Tuesday 20 September 2011

Into Zanarkand

News that Square are remaking Final Fantasy X in HD might be the single best thing to happen in my life. I simply cannot wait. A few years ago i wanted to write the novel of Final Fantasy X. I got as far as the games intro. I hope the true nerds out there enjoy it.

Into Zanarkand.

Sat around a campfire in the shadows of the ruins of Zanarkand. In the last few minutes we hardly spoke despite the fact we were all thinking the same thing, all wanting to say something more. The journey was coming to it's end and we all knew what that meant. The crackle of the burning wood echoed and bounced off of every crumbling wall and pile of rubble. Pyroflies danced across the skyline leaving glowing trails of dust which shone like shards of broken glass under the fading light.

I stood up and begin to circle the group heading towards a small mound so I could see out across the ghost of this once great city. As I passed I rested my hand on Yuna's shoulder, her hand reached up to grasp mine. She let out a sigh, a sign that we were united in our thoughts and fears. I climbed the rocks, fingers had hardened over the journey, my feet ached and my legs were tired from the miles and miles our pilgrimage has taken us. I stood and stared out across the near baron land, littered with wrecked buildings or piles of rocks, once part of a grand hall, a mighty stadium, giant statues of heroic blitzball stars – the warriors of their time.

I felt empty, as though part of me was lost, wandering the ruins searching for the life I once had. It was still hard to accept despite me tricking myself I had come to terms with it long ago. Until I had seen it with my own eyes I guess I clung on to a last glimmer of hope that everyone in Spira was wrong. How did I get here? To what end was our means? What was going to happen to us, to me?

Listen to my story. This may be our last chance.

Tuesday 21 December 2010

21/12/10

21/12/10.

I just watched Toy Story 3. The girl at the end reminded me of my daughter Ebony and how for the last 2 months I haven't seen her – nor will I over Xmas. I just wanted to hold her. I want to play with her toys with her and create some beautiful memories to hold on to on the cold nights like this one. I cried buckets as the credits of the film rolled. It felt so good to let the built up tension out. I'm currently on a diet of lucozade, Imogen Heap – hide and seek (on repeat!), a text from a lover, a box of Cadbury's roses and my paper and pad. These things combine to form a gel that holds me together and stops me breaking into pieces. I feel so fragile I could just come apart, shatter without a touch. My face still glistens under the light of the computer screen from the tears that have drawn lines down my cheeks. Outside the icicles sparkle like the stars had fallen to the ground and got buried in the snow.

I wonder how I got here and whether this is what I deserve and if I am strong enough to come out of this without losing part of me. One cowardly act that lasted 18 months in exchange for a life time of fighting off tears whenever certain movies or songs play or someone says a word that brings everything back in a flash. It jolts me like a current is flowing through my veins. I used to believe in second chances and now I'd give anything to be given one.

You wake up in a lonely and cold bed with half of a dream dancing around your memory like a single dancer, partner vanished, waltzing around an empty ball room to music you know but can't remember the words to. In this moment all hope seems lost and a crushing wave of despair takes hold and you feel heavier than ever before and at the same time you feel a warmth of positivity wrestling with the misery carrying a torch of hope that maybe, just maybe today can be the first day of the rest of your life – a turn around. Its a constant battle for who, which emotion, will come out on top. Even Imogen Heap can't save me from that one. I doubt even Voltron could turn it around.

I just want to see my daughter and tell her that I love her and that everything is going to be ok. I want her to know I will never leave her and will always be there to do all I can to make things seem better, bearable and safe. I just want to try. I want to put aside the mistakes of before and focus on the future. Take a moment to think about regret, something you wish you hadn't done, shouldn't have done, sucks doesn't it? Now think that the person who wronged you is feeling how you just did about what they did to you. Its a sting that will never go away unless you get absolution (sorry to get religious it seemed the best word for the job!). It is good to unburden yourself, forgive someone (maybe in some cases yourself?) and take the weight off your shoulders.

If you see my little girl tell her I think about her every day. Tell her I still have the paintings of the dinosaurs she did for me that we did together. Tell her I'm sorry I can't be with her at Christmas. Tell her when I close my eyes I can still see the tea party we had in her Peppa Pig house, where we ate the best imaginary cake and drank the finest invisible tea.

Merry Christmas, I hope you find it in your heart to forgive someone next year.

