Merry Smithsmas!

Well, Christmas has come early. Yes Ladies, you can stop line-dancing in nothing but furry boots and dousing each-other in golden syrup (at least that's what I imagine you get up to when you're not reading my blogs) and gather round the monitor, because the Bunyip is back. And wishing you a merry one.

I do this sincerely. I like Christmas. That is to say, I like it a rational amount. I'm not one of these people who announce to the room that I'm feeling 'all Christmassy' in late November and keep getting up to put Nat King Cole on Spotify. These people are generally the sort who think show tunes are a good choice for a pre-drinking soundtrack and feel frightened when they don't recognise a song being played in a club, and clap and bark like seals when they do. Those people. But it's November. November is for human music.

In essence, I feel about Christmas how I feel about the Smiths. I'd like them more if other people didn't like them entirely too much.

Like Christmas, the Smiths can be responsible for a thoroughly good time. It took me a while to get into them, however, because for years, judging by the manner in which the name was uttered, I assumed 'The Smiths' was a codeword for a love egg that certain trendy people kept gently buzzing against their prostate. It's impossible to talk about them without encountering the kind of quasi-devotional bollocks usually only found in the context of certain faiths. Only a couple of hours ago, an article on an entirely tangential subject could include the detail 'her weekly visits to church were replaced by a new house of worship, the monthly Smiths disco in Manchester (the hymns are better, apparently)'. You suspect she's only sort of joking. In the light of this, you can't just enjoy the music; you must be 'saved' by it. This sort of thing haunts the Guardian's music section (often tainted by its presence up the arsehole of itself) like a particularly fishy case of the clap. One reviewer's nostalgic lookback at Meat is Murder from their 'Favourite Album' series contains the line 'If you were a teenager in the 80s, perhaps – what are the chances? – misunderstood and alone in a fraying household in a northern city with only books and records to save you, well, you might have fallen for them too'. Misunderstood! In the North! Drop your wilting marigolds and save her, Morrisey! Another, which doesn't even appear to have been prompted by anything other that sheer circle-jerkery, argues they made 'a virtue out of eschewing the epic and documenting in hyper-realistic fashion the rhythms and textures of daily life. In 1983, when the Smiths first started playing shows outside Manchester, to stand up for ordinariness – as they did, most forcefully, with their name itself – was a bold statement. It seemed a refusal of the sartorial overload and yacht-rock opulence of most chart pop.' What prophets! Excuse me whilst I orgasm into the Hatful of Hollow sleeve-notes.

Both these bugbears - Christmas and the Smiths - came to a head in November during the infamous John Lewis ad campaign, and for once I was thoroughly on the side of Saint Nick. After the horrid ad machine used a licensed Smiths song, the fanbase spat its chips. The Guardian immediatly shat out a fevered, apocalyptic response, which conceived of the song's use as akin flogging roman crockery with Jesus' face on it. 'Those left standing wondered how The Smiths, of all the anti-consumerist, anti-Thatcherite and anti-establishment bands of the 1980s, allowed a song so clearly about non-material varieties of desire to be used to part us from our festive cash.' (I'm guessing it's because they fancied the dollar, but who knows). 'That song is, definitively, not about wanting things. (Author hint: it is) Nor is it about the cosiness of family life and our fantasies of the perfect Christmas. It is a raw, painful song about alienation and unfulfilled longing, not duvets and crockery and baubles.' Well, that's one interpretation. As he never states the object of his desire, we're free to speculate that what he actually wants is a bunch of really nifty John Lewis bed-linen, making the advert entirely in-keeping with the Smiths' ethical standpoint. If they licensed the song, let it be used to flog tat. Who the fuck cares. You know why I like the Smiths? Because they make nice music. End of. Use it to advertise infanticide if you want. I couldn't give a purple toddler.

