My girlfriend asked, “Do you want to get married?”
I said, “Sure.”
She said, “Great, when?”
I said, “Well like every other guy, when I meet the right girl.”

Coming home to a sink full of dirty dishes is a commonplace occurrence in most flatshares. They are like small children in a way; you don’t mind your own but pretty much hate everybody else’s. After enduring years of rotas, arguments and tantrums over who cleans the toilet and why teabags aren’t recyclable, the temptation to fall in love and move in with your partner is enormously tempting. Perhaps it is the agony of flatshares and the financial improbability of getting your own place that leads couples along the garden path towards domesticity. It’s a treacherous one and has many emotional pitfalls but faced with living with another Bob, 28, from Swindon then it’s probably a risk worth taking.

Being single and sharing has never been easy and if coming home to a sackful of greasy pans on a week night isn’t going to make you fall in love ASAP – then nothing will. No more is this more keenly felt than on Valentine’s Day. A billion pound industry that preys on people’s insecurities, the day has already suffered a critical backlash from the thoughtful majority for its excessive commercialism.

Despite over two thousand years of human progress, the event still revolves around old-fashioned virtues of male financial chivalry, and it goes without saying that most men in relationships hate Valentine’s Day. Indeed many deliberately keep it low key just in case they set a precedent for future years. Likewise the female prospect of receiving a two foot card and a box of chocolates with ‘I LOVE YOU BABEZ’ adorned on the inside cover will be probably be enough to launch the fourth and final wave of feminism.

As dinner date couples fill up the aisles of restaurants across the world, it might seem like a small price to pay to form a new domestic union. Free from the territorial angst of a multi-divided kingdom, couples will still fight a battle a day over the chores but the price of breaking up means only one thing. Going back to the squabbling rabbit hutches you originally fell madly in love just to get away from.

If the racism scandal afflicting English football has taught us anything it is that the ‘tiny minority’ so often ignored by mainstream society has a powerful voice. As the private nastiness that had previously been confined to living rooms and unsavoury pubs is now digitally logged for everyone to see. Already bigoted steams of racist abuse on Twitter has seen Manchester City defender Micah Richards abandon the network altogether. Sadly he is not alone with Gary Lineker disappearing after tweeting for little under a week citing that ‘local prejudice just seems to bring out the worst in some people’. Indeed many public figures and footballers have been forced to give up the service because of the bile directed towards them. It’s certainly no place for anyone with a thin skin.

Anyone researching the Patrice Evra and Luis Suarez handshake affair on Twitter will uncover horrible levels of racist abuse. None of this reflects particularly well on the UK educational system and it goes without saying the majority of trolls are incredibly thick. In many ways Twitter has become a Victorian freak show dominated as much by the celebrity users as by the idiots trying to provoke them. Bigotry has never gone away. It’s just that the mainstream media reports hate crimes in such a formulaic fashion that it becomes easy to ignore. Racist abuse therefore becomes a journalistic pain. Something that can be dismissed with a mere switch of a button. But there is something so viscerally awful about Twitter that it simply can’t be ignored.

The CCTV of the mind will lead even the most unwilling of voyeurs to some very ugly places. Unsurprisingly the majority of the online abuse is usually expressed by deeply unhappy young men, which is only made worse by the individuals who associate themselves with certain football teams. Fizzing with testosterone and determined to prove their loyalty at all costs their colloquial prejudices have hitherto never had an audience before. Perhaps this more than anything represents the truly ugly side of the racism debate. If you give people a voice sadly far too many of them will resort to abuse. Indeed you don’t actually learn that much on Twitter but you do learn a lot about human nature.

Related articles

• Micah Richards quits Twitter after three months of sustained racist abuse (guardian.co.uk)
• Sometimes football really is much more than just a game | Observer editorial (guardian.co.uk)
• Sunderland fan admits sending racist tweets about Newcastle players (telegraph.co.uk)
• Liverpool apologies seek to quell ugly echoes of Luis Suárez affair | Richard Williams (guardian.co.uk)
• Barton ‘no risk’ to Terry trial (bbc.co.uk)

Celebrity culture and sporting prowess are two branches that only in England could have become intertwined. In the case of the Chelsea captain John Terry, who is facing trial on 9 July for racially abusing QPR defender Anton Ferdinand, it is the root of something very ugly indeed. Accused of racism by a member of the public after a YouTube clip went viral, the hysteria surrounding the case says as much about celebrity culture as it does about racism in football. Despite not wanting to defend Terry or any incident of racist or bigoted behaviour, a very dangerous precedent has been set where individuals can be thrown in court on accusations made not by the individual concerned but someone (potentially) sitting on a computer in Papua New Guinea.