Tuesday 9 November 2010

Life in the Bus Lane

Life on public transport can be frustrating, funny and fucking weird all at the same time. This is a piece about public transport and other stuff.

Life in the Bus Lane.

I’m sandwiched between a twitching women reading a book called ‘How to Be a People Person’ and a sleeping fat man who still has breakfast in his beard. Every rhythmic noise the train makes pushes the women further into the book, hands edging closer to her body excommunicating themselves from nearby passengers, mainly me and the sleeping giant.

The bearded man bulged as he breathed in but didn’t seem to deflate as he exhaled. I imagined him ever expanding, skin stretching, tearing, people scattering as the bulbous limp of flesh erupts across the cabin. His hand shot up and rubbed his face, the crumbs darted for safety. His eyes flashed open snapped awake by a bump. The new found state of alert caused the people person to grip harder on the book straining the spine as her knuckles whitened. Within seconds the giant’s head fell forwards and he was back asleep rocking like a giant baby.

I was caught pincer in an uncomfortable position but each attempt to move seemed to stir my sleeping travel buddy. In turn every twitch or R.E.M. movement triggered a further spasm from our people person. Inside I was laughing. There is silliness when people are around other people – the majority rules. The whole world was made up of people too tired to bother or too afraid to try. The wrongs of the world displayed a microcosm during my train journey. If only it were that simple.

Each of us began to relax into our surroundings and personal spaces until I sneezed which sounded alarm bells in the fat man who stood up and looking like he was sleeping walking began to charge down the train almost taking a fumbling nervous wreck with him leaving only a paper trail in his wake. The sleeping giant had transformed into a sweating behemoth of a man. He was right in the personal space of the train conductor but despite his size his face was that of the pleading child look. The conductor’s stone look of astonishment and disbelieve probably meant that he was asked to turn the train around. The fat man’s cheeks were red and sweat began to appear in all the wrong places. People across the cabin were staring, laughing behind hands, newspapers, the backs of chairs. He shuffled back to the nearest free chair passing each person with a “Please don’t sit next to me!” look on their faces. The sloth plonked himself down alone to the relief of his fellow passengers. The feeling of relaxation swept through the train. I wanted to skip down the isle handing out copies of ‘How to Be a People Person’ stopping to make people chant out relevant paragraphs to the hordes of travellers.

Familiar surroundings began to appear out of my window as my stop drew closer. The people around me began to shuffle in their seats and newspapers rustled, laptops closed. The motion of the train began to slow and the people swarmed to the door like a horde of zombies. The downtrodden once behemoth stood out above the masses head still hanging low, defeated. I’d lost sight of the people person in the mob and I let the masses carry me out of the train and into the open air.

The platform was awash with scattered bodies staggering forward dodging the slower paced and the survival challenged. All shapes and sizes headed for the stairs which lead up to the interchange. Everything seemed in slow motion as the bobbing heads ascended the steps, trapped behind someone not quite as enthusiastic and intense about stair climbing. As the stairs came to an end the space opened up and the bodies thinned out. I could finally walk a comfortable pace and breathe in fresh air rather than body odour and hairspray that had been clogging my lungs.

I saw a young couple holding hands leaning on a lamp post. He was forgettable in a grey hooded sweatshirt and tight black jeans and beat up pumps, his slick dyed black hair engulfing most of his face. The girl was shorter with piercing blue eyes that stole your breath away and forced me to stare for what was obviously an uncomfortable length of time as she turned away without a smile. She was wearing a red poncho with a white top underneath and had equally tight jeans on. I wondered if her boyfriend had borrowed some of hers. She was looking at her sandals and shuffling her feet as I looked away. They looked like the perfect pair for one of the many music videos flooding musical television at the moment, girl meets boy, girl falls in love, and boy chews gum and looks lovingly into girls eyes. She playfully punched him in the arm re-attracting my attention, I felt embarrassed like I was intruding, and my face began to burn so I upped pace and let them roll out of my field of vision.

I waited over a bridge and stopped momentarily to take in a snapshot of the rail tracks below. An intercity careered under the bridge sending a gush of cold but what felt dirty wind up into my face. I turned away and continued onward into the interchange. I wasn’t changing trains just passing through. A network of flesh and bone and steal and iron joining man and machine the mix of train and their passengers, tracks and the bridges across them. All this to help us spread like a web across the mass of land we have been given.

