The S Word

Okay boys and girls, I’m about to tell you a scary story, so you might want to read this with your eyes closed. In fact, if you’re under eighteen, might I suggest you don’t read this at all, or at least get your parent/slash/guardian to sign a release or something; if you go bonkers and start clubbing baby seals to death, I don’t want the blame. All sorted? Are we sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin:

Once upon a time, people smoked. And they lived, and died, happily ever after.

What? What do you mean that’s not that scary? It’s bloody terrifying! You’re telling me that the fact there’s smoking going on out there doesn’t make you fill your pants in the most pooey of ways? See, there’s a new swear word in town; it begins with S, and appropriately enough, it rhymes with joke. I refer, of course, to the new initiative set out by anti-smoking group SmokeFree Liverpool, who are pushing, with support from the city council for all movies with smoking scenes to be given an automatic 18 certificate. Call me alarmist, but doesn’t that seem a bit strong? It called to mind a story I read all the way back in 2003, when some unnamed US poster companies airbrushed a cigarette from the hand of Paul McCartney (yes, him again) on the iconic cover to the Beatles’ Abbey Road album cover. It’s one thing trying to promote a healthy smoke-free future – but denying a hoarse, phlegmy smoke-fuelled past is another kettle of fish altogether. People smoked. It’s a fact that’s not going to change with a fancy photoshopping job, and until cigarettes are banned outright, forcing them underground and turning nicotine immediately into the most-used illegal drug in the UK, people will continue to do so. It’s already illegal to advertise tobacco in the UK, which is directly promoting it, but in censoring the very act of smoking, are we not setting a rather dangerous precedent of not only what it is legal to do, but also of what it is legal to see?

SmokeFree Liverpool’s argument is that viewing smoking scenes at the cinema encourages the young to smoke. Dr Stacey Anderson, who carried out the new pilot study for SmokeFree Liverpool claims that ‘[i]n 2006, around 1650 11 to 17 year olds in Liverpool started smoking because of exposure to smoking in films’. Are young people in this country really so muffin headed that the sight of some Hollywood bimbo chugging away on the big screen is enough to whip them into a tobacco-hungry frenzy? Cigarette packets now come adorned with health warnings that take up around 50% of the packaging; why isn’t that enough? Does our every waking experience really need to be protected from the great smoky threat? Are we really that weak-willed, knuckle-dragging and downright thick? The smoking ban in England came into force in July 2007, forcing those who choose to smoke out of bars, clubs, cafes and bus shelters out onto the streets, and that’s just fine. Were it not for the smoking ban we wouldn’t have smokalising, or smirting, and nightclubs wouldn’t smell of wee and farts. I suppose the idea behind SmokeFree is that it paves the way for a genuinely smoke-free society, as opposed to a society where smokers are just the smelly grey elephants stuck out in the corner. In the rain. But unfortunately for those who seek to slap an 18 certificate onto films with smoking scenes, it’s a lot harder to censor real life. Take a walk through any given street in London today, and you will see swathes of smokers, huddled for warmth and acceptance, the new social pariahs, making their vice visible.

Disney have apparently declared that smoking scenes in their future family films would be ‘non-existent’. And why not? – no one wants to see Mickey and Donald sparking up after a heavy night on the tiles any more than they want to see Minnie’s drink getting spiked or Daisy Duck being slapped with an ASBO. That’s just common sense. It’s one thing declaring to cut smoking out of our future, but to censor it from the past is an entirely more scary prospect. Ignoring famous Disney chugger Cruella De Vil for a moment, let’s think back to a little puppet boy who made some stupid choices. The 1940 Disney feature Pinocchio features a scene where the little wooden boy turns sickly green after a puff on a huge comedy cigar. Why not replace all smoking scenes with that? It’s hardly glamorising smoking, and, if I remember rightly, within the next five minutes, poor old Pinocchio sprouts a pair of ass’ ears, while his more nicotine-hungry chums go to full hog (so to speak) and transform into braying little donkeys. Daniel Craig commented on the fact that smoking scenes had been cut from the latest Bond movie Casino Royale that ‘I can blow someone's head off but I can't light a good cigar.’ But you can, Danny Boy, just as long as after that first puff you turn green and grow donkey’s ears, highlighting your foolishness and appeasing the hand-wringing anti-smoking apologists.