With Terry losing the England captaincy because of these accusations, the hype surrounding the case exposes a glib streak running through English popular culture. As football journalism in England is notorious for focusing on personalities and stories unlike in Spain or Italy where the emphasis is on sporting matters. In Spain journalists are even allowed to watch training and with this privilege comes the honour of improving their own knowledge of the game. As a result their coverage of football revolves around sporting excellence and not the personal lives of players.

Only in England could a journeyman footballer such as Joey Barton receive such press attention. Best known for being jailed for attacking a Liverpool teenager in May 2008, the notoriety surrounding the QPR player has been fuelled by his Twitter account. With over a million followers, the player bristles with self-righteous indignation and has a narcissistic desire for attention and thus provides scandal hungry English journalists easy headlines on a near daily basis. With the notable exception of Stan Bowles and Les Ferdinand, not many QPR players have attracted so much press attention as the former Newcastle play maker. However, Barton’s guttersnipe opinions and propensity to get into online feuds with journalists and fans has generated a level of hysteria that belies his achievements in the game.

Playing for a series of marginal clubs with no history of winning trophies, Barton has no medals to his name after a decade playing football. Alas the sporting culture in England is now all about being somebody rather than what you have achieved. Twitter only further accelerates a culture of gossip and spin allowing a narcissist such as Barton a global platform to broadcast his views. Already some players appear more pleased with the number of followers they have than trophies, where previously it had been medals and caps that were the benchmarks of success. Would for example a moderately talented Spanish player who takes the corners and free kicks for a minnow club like Getafe receive front page coverage in Spain?

With the ex-England captain now dethroned it looks like Terry won’t travel with the Euro 2012 squad this summer. But it is all too easy to forget that Terry had been previously stripped of the captaincy by Fabio Capello for having an affair with his team mate’s girlfriend. Sadly the celebrity circus goes on and the build up to the tournament from an England perspective will inevitably circle around their former captain’s court case.

As mediocre players such as Joey Barton try to establish new careers for themselves as ‘brands’, it will be fascinating to watch the English and Spanish sides at the Euro 2012 finals. Not just for their contrasting style of play but for their dignity and approach to the game. No one doubts that Spain are by far the better side. As the majesty of football is on the field of play and that is where it should remain too.

Related articles

• John Terry ‘devasated’ after being stripped of England captaincy – again – The Guardian (guardian.co.uk)
• Capello must axe Terry from the England squad (melosport.com)
• John Terry fury at being axed as England captain over race row (mirror.co.uk)

Related articles

• Another one bites the dust. Tumblr blocked in Saudi Arabia (thenextweb.com)
• Tumblring Through It All (fashionhodgepodge.com)
• Tumblr-ing (ireneim.wordpress.com)

Coming into work with your eyes stinging from the night before doesn’t require a night out to remember. The world is flooded with electronic light and it no longer requires anyone to go outdoors. After spending all day in front of a computer and returning home to converse in the same fashion, there appears to be more and more ways to communicate than things to say. Cyberspace has become a black hole, where our thoughts and emotions are distributed on Facebook and Twitter, and sold on and repackaged to make a profit. God once commanded his flock to down tools on a Sunday but there is now an even more powerful designer in charge and like the celestial dictatorship of old he is entirely man-made.

With the internet going on strike over proposed anti-piracy laws, the Wikipedia protests only further exposed the excessive amount of time we spend online. Such a powerful new religion now requires a Sabbath. Luxury is a result of scarcity and what leather, travel and prawn cocktails were to the working classes in the early twentieth century, spending less time on the internet will be to the twenty first. As anyone with a compulsive refreshing habit will already realise there is something wrong with having permanently sore eyes.

Online activities are too passive to stimulate and often leaves the mind under-nourished but like junk food served in neon-aisles of 24-hour supermarkets it remains curiously addictive. In a world dominated by Twitter storms, reblogging and hang outs, there is a never-ending spectre of what the computer industry calls ‘content’. But even the most erudite of web pages will leave you jaded and disillusioned after clicking the refresh button once too often.

