Give me my petty dictatorship, please

So the Leveson Inquiry is wrapping up now, and whee, has it been fun everyone! Anyone? No? Yeah, it's been kinda boring, only spiced up once in a while when they told us about something particularly vile the press did. I mean, there wasn't a single A Few Good Men reference. Yawn.

For an inquiry about the press being unmitigated assholes, the press sure liked taking about it a lot. In a way it made perfect sense. Newspapers are anywhere between twenty-four and forty-eight hours behind at the best of times, and they have just not been able to keep up with the frantic pace of the internet, hence the move to more opinion pieces. And also possibly phone hacking. So when there's an inquiry about the press, it's a perpetual story, of the press reporting about the press in one horrible incestuous ball of sleaze. Besides, the tabloids love an 'orrible scandal combined with falling standards, regardless of the source.

Then the covering got quiet as they stopped talking to people who couldn't remember anything at all ever, I wasn't there, I was sick that day, the dog did it, honest – and the press moved onto more pressing matters, like I'm A Celebrity and X Factor. I mean, they're clearly both being fixed! And there's breasts! IN A BIKINI! IT'S VITALLY IMPORTANT WE TALK ABOUT THIS WHILST SHOWING PICTURE AFTER PICTURE OF THESE BIKINI ENCASED BREASTS.

Then it exploded again, because it was time for the inquiry's recommendations, and the press realised, oh shit, we could get our balls legislated off here. And so we've had to deal with page after page of pleas, whining and tub-thumping, decrying the death of free speech. Hey, look, freedom of speech is one thing, but you have to realise; we left it up to you guys to regulate yourselves, and you've sort of done a terribly shitty job of that.

The inquiry basically called for a new regulator backed by law, while mentioning that, whilst we're at it, let's say it nice and loud, that any new laws shouldn't give any government, let alone Parliament, any ability to interfere with what newspapers publish. After all, we have super-injunctions for that. There's been some predictable panic – the press has been free up until now, but I keep flip-flopping where I should be on this fence. On the one hand, the ability to call Nick Clegg the Traitor King and publicly shit on him and all he stands for is awesome. Also, blah blah blah, ability to freely investigate and expose any wrong doing, blah. On the other hand, dear god are tabloids full of utter shite. Biased, racist, vile hate from so many of them. But as much as that annoys me, what annoys me most is the stupidity. They're just dumb for the most part. For some reason, such blatant joy in stupidity and anti-intellectualism annoys me as much as hateful filth seeping from every pore.

But perhaps now I can be an assistance to them. Let me be the first to volunteer to sit on this to-be-created regulatory board. I will be fair. I will be non-biased. I will be pffffft. I couldn't keep a straight face typing that. No. Fuck it. I'll be honest.

Let me be on this board, and I will be a petty tyrant.

It'll be fucking awesome. Let's look at an average day in the office.

'Whatcha hiding there? Come on, hand it over, ah, AH! What's that? That's a celebrity story! I knew it!'

'It's a perfectly fair and valid-'

'No. Nope. No celebrity stories. They bore me. How many pictures do we need of Tom Cruise's daughter? Getting kinda creepy now. Anyway, who cares? I don't. And as far as I'm concerned, if I don't care, no-one does. Look, talk about the Mars rover for a bit. They said they found something for the history books. Speculate. And you said I wouldn't let you speculate anything. And where the hell are you going?

'Well, now that we're done-'

'Oh, we ain't done. This story on the NHS?'

'It's an exposure piece-'

'Ah, no. It's a fear-mongering piece. Look at that language. The revulsion. That lack of factual accuracy. I don't like it. If I look at it real close, it's a non-story you decided that under a weird twisted light was somehow a story about benefit scroungers killing babies. I don't even... ugh. And stop talking about what gives you cancer. I've warned you; only talk about statistics if you're going to explain the sample sizes and relative/absolute risk increases, you dick. Daily Mail you sit the hell right down now!

'Uh-'

'I said no LittleJohn. I fucking warned you about this. I ran out of red ink crossing out every piece of hate he wrote, so I'm just crossing out his name for now. Also remember that front page piece you wrote? Yesterday? Illegal immigrants doing... doing... oh what was it now?'

'Those scum were-'

'Ah, yes, I chased up on your source on that one. Which turned out to be the work experience boy typing on his lunch break. You lied. Again. Front page apology, same font size as before. You'll find plenty of time to correct it on the Naughty Step. Express? Telegraph?'

