Series: Dreams # 3

The Chess Dream

Sometimes I think I must be awesome, because I have such a strong set of values and an astute moral conscience; other times I think I'm probably a self-righteous little so-and-so, and if I wasn't me, I probably would have slapped me by now. I mean, I even have a moral conscience in my dreams. Or maybe the sad reality is that the only time I actually take a stand against something wrong is when I'm dreaming.

I had this dream a few months ago where I was sitting down to a game of chess, and I suddenly realised how very, very wrong chess is. It was similar to realising, at about the age of nine, how sexist Disney films are (or were; I watched Tangled at the weekend and thought it was pretty good). I had the board in front of me with my pieces lined up in their places, and I looked at all the cute little pawns and I thought to myself, You poor little munchkins, why have you been placed on the frontline?

Don't ask me the exact rules of chess, because to be honest I find it hard concentrating on anything where you're required to think five moves ahead (what's the point? Waste of good brain cells), but I know that there's a hierarchy which puts the king at the top and the people at the bottom, with some bishops and a few knights thrown in somewhere in the middle, and in my dream, I thought that such rules were absurd. So I sat across from my opponent and refused to play.

"No," I said adamantly. "I am not going to let my people die. You may think, Oh, it's just another pawn, but to me that pawn was a person. It had feelings. And when you kidnapped it and held it hostage, it got scared. I don't care if you line them up neatly and give them a good view looking out of the window - they're not fighting!"

Like I said: self-righteous little so-and-so.

But it's true, when you think about it. Why don't we try to protect the pawns? Why are their lives disposable, and why do we accept the inevitability of their premature death? And why on earth do we equip them with so little power? I mean, only being able to move one space at a time? What kind of army training is that?

Chess isn't the only game lacking a moral conscience; how about Buckaroo, which seems to advocate placing random inanimate objects on a defenceless donkey before it finally gets pissed off and decides to kick the shit out of you. (Admit it: you'd be a bit upset too if someone kept trying to hang a frying pan off your ear.) Or how about Guess Who, which pigeonholes people into ridiculously narrow categories.

"Are you a fatso?"

"Why yes, yes I am."

"Well then you must be Fred!"

Or, worst of all... Monopoly, where the rich get richer and the poor, for some inexplicable reason, keep getting sent to jail without even being given a fair trial - and of course the option to purchase a Get out of jail free card is always well beyond their financial capabilities.

It appears the board game market doesn't cater for the underdogs. I propose a new game: Underdogs, the object of which is to get as poor and as kicked and as fat as possible. In my dreams, perhaps.

One, two, three, four, listen to my bum roar

If, like me, you happen to act your shoe size rather than your age, then this may well be the best web page you will ever encounter in your entire life.

Thanks to this web page, I now know (and can share this knowledge at future dinner parties) the following:

• The crinoid's anus is located next to its mouth.
• You can buy special underwear which soaks up the odour from your farts. (Though I would not want to be there when the underwear is taken off at the end of the day. And the underwear would probably break your washing machine, too.)
• The animal with the highest worldwide output of flatus is the termite. Termite fart is actually a major contributor to global warming.
• Cows burp more than they fart.
• The great early 20th Century French flatulist, Le Petomane, was able to suck a bowlful of water up his bumhole and then expel it again. So a bowlful became a bowelful.
• Theoretically, if you were able to fart in space while naked, the fart would propel you forwards.
• If you went out naked into the cold and farted, you'd be able to see the fart like you can see your breath.

...And many more interesting facts about farts.

Give it a read. It's better than Harry Potter, anyway.

I Hear Thunder

I keep thinking that maybe now is the time I should enter the lottery.

Y'see, I happen to be one of those idiots who goes around saying stuff like, "I need to win the lottery" and "One of these days, I will win the lottery" (kinda like how you vow to wash the windows but never seem to get round to it) without ever actually buying a ticket. I've never bought a ticket; I just don't see the point. If there's a greater chance of being struck by lightning than there is of winning the lottery, then, statistically speaking, isn't there more chance of me becoming a millionaire via, I dunno, doing something dumb like going on TV and singing a crap, overly-autotuned song whilst shaking my heavily-airbrushed arse?

The thing is, last Friday, I was almost struck by lightning.

Of course, almost isn't exactly the same thing as actually being struck by lightning. One entains wiping your brow, going, "Phew! That was close!" and telling everyone you know about your brush with death, and the other one entails, well... death (or, if this were a comic book, me developing superpowers, donning a dorky-looking suit and saving the world from some evil, cackling villain with a bad haircut). See, what happened was, I was on my way home from work, when the sky, heaving with grey all afternoon, suddenly gave way and I became soaked from head to toe within the space of about five seconds. I didn't have an umbrella on me (and I call myself a Londoner, pfft), and of course I'm too unfit cool to go running down the road, so I kept to my normal (albeit, fast - I'm a bit of a speedy bugger) pace, as if getting rained on was exactly what I'd hoped for.