So, back to Christmas. I like it. I hate the hype and excitement surrounding it, but I like it. Not being a Christian nor an under 12 year old, it's hard to state what part of it appeals to me. I suppose I enjoy it in the sense of it being a festival to stave off the ravages of a harsh winter, as it was enjoyed in the past. As such I prefer a sombre, introspective response to festivities. My favourite carol - indeed, one of the few I can stand - is God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen because with its sonorous and melancholic tone it presents Christmas with an edge of 'oh-christ-I-hope-God-gives-us-a-plentiful-spring-and-we-aren't-forced-to-eat-the-children-to-survive-like-last-time'.

So, in this spirit, I recommend that you spend this evening quietly supping on a tankard of mead. Then, wrap yourself in a sheepskin, stand in the middle of the nearest field, and stare at the rime-coated horizon, contemplating a universe ruled by a vengeful God and devoid of reason and meaning. Then go home, baste your tits in Tate&Lyle and go line-dancing. You'll have a belter.

Nice Pube-beard, Monkey Boy

Money. Did I miss the meeting on money? Was there a class everyone went to, or an assembly, or a notice read out in registration or something? Was it on a Thursday? I could never be arsed making it in on time on a Thursday. Thursdays are the disoriented pensioner of the week. It’s easy not to give a shit about them.

But yeah, I've got no idea how money works.

This would seem a perfect (well, not perfect; I'm not that arrogant. Plus I definitely said 'Thursday' too many times) segue into a blog about the incomprehensible financial situation Europe is in at the minute, but I'm afraid I'm pitching my ignorance a little way above the 'not-getting-the-whole-Euro-thing' level. I don't understand money at all. Full stop.

Like, what is it? Isn't it all done with computers now? What happened to the paper squares and metal circles when we get to the bits where it is done on computers? Who pays the people who make the money? Are they even paid in money? If I judiciously draw a Hitler 'tash on the queen and print NICE PUBE-BEARD, MONKEY BOY in capitals on Darwin's head every time I find a tenner, how long before I'm arrested? And for what? Treason? And so on.

As such, I find it hard to jump on the whole banker-bashing bandwagon that's been rolling around for a couple of years now. I've no doubt the bankers are fucking us over, but all it would only take one twonk in a tie and a few hours of G.C.S.E Economics under his belt to ask 'but how are they really responsible?' before I crumbled and clutched him by his sensibly-chosen Marks & Spencer corduroys and begged that he asked me something about poetry instead. Because I've no idea.

All this means I've developed an uneasy relationship with money over the years; a confused hatred mingled with a sense of awe and love at its inaccessible omnipotence. Such as you might feel towards a molesting parent, or God.

I've been able to muddle by more or less unscathed by this ignorance, but it is troubling. I bet my bank can't even imagine the power it has over me. It sends me statements every so often, and administrative letters about online accounts and passwords and other crap, and I never read them. They send me forms and I never return them. If they suddenly announced a mandatory £1000 quid fine for anyone in the star sign Leo, for example, I'd just lie down and take it. For all I know it's a pretty reasonable deal.

That's the other thing about money; we never talk about it.

Talking about money is one of the few nationwide faux-pas we hold. I guess it’s because we still have a class system we’re all desperate to ignore, and we float around on the notion that everyone’s basically okay and poor people are only found in Charles Dickens novels and the smellier parts of Africa, but to bring up relative wealth and incomes is to blunder into an upmarket dinner party with your cock hanging out whistling the German national anthem. It’s just not British.

Now; I’m middle-class. Almost painfully so. I’m Pesto on Rye. I’m a Volvo on a sandstone driveway. I’m David Mitchell and Andrew Marr in a bath of pine-nut hummus. Despite all my efforts as a social pioneer and class crusader, I’ve ended up with friends both from home and at Uni who are, by and large, in a similar economic bracket. There’s a scale in there, sure, but not a huge one. But here’s the thing. I’ve no idea how much money any of them have.

I’m by no means hard-off, but not having a job, and having parents that have always made a point of only giving me what I need to subsist on (which they are of course entirely right in doing – hi Mum!) I can’t be cavalier about how much I spend. What I didn’t count on was the sheer amount of off the cuff expense Uni life would demand.