As I exited the train station I crossed a busy street blurs of blue and red rushing passed, horns honking, indistinguishable voices yelling. My bus was already at the stop a few minutes ahead of schedule. The bus driver was reading a red top spread over the steering wheel and nursing a flask of coffee in his free hand. Glass and steel peered down over me, even hunched the buildings towered high into the sky above. Birds appear as little dots darting across the open sky only to nip out of sight behind a concealing rooftop. I increased pace over the second half of the road and found myself at the bus door which was closed. I tapped the glass and the driver didn’t budge, eyes glued to the newspaper. I rapped my knuckles on the glass a little harder and his eyes quickly shot over to the door before returning to the paper. He didn’t even turn his head to look at me. I banged down on the glass harder still causing his head to flinch to the door and then back straight ahead, no longer reading but still ignoring my presence.

“Not due yet.” He said blandly. The eyes dropped to the red top. My face was burning hot, I’d started to break sweat and I hadn’t noticed that I’d clenched both fists and was griping so hard my knuckles began turning white. I turned away and a cold breeze washed over me chilling the beads of sweat, calming my smouldering temper. I’d shocked myself as to how quick I was boiling, temperament ready to snap. My hands were shaking lightly but I pocketed them to hide it from myself as much as anyone else. How to be a people person indeed!

As if mocking me the door opens and I spin around to meet eye to eye with a yellow toothed grinning bus driver who had previously oppressed me with a gossip paper and cup of coffee. I managed a feeble lifting of the corners of my mouth desperate to hide my annoyance. I flashed my pass and boarded.

The bus seat was awash with grime and chewing gum which actually helped to hold me in place as the rickety seat jumped and creaked at every motion of the bus. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine I was flying but an overpowering body odour drifting from the seat in front quickly shattered the dream and the harsh reality of grubby workmen, the stale smell of yesterday’s sweat, the unique fastening “Mechanism” on the seat destined to ruin my trousers brought me home. I was enveloped by a feeling of emptiness that made my stomach ache as though it were tied in knots. This was a daily routine and each and every attempt to drift away and escape the mundane boredom had failed. I could no longer even day dream in peace. The awfulness of the truth, the world through my eyes was a vast ocean of emptiness, a rut, a depressive factory line where all the pain, heartache and loneliness goes round and round like a driving cog. I know that sounds dramatic and clichéd but sometimes a little bit of drama is good for you. I just find it distracting.

I tried to disappear into the seat pushing myself into a wedge between iron and cushioning. I slouched as far as I could to escape the discomfort. I could hear spats of conversation jump from all directions. I heard remarks about our National football team’s recent spell of quality performances and ruthless opinions on the welfare of two baby twins belonging to a distressed mother who “Lost” her four year old daughter whilst sunning in a dusty European country. Talk of full English breakfasts made my stomach grumble but put a smile on my face momentarily. I cringed at a fat man in blue overalls entertaining on lookers loudly with tales of his sexual outings. It was hard to believe that anyone could find the lump sexually appealing and gob smacking to hear “It” describe what this “Women” actually did. I even consider myself open minded but was still shook to the foundations of taste and decency. An elderly woman in the seat to my left, across the isle, was a ghostly white colour it was hard to tell if it was old age or listening to the sex life of England’s finest. My gut told me she was suffering from the same ghastly visions that I was. Nobody else on the bus dared to speak. Everyone sat in jaw dropped silence, everything else paled into the background as the deviant’s words hypnotised the passengers. It reminded me of motorway pile ups, hoping nobody was hurt but knowing the slow moving traffic was as people crawled passed wreckage hoping to see a body, blood, something horrifying. Nobody wanted to hear but we all listened, all embraced that spark of perversion and the flame of something we shouldn’t enjoy but explore never the less.

The sweeping silence soon found its way to the front of the bus where the would be Dirk Diggler stood, now red faced, as the realisation hit him that we had all shared in his deepest and darkest sexual pleasures. My stop arrived not a moment too soon. I breezed of the bus with a rush of air as the doors closed behind me. To my surprise I was actually heated with embarrassment from my journey. A cooling breeze had followed the later morning and was welcomed with open arms after the stuffy bus ride.

Another man stepped of the bus before it pulled out. He shouted something obscene to the still embarrassed gentleman causing muffled laughs to echo down the bus. I could read several repressed smiles on the faces in the windows as the bus rolled on passed. He gave me a wink as he set off leaving me soaking up the smog from the bus exhaust.

