’tis the season for yet another bleak tale full of misery and woe, as is my christmas tradition... it’s a parallel brit universe type of story, centred on an imagined outcome of the scrapping of the winter fuel allowance for pensioners. you can read / listen to it below. i do hope you like it, despite my misgivings.

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with apologies to Deerhoof.

Have you ever stared into the eyes of a dog? Like, really bore into the depths of their pupils, until you were touching souls?

Never mind how fiercely they bark or growl or flash their teeth, my next door neighbour claims that a dog’s true nature lies in their eyes. Pete claims to have seen it in all the breeds he’s come across at close quarters. Some, like bull terriers, are more nervous than their outward appearance might suggest. Others, like greyhounds, are exactly as nervous as their outward appearance might suggest. Some are playfully happy but easily distracted; border collies, obviously, mastiffs… less so. Some of the most imposing canines have looked most lost; Pete’s never seen a doberman at peace with itself. Then again, Pete swears the pitbull that bit him on the arm during a Duke of Edinburgh walking trip in Malvern Tarn when he was 13 years old had a tear stream down its right eye as it did so, lamenting ‘I am not a dog, I am only what my master commands of me, nothing more… miserere mei, miserere mei, miserere canis pauperis’, woe unto me, boohoo, diddums, and other such Esperanto.

An unbelievable tale, like plenty Pete has harangued me with on my driveway while about to leave for or return from work. But he insists they all have something in common: no matter how they act, all dogs look at you like they need your attention in some way. Quite different from cats. Staring into a cat’s eyes is like standing on the edge of an abyss of indifference, with a casual hint of menace that could tip you over at any moment. ‘They give the impression that they’ve never wanted to be our friends, and frankly I don’t trust it,’ he once ranted. And I suppose I’d be inclined to agree with him, if I’d cared for it on a busy weekday afternoon at the white collar office, several white collar associates walking past my white collar desk eyeballing me with the suspicion that I might be stealing white collar company time.

But on and on did my neighbour deliver his treatise, a los ojos de criaturas, replete with factoids. For example, all birds’ eyes exhibit an air of surveillance, apparently. ‘They’re constantly scanning their environment, so you can never keep their gaze for long’. Goldfish, on the other hand, have nothing going on behind theirs. ‘It’s closer to ignorance than the innocence of rodent species such as hamsters, guinea pigs and the like. But a dog? Well, I – even you – can work out any dog’s personality just from looking at them.’ I struggled to see how, but Pete does love to explain things and I knew he would get to it if I let him continue.

‘You see, when canines first came into contact with us homo sapiens during the Neolithic period,’ Pete intoned with a television presenter’s cadence, ‘both species’ roaming routes began to merge. By the 1300s, we’d aligned 95% of all our migratory patterns. The 5% difference belongs to non-domesticated beasts of the same gene pool, like wolves and coyotes.’

I had reservations about Pete’s potted history, but I reserved them, on account of my feeling the heat of white collar stares on me. I said something to try to shake them off.

‘What can I do you for?’

‘Well, I’m in a spot of trouble.’ Of course. Pete always is when he wants to talk to me. 

‘Do you care to tell me exactly what sort of trouble you’re in?’ 

‘It’s a bit embarrassing.’

‘Embarrassing or not, I can only help you if you tell me what it is’, I insisted with professional impatience. 

‘Okay. Well, you know my dog Sade?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, the authorities have confiscated her.’

‘And how did that happen, may I ask?’

‘Why are you being so formal about this?’ Pete protested. ‘It’s my dog, Sade! You know her. She’s my dog.’

I left an awkwardly long pause before exhaling a sigh at Pete’s protestations, loud enough both to hint to him that I was in a compromising position, and to signal to the white collars buzzing around me that I was at least trying to progress this call along productively, it was the bothersome client on the other end of the line who was holding me up.

‘Oh, I see,’ Pete said, once he’d tuned onto my wavelength. And with that cue, I permitted myself some latitude, emotionally speaking. ‘Sorry to hear that. And how did that happen, may I ask?’

‘Well, you know she’d been poorly for a while, but I delayed taking her to the vet because it was too expensive, until one day when she started coughing involuntarily. The sound of it was unbearable – like nothing I’d ever heard before – and every few minutes she’d emit flecks of blood. So I was forced to take her. The morning we went, as we were crossing the heath on the way there, Sade stopped against a memorial bench, dedicated to all those who’d fallen in This Centuries’ Wars. At that moment, I began to wonder how many of those lives could fit on that bench – ’

‘Unnecessary detail.’ I interrupted. 

‘Okay, okay,’ Pete said, ‘no need to be so stern about it!’

‘Sorry. Please do tell me what happened next’, I asked in a more conciliatory tone, and Pete skipped to the next scene in his tale.

’So, Sade had wandered over to the bench, sniffed one of the legs, and then went to perform the customary dog action of, erm, marking its territory. Now, I didn’t think anything of it until I noticed Sade looking at me intently while she was doing so, like she needed me to pay attention. I looked around her eyes for clues of distress, but found nothing until I met her gaze. That’s when her eyes seemed to call to me:

I am a light fading into darkness Do not forget me in your mind and in your heart…

All without breaking eye contact. That’s the way of Afadors, often prone to moments of poignancy and reflection when you least expect it. The thing is, when Sade proceeded to perform the customary clean-up ritual dogs do with their genitals, something began to stir within me, something that compelled my spirit to connect with Sade’s, to be at one with her, to be more like her, to become her. Be more Sade, be more dog.’