It got a bit ridiculous after about a minute, though. My headphones were still in and I was worried the rain would get into them and they'd break, my vest top was sodden wet and clinging to my stomach, and I was aware that my mascara had probably run all down my face; so I began to contemplate that, alright, maybe it was time to break into a run. And it was then that the sky seemed to click like a camera around me, and in the split-second that followed, I wondered who in Santa's name was trying to take a photograph of me while I was in such a wet, panda-eyed state. Then I found the ground literally shake beneath me, and I believe my thoughts went something along the lines of, "Ohhhhh shit."

So at the exact moment the alarm of the car beside me went off, I broke into a run, bag slamming against my body, boots slipping against the wet paving stones, colliding with various lampposts and wheely bins as I went. My top caught on one of the dustbins and sent the thing flying across the street, and some guy opened his front door and started yelling at me. I didn't hear what he was saying, because of course Usher was still rather inappropriately going on in my ear about Nicki Minaj putting her hands in some lady's pants (or something along those lines), but I think he was either accusing me of a) trying to steal his car, or b) trying to steal his rubbish. Had I not been on the verge of drowning at the time, I probably would have turned around, gone up to him and chucked the contents of his dustbin over his head, but alas! 'twas not the appropriate weather for acts of revenge.

I made it home safely seconds later (like I said, I'm a speedy bugger), shaken (but not stirred), and recounted my tale to my family with the odd feeling that either I was extremely lucky to have escaped being hit by lightning, or extremely unlucky to have come so close to being struck by lightning. It depends on whether you're a glass-half-full or glass-half-empty kinda person.

I suppose the lottery equivalent of almost-getting-struck-by-lightning must be getting all numbers but one and coming away with a tenner, so perhaps in that sense it might be worth forking out a quid and making 900% profit...

But then again, I am a bit of a lazy arse, and after that brief sprint home last week, I feel as though I've exercised enough for the next month. Therefore, I'm not so sure a measley (and still very, very unlikely) £9 is worth the effort.

Meh.

The Stupid Girl Culture

A few nights ago, I was on YouTube watching videos of farting horses, when I stumbled across the music video for Mickey Factz and Marsha Ambrosius's For The Culture. Now, as hilarious as flactuating horses are, there's only so long you can watch these kinds of videos before the howling laughter eventually simmers down into this kind of pathetic, forced chuckle. So I thought to myself, Enough of farting horses. Let's check out this music video.

And it's not the best song in the world. I mean, it's alright, but it doesn't really show off Marsha's voice. The thing is, I happen to be one of those people who always reads the comments on YouTube. I think it's because I like to laugh and shake my head at the ridiculous stuff people come up with, and the 'inventive' new spelling and grammar rules they like to apply to their sentences. Itz Partiklily Funni Wen Dey Say Sumfin Lyk Shez A Stoopid Ass Bitch Al Da Wile Dey Tipe Lyk Dis. (I just think it's interesting that the only words these kids are comfortable spelling independently these days are swear-words. Just an observation.) So I read the comments. Here's a small selection of them, for your convenience:

SHE IS OGLY.

she is a man or a women

she looks like a old reck, i mean what is she, 50 ?

LOL...this ugly bitch looks like gonzo from the muppets but not as cute and her teeth need to be filed down...

What pleasant human beings they are. And I bet you're expecting to see a real monster, aren't you? Well, see for yourselves:

The eye makeup isn't that great, but so what? Maybe this is a bit of a pointless question, but why is there so much talk about one woman's face? Why not talk about Mickey Factz's face, or even better, talk about the song? Why is music no longer about music, but instead about aesthetics, about bodies and bums and boobs? Why is it image selling music, and not music selling music?

Going back to what I said a few days ago about young society's fascination with the term 'hater', I find it extraordinary that you're not able to criticise the actions of someone like Beyonce, while it is deemed perfectly acceptable to make comments such as the ones above about the physical appearance of someone like Marsha Ambrosius. What do these women have in common? They're both talented. Where do they differ? Beyonce is 'bootylicious', and Marsha Ambrosius used to be overweight. Hypocrisy, anyone?

