"The John Lennon Memorial Shot"

As you may or may not have worked out I am quite interested in world affairs; a term which has connotations of a magazine that details adultery around the globe (such magazines exists I believe in the form of 'More', 'Heat' and, if you're interested in Royalty, 'Hello') but in fact just means I like to have a read of the news every once in a while. I wouldn't want to be caught out when the British put down their pints and copies of the Daily Mail and take to the streets in Revolution. It's unlikely to happen, I realise, but better to be prepared.

The biggest topic in the world news at the moment is the unrest in Egypt. It's a seriously interesting time, and also a somewhat worrying one, since the outcome of the riots will direct the course of the Middle East and could have significant impacts globally. But rather than turn this blog into a political discourse (I'll save that for the pub, where discussion and demagoguery are significantly aided by drinking) I'd like to propose a new means of dealing with such conflict. Instead of violent protestation, threat of armed action and the putting in place of curfews in an endless struggle to dominate the situation, I propose a game of tiddlywinks.

This is something that me and my good friend Aaron have thought for a while, but in order to write about it I thought I should do some research on the topic, and I was somewhat shocked (and amused) by what I found. It turns out that tiddlywinks is a game developed and played far more widely and seriously than I had ever imagined. There is both an English and North American Tiddlywinks Association (the Scottish, ever the people of blunt reason and pragmatism, disbanded theirs in the 90's; they had evidently realised the pointlessness of the activity) and there is a standardised kit including a regulation pot and 'winks' imported from Italy. There are a huge number of rules and humourously named moves (the 'Squop', the 'Gromp' and the infamous 'John Lennon Memorial Shot' being among my favourites) and World Championships that can be watched on Youtube, although unsurprisingly the majority of players seem to be grey, beared and have an unsettling affection for the turtleneck jumper.

The image I have painted of this noble game is somewhat cynical, yet nevertheless, a game of tiddlywinks would be a far more peaceful means of deciding the outcome of the Egyptian conflict, and cost far fewer lives. I believe the only person to die from Tiddlywinks was a man named Gerald Hatherswaite, who managed to 'blitz' a 'penhaligon' with expert use of his 'squidger' and subsequently died of an excitement induced heart attack.

So, I propose that President Mubarak takes his newly appointed Vice-President Omar Suleiman as his second and challenges a key leader of the movement and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood to a duel of the disks. As they take to the felt, perhaps instead of dropping teargas onto civilians, Mubarak will drop a neatly aimed wink onto his opponent, achieving the ultimate 'squop'. Perhaps instead of burning vehicles, the civilian would then come back with a 'boondock', potting his wink to achieve the shot known as the 'Lunch'. And when the game was over, the winner decided and the new government settled, people would look back and realise that violence (except on the playing felt) was never the answer.

It's never going to happen, but it's funny to imagine anyway.

“The rational mind of man is a shallow thing, a shore upon a continent of the irrational"

Today in Russia a bomb was detonated in Moscow airport that killed around 30 people and badly injured over 100. Not the typical start to a whimsical blog. It is truly a horrific catastrophe, a tragedy for both the people of Russia and the international community, and not something to be joked about.

Yet it would not be in the spirit of this blog to be sombre and serious throughout, and so we shall respect the dead and wounded of Moscow and poke a little fun at our own reaction to such events. Let’s have a chat about irrationality.

When people debate the existence of a God, using the good old argument of “Intelligent Design”, one of the first things that springs to my mind as an obvious counter argument is that if we’re entirely honest the perfect God that so many people revere really didn’t do a particularly great job.

Nowhere is this more apparent than the human body. Let’s start with the appendix; the ticking time bomb of the lower abdomen. It skulks around like a hoodie on a street corner; doing nothing useful, hanging out with its similarly sullen mates known as ‘the tonsils’ and hurling abuse at passing grannies whilst drinking White Lightning. Unlike the disaffected youth, however, the appendix has the capacity to rear its ugly head and strike us down at any moment, forcing us to remove it for no other reason than it felt like being a pain in the arse. Well, stomach, but anatomy was never my strong point.

Take as another example the male genitalia. Not wishing to lower the tone, but what idiot would take the most sensitive part of a man’s body and place them in a small, hairy sack to swing between their legs as they move? Surely this individual would have realised the design flaw fairly soon after the production process, when the earliest hunter gatherers, beating their way through the forests of southern Europe in their search for elk, mammoth or McDonalds (do they find fossilised McFlurrys?), snagged their poor, exposed manhood on brambles, trees and the odd oblivious goat. They are a constant danger; sitting on one can incapacitate a man for half an hour as he lies on the floor pale as a petrified snowman and clutching onto his appendage as if they were about to tumble from his groin.

