MAGGIE THATCHER – EPIC WIN!

(She'll be greeted at the Rearden metal gates by Airey, Augusto, Milton, and Ayn.)

She may have left her physical body but her gaseous essence still permeates this world as an omnipresent ideal, a rancid idea, the awful and only way of doing things (T.I.N.A. - There Is No Alternative). She is not dead and those celebrating the decommissioning of her corporeal form still live with the consequences of her spirit. To be honest, most of you dancing on her grave are probably possessed by her. You espouse her values, talking of the cure-all of complete privatisation and complaining about welfare scroungers. It's like being glad the Devil is dead while possessed by that very same Devil.

The Baroness' dark spell has you all enchanted. You can rejoice in the expiration of the source of that spell but that doesn't mean you are lifting the spell. Thatcher placed a black curse on all your heads and then she died peacefully in her sleep. Put simply, in terms we can all understand these days: Maggie Thatcher - Epic Win!

ANTS!ANtS!anTS!ANTs!AAANTS!!!

ANTS! Have you noticed the ANTS! They are everywhere! EVERYWHERE! They are watching! Did you know that ants use boats? They do. They use bits of old twigs and crisps packets to float across puddles. Ants LOVE sugar! Did you know that ants take slaves? They do! They take aphids and termites and they turn them into SLAVES! Ants are everywhere! Ants are no joke. Ants LOVE sugar! Have you seen the Ants? They are bigger now aren't they? They ARE! They are bigger! They are getting bigger and bigger so they can become our LOVERS! Do you want to love an ant? No, I do not want to love an ant! ANTS will be your LOVER! Ants are under the ground and in the engine of your car. Ants are the second largest stakeholders in the World Bank. You should not have poured boiling water on those ANTS! You should not have held a magnifying glass over those ants! When you were small you killed ANTS! You are NOT small anymore. AntS are not small any more! Ants are Getting bigger and Bigger and BIGGER! Ants will be your Lover! Ants will make us work for them and aNtS will make us listen to Tangerine Dream! Have you noticed the ants? Ants LOVE sugar! They will take all the sugar and there will be NONE left at all even in the restaurants and HOTELS! You will have NONE to put in your tea because of the AnTs that will be your LOVERS! If we refuse to be controlled the ANTS will say we are pests and call pest control and we will be CONTROLLED! We will LISTEN to Tangerine dreAM because of the ANTS!!! Do you listen to Tangerine Dream? No, I do not listen to Tangerine Dream! YOU WILL LISTEN TO TANGERINE DREAM because of the ANTS!!! They will have boats and we will have to listen to TangerINE dreaM!!! ANTS will laugh at BULLETS and eat fire! We can NOT FIGHT them! I want to WARN you now before it is later! ANTS! I warned my uncles and I WARNED my aunts. They said I had ants in my pants BUT SOON it will bE the ANTS that wear the pants! And they WILL take off their pants and get into the bed with us and they WILL be OUR loVERS! Have you seen the Ants? They are bigger now aren't they? They ARE! They are getting bigger and bigger so they can become our LOVERS! Do you want to love an ant? No, I do not want to love an ant! BUT you WILL love the ants the Ants the ANTS The AnTSANTSaNTSants!!!! THE ants will WEAR the panTS and they will MAKE us say 'Thanks Ants'!! ANTS!!! They are everywhere! They are WATCHING! Ants LOVE sugar! Ants love sugar and Tangerine Dream! Did you know that ants use BOATS?

AN IMPOSSIBLE ASCENT (for Dicko)

An impossible ascent. A sheer icy sheet. An insurmountable tombstone punctuated only by danger spots: Dead Man's Traverse, Skull Crag, Hypothermia Pass, Howling Drop. Climbers have a name for this place. They call it The Way of Thanatos, Thanatos being the personification of death. All who attempted it retreated, perished, or, most ignominious of all, perished whilst retreating. Limp cadavers dangle from the lips of the overhangs. This is the graveyard of mountaineering's elite. The best of them met their end here: Brompton, Ferris, Clanton, Spellman. The frozen screaming faces on their crystallised remains - a warning from above. 'Go back, go back', they wail, their shrill voices mingling with the shrieking wind, but I was not dissuaded. I could do this. I was certain. What's more I could do it without the required boots and gloves, cords and carabiners, quickdraws and harnesses, picks and axes. I had all I needed. I was wearing my warm crombie and I had my cans. 

Yes, all I really needed was my cans. Six LCL, six Dutch, that should see me right. 'Don't do it Mr. Fugger!' they said, 'it's suicide!', 'you'll end up like Dicko!' I told them I'd be OK. I told them I'd be better than OK. I told them I would be the first to reach the top. 'Ah, fuck it lads, I'll be up it in no time. It'll be a laugh', were my exact words followed by the pop of a tab and the fizz of the first sup. It would be, to quote myself again, 'a piece of piss'.

