An Open Letter to Tony Hall, Lord Hall of Birkenhead CBE

Director General, BBC

House of Lords

London

SW1A 0PW

 

Dear Lord Hall of Birkenhead CBE,

The BBC trust chairman, Lord Patten, said of you upon your appointment,

 

'As an ex-BBC man he understands how the Corporation’s culture and behaviour make it, at its best, the greatest broadcaster in the world. And from his vantage point outside the BBC, he understands the sometimes justified criticisms of the corporation – that it can be inward looking and on occasions too institutional.'

 

As I am sure everybody would agree this is a glowing recommendation, and exactly what an organisation like the BBC needs. According to Lord Patten you are an individual who understands the ethos and aims of the BBC, but who is at the same time critical of its apparent failings. Such a recommendation however, is completely contradicted by recent events.

 

I am talking about the BBC’s arrogance in ignoring the views of over fifty thousand people.  On Saturday the twenty first of June there was a protest by The People’s Assembly against our current coalition’s austerity measures.  Tens of thousands of people were present in marching against our government’s stance on austerity. For all intents and purposes, the day was a great success!

 

This was a hugely enjoyable and joyous event. Not the angry protests of the riotous students that were heavily reported on in 2010. No, according to one individual present it was, “lovely to see so many families taking part, with the young and old marching together, and many people of different faiths and ethnicity joining in, helping to create a carnival atmosphere.” This was a healthy protest and a fantastic example of the public gathering in their devotion towards a single cause.

 

Then why is it then that this received zero coverage from the BBC, a neutral, non-biased public service. Well the cynic would argue that it is because it was too much of a triumph, and unlike the student protests there was no negative spin to be placed upon such an affair.  Such doctoring of the country’s news would be far too Goebbels-esque to be taking place within a forward thinking and progressive nation like the UK though, surely?

 

I wish I could say yes, I want to, I really do! But in recent years it appears to me that our nation’s primary impartial news service is anything but impartial. Take the aforementioned student protests for example. The story was spun in such a way as to focus on the riotous contingent, a group who were for the most part, not even students. It veered away from an objective discussion of the issues these students had taken to heart, instead opting into a childish exercise in finger pointing. 

 

This appears to be a running trend within our country’s broadcasting of the news. Take the recent European Elections for example. The whole lead up was filled with childish attacks against UKIP and their party members. I am not one to support their party, no, anything but. I do however believe that such a focus distracted from the important issues that should have been brought into discussion. The BBC should have been a platform for “all” the parties to voice their opinions. Take the Green party for example. Their views were completely ignored throughout the lead up, why? Because they were real, productive views, counter to those of the centre parties and not merely those of an easily belittled, and mocked caricature of a party. The BBC in recent years has reported on two things, the politics of the centre political parties, and those it can ridicule and villainise on the outside in an attempt to distract from the real issues.

 

Take the Saville scandal and ongoing witch hunt. These stories give the public an enemy and excuse the news from having to report on other subjects deemed less worthy, or should I say; politically convenient.

 

One individual at the recent protest stated how, “This is not rent a mob. This is people across the social spectrum working in the public sector, private individuals who care about the services that the state provides, and standing up for all of us so that we might still have a decent education, a welfare state when we need it, and support when we are sick or elderly.” As they have said, this is about people across the social spectrum, the sort of views that an organisation trying to move away from its “inward looking” and “institutional” roots would be happy to share.

 

This is why I feel that you have failed to provide on the promise made by Lord Patten. I understand your job covers a broad spectrum of the BBC, but you are its face, and its beating heart. It is for this reason that it is up to you to take action against such blatant inadequacies within “our” organisation.

 

Because in all truth that is what the BBC is. It is ours. It belongs to the people of the UK. It is not yours, and it most certainly is not owned by the centre political parties of whom it appears to be benefitting most.

 

The French philosopher Michel Foucault once stated that, “I'm no prophet. My job is making windows where there were once walls.”

I feel it is time the BBC did the same. It is time it became a window to the thoughts of the people; for too long it has been a wall trapping us within the enclosed space of centre political thought.

 

Yours sincerely,

The Pessimist Chronicles, ©2014.

An Open Letter to Michael Gove

Director of Education

Sanctuary Buildings

Great Smith Street

London

SW1P 3BT

Dear Mr. Gove.

As part of the 'Big Society', we feel it is our duty to discuss with you some of the finer points of your latest reforms to the English school system. Are you sitting comfortably? Good. This may come as quite a shock.

As graduates in the field of English Literature, we can often be found to take umbrage with many of the current coalition government's policies, reforms, and downright troubling decisions. Student life, and the pursuit of education, has certainly not been made easier by the current regime. We were personally lucky enough to avoid having to pay the extortionate £9000 fees imposed in 2012, by only a couple of years. We have heard the government defending this decision time and again, yet the facts speak for themselves: more and more students will now be unable to ever pay off their student loans, and as this occurs, the country's financial situation will almost certainly be adversely affected. This was, of course, an outcome easily foreseeable by most people, yet the government clearly, and very surprisingly, were unable to do so, until it was too late. However, that is for another rant. The arguments over student loans have long left the doorstep of the Conservatives - the majority perceive blame as resting firmly on the shoulders of the Liberal Democrats, those who made up such a large proportion of the demographic who voted for them feeling, quite understandably, betrayed.

Why is it that we mention this event, then? It had very little to do with you, after all. Well, it is the aforementioned lack of foresight involved which concerns us most at this present moment in time. The government seems perpetually inclined to think of the here and now more than the future, or, in some cases, not to think at all. It is this which bothers us most. It is a common occurrence that Conservatives and Liberal Democrats alike will condemn the Labour party for their lack of foresight, 'leaving' you to deal with the deficit, but it is a problem which seems to plague every party whenever they are in government, and governing with blinkers on, we would suggest, is not the best way to tackle politics.