With the Apple Ayatollahs of this world religiously defining their personalities through their digitally branded toys, a dangerous cult is emerging and abstinence is a potential cure. It may involve abandoning your phone and being disconnected for a few hours. Ignoring friends might not seem the most sociable way to re-engage your mind but anything that doesn’t involve being online is time worth cherishing.

Some cellular weary businessmen in the US are checking into ‘black hole’ resorts such as the Black Mountain Ranch on holiday. Granting them a chance to unplug and rediscover their love of literature and human conversation, the resort proudly boasts of having no Wi-Fi or television facilities. A Sabbath luxury of a different kind, these black hole resorts relieve the eyes of tedium by denying access to the greatest communications system of all time. All man-made religions need challenging and especially one as powerful as the internet.  So when jumping down a black hole feels like a worthy alternative you know it’s time to put down the Kindle and reads as many books as you can.

Related articles

• The joy of writing about things that don’t matter (confusedofcalcutta.com)
• Rules of Engagement (danielagnew.org)
• Internet addiction affects the brain ‘like a drink or drug problem’ (telegraph.co.uk)

Glasgow is a city with a brooding gothic soul. A city I once wrote about regularly, even if it was just the banality of routine. With its violence menace, religious iconography and twee bourgeois sensibility, Glasgow captured my imagination at a particular period in time. Back when I described the insignificant truth of this solitary journey to the cinema on a cold weekday evening. A melancholy love letter so to speak. I had just turned twenty-five. 

Tuesday, 10th January 2006

Moth to a Flame

I go the cinema when I’m bored and lonely. It all begins with an over familiar route through the West End and after several twists and turns I will magically stride through Garnethill down towards the largest cinema building on Planet Earth. The beginning of the journey is arguably the most comfortable upon the eye, it is invariably dark and rectangle shades of affluent light can be seen frozen behind coloured glass. I walk across the Byres Road up towards Great Gibson Street, where mercenary cranes hang over an underdeveloped patch of soil; it is a docile but rapidly changing stretch of road.

The sharp gradient tightens the muscles on both of my legs and I have reached the peak of the road, where in sudden twist of fate I feel compelled to go down the hill towards Gibson Street. I used to live around here, the car park is still a muddy disgrace, littered with crass aluminium shells and alien sized craters. The park dominates the area, it is a spooky place and lit only by a curved silver moon; its iron gates lie open but I dare not enter. I stride past fancy Lebanese and Scottish restaurants, it is an ordinary night but they both appear full of people. I cross over the gentle river, there are no grebes or mallards to be seen and only now do I start to accelerate towards my destination. I twist past two Protestant churches and a cold young fox lying dead in the leaves. The road ahead is empty and without a soul, it appears darker now, the motorway is within walking distance.

I head towards Charing Cross, it is very quiet and all the cars have gone. It is not the right time but I prefer to take to the skies than walk alongside them. I adjust my legs and walk over an arched granite causeway; it elevates me above the carnage of the roads and provides access to the mysterious ways of Garnethill. I am in the city now, there something sinister about this place, something threatening, although my mind is playing tricks on me. It is dark right now and no one is here. The street is awash with neat green lawns and vacancy signs, there are places to stay on my left, while to my right there are scattered bins and graffiti strewn fire exits.

I walk ominously closer and there is a Catholic Church approaching, which is separated by yew, rowan and a piercing iron fence. This secretive place of worship performs mass in Latin and the priest is kept hidden behind a secret silver veil. The church is small but intimidating and I don’t think it likes me at all. I walk on alone and without a God, the winter air is biting my cheeks, my hands are beginning to get cold now.

I walk towards the famous art school and admire its subtle and decorative style, there are no students in the nearby eighties lounge. I am almost there now and feel like a distant stranger, people are on the move down below me, there is a collection of buckfast and vodka sitting alongside a corrugated steel gate. The streets are colliding into one, there are cars passing by me, it is now sparkling with light and the silence has gone.

