The apprenctice and the kebab a modern day fairy story.

Not everyone is screwed by the credit crunch. Every cloud has a silver lining, every repossession requires the employment of several bailiffs, suicide attempts keep nurses in work and on each pile of rotting, bloated corpses is a swarm of plump rats.

Or, to put it another way: "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!" Well, as any drinks manufacturer will tell you, you don't need lemons to make lemonade. Neither do you need meat to make a doner kebab-flavour Pot Noodle. Apparently this new addition to the Pot Noodle range is practically vegan.

Excellent! At last, vegans are being extended the same opportunities to get hooked on cheap microwave food as the rest of society. But lemon-free lemonade and meat-flavoured starchy string are exactly the sort of products that are selling at the moment. Everyone is blowing what little spare money they have on crap treats. McDonald's sales are rising; Pontin's is expanding; people are looking for the sensation of wasting money, on a budget.

Why piss away a fiver on a latte and an almond croissant when you'll get a similar buzz from a can of Tizer and a battered sausage and have change from two quid? Plus the taste of your treat is nostalgically reawakened every time you burp for the next 36 hours.

Budget foods are flying off supermarket shelves (that's genetically modified chicken for you), bookmakers are prospering - presumably because lots of unemployed bankers are trying to keep their hands in - and the number of people doing the pools has risen for the first time since the launch of the National Lottery, for which ticket sales have also increased. So we can expect brand new opera houses and art galleries to spring up everywhere, which is nice because they'll be somewhere for all the tramps to sleep.

There are green shoots all over the place, though most of them are green because they died so long ago they've gone mouldy. So, in that spirit of optimism, here is a businesses that has managed to buck the downward trend which I found in the papers this weekend.

Homeless Security plc

With factories closing, hundreds of disused sites need guarding around the clock. But while all this property is falling into disuse, thousands are being made homeless. "We just took those two wrongs and made a right!" says Homeless Security's managing director. "The simple fact is that if there's already a gang of homeless sleeping in a disused factory, another gang aren't going to move in. So, on behalf of the administrators called in to wind up failed companies, we source a bunch of relatively tidy tramps to keep the place occupied. They're as dependable as guard dogs and cheaper since the cider we pay them in costs less than Pedigree Chum."

A wonderful cellar come diner

Joseph Fritzl – obviously an awful case – OBVIOUSLY so I don’t want to seem glib – but… the other day in court he said two things that messed me up a bit. Here they are.

“Elizabeth exaggerated about the cellar”
“They always had plenty of food”

Ok. So what’s your point mate? That it was nice down there? That Elisabeth was somehow ungrateful for her life in a spacious coffin in which the “final word” of death would’ve been a welcome buzz? “That cellar was nice. It was warm – it was romantic – terrific mood lighting for the constant incestuous sex.” And as for this abundant delicious nosh he claims he was providing, I cant help but think it’d be scant consolation for the Grandkids who’d never seen daylight. “Oh no! Granddad/Dad is touching Mum/sister/cousin… again.” “Oh cheer up and have a hob-nob”

The long and winding road

This week was interesting, it was filled with such a range of emotions, I can only describe it by saying it felt like I was eating both sugar and salt at the same time. The fact is that may have been slightly easier at some point to swallow that very concoction. My mind has been revolving lately on the mind of journalism, because that is what is listed as 'my job', however that's not what I do, I am a commentator, that's all I do. I am discoursing my thoughts for you to read and enjoy or loathe and so on. The problem I have found this week, which has added to my rather bitter summary of the week, is that I have realised that writing, and so commentating, is possibly one of the most selfish professions one can enter. You start to believe that your emotional responses to the annoyances of life are of value and you start to get very lazy. You stop genuinely inspecting your own heart, and stop making rational, considered points. This is detrimental to only one person. The writer, me.