The radical new changes made by you to the education of schoolchildren in this country has been a controversial matter for a while now. Time and again the public has spoken out against your reforms, yet our concerns have been ignored. It does your party no credit - what do we plebeians know of what is best for our own children, after all? Yet the very core of the matter is that whenever the government makes a severe change to our lives it is us who has to live with the consequences. Politicians can afford to attend good private schools if state schools would not meet their children's needs, after all, but for the common man, this is not a perceivable option. Our schools are for all intents and purposes at your beck and call; is it not imperative, therefore, that you should consider the practical application and ultimate consequences of your reforms? Trust us as we proceed to inform you of the grave error you have committed in your latest radical alterations to our education system.

It was recently reported how you have decided to 'ban' non-English classics from the GCSE syllabus, thus losing the chance to learn of the racial inequality as presented in books such as Harper Lee's 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird and the social themes of John Steinbeck's 1937 classic Of Mice and Men. Within a very short timeframe, an online petition had been set up to convince you to change your reforms, and the hashtag '#Mockingbird' was trending on Twitter. As much as many of us writing to you now detest the 'hashtag', its popularity is testament to the strength of the opposition to this unwelcome announcement.

You soon bit back, however, by clarifying that nothing has been banned, and that you are merely 'asking exam boards to broaden - not narrow - the books young people study for GCSE.'

Unfortunately, your logicality seems to have been turned down to a particularly low temperature that day, so as a kindness we have decided to clarify things for you. It is true that you stipulate students must study (and we quote from your article rebuffing these unsavoury 'rumours' as published in The Telegraph on 26 May) 'a whole Shakespeare play, poetry from 1789 including the [R]omantics [we have kindly added the appropriate capital 'R' for you there], a 19th-century novel and some fiction or drama written in the British Isles since 1914 [why British we can't fathom].' You go on to add: 'Beyond this, exam boards have the freedom to design specifications so that they are stretching and interesting, and include any number of other texts from which teachers can then choose.'

Unfortunately, this only highlights, not refutes, the problem. While you may never have 'banned' these books per se, your reforms have put the English Literature syllabus into a situation where it would be nigh on impossible to include any additional material, foreign or otherwise. The set-up is so fixed and so challenging that there would be no space to add any additional material to the subject whether or not the presiding teacher had the will or the inclination to take on the additional challenge. One of us works for the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and can confirm the continued popularity of Shakespeare - the Trust received over 800,000 visitors in 2013, and the Royal Shakespeare Company regularly sells out performances - but these patrons are usually adults and students. Children, conversely, and understandably, often have great difficulty understanding Shakespeare, not necessarily because Shakespeare's language is particularly challenging - David Crystal reminds us that 'Over 90% of the English used in Shakespeare's day has not lost its meaning' - but because it is perceived to be so. Children need to be eased into Shakespeare, introduced to it in fun ways (I would recommend in performance rather than on the page, and in simpler forms, such as the tried and tested Macbeth) and guided through his true challenges. It is for this reason only parts of the plays are usually used in classrooms: by the time a teacher has helped a class fully understand and appreciate a full Shakespeare play, it is time to move on to a 19th-century novel, a period where the form of the novel was relatively young in England and still very elitist, and thus another challenge presents itself. It will be a relief once schools can bring their pupils to the post-1914 works, and they can all uniformly rely on George Orwell's Animal Farm (1945). Where in all this, we ask, is there going to be any room for non-English literature? Anyone with a logical mind can see the problem here.

The nation of origin for these texts should not be just cause for them to be so unceremoniously torn away from syllabuses. They are timeless classics that highlight historical extremes of inequality and the human condition and emphasise their continued application to modern society. Surely the core purpose of the study of English Literature as a subject is to learn about different histories, different cultures, different philosophies. Naturally, as a country it is right and just that we have our own native authors at the forefront of our studies - Shakespeare, as England's elected national poet, should have a prominent position in our education, just as Scotland should teach Robert Burns and Russia should rightly revere Alexander Pushkin - but we should have enough scope to realistically include at least one or two pieces of literature from the rest of the world in there. We are, after all, a part of the world, despite the efforts of certain quarters to cut us off as an entirely independent sceptred isle set in the silver sea which serves it in the office of a wall. Take away our syllabuses interactions with the rest of the globe and your reforms make you little different educationally to how UKIP want to be internationally.

To draw this letter to a neat conclusion, we wish to quote the article by The Guardian newspaper which was one of the first to report on your supposed 'axing' of American classics from the GCSE syllabus:

'Last year, Gove, who has said children should be reading 50 books a year from the age of 11, told a conference of independent school heads that he would much prefer to see a child reading George Eliot's Middlemarch than one of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight vampire novels.'

Wouldn't we all? But the sad fact is that Middlemarch is a far tougher book to tackle than Twilight. Anybody with a literary bone in their body would surely acknowledge that. What is at issue here is not what children read, but developing an enthusiasm for reading. Many of us grew up on comics, yet now several of us are embarking on postgraduate study. One of us is pursuing MA research into early modern English drama; another is writing a PhD thesis reading Lacanian psychoanalytic theory through the writings of the English Romantic poets. It is certainly a big step up from The Beano (not that we are for a minute suggesting The Beano make it onto the GCSE syllabus). The point is, children develop literary skills through different methods, but what is most important is that they enjoy developing them. As much as any of us may like Dickens now, make our teenager selves read Bleak House and we'd be put off English for life. So often we hear people lamenting our chosen subject paths because of their own difficulties in studying English at school, so much so that many now have a mental block against the subject, unwilling even to try to pursue the classics independently. By narrowing the curriculum as you have done, you do not show an understanding for how best to mould intellectual minds, but rather risk torturing students through hours of potentially mind-numbing reading, creating a generation who cannot succeed in English purely because they are bored by it. It is an undesirable reality, but a reality it is nonetheless.