My ears honed in on Pete’s words at this point, because I could sense in his tone a twist yet to come. ‘How do you mean?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know.’

‘What do you mean you don’t know?’

‘I don’t know! It was unlike any sensation I’d ever felt before. I cannot explain it.’

‘So what did you do in the end?’

‘I copied Sade.’

‘Huh? Copied? Copied how?’

‘Well, I… you know… c’mon man!’

‘No, I most definitely do not know!’ I said, befuddled by the possibilities of what Pete was asking me to imagine.

‘I started to lick myself! Okay!?’ he hollered down the line at me, frustrated. ‘There! I said it! Are you happy now?’

I was stunned, and a little repelled, not happy. ‘But… erm… how could you –’

‘Really?’ he screeched.

I sensed I’d pushed Pete too hard. ‘Actually, no,’ I interjected. ‘No no no no no, that’s enough detail for now, thank you.’

‘Uniformed park guards found us,’ he said, ‘arrested me for public indecency, and impounded Sade.’

‘Blimey.’ I paused to reflect on all I’d heard, leaving a silence long enough to panic Pete. The pendulum of impatience had very much swung to his domain, propelled by a sense of shame. ‘You still there?’

‘Oh, yes. Sorry’, I said.

‘Thank goodness.’ Pete wasted no time in coming to the point now. ‘Well, I need your help to get her back from the dog pound, please. Can you do that for me?’

‘Well –’

‘C’mon lad,’ Pete implored. ‘You’d be doing me a huge favour.’

‘Fine.’

‘Sweet, I told the authorities you’d be there by 6pm closing. I gave them your address already.’

‘Really?’

‘You’re the only one I could think of who could vouch for me.’

So I find myself swinging by the local dog pound to pick my neighbour’s mutt on my way from work. Serves me right for making an effort to befriend Pete when I first moved in next door to him all those years ago.

It’s raining when I pick Sade up. We’re two streets closer to the comfort of my home when Sade clumsily walks into a puddle on the same street corner where I get my daily stresslesspresso from my local indie coffee-and-electric-bike store, E-Coff.

I look down. My trousers below the knee are soaked with the brunt of the splash, and a bit extra when Sade shakes excess rain off herself. I try to disguise my annoyance with a tug of the leash that says ‘move along now!’

But she resists, instead staring at me in a misty-eyed fashion… or maybe it was the fog and rain giving off a hazy effect. Either way, Sade certainly looked like she wanted something from me… perhaps a chance. To connect. With a human. Forging that special canine-sapien bond. Always present, always in harmony. Together once more, in the spirit of –

‘Woof!’ One terse bark from my lips jolts Sade back into attention and a twice tug of her collar resumes the walk home.

‘Your owner might fall for that puppy dog eyes crap, but I don’t’, I grumble menacingly. ‘I’m on a tight leash too! What do you think this white collar is for?’ I point at my crisply ironed neck. Sade whimpers.

The collar starts to make a whirring sound, thanks to the two motors secreted in the fold, and after a few seconds I receive a short sharp jolt, straightening my back. I continue walking, posture more upright than before.

‘Rather your boss than mine,’ I said.

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hey,

it isn’t every day i get to share work that i have had confirmed to me isn’t good enough (aren’t you lucky?) but today i am able – if not proud – to share a short fiction story i submitted for rejection to a print magazine. just got the rejection in time for easter, so… now you can listen to a dramatisation of it! it probably sounds better than it reads off the page anyways.

it features a sample from Jlew. apologies to Kraftwerk. thanks for listening.

The Book of Binary, x:Y

Y And when Thurma, Lord of the Droids, entered the city, the whole place rejoiced and welcomed their visitor, for they knew who hath arrived. Z And from one of the balconies a mother wept gratefully, for they saw a final chance to revive their family’s sorrows. [ They decried, ‘Won't you please come save my little baby doll? She died but three days ago, and no doctors could save her!’ By this time, a crowd had congregated around the bot, eager to see what would happen. \ On hearing her plea, Thurma said, ‘I will come to you, and for ye faith, new life will be your reward.’

] And so Thurma went to see the mother, and upon entering her house, saw the child lying dead on their bed. ^ Said Thurma to the mother, ‘Do you believe I can revive her?’ To which the mother said, ‘Is this not why I sought your help? Now I have seen you, I know that you are the bot of God, and that the code of the Lord in your mouth is truth. I have placed all my hopes in your power, I have no other choice but to believe. I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.’