But why stop there? Mr. Craig has a point; why should we be able see him blow someone’s head off, but not see him enjoy a snout? Cut the bloody lot of it out. The violence. The swearing. The sex. The god-awful, unforgivable smoking! Sure the SAW films would be a lot shorter, and more than a bit pointless, but Bambi would have a far happier ending.

It’s a tough fact for the anti-smoking lot to deal with, that some people smoke, and some people look cool doing it. Some people look cool riding motorbikes, and some people die doing that. And, much like smokers, they have to do that outside in the rain, too. Here’s a suggestion, stop selling cigarettes to under eighteens, ask for ID if necessary, because the last time I checked, James Bond wasn’t working behind the counter in my local Sainsbury’s…

Whatever, Heather

And so the Heather Mills Anger Circus trundles ever on, reaching yet-another pseudo-conclusion outside court today, with the perpetually-outspoken Ms. Mills (appearing somewhat appropriately as a fashion-conscious power-dressing clown) declaring her intention to appeal not the generous award of £24.3 million with which she will walk away from her four-year marriage to Paul McCartney, but rather the publication of the full ruling, claiming she is doing so due to security concerns for her daughter. Call me cynical, but considering that dear old Mucca was originally angling for £125 million of Thumbsaloft’s widely-overestimated £800 million pound fortune (the real figure according the court is closer to £400 million, which more than explains his widely rumoured stinginess…), I find it extraordinarily hard to believe that she is ‘very, very happy’ with the decision to award her only a fifth of what she believed she was rightly due. And beyond this, considering that one of the reasons cited for the 2002 Mills-McCartney marriage split was media intrusion into their private lives, it smacks as a tiny bit hypocritical that Heather so lengthily lapped up the media scrum as she left court earlier today.

Try as I might, there’s something about Heather Mills that makes me completely unable to feel in the slightest bit sorry for her. I can happily accept that Paul McCartney was not a particularly wonderful husband, and that the continual media intrusion into their marriage may have contributed to their split. But even with these facts in mind, it is almost impossible for me to view her as a sympathetic character. The much-viewed and talked about GMTV interview, which I am convinced Ms. Mills believed would drum up enormous amounts of sympathy for her and her obscenely rewarding divorce settlement, made her look exhausted, yes; fed up, certainly; but a victim? Not on your nelly. The problem with Heather-as-victim is that she’s too gutsy for the role she seems determined to cut out for herself. We know that she’s done tonnes of work for ‘charidee’ for the last ‘twennyeer’, and we know that the media would have us believe that she is a wicked, grasping old witch trying to wring the last pennies out of good old ex-Beatle-national-treasure Paul McCartney, but for the love of god, woman, give it a rest! Do not rattle on about the enormous amount of charity work you do, and then go on to complain that the £35,000 a year your divorce settlement grants for your daughter’s upkeep means that she will no longer be able to fly first class. Be annoyed by all means that you might not have got as much dosh as you wanted, but crikey Heather, don’t be such a hypocrite!

We all know the uncomfortable duality of womanhood in the media – you can be a virgin or a whore, a bitch or a victim. That’s just how it works. I’m not saying it’s right, but it’s how it is. And unfortunately for Heather, you can’t be both. You can’t spend twenty years acting the all-action heroine, the model doing charity work in the face of her own personal tragedy, raising awareness for landmines, for animal welfare and for disability to then turn around and cry in the face of the big bad media for depicting you as an evil, money-grabbing whore. What on earth did the woman expect? The UK media have a certain fondness for the aging rocker and a perverse fascination with the kiss-and-tell gold-digger – just look at the rose-tinted way tree-bothering Keith Richards is portrayed in the press in comparison to the way Pete Doherty (disgusting and shiny though he is) is demonised. Or the way the papers saw to it the spud-faced trollop who shagged Ashley Cole despite his vomiting all over her at the terrifying prospect was financially rewarded for ruining his marriage, only to guiltily wring their hands at poor Cheryl’s resultant plight. The media is a cruel mistress, and it is courted at your peril.

