At the arse end of four educationally untroubled years, I was surprisingly awarded a first class honours degree by half of one percent. My perennial roommate was a swotty top of our class and received a£50 merit prize. I received partial liver failure and a late night Snickers habit.

A year later, the polytechnic invited me back to address the undergraduates. Their less than subtle subtext was to convince their drunken charges that if only they’d stop fondling each other long enough, they’d realise a little bit of application now maketh a successful career.

My less subtle state of undress “ they really should have twigged my refusal to wear a suit or to provide a copy of my speech likely hid a fifth columnist “ directed a rambling monologue on life in the real world. It can “ and I’m sorry to report, it was “ summed up with a single piece of robust advice Have as much fun, sex and booze as you can now, as it’s properly miserable out here”. Surprisingly, I wasn’t invited back.

Continue reading “A question of degrees.” →

Titty Bars. Gentlemen’s clubs. Pole Dancing Emporiums. Call them what you will but, resident in every world capital, they harvest big bucks from a hardcore of men for whom the Internet is just a bit tame.

There’s a shared deceit around attendance motivation. It’s just a bit of fun“, The girls get paid well, what’s the problem�? and it’s no worse than downloading porn off the Internet“. Maybe, maybe not.

Prudish though this sounds, I really struggle with these places. On entry into the dim portal of watered down drinks and excited sweaty bodies, I turn instantly gay. The girls are, understandably as it’s a buyers’ market, incredibly beautiful, their tanned and lithe torsos’ standing on legs that finish somewhere close to their armpits. They’re all revealing outfits and seductive smiles at the start of a dance, with those outfits lasting all the time it takes for some guy to throw a twenty onto the stage. The smiles stay though, they are the money capacitor “ turn up the wattage and watch the cash flow in.

My problem with such places isn’t really that it’s degrading for both sexes, slightly seedy or horribly contrived. It’s the denial of a middle aged bloke rolling in cash and fat, truly believing that this Goddess of Beauty actually finds him witty and attractive. You just want to shout it’s a business transaction mate, flash the cash or she’ll be off to leech the next tragic victim“.

I sit and watch and feel like a fraud. When some vision of sex floats up and offers a private dance, you only need to nod faintly before the sales spiel clicks smoothly in and the rules of the game are explained. Twenty Dollars but no touching, kissing or knocking one out in front of me. Get frisky and the twenty stone hunk of bored beef in the corner will rip off your head and piss down the whole. I’m paraphrasing a little but the sense of the transaction should come across.

I never go. Others do and return with obvious enjoyment plastered across flushed faces. Dance follows dance, and soon it’s just Big Gay Al necking watery beer and wondering when excuses can deliver a hasty exit. The cold night air is fresh enough to wash away the stink of cigarettes and half formed sexual acts. It’s a bloody relief and again I tell myself this is absolutely the last time. Until the next time, anyway.

Okay I’m a prude. Because I can’t really enjoy the show, it seems apposite to preach a pious sermon instead. In reality, these places don’t do any harm, they’re serving a need of sorts and even offer up some amusing connotations such as the Businessman’s Lunch�?. What’s that then? Naked women starter, breast of inner thigh to follow and sweet nothings to finish“. But still a lingering sense of doubt remains.

Whereas obviously downloading porn off T’Internet and giving the old fella a vigorous rub in your own home is fine. Allegedly, not that you’d fine me doing treading the subtle line between public and private masturbation.

Not with Carol reading this blog anyway.

Last year, some madman fretted that our children may be physically blighted or mentally scarred through the violent exchange of stringy conkers. This week a council is cordoning off a copse of malignant trees and their fruity ammunition. Last month, we had Mad Ken sound biting policy initiatives to license plate cycles and imprison non bell ringers. How much of this is feeding a slow news day and how much is rampant political posturing is hard to say. But it’s clearly silly and yet there is something a little darker emerging.

Firstly, however, anything like this should be wrapped in neon-signed handle with extreme care�? warning as it’s essentially the Daily Flail gone global. We’re always looking for politically correct gibberish to first ridicule and then shape as a stick to beat the hand wringing, lentil eaters who defend such nonsense. For every ˜Pear Tree Could Be a Killer” and Conkers “ the new Weapons Of Mass Destruction” screaming taglines are mitigating scenarios where badly supervised kids die in rivers and un-maintained tracks derail trains.

A sense of perspective should act as a prism to divine the lay lines of truth buried under the headline selling static. But there is no doubt that, as a society, we’re dealing with far more restrictive regulation reinforcing a culture of personal irresponsibility. No one is to blame, so everyone is to blame. It’s hard to see how this can work both ways, either we learn to take responsibility for our actions and those in our care, or we submit meekly to a state who feels they must do it for us, however crassly.

Less than a lifespan ago, kids of 19 and 20 were battling for their lives and the freedom of all civilisation over the skies of Southern Britain. Since those times, successive governments, of all colours, have stealthily eroded our ability to take our own chances and live or die by the consequences. If those young men had the attitude of a similar sample today, I wonder would they have risked anything to save everything.

It’s probably a specious argument, but whole generations will soon be lost to the power of individual choice if we aren’t allowed to walk the line between social responsibility and freedom of the non mandated option. We’re not sheep, there is more than one path to take, many sides to an argument, infinite outlets for expression. More baring of teeth and less toothless baa-ing would be an alternate approach.

Do you know how many Health and Safely officers there are in France? None, that’s right, if you want to dice with death under a swollen pear tree, c’est la vie. We could do much worse than adopt such a carefree attitude.

God, I’m turning into my Dad.