I call this The Stupid Girl Culture based on the 2006 song by P!nk, Stupid Girls, which I frequently direct people to as a point of reference (i.e. You're a twat. Look at this. This is you.) The ironic part is that these 'girls' - the famous ones, anyway - aren't actually stupid; they're actually pretty clever, because they know that the fastest way to success is through their image. Stephanie Germanatto didn't get anywhere until she reinvented herself and became Lady Gaga, and Lady Gaga would have disappeared into some hole somewhere long ago if she hadn't kept upping the weirdness by donning meat dresses and one-thousand-inch heels. Rihanna wouldn't have become the superstar she is today if she'd kept churning out comparatively innocent songs like SOS, and Beyonce would be fully eclipsed by both Rihanna and Lady Gaga by now had she not decided to star in post-watershed adverts, bleach her hair and allegedly her skin, too. They're smart women who promote stupidity, and for not-so-smart girls being brainwashed by these music videos, photographs and adverts every day, the effects are obviously damaging. That's why now we can't have someone like Marsha Ambrosius on a song without the majority of the comments being in reference to what she looks like. The same is true not only in music, but in literature, too. As a writer, I can't begin to describe how frustrating it is to walk into a bookshop and see the shelves lined with novels apparently written by Katie Price. I may never become a published writer, and the knowledge that this might not be true if I had bigger boobs and was happy to show them to the world, disgusts me.

I think we need to ask ourselves if this is what we really want, for ourselves, for our sisters, our daughters, our mothers and our nieces. Do we want to live in a world where what a woman looks like and what a woman does with her body is considered more important than the skills, talents and thoughts she has to offer? Because in embracing this Stupid Girl Culture, not only are you closing yourself off musical talents like Marsha, but you're also closing yourself off to great female writers, scientists, artists, politicians and philosophers. And that would be a real shame.

Moo, baah, oink, cluck and um... What sound do fish make?

I was in the supermarket earlier on today, perusing the quorn section with that tedious feeling of not-this-again, when it occurred to me that, as a vegetarian, I don't make sense. Vegetarians are supposed to campaign for animal rights, get teary-eyed when one of those RSPCA adverts comes up on the TV and glare at anyone who devours a chicken wing noisily on the bus - right? And I just don't do any of those things. (Well, I do sometimes do the last one, but that's more to do with the fact that I can't stand noisy eaters. They could be chewing on a lump of tofu and I'd still glare at them.) I'm not a huge animal-lover. I mean, I don't exactly go around kicking puppies, but passing a cat in the street or a dog in the park or a sheep in a field is about as interesting to me as passing a drunk in a dark alley. You notice them, but only because you hope they're not gonna jump on you, or start clawing at your arse.

This is why I always struggle when people ask me why I'm a vegetarian.

"So what made you become a vegetarian?" they ask.

And, for once, it feels like they actually care about my answer. Not because I'm an incredibly interesting person and my lifestyle choices are of great consequence to anyone else beside me, but because they think that my vegetarianism is an indirect judgement of them: I don't eat meat because it's wrong, they think I think. You eat meat, therefore you are wrong. There is something intrinsically wrong with you, as a person. And I don't think that, not even in the slightest. I ate meat for the first sixteen years of my life; I used to love my chicken nuggets and spaghetti bolognaise. The real reason why I decided to become a vegetarian?

It was easy.

Actually, it was an accident. I was sixteen-years-old, had just finished my GCSEs, and I hadn't eaten meat in over two weeks. I remember thinking, This whole no-meat malarky is a piece of piss. Guess I'm a vegetaian, then! And that was that.

I suppose in some respects, the vegetarian attitude has grown on me. I may not have a direct debit set up to 15 different animal charities, but I wouldn't want to slaughter a cow just so that I could have a burger for lunch, or snap a chicken's neck just so that I could pick at a few nuggets - especially not when I can quite easily grab something from the quorn section of the supermarket which, after about the one-hundredth munching session, kinda tastes almost like the real thing. The way I see it, I've changed one tiny thing about my life, and the result, for a few animals, is vast. It means they don't have to die.

I should, however, hold my hands up and admit one double standard: I wear leather. Sometimes.

I try not to, but I find it harder finding a substitute for durable leather shoes than I do finding a substitute for lamb chops. I keep meaning to find a local-ish shop which sells vegetarian shoes, but so far, no luck. If anyone can point me in the direction of one and help to eradicate my hypocrisy, I would be extremely grateful (as would the cows).

I remember someone once telling me that they would have quit smoking much earlier had someone told them how not-that-impossible it is, and I guess that's the point of this whole post today. I could show you videos of cows getting skinned alive, a lamb having its throat slit and chickens being decapitated, but I don't really want to employ scare tactics to affect people; I just wanna say that it's not that hard, and that the more vegetarians there are, the more of us there are to stand together and demand more (and better) vegetarian alternatives - for both food and fashion.

P.S. In case you're wondering: no, I don't eat fish; yes, I do eat dairy products. A life without apple turnovers would be too unbearable.