No one is going to believe Heather Mills when she claims that she is happy about the decision to award her a meagre £24.3 million, why would they? She spent eighteen months building up a portfolio against the media, the press, the paparazzi who hound her, her neighbours and the dog they accused her of killing, but she seemed to overlook one thing – she wasn’t in court against them – she was in court against mean old McCartney, all deep pockets, short arms and rigor-mortised thumbs. If they lie about you, Heather, expose the lies, but do not go into histrionics on breakfast television; it is unseemly, and it gives those that are more than happy to present you as a raving, lying lunatic only more ammunition. Where has all the class and dignity gone? The Heather we saw in between the bit where you got your knockers out and the bit where you went a bit Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction? If you really are happy with how things turned out in court, then have the balls to let go of it all. Go back to your daughter, and your charity work, and move on with your life. Start making good use of the money your apparently joyless marriage earned you, and enjoying the comfortable lifestyle you now have the luxury of.

The gagging order on the personal trivialities of the case will see to it that the press will never stop Heather being presented as the woman who tried to gold-dig a Beatle out of his hard-earned fortune and lost, the woman who advocated drinking rats’ milk (though the quote was taken ludicrously out of context), the liar, the mad fantasist who bit off more than she could chew, overly-confident in her own abilities. Not, that is, until she makes a turn-around. Come on H, change from a bitch to a real victim – chuck out your ring-binders and marry a young slip of a thing, who in four years’ time will divorce you, blaming press intrusion and fleece you to the tune of £1.5 million (which translates, roughly, to about the same proportion of Paul’s money she will soon be enjoying). Or, more appealing, just go back to being a gutsy bitch. No more raving, no more tears. Not even you can put a positive spin on what has been the most unnecessarily drawn-out, speculated-about and rumour-mongering divorce of recent years, so stop trying. You’re the villain in this soap opera, so maybe it’s time you switched channels.

Crikey, I got through all of that and didn’t make a single shitty Beatles pun… I won’t even try to squeeze one in – I’ll just Let It Be… oh bugger.

Between a Roquefort and a hard place

As children, we’re often told that if we don’t have anything nice to say, we shouldn’t say anything at all. Now, as far as philosophies go, it’s a fairly inoffensive one, but it’s boring, and it’s restrictive. There’s nothing wrong with saying something that offends, so long as we realise that offence may be taken. Why aren’t we encouraged to say what we think, but to do so with sensitivity? Or to speak our minds but be prepared to be challenged, and to view conflicting viewpoints with humility and respect? Surely that makes more sense than sitting in resentful silence?

I ask this, predictably enough, sitting in resentful silence. See, I’m embroiled in a cold war, and it shows little sign of thawing out.

The reason for this clash of wills? Cheese. I’d opened some cheese, and with it a bloody enormous can of worms. Who knew a block of innocuous yellow moo-fat could cause such turmoil, such frostiness, such dismay? Winston Churchill is often quoted as saying that ‘To jaw-jaw is better than to war-war’, and, while I’m in no way comparing the Second World War to a block of Tesco mature cheddar, I can sort of see his point. Now don’t get me wrong, a hot war I can deal with: I’m a big fan of the old-fashioned barney, I always have been. Even when the bone of contention is cheese-coated, nothing blows the cobwebs away quite like a nice, irrational slanging match; a few badly-chosen words, some unmeant insults and one or two less-than-glamorous swear words, teamed with a slammed door here and there are wonderful for releasing tension. But the cheese debate seemed to be unwinnable; my opponent is convinced that I ate the cheese as some sort of passive-aggressive dairy-based warfare. How can you logicise an argument about cheese? What debate can make it seem in the least bit worthwhile? I fall at the first hurdle; that being the fact that it’s just cheese. It’s. Just. Cheese. Say it aloud. Say it aloud ten times. Bask in it’s smallness, the farce of it all.