Acute gusts stabbed at my face as I approached the base of the cruel slab - a physical assault by a psychotic Jack Frost. The wind is this mountain's murder weapon of choice. It prizes fingers from their purchase and throws climbers down from the heights. I laughed. I was warmed by the booze. Thanatos had not reckoned on a challenger armed with cans. Trusty cans, loyal and true. They will always see you right. A dozen 500ml 5% portions of masculinity's lifeblood. Oh yes, the cans were the game changer.

I attempted to set my shoe in what I thought might pass for an initial foothold. It was slippery and shallow and my foot failed to grip. I searched for another starting point but it was the same. It was like glass. I sighed in irritation and muttered an obscenity. I tried to find another foothold and then another but the pattern kept repeating. It occurred to me that I might have underestimated my geological nemesis. The fact that I would have to make the ascent single handed (I needed a free hand for my Dunnes Stores holdall of intoxicating equipage) was not going to make my attempt any easier. It began to seem as if it might be no use. Still, I persevered. I kept trying for at least three to four minutes as my small audience tensely observed. Finally I cursed out loud and turned away from the source of my frustration. I was done. The Way of Thanatos had defeated me. Like all men, I was not up to the task. I felt such shame, not just personally but for our species as a whole. Nature had issued us a challenge and I wondered if we would ever meet it. I thought it would be me. I thought I was the man. Alas, no. I was just a bit pissed really.

'Ah fuck that', I said and proposed we return to the chalets and see if the bar was still open. The others agreed and placed comforting arms around my shoulders as we trudged away. I turned once more as we left. I turned back and saw The Way of Thanatos smugly regarding my retreat. Nature mocking. God taunting. I vowed to one day return. I would be back another day but not with cans. Not cans, no, but something else. Something far better. I would bring a quarter of hash and some 'yokes'. Dropping an E would be mad half way up that bastard. It would really enhance the buzz and I'd feel extra good when I reached the summit and danced upon it. Big fish, little fish, cardboard box. I'd probably bring a few valium too, in case I encountered a detoxifying drop in serotonin during the descent. Best not to forget about the way down when you're coming up. That's what my mate Dicko always used say. He was a bit of a climber too but sadly brained himself during a failed ascent of a bus shelter near Kimmage industrial park. He was never the same after that. Not the man he used to be. He's no longer fit for work and his long suffering mother has to spoon feed him and give him baths in case he drowns.

Yes, I will return and defeat this mountain and I will dedicate my victory to Dicko. I will write his name in the snow with piss so God will see it when he looks down from above. A sweet revenge on God for endowing us with the hubris that is so often our undoing. A sweet 'fuck you' for providing us with the booze and pills that lead us to our ruin. Yes, I will be back and I will do it for Dicko. For now I will return to shelter and get a few down me and see what comes of the rest of the night. I'm sure more adventure awaits. We men are all about adventure. Thanatos has its way and we have ours.

WORDS ABOUT WORDS - PART FOUR: WORD PRISON

Some words are so dangerous they have to be sent to word prison. Word prison is a kind of cultural Siberia. The idea is that if a dangerous word serves a long term in word prison no one will remember its significance by the time of its release and the word is rendered harmless by antiquity. Words get sent to word prison all the time. The type of words that get sent to word prison are not necessarily profane words. Profanity is more frowned upon than criminalised. Profane words are the lexicanonical equivalents of smokers or gypsies or something. The type of words that get sent to word prison are more than just naughty words, they are incendiary words, words that could start wars if spoken.

One of the nastiest inmates in word prison has been designated the new identity of The N Word. (That is what you do with dangerous words, you take the first letter from them and use that letter to refer to them.) Given that it was sent to word prison relatively recently, you might still remember The N Word. You might remember it but you dare not speak it lest you be the gateway by which societal tumult is released and/or are considered a bit of a dick. I'm going to risk typing The N Word here. I hope you understand that I am doing this for academic purposes and that you can forgive me. However, let this be the last time this word is typed or uttered. Right, here goes. Are you ready? If you don't want to see it you can look away now. OK. I'm going to type it. I'm typing The N Word next. The next word after the last word in this sentence will be The N Word. Nifflebibble. There I did it. Remember that one? Remember all the trouble it caused? See how feeble it is now compared to in the past when it had the power to incite events like the Viennese N Word riots of 1827? Despite all the time that has passed, I still feel unclean for just typing the word. That malignant combination of letters can still cause a lot of grief in certain regions. We can only take comfort in the knowledge that The N Word will remain incarcerated until such a time it can do little but wander the world entirely redundant, looking for a mouth to come out of and row to start, only to fail miserably - like an infamously violent hoodlum who leaves prison too withered and old to throw a punch.

