February 5th- Fuck-haired Cocks and the Idiot Box

I'm back for a fourth time to inflame you my friends, like a herpes sore with a face and a voice. Well, actually thats Simon Cowell again but never mind. Once more I am struggling to find myself a relatively quiet haven amidst the growing number of idiots who are quickly populating this pub and spewing a load of unwelcome shite. It's like if the Norovirus had legs and a hive mind. I know it's supposed to be a sign of getting old when you start ranting about "the youth of today" but to be honest I've always felt like that, even as a youth, a consistently bitter youth. I'll give you an example, a few minutes ago a bunch of studenty types were sitting on the table adjacent to me "ironically" playing Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64 due to the games "whoah thats so retro!" nostalgic feel, (you know, it came out waaay back in 1997 at a point when the human race  had only just developed hands). Unfortunately, as I walked past them to the bar I accidentally caught the eye of one of the hapless flesh-shapes and the caremelised twiglet spoke to me;

"Hey mate! Check it out! Isn't it great? It's Goldeneye! Can you remember when games looked like this? It's soooo mad isn't it?"

As I stared back at the organ-filled, luminescent manniquin, I looked directly into those make-up caked eyes, housed in a face replaced by a Ronsealed, hammered saddle and said the following:

"No."

"What do you mean?" It replied

"I mean it's not mad, it's the predictable progression of software technology. If you want to talk about "retro" I was 15 when this game came out, I had a Sega Master System and a Super Nintendo at the same time your parents were frantically searching in vain for that morning after pill."

"What?"

"Exactly."

Fuck me! Christ knows what would happen if she ever saw Pac Man or Space Invaders if thats all it took to mind-spazz her perception of reality. Now, that little conversational exchange might've made me appear a little on the harsh side to some of you but allow me to defend myself. As I continued to explain the history of video games to her, the girl looked equally dumbfounded and fascinated. Imagine, if you will, the equivalent of travelling back through time thousands of years and showing a cro magnon tribe a George Foreman grill that lets you check your Twitter account. To be fair it's not just the "yoof" of today that gets on my tits with their hedge-raped hair cuts, their 'distressed' t-shirts and their constant spouting of offensively stupid pseudo-sociological idioms, other generations are guilty too.

As far as I've observed in my relatively short, gripe-filled existence, human beings have devoted more and more time and energy to belonging and contributing to 'popular culture'. I see modern society largely stuck to a giant Mobius Strip, like a huge loop of fly paper for vapid, imaginationless toss-drones. Allow me to elaborate. Living on the outside of the strip are all the "cool" people. This type wear the hideously overpriced t-shirts, pay £90 for a ridiculous haircut which looks like you requested it by claiming you pissed on the barber's newborn and are often found trying to look deep by reading a Jack Kerouac or Hunter S. Thompson novel in the middle of a "hip" coffee shop that resembles an Ikea showroom in a wretched attempt to subtly attract the attentions of the opposite sex so they can dribble their faux-intellectual bullshit at them. The twat-yang to the aforementioned prick-yin, living on the inside are the droney, cock-sods who try so hard not to be cool they make a concerted effort to dislike anything that has gained popularity whether it has genuine merit or not. These hypocritical dullards are driven by the need to be completely different for the sake of it, generating in their minds a kind of "anti-cool". Ironically, this outlook eventually gains popularity and becomes liked by the "cool" crowd, forcing the "anti-cools" to start all over and so the perpetual cycle flows around the shit-ribbon of earth.

 I would like to believe that there is a third faction, a faction I'd like to think I belong to. This group despises the previous two and longs for a genetically-engineered smart virus or swarms of nanite ninja quails to be created that could invade the thickstream of these morons, get into their nuclei and sub-atomically bugger them out of existence. I'll let you know if there are any developments to this end in New Scientist when I get a chance to check.

Well so far, so self-righteous but what if I'm wrong? I mean what if i'm just a cantankerous old curmudgeon who is failing to keep up with the times? To be fair, not all things to do with popular culture are terrible, some tv shows are pretty good, 'The Wire', for example is one of the best written/directed/acted television series I have ever seen in my entire life. That show was a rare example of a product actually living up to the hype. Cop shows have been consistently popular for decades now so in an attempt to reach out to all you "cool" and "uncool" types alike here's the synopsis for a gritty, law-type show pilot I've been working on just for you. I hope it's "edgy" enough for you:


From the Case Files of Hidalgo T Rapewafer

Mild-mannered ice cream salesman by day, undercover Mi6 agent by night. Using his miniature laboratory in the back of his Mr Whippy van, unorthodox interrogation expert Agent Rapewafer concocts his own blend of rohypnol or "truth juice" in which he soaks "special" batches of ice cream cones. A hallucinogenic Flake 99, six stitches to a henchman's colon and an ice bath later and Hidalgo has all the information he needs.

 Episode #1. Whilst following up on a potential lead Rapewafer finds himself trapped in Strangeways Prison amidst a full scale riot armed with nothing but his wits and a psychotropic choc ice.