Without the ability to choose a wide range of literature from around the world and throughout time, our children will not have the will or interest to even conceive of reading fifty books per year. At that age, our own interests in literature were probably formed far better with Of Mice and Men, Macbeth and An Inspector Calls than with, say, Middlemarch, Love's Labour's Lost and David Copperfield. If it ain't broke, as the old adage says, don't fix it. Our education system needs reform, yes - one of us could tell you long, rambling stories about having to teach himself the entirety of GCSE mathematics because his teacher was so poor she spent the entirety of each class shouting at one unruly child rather than actually doing any teaching, and there are doubtless many under-performing schools out there, but statistics and generalisation is what gets governments into trouble over issues such as this. Teachers, by and large, do a bloody marvellous job in this country, and it saddens us - no, it outrages us - to see so many leaving their careers because of what you are doing to them and their pupils. Is it not more sensible to allow the professionals in the classroom to choose the appropriate materials for study for their own pupils? They should themselves know what is most appropriate for nurturing their students' intelligence and success, and should be able to teach them beyond the confines of a national curriculum. One of us remembers fondly how an enjoyment of early modern drama first began to formulate after a teacher took a class to see a performance of King Lear despite the curriculum's insistence on the same old chestnut, Romeo and Juliet (which is now, incidentally, despite his love of Shakespeare, his least favourite play, doubtlessly down in no small part to forcibly having the same passages drummed into him class after class after class). The two titles which have been referenced time and again in this controversy - Of Mice and Men and To Kill a Mockingbird - cover a great variety of themes without the difficulty of language in need of repeated teacher translation. If you will forgive a sudden change in tone, it would be desirable if you would climb down from your ivory tower and actually look at what you are doing to the people who have to live with each and every one of your myopic and narrow-minded reforms. Perhaps it would be wise to acknowledge your own limited knowledge of the classroom and trust the judgement of those who have been trained - at great personal financial expense - to teach. We wouldn't know how to run a government department, after all, and we acknowledge that.

There's good change and there's bad change - McDonald's making their chicken nuggets with 100% real chicken was undoubtedly good change; then again, the new and 'improved' Cornetto is a major let down. Be a chicken nugget, Mr. Gove, and not a Cornetto.

Yours faithfully,
The Pessimist Chronicles, ©2014.

PS: We would point out that, in the current economic client, children should be able to get those fifty books per year from public libraries. But what do we know?

This letter was sent to Michael Gove on the evening of the 9th June 2014. Unless we are refused permission, any response received will be communicated to our readers immediately.

BREAKING NEWS!

WARNING!!!

A recent inquest has discovered that Nigel Farage may actually be a monster from some strange parallel universe, the 1993 film, Super Mario Bros.

So, not only is Mr Farage one of the worst politicians of all time, but he actually starred in one of the worst films of all time. Stay tuned for further updates on the story. In the meantime people are urged not to leave their houses at night or leave their children unsupervised, and to avoid any and all eye contact with Mr Farage as some believe he may possess the ability to steal your soul. 

It is believed the monster in question comes from a strange parallel universe, and certain members of Farage's party aren't too happy with his leadership,

"Bloody monsters coming to our universe and stealing our politicians' jobs."

Some even fear that the open gateway through which Farage travelled could allow millions more to emigrate to the UK by 2016 if left unchecked.

Respond below with your opinions on the Farage parallel universe crisis and whether your happy allowing such beasts free access to British soil.

Young, Pretty and Gay: Ellen Page Came Out, But Why Does It Matter?

On the thought of beginning a new article for The Pessimist Chronicles, I have recently discovered why the idea for a new article hasn't really grabbed me for such a long time. Our fan base continues to grow, out hit counter still climes, but we haven't published anything new for over one year. Yes, dear readers, you read that correctly: our last article was a special seasonal offering by the unique wordsmith that is Shaun Beale, published, very aptly, on the morning of December 25th, 2012. After that, we ran into difficulties. We had dissertations to write, and a very short time left to do it in. After that came the celebrations - we had finally completed the biggest single piece of work any of us had ever done, after all, and the last thing any of us wanted to do was continue sitting at the computer writing up new material for publication. Then came the exams. So, as time wore on, The Pessimist Chronicles, that new, vibrant, side-splitting enterprise we had begun together so long ago, lay dormant. Like an old friend, the longer we left it, the harder it became to pick up the phone.

 

I had several ideas for a new article over the past year, but none of them came to fruition. Why, I eventually began to wonder, couldn't I write something meaningful? The jokes were there (dare I say, I often had down on paper some of the greatest jokes I had ever come up with); the time was at hand; I had managed to replace my busted laptop battery (Shaun and I have a very fond memory of my laptop's emergency warning siren blaring out in the quiet yet widely populated surroundings of the University of Winchester's multimedia centre). I had no excuse for not getting down to it. Soon, it struck me. The reason I couldn't write anything for The Pessimist Chronicles, that online magazine I begun with some of the best friends I had ever had, was very simple: it was because it belonged to a bygone age. I don't have those immediate connections anymore. Discussions late into the night with the gang can't just occur spontaneously. I can't sit up demolishing a pizza with them at three in the morning anymore. Essentially, if I were to write for the magazine again, would it be the same? Would I feel more remote this time around, without the knowledge that within half an hour of posting this I could be face to face with the one of the guys laughing about the horrendous war between nations my comments may have sparked off. In other words, would it not just make me realise how far apart we really are now?

 

Today, however, I felt the overwhelming need to break my silence. Ellen Page, star of X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), Juno (2007), Inception (2010) and others including the upcoming X-Men: Days of Future Past, and the top candidate on that shortlist of remarkably attractive young celebrities whom I was set to propose to should all realistic romantic ambitions finally become totally and irretrievably unrealisable, was suddenly off the list, allowing Sarah Bolger, Jenna Coleman, Pixie Lott and Count von Count to each rise up a rank in my affections, and also allowing the now-vacant fifth space to be occupied by a new candidate (I am currently undecided whether to allocate it to Tamla Kari or Angela Merkel). Why was she suddenly out of the running. Because, as all my readers will no doubt by now be aware, on Friday 14th February 2014, Ellen Page outed herself as gay.

Why, therefore, have I felt obliged to write this article? Why does an actress announcing that she is a lesbian even matter? Countless reports have surfaced over the past 24 hours, each simply repeating the same quotes and comments as the last. Surely, then, The Pessimist Chronicles getting involved in the discussion won't add anything new. I would like to take the opportunity to say that, if you thought that, or if you think it now that I have suggested it, you are very, very wrong.