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Did you know that there is a nation that has banned the use of words entirely. The logic being that any word can potentially cause unrest so all words, including the name of the nation itself, have been sent to word prison. You are only permitted to speak two words in this nation, the word 'the' and the word 'word'. Saying letters is also permitted. This allows people to continue communicating without using words. However, just saying a simple greeting can be a very drawn out process in this nation. Instead of simply saying 'hello, how are you?' the citizens of this unnamed nation have to say: 'The h word, the other h word, the a word and the y word'. As you've probably deduced, this can get pretty confusing. So many words start with the same letter. People often misunderstand each other. It can lead to trouble at times with people wrongly taking offence. To be honest, sending the whole dictionary to word prison hasn't really helped this nation. All the breakdowns in communication have badly effected the economy. The people are unhappy because they can no longer make themselves understood. Ironically, the exchanging of insults is where most clarity remains. Someone pointing at you and shouting 'the f word and the o word' is obviously telling you to go away and in no uncertain terms.

****

Instead of being sent to word prison, sometimes words are just banished from certain places, like an individual might get barred from a nightclub or pub. Due to some traumatic past event or colossal faux pas, seemingly harmless words might hold a significantly dire association in particular workplaces or social groups. Groups of colleagues, friends, or acquaintances often banish words from their direct circle. Sometimes the forbidden word might be a name. You might meet a group of jovial bachelors who go a bit tense when you mention the name 'Edith'. From the sudden silence and the communal dropping of eyes, you will realise that an Edith was once known to these gents and that something bad came of this. One bachelor might even mutter something like 'bloody Ediths' and another will snarl at him 'leave it!'. Then, after a brief lull, you'll all go back to talking about the match. Certain words can also be barred from family homes, I know because there was a word banned from the house where I grew up. A simple enough word that, when uttered, sent out invisible shockwaves like the detonation of a psychological bomb. A word that meant nothing of any import to others but brought something appalling to the minds of my whole family. That word was 'rancheros' and to find out more just click the following escapee from my personal word prison: RANCHEROS!!!

WORDS ABOUT WORDS – PART THREE: WORDS FOR THINGS UNSEEN AND FORGOTTEN

I've invented a few words in my time. Words for unseeable conceptual things I've noticed or sensations I've felt that don't have names. Urnk, fweelt, huphtink, and schwelpt - that's just four of them. There are lot more. I have them all listed in a journal. Sometimes I forget to write down what they mean and when I make that mistake it inevitably leads me to forget the thing I invented the name for even exists in the first place. I'll try and make myself clearer: Imagine you noticed the sensation of feeling at ease. You noticed that everyone seems to undergo this sensation at times. You start to recognise it in others, a gentle smile and unguarded body posture. So, imagine you decide to name this sensation of feeling at ease. For the sake of simplicity, let's imagine you call this sensation 'comfort', a word that, along with any possible synonyms for the same sensation, has heretofore not existed. Now imagine you write the word down. Now imagine that you return some time later to discover the word 'comfort' in the place you wrote it but you have forgotten what it relates to, what it means, and you have forgotten that 'comfort' ever existed. Can you imagine something like that? Well, that kind of thing happens to me all the time. Unseen things only exist when named. If you forget the names of unseen things they vanish from your mind. I mean to say, they are still there, it's just that you can no longer perceive them.

If we all forgot what the word 'comfort' meant we would forget we even feel it or have a need to feel it. We would live in near perpetual discomfort, only occasionally experiencing the unrecognised sensation of 'comfort' quite by chance. We wouldn't discuss it or anything. We'd probably never mention it. You might doubt this. You might say that we would eventually put a name to a sensation if it was something we felt. 'After all', you might say, 'we do have names for unseeable sensations and concepts'. You might apply this logic and say that it proves my postulation invalid. However, if you were to do such a thing I would be forced to point out that you seem decidedly underschwelpt. This would make you confused. You would not know what I meant but this would only be because you would not recognise the unseeable truth I would have described. You'd have no idea what I am talking about but believe me, your obvious lack of schwelptness would be showing and you would be risking absolute huphtink.

So you see, a great many unseeable things have yet to be named. A great many others have been named but those names forgotten or what they mean has been forgotten. We should really keep an archive so we don't become unaware of more of these unseeable sensations and concepts. Some may be of great significance. Some may define fundamental aspects of human experience. It would be a tragedy to lose more of them. For example, can you remember what it is to chizzet? No, I thought not. Sad really. I think it is high time we catalogued these words in journals - perhaps in alphabetical order with the meanings of the words written next to each entry. We could call these journals Lexiconicons or Wordadoriums. What do you think? Really? I think the idea is pretty fweelty myself.