The case in point, thus the first cloud that loomed over me this week, regarded the soon to become vacant chair in the Diocese of Westminster, the saga which has been reduced to nothing more then a cheap (very cheap) soap opera here in the U.K. It has been reported that the most likely candidate for Westminster is somebody who I cannot stand, correction, despise. So this week on several news forums remarking on his possible election, I have been livid and thrown venomous tirades and tantrums, not thinking about what is typed on my beautiful white and translucent keys, but writing black and horror and pathetic words which are strung together with no more objection of purpose other then to blacken the forums of the blogs I have darkened. That sounds sinister, doesn’t it? Well it is, and it was. O.K I have a particular loathsome attitude against the candidate because he offended me nearly a year ago, and I have neither forgiven nor forgotten, but it brings me to the point which I am trying to make. In the end, it truly is our emotions that dominate us.

How many of you readers keep a diary? Do you ever read it back to yourself? I read mine once ever six months or so, and it amazes me, the style in which I write down my thoughts. My diary is either a place where argument and example and experience are reduced to considered points that is quite rational, and there is the subjective journey, where memory and experience of a different kind is used to forge a point I am trying make. The problem I find is, emotion is so much more easily accessed then reason.

After various decisions made positively last year, I decided that I would work on my emotions (sounds terribly American doesn’t it?). Still music fills me with so much emotion, that makes me happy, sad, sadder, there isn’t a song that hasn’t been written that fails to enhance or change my mood. Yet at the same time since the decline of the milkman’s whistle melody has It seems that young people attach themselves to their Ipods and listen to their rapular music whilst they smack themselves with heroin and knife each other in the gut. Yes, the milkman’s whistle which created routine and brought with it a sense of honour and comfort as well as community and cohesion, has faded, and so now if you want all of that back, you can go whistle for it.
There you have it you see? The article has written itself, I have gone off down sentimental alley and tied it together with a catchy nostalgic saying by writing ‘you can go whistle for it.’ This is what most diaries novels and weekly columns like the one I write, are full of. Nostalgic crap.

Yet my problem is anger. Writing with anger is possibly the easiest trap to fall into. It doesn’t even matter what it is, but a bit of fury can take you a long way. I have so much of it, against people who deserve it, possibly people who don’t, but it is destroying everyone around me. I have a friend who phoned me the other evening whose ear was practically bleeding down the phone as he spoke about the very topic I mentioned at the beginning of this article. I fear this person will only now ever mention safe topics in anxiety of having their remaining ear chewed of, or head removed. But it is so difficult isn’t it?

Yes, this week was difficult. So much erupted around me, and much like the volcano around Tonga, a lot of wildlife was destroyed in the process, but what good is writing about it, what good at all? The point is I can learn from it, as can you. What is so intriguing about this process of anger we build inside ourselves is that there seems to be a way for me to tell you how to sort it out, but not a way for me to tell me to sort it out! I wish I could give you an emotional Heimlich so you could cough up that fear and anxiety, but I can't. I wish I could forget all the pettiness and patheticness gone before and just get on with my life, yet somehow I can't. I wish things had have gone one way, I wish things could have gone the other, I wish I could know if some things would have made me different, but what’s the point of all this wishing?
We wake up everyday with a list of wishes a mile long and maybe we spend our lives trying to make those wishes come true, but just because we want them doesn't mean in the end, we need them to be happy.

Life after a cats death.

What happens when we die, it's a big question isn't it? According to a recent survey, the most common belief in the UK is in reincarnation. Do you believe in reincarnation? Apparently you do. It seems to be a 'nice' theory for most people, that way they can come back as a cat, and sit in front of the fire, and watch their widows or loved ones making love to other people who are young and trendy, once the grieving process has run its course. Anyway, I drift, the point is we have got it so wrong about reincarnation, it is such a daunting and petrifying thought if you think about it for what it literally is. We are being told the that the planet's falling apart. Right now, it's the children's problem. We reincarnate, it's our problem. Now where do you think you're going when your full sized aortic pump stops?

Butter ... still one of the biggest philosophies?

I went shopping today, apparently I just eat twenty-four hours a day. And that's when it was confirmed, we just have too much choice. This particular epiphany was experienced in the dairy section of the supermarket, how much choice do we have when it comes to butter? Just give me butter for goodness sake, that's all I want. I haven't got time for all this, I can't believe it's not butter, butter me up, butterlicious, fuck me this is like butter, the choice is overwhelming.
And what are they really on about? I can't believe it's not butter, this has been on sale now for what, twenty years? I am starting to conquer my disbelief personally. I think I they should rename it, I am prepared to accept in fact, this is actually not butter.