“£5 quid club entry? Of course! £7 for a student play? Sure! £10 for a birthday present? Why not? £12 quid for a place on a curry night? Fucking bargain! Tell you what, in future, why don’t I just shove all the notes in my wallet up my sphincter every morning and then I can just waddle around whilst you pick them up whenever they flop out! Job’s a good ‘un!”

I really need to be better at saying no to people, but it’s hard, because knowing I’m not particularly poorer than they are, to imply that they’re a frivolously privileged cash-crapper seems unfair. For all I know they could spend every holiday saving kids from burning buildings or tossing off pigs into buckets just to be able to seem carefree in term time. What we could do with, really, is a little more clarity.

In the meantime, I’m debating taking my anorak and my cardboard sign and shacking up with the big issue seller across the street. Even though I know that if anyone does shell out anything I’ll just confusedly stare at it like a monkey holding an iPhone dock before spending it on Tennents Super. Life is grand.

How To Protest (Do The Igor)

So I missed two months. Yeah. Do you mind if we just forgive and forget? Kiss and make up? Stop bullshitting and get on with it? Hear, Hear.

Something very strange is starting off in America. I'm not entirely sure, but it looks like...wait...people protesting against large corporations...demanding a living wage...free healthcare...free schooling...hang on, is this...socialism? And by socialism I mean, a vaguely left wing movement? In America? Land of the free, home of the Captain Crunch's Peanut Butter and Marshmallow Crunch with Free Handgun promotion? The same America seemingly poised on choosing between two Action-men and a female Michael Myers to be their next presidential nominee? Mind boggled readers. Mind boggled.

Yes, for the past few weeks, Wall Street has been occupied by protestors intent on chipping away at the foundations their singularly fucked-up nation is founded on. I've done my bit by sitting in my room, heartily approving, and occasionally raising my free hand in red salute whilst masturbating*. Then about a week ago, a video surfaced of an incident of profound police brutality - the unprovoked kettling and macing of several female protestors. Boo, hiss! Thought I. Then I watched it.

First thoughts; horrible, yes. Brutal, disgusting, sadistic, yes yes yes. But I couldn't keep my eyes of the woman in the centre. I mean, Jesus. That reaction.

Now, I've had the misfortune of being pepper-sprayed in the past. And I can sympathise. It fucks you up. I only had a small dose, and look at me. I did the Igor.

But watching the video over and over - watching her fall to her knees, flailing and crying like a victim of the rapture - I couldn't help thinking that it seemed to me like a good thing she'd been pepper-sprayed. I was glad it happened. I quite wanted to see it happen again.

Then, later, I stumbled across this article by Mark Ruffalo. You know Mark Ruffalo. Well, okay, you don't, but perceptive readers might sort-of recognise him as that-guy-that-was-in-that-thing-about-the-lesbinims. I quite like him. I'm looking forward to seeing him as the Hulk in the new Avengers movie. But after reading that fucking awful gushing first paragraph...

It was a beautiful display of peaceful action: so much kindness and gentleness in the camp, so much belief in our world and democracy. And so many different kinds of people all looking for a chance at the dream that America had promised them.

...I couldn't help thinking that it would be a good thing if Mark Ruffalo was pepper-sprayed. I'd be glad if it happened. I wanted to see it really pretty badly. To the point that I was considering setting up a charity fund to try and make it happen.

At first I thought this was just simple schadenfreude. But it isn't. It's because modern day protesters are fucking annoying.

Over the past year I've attended several protests (well, three, and one was more of a sissy march, but if I remain vague I look more hardcore) and have come away with little other than a higher blood pressure and a greater general contempt for the species. I've made my views clear on the use of violence at other points, so I won't go into them here, but anyway; here's five things you can do to avoid protesting like a dick.