I'll conclude by making a prediction. Have you noticed how the word 'morality' is being used less and less these days? It is, really. You tend to find other words in its place. Words like 'practicality' or 'realpolitik'. Soon we'll stop considering the concept of morality altogether and quit discussing it or aspiring to it. We'll forget that morality ever existed but, you know, maybe it never did. Maybe this is one case of a word that is best left to oblivion. Maybe 'morality' is just used as an abstract excuse for other things or maybe it's too vague and subjective and impossible to objectively quantify. Maybe we never should have believed in it in the first place. Maybe this word is a word for an unseeable thing that actually doesn't exist. Yes, maybe we should forget it. Maybe it's just a silly word. Maybe it's just a load of urnk.

WORDS ABOUT WORDS – PART TWO: WORDS WITHOUT MEANING

In the future, everyone will continue to use words even though they will have forgotten their meaning. This will be thanks to innovations like Facebook and superficial people taking over culture and and things like that. It's already beginning to happen. People are using words without knowing what they really mean. Take the word 'awesome' for example. 'Awesome' used to refer to things that inspired a feeling of awe, like seeing an eighty tonne blue whale surface next to your boat or watching the aurora borealis streak and shimmer across the night sky. These days however, the word 'awesome' is employed as an expression of approval, often mild, as in:

Man: 'There's a two for one on bottles of ketchup in Lidl until the end of the week.'

Woman: 'Awesome.'

'Like' is another example. Instead of being something you feel, 'like' is now something you do. You do it on your computer. It just takes a fraction of a second. It's a thing you do to oblige others in the hopes that they will oblige you in return by 'liking' something of yours. It's a kind of conditional quid pro quo transaction. You contribute 'likes' and collect 'likes'. It's similar to philately, only less interesting. Liking things, on an emotional level, is no longer relevant. 'Liking' is now an activity. Everyone is gradually forgetting what it actually is to like something but no one has forgotten that it is important to be 'liked'.

Despite the excellence of the above examples, you still mightn't think that people have forgotten what some words mean. You mightn't have noticed because, despite having forgotten what certain words mean, people still remember the facial expressions and mannerisms that go with these words. Take 'happy' for example. 'Happy' has the smiley emoticon face. Likewise, 'angry' has a frowning emoticon. People use these emoticons when they are online and facially imitate them in the offline world. The protocol associated with certain words is retained but the actual meaning of them, the feeling of them, what they represent on an emotional or visceral level, is long gone.

Now that I've pointed it out, you'll notice this phenomenon more and more. You'll get that 'in the uncanny valley' sensation. It's the feeling you get when you see a creepy mannequin or android that is just about lifelike but not quite. Near human but inhuman. Seemingly alive but obviously dead. It looks happy. It looks sad. It smiles at you. There is something deeply chilling and repulsive about the attempted emulation. You'll get this same feeling when you notice people using words they no longer know the meaning of – a deeply chilling repulsion.

Has a psychopath ever told you that they love you? If this happened you would know that the psychopath does not love you. You would know that the psychopath just needs you for some reason and that is why the psychopath is claiming to love you. The psychopath says they love you in the hopes that you will love them back. Like anyone, the psychopath needs love but, unlike almost everyone, the psychopath cannot return the love. The psychopath does not want the love of someone the psychopath loves, no, the psychopath wants the love of someone the psychopath needs – so they can feel validated, or progress in some way, or survive, or maybe even destroy. The psychopath is an ego without real emotions. The psychopath knows the protocols but has no real idea what they represent. The psychopath is just making use of these things. The psychopath is leading the way. Don't forget to give the psychopath 'likes'. You should subscribe to the psychopath's channel. Why not follow the psychopath on Twitter @psychopath #pretending. 

WORDS ABOUT WORDS – PART ONE: THE LONG WORD

(pictured: an extract from The Long Word)

I've invented a new word. It is an unsayable word. It is actually impossible for a human to say the word. This is because the word is very long. So long that I can't type it here, it would hog up loads of the blog. While saying this word you need to inhale but you can't because you are saying the word. You die from lack of oxygen before you get to the end of the word. Even if you somehow devised a means by which you could take in breath whilst saying the word it wouldn't help because it takes longer than the average lifetime to say the word. This is ironic. The irony being that this long word I've invented is a synonym for 'why'. You never get the answer. You never even get to finish asking the question. You may as well not bother and that's probably the point.