial in deciding when to cheer or boo. I was assured that as there was no crowd segregation this wouldn't be an issue as people tend to just cheer randomly throughout the game with no obvious support one way or another. This turned out to be a little wrong, but no less bizarre than the truth; we ended up with a Yankees fan (25/m/NY) behind us with a Mets fan (5/f/NY) next to him who repeatedly asked why he was 'such a cranky Yankee' and that he was invariably quite rude.
Note: I have used the standard (age/sex/location) method of identification, recommended to me by somewhat of a connoisseur of internet chat rooms. 


I must confess that I felt a little let down by the game itself, for what is held as Americas' past-time and the athletes held in such high regard, they seemed to do unbelievably little and it was all a little lacklustre. This is not to say it wasn't a good game though. We were supporting the underdogs, The Mets, because we couldn't bring ourselves to support the 'Man United' of the baseballing world. So for them to clinch a 3-2 victory in the 10th inning having been 2-1 down at the Bottom of the Ninth (That's late, really late. Like, that's used as a metaphor meaning 'really really late') was an exciting moment  that even we Brits got a little wrapped up in.

Trust me that the Mets went on to win.

So the game was a little disappointing despite exciting moments; but the event? Christ, you can't forget about an event like that easily.

The Event

There were just so many memorable features of the event, whether it's the excessive patriotism, the excessive consumption or the excessive flamboyancy of Americans and their toys.

Patriotism

So there were many sides to the American Patriotism throughout the game. It was evident as soon as we arrived and noticed that the stadium was covered in more flags than the UN; the only difference being that they were all stars and stripes. It continued in this wonderful fashion as at the start of the game we were invited ordered to stand, take off our caps, put out hands on our hearts and join in a rendition of the Star Spangled Banner sung by a Sergeant Major of a locally stationed platoon. Everyone participated. Everyone also participated when after the 4th innings we were once again asked to stand (same procedure all round) for the further rendition of God Bless America. 


Now don't write me off as a cynic, I love patriotism as much (probably more than) the next guy but it seemed like every was under some form of well-developed mind control! These were not American versions of Man United fans any more than they were American versions of boy scouts, frightened by the matriarchal figure of the Sgt. Mjr. telling them to sing their hearts out for their country.

O! Say can you see, by the dawn's early light.

All of this of course was punctuated by two messages in between each inning (there were 10) from a brave American servicemen currently in the Middle East. I have no qualms with this, it would be ridiculous if I did. It just seems that the patriotism as a whole of the event was a little excessive for what was an All-American, even an all New York, event. Naturally though, I wouldn't have changed a thing.


Consumption


This section doesn't need to be long, it shouldn't take long for me to get across the message that I was both appalled and amazed by the amounts of food that were eaten during the 4 hours game. Now I realise that I may have the appetite of a small African boy named Tyrique (I ate a pretzel) but that does not mean the woman next to me was justified in eating the veritable banquet that she managed to plough through.


3-4 Burgers                
Numerous Pretzels                  
A few portions of Chips            
Endless (definitely more than seven, most likely more than seventeen) numbers of chicken wings.
Probably more. Like I said, it's been a while.


“If we do our jobs well, the food will be yet another reason fans will become excited to go to the ballpark.” Meyer, a Mets season ticket holder for 2 decades, and promoter of food at CitiField. The man who in my opinion has had the most success in his job out of any man.


Flamboyancy of Americans and their Toys


One of the most noticeable, and enjoyable, features of the day was the stadium announcer who also seemed to have the role of special effects guru. Seemingly getting bored of his standard job of announcing who was at bat, and the score (understandable boring, it very rarely changed) he focused heavily on adding tension with drum rolls, marching bands, and encores of trumpets whenever it seemed necessary. It always seemed necessary.


.. and then ...


In moments of extreme pressure, where the outcome of one pitch could actually mean a run, or could significantly alter the match he would pull out his special move. A celebrity chanting 'Let's Go Mets' over the loudspeaker and on the JumboTron - we had Kevin James, Chris Rock and inevitably endless American servicemen.


I should point out that 'Lets Go Mets' was pretty much the only chant, on the odd occasion someone would try something very witty, but it always seemed to fall on deaf ears. In fairness though, 'Lets Go Yankees' wasn't much more original. There was a point when I feared the Americans just didn't have it in them, it was just after the Cranky Yankee behind me had been shouting 'Text Message! Text Message for Teixeira!' when his man Mark Teixeira came out to bat. What?!

Mark 'Text Message' Teixeira

But then, at the very end of the game; in the metaphorical bottom of the 9th, and the metaphysical bottom of the 10th. The announcer of all people came up with a gem, this wonderful piece of magical punnery to show off Jason Bay's winning single.

