November 6th, results of the midterms not yet in. Try telling twitter.

I’m getting off social media as a cure. The continual stream of bullshit is unfathomable, the only good thing to be said about the whole thing is that social media keeps some of the worst maniacs off the street. What did all these nut jobs do before social media? How did they express themselves then? Are these the people that would otherwise be into wife(or husband) beating? Child abuse ? or have we created a whole new sort of human? a sort of social media superman/superwoman -meek mannered off the keyboard but an abuse wielding warrior once the cursor flickers. If so I wish I knew what their kryptonite is, could it be satire? irony? I doubt it ,but we can try. I’ve tried sending love letters to trolls, blowing them cyber kisses, none of it works, they just go on and on and on, well at least they’re not breeding (let us hope). So it’s bye bye Twitter and Facebook and Instagram. Fuxk it all, stop the madness. Let’s make humans great again.

November the first. Day of the dead.

Hello, These are the first words so I really want to get them right, I want to lure you in, this is a journey I’m starting on, it would be great if you could join me. 

At the moment - everything is temporary after all - I’m a professional Stand-up comedian. I’m British but have lived most of my life in Antwerp, Belgium. This is where I started doing Stand-up, about twenty years ago when all other options had dried up, the bar I owned had gone bankrupt, there were no more factories that would hire me, so at the age of 44 I started to spend my weekends doing open mic spots at a local bar. Stand-up had just started getting popular in Belgium and I was in at the beginning - after a few lucky breaks and a lot of serious hard work I ‘made it‘ , I was actually ‘Big In Belgium‘ (Flanders actually, the Dutch speaking half).   That’s the short story, I’ll fill in the rest on the way. What’s the journey? Well it’s me again,starting out anew, I’ve just reached 65 and Stand-up, though still being a large part of my life, is becoming less important to me. I only get the ‘kick’ on stage, I’ve decided to quit doing the theatres with my ‘one man shows’ , I’ve gone back to the comedy roots of bars and smaller gigs and that has freed up a lot of time, time I like to use to reflect, to think about life, day to day in the practice of living it. So I thought “right Nidgy” (yes I give myself a nickname, it stops me taking myself too seriously) , “right Nidgy , you’ve always wanted to see if you could write, stop buying all those ‘self help books’ about ‘How to write...’ whatever and get your nose to the keyboard”. That is the how and the why of this coming to pass. I’ll try to be honest in my opinions and thoughts. Shall we start? 

Today is november the 1st, a bank holiday in Belgium, a time when most people take time to bring flowers to the graves of relatives and loved ones, a day of reflection, the day after Halloween, a day to reflect on death.... or the lighter version ‘the passing of time’. 

Today the scene is ideal, a grey rainy sky, cold, quiet streets. A perfect day to stay in bed till late, have a sort of breakfast/lunch couple of hours at the kitchen table, taking time to take stock. 

It’s been a really busy couple of months, we moved home, I had a replacement hip (bringing my prosthetic total to 4, 2 hips ,2 knees), our yearly holiday to Wales has come and gone, and we have just returned from a city trip to Budapest. Budapest, I like the town, probably because I don’t live there, it has great history and architecture, but at the moment it’s politically on the ‘right wing’ side of europe (are there any others at the moment?). I went to Budapest about three weeks ago to do a gig, but when travelling to do comedy we rarely get enough time to see any of the ‘sights’ ,so me and my wife decided to have a short break. ‘City trips’ we do about 2 or 3 a year, always one to Bristol, the town where I’m from, the place I love but also realise that I could never go back there to live. Belgium has a pretty high standard of living (even for struggling stand-up comedians), housing and healthcare have never been an issue to me here for instance yet when I watch the BBC news it more than not always starts with one of those two news items. I hear (rich) politicians talking about ‘affordable housing’ then prices get mentioned and I realise that if I returned I wouldn’t be able to live in the nice, trendy areas where I love to be when on a city trip in an ‘air bnb’. I would probably end up back on the ‘estate’ where I came from, that prospect doesn’t appeal to me, it probably doesn’t appeal to the people that live there now, so why would I put myself through it? 