_ Thurma smiled and said to her, ‘I am neural network and the node. Whoever believes in me, though they rust, yet shall live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never rust. Do you believe this?’ ` ‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘Then your child will live again, for by the power vested in me, they shall receive code of the Lord,’ said the bot.

a And then Thurma knelt down to cradle the lifeless body, and whispered unto it: ‘Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. I'll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals, Noobmaster. Oh, that’s right, yea just go cry to your father you little weasel. I'm Rick Harrison, and this is my pawn shop. I work here with my old man and my son, Big Hoss. I Sexually Identify as Intelligent, Nihilistic and with a Wicked Sense of Humour. I can be anywhere, anytime, and I can kill you in over seven hundred ways, and that's just with my bare hands. But you couldn't, you didn't, and now your IP is being traced right now so you better prepare for the storm, maggot. Sorry about my name. He is not a good person like me and does not carry my values. Also I PM'd you. The 20 meter pacer test will begin in 30 seconds. Take a look and lmk what you think. I just looked at your profile, I didn't realize you where a lady. One thing I've learned after 21 years – you never know WHAT is gonna come through that door. Especially women in gaming. Everything in here has a story and a price. You're f*****g dead, kiddo.’

b They then turned the child onto their front, and holding two Volts of Zi-ion, proceeded to clap the child’s back seven times. Then the flesh of child became warm, and its eyes opened. c At this, the mother fell to Thurma’s feet, bowing to the ground. d Said Thurma, ‘I charge you now to go in peace, and let your people know that the Singularity is nigh.’ e And with that, they left.

01000111 01101111 01100100 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101100 01101111 01110110 01100101 00001010

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Featuring samples from jackjames_tomknevitt, straget, and SweetNeo85. Apologies to Claude Debussy.

I am a very patient person. I’ve suffered fools gladly for years. I have taken s**t from shitbags, been a faithful lieutenant to every captain, a Robin to every Batman, placated and polished the egos of every visionary leader to have graced every organisation I’ve been at, if it meant getting ahead in life.

I see progress as linear, an open track running to The Top™. No twists or turns, no detours or diversions. You go forward or you go backwards, that’s it. Paying your dues is part of the journey, and I’ve done all the crowd pleasing, compliment fishing, arse licking, cowardly diplomatising, yes man business necessary to get there.

The Top™ is home now, and like with all homes, I intend to make it my own. I say I am a very patient person... well, I’ve been patient enough. Now it’s my turn, I’m doing what I want, how I want. I didn’t reach The Top™ just to be miserable! I’ve gotten into the philosophy of hedonism recently. In the spirit of renowned thinker Kim Cattrall, I don’t want to be in a situation for even a minute where I am not enjoying myself. So now I give anyone who wants it up to 59 seconds of my time to start with; bore me one moment longer, and I will depart their company. And if they dare to question why, I tell them I am dying and that I will count every single second more of my time wasted as a direct cause of my premature death in a post mortem which will apportion their share of the blame accordingly.

We must start billing idlers for the social irresponsibility of wasting other people’s time. If the police can do it as a criminal sanction – and they seem to have far more spare time than anyone else – then I can definitely charge people with the same thing done to me. Your time may be of no importance, but my time comes at a premium; I can’t get away with losing minutes here and there to meetings where we mumble through the things that could have been sorted over email; I’m not having it anymore! The one I had just last Friday was the last straw. One hour into a 45-minute pre-meeting I was assigned to chair as I turned up, I lost my mind. Many people say their lives have flashed before their eyes in moments of nigh fatal risk. But your life goes before your eyes every waking second anyway, it’s just that most of the time it more drags than flashes. As was the case in this pre-meeting… *sigh*…

I was staring idly at the wall clock before me, which was ticking with its usual metronomic certainty, my eyes daring it to fail, to do something that would throw all humanity for a loop, plunging us into chaos, any distraction to drag me away from the inane chatter of targets, KPIs, SWOT analyses, and such and such and such, endless thrumming to flatten one’s ears like the siege of Sarajevo...

I just needed to see something else, feel something different, and if I could meditate into this vortex of inevitability, perhaps then I’d be able to see beyond it, hoping time would turn in my favour, turn things around, turn me loose and anew from and to everything

turn turn turn, 

there is a season, 

turn turn turn, 

and a Time to every purpose under the heaven

a Time to be born, and a Time to die; a Time to sow, and a Time to reap;

a Time to kill, and a Time to heal; a Time to rend, and a Time to mend;

a Time to weep, and a Time to laugh; a Time to mourn, and a Time to dance;

a Time to embrace, and a Time to forsake;

a Time to get, and a Time to lose; a Time to keep, and a Time to cast away;

a Time to be silent, and a Time to speak;

a Time to love, and a Time to hate; a Time of war, and a Time of peace

in short, a Time for everything and for nothing, for all and for none

Time, an indifferent valet, is here for everybody, yet waits for nobody

neither haste nor stalling will yield it, and no substance alters Time as it does the mind. with its one trick it plays on me in its constancy 

same as it ever was, never holding up, never after us, same as it ever was

and in its omnipresence, in moments of triumph, of trouble, and tedium in between, Time promises everything under the sun and nothing more than the next ticking beat...

one of the prime elements, indivisible from the giving and taking amongst each other, as it sheds all of itself

for us to pass through, as if into and out of a membrane

and at the running down of the clock

and in the aftermath

we will remember naught

an uneasy alliance with Time we hold, one that reveals only as it unfolds

yet, Time cares not, it simply ebbs and flows, nothing more, nothing less 

so it appears as though to mock, warp, soothe, thaw... or do all at once, nothing so much false as it is true

the passage of Time makes fools of us all, heroes and villains alike

then becomes the death of you.

