BLOOD IN THE WORDS

I've nothing to say today. This has happened before hasn't it? Nothing to say but still feeling compelled to say something. A bit like a journalist. Have you ever asked a journalist why they became a journalist? It's quite funny. You can see faint wafts of smoke coming out of their ears. It's one of the few questions they don't have an answer to. They have answers to lots of other questions of course but even then they are the wrong answers, which is fine because there are no right answers – not that a journalist would know that. I always wanted to be a journalist myself. 'Why did you want to be a journalist Mr. Fugger?' I hear you fart out your mouth. I'll tell you why. I always wanted to be a journalist so I could cut and paste press releases from PR companies and then spend about ten minutes paraphrasing them and then get paid for it. Why the fuck else would I want to be a journalist? It's hard to become a journalist though. You can't just wander into the profession. You have to have certain qualities. You have to be either thick or dishonest. These aren't qualities you can pick up. You have to be born with them. A big ego helps too. Dumb but confident, that's the trick really – like a politician. Oh, and you have to be kind of half able to write ...a bit. Only then can you be part of the vanguard of chatter that is officially deemed to be of interest. You go on about stuff like you care about stuff and then you forget about stuff because there is some new stuff to go on about. Then at the end of the year you compile all the stuff in a list. Then, maybe, you can get a book out of all the stuff you went on about. And then, if you play your cards right and don't have a mumbly voice, you can get on a radio panel or TV show and talk about stuff. Paraphrased PR company press releases will float from your gob and flow into the ears of the nation, psychically cementing a great big narrative that will harden and become fact. Fact, resolute, grey, bang your head against it, FACT!

You can also mention your favourite bands a bit.

After about thirty years of journalism your liver will pack in and you will die. Other journalists will write about what a character you were and no one will mention the article you wrote about sterilising the longterm unemployed. You'll be buried in some graveyard and a nearby yew tree will suck up your blood and bleed it out every time its bark is cut. That's kind of romantic isn't it? A fitting tribute. It'll be the first time you put your blood into anything.