Sunday 25 July 2010

Natalie Portman

Sooner or later I guess it had to come back to love. I guess everything does eventually right??? I wrote this about a girl.

Natalie Portman.

I’ve fallen in love with the way her eyes drift out of shot on every photo on her facebook profile. It’s like something from a Richard Linklater or Wes Anderson film, arty, quirky yet deliberate.

It’s cold out today but I have warmth deep within me. She wears her scarf like a statement – “I am passion” And her eyes are bright and darting, soaking up every passing molecule. She has a folded Guardian newspaper under her arm and the way she carries herself, the clothes, the running of her hand through her hair, screams former art student or fashion maybe although she is more vintage than couture, her smile is radiant and contagious and I can feel the corners of my mouth lift and suddenly I’m beaming back.

We meet and greet and exchange pleasantries whilst heading to the entrance of an up market independent cinema, we buy tickets to the new movie by a hip indie director we both liked and then agree to head towards a café bar in the heart of the city whose clientele are above my pay packet and more than likely my class. I try to hide my disgust at the prices when I pay and it is easier walking away as that smile has followed us in under the dim lighting and wondering jazz backdrop. Our feet touch under the table and we both withdraw embarrassed and I realise that even in silence I’m letting myself get drawn in further. I haven’t seen her in maybe 3 years. We talked about life in our respective cities, movies that we liked, songs we danced to, people we dated, friends that faded. She raced through a sizable Rose and smiled when I teased her about wearing a scarf inside. She confessed to being a little tipsy which I thought was cute even when she started to make less sense as we exited and headed for the cinema, when she lost her ticket in a TARDIS of a handbag, and talked loudly as the seats began to fill. I wanted to hold her hand but I knew that would spoil the moment, that it would spoil everything.

We left the empty ice cream container resting on the chair arm, she had eaten it all (another thing I found cute), took our coats and left satisfied but hungry. We headed across the city towards a Chinese restaurant. I fell off the curb and tried to disguise it with a pathetic jump back onto the edge, she almost walked into a lamp post whilst watching a couple embrace across the street and I realised that with all her individual dynamics and quirks she was looking for somebody to connect with the same way we all are. I knew that feeling all too well, I was watching her when I fell of the curb.

The restaurant was an empty hall with lined tables and wooden chairs and buffet carts spread throughout. We shared a comfortable silence before ordering drinks and getting into a plate of starter nibbles. We both came back with an abundance of seaweed. We changed conversation onto family, goals, and ambitions but soon drifted into past relationships and more of the standard getting to know someone material. We talked about our bodies and bodies of former lovers and it was nice to be able to talk openly about things which many people have a hang up on. It was of course all respectful and people’s identities remained under lock and key. She confessed to making a video with a long term partner and was horrified when watching it back, shattering the illusion that every sexual experience is just like we see in the movies – a well lit, well constructed and performed scene. I’d made one many years earlier which had produced similar results and feelings. We went for a second helping and she did the typical girl thing of hardly putting anything on her plate as she was on a completely unnecessary diet. I didn’t dare mention the calories in a glass of Rose wine or a tub of cookie dough flavoured ice cream. The night had started to draw to a close which wracked me with a disappointment I couldn’t hide. She clumsily tried to leave without paying and I tipped even though the service didn’t warrant it.

Her tram stop was right outside the restaurant. We went through the motions of saying goodbye, “It’s been wonderful!”, “We should do it again sometime!” all of the time thinking “Wait! This is crazy! I’ve just fallen head over heels for you and I need to know if you feel the same way…” The tram arrived way ahead of time or ridiculously late I couldn’t be sure and we rushed through everything and with the closing of the electronic doors and the ringing of the bell she was gone. I walked towards the train station elated, better for coming here, deciding on future plans and slowly convincing myself that she is just what I need. The journey home is a blur of daydreams and fantasy, her smile echoed around my mind. I got home and switched on my pc. I wanted to see her face again before I went to sleep.

Monday 21 June 2010

Islam

I didn't know how to introduce this piece. I wasn't sure I should incase it seemed like I was trying to defend myself and my words. I hope it makes people think if nothing else.

Islam.