1.) Stop being happy

Let me lay it out for you; you're protesting. Protesting is, according to Wikipedia, 'an expression of objection, by words or by actions, to particular events, policies or situations'. By definition, you're unhappy. Unhappy to the point that your sole objective for a period of time is demonstrating how unhappy you are. So no music, no singing (sober chanting only), no smiling. And especially no fucking hugging. It's hard to take seriously people's grievances when there's 14 year old girls clutching at each-other's backflab in the background.

2.) Dress appropriately

By 'appropriately' I'm not talking anything specific. 'Not like a twat' is your only real guideline. Here's a simple exercise; picture a 'protestor' in your mind. Congratulations. You've thought of this guy.

In a perfect world this exercise would be pointless, because protester should look like anybody, precisely because they could be anybody. But after decades of cultural reinforcement we've ended up with a protester stereotype. Look, I don't really care how you wish to express yourself stylistically. It's just that if you turn up to a march with dreadlocks and a keffiyeh then I'm going to hate you, no matter how much I agree with your argument. You want to change the world? Get a haircut.

3.) Be specific

The protests I did attend this year were all to do with goverment's raising of tuition fees and cutting of the EMA, but in the midst of things this was easy to lose sight of, because I kept seeing signs saying things like 'ORGANISE A GENERAL STRIKE' and 'ONE SOLUTION: REVOLUTION' and 'CARVE OUT CAMERON'S EYES AND THEN GO FOR HIS KIDS'. It's a bit like trying to advertise a new cold medicine with phrases like 'CURES BLINDNESS' and 'MAKES YOUR BALLS MASSIVE' on the box. If you confuse a coherant and pressing argument with vague and hysterical pretensions toward anarchy of revolution you're only going to rob the protest of any sort of clarity and force. Stick to the party line.

4.) Don't succumb to the narrative

You know why Mark Ruffalo's article was annoying? He's succumbed to the narrative. He's forgotten that he's a mere human being amoungst a crowd of other mere human beings protesting against inequality between them and a further group of mere human beings, and instead sees himself as a member of a heavenly group of benevolent meta-people rallying against the forces of darkness and money and other baddy type things. People need to stop aggrandising. There's enough injustice in the world without needing to blow it all up into some massive binary soap opera. Yes, there are isolated examples of police brutality that are appaling and need exposing, but the police aren't the long arm of the Establishment, they're just a large disparate group of people given the task of maintaining order with virtually no training or direction. If we paint them as faceless henchmen of the order, we look silly. Then they get away with murder.

5.) Did I mention the Kiffeyeh's? I did? Well, just...stop.

These points are important, not because they annoy me personally (always a pretty good reason in my eyes) but because they're some of the main reason protests get ignored and derided. If you want to get a point across, show some maturity. Otherwise people only really want to see you get pepper-sprayed and do the Igor.

*Just kidding mum!

Sod.

So, okay, I might have ballsed up a bit.

I have a bunch of half-written entries in the roster at the moment. Unfortunately, because I'm an over-privileged pus pocket, I'm about to bugger off for three weeks, where access to the internet shall be scarce.

I will finish as much as possible in the intervening weeks and if there's even a slender solitary bar of Wi-Fi anywhere I'll attempt an update. In the meantime, you can while away late summer with fellow blog-hog Dan Thomas. Or check out some Stuart Heritage trailer reviews. Or some pretty artwork by this bloke. Or some Gunshow. Enough bread 'n' circuses for you?

Expect a dirge upon my return. Demand one.

ADIEU.

(Bell)End Times

(Says it all, really)

First off, an introductory statement by Ron Burgundy.

For a while, that was my only grasp on events. The little nugget in my brain that was chirruping 'Oh dear, there's some rioting in London!' had by last night ballooned into a tumorous chorus of 'BLOODY HELL, CHECK OUT THE RIOTING IN LONDON!' Eager to counter my ignorance with a good solid contextualization I scoured the various corners of the web - news websites, Facebook, Twitter, even Myspace before I realised it was stuck in 2004 and was still considering whether John Kerry had a chance in the Presidential elections - to build up an understanding. After a while thought, it became apparent that their wasn't just one widely accepted narrative, but two - the Option A, the 'sub-human scum' story, and Option B, the 'fascist pig police' one.