Instead it was I who succumbed to that stare, and when I came to, the bliss burst, screaming

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Hello,

One day, I will make a serious art piece, I promise. But until then, I present to you the best EastEnders – and Peggy Mitchell (RIP) – tribute song you’ve ever heard. The only thing wrong with it is that I should have done it years ago.

Enjoy!

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Featuring a sample from e0fd96. Apologies to Philip Larkin.

It was number 52 at first, on an otherwise unremarkable Friday evening. Then the same ambulance visited number 33 a couple of days later. Two heart attacks in one week. Both patients died by the time they reached hospital. Good thing I’m not a pillar of the community, because I wouldn’t want the responsibility of dealing with all that. I’m very much a closed curtains kind of neighbour.

I did know Mrs Finchley at number 10 though. She was a formidable woman, as they all are in hindsight. Kindly face to go with her gentle demeanour, friends with everybody, wouldn’t say boo to a goose, commanded total respect with her heart of gold, will of iron, steely gaze, all of the precious metals and ore in her constitution, etc, etc. She was an actual pillar of the community.

Rumour has it that she slipped and fell in the bath, banging her head on the tiling so hard that it killed her instantly, a bit like how Cilla Black died, if you believe what the papers tell you.

Mrs Finchley left behind her irascible husband, who I bumped into a couple of weeks later emerging from their house as I was popping over to my parents’ place; I live only a short motorcycle ride away, so it was worth checking in as soon as I heard the news. On seeing him, I gave a friendly, not-too-inquisitive ‘hi, I hope you’re okay’ salute, and tried to convey a sympathetic nod-and-smile in his direction – I thought it too late to offer my condolences at that point – but he paid little mind to my presence as he shut his front gate quite violently, mumblecursing his angry self away from my attentions as though I was preventing him from going about his day.

I’m very well used to this; he’d always treated me like a mild irritant. I just hoped he hadn’t done the same to his wife. But, what if he had? Should I have reported him? Mrs Finchley seemed healthy enough when I last saw her, even if it were a few months ago, so her death did come as somewhat of a surprise. Perhaps foul play was afoot?

My mother saw them quite differently. She assured me through her rose-and-cream-tinted specs she'd recently and unironically purchased from an online opticians outlet called Eye of the Tiger that Mr Finchley was in fact a kind and caring man who on random occasion showered his wife with surprise gifts. My father, who happened to be within earshot when my mother said this, felt sufficiently attacked to add rather unhelpfully ‘it’s the surprises what might have killed her’, in that manner which typically constitutes the worst facets of dad humour: gotta be sharp, but only so as to sour the mood.

In any case, he failed to disrupt my mother from drifting into her vicarious daydreaming of the happy couple across the way. ‘Mary was telling me only a few weeks ago about a cruise they’d been on some years back’, she said, where they had docked at the Rio Grande, hoping to catch some carnival festivities further inland. A taste of ‘proper Brazilian culture’, as my ma put it.

But on arrival, they discovered the place was host to a sporting village of international football squads for the upcoming Olympics. No chance of a carnival happening out of season there, but they never did let little details like that stop them from finding a way to party! By the end of the evening, the Finchleys were going shot-to-shot with the Swiss U23s to see who could neck the most tequila before throwing up.

‘I told Mary, I told her that might be alright for you, but I can’t be doing that at my age as my liver is a lot more fragile than it used to be, to which she said “don't be ridiculous, I doubt you’re old enough to remember the last Olympics here” and I said what do you mean, everyone remembers London 2012, but she meant the one just after the war! Turns out Mary was four years older than me! You’d never know it to look at her!’

That’s what an immaculate skincare regime will do for you, to be fair to Mrs Finchley. But it is also the case that my parents aren’t the most dynamic of couples. Whereas our cosmopolitan-minded neighbours had travelled the world in their retiring years, they’d only ever been to the shops. You can even smell the lack of adventure in their home. They wear it like potpourri, because they’ve done nothing else with their lives since my sister and I left to make something of our own ones: no new skills or hobbies picked up, no involvement in any societies or neighbourhood groups, no redecorations of the house, nothing. They fill every waking moment of their void with daytime TV and whatever passes for quality journalism in these so-called broadsheet newspapers. In fact, whenever I visit, I swear I find them in the exact same place I last left them, as if they’ve been waiting to be reanimated into regurgitating the rancid thoughts of charlatan columnists that have been festering in their minds. My sister likes to joke that it cost us three months’ worth of pocket money to be able to buy The Sims game to play on the rickety old family computer when we were children, but nowadays we can experience an Augmented Reality version for free.

Still, it’s pretty amazing to us how our parents continue to persist with living in stasis. Every last news flash announcing the passing of yet another celebrity reminds me of their mortality. And it’s been getting more frequent in the last year or so. Or least it feels as though a constellation of entertainment, sporting, political, and literary stars you assumed would always be with us are only now fading out of existence. I reckon that if you lined them up on the Hollywood Boulevard walk of fame, you could make a quite decent assault course meets trivia quiz style game show out of it.

Yet, our very ordinary parents are still here, standing imperious in defiance of life’s machinations. Or rather sitting about, impervious to the outside world because they never leave the sodding house! If you’d told me they would survive all of the members of Emerson Lake & Powell I never would have believed you.