Have your misinformed bigoted or racist say about everything you don't like.

It's been a good week for transparency, which is bad news for people who get undressed with the light on. Last Tuesday, Gordon Brown said: "We have clearly got the balance wrong when online businesses have higher standards of transparency than the public services" and announced that, as a result, people are going to be able to comment online about GPs, hospitals, nurseries, schools and the police, just like they can on Amazon, eBay, and my top website - TripAdvisor.

I expect that'll sort everything out. The prime minister is deploying what he calls "the enormous democratising power of information". Well, you don't have to do much surfing to find books, CDs, YouTube clips, newspaper articles, restaurants and theatre shows that have all had the shit democratised out of them. He's invoking the collective wisdom of the nation to pass judgment on and improve our public services. Unfortunately, he'll mainly attract the same self-selecting bunch of inexplicably livid weirdos who infect the comment sections on all websites.

There are many perfectly reasonable remarks put online, and others that are only bland or harmlessly nonsensical, but if there's one thing the internet demonstrates it's that a lot of angry people can read. Their writing, on the other hand, needs work. If you're in any doubt, go to ifyoulikeitsomuchwhydontyougolivethere.com which provides a hilarious selection of the most illiterate, prejudiced and irate posts from the BBC's Have Your Say site. It not only makes me laugh, it makes me angry at what people write, thus providing a moment's insight into what it feels like to be a member of the incensed posting community.

I reckon I've got off pretty lightly from online comments (until now) but still, there's always someone who reads my blog and doesn't just disagree or dislike it but reacts as if I've stamped on their foot and punched their mother. It's like I've said the very thing they have been furiously expecting me to say their whole life. Like they're a teenager and I'm their maddening sibling who, with just a syllable out of place, can release a torrent of rage because they SO knew I was going to say that because that's EXACTLY the sort of CRAP that I ALWAYS SAY. To them, I typify a horrendously unfair world that's all wrong, but will never change because it's run by the likes of me and Gordon Brown and JK Rowling and Bono and Lulu, sitting at the top table guzzling money pie in hypocrisy sauce and laughing in their apoplectic faces.

Last Sunday, someone with the username Veganjules rabidly exhorted me to calm down about teenage spending. It was about as logical as screaming at someone to relax or they might set off a landmine. Then they called me a 'twat'.

So if I, as someone whose work doesn't really affect people's lives, am subjected to this online abuse, what are GPs, nurses, consultants, police and teachers in for? They're obliged to tell people things that they don't want to hear: to arrest them, give them homework, make them stop eating fried breakfasts, announce that their gran died on the table.

While scrutiny of these professions is vital, a single lay opinion is simply not as valid as a professional one in those contexts. This idea of a "democratising strategy" (of endorsing abuse) could have unfortunate consequences. Some things shouldn't be that democratic: "I'm afraid you've got terminal cancer." "No, doctor, I vote that I don't. I won't die." The only consolation for hospitals is that the patients they most fail won't be in a position to criticise.

Most people don't comment much online. They're not arrogant enough to think their opinions, or anger, are of general interest. But the convention of inviting comment from the benign many has put a metaphorical speakers' corner at the bottom of every web page for the poisonous few.

A friend of mine has come up with an idea to stem the tide of bile. He wants people to post, as a comment, on as many opinion-garnering web pages as possible, as often as they can be bothered, the phrase: "It just goes to show you can't be too careful!"

Give Me Shelter From Courtesy

Daniel Craig got it in the neck last week because a photograph appeared to show him failing to share his umbrella with his fiancée, Satsuki Mitchell. It was a pretty tenuous criticism as the picture wasn't clear: he wasn't hogging it, but then again she wasn't particularly under it. Maybe milliseconds later he'd swept her to safety. Then again perhaps he'd just murmured: 'Get out of my space, bitch. My undampened face is my fortune.' But then she might like the rain and hate being constricted under the clammy spans of a patriarchal society - Craig knows better than to make the patronising offer of shelter. After all, in the picture she's grinning. But maybe it's the brave grin of someone hiding pain, neglect: "I'm alright really!" she's begging us to think. "Deep down he cares!"

