Can't shake the devils hand

I love my on-line life and my on-line existence. Even if when compared to a lot of internet junkies it would not class as an existence. My internet presence is pretty much the ineffectual low impact one, not have any great impact on anyone’s life.

I love the fact I’m in contact, in whatever capacity, with people I used to know and get on with at school and people I know and get on with now. I’m sure had all of this technology been available when our parents were older it would have been how they too communicated.

However there has to be a point where you acknowledge that life has guided you in different directions from your friends and maybe were you to meet now, for the first time, under different circumstances then maybe you really wouldn’t be friends at all and potentially wouldn’t even like each other. The fact that you attended the same school, the same job or even the same nightclub scene doesn’t mean you have an unbreakable bond that like some Hollywood movie will defy all odds, especially blatant racism.

There’s been people on my facebook that have joined groups such as “Scum sucking, tax dodging Polish should fuck off back to their own country” or “Why the Islam4Uk should not be allowed to happen”, ” If you don't like England then fuck off somewhere else!” or even the well thought out group title which is labelled as a ‘just for fun’ group (that’s JUST FOR FUN) “Immigrants adopt our beliefs or fuck off” Seriously, that last one has been created for fun. I’m not sure if they mean Famous five have ripping yarns in Cornwall fun and Hitler youth Aryan nation and Holocaust fun.

When they do join these groups I really have to ask myself whether they are people I need to know anymore. We have obviously got to a point in our lives where we are extremely and diametrically opposed in views and now it has got to a point where staying friends repulse me rather than igniting feelings of nostalgia.

David Mitchell put’s it so well in his Guardian article where he discusses people’s mindless inbred intolerant knee jerk reaction to this Islam4Uk march that is being planned. Some of the things he says, and it’s worth reading the whole article alone

Apparently, my history teacher was wrong and Voltaire never actually said: "I despise what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”......While it's an important sentiment, it should also, in a mature, free country, be an obvious one. It's not complicated – it's a truism, not a paradox........

The thing about freedom of speech is that people are allowed to say offensive, indefensible things; that we needn't fear that because we're sure that wiser counsels are more likely to convince. "Let the idiots and bullies speak openly and they will be revealed for what they are!"

I thought initially I was fickle with my view point, but now I think I’m just trying to be clear to myself when I respond to what people are telling me when they make these statements for everyone to see. When such strong allegiance to the inbred insular demographic of Britain is displayed, one which will drive this country to a social low point to be ashamed of, it makes me feel dirty that they are even on my friend list. And while they have the right to their point of view and I would never try and tell them why I feel they are wrong, I equally have the right to be offended and make my statements how I feel fit.

It’s an easy solution once you realise, as good as it is facebook and all this social networking is transient and should hold no real importance in real life. I’ve surived the first 30 or so years of my life without wearing a badge of how popular I am by the number of friends I have, I don’t think I’m going to start now. If this happens where someone joins a group or expresses an opinion I think is slightly distasteful or falls under the grouping of “things that make me sick and ashamed” then I will block delete the person without question. Let them have their opinion with the inbreds that will support an encourage them rather than have any association with me

It reminds me of the lyrics by They Might be Giants from the album flood (the one you’ll probably know for Birdhouse in your soul)

Your racist friend

“This is where the party ends

I can't stand here listening to you

And your racist friend

I now politics bore you

But I feel like a hypocrite talking to you

Out from the kitchen

To the bedroom to the hallway

Your friend apologizes, he could see it my way

He let the contents of the bottle do the thinking

Can't shake the devil's hand

And say you're only kidding”

Your racist friend by They Might be Giants

n contact, in whatever capacity, with people I used to know and get on with at school and people I know and get on with now. I’m sure had all of this technology been available when our parents were older it would have been how they too communicated.

However there has to be a point where you acknowledge that life has guided you in different directions from your friends and maybe were you to meet now, for the first time, under different circumstances then maybe you really wouldn’t be friends at all and potentially wouldn’t even like each other. The fact that you attended the same school, the same job or even the same nightclub scene doesn’t mean you have an unbreakable bond that like some Hollywood movie will defy all odds, especially blatant racism.

There’s been people on my facebook that have joined groups such as “Scum sucking, tax dodging Polish should fuck off back to their own country” or “Why the Islam4Uk should not be allowed to happen”, ” If you don't like England then fuck off somewhere else!” or even the well thought out group title which is labelled as a ‘just for fun’ group (that’s JUST FOR FUN) “Immagrants adopt our beliefs or fuck off” Seriously, that last one has been created for fun. I’m not sure if they mean Famous five have ripping yarns in Cornwall fun and Hitler youth Ayran nation and Holocaust fun.

When they do join these groups I really have to ask myself whether they are people I need to know anymore. We have obviously got to a point in our lives where we are extremely and diametrically opposed in views and now it has got to a point where staying friends repulse me rather than igniting feelings of nostalgia.

David Mitchell put’s it so well in his Guardian article where he discsusses people’s mindless inbred intolerant knee jerk reaction to this Islam4Uk march that is being planned. Some of the things he says, and it’s worth reading the whole article alone

Apparently, my history teacher was wrong and Voltaire never actually said: "I despise what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”......While it's an important sentiment, it should also, in a mature, free country, be an obvious one. It's not complicated – it's a truism, not a paradox........

The thing about freedom of speech is that people are allowed to say offensive, indefensible things; that we needn't fear that because we're sure that wiser counsels are more likely to convince. "Let the idiots and bullies speak openly and they will be revealed for what they are!"