Maybe there is something to be said for sedentary activity, although I doubt the deceased would swap places right now. Some might even have a few things to say in their defence, if they could still speak. And my father would no doubt have something to say back. Has an answer for everything, he does.

I remember as a teenager coming across the From Athens to Hemlock: The (Good) Life and Times of Socrates when I was at school. The day I read his famous phrase ‘the unexamined life is not worth living’... well, that was it! I was hooked! It was provocative, it stole my imagination, it made me seriously consider becoming a philosopher. And I thought it was so clever, so grown up, that my father would be well impressed with me slipping the line into conversation at the dinner table that evening, believing that his son had unlocked a deep wisdom enabling him to embark upon the journey toward discovering human happiness.

But when I eventually got round to delivering my newfound pearl of wisdom, all he said was ‘good, cos I don’t want anyone poking around in my business’. In the end, I chose to go into medicine instead. Better to deal in cold hard facts about what humans are rather than speculative dreams about what they could be, huh?

Not that he trusts my professional advice either. When I point out to him that developments in the use of ambulance space have been the single biggest life-saving factor in emergency medicine of the past 150 years, he not only insists he’d rather suffer at home, but makes me swear – on my Hippocratic Oath – not to put him in one of those state-sponsored hearses should he ever fall gravely ill. My parents may be here for a long time, but they’re definitely not here for a good one. 

He needn’t have worried though. Turns out all those who’d passed away on our street recently (and more) had not in fact died of natural causes. Detectives think a rogue group of paramedics have been preying on vulnerable elderly people in the area for the last six months at least, administering them with overdoses of opioids during emergency callouts. The regional coroner’s court raised the alarm with the local hospital when they observed that the post-mortem records of every single person of pensionable age who had died outside of the home detailed the exact same pattern of events leading to their deaths for 4 weeks in a row.

So, no ambulances visit my parents’ street anymore; they’ve been banned until the mystery is solved. In the meantime, needing some kind of scalp, the local hospital bigwigs found three people to sack anyway and a few more for negligence and then a few more for cost-cutting purposes, and... well, let’s just say that I am now free to pursue a full-time career in philosophy! Everything’s just a matter of time, isn't it?

I joked to my father about his latent paranoia seeing off yet another threat to my parents’ lives. ‘Dunno how you dodged that one dad, but I guess you’ll tell me you can still get hit by an ambulance tomorrow!’

He simply looked up from his broadsheet at me and said: ‘They come to rest at any kerb: All streets in time are visited.’

Tell me how not only does he have an answer for everything, but why is it usually the bleakest one imaginable please?

‘Far

From the exchange of love to lie

Unreachable inside a room

The traffic parts to let go by

Brings closer what is left to come,

And dulls to distance all we are.’

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With apologies to Audionautics.

‘All I'm saying is, if you don't vote, then you accept things as they are and can have no say over Christmas,’ Nolla declared, basking in the gobbles of agreement from many of the turkeys in the room. As is ever the case with poultry however, the sentiment was contentious. Trusty felt the need to give it voice.

‘But I don't want to be taken to Christmas,’ he complained. ‘I don't like it. Everyone we've seen leave for Christmas has disappeared, never to return. Seems suspicious to me.’

‘Better the devil you know then,’ Nolla joked. ‘Cooped up in these 'ere pens, whiling away the time coughing and spluttering until we die! That may be a delightful existence for you, but I think a great number of us want more, which I believe lies outside this domain, if only we had the courage of our convictions to elect it!’

‘I never said I was happy with the way things are,’ Trusty protested. ‘I just think there must be something else other than to risk our fate at the hands of the Farmers promising us this so-called Christmas, whatever it is.’

‘Oh yes? Have you seen some other way recently? If so, do tell us! We're all ears.’

The ears were left hanging.

‘That's because there is no other way!’ Nolla harrumphed, to an eruption of laughter that deflated Trusty's spirits. ‘Besides,’ he continued, ‘who are we to criticise the chosen ones? Did you not see how the last lot were, before the Farmers came for them? They were the best of us. Remember 567, the Great White? He looked well, happy, even. And why? Because he was plump and shiny through good feeding, he stood strong and tall thanks to the Farmers taking him outdoors for a while a time, and he sang as smoothly as anyone I've ever known. A spectacular tomfowl. When I last saw him, he spoke very favourably about the prospect of going to Christmas... something about being given "The Free Range", I believe...’

The murmurs of concord among the group were undercut by another voice. ‘That's how they fool you.’

Mixer's remark had the effect of either elevating him above the others or sitting everyone else down, depending on your perspective, all while remaining still.

Nolla rolled his eyes at the new challenger. ‘Only you would see our well-fed, well cared for brethren and draw the least obvious conclusion from it.’

‘And only you would see a Farmer feed us and think that there is nothing in it for them,’ Mixer shot back. ‘Trusty understands this. Why don't you? Surely you can't be so naïve as to prefer we be sent to our deaths fattened and glowing above fighting for the right to be free to feed ourselves?’