Option A describes the charming story of whimsical, cup-of-tea-on-the-village-green 'Er Majesty's England suddenly beset by a vicious-minded underclass; thieving, slobbering chavs rising up from their vodka and tizer fugs, dusting cocaine residue off the sleeves of their stolen SuperDry hoodies and raining down on proper, decent hard working citizens. A bit like Dawn of the Dead except instead of brains they're after Xboxs and trainers from JJB sports.

Option B tells a different story; after pursuing a Cameron-approved policy of needlessly murdering black people for fun, the Nazi-inspired thought police have driven the disadvantaged and the ignored to righteous violent protest, and at this point are responding with violence of their own, except this violence is the wrong sort where it's sort of...fascist and, evil, yeah? And racist. Let's not forget that it's racist.

And you know what readers? I couldn't decide. In these confusing and disorientating times, I desperately wanted to cling onto one simple and undemanding explanation of what was going on, because it meant I didn't have to hurt my brain with actual thinking. But lordy my, I just couldn't make my mind up.

Option A - the 'Mock the Week' version of events - was tempting in its clarity, except that I couldn't escape the conception that those responsible were mainly young people from poor areas and backgrounds, and that dehumanising them is one of the reasons they feel such an agency to take the piss now. These events are shocking and harrowing, yes, but they should only open discussion about the role economic disadvantage is playing in them, not bury it in mindless snobbery.

Option B - the 'Citizen Smith' version - was certainly dramatic and inflammatory. Sadly it also seemed to be bollocks. At this point in writing this I'd planned to copy and paste some links to news items that showed how thoroughly bollocks it was - items about how police stations were being left unharmed whilst small retailers were looted and burned to the ground, how fire and ambulance crews were being targeted, how BBM messages were advertising it as a free-for-all pick 'n' nick, how people had to leap to safety from burning building whilst another man died of gunshot wounds in Croydon - but after a while I gave up. Instead, I'll speak to you Option B'ers directly. Assuming you can read, that is.

This is not a socialist revolution. This is not a national backlash against the death of Mark Duggan. This is not righteous violence against a fascist, capitalist state that has been attacking the disadvantaged. This is kids looting. It's kids using taking the oppertunistic anonymity provided by the sheer volumne of unrest to take what they fancy and do what they like. It is not just big business high street shops that have been looted, but small, independant ones too. It is not just police stations that have been burned, but homes. It is not a fat cat or a Nazi who has been shot, but an innocent man.

Shall I tell you what will come out of this 'socialist rebellion'? There will be a huge backlash against working class kids who are perceived as a result as lawless and mindless, which will result in more persecution. There will be a huge national debt as a result, which will pool money away from social mobility projects. Whilst big high street retailers will be able to recover unscathed, the small ones, your average working class ones, will languish and go under. The police will be given greater power to use violence against people and further oppression. The harder Cameron comes down on these kids, the more popular he will become. And you'll have a new wave of 'injustices' to complain about. That's what you really want, isn't it? You want injustice. It gives you something to post facebook statuses about. You complete shits.

So, after much consideration, I've come up with my own narrative to explain what's going on. I think you'll like it. It's called the 'Bellend' version.

Here's what happened - one bloke, who was being a bit of a bellend, was met in a confrontation with police, who acted like bigger bellends, and shot him. This caused a a bunch of people to get rightly angry, and a much bigger and louder bunch of people to become bellends. Soon, a load more people heard about these bellends and decided to try being bellends themselves, in new but equally bellend-y ways. After a while people who weren't even in the same city decided to be bellends, and to such a degree that everyone pretty much forgot which bellend had started it. All this caused everyone to get either angry or excited, and pretty soon, everyone had their own bellend-y opinion. The (bell)End.