I thought initially I was fickle with my view point, but now I think I’m just trying to be clear to myself when I respond to what people are telling me when they make these statements for everyone to see. When such strong allegiance to the inbred insular demographic of Britain is displayed, one which will drive this country to a social low point to be ashamed of, it makes me feel dirty that they are even on my friend list. And while they have the right to their point of view and I would never try and tell them why I feel they are wrong, I equally have the right to be offended and make my statements how I feel fit.

It’s an easy solution once you realise, as good as it is facebook and all this social networking is transient and should hold no real importance in real life. I’ve surived the first 30 or so years of my life without wearing a badge of how popular I am by the number of friends I have, I don’t think I’m going to start now. If this happens where someone joins a group or expresses an opinion I think is slightly distasteful or falls under the grouping of “things that make me sick and ashamed” then I will block delete the person without question. Let them have their opinion with the inbreds that will support an encourage them rather than have any association with me

It reminds me of the lyrics by They Might be Giants from the album flood (the one you’ll probably know for Birdhouse in your soul)

“This is where the party ends

I can't stand here listening to you

And your racist friend

I now politics bore you

But I feel like a hypocrite talking to you

Out from the kitchen

To the bedroom to the hallway

Your friend apologizes, he could see it my way

He let the contents of the bottle do the thinking

Can't shake the devil's hand

And say you're only kidding”

Your racist friend by They Might be Giants

Innocence lost

I've always referred to myself as a late developer, a super super super late developer especially if you look at the teenagers today popping babies and supposedly having sex with with wild abandon. Although I guess by the fact they are popping babies then it's a given the sex is occurring too. I didn't have my first girlfriend (a real tenuous description) until I was just over 20 and my first true love wasn't until I was about 22.

Were I to describe to people who I am now or what my influences were I'd have to look to my post school years to find the events that finally made me. I don't believe I became the man I am until I'd been left school for four or five years at least. It was only after the ending of my first two relationships (one of which wasn't as it only lasted 6 months and is another story in it's self) that I became the me you know today, It was in the later twenties I begun to think seriously about what I would or would not put up with in my life.

I see myself as the wet behind the ears, innocent and the very naive pupil every school is required to have. I was scared senseless of girls and didn't understand how to interact with them on any level. Even when I'd left school there was a moment in my first job where a waitress had to take me around the back of the kitchen to where the coffees were made to explain what muff diving was. It was after one of the chefs had said he'd put that in his person specification and I'd kept asking what that meant.

So it came as a surprise, and with a breathless rush of euphoria when a memory I'd long since forgotten about tapped me on my shoulder and introduced it's self.

I was between 8 and 9 I used to go onto out local fields, Brunts Fields, and play role play fantasies with the girl called Jody who lived across the road from me at the time.

During what would be the summer of 1980 we would walk to our local field where two long lines of trees had grown over to form a tunnel. Where the branches from the inside looked like an arched organic cathedral and the light played through gaps casting patches of light in an way that reminded me of an organic stained glass window on the ground. This tunnel was about 40 foot long and 6 foot wide and we would go there during the school holidays and sometimes weekends to play out a boss and secretary scenarios.

Ok, so there was nothing sexual occurring, not at 8 years old. We were too innocent to think there was anything other than snogging needed in these scenes. We might have been aware our parents did more than that, but as we didn't know what the 'more than' involved snogging was more enough. They were simple scenes that always lead to the same conclusion. I'd ask her into the office and something would occur where we would end up kissing and then lots and lots of kissing and cuddling and then more kissing, a very simple narrative to say the least. And as innocent as the memory was, it is an incredible one.

Years later a girlfriend and I played out a full fantasy just the once where we role played our parts to a tee. I was the shy older boy from across the way and she was the worldly wise girl who seduced me, completely. I walked home from where I worked at that time and she picked me up in her car. In this story she'd gone out for a fun night with her friends, who'd let her down, as it went she was driving home a little disappointed when she saw me by the side of the road and thinks to have a little fun. At the point I got in the car she was dressed incredibly sexily looked amazing and as part of the role I was that plain and ordinary man she was going to devour.

This time, seeing as I was in my twenties, there were no restrictions. The parts were played out to the full with no breaking from our characters as she showed me where to put my hands, fingers and lips and guided me through. In my role I tentatively explored and shyly gave my innocence to her completely. This still remains my most vivid and most exciting sexual experience to date that nothing has come even vaguely close to beating.

So to remember I may have laid the groundwork for this predilection when I was at such a young and I suppose you could say formative age, took my breath away. Such an innocent memory has made me realise that role playing is something you should all give a go as I did when I was older. Just the kissing with Jody makes me want to relive that time and that rush of feelings. I almost considered finding Jodie on friends reunited just to say "can you remember this" but that would be a very silly silly choice.

With the memory came another that I also went out with a our girl across the road called Katie. We used to all get together Katie, Jodie and I and make up games where I would go from one to the other snogging, and they were cool with that, oh the joy of innocence. I can even remember a few times where we would pretend to live in a world where men walked around with there willies out......really. I've never followed that three way fantasy through to adulthood though and probably don't think I ever want to. Although, now I think about it, being on TV with my willy out was an easy decision to make and again that ease of choice could have stemmed from my youth. Ultimately it turns out that I wasn't that shy as I've long thought I was and that some of my current likes must have been steeped in those first innocent foray's with girls. I think my hang ups and isolation came during puberty when I begun to see who women were and all the girls about me started to develop into women.

I'm surprised that such a powerful memory could have been forgotten for so long, I seriously loved all the nostalgia, innocence but breathlessness those thoughts bought back to me..

Who'd have thought, me a fantasist at such an early age.