I was young and reckless once (ok, so maybe more than once...). In my arrogance I walked up to a young Muslim lad in a shopping centre and told him that I would love to smash Allah's face in with a cricket bat. Of course I wasn't serious. I just wanted to antagonise him and make him do something fanatical in retaliation to my outlandish claims about the almighty. I should've just suggested I call my teddy bear Mohammed but the cricket bat scenario seemed the best way to go at the time. As one would suspect, thanks largely to the media, he quickly summoned a group of his friends, whom I will assume were fellow followers of Islam, and chased me from the shopping complex chanting for my blood and making wild threats against my family.

Now I'd love to say that over a decade later I've grown up somewhat and learned the values of religious freedom and understanding and was no longer an angry young bigot making threats with a lump of wood, and that the Islamic faith was not so fast to attack with such force anyone who didn't see their point of view or worse still who just didn't believe at all and that I'd be right. Sad then that over a decade later I have come to be only fifty percent right. I no longer like to play cricket.

Not that I support what I did. I was a young teenager rebelling against everything and anything that crossed my path. It was a very narrow minded thing to do. I am rather ashamed of it to be honest. Although as I look back I am worried not so much that I did something so childish and immature, because that is what young people do – they make mistakes, but at the shocking retaliation on the part of the Muslim boy I antagonised. I think I am more shocked that even boys aged sixteen could quickly amass a mob driven by something they can't possibly understand at such a young age and set out to violently attack me for uttering a few wayward words, stupid, ultimately harmless words. Plenty of young people of all walks of life say and do stupid things and although should be educated around the bad things they say and do we certainly shouldn't get together in gangs an chase them across the neighbourhoods of Britain with torches and pitchforks because they might have uttered something we didn't appreciate.

Controversial Dutch MP Geert Wilders avoided sport altogether and went ahead to declare that; “I don't hate Muslims. I hate Islam.” And Mohammed would, “... in these days be hunted down as a terrorist.” The Dutch Islamic community showed their understanding and appreciation of Wilders and freedom of speech by several attempts to take his life. One of which on the 10th of November 2004 involved three men with hand grenades in a building in The Hague. The ever trustworthy source of information, Wikipedia, claims that Wilders can now only see his wife about once a week due to the security risks posed by his outlandish statements.

I am glad to see that the old school yard nugget of Gold “Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me!” hasn't been forgotten then. Safe to say Muslim children were not taught this rhyme at school. I have to be honest usually the bullies just threw me in the large dustbins after I had sung it at them anyway. To be fair the Muslims tend to save their sticks and stones for the women who complain about getting gang raped. If the men say it didn't happen then it didn't happen and the women is punished for suggesting such nonsense. I heard a joke once; What makes nine out of ten people happy?

So why is it that followers of the Islamic faith can't seem to ignore insults both childish and sometimes cruel yet still only words? Why is it that Gillian Gibbons spent fifteen days in a prison in Sudan for suggesting they name her classes teddy bear Mohammed as it was seen as offensive to Islam and the prophet of the same name? I'd be pretty chuffed if a class of children wanted to name a teddy bear after me, it would surely mean I had influenced their live somehow in a positive way or had left a lasting impression that was deemed worthy of an honour no matter how large or small. It is estimated that around fifteen million people have the name of Mohammed in some form. I doubt very much that all fifteen million of them live a life fit to be called after a prophet and don't watch television, masturbate, swear, eat candy and do all the regular normal stuff that they should be getting persecuted for by Islamic law (and yes Catholics, Masturbation is normal...).

In 2008 Wilders released a short film called 'Fitna' in which he took quotes from the Quran and slapped them over grotesque acts of violence and terrorism perpetrated by Muslim extremists and radicals. The opening quote used to depict the followers of Islam in a negative light comes from Surah 8, verse 60 and according to devout Muslims is taken out of context; “Prepare for them whatever force and cavalry ye are capable of gathering to strike terror, to strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of Allah and your enemies.” I have tried to apply a thousand contexts to this sentence and cannot seem to find one in which it might not come across as a little threatening. To try and even the scales a little I did a quick google search (the only way to find the truth of any matter!) for positive quotes regarding the conversion to Islam. I came across the web site www.covertingtoislam.com and on the front page they had a quote from Surah Al-Ma'idah, verse 3 which reads; “This day the unbelievers have given up all hope of your religion. Yet fear them not; fear only me.” I couldn't really believe what I was reading The same message of fear us, almost believe or die, forced belief in religious teachings through fear ran through the quotes being used both negatively and positively, both sides saying almost the same thing yet opposing one another and both striving for very different outcomes. The same website also claims the Arabic word Islam means 'Surrender' or 'Submission', tell that to the wives I though to myself and then wrote here because I thought it might raise a smirk.