See? Short, sweet, simple, and unlike any other narrative, truly un-bias. For though we may be rich and poor, black and white, young or old, socialist or Tory - we are all bellends.

With that, I'm off. It's kicking off down in town, and I want to kick-start the uprising against the government, and get myself a new telly in the process.

Better in Profile

There's been a lot happening in the past month. The News of the World phone hacking scandal has shaken the foundations of Murdoch's global news empire. The massacre in Norway has left a nation in mourning and highlighted the threat of fascism. The death of Amy Winehouse has cloven a hole in a music industry dominated by synthetic and cynically produced acts. Harry Potter has ended*. Morrissey is still a bellend. But all this is as mud in the eyes of my Facebook friends, to whom the only topic worthy of consideration over the past few weeks has been the unearthing of my old profile pictures.

I was at first glad of their rediscovery - without wishing to sound too presumptuous, they rank amongst the most profound and nuanced examples of self-portrait photography of the 21st century, and seemed to me long overdue critical re-evaluation and recognition. Imagine my dismay, however, when it transpired that their genius had been entirely misinterpreted; the pictures themselves being received as the mere awkward and embarrassing attempts of a 14-15 year old to appear cool and interesting. In order to correct this, I'm providing you all with a once in a lifetime insight into my creative process ;a detailed commentary of the photos in question. May you enjoy, and be thankful.

Exhibit A - "Influences"

Here I've attempted to represent the varied musical influences of a modern day teenager, and the way that the contemporary appetite for nostalgia essentially erodes the earlier cultural hierarchies of the age in which they were conceived. In this case, the symbol of high-culture, the John Lennon sunglasses, is combined with the comparatively low-brow symbol of the hard rock band AC/DC, creating a cultural synthesis that defies narrow minded attempts at categorisation that social consensus attempts to impose. The clumsy background choice of my little brothers wardrobe only adds complexity to this vision.

Exhibit B - "Appetite for Destruction"

I really think I've captured the intensity of the average teenager here - the brow-furrowed stare directly into the camera lens seems almost to see through the monitor and into the viewers soul. The raised hood symbolises my innate rebelliousness - despite being an item designed to protect the head from the affects of adverse weather conditions, I've chosen to have it on indoors, defying accepted attitudes to clothing - as does the background poster of Guns 'N' Roses' 'Appetite for Destruction'. I felt this album uniquely represented me, for in many ways I too had an 'appetite for destruction'. I never actually destroyed anything, of course, but my bedroom could get pretty messy sometimes, and on occasion did a decidedly half-hearted job on the washing up.

Exhibit C - 'The Point'

'What is "The Point"?', this picture seems to ask. Is he being ironic, or genuine? Indeed, would he be more hateful if he was trying to be ironic, or genuine? With the cowprint beanbag acting as a Rorschach blot test, the pointed finger seems to switch the agency of interpretation onto the viewer - they much project their own selves onto the photo, and discover what it truly represents. And it's in black and white, which makes it all profound 'n' shit.

Exhibit D - 'Pipe Dreams'

Seemingly innocuous, closer examination reveals this to be a biting satire on the pervasiveness of drug culture upon the modern youth. Note the subtle inclusion of the plastic 'Young Sherlock Homes' pipe from the dress-up box, and the 'mushroom' haircut. The brow-furrowed stare here conveys an accusation - how have you, the viewer, allowed society to become so debauched? The raising of social issue has always been an important aspect of my work. And the pipe makes me look like a badass.

Exhibit E - The Sunday Supplement/Book Jacket Photo

In many ways this is the most radical of my works and the one that best demonstrates my uncompromising vision. It amounts to a total subversion of the purpose of a profile picture, which is supposed to show you in as likeable and attractive light as possible, by depicting me in a pose so supercilious and hateful it makes you want to tear my kneecaps off and slowly feed them to me whilst listening to Cliff Richard's 'Millennium Prayer' on repeat and giggling. It's also my mother's favourite one. She must really hate me.