 

Because Ellen Page being gay is not news. Someone's sexuality, in this enlightened age, should not be particularly noteworthy. What makes her coming out so significant, however, is the manner in which she did it, publicly, suddenly, and in a way which didn't successfully hide the nervous tremor in her voice as she did it. Coming just weeks after David Silvester's absurd comments upon gay marriage and God's ensuing wrath, the move was filled with courage, especially coming in the context of a world where there are still extreme conservative puritans all-too prepared to shoot her down.

 

The following comments have shown widespread support for Page's act. Shannon Woodward tweeted her to say 'I have never been more proud of a human than I am of @EllenPage right now'; Kristen Bell followed a similar track saying 'Rivited [sic] by @EllenPage's fabulous speech [...] She shines. Happy Valentines day to ALL.' Even our old enemies the Daily Mail managed to hold back their right wing credentials, making not a single disparaging remark in their coverage of the story.

 

Yet what brings me tonight to write this article is not the positive feedback Page has received. It is not inspired by the inspirational nature of her revelation. It is, in fact, quite the opposite which brings me here tonight. It is those who now see this as an opportunity to come up with disparaging remarks.

 

Facebook today, I have seen, is littered with the standard comments regarding picturing Ellen in various exclusively lesbian sex practices and those mourning the shattering of their hopes of marrying her in the future. These posts are fine - I have used the latter approach near the start of this article - and they are, for the most part, results of genuine humour, not malicious finger pointing and name calling. Yet it shocked me to see that in 2014 there are still those who would see her as anything other than an ordinary human being.

 

Be they internet trolls or genuinely opinionated people, it was frankly very disturbing to witness hordes of commenters arguing that Ellen was 'abnormal', 'mentally ill', a social outcast, suffering from some sort of disease, lying to make herself seem 'cooler', and, in one particularly disturbing comment I pray she never reads, that 'if there was ever a baby that should have been aborted, forget hitla [yes, he said "hitla"], its elen [yes, he said "elen"] page'.

 

And these weren't the only disgusting messages I found. There were a huge number citing the Bible, informing everyone that 'God hates fags', one man who wrote 'good job Ellen, now you're going to hell' and one woman who declared 'The Bible is not open to interpretation, and anyone who argues it is is trying to hide their own depravity. God tells us that homosexuals will be excluded from Heaven, that they are the most unnatural people on earth, and that they will burn for eternity for their sins, that isn't homophobia, that is clearly documented FACT.'

 

I could argue about the fallacy which surrounds religion. I could take the so often travelled path which mocks theists and treats them as members of some kind of mentally subnormal cult. Or I could even highlight the very well-known facts that the Bible is not a reliable source - that its messages on homosexuality are ambiguous and utterly unclear; that it has changed greatly over time, with added, altered and obfuscated passages which mean it now bears almost no resemblance to what it did a millennia ago; and that, even if we acknowledge the possible existence of an all-powerful deity, the Bible was written not by God or Jesus but by human men, who would likely have stamped their own personal and societal prejudices upon the text.

 

But I will not be taking that approach.

 

Why?

 

Because blaming these idiots' prejudices upon their religion is just as bad as their using religion to excuse their views. We cannot ever hope for an all-loving, all-accepting world while excluding those who follow religion from it. I am currently conducting research into religion for my current research project, and doing so has firmly made me believe that religion can be a positive thing. Religion cannot be blamed for the perpetuation of these views, but in the wrong circumstances it can certainly be an influence.

 

I do not write this from an anti-religion viewpoint. I do not write it from a self-righteous viewpoint. I do not even write this from the viewpoint of someone who is completely free of prejudice. Whether we like to admit it or not, we all have our little prejudices. But this matter is more significant than those prejudices. What Ellen Page did yesterday was brave, and it was noble. I asked at the start of this article why her coming out made such big news, and I think the reason is clear. It was because it was so brave - the girl was so obviously nervous during the duration of her speech, and there are still so many judgmental people in the world, that she would be perfectly forgiven for thinking that the move could have completely backfired on her. Yet I firmly believe that her actions will benefit many likeminded young people, struggling to come to terms with their own sexual identity. Why? Ellen's revelation was so different from those of other gay celebrities. She does not conform to the stereotypes associated with alternative sexualities. She isn't a 'butch' lesbian, a 'man hating' lesbian, an 'attention seeking' homosexual. Her speech shows these labels are non-uniform and largely false. There was no display of exhibitionism here, and she came across as a completely ordinary young woman. Hopefully this will show other young people that they do not have to fit into certain moulds in society and can be who they really are. If you aren't harming anyone, who can judge you for being yourself?

 

Other ignorant comments abound on Facebook, Twitter, new pages and other forums. Some view Ellen Page as simply trying to draw attention to herself, while others view homosexuality as a modern 'fad', completely ignoring the well-known homosexuality of Christopher Marlowe and the oft-conjectured bisexuality of William Shakespeare, both born 450 years ago in 1564, and you just have to examine the art and literature of the classical world to see homosexuality is certainly anything but 'modern' or a 'fad'. At the same time, we see those who think what she did was not brave. I am telling everyone now that it was. In front of so many people, knowing the world would see it, understanding that there was no going back once the confession was on camera, and in a world where such ignorant people could make such ignorant comments as have already been showcased here, there was nothing simple about her act. She showed true courage, and that is more important than any objections a few judgmental conservatives ad selective Bible interpreters can pose.

 

I am an atheist. I suppose that is me 'coming out' in a way. Religion is one personal discussion I attempt to avoid. Publicly, I often announce myself as an agnostic. My objection to the idea of an omnipotent, omniscient deity is not so much an unwillingness to believe, but an inability to believe. I cannot comprehend such a thing. I cannot see such a being existing in a world with so much pain and heartbreak. The plight of the homosexual community is one of the things I find most distasteful about the idea. I could not follow a God who would supposedly condemn anyone for loving someone. But I do not have anything against those who do believe in God, Jehovah, or whoever. The fact is, faith is a personal thing. But those who use their religion as an excuse to promote malicious abuse to others is frankly sickening. They don't just present themselves as ignorant, but give the wider religious community a bad name. The same goes for those who don't hide behind the concept of religion, and who simply promote their views as a fact all should understand. The world is not made up of right and wrong, natural and unnatural, real and fake. The world is made up primarily of love and understanding, and intolerance and hatred. People are scared to be themselves because of the latter, and I find it incomprehensible how the latter can have such a lasting impact upon the pursuit of the former.