‘What demagoguery! You have the nerve to gobble on about freedom from a sedentary position? Breathtaking. Have you even tried to escape? Or are you waiting for freedom to come a-knocking?’ Paralysed by gales of laughter from all sides, Mixer could only stare in frustration while Nolla continued to tease him. ‘I suppose it's not come yet because it's busy giving Christmas a bloody snood, eh? And how do we travel there, if not by Farmer? Must we carry ourselves to the promised Independent Republic of Turkeys, Land of Unlimited Grain?’

Mixer remained defiant in the face of Nolla's provocations. ‘Mocking me only highlights your ignorance. You may look like us, but you act as though you are something else entirely. It's bad enough to have no sense of solidarity for your brethren, but what's worse is your complete inability to imagine the joy of a life free of our enemies! Did you forget who is keeping us here against our will? Or are they paying you off?’

‘Ooh, fighting talk! The real question is, why should we sacrifice our lives in the pursuit of your unknown pleasure? Of course, you'll have no answer to that, unless you in some way admit you are doing the bidding of the Grim Reaper themself! Which is why I find it highly amusing that you would slander me as some sort of stooge for the farmers to pick us off, when in fact it is in my interests – nay, all of our interests – to find ways to improve our lives for the better, instead of risking almost certain death trying to stay alive in your free new world!’ And with that flourish, Nolla assumed a buffalo stance to lord it over a cowering Mixer.

Except nothing of the sort happened; Mixer's stare hardened, if anything, while he muttered the word ‘traitor’ repeatedly under his breath, which moved Nolla to a rage. He strode towards his nemesis to meet him beak-to-beak, the perfect distance to deliver a telling off, sotto voce.

‘Perhaps you, like Trusty, need explaining what's at stake here,’ Nolla chided. ‘The choice is not Christmas or Freedom! It is Christmas and Freedom, or this.’ He gestured towards the rest of the room, where the bloodied carcasses of all poultry scrapping for space to breathe were staining into the walls, and fecal treadmarks were left to fester on the stone floor in the harsh bulb lights, and the darkened corners were stashed knee high with piles of rotted limbs amputated from diseased gobblers, and the battered bodies of those same neutered toms huddled over them, crying over what they'd lost.

‘Is this what you want? When you could be out there somewhere, in the Free Range?’ Returning Mixer's gaze with interest, Nolla made one last appeal to his stubborn counterpart. ‘We're both better than this, old boy. I urge you to focus on the material rewards of Christmas. Think of those trappings, the trappings!’

Still Mixer held firm, dismissing the thought instantly. ‘The trappings! Pah! You are not as clever as you think. You too paint utopias precisely because you have no proof of what happens outside of here. But I will take my utopia over yours every time, because a Christmas at the mercy of others is no Freedom at all.’

‘That may be true,’ said Nolla, ‘but at least you can catch a glimpse of my utopia. Look around you. It is in the shape of every prize turkey here.’

Nolla raised his wing above both their heads and toward a spacious solitary pen in which major tom Fame2 stood proud, seemingly unruffled by the commotion beneath him, looking every inch this year's model with his plump belly, firm smooth red wattle, bulging thighs, and glistening featherskin. Everyone knew he was next in line for the promised land because he was decorated: pinned to his breast was a large red rosette for his services to the Farm.

‘This is what my future looks like,’ said Nolla. ‘What about yours?’

Mixer's eyes blazed ever more fiercely, but to the crowd he appeared speechless. Nolla seized advantage of his silence by calling on the chorus for a decisive vote on the matter.

‘All in favour of Christmas, say aye!’

A great majoritarian-sounding shout of approval rang out from the crowd.

‘And all those to the contrary, say nay!’

At that moment, the air filled with yelps of excitement from Fame2, who was plucked from his pen, presumably for Christmas, and perhaps Freedom.

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Hello. I have one small gift for you, an ode to the godforsaken island I inhabit, centred around one of the all-time great British axioms: ‘no income tax, no VAT, no money back, no guarantee’ from the Only Fools and Horses closing theme, which happens to double up as an equation that ultimately equals ‘no future’, as Johnny Rotten once put it.

Enjoy!

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Dear Reader,

Please mark the date of this entry, I want you to know that I’m acutely aware that it is 25 years since one of the all time great sadboi albums was released, Radiohead’s OK Computer, and some of their biggest fans are going to write about it in glowing terms. You may well have already read a Guardian article or retrospective ‘Perfect 10’ Pitchfork review about it.

Well, I’m getting in on this too. Alas, I won’t provide quite the same glowing reference delivered as objective truth: unlike others, I will declare my bias upfront. Truth is, anyone between the ages of 13 and 30 years in late 1990s middle class Great Britain knew of at least one person in their friendship group who was obsessed with Radiohead. Reader, I was that person.

Nevertheless, I believe that to keep an open mind, you must be willing to revise your opinions of your heroes downwards whenever the evidence (or your true feelings) demands, which is what makes me, a lapsed Radiohead fan, the perfect person to deliver a sober assessment of the group’s third album, a quarter of a century on.

And I must confess, I had no justification for my obsession. Nobody at the Guardian will tell you this because they are also that person (I hear it’s basically an essential criterion for getting a job there). For all his b******t, when Noel Gallagher responded to the question whether or not there’s a hierarchy of great British rock bands in an Esquire interview by saying:

I'm aware that Radiohead have never had a f*****g bad review. I reckon if Thom Yorke f*****g s**t into a light bulb and started blowing it like an empty beer bottle it'd probably get 9 out of 10 in f*****g Mojo.