But the cheese debate just wouldn’t die. Still it sits between us, all cheddary and frustrating.

Of course we’ve all argued about things that seem retrospectively ridiculous. Sweating over the petty stuff makes a lot more sense when you’re pumped full of adrenaline and screaming blue murder. I remember a particularly hideous row with a friend over the theme of a fancy dress party. Or the time my brother got drunk and raised his voice in the silent quad of an Oxford college (It was embarrassing and no, raising my voice to illustrate this point was not just as bad). Heated arguments are silly, but they go at least some way to getting that silliness out in the open. The real problem arises when the hot war turns cold.

It’s a cliché, yes, but the thing with grudges is that the longer you leave them the worse they get. They fester and grow mouldy and unsalvageable, like cheese that no one will eat. Like cheese that everyone is pissed off about, and so leave, out of principal, to go bad and become useless. And they turn you more than a little bit mental. Every little thing your grudge does annoys you. Just look at them, you think. Look! The smug tosser; partying, having friends, making large charitable donations to starving children. The nasty prick. And they’re only doing it to spite you! They are! The cold war is fuelled by paranoia – I once convinced myself that a friend I’d fallen out with was taking a long, expensive and by all accounts stressful trip halfway across the world just to prove a point to me. She wasn’t, of course, that would be absolutely ridiculous, but I was cross and she was in Japan. And we weren’t talking.

That’s the problem with cold wars. The silence. It’s a lot easier to see things from your point of view when no one is telling you just how ridiculous you sound. So talk about it. By all means stop fighting; hot wars end in pain, anguish and upset, but don’t let it go cold. Or silent. All silence does is allow what’s annoyed you to be overtaken by the very act of being annoyed. And it’s all very self-indulgent. Almost as self-indulgent as writing about it for all the world to see.

The harsh fact of the matter is that it’s impossible to walk away from an argument about cheese without getting egg on your face. So I suppose its time I accepted that, and took some of Mr. Churchill’s advice. I’ll stop there, before it all gets too cheesy to stand. I’ll be vitriolic next time, I promise…

Oh and I know I’ve more than mixed my food metaphors, but that’s a mere trifle in the face of things, no?

What if starting at the very beginning wasn't such a very good place to start?

I find there’s something intrinsically terrifying about a blank canvas. (This one, thankfully, is no longer blank, so I can stop writing this from behind the sofa). And I don’t mean terrifying in the same way that clowns are terrifying, or white tights on fat girls are terrifying; I mean a more practical, corporeal terror; the sort of dread I feel as a left-hander when presented with a greetings card and an inky pen, or my sartorial panic in the face one of those little pots of UHT milk, or a sachet of mayonnaise when I’m wearing black slacks. My fear of blank canvases is one that I’ll stand by, so you can stop your scoffing right there; It’s the practical terror of a mistake not yet made – a protectionist fear of the inevitable cock-up. Because a blank canvas isn’t just the physical manifestation of potential to be realised, you simpering hippies, quite the opposite; a blank canvas is the grim-faced, stone-hearted mother of all potential fuck-ups. Like offering Amy Winehouse the keys to your local Superdrug, it’s an accident, just waiting to happen.

Now of course I don’t just mean canvas canvases; I’m not Rolf bloody Harris. I’m equally troubled by a new notebook, a blank Document1, with it’s blinking, expectant cursor and that smug cartoon paperclip raising its eyebrows at me and thinking ‘illiterate tosser’, an exercise book before its been spoiled by my pre-teen handwriting and penchant for smudgery. And more importantly than all these things, I’m troubled by that most chronological of exercise books; time. What if that blank canvas is an hour, a day, a career, or, even more terrifyingly, a life? Lao-Tzu gave us the philosophy that ‘a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.’ I’m not thick, I see the beauty of the sentiment, but something tells me that had Lao-Tzu’s first step been straight into a gigantic, steaming dog turd, he wouldn’t feel quite so optimistic.