Whatever the truth of the situation, people seem very clear that James Bond wouldn't have got himself into it. Bond's far too gallant for that, they say - he knows how to treat a lady. I don't know where they get this idea from, as all we've seen James Bond do is shoot or have sex with people (sometimes the same people, although thankfully not in that order) and - in Quantum of Solace - mope about. The main thing about James Bond is that he doesn't give a shit what anyone thinks. He's a bit of a dick, really - not someone you'd want to end up next to at a dinner party - but he keeps saving the world, so, you know, fair enough.

But anyone looking at James Bond and thinking, 'That's what I call a real man' couldn't be more wrong. That's what you call a fictional man - he faces none of the predicaments with which real men like Daniel Craig have to cope. 'Go in there, kill the bad guys, save the girl and disable the nuke,' doesn't present a dilemma. You've just got to have a go and hope you're good enough. Even Craig's new 'Bond with emotions' never has to deal with anything as awkward as being seen to shelter but not condescendingly cosset a woman in rainy conditions. He's never been in an etiquette minefield, just an ordinary minefield. He has no idea what it's like to be a real man.

I do know what it's like; it's extremely tricky. We live in a society where all the old conventions of manners have been broken down but not quite destroyed - they're left hanging around in sharp bits like a kind of offence shrapnel. It gets embedded in anyone not as immune to other people's opinions as James Bond.

The clichéd example is the question of holding doors open: you know, are men supposed to hold doors open for women? Are women supposed to mind if they do? If encountering double doors in a corridor with a stranger of either gender following, what is the separating yardage below which you're expected to wait with the door open to avoid it slamming back in their face and above which, if you do wait, you look like an idiot and force the follower to break into a jog?

No new convention has evolved. I don't know anyone sensible who gives a damn whether they have to open doors for people or always have them opened by others. We don't care what the convention is - we're happy to expend whatever effort it asks of us - but we're desperate, crying out for a new consensus.

Greeting people causes the worst dilemmas. I actually worry about it in advance of social encounters. Who are you supposed to kiss (and how many times), who hug and whom shake hands with? I'm pretty repressed but I'll happily kiss, hug - and, indeed, squeeze on the arse - anyone who requires it of me if that will make the encounter pass off without incident. Equally I'm not offended, or surprised, if people would rather I didn't touch them at all. I don't care, I just want to know.

But none of us knows. So we end up doing mortifying dances of half-handshaking, half-kissing as one party backtracks from the unexpected kiss and the other is at pains to imply that of course a kiss would have been completely welcome. Will no one help us

Few governments have passed as many laws as this one and yet a quick Greetings Act, that would avoid millions of moments of embarrassment a year, that would save the nation's hearts from pumping thousands of gallons of blood into its faces, is too much trouble. How about this: if they've already met, women always kiss one another (both cheeks), men and women ditto, men shake hands unless they've met 12 times in which case they hug; people who haven't already met shake hands? Will that do? Can that be the law? Please?

All of the above is complicated by the fluctuating conventions of sexual attraction. I'm not talking about genuine sexual attraction, but the strange rule, from which the 'men kiss women but not one another' idea surely derives, that men are supposed to express mild sexual interest in all women. There's a general 'Aren't the ladies lovely?' presumption that's very rude not to go along with, but worse to be seen to overplay.

It must be implied that a man finds any woman attractive, but not that he's going to jump her. And how far he is allowed to go in adhering to this rule depends on many factors, primarily the man's age and his marital status. A happily married man of late middle-age can practically goose a woman and it carries no more force than a twentysomething complimenting her hair.

Now I know I'm coming across like a cold, irritable, hand-wringing weirdo - but people like me need rules or we have to think too much about things that don't really matter. Conventions of politeness oil the wheels of social interaction - they make things easy in the 99 per cent or more of occasions when people don't want to upset one another. Everyone knows what to do when they want to be rude, but wouldn't it help if we could sort out a system for the majority of times when we don't?