The 1st of November here in Berchem, the area of Antwerp where I live, a perfect 1st of November as I said.  Berchem is a great area, the balance of young, old, Belgians, Immigrants is just about right, the ‘hipster - non hipster’ demographic is also pretty much in balance, it’s here that I recently came to live and I love it already. We went for a walk this afternoon along the local shopping street, most of the ‘non chain’ shops were open, an advantage of living in places with a quite large immigrant community is that not all (religious) bank holidays are recognised by all, so there are always shops open. We stopped for a coffee and a bun at the local Marrocan baker ‘Charif’ , it was busy as usual, the coffee is good and you get a free bun with the coffee, what a difference to the Starbucks of this world. At Charifs, it might not be hip, trendy or wifi friendly but cheap prices, good food and free bun with a coffee tick most of the boxes I need to fill. When I’m on Twitter or FB I read some of the ill informed of this world talking about ‘immigrants taking over’ and ‘destroying our culture’ etc etc ,you know what I mean, they used to make me angry, now I just feel sorry for them living in their own ‘apartheid world’, and I get to have the ‘free bun’ at the bakers. A lot of people live large parts of their lives online, never taking time to walk the streets, see what’s going on in the world where humans actually meet and talk to eachother, outside of the self imposed apartheid bubble. Which is why today, I’m burning a candle praying to the god I don’t believe in , hoping that we have a internet failure. On this ‘the day of the dead’ I would like to see the internet dead, or at least in a coma, for a day or two. 

Birthday in Budapest.

28th of October 2018

Birthday 

Today was my birthday, another year passed, another number, another reason to evaluate, another moment to take stock of what’s gone and what is yet to come (maybe).

For my Birthday weekend me and my wife organised a three day trip to Budapest, I’ve been there before to perform comedy a few times and there is something about the place that intrigues me. A city that has had it’s share of tears and fears, the Hungarians sided with Hitler until 1944, Hungarian nationalists played a big role in the deportation of thousands upon thousands of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and everyone else who defied the nazis. The role of the Hungarian nationalists gets ‘played down’ by the present Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban, himself a nationalist, but there are sites all over the town that still bear witness to the deportations and the murders. 

Not far from parliament on the edge of the Danube there is a monument to the place where Nazis and Hungarian Nationalists forced Jews young and old, male and female to stand and be shot, their bodies falling into the Danube and being swept away by the tide. Shoes line the harbour wall as a monument to the monsterous ‘ethnic cleansing’ of jews by the Nazis. Seeing this monument, trying to imagine the fear, the disbelief, the horror of those times, parents watching as first their children were shot and thrown into the river before they themselves were murdered. Visiting the Jewish area of the city imagining the German trucks loading jews onboard to be brought to the cold banks of the Danube,anger and imense sadness engulfed me that afternoon. How far we’ve come, the streets of Budapest now full of tourists from all over the world, young, old all sharing everything that Budapest has to offer for the city tripping tourists of 2018. I met up with a friend I made while performing here, he’s a young non european comedian, we had a coffee talked a while about comedy then the talk turned to how it is living as a black person in Budapest, he told tales of the brushes with the administration, flagrant acts of racism, about how intense and stressful it is for him when he leaves the country and comes back, always fearing that he won’t get past border control although he’s in Hungary completely legal. Fear of racism , discrimination in this city? after all it’s been through, after it’s own fight for freedom from the Russians in the 1950’s, go to the ‘house of Terror’ museum see the photos of the ‘patriots’ gunned down by Russian troops during the rising. This city now very vibrant, young people from all over the world come here. Yet as in many cities all over europe at the moment ,people are again looking for scapegoats, others to blame for their woes, politicians all too eager to oblige by pointing the finger toward the migrants, the homeless,the gypsies...

We have come a long way from the evils of the Nazis and the terror of Stalinism, but have we beaten the scourge of racism, anti semitism, homophobia etc etc? Or is our ‘progress’ just a thin coating? Today I read in the newspaper that an american racist gunned down and killed 11 people at a synagogue, he’d rushed into the building guns at the ready shouting ‘all jews must die’ , last week also in America a radical republican had sent pipe bombs to politicians and others outspoken in their dislike of Donald Trump, thankfully none had exploded.

We have come far, but there is still some way to go before we humans come to the realisation that we are all one tribe, one sort, one species. 