Don't use the Bible to justify your prejudices. Don't pretend your prejudices are sensible or just. Don't act as though your prejudices are society's prejudices. They are not. They are your prejudices, perpetuated by you and others like you.

 

I asked why Ellen Page's coming out matters. I hope I have made my case. It could be argued that Ellen Page's coming out is a significant moment for so many areas of society. I see no reason to disagree.

 

Ellen: we salute you.

 

William Green.

 

Those who wish to relive the moment discussed in this article may do so below.



The Pessimist's Guide to Modern Living - Part 10: Apocalypse Sooner or Later

'I do not know what weapons World War III will be fought with, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.'

- Albert Einstein.

It's a grim thought, but a fitting way, I feel, for The Pessimist's Guide to Modern Living to hang up its cape after several months of fighting back against those little irritations and niggles which are, undeniable, the most pressing matter concerning a modern-day human being. So, with no further ado, I shall bring this most terrible of elephants in the room (or, rather, the blog) into the forefront. Let us never forget the fact that:

WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE

Now that that is well and truly out of the way, the time has come to tackle the real reasons behind the fact that

WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE

and decide how exactly we could avoid this fate. You know, the one which means that

WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE

So, let us proceed.

It's a dark story which begins over sixty-five years ago when a German-Jewish scientist, one Albert Einstein, discovered that E does indeed equal M timed by C doubled. I mean, God only knows how he worked that out, but I assure you, thats exactly what my reliable sources have told me it equals, and they're all as believable as Orson Welles' blackface portrayal of Othello. Anyhoo, this formula managed to create a giant mushroom of smoke, dust and flame, which swept through the Japanese locales of Hiroshima and, later, Nagasaki, destroying everything in its wake. Thus was born what is perhaps the most significant invention of the modern age - the nuclear bomb. It says a lot about the excitement this invention generated - here was something to finally put an end to the carnage of the present conflict, but the excitement was not to last. Already, a certain darkness, over-confidence and - dare I say it? - frivolity came into being. Yes: frivolity. Naming the most deadly weapons in the history of time 'Little Boy' and 'Fat Man' is, at least to my mind, particularly sinister, as if denying the seriousness of what these relatively small objects were capable of doing. Regardless, World War II, having already raged for six years, was drawn to a close with the final surrender of the Japanese, and peace reigned across the globe.

Or did it?

My inate pacifism could produce an entire series of essays musing upon the nature of warfare and destruction. In fact, almost all fiction I write has something to do with conflict or devastation. For as long as I can remember, my creative writing has been undeniably against organised carnage, totalitarianism and civilian murder and for democratic socialism, peace and human-wide unity. I could go on for a million words discussing the righteousness of these nuclear attacks, but I am well aware my questions would generate some rather fierce debate: how can I suggest the mass murder of civilians with a weapon against which it is impossible to fight back could be unjustified, when if the War had continued more soldiers would eventually have succumbed to the might of the Japanese army? I sometimes wonder myself, but I cannot shake the feeling that we're constantly missing the key argument in this decade-old debate. J. Robert Oppenheimer recognised it when he infamously declared 'now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' The dropping of these bombs may have been a speedy resolution to the carnage of the trenches, but it cannot be denied that the device which ended the destruction of 1939 to 1945 will forever be a shadow hanging over God's green Earth, having bought us extra time before destroying us all. Even the frequently recited moniker of 'World War III' is unlikely, because how will there possibly be a war when there won't even be a chance to have a fight? It's a pretty disturbing thought, isn't it?

After the War, terror and alarm spread like wildfire. Tensions between US/USSR relations began to tighten, eventually reaching a point where we all almost died (or, in the case of most of our readers, were prevented from being born) - the Cold War, which 'raged' from 1947 to 1991, brought the world to the brink of destruction. We had seen what nuclear weaponry could do, so, naturally, utter disbelief was all that could be expressed at the fact that these terrible things actually began to be widely manufactured. What commenced was a long drawn-out period of political and military anxiety with the USA and its NATO allies sitting down frowning fiercely at the Soviet Union and the communist world, each leader with his finger poised unwaveringly over the big red button which would launch a swarm of devastation which would undoubtedly engulf the world and bring us all back to a world something like the one out of Terminator. Neither side had the guts the press the button, but neither side, likewise, had the common sense to kiss and make up.

It was a period of great cultural significance, of course. The political climate influenced Orwell's classic dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), telling of a totalitarian world following a cataclysmic Third World War very different to Huxley's earlier Brave New World (1932), and from then on the theme has been rammed down our throats incessantly. You can see just how bad the situation was when you realise that of Ian Fleming's twelve James Bond novels, Casino Royale (1953), Moonraker (1955), From Russia with Love (1957), Goldfinger (1959), Thunderball (1961) and The Man with the Golden Gun (1965) each deal with nuclear or Cold War-related themes, as do the films Dr. No (1962), From Russia with Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965), You Only Live Twice (1967), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), The Living Daylights (1987) and Goldeneye (1995). Likewise, thinly-veiled anti-nuclear propaganda has taken the form through the ages of Robert Wise's The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), James Cameron's Terminator series (1984 - 2009), Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) - adapted by Ridley Scott into Blade Runner (1982) - Stanley Kubrick's comedy satire film Dr. Strangelove: or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) and many more.

The War ran constantly, alternating moments of relative calm with significant near-apocalyptic moments, such as the Korean War (1950-1953), the Suez Crisis (1956), the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), the Vietnam War (1959-1975) and the Yom Kippur War (1973); yet, of course, the bomb was never dropped again, and we're all still here; but the conflict remains, hidden from public view but undeniably still there. Political leaders simply haven't learned. Man will not destroy the Earth, despite what we are told about 'mankind being base and evil' and 'humanity being responsible for its own destruction'. It has to be remembered, whenever these arguments are made, how few people actually had a hand in making these bombs and how many throughout the decades (and even at the time they were first produced) have opposed them. We can all rest assured that, should be be alive when the bomb goes off, that we as a species had nothing to do with it. Who created our mutually-assured destruction? The political leaders, of course. As is always the case with them, conflict breaks out through their disagreements, but as always it is the common people who suffer. Nuclear bunkers were built across the country in response to the nuclear threat, but they were of course primarily for the safety of politicians and royalty. The rest of us would have to make do with hiding inside our houses and hoping everything goes okay. That's just the way of the world, it seems. Even the people who worked at the bunkers were disposable, placed there to measure radioactivity in the atmosphere but only given enough provisions to last for a months or so, after which time they would have been forced to step out into the world. 1980s pop group Frankie Goes to Hollywood probably said it best when they released their infamous anti-nuclear hit single 'Two Tribes', from their debut album Welcome to the Pleasure Dome (1984 - my, isn't that a date which just keeps following us around?).