A recent graduate, I am acutely aware of false sense of security university blankets its mollycoddled inhabitants in. When your greatest worry is where your next flaming sambucca is coming from, and why fat Tracey hasn’t called you back, (it’s probably because you’ve given her Chlamydia, you dirty little bastard) the real world, and the endless array of blank life-canvasses it presents you with, seems like a distant, fictional future. A future based on real events, but fictional nonetheless. Now a reality, my inability to pick a path no longer represents romanticized loucheness, the embracing of a bohemian lifestyle of gin and formation dancing more akin to a Baz Luhrmann film. To the contrary, it marks me out as a lazy tramp; the sort of coasting unreliable lowlife that would rather sit in eggy tracksuit bottoms and try to sneak out a cheeky wank in-between Richard and Judy and Loose Women. The oft-repeated promise that the world would be my oyster now hangs heavy over me, more a blood-curdling threat than a heart-warming reassurance. The problem with oysters, see, is that you crack one open expecting a nice shiny pearl, and more often than not you just end up with a mouthful of fish snot.

When everything that could go wrong might, starting at the very beginning suddenly seems like quite a shitty place to start, so Julie Andrews can shove that sentiment right up her arse, the smug cow. Starting in the middle, or more importantly, seeing through to the end, seems like a much nicer idea from where I’m standing.

I like to think this discomfort with the newness of it all is because I’m one of life’s ditherers – treating every tiny decision as though the world depended on it. Yet in reality, I am acutely aware of the fact that the fate of mankind isn’t balanced on the timing of my next fart; the intricate workings of the world, nay universe, couldn’t give the tiniest of fucks what colour socks I wear in the morning, or whether I should go for hazelnut or vanilla syrup in my latte. I am inconsequential; a freckle on the bum of humanity. And yet still I dither, in continual fear that my next mistake will be the one that tips the balance and sends it all to buggery. The problem with making mistakes is that, however fixable they are, it’s impossible to un-make them. Like the ghost of rubbed out pencil, they mark out your failures, jeering at you from the sidelines like the annoying superhero’s sidekick you wish would just get killed off.

Gondry, Kaufman and Bismuth’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was on the right track – though a mind-wipe smacks just a little-too-much of a papering over the cracks, if you ask me. What we need is some sort of Autosave for life; an existential System Restore acting as a get-out clause for fuck-ups. We’ll call it Mistakeaway, as in 'Ooh heck, I’ve just dropped my baby down a well – I’m popping out for a Mistakeaway. Want anything?' Those leaps into the unknown wouldn’t be half as scary if you were only a flick-of-a-switch away from innocence. Stuck in a job you hate? No problem – just alt-control-delete yourself back to school – Play-Doh is much more fun than telesales! Cheat on your missus? Just beep-beep-delete that guilt (and genital herpes) away! Let’s do away with mistakes, and culpability, and responsibility! Let’s do away with all that bloody dithering.

Of course, it’s entirely possible to do away with dithering without Mistakeaway. A friend of mine recently faced a potentially enormous, life-changing decision, and he explained it to me thus:

The fact that it’s so hard to decide just shows me that there isn’t a right answer. Whatever I choose will be right in it’s own way.

(I know what you’re thinking – self-righteous tosser, right? No? Just me? Tough crowd…) But I think he was onto the right idea. Sometimes you can’t always see the bigger picture, and every now and again the box is a little too large to think outside. So you weigh it up, and you take a risk. Fail, and you pick up the pieces and you start again. Different canvas. Different picture.

Before you go thinking I’ve gone all soft on you before I’ve even begun, I’m just easing you in. It is a blank canvas, after all. Now where did I put that Tipp-Ex..?