Message in a Bottle

“The psychiatrist concluded her evaluation: “I would consider this individual incorrigible. He has much hostility in him for being poor and seems to have an unending resevoir of energy. This type of habitual criminal neither profits from experience nor punishment. He can only work against society and thereby derive power, and he will always be able to find followers whom he can impress with his intelligence and destructive drives. He will never be able to work within society. Diagnosis: sociopathic personality, antisocial type.” ” – Joseph Wambaugh,

'The Onion Field'

It's already here, under the carpet, behind the sofa; the pedo, the bogeyman, those outlaws out there... Not in our home! Not in our English castle! Not our children! Send them to army cadets, think about revisiting church... look! Another royal baby, royal wedding, anything to distract us from the risk of the unknown, so we don't have to question our own comfort zone...

It's behind you! It's behind you! No it's fucking not. It stinks, it's right under the bridge of your nose. Here's how it goes: Mr Acceptable is Mr Scared, Mr Scared never dares to do what he wants, Mr Scared becomes Mr Compromise, Mr Compromise just goes along with everyone else, Mr Compromise eventually becomes Mr Very Frustrated who turns into Mr Bitter who sees himself as Mr Hard-Done-By, without looking their relationship to the rest of the world, so Mr Misinformed goes quietly about his business, piling shit on top of shit, never really thinks and trips on every obstacle that comes their way, then when their life comes to an end, they're still in a muddle and can't decide whether they're just Mr Ordinary or Mr Blind! So they die as Mr Confused! There is no moral to this short passage because Mr Mediocre never saw himself as anything less or anything more than Mr Ordinary so had nothing of real value to say.

We are slowly dying. Some of us are content and contain ourselves with punching out our own eyes, going blind and fading away. Some of us are never grateful, always asking why; stifled artists who want to see things a different way, like punching out windows to see if anyone will wake up! Turn on the light!

We end up doubting ourselves and our own assessment of what we feel is desirable. Glued to the spot, angry but unable to take action, forced to anesthetise the situation... self-harm instead of state-harm. We internalise the misery nationally, state of the nation, “it's your round John innit? I'll have another Guinness.”

Do we live fake lives? We wake up and the sun's shining, we are happy. No, wrong, we wake up, we take a happy pill, yeah now the sun's shining. We drag ourselves to jobs that don't mean a thing to us; we do it because it brings in the cash, it is the only equation we have worked out to survive so far.

If we crave violence because our emotions are not being fulfilled, we can have virtual reality or some other simulation, and there's war reenactment tailored to business-as-usual. We can see nudity everywhere except out there in the streets, in our day-to-day lives; we can watch porn, maybe we can have sex, but is that the only level of connection? Are people emotionally involved anymore? Is there any reason to be? Are people connnected, is there any community? Do we just sit in the pub or club and try to hear each other speak over the music and drunken voices, does it feel worth competing in the struggle to communicate? Where can we meet to try to build meaningful relationships, instead of shallow acquaintances, where we live so separate from each other in our propped-up fantasy worlds? Where are people in their thirties; too scared to let their hair down?! Given up? Sat in the corner snogging Facebook?

Banksy [ed. – quasi-institutionalised Bristol graffiti artist] may have said some people just don't get up in the morning, they just don't have the right trainers; so they haven't bothered to enter the rat-race. They ignore the competition. In the commerce of daily society, there's a lot of people that are seen as drop-outs, but there are some of us even though conventionally crushed we have risen in our own field, to claim our own little bit. Because some of us know what is possible, the days when inside us we stride like giants in the knowledge that despite of all their security measures we are still able to lift our fists and strike their apparatus... even though we know inside we are not giants. Maybe fleas... difficult to find...

(G4S) warning this vehicle sometimes contains ANTI-SYSTEM SMART ROBBERS