'Yes?'

'A Princess Diana story? Really? What part of 'rest in peace' do you not get? Just... just drop it. Please. No wait, I'm in charge. Drop it or I'll noogie you. Guardian? Where are you? Ah. How are your subscribers doing?

'Not so well. My mum's sick and didn't pick up a paper, so our revenue was down a third today.'

'Sucks. Anyway, F7. That's the button on your keyboard I want you to remember to press. It's a spell check. Use it. The Sun?

'Yes?'

'I saw your page 3 girl, and one suggestion?'

'...You want me to drop it?'

'What? No. I want you to stop those stupid little 'what the breasts say' thing you do. No one cares what words you put in their mouths. The Times? I'm going to be honest here. Your paper is massive and colossally boring, I spend like maybe ten minutes trying to get through an article when I had no idea what was it about, so I'm assuming it's all fine. I mean, Christ, I don't wanna read it. Huh.Hmm. Oh dear. What did I hit you for yesterday Mirror?'

'Being offensively stupid, sir.'

'Yeah. I did. Yet I couldn't muster the effort to read The Times. Okay, fine, you get to hit me back. No. Wait. Belay that. Bad idea. Instead, you get one pass at being offensively stupid. Eh, let's be generous. You all get one pass. One. Just one.'

Aren't power fantasies fun? Fair and balanced. In that I'll at least admit to being anything but that off the bat, and constantly.

Cactus to nightmare. It makes sense in context.

Returning from Tenerife I bought home three little cacti, whom I've yet to name, but I got a serious feeling that one of them is a Bertie. After a brief period sitting on the windowsill, it was decided to move the little buggers because with every twitch of the curtain they'd snag it and go leaping off the windowsill with glee abandon, spraying the floor with dirt. With no where else to adequately place them for the time being, they sit next to my deodorant.

It is, without doubt, a decision I am going to regret in the future.

I am fully aware that I am absolutely useless in the mornings - to the point of non-function. I once spent a good half hour looking for said deodorant when I had inadvertently moved it to my computer desk from it's usual position: a grand total of eighteen inches of movement. But it wasn't where it was meant to be! Sorcery! So I know, I know, I know, that at some point... Some not too distance point... Some not too distant point in the near future that I will stagger from my room in the early hours... shower, half dress, fall across the room... and grab the wrong thing and vigorously apply a cactus to my bare armpit.

It is only a matter of time.

Of course, you all realise that the simple solution is to a.) not be such a cockwomble, or b.) simply move the bloody cacti, but you forget: I am a royal cockwomble and will be addressed formally so at all times. Secondly, there is just no where else to put them. I spent literally one, maybe two minutes looking for an alternative space. That's a potential one hundred and twenty seconds just looking. For such a manly man that I am that is an incredibly long time spent just looking. Now they must remain there for all time. The domestic equivalent of a red coffee button next to the red nuke button.

My one spark of hope was that the fact that I didn't do so this morning may mean that this royal cockwomble has hope of abdicating into mere common nobility. In that I mean I grow to be less of an idiot. To not be one at all is either a miracle, an evil clone, aforementioned sorcery or a combination thereof.

Because this morning I awoke from such a nightmare that I'm impressed I got to work dressed at all, let alone correctly. I spent the first half of the morning so desperate for work to keep my mind of what I had dreamt that a stack of laptops to gut for parts was a godsend; simple work for the hands, yet just complicated enough to require constant attention because there's a fucking screw still in there somewhere. Somewhere. Look, it's gripping right here but there's no... fucking... screw. Maybe it's a clip? From what angle do I push? Ah! It is a screw! The fucker was underneath the sticker all along. Cunning bastard.

Because it turned out what my brain wanted this morning was a departure from the norm. Somewhere along the line, it went, 'God, mere horror. So bored of that. Huh, what's that? Physiological terror? Ohhhh. That sound's nasty. Let's do that.'

I mentioned this before, and I'll say it again; my brain can be quite the dick sometimes.

In my dream, I spent three weeks at a place that was a curious amalgamation of my university and college. It had the full and varied timetables of college (I had maths. The horror.) But it also had the scale and the communists of university.