Today was my birthday, lots of people sent me best wishes through messages mostly on line. We are now all connected through internet , no corner of the globe excluded, we now have the chance to unite our sort over the whole of our planet how great is that? Let’s do it, for our own sake.

Thanks for all the birthday greetings. 

Data Raped.

I went for a walk this morning, not far, just the streets around where I live, I need the exercise after my hip operation. It surprised me how many nods and smiles and 'good mornings' I received. I remember thinking to myself ‘there must have been a ‘purge’ of all the miserable negative people overnight’, or they might all be indoors tweeting or whatever it is that we are all supposed to be doing nowadays. Maybe it’s the solution to safer and happier streets, if all the moaners and the groaners and the ‘end is nigh’ folk stay indoors and argue online, then the rest of us can get on with our lives and each other. This being said - I am a ‘twitter warrior’ myself, spent hours the last couple of years, on twitter or other ‘social media’ outlets letting people know about my views, provoking, disliking, annoying etc etc ,it was good fun - annoying people that have different political or social views than I have. But it changes nothing, nada , sod all. When you tweet nothing happens - except that some people get annoyed and open a so say ‘debate’ that is never a debate, just a shouting match that ends when one party decides to ‘block’ or ‘ignore’ the other. So what is this ‘social media’ thing? just a way of keeping us occupied so that we don’t actually get around to doing anything constructive? There are some positives in social media - it has been used to gather support on important issues that might have been ignored, or forgotten about by traditional media. The downside is that it has opened the doors of hell and let the nutcases loose. Baseline is that social media is a big, gigantic ‘earner’ for the few. Every time we are on social media we get ‘data-raped’, we are being followed and being ‘defined’ so that advertisers can pinpoint the new (mainly useless) products that fit our profile. That’s it end of the business model, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram are first and foremost businesses that are in the business of selling our data to third parties that want to know everything about us, they are not ‘neutral’ people loving organizations. Once again ‘it’s all about the money’. Meanwhile the hounds of hell are loose and we spend the majority of our days fishing for likes to stroke our ego, others spend their days offending, or arguing or just joining in the ‘hate soup’ on one subject or the other. This shit pool of ‘non debate’ creates an image of the whole world being seemingly at odds with each other, we get frustrated, hurt, elated, have sleepless nights about it while the data we produce gets harvested . 

I need to get off social media, not completely, it has its uses ,like to promote up and coming events etc, but that’s it basically. In the future I’ll keep my thoughts to myself, except on stage. 

So get off Social media, get outside, go for a walk and have some realtime, with real people. 

We are the Champions

It’s a great time to be human! Why? Because........(drum roll)..........we won! yeah ‘we are the champions’ etc . We absolutely won, beat all other species into submission or extinction. ‘We do what we want, we do what we waaaaant we are human we do what we want!’ 

We used to sit cowered in our caves afraid of all the big animals out there, but where are they now? Gone! Dinosaurs? gone, only living family members are chickens - chickens ffs! so who’s afraid now dinosaur ? Not us, the animals are on the run, soon to be just a memory - we won hands down. This planet is our ‘hood’ and only ours, if you want to be here you better be usefull or you’re out- if we can eat you, screw you or take photos of you for instagram then you are on your way to the ‘little book of extinct animals’. 

A truly great time to be human.

Where's the reset button?

As far as I can remember it all started with the Brexit referendum in the UK, America -not to be outdone by the Brits- organised their own 'Apocalypse Now' moment by electing 'Big White Rich Bully' Donald -Brain Damage- Trump as president to follow that and since then nothing, absolutely nothing is as it was.
It's only been a few years, but the speed with which we are losing all respect and dignity is mind boggling. I have just watched the President of the United States of America mock a woman who came forward to give evidence about her trauma of being sexually abused during her student years. What a complete asshole Trump is, whatever you think of her testimony it's obvious she suffered, and it took guts for her to come forward. The venom and spite that bully Trump spat out on her will not only verify the fears she had about coming forward but it is also a message to all other women saying " even the president of america will heap scorn on you if you dare speak out against sexual harassment", and that is undefendable and downright disgusting.

Saturday.