Yet perhaps the greatest design flaws of all in the human body can be found in the thing we revere the most; the brain. This bizarre lump of matter (I’ve never touched one but I’ve always imagined it would feel somewhat like a blancmange) is often compared to a super computer, yet if a technician put together a PC in such a fashion he would be quickly sacked from his job and have his library card revoked. Whilst it truly is an amazing piece of kit, how can something capable of fathoming the deepest reaches of space with telescopes developed and crafted by years of research and ingenuity still find “that’s what she said” so highly amusing? Why does this amazing matter, which controlled the hands that wrote symphonies, painted masterpieces and controlled space shuttles launching into the heavens, still cause us periodically to sleep on said body part and thus panic when, come morning, we fear it as dead as any man who’s seen Susan Boyle naked. And why oh why does the very control centre that allows dancers to twist their bodies into beautiful shapes and footballers to curl a ball into the top corner of the net still cause me to misjudge my step and trip up a flight of stairs on a very regular basis?

It is in this same vein that we see the conflict between rationality and irrationality. Appalled and horrified as I was to hear the news of the Moscow bombings this afternoon, my brain quickly became engulfed by the fact that I would be in the same country in a few months time. That the terrorists who attacked the heart of the Russian state would show a similar interest in a provincial town in the frozen north largely famous for its cannon foundries and its proximity to a village built entirely out of wood yet with no nails (did no-one tell them about the wonder of the hammer?) seemed an entirely justified conclusion to me, and it wasn’t until I sat down and analysed the situation that I realised how completely irrational this train of thought was.

Similar irrationality governs our lives through every day. It is this irrationality that makes me hum a tune every time I lock the door so as to remind myself that I did indeed lock it when I worry later (or as some sort of enchantment over the lock, because ‘Mary had a little lamb’ is famed for warding off intruders). This irrationality causes people to put their faith in the words of some daft bat called “Mystic Meg”, who tells them that the alignment of Pluto and Uranus will cause them to become rich on Wednesday but most likely can’t open a tin of beans. The same irrationality causes people to despise black cats, despite the fact that these poor feline friends never wanted the reputation and really only want the love and affection shown to their tabby friends.

Sometimes this irrationality is humorous, and without an element of madness you can’t be truly human (or so I reassure myself), but it’s a shame when it prevents us from doing things. Getting on a plane these days can be a truly traumatic ordeal, despite the fact that the chance of you crashing is 1 in 7000 and that the fact that someone is of different ethnic background to yourself doesn’t guarantee that they are a suicide bomber. It doesn’t help that papers like ‘The Express’ tell us on a seemingly daily basis that someone is ready to kill us round every corner and that, without Dianna around to save the day, we’re all fucked. And there must have been the most terrible form of irrationality in the mind of those who placed the bomb in that Muscovite terminal, thinking that the death of innocent people was the way to a better world.

I never like to offer answers, but perhaps I will venture to suggest that we take life with a pinch of salt. Irrationality can be hilarious, especially on someone else’s part; my friend’s mother changes the length of time she microwaves her weetabix by 10 seconds depending on whether its winter or summer, believing it makes a difference to the nutritional value. But when it comes to the big issues in life, perhaps we’re all too quick to dive headlong into an issue and don’t take the time to step back and ask whether the assumptions we’re making are entirely justified.

When the human brain’s as mad as it is already it can use all the help it can get.

"Why do strong arms fatigue themselves with frivolous dumbbells? To dig a vineyard is worthier exercise for men."

Today was a wonderful day my friends. I handed in two essays which have been causing me much mental challenge over these past few weeks. I took the babies I raised from nothing but a somewhat dismal plan, a scattering of quotes and hours of procrastination, and released them from my care hoping only that they do well for themselves, perhaps raise a papery family of their own and return with a number greater than 40 penned upon their pages.

And how to celebrate friends? My house mate spent the afternoon drinking, but no such frivolities for myself, since other exams beckon somewhat cruelly, with a suggestion of malice and an odd scent of musk. Instead I spent my afternoon pretending to study for an exam on photography, whilst in actual fact just looking at said pictures and thinking, "Is that meant to be a horse?" But still, celebration is in order and I shall do so with... drum roll please... a spell in the gym.