(Small tangent here: America, stop using the word 'socialist' as an equivalent to the word 'evil.' Look. I knew communists. I've read the Communist Manifesto. Amongst the 'not work your employees to death' angle I approve of, I found it hard to take totally seriously 'cos of that one paragraph that denounced the bourgeois for constantly wanting to prostitute out their daughters and wives, and I could never look past that hilarious nit pick. Just... look. Let your children go to university, declare themselves communists, nod sagely at them... and fifteen minutes after leaving university and they discover the need to get employed for all the nice things materialism offers they'll get over it. It's just a phase. Except for the hardcore ones, and honestly, them seem to put themselves into a cycle of perpetual university course taking and thus can be safely ignored.)

Yes, I understand being at this uni/college combo isn't quite 'nightmare' territory... but. I wasn't going back to university. According to dream logic, I had gone to university again. A new one. Right now.

I had left behind my responsibilities, my job, my rent payments (which I was aware were due and I wasn't earning anything to pay it) as well as my family and friends. I had left my girlfriend, whom I've lived with for over a year now, to only see every fortnight, and then not at all. In the three weeks I was there, I spoke to no people. I went to no lectures or seminars. I couldn't bring myself to look at my timetable, so I was constantly uncertain where I should be. Three weeks. Everyday I got up. Wandered the campus. Went back to bed. Everyday I had the knowledge that I wasn't doing the work I needed to do. I wasn't learning what I needed to learn. I was wasting the money I spent to get there, and debts were piling up at home that I could no longer pay. I didn't have the friends I met from when I first went to university, I was completely isolated from everyone I cared about. I was completely alone, of my own doing, gnawed at by the guilt of not doing any work, not able to muster the will to try, and that most damningly of all; I'd already been to university once. That even if I did this work it was utterly pointless, as I'd only achieve what I had already accomplished. I had made a terrible decision, and in keeping to it, I was completely and utterly wasting my life.

Also there was lightning surrounding the campus so I couldn't leave.

Did I not mention the lightning? Yeah, that's weird, but I had enough reasoning whilst asleep to note the redundancy of my situation and my failing of my responsibilities but not enough to question the lightning. Dreams, right?

I was so depressed in this nightmare I can see on waking that I was getting to the point of suicidal. Now here's the thing – have you ever dreamed someone you know has died? That you have done something truly awful? When you wake up, even though it was a dream, it wasn't real, you know that, you're still sad throughout the day? I spent the morning with a whole heaping dose of the '|I have made a terrible mistake, my life is pointless' and Je-suss, where the fuck did that come from? I haven't suddenly signed up for uni for a second time. I haven't made that mistake, it never happened. I don't feel like I'm wasting my life at all (at least not to that strong degree.) But I did this morning. It didn't go away. For something I didn't even actually do, I felt completely dejected.

Bwwaaaaaah. Thanks brain. Thanks for that. That's what I wanted. Not a fantastical dream, hanging out with Captain Sisko while we battle Daleks in the fields of Middle-Earth while Miracle of Sound plays Sovngarde Song in the background? Not an intensely realistic sex dream with, I don't know, ANY of the many pornstar's I've seen in porn cluttering around my brain, presumably saved over the 'Advanced Mathematics' section? Wanna pick half a dozen, make it a party? No? Look, I'd settle for a dream of me actually defeating my younger brothers in any video game – intentionally - just once? No? Not once? No? You want me to spend some of the day questioning my point of my worthless existence until I stop fixating on it and realise that's not me at all? That's... that is what you want to do? Really. Really? Really? Captain Sisko just started punching Daleks out here and lo and behold, a support squad of pornstars are charging from the north on the dawn of the third day as the riff kicks in! No? No? But... but... oh, come on!

Fine. Personal self-inflicted psychological torture it is, then.

You know what? Fuck you brain. I'm getting a cider and watching an Uwe Boll film tonight.

That'll learn ya'.

Prick.

Idle hands make idle posts

I have had so little I could muster myself into talking about recently. There was the woman in Ireland dying over being denied an abortion... and I decided that, no, I don't want to talk about that, because that's really depressing. There's still the Saville story doing it's rounds – they've arrested his old driver, which sounds understandable because I read an article where he talked about being told to knock off for a couple of hours every time Jimmy got a young girl into the back of his van. Way to appear innocent, numbnuts. Also that story is depressing. Let's check the news and oh no. In fact, many stories are depressing. Please can someone start a news channel just dedicated to reporting nice things all day?

So as I was thinking recently, I realised something. As, you know, hardly anyone reads this blog, I can talk about whatever I like with barely any repercussions. So today, I will start by discussing... the police commissioner elections!