On growing up in the nationalist heartlands of the North East of Scotland and with parents of Anglo-Irish descent, I am a first generation Scot. Always sensitive to any hint of anti-English sentiment, I remember my first impressions of nationalism and I considered it back then to be inherently nasty, bigoted and deeply parochial. Largely this was a result of a feral loathing of the English football team and the hysterical fear of the ‘auld enemy’ winning the World Cup. Laughable as this might sound to educated observers, especially anyone who knows anything about football, the populist cry was that ‘we would never hear the end of it’ and they are right. It would be absolutely unbearable but our European partners usually come to our aid whenever this is in danger of happening.

Football might seem frivolous to some but the social consequences of this nationalist hysteria led to me preferring the union. As a result and unaware of the grim economic conditions taking place outside of the affluent fields of Aberdeenshire, I felt very comfortable being simultaneously Scottish and British. While I always considered myself Scottish, I owed my existence to parents and as a son of economic migrants; I was a product of oil rather than the Mearns soil.

Although looking back my British identity crisis was an emotional form of solidarity with my parents. It co-existed with my Scottish identity, which back then was a geographical and localised phenomenon. T.C. Smout, the brilliant social historian, once stated that ‘what is unusual about Scotland is the widespread acceptance that national identity does not have to coincide with state identity’. He succinctly tapped into the political separation of powers of the 1707 Union settlement, where Scottish cultural and religious nationalism was allowed to flourish outside the sphere of the British state.

Shaped by the desire to secure a Hanoverian Protestant succession in the early eighteenth century, British identity has been formed around the crown, empire, industrialisation and the emotional solidarity of two World Wars. In the twenty-first century, the contemporary framework of British identity has shifted radically. With the British Empire now confined to the dust columns of history, the BBC, NHS, Royal Mail and celebrity television shows such as the X-Factor and Big Brother provide ‘Britons’ with a shared cultural identity.

On being entirely comfortable with being both Scottish and British, I can trace my slow conversion to independence from attending two of Scotland’s oldest universities. On first attending Kings College in Aberdeen, I took great pride in learning that until 1858 Aberdeen had two universities, the same number as the whole of England. Education always appeared to be a great Scottish virtue and with the devolved Scottish administration paying student’s tuition fees since 1999 it became clear that education in Scotland is a universal right and not something confined to the privileged few.

On transferring to Glasgow University and studying History, I slowly developed the opinion that Scotland had everything in place to be thriving independent nation but somehow shied away from taking full responsibility. A country blessed with huge natural resources, a brilliant university network, untapped green energy, a booming tourist industry and two of the greatest cities in Northern Europe only 40 minutes apart. Scotland has enormous potential to become a progressive and wealthy European state.

If Scotland were to vote for full independence in autumn 2014 then the British state will cease to exist but Britishness will not. Norwegians, Swedes, Finns and Danes are still Scandinavian despite living in politically autonomous states. The Scandinavian nations co-operate on matters of shared national interest such as security, immigration, energy and tourism. There will be no custom officials and razed wire fences in Berwick-upon-Tweed or Gretna Green if Scotland were to go their own way. And by retaining the Queen as the head of state, the SNP have offered an olive branch to unionists uncomfortable with the pace of radical constitutional change.

With his High Excellency Alex Salmond at the helm in Holyrood anything now feels possible. A truly outstanding political operator, the SNP has been blessed with the most gifted political communicator in the British Isles since Tony Blair. Commanding over an extremely disciplined and ‘on message’ party, Alex Salmond is gradually persuading the Scottish people there is nothing that cannot be achieved by ourselves. On turning full circle I now believe in independence. The wheels of progress have been slow but the destination now feels inevitable.

Related articles

• George Osborne put in charge of bid to stop Scottish independence (mirror.co.uk)
• SNP plans Scottish independence referendum for autumn 2014 (guardian.co.uk)
• Do you think Scotland should become independent? – The Guardian (guardian.co.uk)
• Scottish Independence Movement Draws Renewed Sparring (nytimes.com)
• Scottish independence referendum call ‘will only help the SNP’ (telegraph.co.uk)
• Scottish referendum is legal says Salmond (independent.co.uk)
• The ‘Three Scotlands’ and How to Win an Independence Referendum (celynwales.wordpress.com)

In 2003, the skeleton of 38-year-old Joyce Carol Vincent was discovered in a North London bedsit with the television still on. She had been dead for three years. Her remains were found alongside half-wrapped Christmas presents and the haunting flicker of BBC One. Joyce’s body was so badly decomposed she could only be identified by comparing dental records with an old holiday photograph of her smiling. How she died doesn’t actually matter. What is truly shocking is how someone could remain dead for three years without anybody noticing. In a ghoulish tale of neglect and social dislocation, Dreams of a Life is a story about youth, friendship and missed opportunities. With no family and her four sisters refusing to take part, the docudrama pieces together Joyce Vincent’s anonymous life.