Once again an eyebrow is raised by those who know me well (the same people who choked at my training for a 10K race) and I will concede that I have mixed feelings on this house of torture. I do quite like going to the gym and the exercise I do there. I like the feeling of pushing my body to its limits. And lifting realistically a small amount of weight is about the only time I look in any way muscular. My issue is not with the gym itself but with the things that surround it; and by that I don't mean bricks, trees and copies of the Sunday Express.

Take for instance the people that go. There are many normal people like myself, who go to keep in shape, relax and meet people who might be convinced that they are healthy and fit and therefore eligible for a relationship with stories told about how they met on the exercise bikes. However, a small group (but a highly visible one nonetheless) go to work on their already oversized muscles. You know the ones I mean. Men with arms as thick as lampposts, lifting dumbbells the size of Pluto and grunting like an elephant having an orgasm. And for someone like myself, whose bulk tends to collect on my waistline as opposed to my upper arms, they are somewhat intimidating and, dare I say it, emasculating; especially when they wear those belts that make them look like a wrestler with his mask off.

And it's not just the ones who resemble the Hulk on steroids (and apparently have a similar conversational capacity) that are able to make me feel somewhat pathetic and wishing my Mummy was there to tell me I'm her soldier. There are those insanely fit humans who seem to spend the majority of their life on a treadmill, stopping only to do a quick Tour de France on the cycling machines. Whilst I sweat buckets on the lowest setting possible, having only been running for two minutes, these people can go for hours and hours on a 70° angle at 50 mph. I'm surprised they don't start a small bush fire with all that friction!

Thank God then for music! Thank the lord for the wonderful device that is the iPod! Once again I differ from my fellow gym-goers by listening to jazz whilst gasping for air on a rowing machine, but for me it has advantages.

It's hard to hate someone when Louis Armstrong's telling you at length 'What a Wonderful World' it is that we live in.

"The trouble with jogging is that, by the time you realize you're not in shape for it, it's too far to walk back."

It's a New Year. For most of us anyway, I think the Chinese are still clinging resolutely to 2010. God knows why. Maybe they really enjoyed Toy Story 3?

So the question you're dying to ask is did I make any resolutions? Did I resolve to lose a few pounds, to stop eating vegetables or to take up knitting ear muffs for kittens (yes I believe it's a product in demand Dragons)? The answer is: no. But I did do something rather foolish. I agreed to run a 10K race for charity.

Anyone who knows me has just coughed on whatever they were eating/drinking/sucking, rubbed their eyes and burst into fits of laughter. Anyone who doesn't should have done so anyway, because anyone doing something as ridiculous as running for no other reason than running must be mad. Most of us only run when absolutely necessary; when chasing a bus that's already pulling off in the hope of a benevolent driver (an impossible dream I think) or when pursued by the Italian Mafia who've taken a disliking to the way we looked at their sister. Only those who have some sort of mental affliction will run when not forced, and those who run for "pleasure" should be sectioned.

Yet I have never claimed to be anything but mad ladies and gentlemen, and thus it is that I decided a charity run would be just the thing for 2011. I'd love to claim a degree of sanity in the fact that it's for charity, but that only gets me so far; I could have done a cake-sale instead and it would have been a similar test of my resolve to leave any for the paying public. But since I have agreed to run not bake I've begun the task whole-heartedly. And like any idiot who thinks, "How hard can it be?" I've quickly come to realise that life doesn't like human beings. I should have learnt from Jeremy Clarkson.

It doesn't help that I'm ill-equipped for a start. Most runners you see jog about in smart Nike trainers, flashy Lycra shorts that reveal far too much but give the impression of professionalism and a training bottle in hand emblazoned with some animal renowned for its speed. A gazelle for instance, or a sloth on cocaine. They don't lumber along in a pair of swimming shorts, a pair of trainers whose soles flap with every clumsy step and nothing for energy or hydration but a couple of sherbet lemons. What can I say? Sport, let alone running, is not something I've ever taken too seriously.

Fitness is also an issue. Christmas was kind to me, but I'm not thanking it for the several tires it's placed around my middle. It's a running race, not a motor race, I could do without them. And then there's the fact that I live in a city which some fool decided to build on as many hills as possible. Who made that decision?! I'd love to find out, meet up with the Doc and blag a ride back in time. I'd wring his neck, or kindly point him to Lincolnshire, where the closest you get to a hill is a dog turd.

All in all, it's not looking good. But thankfully, being mad, I have blind optimism. We'll just have to hope that sees me through. And then I'll retire to the cakes.