SWEAR NEVER TO DO IT AGAIN, AGAIN

We don't make history anymore. History just occurs. It kind of spills out all over the place and we have no say in it. History is like a pint that gets knocked over by some really drunk fella. It lands on his lap and makes it look as if he's pissed himself. Sometimes it leaves a stain in the shape of a country.

Nobody is in charge anymore, for good or ill. It's all just cause and effect, but we're not sure what the cause was and we don't know how to deal with the effect. A lot of people are talking but nothing is being said. Most people are arguing about things that may or may not have happened and the factors that may or may not have caused these things to happen or not. I doubt anyone really cares though. Just as long as their opining is heard. As long as they are seen to stand out from the herd ...for whatever reason. No one knows a thing. We are all just caught up in a domino effect and we don't know who pushed the first domino and we can't tell which one will be next to go.

Take the example of ISIS. I really don't know who ISIS are. I don't think anyone does. ISIS themselves don't even know. All they know is that they are history, occurring. They are just delighted to be 'trending'. This is humanity in entropy, where being click bait is the sought after currency. ISIS are like the rest of us but instead of doing the Ice Bucket Challenge, they chop off people's heads. The Islamic Wahhabi state matters about as much to them as whatever charity the Ice Bucket Challenge was in aid of mattered to us. By the way, did we #GetKony in the end? No, I didn't think so. That met a sorry conclusion. Naked on the road, wanking and roaring.

We are all Jason Russell. Remember him? You probably don't. History quickly fades these days.

Future historians will look back at our times and try to figure out what happened. They're going to have to pick their way through an abstract mess. The course of history by Jackson Pollock. A tangle of twine and you can't find where it starts or where it ends. And what an end. Might this be the end? Or is it just a stupid transition? Maybe we'll wake up, like the pissed fella that spilled his pint, and feel a bit disgraced and look out the window and see a brand new day and swear never to do it again.

And then we'll do it again.

And then we'll swear never to do it again, again.

INCORPORATING ALAN

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My sitcom about a writer of superhero comics who aspires to be the next John Dee has been commissioned. It's called 'Incorporating Alan'.

In episode one of Incorporating Alan, Alan hilariously sets out to prove that Paul Daniels is not a proper magician.

In episode two of Incorporating Alan, Alan is unamused to discover his publisher merchandising plushies of one of his edgy rapist characters.

In episode three of Incorporating Alan, Alan struggles to find a polite way of getting his friend Warren to stop dressing like him.

In episode four of Incorporating Alan, Alan struggles to find a polite way of getting his friend Grant to stop pretending to be him.

In episode five of Incorporating Alan, Alan refuses to partake in a Q and A at a Batman convention unless it is entirely conducted in Enochian.

In episode six of Incorporating Alan, Alan is at loggerheads with his publisher when he decides to kill off their most popular character again.

In episode seven of Incorporating Alan, Alan kicks off his two-year stewardship of the Pokémon comic by placing Snorlax in Chapel Perilous.

In episode eight of Incorporating Alan, Alan is infuriated when a critic describes his new experimental writing style as 'Krypto the Super Doggerel.'

That’s it for the first series. I was asked to produce more episodes but I referred the broadcaster to the occult properties of the number eight, saying that any other amount would exhibit preternatural ignorance.

THE BIGGER PICTURE OF THE GREATER GOOD

Our goal is 'The Greater Good'. Bad things must sometimes be done in the cause of 'The Greater Good'. Sometimes acts are performed in the cause of 'The Greater Good' that are so bad they outweigh the good in 'The Greater Good'. In such cases, there is no contradiction because it is all done for 'The Greater Good'. 

'What exactly is this Greater Good?' enquiring minds might ask. The answer is that we do not know. However, this does not mean that we should stop trying to achieve 'The Greater Good'. Ignorance of one's goal never excuses a failure to accomplish it.

It is the same with 'The Bigger Picture'. Enquiring minds often ask us why we monitor the private communications of entire populations, or why we blackmail, bomb and execute the very citizens we claim to protect, or why we expose vulnerable young people to paedophile rings. We do not answer these questions. Instead, we encourage the enquiring minds asking such questions to see 'The Bigger Picture'.