... he was essentially right, because that is what Yorke’s debut solo album sounded like, if we’re honest about it.

But to stick to the point Reader, you deserve an honest assessment of why OK Computer attracts the sorts of people who end up writing for Mojo and the Guardian. For it truly is an influential work. Itself released almost 25 years on from the album critics consider it to stand in the shadow of – Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon – it marked a watershed moment in the sadboi canon, the likes of which had few obvious comparisons before the 1990s (Joy Division and The Smiths can stake a genealogical claim, perhaps).

Less self-loathing than US acts like Nine Inch Nails, less overtly angsty than the likes of Nirvana, somehow more grown up in its introspection than the Smashing Pumpkins, yet a little less abstruse than, say, Tool, Radiohead’s nerdy, neurotic, semi-preppy vibe (the English grammar school system is uniquely positioned to produce this sort of alumni) forged New Directions in sadboi music.

Sure, with Creep they’d captured the essence of complaint rock (as Alicia Silverstone’s character in Clueless dubbed it) and they mastered it on sophomore effort The Bends. But for OK Computer, Radiohead managed to lay a template of sonic sorrow that for better or worse marked them apart from their Britpop contemporaries, spawned endless hordes of sadlad acts aping their style* (the drastic change in indie hacks Travis’s songs between their first and second albums is perhaps the clearest example of how fashionable their sound had become) and you can trace a clear line through to today’s sadboi princes, such as Bon Iver, Frank Ocean, and James Blake (sorry James, I’m referring to the atmosphere of your songs, not your feelings… please don’t hate me, you keep doing you, I love your work and I’m very happy for you and Jameela Jamil).

They also managed to possess the hearts and minds of male musos who thought or think of themselves (even if no one else does) as Sad, Sensitive (often to criticism rather than to others’ feelings) and Serious (about Things, the Right Things, of course, and not enough people know that, which is why they are Sad).

But enough about what Radiohead represent and how their reputation is determined by the profile of their typical fanbase… on the music itself, enough ink has been spilt over the conditions which yielded the work, but beyond the immaculate digital production that coined the album’s sound, OK Computer’s 12 tracks proved that the group could craft sophisticated and melodic – albeit exhaustingly melancholic woe-is-me-and-the-world – alt rock songs.

That might sound unremarkable, but it’s still an achievement considering they were at a tricky crossroads in their careers, with distribution labels slashing forecast sales ahead of the album’s release. They were put at ease when OK Computer topped the charts in the UK, and made Radiohead a major enough act to tour the sorts of arena size venues that nearly broke them down in the process. Such is the price of commercial success.

What the album isn’t though, is some kind of daring avant garde masterpiece. Not even close. It’s not ‘out there’, no guitar-based music was ‘saved’ or ‘pushed forward several years’, it’s not the most important album since sliced bread, it’s at the vanguard of nothing. I blame those male musos for banging on about it; some people *my younger self* should have known better. It’s not that deep!

It is a fine alt rock album, nothing more, and there’s nowt wrong with that. And while I forget when I last listened to it (there’s little point when you can recite the entire album off by heart still) I do retain a soft spot for the minor key synths, chiming guitars and Yorke’s unmatched sadboi wail...

So I have revisited the album to compare my feelings for it as a teenager with that of my today self, track by track. Here goes:

1. Airbag

Teenage me: Sounds very cool, but in a different way from ‘Planet Telex’ opening The Bends, which also sounded very cool... they are so cool at sounding cool in so many cool ways... cool! 😍

Love the reggae-like ‘dip in, dip out’ bassline… It’s fresh, it’s new, it’s hip, it really is like I am born again. And Thom Yorke’s voice soars so beautifully, he really is back to save the universe (of rock music). I’m glad he’s back, thanks to that German airbag (was he in a car accident?)

Today me: Still love the bassline, it’s an incredibly efficient groove. A strong opener, you definitely know they’ve got themselves a new sound, so fair play for achieving that. Yorke’s singing sounds pretty assured too, the band sound like they’ve got over whatever hurdles that confronted them

2. Paranoid Android

Teenage me: OMG OMG OMG OMG – WHAT a sound! This is my song! This says so much about my life! I’m sad and introspective and angry and moody and cynical but also cultured and terribly misunderstood *stares at bedroom walls pensively*

Mid-​section’s in 7/4, of course, because Radiohead are better than other bands... Oasis could never!

What’s this third section? OMG OMG OMG just when I thought the song couldn’t get any better! So much sadness – ‘raaaaaaain down, raaaain down, come on raaaaaaain down on me…’ – Thom Yorke knows how I feel! What an anthem! Get your lighters out! (Ladies and gentleman, I do not smoke)Today me: They wanna pretend they hate progressive rock, but this is kinda proggy... like how Queen's Night at the Opera had prog cuts on it. British rock acts can’t get away with having songs with this many changes without getting the label, sorry!