Time moves on, it's Saturday now which means I've been home from hospital almost a week. I'm gradually easing off the pain killers and other meds, my blood (clotting) levels are back to what they should be and Monday I'll have my first gig (in Flanders) again and pretty soon the operation will be a distant past and all the little ups and downs I feel will have to be kept to myself as people don't really want to know how you are when they ask that question.
Most of the time I don't want to talk about my bigger and bigger collection of replacement joints that I seem to be collecting either, nowadays ,with the science and technology we have ,it's not such a big deal. I've known for some years that one day my knees and hips would 'go' and would have to be replaced, so I taught myself to build up for it, get the leg muscles fit before the op, leave the op to the best professionals there are in the area, 'post op' do all the exercises and move on (literally) , and so it is now, so this will be the last you'll hear about hip 2.

I started my show this week in Bonn with these words 'Good Evening and Welcome, it's a great time to be human! don't you think?' - It was the start of a comedic rant I went into on the arrogance of us - humans- conquering the world and laying waste to much of nature in the process, leaving us with only ourselves to 'conquer' and destroy.
It was my twisted comedic way of describing the duality of humankind - 'Great time to be human' ? yes ,well if you live in the west or are really really rich it's a great time in our evolution -look at me for christ's sake, rebuilt! We have all the fun little toys, distance is no longer an obstacle to keeping in touch with loved ones , at our fingertips most of us have a device that was originally developed to be able to phone and talk to people all over the globe, but now we can do so much more with it. In a way we are in danger of becoming 'too big for our boots' 'punching above our weight' , we have all these amazing devices, medical science has given each of us -not eternal life - but a life expectancy way above all of our planetary predecessors, but -and this should be written BUT -we have lost so much of what makes us human. We may be interconnected, and 'wired with the world' but in our immediate proximity we are growing more and more lonely and disconnected having hundreds or even thousands of friends on Facebook and co, many ,or almost all of whom we have never met, but at the same time we have never actually talked to the next door neighbor. That my friends (many of whom I've never met :-) ) is where we lose our 'humanity' , we are creatures that need solidarity and the warmth of the 'group', be it family, (real) friends or neighbors. Having day to day contact with others is what keeps us in check with society and whatever we call 'normality' at that point. Left to our own devices with no checks and balances our brain plays tricks on us, when we have no set values or sense of order or restraint, then we let the dogs lose in our brain,we become a sort of warped version of what we were. Having said this what do I intend to do about it? Well..... 'I'm different I like my own company, I don't need people around, I'm a loner' and other excuses haha. Seriously, what I will try is to enjoy this 'human victory', enjoy the fact that I can now walk almost painlessly because of human intelligence and progress, I'll have fun with all the little technological toys we have at our fingertips but at the same time I'll try to regain contact with what makes us tick- human contact. When out walking ,look up, take a look, a real look at what and -more importantly- who is around us and now and then strike up a conversation, create a sort of 'real life Facebook' . Howdy neighbor!

Slow down Tonto we're surrounded.

It seems like ages since I've written anything on my blog, sorry for that, whoever it is that reads it. 
This blog is my way of clearing my head, I do the same on my Flemish podcast. On the podcast (called Downtime) I just press record and talk for 15 minutes, just to see what the brain spits out. 
With the blog it's pretty much the same approach, no pre defined script, I just start up the laptop and see where the brain takes the keyboard. So let's see. 
It's been a while since I blogged, not that I lost interest, I still find it a great personal development exercise but man have I been busy. This last three months have been a real roller coaster. During the heat wave we were moving house, then on holiday in Wales and then (last week) I had a hip replacement (my second), in between times I've still been doing comedy gigs all over Flanders and Holland and my daily podcast.  Not bad for some old guy . 
By the way the hip is a week old today and it's healing quite rapidly, I already walk (with one crutch) about a kilometer per day and am active around the house.
My Dad used to call me 'itchy ass' as I can't sit down long without getting bored. Sometimes I get tired of myself and my inability to just sit down and concentrate, but that's the way my dice roll. A bit ironic then that I have joint problems and sometimes -through pain -I'm forced to take it a bit easier. 