Directed by Carol Morley, the film interviews a handful of former-work colleagues, who reminisce about the water cooler moments and office parties they shared with Joyce in the 1980s. Now in their forties, there was unnerving sense of how our loves and opportunities narrow with each passing year. How meaningful their friendship with Joyce stretched beyond the superficialities of office small talk is questionable. Likewise her ex-flatmates appeared genuine but again unaware of her true character. Nobody it seemed knew Joyce Vincent. A vivacious and charismatic girl in her prime, the former City girl had never been shy of male attention. However, like so many troubled women, men were a shady reference in her life. With her emotional rock coming in the shape of a bird-faced colleague, she drifted in and out of a series of broken relationships and spent her final years in a women’s refuge.

With the gaps in the narrative proving frustratingly esoteric towards the end, the story of Joyce Vincent’s life remains incomplete. Set in the early 2000s and in the absence of the social networking websites that dominate our lives today, Joyce left this world without even a missed call. It is bad enough turning forty let alone living on your own. As the years slowly become decades, friends will inevitably come and go and a once beautiful, popular woman ended up spending her final moments utterly alone. Like a modern tale from Edgar Allen Poe the bank continued to pay her bills but nobody wrote or called. Invisible transactions kept on flowing all the while a scrambled television poured life into Joyce Vincent’s unvisited tomb.

Related articles

• How did a woman lie dead and undiscovered for three years? (guardian.co.uk)
• ‘Dreams of a Life’: The ghost of Christmas not so long past (independent.co.uk)
• Annals of Heartlessness (9): The Story of Joyce Vincent (filipspagnoli.wordpress.com)
• Dreams of a Life, review (telegraph.co.uk)

With too many New Year resolutions to mention and certainly none of them worth publishing online. It feels strange to be optimistic about 2012. While exercising more, eating less crisps and spending less time on Facebook are noble aspirations in the good times. Anyone reading the news would be forgiven for feeling suicidal. With storm laden metaphors sweeping across Europe, unemployment rising and a lost generation confined to living in bedsits and flatshares until they are fifty. There appears to be precious little to be optimistic about in 2012.

High unemployment certainly hasn’t put people off from trying to find jobs in London. Outside the relative comfort zone of rented accommodation, the city’s youth hostels are crammed full of Spaniards looking for work in Prêt A Manger and Starbucks. Serving egg and cress sandwiches are certainly nobody’s idea of a career but it is a job. A perfectly acceptable one if the alternative is sleeping next to a Lego pirate ship underneath the watchful eye of Mum and Dad. Doing nothing is not an option, or at least it shouldn’t be. Not everyone is able to leave home in search of work but those who do should be admired for doing so.

Curiously enough when was the last time someone British served you in that mouthful of a sandwich shop? Not that it matters but somehow it does. For job prospects are bleak and the ’los indignados’ of Spain are leaving in their droves to find employment to serve Britons over-priced sandwiches. With young people’s prospects belittled or written off as part of a ‘lost generation’. Is there a genuine alternative to this pre-scripted misery? Staying at the root of problem is a not a good idea and with reports of 18, 795 people chasing 318 jobs in Hull, then anyone young enough to move elsewhere is well advised to do so.

Already a social revision of expectations is taking shape and the middle-class dream of a range rover, dog, three kids and a wholesome marriage is not going to be an option for everyone. Well it won’t be unless there are better job opportunities and with growing economies in Brazil, Russia, India and China, then learning a new language in 2012 certainly won’t do anyone any harm. If well-educated Spanish graduates are prepared to move to Britain to serve coffees and sandwiches then perhaps it is time to look further afield ourselves?

Vince Cable recently acknowledged in an online chat with Gransnet that the “days of job security, cheap housing and guaranteed private pensions are over, but hard working enterprising young people will succeed”. Unwittingly he captured the innovative spirit of the Spanish emigrating to Britain to find work and learn the world’s global language at the same time. As a result the UK workplace is more competitive than ever before and when trilingual European graduates come in search of menial jobs then everyone has to get their act together.