You don't need to wait until the end of the month folks! Bay Day has come early to The Mets!

Magic.


Apologies for this strange highlighting business, it just seemed to happen. Try not to take offense

Notes From a Small Island II

I've been slacking a little on the blog posting front. I blame this on actually being busy for one of the first times in my life; unfortunately blogging has taken a bit of a backseat. But here I am, back again to tell you about New York because frankly there is so much yet to tell.

Multiculturalism and Casual Racism

New York is likely the most culturally diverse city I have visited; everyone knows of Chinatown and Little Italy but this covers such a small amount of the true diversity of the city. Clearly this is a positive point, that the Italians and Chinese residents are as much New Yorkers as the Americans.

Let me set the scene for an example of the hilarity, and slight fear, that can arise in such a society.

You are in a small pancake/crepe shop. Behind the counter stands a small spectacled oriental man (he is in his mid 30's), just to his right stands a broad, tall african american (also in his mid 30's).

Now, you innocently order a dark chocolate crepe from Ken (You checked his namebadge); it's on their menu, there can be no fault of your own here! He procedes to laugh, point at Derek (namebadge) and say 'This one's on you mate!'. Derek, who'd clearly had enough of that shit during the slave trade, is not having any of it and punches Ken right in the chest.

Ken is visibly hurt and saddened by the entire incident.
Derek is sulkily making your crepe in a mood that can only be described as preoccupied.
You are a little afraid of Derek and slightly upset about your lacklustre crepe. But are also filled with mirth and joy because of the events that have unfolded in front of you.

In no way am I condemning this multicultural society, I think it's fantastic. Hypothetically speaking if I were in the situation highlighted above I would have seen the positives of witnessing the spectacle as greatly outweighing the negatives of having a slightly poorly made crepe!

Scary, SCARY People

Don't get me wrong, most New Yorkers seemed like lovely people. I'm sure I could happily get on with the majority of them, and even the scary ones are probably tolerable if you know them. If you don't know them, however, they are scary - very scary.

So I was walking by the Empire State Building, there are thousands of people in my line of sight and so even the thought that I was in danger would be ridiculous. But then a a group of 3 large men ran up to me, now I know it shouldn't make a difference to how scary the scenario was but they looked more like 50 Cent than Eminem, if you know what I mean. These three men, it turned out, were rappers trying to sell their CDs for any money they could get they assured me that they didn't mind that I didn't have any Dollars- Euros, Pounds or any other form of payment would be fine (it was the mention of 'other form of payment' that had me really scared). So anyway, after sacrificing $5 I walked away with 2 CDs featuring the music of G-Money, Drama and the third man who had a much less memorable name.

G-Money, Drama and the crew in the video 'Broken Hoes'

I haven't technically listened to them, though according to a review on www.cdbaby.com Lil' Jon likes them, claiming 'yo when i first heard this CD i was like yeahhhh'. A shining endorsement that I think proves my $5 a worthy investment.

...But...

I wouldn't want to scare anyone who may be taking a trip to New York any time soon! Like I said, and I would emphasise, there was never any chance of real danger. Just the illusion of danger, enough to scare a small country, small town boy; but surely not enough to scare anyone who grew up on the outskirts of a London suburb.

Besides, the vast majority of New Yorkers seemed extremely similar to anyone else; and the vast majority of those who weren't were simply hilarious. I realise that this post hasn't actually been that positive; I assure you that all the events were experiences I would not wish to rid myself of! The next post will be bursting at the seems with praise and worshipping of New York, the next post will be about that wonderful team that is The Mets.

Notes From a Small Island I

So, as some of you may know, I recently made a trip to New York. This has caused me to announce a temporary suspension of the normal content of this blog so I can recount a few of the events that unfolded in those unforgettable 6 days. To explain the title, the vast majority of my trip centred around Manhattan and only on the odd occasion did we travel outside of this Green Zone (in the military sense of the term, not in any way the environmental sense).

Now I've been to America numerous times before, so I figured that I'd be fairly well prepared for the culture differences across the pond. It turns out, as has later been confirmed, that '[the] entire country cannot be summed up by New York' and it is in fact an entirely different place. There are far too many things to talk about and most of them would be far too tedious; but I shall try to give you a solid understanding of the differences I noticed.

Police

Now I know a little bit about the history of New York: gang violence, historically high crime rates, and Mayor Giuliani. I embolden history so as not to offend any present day New Yorkers. And so, these facts in hand, I was expecting a lot of police. My expectations were not high enough. It turns out that a cop on every corner was not hyperbole and was entirely as it sounds. I realise this picture isn't particularly clear, but take my word for the fact that there are 8 people in this photo; 6 of those people are policemen. Six!