Okay, so the potential repercussions of this topic avoided... was less about the controversy and it's fallout and more about having avoided people leaving on mass in boredom because there is no mass of people in the first place.

Sort of how Norton Antivirus prevents you from getting virus's from the internet by preventing you from getting on the internet.

So the police commissioner elections were today, and if that's new to you, well, that's kinda not your fault. On the face of it I think it's a pretty bloody stupid idea. Call me weird, but I kinda like the idea that cops are, ya know, cops. I don't want political cops. Nope. It's bad enough that we have the blurring of lines when it comes to cops and actual politicians, where they tread lightly and with a lot of deference, and the 'Well, we are investigating you, and you'll be doing us a big favour sir if you come to the station now – oh, yes, we can wait. We'll come tomorrow. Please don't destroy any evidence in the interim sir,' we get whenever have to sheepishly get up to arrest an MP. Now that 'plebgate' row may have shaken things up a bit, (and certainly the ill-feeling over harsh budget cuts hasn't helped) but if I call back to my praise-heaped review of Snuff – I really like a cop modelled on Sam Vimes. He'll arrest the bloody Patrician, his tyrannical leader. He'll arrest the gods for doing it wrong. True equality; everyone may get a truncheon to the head in the course of conducting inquires.

So a person controlling cops playing party politics fills me with dread. But hey, it's happening, it's happened, deal with it. But as I went to vote today, I noticed something. No one was there.

There were two people manning my station, the public hall, and a quick inquiry told me that out of fifteen hundred on the electoral register only eighty three had turned up. They said they were hopeful more would arrive as work ended (I voted at half five, so a good five and a half hours left to go) but they didn't deliver that news with much conviction. One of the major problems was firstly: no one cares. Regardless who is voted in, it is generally believed that there'll be little change. The second problem is that no one knows anything about this damn election, or the people involved, or that it's happening. Some of the most politically minded people I know were scrabbling for any information on this election, when I'm used to them being a fountain of politically informed bullcrap.

This is kinda a problem. Firstly, it does matter. On my slate, let's pick on two candidates; one believes that being a mother solely qualifiers her in some away, the other is a member of the English Democrat thing, which can basically be summed up as 'ignorant racist bellends.' (Ahem. I should of prefixed that with something safe, like, 'in my opinion are...')

So there. Slow claps all round there. Secondly, this thing has barely been promoted. The only information I got was a link provided on my polling card. That was it. No radio announcements, no adverts, no leaflets, or at least none that really penetrated. This is certainly a problem because we still have a generation or so of people with little to no access or understanding of computers and this really puts them in a lurch. At the polling station they mentioned many people aged fifty and above – one of the most active voting groups, mind – expressing their frustrations over how little they knew and how little this election had been promoted. Clearly they weren't turning up much in response. Hell, the only things I saw in the tabloids, our news for the people! ...was a begging plea of The Daily Mirror to vote Labour candidates to try and protect coppers form another round of budget cuts. Which was done today. On the election day. So if you weren't registered you're too late now.

Well done Daily Mirror. Way to push a campaign there. Slow claps all round.

For my votes, I chose a retired cop and then the public-cop liaison person, who were incidentally the most qualified candidates by a considerable long shot, and the independent candidates to boot. Yay! Let coppers be coppers! Also loving the way this was not done by First Past The Post. So it's not good enough for party leader elections and now our police commissioner elections, but it's still good enough for our general elections? Heh. Thank you Clegg, Traitor King. I'm still cranky over that, but don't mind me; if you disagree, take comfort we won't be discussing electoral reform seriously for another thirty/forty years. Deep joy.

It seems like our government pushed ahead with this thing... before remembering they don't really like change. But they were committed now, so they made a token effort. Should have done a Clegg and just ignored what they said before (Boom! Fuck you, Clegg! I've decided you're my personal running joke now.) Hell, my experience with low turnout doesn't appear to be an alien one. With such low turnout, will these commissioners have any justifiable power? Yeah, getting twenty percent of a ten percent turnout; they'll have coppers falling over themselves desperate to listen to every word they have to say.

So, in summary, pointless dead election for pointless position is pointless. On the plus side, Three Mobile got back to me about my open letter! Email. Whatever. Okay, so it wasn't their CEO writing back to me. Okay, so they misspelled my name. And they asked me to give their customer service a call... so they either clearly didn't get the point I was trying to make or they believe I have a masochist fetish.

