My friend's toilet looks like an iMac

Apple's latest 'skinnable' object of designer desire - The iCrap

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So there I was watching a TV show about the necessity to invent 'Dark Matter' and 'Dark Energy' so that the Big Bang Theory adds up. After that there was a crass show, done in the style of a 'scientific' toothpaste commercial, where an Egyptian tomb was opened for the first time in 2,100 years live on TV, punctuated by ads for ring tones and indigestion creams. The next day a car bomb exploded in Baghdad's 'Green Zone' killing at least seven people exactly one year after Saddam Hussein was captured and weeks after the insurgent-busting assault on Fallujah. The Israelis have spent much of today pounding large chunks of the Occupied Territories with gunships. Pilot schemes are being introduced in London to scan bus passengers for knives even though we are told crime in the city is falling. The charity 'Shelter' announced today that the number of UK families without permanent homes has doubled in the last seven years to over 500,000 without drawing any connection with the massive increase in migration into this country, which now has a population density ten times that of America and three times that of France. This evening I watched, in despair, a 'general knowledge' quiz show with questions based largely on recognising the theme music from a series of soap operas and sitcoms.
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And I'm going to comment on none of it. Not today. Based on an extensive statistical analysis of successful blogs, I have realised that this is not what people want.
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This is what people want from a blog …
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I've just downloaded Firefox. Ain't it cool. I don’t use Internet Explorer. I'm a rebel. Ain't I kool.
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My iPod is kool. I've just downloaded the latest U2 Album. They're so cool.
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My local coffee shop doesn't have a WiFi point. Bummer.
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My friend's toilet seat looks like an iMac. I took a picture of it with my camera phone. Ain't it cool.
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No. No it's not.
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There was a Steve McQueen movie on TV last night. Steve was cool. Unlike an iPod he didn't need an optional, mass produced clip-on facia to demonstrate his individuality. You could tell he was cool because, even though he was an American, he could handle a motor vehicle with a manual gearbox. He was 100% cool, even in a turtle neck. Elvis was cool, particularly the cheeseburger years. The Sex Pistols were cool. Riding motorbikes without helmets was cool. Lead painted toys with sharp edges were cool. The period 1955-1985 was littered with iconic and romantic people, places and things.

I look around me in the UK in 2004 and there is no cause worth fighting for, no dreams on offer that are worth dreaming, no public figures you can believe in and nothing on sale that will make people happy for anything longer than a few minutes; which is just as well because nothing is designed to last that long any more.

When my generation was nineteen our music was better, much better. We could read more than three lines of prose without being stricken by ADS. Our comedians were funny. We weren't the rubber ball chomping gimps of companies like Nokia, Sony, Apple or the major record labels. And we knew very clearly what we were angry about. If there's any doubt about what I am saying, just pause for a moment and consider the very obvious difference in auras surrounding the original Band Aid record and this year's ghastly resurrection.
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Over the last 20 years I have seen McCulture triumph. The generation that followed mine is lost, manipulated, commercialised, achingly unoriginal and completely without any hope or vision of a better future. And, worst of all, the soundtrack is fricking terrible. We now live in a World where 30 year olds spend their lives playing Grand Theft Auto every night because there's nothing better to do, where ever bigger lies are told with ever greater ease, and where lunatics like Bush and Blair can blow the poo out of any 3rd World country they fancy without any real opposition. It's all there. It's in the Blogs …
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Tomorrow I will take my medication and focus hard on being happier.
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