If our leaders could just get into a ring and fight it out, wouldn't it all be a lot better for the rest of us? I'm not an anarchist or someone who truly believes we could necessarily do without our leaders, but I firmly believe all authority figures the world over need to look at their reflections in the mirror and ask themselves just why they keep hovering their fingers over the dreaded buttons because, really, what's the point of it all?

Every year, new wars break out; political reports keep getting worse and worse; and terrorism is increasingly coming to the forefront of society's consciousness. If you listen to the news enough, the all-powerful scaremongers that are the media would have you believe destruction is imminent, but in reality we simply can't tell either way.

I don't actually think it will happen for a long while yet, though. In fact, I feel particularly inclined to side with George Orwell, in fact, who, in 1945 published an essay entitled 'You and the Atomic Bomb', which aptly concludes with the most accurate description of what the bomb really means.

'Had the atomic bomb turned out to be something as cheap and easily manufactured as a bicycle or an alarm clock, it might well have plunged us back into barbarism, but it might, on the other hand, have meant the end of national sovereignty and of the highly-centralised police state. If, as seems to be the case, it is a rare and costly object as difficult to produce as a battleship, it is likelier to put an end to large-scale wars at the cost of prolonging indefinitely a "peace that is no peace".'

It is not therefore, a case of

WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE

But, I feel, rather that

MAYBE IT WILL HAPPEN, MAYBE IT WON'T. WE JUST CAN'T TELL, BUT THERE'S NO SENSE WANDERING AROUND PANICKING ABOUT IT FOR THE REST OF OUR LIVES. WE'VE SURVIVED SO FAR, SO WHY NOT FOR A BIT LONGER. MAYBE THERE WILL BE A GLOBAL ARMISTICE. WHO CAN TELL? NOT I. OH WELL, SUCH IS LIFE. LET'S GET THROUGH 2012 FIRST, SHALL WE?

And if it did happen, it wouldn't necessarily mean the end of the world; the world would most certainly still be there, but after thermonuclear energy had done its work, would it really be a world worth keeping?

William D. Green

The Single Girl's Guide to the Olympics.

Since both Cadbury’s and Coca Cola are backing London 2012 I couldn’t really feign ignorance… Most of our Olympic budget has been spent on building various stadiums we don’t really need – and when I say don’t need I’m not being political… I mean Southampton has a swimming and diving pool and it would be far more convenient for me to make Tom Daley my husband if he were in the same city as me.

27 Million British Pounds were spent on the Olympic opening ceremony on Friday night, and despite my general sense of Olympic pessimism, I thought it was spot on. Danny Boyle truly showed the courage, imagination and enthusiasm of Britain. I’ve heard a lot of criticism of the show, but if it can inspire pride in even a handful of sceptics, I think Boyle, and the zillions of performers and volunteers achieved what London 2012 is all about. Nevertheless, after the parade of the competitors, which made me question both my knowledge of world geography and the length of the alphabet, I couldn’t quite help feeling that my Olympic interest had peaked.

My lampooning nature returned in strong spirits both because of the Queen’s quite blatant disinterest in the whole affair, and the fact that after all of the other countries showed off beautiful, traditional outfits, Team GB rocked up looking like chavvy space-men.

Despite my genuine lack of interest in anything other than Tom Daley, gymnastics and all the other dancey prancey sports; I don’t want to miss out on this cultural event, and so I’ve channelled my interest the only way I truly know how, and I will now share this with you.

HARRIET’S TOP 5 OGGLE-WORTHY OLYMPIANS.

5) Ryan Lochte
America
Swimming

4) Jack Green
UK
Athletics

3) Mark Knowles
Australia
Hockey

2) Thomas Pichler
Australia
Gymnastics

1) Tom Daley
UK
Diving

You're so welcome.

Harriet Baker

The Decline of Easter

It’s an interesting thought, but one which certainly has earth-shattering connotations. It is something which, once realised, will prevent you from ever living your life in the same way again. It is, truly, one of the most cataclysmic thoughts I have ever had, and one which, accordingly, could spell the end of humanity as we know it.

Well, perhaps that’s a bit over the top for an introduction, but at least it caught your attention.

The thought which struck me today, however, was something which surprised me and, if I am honest, appalled me somewhat.

Easter has long been and gone... and it has occurred to me that I never heard Jesus mentioned once.

Now, dear reader, you may be wondering what all the fuss I’m making is about. In the current age of widespread atheism, does religion even matter? Can’t we just, as a race, see Easter as a couple of days where we can gorge on chocolate until we’re sick and all have a jolly good time of it?

I would like to disagree. I have always prided myself on one particular aspect of my being, and that is that I will never criticise another’s beliefs: I preach that there is no such thing as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ taste in films, music, sports or food. Is it not, then, perfectly possible for us to treat someone’s religious views in the same respectful manner? Yes, it is true, we constantly have scientists such as the ‘great’ Richard Dawkins telling us that there is absolutely one hundred percent without a doubt unquestionably no such entity as God. All the scientific ‘proof’ points in that direction – we cannot see, measure or physically encounter God and, therefore, accordingly, he does not exist and, as such, it is quite clear that the only true religion is that of science. The Big Bang created the universe. End of story.

But is this way of deciding whether something exists or not actually as believable as we are led to believe? Science does not, after all (or should not) talk in terms of ‘what we know’, but rather in terms of ‘how we currently understand things’. It could be argued, therefore, that religion was the science of the historic world, could it not? Surely, however, science has now progressed away from worshipping an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent being. Dawkins and Darwin are now the true ones to worship, yes?