But! Progress! I have wasted someone's time!

Just like I did yours.

Sorry about that.

Open Letter to David Dyson, CEO of Three Mobile

Oh god. My week has been beset by a first world problem.

Mobile phone contract renegotiation.

Brrr. Needless to say that my week has been full of useless calls to bloody useless customer services over and over again, in a cornucopia of failure and misery. Three Mobile. You. Yoooooou. I call you to account. Your useless, thieving, lying... actually, no. I can do better. You see, when venting on Twitter, a lovely account CEOemail gave me, of all things, the email to Three Mobile's CEO.

He may have nothing to do with my experience's with his shoddy company. But his customer service wasted a hell of a lot of my time. So. I'm going to waste his.

(Incidentally, if you're on Three Mobile and are having problems, then I highly recommend giving ol' Dave an email. Maybe if he gets enough of them he'll find the incentive to get a customer service that doesn't actively fuck you over.)

Open Letter to David Dyson, CEO of Three Mobile

Hello David,

I'm writing to you today to explain why I have left your company and sought new providers for my mobile service. I figured you might like to know why because your customer services certainly did, seeing that I've been a customer of yours since 2007, but I got the feeling that, weeeell, they just weren't listening. No. They really weren't when it felt like the only way to progress the conversation off the loop they were sticking to was to mention that I had a lawyer and was willing to call him if it let me cancel my contract... but we're getting ahead of ourselves here.

Your prices are rubbish. I've been paying prices for two years that would have got me an iPhone – not the new one, I admit, but the 3G iPhone would have drastically outperformed my chunk of rubbish (Note: I don't actually want an iPhone, I just picked it because they're so damn expensive.) It doesn't help that on the eleventh hour one of your customer service representatives revealed that I barely use any of my allowance – why the hell did I go on paying for an allowance I wasn't using? Especially since I came to expect an extra fiver of costs every month to land on my bill. How does that happen?

Your unit measurement is a joke; minutes and texts are a singular unit. Look. We all know that texts cost you nothing. We all know that phones are constantly sending SMS messages to stay in contact with phone towers and texts just piggy-back off of that. So text equal a minute of air time? Good grief. No. Oh, and don't get me started on your companies constant goal post moving. Charging for delivery rates, charge increases: Look, the contract I agreed to, was the contract I agreed to. In a hypothetical and quite frankly outlandish scenario where I employed you and I decided on Tuesday to take away five percent of your pay for funsies and on Friday to take away your dental care – both which were in an agreed contract since the Monday; you would be pissed. My ass would be in court. But it's all legal with my phone contract. You reserve the right to change it at any time, don't you? Well guess what? It pisses your customers off. It makes your company look like slimy, scummy bastards. Sure, you'll probably get away with it, and you certainly did for many months in my case – but we remember. You aren't trustworthy to me any more. And believe me, I tell every person I come across nowadays to avoid your company. I see you as the too expensive, money-grubbing, liars option. You are reasonably going to protest that, that it may be unfair to tar you with that brush.

But that is what you look like to me.

Also your coverage is crap. Just putting it out there.

But on equal standing to your business dealings has to be your customer service. Please note I resisted the urge to put the word service in sarcastic quotation marks; is was very difficult not to. Your customer service. Just... just where did you get these people? What god-awful script are you feeding them? They once called me five times in a single hour trying to push deals on me. On the forth call I wearily said in one breath, 'No, I don't want a new phone, none of my friends want a new phone, I don't want to buy any internet or whatever service deals you're offering, leave me alone.' The brilliant bit came next – he got angry at me for not caring! Why should I be angry, who endured a complete waste of my life putting up with this crap, when I should fall over in gratitude for Three Mobile caring about me so much? Look. Let's be adults. You're a company. You exist to sell services. You ain't doing it out of the kindness out of your heart; you're doing it to make money. Don't pretend to me when you're calling me with an offer it's because you're so charmed by my great wit you want to make my life easier. The next call... did not go as well, and that was my fault. I will admit I may have ever-so-slightly lost my patience at the caller, but we all seemed to agree it was all for the best if we never spoke again and that was fine.

So a year or so later and I'm eagerly counting down the days of my contract so I can jump ship and I find myself in Chelmsford, about to buy a shiny new phone. But I want to keep my number. I've been using it for five bleedin' years now. I will never remember another one. So I give your customer service a call to ask for my PAC number and... ohhhhh. This is where we start having fun. What happens next is, well, in a word, uttershitcraptacular.