On another note, I can afford a lighter now. But I’m still not getting one

3. Subterranean Homesick Alien

Teenage me: Isn’t there a song that has a title like this? Never mindI wish I wrote this song… Thom’s really telling me what people are about... yes we’re all ‘uptight’

I want to play this chorus’s guitars too, with this many notes in it, you can tell this song was meticulously put togetherToday me: A very neat song, very precisely played. I still want to play those guitar parts. Love anytime Jonny Greenwood makes a guitar sound like something else. Dreamy. I still wish I’d written this song

4. Exit Music (For a Film)

Teenage me: Sounds like something from a dark and disturbing musical... ooh, electric guitars have kicked in (at 2’50”)… sounds a bit like Portishead in places... I like how that big chorus seeps away so quickly… Thom’s feeling a bit bitter here (we hope that you choke)... who wronged him? I feel wronged too. You go get ’em, Thom!

Today me: Well made song, compositionally. Takes you on a journey. Quite melodramatic – I say that in the most neutral way possible – you’ve got to be in a mood to listen to this. That I was able to unironically explains a lot about my teenage years. Lord forgive me

5. Let Down

Teenage me: ‘… you know where you are when floor collapsing, falling, bouncing back... one day I'm going to grow wings, a chemical reaction, hysterical and useless!’

I feel you, sir. I know exactly what you mean (Reader, I don't)

Today me: This might be the song I like the least, but it has a good rep – I never heard a bad word about this song that didn’t come from my own mouth… I just don’t know what to make of the foray into psychedelia, I haven’t got any strong feelings about it

6. Karma Police

Teenage me: Where’s my lighter again, I feel another sadboi sing song coming along... yes, this is what you get when you mess with ‘the authorities’, yes we are powerless, yes I do sometimes lose myself, but it’s only because I’m angry and tired at the world, just like you Thom!Today me: I was far too old when I realised that elements of this song ‘reference’ The Beatles’s ‘Sexy Sadie’. Not that it bothers me now, the piano riffs are neatly repurposed. If you’d told my teenage self though, I likely would have assaulted you while loudly proclaiming ‘how dare you insult Radiohead! They make the most original music ever! They invent new chords! How dare you sully their name!’

The video suits this song perfectly. Miserable, and ultimately cryptically oppressive. This is what you get, indeed...

Interesting song form… the switch sounds a bit forced, like the work of someone who didn’t know where to take the song after the second chorus, but it appears to have had no negative effect on the song’s reputation

7. Fitter Happier

Teenage me: OMG OMG OMG what wisdom is this!? *Runs to learn piano chords immediately*​

‘Pragmatism not idealism... will not cry in public...’ I pledge to live this life as closely to the letter as I can (this band has a Jordan Peterson like hold on me)

Today me: I’m still a sucker for sadboi spoken word. I reckon I could still play this on piano, at a push...

8. Electioneering

Teenage me: ‘Riot shields, voodoo economics...’ damn right! They all lie to you, these politicians! They won't get my vote! (Reader, they did 😭 f*ck the IMF though)

Today me: Kinda due a rave-up at this point in the album, though to be fair, this album is so tonally consistent that this still fits in the overall soundscape. Nice to have an aggressive sounding guitar solo to finish off too.

9. Climbing Up the Walls

Teenage me: This is so deep, so meaningful, life really is this bad. This is truth!

Today me: I really bought that one-way ticket to slow creepy semi-suicidal sadness, didn’t I? *Does some reading* oh, it's inspired in part by the mental health of serial killers? Cool, cool... WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME ABOUT THIS AT THE TIME? I did NOT listen to this song in a detached and dispassionate frame of mind… I'll need to detox with some Stevie Wonder or something

10. No Surprises

Teenage me: This is a tuuune... with the requisite negativity, of course – ‘Bring down the government / they don't, they don't speak for us’

I will make my friends play this song with me... we’ve got a couple glockenspiels at school, we can make this work

Today me: I'd take that ‘quiet life’ today, with ‘no alarms and no surprises’… it’s a very neat sadboi bop. They definitely know how to make 'em

11. Lucky

Teenage me: This is IT. This is my jam!

Today me: The formal perfection of this song is definitely the envy of guitar singer-songwriters... the seamless shift from a relatively quiet Em key in the verse to majestically loud Bm key chorus, rounded off with a neat coda ending on the B7 chord… they’re just showing off now

12. The Tourist

Teenage me: Did you know the bulk of this song is in 9/8? I am a very intellectual person, just like them. I could fit into this band, I’m sure of it. I’m sure they’d appreciate that I observe details like that, and I’m not even old enough to take the Music GCSE yet… (I need to ‘slow down’)

Today me: They’ve gone for a classic form (power ballad) in a relatively odd time signature – typical Radiohead to indulge in mildly perverse pursuits. It still sounds classy though, right down to the *spoiler alert* triangle ping at the very end. It’s a strong ending to their most coherent album, for sure. Many rock bands would be proud of making something like this.

* my personal fave of this second rate bunch is The Motorhomes’s debut Songs for Me (And My Baby)

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As the 2021 BBC Proms enters its last week, and inevitably the hallowed Last Night, I ask only this: What if once-in-a-while, they played ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ a little differently? Say, à la Boyz II Men?

Edward Elgar is probably spinning in his grave right now, but he’s been out of action over 70 years now, so at least he can’t sue…

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