I learnt a new psychological disorder today , it's called 'Gas Lighting' - it's a technique used by people who are extreme narcissists ,they use the technique to gain power over a partner, or (as dictator) over the public. Most of the description I found on line about this condition can be found in the way Donald Trump and his clique around him are operating in the White House at the moment, I also know of a few men that use this system to dominate their spouses. Whether they are aware of their behavior I wouldn't know but it is worthwhile reading up on it. Hell you might even be a victim of it , so read up it will stop you feeling bad about yourself (if you are subject to this behaviour). Here's the link 
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/here-there-and-everywhere/201701/11-warning-signs-gaslighting 
You can copy paste this into your browser. Thanks for the person that brought this to my attention, I don't know why but these things interest me. I have always had an interest in us humans, maybe because I'm always asking myself if I'm 'normal' always the doubt that I'm 'not good enough' or lacking in one way or the other. So I watch others and see how they cope and check to see if my behavior is on the 'normal' scale. All this constant doubt and self criticism has led me over the years to lose my 'authentic self' whatever and whoever that is. I don't know about you but I find myself 'adapting' a lot to the people I have around me at any given time. It's as if I act like I think they would expect me to act instead of .. well just being me. Why is that? Is that some craving for acceptance? 
I don't know where it came from, probably little by little over the years trying to fit in, but at the moment I'm on to it and want to stop it, which entails that I start getting 'real' or to use the 'book selling' phrase 'looking for my authentic self' . So wish me luck on that one, and if you see me acting strange somewhere,well maybe that's just the (real) way I am. 
See you.

It might get hot near the end.

I don’t want to become one of those old guys who’s only preoccupation is the weather, but we do need to talk about it. 

It’s still May and the temperatures in places like Belgium, Holland and Germany are in the 30’s , now I don’t want to draw any hasty conclusions but may I just say that it’s not friggin’ normal, whatever ‘normal’ still means in this age of abnormality  being the new normal.

It’s hot and I can’t handle it, if I were to convince myself that it would stay like this -for ever- I would consider setting up home in a cellar. We homo-sapiens don’t belong to the same family as lizards, this is not the environment we should be living in -end of discussion. I don’t get people who just lay in the sun all day and think it’s the best way to live. Anything above 28° and my brain goes into seizure, all I can do is find some shade or airco and wait until normality returns. But what if it didn’t ? What if this is the start of the ‘end times’ ? What if it just started getting warmer and warmer ? When would the water start being worth more than oil? At what stage would we start attacking each other for the last few drops of water? 

Just the thought of this being the way it would end for us all, sends my heart rate even further up the scales. A slow suffocation, the gradual descent of man into barbarity followed by an even slower extinction. Bye bye world it was good while it lasted, but you obviously have found a way to rid yourself of this cancer called mankind. 

Next week it will rain, next week the temperatures will be back to normal, next week we will yearn for some of this sun again, but not now- now we can only huff and puff and hope we get through it. 

Don’t forget to hydrate.  

Clothes, just clothes.

Clothes might not ‘maketh the man’ (or woman) , but they have become a statement, a flag, an introduction to who we are and how we liked to be seen. 

If clothes weren’t important we’d all just wear what’s easiest to put on and take off, we might stretch to a favorite color, but if they were of no importance then we would go for ‘easy’ . 

But we don’t always go for easy, so there is an importance attached to what we wear. Clothes fit occasion and function, uniforms, (office suits are  uniforms as well). 

In our ‘free time’ we like to dress to impress, whatever impression it is we are trying to convey. We may want to ‘tempt’ the opposite or same sex, we may be looking for a partner and want to look at our ‘best’. We may want to convey a message “look how relaxed I am, I care not about what people think of me or how I’m dressed” and probably put a lot of effort into the attire to convey that message. 

I like my clothes to be ‘easy’, easy on easy off, no tight belts around the midriff, no ties, no tight fitting shirts, I need to breathe and I need to be able to sit comfortably, that is foremost in my choice of attire. My profession affords me that kind of freedom. Sometimes I might get the urge to ‘dress up’ and put a suit on, but it won’t be more than once a year. 

I like to sit on a bench and do some ‘people watching’ , seeing what clothes they wear, and try to figure out what message they convey, who they are, what they are doing, how they want to be seen. Clothes can be a sort of membership card to a ‘sub genre’ of music, or allegiance to one or other trend , team or political ideology even. 