*

I hope you found this insightful. Up next; all my old statuses, or why I explained my life using My Chemical Romance lyrics.

*More on this coming soon

Condomnation

Last week I went out and bought a pack of condoms. Not because I was in any increased danger of getting sex, but because I was off to an eastern european country for a week and didn't want to find myself forced to use a bit of stapled pig intestine, or whatever the local variant might have been.

Xenophobia aside, I was also a little curious. I hadn't bought any since being at Uni - walk into any student nurses office scratching your crotch and wearing the expression of a man who can't cope with child benefit payments and you'll be pelted with free packets by the fistful - and at this juncture felt it my journalistic duty to document the process. I was the Walter Kronkite of male contraception. So, coming from the gym appropriately dressed in shorts and a Batman t-shirt, I entered my local Boots and got to work.

There's a lot to appreciate about condom purchasing. It's the only item of sexual health apparatus men have to buy, and thus the marketing remains attractively simple. Whereas women have to worry about absorbency and applicators and pleated wings (I know, I've no idea either) condom marketing hasn't advanced far past the stage of STOPS SPERM to STOPS SPERM, BUT BETTER, and thus choiceaphobes like are unburdened. A spade is a spade, and a rubber fun tube is a rubber fun tube.

Brand variance is a different matter. Arriving at the relevant shelf (in the act of which the shop emptied of everyone except disapproving-looking old women) I was met with a choice between a named brand like Durex and Trojan, and the store's own brand, which was significantly cheaper.This raised the possibility of a difference in quality, which wasn't necessarily what I was after. If I by own brand cornflakes, I'm prepared to accept that they'll be just a little bit less tasty, but if buying own brand condoms means getting someone just a little bit more pregnant I might not be so prepared to fly economy. Do they work differently? Perhaps the expensive ones stop all the sperm, and the cheaper brands simply shout demotivational slogans at them as they swim through. "Call that a tail?", "You couldn't reach the uterus with a Sat-Nav", and so on.

It's the same with variety of type. All the brands offered an 'extra safe' option, which necessitates the fact that all manufacturers accept that the majority of their products could be safer, which struck me as a little unnerving, since their principal function is the provision of safety. Such knowledge makes the purchase of the 'featherlite' varieties seem not so much risky as actively flagrant. I'm surprised they don't offer one with holes in it for extra breathe-ability.

I scanned the shelf and saw that Durex offered an 'extra large' variety, demarked by a fucking massive 'XL' on the front of the packet, which seemed kind of tactless, since it meant that anyone buying them would look like a similarly gigantic tosser. I couldn't, however, see any 'XS' ones, which made sense; but then I couldn't see any on the Durex website either (this is all for research, by the way). They seemed only to be available by special order, with patronising names (it's for research, honestly) like 'Little Tiger'. All this gave the impression that having a smaller than average dick is a physical deformity requiring specialist prescription, rather than a simple fact that just under half of the male populace are faced with. Not me though, because mine can been seen from fucking space.

Finally, I observed with some bemusement the flavoured and coloured varieties. I still fail to get these on any level. For starters, I can't see any reason why someone would need to taste the condom, unless they were worried about getting pregnant from oral sex, in which case they aren't the sort of person sex was intended for in the first place. As for coloured, I've absolutely no clue. If I had to compile a list of ridiculous and humiliating-looking things I've encountered in my lifetime, both cocks and condoms would make it into the top ten. Throwing a bright, garish colour into the mix seems like the worst idea in history. You may as well scrawl a pair of school-boy cartoon tits on it while you're at it.

Anyway, after much deliberation, I made my selection (Boots own, if you're interested, but I went with the extra safe as a happy compromise), took them to the counter, and tried to look neutral and aloof as they were scanned through. At the conclusion of the purchase all the disapproving woman left to harass a fourteen year old trying to buy a porn mag at W. H. Smith's next door, and I left, glad that I wouldn't have to repeat the experience for the next six years, until moths eat through the ones in my wallet and I have to buy another packet.