I would disagree. As I have discussed earlier, the standard belief is that if you can’t see it, it doesn’t officially exist; we can’t see God, therefore there is no God. However, I would now like to draw your attention to a little, widely-accepted scientific term known as ‘dark matter’. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, dark matter is ‘matter which has not been directly detected but whose existence is postulated to account for the dynamical behaviour of galaxies or the universe’.

Check it if you don’t believe me.

http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/47295?redirectedFrom=dark%20matter#eid7450779

What this definition implies is that dark matter, a substance ‘which has not been directly detected’, i.e. has not been proven to exist, is an accepted scientific hypothesis which helps us to understand the way the universe works. Translated, if dark matter doesn’t exist, a major body of science, therefore, is in itself highly flawed, i.e. ‘wrong’.

Now, this is not intended as a religious thesis, nor is it intended to imply that science is wrong and that we should all convert to Christianity – the entire point of this article is to draw attention to the fact that, in the current time, we seem to have lost sight of ‘respect’. Who is anyone, after all, to criticise views someone holds dear to them simply because we believe something different? If you follow science, then that’s great – there is a lot of evidence to support a lot of the things your field of belief covers. You should still realise, however, that there is a still a lot in this universe that we do not understand, and that cannot be explained away by science. Dark matter is just one example – scientific views and beliefs keep changing as new studies are performed and new evidence comes to light; science, in reality, it could be considered, is not, in itself, an exact science.

I have a friend at the University of Liverpool studying evolutionary anthropology, and I suppose you could say this article was partly written to annoy him or to spark some intellectual debate when I next see him; but the reality of the matter is that I was genuinely appalled to find that, over the period of Easter, a Christian festival, I could not find any programmes focusing upon that oh-so-well-known story. It seems to me that, as atheism increases in prominence, the values and beliefs of our treasured festivals are being overlooked in favour of simply keeping said festivals in existence purely for their most enjoyable parts. But it would be so much better, I feel, if there continued to be some kind of resource provided for the religious among us, so that they may celebrate their festivals faithfully and enjoy them in their own way, while everyone else can ignore it all if they choose and still find an excuse to eat chocolate continuously.

Easter is not the only example of a blatant disregard for what is still, believe it or not, a very prominent belief system: Christmas is now purely commercialised in this country (although not in our homes, I wish to stress – there is no reason why Christmas must personally become driven by capital gain if we as families choose, as mine do, to make it more about the enjoyment and the familial entertainment than about having the biggest turkey in the street); similarly, St. Patrick Day is now just an excuse for all to become incredibly inebriated without even knowing who St. Patrick was or why he is an important figure, and we do not even have to have any hint of Irish blood in us.

Christianity is not the only religion hit by this, of course; in a world where atheism is quickly becoming the norm, all religions will have to put up with jokes about ‘believing in magic’ or ‘worshipping an invisible man’ – but, need I remind these comedians, a pretty hefty bulk of science is built upon invisible things anyway. I may not be a devout follower of Christianity and organised religion myself, but I do think it’s time we began to learn how to respect someone else’s views (which are, of course, very important to them) again.

WIlliam D. Green

The Pessimist's Guide to Modern Living - Part 8: Sporting Annoyances and How to Survive Them

Football! Football!! Foootballlll!!! Inguhlannnd! Inguhlannnd!

Translation: 'Oh my, the football is on the television once again. I do hope England manages to succeed in its endeavours this time around.'

Then again, if you're me, you couldn't give two flying monkeys, and if you ever did attempt to utter the aforementioned two sentences, you would of course be speaking ironically.

Nevertheless, summer has arrived; and what does summer mean? The chance to finally settle once and for all the argument as to which nation is undoubtedly the best at arranging a group of eleven men, seeing if they can run around a field kicking a ball, and paying them far too much money for doing relatively nothing.

Ah well, we can't really complain, can we? If any of us don't like the so-called 'Beautiful Game' we can always lie low and wait for it to blow over, can't we? Wait. What? The Olympics are coming immediately afterwards? Hmmm... Excuse me for a moment.

Fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu-

Better.

Yes, that's exactly what this time of year means to us. Sport, sport and more bloody sport. On that note, therefore, I feel it would be appropriate to abandon my previous idea for the current instalment of The Pessimist's Guide to Modern Living (holidays) into something a large number of us do, amazing, wish to avoid; and so, it is with slight pleasure and great annoyance that I bring you...

The Pessimist's Guide to Surviving Sport.

Firstly, it is important to be able to recognise when the media is oversaturating our lives with sport coverage. Summer is a time for relaxation, seeing those you have not seen for a while, holidays, barbecues and, if you're a student, looking at your steadily accumulating reading lists and thinking dark, depressing thoughts. Fortunately, you can always escape with a bit of television.

Or can you?

No. No, you can't.

Sorry.

If annoying adverts get on your tits, then unless you're a die-hard fan of the sporting world you're going to feel very left out indeed. You know the situation is indeed dire when you start to realise slowly that all your favourite shows are being cancelled and replaced with the EFFING UEFA (WHICH, INCIDENTALLY, IS NOT EVEN A WORD) CUP THINGY or, if not altogether replaced, put back further and further due to what I believe is referred to as 'extra time'. All I can assume is that the network executives assume everyone would rather watch football. Well, in fact, some of us don't. If I want to see a group of men running around on some grass chasing something for my entertainment, I would put a pretzel on the back of a remote-controlled car, sit back, point the pretzel out to Simon Birkmyre, Shaun Beale and Alex White individually, and then start driving the car around and watch them chase it. Yes, it could become an all-out death match, but it would be far more entertaining and take far less time than football coverage - and far more amusing, I need not add.

Instead of this new social activity I have just invented in my mind (and which has already provided me with much amusement, I have to say), I am forced to watch the shows of yesteryear. I have currently taken to watching something I actually missed from the nineties - Joss Whedon's cult classic Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which I first encountered when we were forced to watch it for the American Gothic module at university, and I will always remember watching my first Buffy episode, 'Hush', with Kat Darlington, Alex White, Adam Carter and Sarah Butcher, and the way we laughed over how the episode's villains, the Gentlemen, somewhat strangely resemble Simon Birkmyre and Shaun Beale:

See the resemblance? You will. And what has been seen cannot be unseen...