There is a trend by some men to wear a heavy chain on the outside of their trousers, it has to be in a loop for the real effect, probably it’s connected to their wallet and waistband, it looks like it’s trying to convey that the person who owns the chain is a bit of a rebel, in reality the person has probably watched a lot of American films about rednecks,hells angels or rockabilly music. In my imagination the chain is connected to a piercing that is usually called a ‘prince Albert’, through the pocket. So which ever way you look at it the chain is attached to a dick, only joking guys ,only joking.

All joking aside, isn’t it great to be living in a region where we can virtually  wear whatever we want? As long as we obey the decency code. Isn’t it great to be living where authority figures have hardly any say in the way we clothe ourselves? O.K. you have to show your face, but surely that’s pure politeness and general decency. (whatever your religion.) 

From the garden;

 Here in the garden it’s always peaceful , thousands of organisms, insects ,bees, flies, bugs, plants, trees and me. I’m the only one not ‘working’ , not contributing to the general well being of this little patch of nature. Me being human it’s probably best that I interfere as little as possible, our track record is not good and it hardly ever ends well for nature when we inflict our ‘idea of how it should be’. Humans - not the best curators of the planet, you wouldn’t trust them with your Rose Garden let alone with the rain forest. 

Every so often I am compelled - by my fear of what neighbors, family and friends might think about the ‘state of the garden’ - to interfere. Mow the lawn, cut back bushes,trees and remove exaggerated weed patches, but I like to keep my ‘meddling’ to a minimum. At the back of the garden there’s a specially designed ( :-)  ) ‘wild area’ that I leave totally alone. A small space, left to weeds, wild flowers and all the creepy crawlies that live it up there. Bees love it, butterflies do as well, in fact they love this ’wild patch’ more than the more sophisticated carefully laid out flower beds of sterile garden centre ‘blooms of the year’. (must admit I do love Garden Centers).

My style of gardening I call the Darwinist approach, plant it - feed it and if doesn’t fit in it will die. Let nature steer the garden to what it should be in this climate, this temperature this region. Looking around in my couple of square meters of paradise always makes me ask the question ‘why do we make such a differential between ‘weeds’ and plants? What’s the difference? There are weeds that bring the most beautiful flowers, while some plants fail miserably, that’s why I like to keep the balance right. I try not to let one side of the argument become the ‘norm’ -both sides get equal ‘bragging rights’ on my patch. In my garden I put my chair firmly on the middle ground- and I try not to take sides. 

The Group

We humans just love splitting off into groups, I suppose we feel safer in group, ‘cos basically compared to other living things we’re pretty weak. 

So we love groups - religions, political groups, sports teams, even gender-preference groups - so many groups and sub groups we contradict our own hate toward competing groups. That’s another given, it’s not just that we like being part of groups we also have to have other groups to hate, or at least dislike.......... 

Never happy ‘till we’re hating, that’s us. It’s no different now, the ‘alt right’ hating the ‘alt left’ , even though from each group there are probably people who share the love in yet other groups, they may support the same sports team at the weekend, but hate each other for political reasons in the week, and on certain evenings meet each other again at a local ‘dark room moment’ in a group hug.

 I have this impression that it could all end in one of two ways. Either we come together and realize we are all so different that every battle against other ‘groups’ is a lost cause and will only cause yet more struggle and strife ..... or that  one day there will be just one huge ‘last man standing’ moment where we club each other to death. Unless, that is, that one or more ‘bacteria group’ gets to us first .

Have a nice day. 

Skin deep.

I've just been stood in the kitchen, coloring my wife's hair, don't worry she was there with me. She's at an age and a stage in her life when grey roots appear every few weeks, and she is having nothing of it. Every few weeks I'm her 'special forces' in her personal war on grey terrorism, it always makes me nervous if I miss any enemy infiltrations it will be firing squad for me.
Usually it turns out ok, and I'm the hero for a couple of days and then it starts all over again. When she buys the coloring product it's always a different chemical cocktail ,never does she use the same product twice, always looking for a better version of all the choices.
What an array of products! just for hair, it's amazing, there is a whole industry helping (mainly women) cover up their natural color, and this is just the hair industry.
We humans have a long history of not being contented with what nature gives us, always wanting a new hair color, eye color and more and more a different body shape and now even new gender.