I get it at this point you don't want to lose a long time loyal customer, or what I call myself in relation to you; a loyal doormat. I get it that if a customer wants to jump ship because of mere price you're willing to work out a deal. I don't get hanging up on me. No. That annoyed me somewhat. It annoyed me further when they called me back... to hang up again. That. That was vexing, I'll admit. So another call happened and I must share this important detail with you; obstructing me from getting to my PAC number by refusing to tell me it until you've told me your 'great deals' is a dick move and god damn it I was meant to avoid using sarcastic quotation marks. Over and over again I said the line 'I wish to cancel my contract and keep my number, please give me my PAC number.' And. They. Wouldn't. Tell. Me. Half an hour of my life flashing away by a person's stubbornness. Hell, I told them a short version of paragraph three, that I wasn't trying to play hard ball, that I'd happily pay more just to get away from you and yet they wouldn't cough it up. What was it he said when I insisted on the PAC number? Ah, yes, 'I never said I wouldn't give it to you, just that if you'd listen to my offers...' NO I DON'T WANT TO LISTEN YOUR OFFERS. MY AUDIABLE RISING HOSTILITY HERE IS MAKING IT QUITE CLEAR A SALE IS NOT GOING TO TAKE PLACE. If I was a shop owner, and proceeded to act contrary to my customer's stated desires at every turn I would not be surprised if no one brought anything, resulting in me ending my days at the bottom of a bottle as I die alone and unloved on the streets, covered in lice. So I threatened to call my aforementioned lawyer – also, not a good sign if I feel it necessary to have to start looking up Citizen's Advice when your customer service is actively preventing me from cancelling my contract – and he relented by putting me on hold for twenty minutes. Which I feel only happened because I didn't let him wow me with bollocks. Twenty minutes later I get assurances they'll call me back later that day. That was Sunday.

On Wednesday, with now four days of calling behind my belt and the same promises each time I tried again. I'm actually really polite – they're beaten the anger out of me temporarily. However, as I repeated for the billioneth time, 'No, I must insist you give me my PAC number right now and I have no interest in any deals,' something happens. Not that I make up a riduclous deal on the spot, I was tempted, but your customer service had treated me so badly I couldn't muster the effort (A Samsung Galaxy S3 with 500 minutes, unlimited texts and 1GB data cap at £20 a month with a free case I was musing on spitting out, but I stalled at the possibility of ever having to deal with your customer service again. That and your broken promises.) In the middle of another wearied pointless exchanges, my lovely girlfriend, driven to despair over hearing the same thing over and over for fifteen minutes or simply dreading yet another bitching-fest about your company later and – I love this – she snatched the phone off me, and refused to give it back until they gave her my PAC number. She held me hostage from you. It was beautiful. At this point they revealed that the PAC number was automated and would come by text later tonight in the hope she would return the phone, which she did, and I immediately hung up.

The PAC number. Was automated. Your insufferable customer 'service' (damn it, sorry) kept this from me as a means to keep me on the line to keep me with you. A lie by omission? Well, either way, NO, I DON'T CARE, THAT IS NOT ACCEPTABLE. Hours of my time wasted dealing with their crap.

Which brings me labouringly to my point. I'm not here just to vent at you. I'm writing this today because at the end of the day, my time was wasted. In reading this inane dribble, I hope your time is wasted.

Yours in eternal spite,

John L

P.S. Also my phone was crap. Maybe not totally your fault, you didn't make the thing, but I'm into irrational hate here and every time I saw the phrase 'Unexpected Failure' I was tempted to learn how to code phone OS's so that I could replace that phrase with 'Expected Failure,' before setting light to an effigy of Three Mobile's logo.

Book review: George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman

Last week I buggered off to Tenerife. An enjoyable time was had, but this isn't an article detailing my holiday pics – I don't want to drive away the, hmm, three people that come here. But as we know, for a beach holiday you need books. Many books. I did not quite have many books, so perusing the duty free I noticed this book, and picked it up. I remembered that the Commissar Cain series was often referred to as Flashman in space, so hey, gotta be good right? So let's review George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman.

I could of done a better picture, but this book didn't deserve it.