Trust me, Alex: it's a GOOD thing you are erroneous to my purposes in this photo

Now, this show I have just got into is, I must point out, is far, far more entertaining than sport. Each episode is different, its not nearly as camp as my prejudices told me it would be, is well-written and features something different each episode. Unfortunately, football, tennis, whatever it may be, is just not the same as good old-fashioned epic TV fiction. Each game is the same, no matter what ball sport it seems to be: each 'episode', as I shall call them, features a ball moving back and forth, back and forth, like a strange, twisted, overpaid Newton's Cradle. But, whatever you enjoy watching, rest assured it will be removed for sport, which is just downright irritating - there's a reason Sky Sports was invented, after all. I for one can't understand where the assumption that we all love sport comes from, and I shall endeavour to highlight this point with three clear points. For example, would you rather see this:

One's a witch;
One's... the best friend of a witch;
One's a slayer;
One's a watcher;
One's a bitch you can't help but like.

 Or this?:

They're all the same. They can kick a ball. Actually the middle guy can regrow his lost hair. Magic.

The big yellow flash behind them doesn't remove the fact they look like schoolboys who have just seen an ice cream van.

Now one for the hormonal, pre-pubescent boys: would you rather see this:

Wahhhheyyyyyyy!!!

Or this?:

Wahhh - hang on. Is that a kiss or not? It's like a half-kiss.
We need more commitment from these guys.

And, finally, would you rather see something where the boss man looks like this:

Me in the future? Quite possibly.

Or like an owl?:

Anyway, whichever way you swing in your sports mentality, I think my argument works pretty well.

Secondly, we should always be able to mock those who are 'foorball or insert other appropriate sport here fans'. Yes, I mean these guys:

This is slightly sexist. I know girls like him too.

Or, appropriately, this guy:

Don't look at the dog. He, like Alex White, is erroneous to my purposes here.

Still, you can't help but think where you've seen these images before...

Homer Simpson. Look in the mirror, you. Yes, you.
It's you.
Ha Ha!

The fact is, if you make a big thing about watching every match on TV, you're one of two kinds of people: either, you can't afford to actually GO to a match, so you have to sit in your own home so close to the TV that you are able to pretend you're out; or, you have no friends.

Sorry, I know that's not true. But this is primarily an 'insult everybody' site.

To me, sport fanatics are like Jehovah's Witnesses. Your life choice is fine. Just don't talk to me or come within a mile of my home.

Thirdly and, indeed, I feel, most importantly, you must be able to mock those who partake in the act of being paid by the shiteload for playing a game. And so, I feel obliged to ask if you've SEEN WAYNE ROONEY'S HAIR SINCE THE TRANSPLANT?!

IT LOOKS LIKE HIS FACE IS BEING STRETCHED UPWARDS!

Annnnnd rest.

But, of course, it would be unfair of me to make this whole article entirely about football. I loathe the olympics even more.

Of course, there has been a law passed against improper use of the olympic logo. I'm not sure what 'improper' means, but I assume it has something to do with saying it looks like Lisa Simpson giving a blowjob to the numbers 2 and 1. Which it does.

Poor Lisa. Bad parenting will take you to some dark places.

But, whether its logo is dodgy and slightly paedophilic, it cannot be avoided that sport in all forms is here to stay. But, just so you know there are alternative's if you're at a loss for what to do, here is a list of things that are better than sport:

1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
2. Angel
3. Doctor Who
4. Would I Lie to You?
5. Have I Got News for You
6. QI
7. Mock the Week
8. Stephen Fry's voice
9. All William Shakespeare's work (except the drivel that is Antony and Cleopatra - the scholars may think Titus Andronicus is crap, but there's nothing good in this 'great' play at all)
10. P. G. Wodehouse
11. Geoffrey Chaucer's beard
12. Family Guy
13. Urinating
14. Being urinated on
15. Staples
16. Staples (as in the shop)
17. Paperclips
18. Greggs
19. Tuna
20. Simon Birkmyre's ever-evolving hairstyle
21. Simon Cowell's trousers
22. Kat Darlington's hair
23. Harriet Baker's voice
24. Shaun Beale's poetry
25. Alex White's ears
26. Celebrating a little internal win after accurately translating Middle English
27. Winchester
28. Solihull
29. Andover (or so I hear)
30. Sailing
31. Swimming
32. Drowning
33. The Simpsons
34. Yoshi
35. George Orwell
36. Brave New World
37. Christopher Marlowe's fingernails
38. Japanese tourists
39. The casual racism of the elderly
40. Receiving an enema from a guy you met in an alley called Barry who claims to require money to feed his starving family but who later reveals he just likes sticking tubes in people's orifices
41. Prawn cocktail flavoured crisps
42. Kids who point out the word 'cock' in 'prawn cocktail', clearly believing you hadn't noticed it
43. People who pretend not to notice the word 'cock' in 'prawn cocktail'
44. Jesus Christ
45. Judas Iscariot
46. David Cameron's parenting skills
47. The Daily Mail
48. Piers Morgan's nose
49. Chris Evans' hyperactivity
50. Garden peas

So, whether you hate sport as much as me or whether you like it, its important to remember that it will never go away, and that we will never finally settle which nation is the best at it... so we might as well not bother. If we could go outside and do anything that doesn't involve a ball, let's do it, regardless of how cloudy it is! It has to be better than staying in all summer long with the TV and the morons shouting their irritating chants down the microphones of poor, unsuspecting reporters.

And a word to the wise: don't tickle her bum with a lumb of celery. It doesn't work. If 'she don't come', you're doing it wrong, lad. And where do you have to go to get a 'lump of celery', anyway? I mean, really, you normally get celery in sticks (which... and I don't mean to be inappropriate... would do the job far better than a lump of the stuff...)

ANNNNYWAYYY...

Peace out. I'm going to go and do a spot of t'ai chi.

William D. Green

William D. Green would like to apologise to any sport lover he has offended during the course of this article. He isn't sincere in his apology, but he'd like to say sorry anyway.