I was watching a TV programme yesterday, it was one of those body shape programmes that pretend to be sympathetic toward the subjects it follows, but is really just a 'freak show' showing us the extreme end of human industry in changing body shapes, penis lengths and facial construction.
One young gay guy had his lips inflated to the size of a medium hot air balloon, and was now at grief because he could find no plastic surgeon who would agree to inflate his buttocks in the same fashion, surgeon after surgeon warned him that 'enough is enough' and his ass could possibly explode -literally. At the end of the programme we saw the lad walk off into the distance swearing to find a surgeon somewhere on the planet to fulfill his dream of worlds biggest ass (watch out Kim Kardashian, he's coming for you). There was a guy with a tiny penis, who wanted to have an enlargement, to save his blushes in the locker room, the operation was shown in graphic detail, meanwhile the surgeons were explaining the fact that any 'enlargements' are pretty minimal.
Besides the sympathy pain I felt for the guy as I saw him trying to get into the taxi a few hours after his op, was the horror at seeing how the guy was cut open. It was then that I really really and for the first time actually realized how superficial this all is, the scalpel only went skin deep a few millimeters to reach a place where we all look basically the same.
Beauty being only 'skin deep' is true but doesn't really solve any arguments, because we only see skin deep, and let's be honest we prefer beauty above 'non- beauty' , so maybe it's our interpretation of what 'beauty' consists that should be educated. Of all the freak show plastic people none ever look better than they did, plastic surgery is a great help and advantage for people who have suffered life changing injuries or illnesses, that's why it was brought into life after the horrors of world war 1.
But we are humans and as long as there are people conditioned to not be satisfied with their looks and surgeons who see a fast buck in giving in to these people, well it's here to stay.
I think it was Adele (oh my god Nigel what happened to your music taste) who sung in one of her songs 'your perfect imperfections' ,that's real beauty for you, perfect imperfections, let's not go down the road of all looking sounding and smelling the same, let's struggle for the beauty of perfect imperfections, be unique, be yourself.
This being said I'm off to get on my home-trainer to work off some of this imperfect belly fat, summer is coming after all.

The brightest of the dumb.

Will we ever 'get it' ? How things work, how the world is shaped? Why we do what we do? why the same old things happen over and over?
I remember when I was young thinking that 'older people' must know, they must have that secret knowledge that was hidden to us youngsters...... but now I'm old, I seem to know less than when I started out. To me getting older just means giving less of a flying frig about the 'worries of life'.
Politics and politicians? tricksters thieves and psychopaths- all of 'em. Life planning? wake up, see what happens, adapt,adjust and move on. Concentrate on what and who you like doing and being with, there are 7 billion of us, 99.9999% of whom  you'll never meet and only a few of the ones you meet will eventually be of any importance to you, so stop trying to impress people who matter not to your life.
Just don't waste time, a lot of people want you to fail in what you do, only listen to the ones that encourage you in your endeavours.
We keep saying how special we Homo Sapiens are, how we are the most intelligent species on earth, is that an overstatement? Maybe we are the most intelligent of all living beings on earth, but what does that mean, maybe we're intelligent like the brightest kid in the 'special class', just intelligent compared to the rest.
Yes we can almost cure all illnesses that we used to think were incurable, but at the same time we produce products and situations that enhance just those same illnesses we are trying to cure. Smokers outside the hospital doors, vending machines selling unhealthy drinks in Hospital waiting areas. We know we can get energy from wind and sun yet still we prefer digging holes in the planet to mine fossil fuel that will poison the environment or build energy plants that rely on very very dangerous and 'all life' threatening fuel.
Maybe we're not as 'bright' as we think, ok we say we are but is that true? How many parents do you know that think their kids are unbelievably intelligent? Even though the law of averages says most all kids are average. When was the last time you heard parents say "well we have three kids they are at best average, but if I'm honest they are pretty dumb, dumb, selfish and mean, but hey on the bright side they are an improvement on us".

Data Sapien.

BodyCam, Facial scan,
Off Line
But in the picture.
Privacy is dead and gone
No more secrets, no guilty fun.
Your every move is kiss and tell
Followed and glued
data is corporate food .

Humankind uploaded but downgraded,
a data blip a tool a fool
what does life mean when you stare at your screen?
When your likes and your clicks
are what make you tick.

Happy New Year

New year same shit,
Donald Trump and Brexit.
Politicians telling lies,
Fake news and Russian spies.