I guess it would be naïve to take my decade of experience with Islam and the lack of development regarding it's acceptance of criticism and project that onto the grander scale of things like the ill treatment of women, the public stoning of homosexuals, the complete lack of respect for others freedom of speech and freedom of religious belief. I can't begin to offer up a true workable solution to the problems Islam will face when it comes to brainwashing the everyday person like me into following its frankly barbaric and backwards principles. So I can safely say my days of threatening deities with cricket bats are well and truly behind me. If I can make such forward developments in understanding other cultures, beliefs, systems and people then how come a religious group that has millions of followers across the globe and power to possibly change the world forever can't seem to grasp it?

Inter-dependence, of course, is a fundamental law of nature. Not only higher forms of life but also many of the smallest insects are social beings who, without any religion, law or education, survive by mutual cooperation based on an innate recognition of their interconnectedness.” - Tenzin Gyasto; The Fourteenth Dalai Lama

Tuesday 1 June 2010

Honesty Died with the Polaroid Picture

This is short piece I wrote on the train after a day and night in the wonderful city of Leeds. I love visiting Leeds. It somehow feels like home.

Honesty Died with the Polaroid Picture.

I sit on a train listening to three girls talking about Facebook like it truly is a revolution. They talk about wall posts and IM's like they are words and phrases etched into history as the tide changing, generation defining, rousing dialogues that will be remembered in years, decades, centuries to come.

“It's your love that controls me. No seriously, he wrote that on my wall!” Darts out from under a hum of train talk; the mundane weather and the general state of public transport, and the buzzing of the train in motion.

“I'm going to Tweet about today when I get home.” Is met with a series of nods and smiles.

A group boards the train and the seat next to me appears to expand and force me to press against the window under the expanding weight of sport relief conversation, how packaged salads contain more calories than a Big Mac, Converse trainers, tight jeans, I-Pods and flat caps as fashion accessories and the does and don'ts of wearing pumps (“Don't!” I scream inside to myself). I feel suffocated by a world I am losing touch with. We used to talk to God but now we just type it into Google.

For the longest time, maybe even as far back as my childhood, I have felt that the air on Sundays is heavier than in the week. I know that is impossible and it is probably just ingrained human guilt towards the rejection of the almighty on the holy day of rest. Rest under our new God, Money, just seems harder. Everywhere you look is a statement, be it a billboard or an item of clothing or a text message all of which even when consumed serve as an advert, or rather a message, just like mass, that the new God is there watching, wanting from you but for nothing in return. At least with God we felt we had something even when we had nothing but with money as a replacement if you don't have it then you don't have anything. You don't have faith, hope or comfort. I can't ignore the voice echoing in my ears “We did this to ourselves”.

In a sea of denim, leather and Indian ink identity gets blurred and lost as individualism becomes a contest for who can afford the latest accessory first. Your only artistic expression is the colour of your I-Pod, your status update, your myspace bulletin – You are what you Tweet. I have never had so many friends yet felt so alone.

I find myself sailing on a boat out in the vast ocean, the wind whistling past me, the water spraying my face. I feel free. I try to smell the salty sea and the freshness of the air and to feel refreshed by the cool water and calming breeze but this isn't real. The motion is digital, my companion is a collection of pixels, the sounds recorded and played back upon demand, all wrapped up in an advanced physics engine designed to capture and simulate reality. Second Life is the closest many of us can get to a second chance. I don't see that as a bright side.

Everything seems so immediate, so impersonal, so forced, so manufactured, from phrases uttered to the clothes that are worn to the way each and every detail of your life is shared with a hundred or so “Friends” who only know you through a portal to your life on an internet site. Who you are and what you do are fused into one. You are like an art print of a person – a copy of an original. They claimed dance music would be the future, the future of what nobody could be sure but whilst that prophecy fell by the wayside make no mistake that the digital revolution is here and in full swing and your success of adapting to it can be measured by the Linden dollars you carry in your open source designed trouser pockets.

If you can remember when adult meant grown up and not pornography then you have been left behind, a relic, a dinosaur, a piece of history. Honesty died with the polaroid picture. If you don't fit the bill they can photoshop you out. Who will remember us when we are gone if we leave nothing more tangible behind?