Six!

It's not just that there was a lot of law enforcement but there seemed to be such an unnecessary amount that they didn't know what to do with themselves. It was such a common sight to see a policeman on a crossroads directing traffic - or more accurately - a policeman on a crossroads whistling and shouting in accordance with a perfectly sufficient traffic light system. But I'm not here to moan, not today, so I'll let them be. At least it creates jobs eh?!

'I present to you, the all new, Police Interceptor' ....... 'Wow'

Sharpness, Abruptness, Rudeness?

Now I need to be careful here, because I am not going to moan. New Yorkers (Who am I kidding, no New Yorkers are reading this anyway!) always need to be somewhere and tourists (I'm sure I'm included) always need to stop to take a photo. This leads to a problem where walking along a sidewalk becomes a death race, a struggle for survival where only the fittest will survive. I tell no word of a lie that on first arriving in Koreatown a woman with a pram ran at me, failing to move one way or the other, she wedged the pram in between my legs (leaving both baby and I in an awkward position). At this point she retracted the pram and continued to run by before a word of apology could be said on either of our parts. It's understandable I suppose though, she was in a rush; I know this because she proceeded to dash into 'Paris Baguette' (inexplicably at the heart of Koreatown).

But I think this is an inevitable by-product of a city that is so full of inhabitants that it is just impractical to saunter along a street, and it is impractical to worry about bumping into someone.

If everyone apologised each time they knocked someone it would drown out all the car horns!

Bringing me nicely onto my next point. That car horns are such a frequent event in NY that you cease to recognise them as anything other than background noise - rendering them entirely useless and impractical.

The most unenforced law in the entirety of the world; history, future and present.

Again though, I like to think that the over-honking has become a bit of light humour between taxi drivers and policemen and is not intended maliciously. 

Note: I'm not basing that theory on anything other than my good faith in humanity.

Don't worry, there's plenty more where this came from. I've barely scratched the surface.

What a Sensitive World

Warning : Unsuitable for readers with photo-sensitive epilepsy

It's political correctness gone mad! But that post would be too cliché, so I'll try and give my own slant to this well versed topic.

Honky

A disrespectful term for a white person. Used mainly by a black person. 

As in: 'Fuck, that 5.0's a honky, blast the motherfucka!'

Urban Dictionary (Accessed 27.06.2011)

Now this may be deemed to be politically incorrect (though I'm white so it's fine right?) but frankly I don't see why. I could perfectly legitimately say that said 5.0 is fat, or looks a bit sketty, but when I bring race into it is deemed incorrect and improper. People may shy away from describing someone as the black guy or the pasty white guy but why? I mean, even now I am purposefully using a white racial slur on the premise that I can get away with it more so than if I were casually disputing the triumphs and pitfalls of using the word nigger.

Oh would you look at that?
An African American and a Honky shaking hands!

I think, I hope, that most people reading this agree with my sentiment that sensitivity over words has gone a little bit far.

Baa Baa Rainbow Sheep

Honestly I wouldn't even know where to begin. There isn't even the right number of syllables! Still, at least some people realise the stupidity of such things, "Realistically, they are not going to see rainbow sheep in the fields." Yeah, I'm aligning myself with the person who said that. This problem is so out of hand that the best option I have is to agree with THAT quote.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not just a racist that wants the freedom to use any word he chooses and sing about the inferiority of certain coloured sheep. There are many other forms of political correctness forced upon us by the endlessly offended and disgustingly anal members of the public.

Mind Map

Seriously what the hell is a mind map and why the hell can't I just call it a Brainstorm. (Incidentally, why is hell deemed to be an unacceptable word in certain situations? It is certainly not excessively strong language) Sure, when I first learnt to brainstorm my ideas my mind was filled with images of epileptic children .. wait, no. Of course it wasn't, noone has ever innocently drawn a brainstorm and thought, 'Oh God! What am I doing?! The poor epileptics!' and it's not because we don't care. It's because it is an unrelated word, one that means no offence and should not have been taken away from us.

I warned you.

I mentioned before that I believe most people agree that this kind of 'correctness' has gone too far. So why is it still happening? I seriously don't understand why Santa's in Sydney have to say 'Ha Ha Ha' and why manhole covers have officially been renamed Personnel Access Units. I sincerely hope that the title for this blog is an overstatement, I sincerely hope that the vast majority of the world are as vexed by this as I am, and I sincerely hope that one day we will be free to speak.