Getting ahead in life has always been a struggle. And there has to be far greater innovation and courage in finding work that is stimulating and meaningful. Whether it’s freelancing online, starting a new business on eBay, learning a new language or moving overseas for the job you can’t find at home. Meekly accepting a miserable hand from a parochial negative government is not an option. Centre-left parties have failed to provide a credible alternative to the austerity cuts sweeping across Europe. Somebody has to provide a new vision for the future and with technology providing new opportunities at the touch of a button, why can’t it be you?

Until quite recently the number of friends you had on Facebook really mattered. Friendship was a numbers game and anything less than a hundred confirmed you were of a lowly social status and resoundingly unpopular. In order to seem normal then tagged pictures of you drinking Mojitos with friends were vitally important. Going to see a band with friends or a house warming party must be a public event or otherwise people will think you’re loser that never goes out. Friends are social points and likewise so are the stock greetings you receive on your birthday, which are especially poignant coming from the friends you unsubscribed from three years ago.

In bars, clubs and parties people exchange Facebook details as a user friendly alternative to calling someone. With a new media landscape comes a new set of rules and social etiquette now involves protecting your internet history. Adding a date on Facebook is a potentially ruinous move. Sexy pictures of former partners, neurotic status updates and flirty comments will be revealed to a virgin pair of eyes. Becoming friends online will inevitably ensure you go too far, too fast and if things do go awry you will be a humiliating click away from the recycle bin. A six month probation period is essential before you can even consider adding a new partner on Facebook.

Since people are growing sick of sharing their most intimate thoughts with idiots they never liked in the first place. Private circles are now becoming increasingly attractive. On realising that you don’t want Jakers, Spanner and the pregnant girl from school following you anymore – social media is gradually becoming more nuanced and exclusive. Rules are therefore required. With Facebook becoming increasingly unpopular, alternative forms of social networking are slowly taking its place. Agenda setting and forming part of the national conversation, Twitter first began as a smug past time for media savvy professionals in London but has now opened up to the public at large.

Dangerously addictive social media has rewired our brains to such an extent that nearly everyone is now prone to shocking displays of mental promiscuity. Books lie unfinished and articles remain half-read, as the mind diverts towards refreshing a laptop instead. However, as our brains are being rewired to suit the net, the rules of engagement are still being defined. Self -publicists on Twitter ‘retweet’ praise about themselves and this involves resending a tweet/update/comment to your own band of followers. This is a massive faux pax in the social media world. Already this type of behaviour is frowned upon in dinner parties and gastro pubs as incredibly annoying. Therefore let others retweet praise about you rather than be defined by slovenly antics.

It is also important to remember that no one outside of your social circle has any interest in what you have to say. Like the gold rush of the Wild West, the people who made the real money were those selling the spades, not the poor souls digging in the wilderness. Twitter has thus become a narcissistic ponzi scheme full of link exchanges and diversions that people rarely (if ever) pay any attention too. Social networking remains an illusionary stage and while it may lack authenticity it certainly has transformed almost every aspect of our daily lives. With old media rendered obsolete, breaking news is no longer announced on the BBC or Sky News but on Twitter instead. Falling behind the curve is particularly embarrassing online – like when people tweeted about the death of Amy Winehouse three hours after it went viral in Uzbekistan.

Again like retweeting praise about yourself, announcing old news as an OMG exclusive is not good practice and with over 300 million users worldwide there are plenty of news channels to choose from. If failing to keep up with a modern news cycle is understandable then tweeting #RIP tributes to dead celebrities is certainly avoidable. Empty tributes to movie stars, actresses, sportsmen you had previously shown no interest in won’t reflect well on your brand.

In future these social media rules will have an impact on our future relationships, friendships, work and one’s personal integrity. A new social contract is slowly being formed and shedding a few dimwits from the friends list and refining your manners will benefit everyone in the future. Our generation’s thoughts and opinions on Facebook and Twitter is a learning process for mankind. Something that will prove essential when the brand building narcissists discover they are nothing but mere noodles on a graph.

Related articles

• My Twitter Retweeting Policy (whatever.scalzi.com)
• Whether to friend or not to friend your parents on Facebook (spiriterial.com)