Now us Brits like us some unpleasant characters. Look back at The Young Ones, Blackadder, and today The Misfits and the returning Red Dwarf are all great examples – and for that matter, series. I really enjoy the Commissar Cain series by Sandy Mitchel – a cowardly commissar in the grim dark future of the 41^st millennium where the norm is terrible, terrible war. So I'm quite comfortable about spending time with flawed characters – a certain charm and wit will make them enjoyable.

Flashman is none of these these.

I regret giving this author my money. I regret that I can't stop reading a book when partially read. I regret spending time with such an odious, despicable character. I regret the fact I will have the memory of what I read echoing around my head for quite a while. I regret so much.

The titular character is Harry Flashman and fuck this shit of a human being. Okay, it's written turn of the century, so I was expecting a moral compass more tuned to the times regarding many aspects. But... no. Whatever the age, he is an unfunny, cowardly, bullying rapist.

Comparing him to Commissar Ciaphas Cain? Bullshit. Cain is smarter, more charming, more brutal on himself, has a sense of duty, and oh yeah: Not a rapist. But let's backtrack. Let's list Flashman's crimes.

• He is a bully. Joy.
• He cheats out a duel via bribery, and laughs and taunts at his accomplice when he comes looking for his money.
• Beats his father's mistress because she wouldn't sleep with him a second time, chortling to himself that she'll never forget him now.
• Names his horse after said mistress. Classy.
• Coward of an unfunny degree. Anything happens around him and he instantly bolts. In danger he constantly weeps, begs and bribes for mercy.
• Beats his servants because.
• Man slut. He should be full of syphilis by now. Once he sent a soldier on a highly dangerous mission just to separate him from his wife long enough for him to fuck her.
• Back to the man slut; gets intensely jealous at the notion his wife is having an affair when he spent the last six months putting his dick into anything willing – and also unwilling.

There is more, but I refuse to re-read this book to continue this list. Not very professional, but sorry, I'm not suffering any more. The sad fact is that he tries to justify things. Like the rape. He says he doesn't like doing it. That makes it okay, right? Well, no. Not ever. Double no if he kidnaps the woman who he had raped previously, and to get revenge for her husband whipping the shit outta him and her intention of cutting off his dick... he tries to rape her again.

You. Utter. Scum.

Let's compare him to Cain for a minute. Cain's not a rapist. Or a sexist. Or a racist (speciesist, in fairness.) Cain would laugh at his cowardice. When the shooting starts, Cain dives for cover, assesses the situation, and if it's too hot, slinks away. Flashman's first instinct is to bolt. Hell, Cain would laugh; that's a good way to get shot in the back if you're not careful. Flashman hides in a tent. Cain would do his duty and be seen by the men. Flashman is passively part of a disastrous retreat from Afghanistan to India. Cain would trample on his own reputation to get into the leadership's circle and make it work. Cain is funny, witty, charming, and brutal in his own assessment of his own behaviour, as he flees danger into a bigger danger. Flashman waves away his behaviour by saying 'well, I said I'm a coward, so it's fine now I've said it.' In the face of imminent death, Cain puts on his false hero face and banters and snarls in defiance. Flashman weeps, shits himself, begs, offers money, weeps some more. Oh – no wait, he never shits or wets himself. Bully for him.

I wanted this shit of a character to die. I wanted him to die at the aforementioned whipping; oh, he realises the powerlessness he feels is the same as what he put his victims through. Well great for you. You don't do anything about it. I wanted him to get his dick chopped off and stuffed in his mouth. I wanted...

Oh, shit. I am reviewing a book. Allegedly. No more hate-tangents. Er. Side characters! He gets married, and as the whole book is written first person (see? Reviewing!) we get to learn that one of the most attractive things about her is her stupidity oh fuck this book. Fuck this author. Fuck this series.

Plot: A prick get kicked out of school, joins the army, fucks a girl, gets sent to India, then Afghanistan, then goes home, being a prick the whole way. The end.

Don't buy this book. Buy Sandy Mitchell's Commissar Cain series. Or if you want funny British empire IN SPACE try Space Captain Smith by Toby Frost.

Purchasing information:

Flashman is out in many book stores and probably on ebook but I'm not providing any links here because you shouldn't buy this terrible book. Don't give the author any money. Instead look at Sandy Mitchell's Commissar Cain series, available in book stores and sometimes at Games Workshop starting here and available on ebook here. If you're not a Warhammer 40K fan, than please look at Space Captain Smith also available in book stores, found here and as ebook here.