When enquiring minds ask us what 'The Bigger Picture' is, we reply that 'The Bigger Picture' is a big picture of 'The Greater Good'. If some enquiring minds remain unsatisfied and continue to ask questions we have these enquiring minds discretely done away with and placed at the bottom of a remote riverbed.

Some of the most enquiring minds one could hope to encounter populate the riverbeds of these fair isles.

Remember...

Curiosity is not encouraged.

Obedience is essential.

Rationality is irrelevant.

Enquiring minds/riverbed dwellers sometimes point out that our ends and means lack sense and morality. Before discretely doing away with these enquiring minds/riverbed dwellers, we remind them that existence itself lacks sense and morality. Ergo, we serve existence. Serving existence in the way we do makes asymmetric sense. It is also the moral thing to do, asymmetrically speaking.

You are free to disagree, but we may have to discretely do away with you if you do.

If you would like to assist us in our asymmetric efforts, we would be very pleased to hear from you. You cannot contact us of course, but we will be monitoring your communications and certain to get in touch should we find your candidature fitting. Anyone can join the secret service, whether they would like to or not. The only requirements are a 'public school' education, a loose grasp on what it is to be human, a perpetual sense of paranoia and a penchant for auto-erotic asphyxiation.

You never know, you might one day end up being a member of our team. Just think, you could be the next James Bond, or perhaps James Rusbridger. It's entirely up to you ...and by 'you' we mean 'us'.

****

The British Secret Service, completely mad since 1909. It's for The Greater Good. 

Get the (bigger) picture?

HOME FOR SOCIETY'S FAILURES

A private home for the relics of the establishment. They wander the corridors shouting out half-remembered things and attempting to adhere to protocols from days gone. Doddery TDs roar for imaginary Ceann Comhairles. Their minds suspended in battles yesteryear, they emit non sequiturs. 'Don't interrupt me, I didn't interrupt you,' they protest to no one in particular about nothing in particular. Senility clutches to the remnants of instinct. It's an attempt to make sense of what never made sense.

A spoon is raised to Sir Anthony's gaping mouth. The most ancient of them all. Vacant. The train has left the station and the stop long since terminated. The comparatively sprightly Denis giggles and hides Sir Anthony's slippers. Then Denis can't remember where he hid the slippers or even that he hid them at all, so he looks for the slippers so he can hide them again and wails when he can't find them. His memories redacted, he can only be calmed by a little treat. Lobster bisque or something like that. Then he scurries to the corner and whispers legal threats into the ear of a husk that was once a leading journalist. The husk weeps and pleads for mercy.

Undead ex-ministers cut deals with dementia afflicted tycoons. Brown envelops are exchanged but there's only shit in them. Speaking of shit, along come Joan and Enda, collecting water charges with their bedpans. Buttons are dropped in with a clinking sound and they shuffle on, droning about the future of the nation and muttering some vague legislation.

There's a large fence with snipers all around. Whether the guns are there to keep those seeking vengeance out or keep those who killed the future in, no one is quite sure. Perhaps it's a bit of both. The situation is being contained, that's all that matters. That's all that ever mattered. Actually dealing with situations was never the aim. It was all just a perpetual crisis management game, with some money made on the side. The profits of chaos for those presiding over that chaos. They felt it their due. 'You'd do the same,' was their internal excuse and cognitive guilt inhibitor.

Their time long passed, their power in the past, they are now put out to pasture. Rendered harmless and bovine, they await slaughter. Night falls and along comes the Reaper. A soul is collected and another shameful cadaver is left for inclusion in the annals of this home for society's failures.

THE COSMOS COMMUNICATED

The cosmos communicated. It flooded his mind with stars and equations, with the formula for infinity. Everything was revealed to him. EVERYTHING. The reality of the smallest thing to the largest thing. There was no size. It was just a category, like the whole of time and space that stretched out before him. He saw the beginning of all and the end of all and he saw that both occurred at once. He saw things as God saw things. He saw that he was God. He saw that all was God. He saw that all was one. The ultimate truth was set in front of him and the intelligible was rendered elementary. The mysteries that had taunted humankind since its inception were solved and made known. The Universe had whispered in his ear and he had been granted the most absolute of privileges.

He alone saw all.

He alone knew all.

He alone knew what it was all for.

'Hang on,' he eventually said to himself, 'if I play my cards right, I might be able to make a few bob out of this.'