I Also Have Things to Say About Things That Happen Which People Like To Have Things To Say About, And It's Vitally Important That You Listen To Those Things Thank You Very Much

Some people have asked why my blog is not a blog about Higher Education, even though I seem like I'm the sort of person who would blog about Higher Education. Some people are pretty stupid. All the same, and for the satisfaction of those people, here is a blog about why my blog is not a blog about Higher Education. It isn’t entitled 'A Blog About Why This Blog Is Not A Blog About Higher Education, To Those People Who Have Asked Why This Blog Is Not A Blog About Higher Education, Which, By The Way, Is Just A Really Dumb Question'. But it ought to be titled that. I genuinely hope you don't enjoy it.

Let us start with a proposition. What if this blog entry, instead of being a blog entry about why this blog is not a blog about Higher Education, were instead a blog entry all about Higher Education? Doesn't that sound exciting? I mean, of course it does. If there's one thing I know, it's what the audience likes. And what the audience would like, if you ask me (and yes, I know you didn't really do that), is a lengthy diatribe on the state of learning at universities today. Doesn't that sound great? Doesn't that sound like something you'd love to take time out of your day or night to read, even though there are lots of places where you could already drown yourself in reading about that several times over, and even though drowning yourself is probably precisely what you'd want to do after reading even one of those things?

Maybe you're one of those people who already do stuff with or in Higher Education. Or maybe you're one of those frankly much better and more worthwhile people who don't at all do stuff with or in Higher Education, and just came here because you searched for Thundercats, or Transformers or something. Well that's good, because on balance stuff about 'Thundercats, or Transformers or something' is precisely what this blog has semi-consistently delivered for nearly a decade, and is quite likely to continue semi-consistently delivering in the future. Indeed, if you can just hold on for the next couple of paragraphs, I think you might find yourself with a pleasant surprise. Of course, you probably won't be able to hang on for the next couple of paragraphs, on account of not having grasped those critical transferable skills that Higher Education can absolutely probably not provide. If that's the case I'd say that, on the whole, your life is a better and less neo-liberal one, except in so far as the term 'neo-liberal' doesn't really mean anything and is therefore not properly susceptible to quantifying determiners.

So, having listened with some diligence to what the people wanted, it became clear that what the people would quite like is a great and long and also great piece on Higher Education. But which of the many highly interesting things about Higher Education would the people like to read about, I wonder? Would you like some statistics on student engagement? Some notes on research trends? Perhaps some pie-charts on the funding situation, or maybe an in-depth review of whatever colour paper our delightful government currently crayolas its strategy onto? Maybe you'd like some careful thoughts on pedagogy, which is an educational term for when teachers pretend like there's a scientific basis for listening to people say stuff and then understanding it.

Or would you like, perhaps, to know things about that one thing I like to write about academically? Maybe you'd like to come to An Event, where I'll talk about that one thing I like to write about academically rather than actually writing about it, and we'll all have wine afterwards and say how jolly interesting it all was while quietly checking our latest apple watches and then realising that because they're apple watches we can't actually check the time on them, only email (or progress in games or to track our footsteps or to pay for things in a manner that's somewhat less convenient than normal).

Anyway, guess what? There are, like, loads of people who like blogging about Higher Education. And there are even people who like to blog on those blogs about their own blogs that are also blogs about Higher Education. Wow! So if you'd like to read about those things, and you like to constantly email me to let me know you'd like to read about those things, maybe you'd instead like to just cut out the middle-man and go to one of those places instead? Even better, I'll save you the trouble by summing up every blog that has been or has ever been written on Higher Education ever. Actually, not just every blog, or even every worthless report, but also every piece of teaching and research under the wonderful sun and, really, why not just go to the beach instead of doing any of this already?

Alright, fine. Here is the first thing you need to know about blogging about Higher Education. Firstly, you should refer to it as HE. This is not an acronym, but rather an indication that it's mainly run by men who think they’re God.

Haha. Did you like that joke that's also not really a joke at all? Every so often I like to throw in an easy one for you. Here are some more: did you hear the one about the pirate who went to the apple store? He was looking for an ipatch. Did you hear the one about the pirate who went to the university? He got made director of a research council so he wouldn't be around any of the students he'd abused. Did you hear the one about the sequence of jokes that showed how easy it was to transition between an apple store and a university? It's the latest education strategy document for your institution.

Here is the second thing you need to know about blogging about Higher Education. It is vitally important that you have an opinion, and, if at all possible, that opinion should be the diametric opposite of someone more famous than you. You may wish to blog that fact. Ideally, you will want to wait to blog that fact until the more famous person has Done Something Outrageous. Doing Something Outrageous, of course, is a broader phenomenon where people on social media realise that they would very much like to be paid as much as the person who has Done Something Outrageous. Sometimes, it is when people on social media feel that they have a genuine ideological or moral difference with the person who has Done Something Outrageous, and also feel that the appropriate method of articulating this feeling is, without any doubt, a string of incomprehensible smileys. Or whatever we have to call smileys these days. As we all know, challenging someone who has Done Something Outrageous and is more famous than you in your academic field will, if handled correctly and creatively, very soon propel you to the point of being an Outrageous person yourself. Well done!

Here is the third thing you need to know about blogging about Higher Education. Nobody cares. Seriously, the blob-eating gameplay of Agar.io represents a more intellectually rigorous seminar plan than the one you just wrote, and that's okay. It's probably even laudable.

Here is the fourth thing you need to know about Higher Education. People in Higher Education often like to say that there is no such thing as a stupid question. Those people are stupid. They also like to write blogs about Higher Education. If that sounds like something that might grab you, why not go and read one and also never come back here? Thanks!

Notes:

No really, thanks for stopping by. Next week's blog: Lion-O Rearticulates the Departmental Vision Strategy.

Of All The Souls I Have Encountered In My Travels, His Was The One That I Didn't Get On With At All Until Inexplicably Deciding We Were Best Friends Because His Future Self From A Different Reality Told Me We Had Been

As I sit in the ever-lonely command bunker of the Waspinator for President campaign headquarters, I realise I've yet to elucidate you (illiterati that you are) on what is surely the most important and burning issue of the day: this blog's audience statistics.

You may think that there might be more important things to talk about. Perhaps the fact that Donald Trump is not, in truth, a terrifying alcohol-induced dream from your college years that you've since tried to forget, but is actually a real live person who is somehow allowed to interview for the job of leader of the free world. Or perhaps the fact that we continue to use the expression 'free world' to refer, in the face of both moral and numerical sense, to the half-dozen nations on this planet keeping their own populations and the world at large in thrall to horrific, inexcusable regimes. Or the fact that we continue to ignore said horrors of late capitalism in favour of tweeting about Mel's great new shoes on the Bake Off, in much the same way that 'great novelist' Jane Austen liked to ignore not-so-late imperialism in favour of talking about picnics and tea parties. 

Or, as an aside, maybe you're one of those people who think that talking about tea is Austen's way of talking about imperialism. But it's not. It's a way of talking about tea. In much the same way that tweeting about Mel's great new shoes is not a way of talking about Burma. And so, readers of the future, perhaps you wonder, as I often wonder about Jane Austen, why I would choose to ignore things that you might think actually matter and instead talk about not only the usual mundanities contained in this blog, but the statistics underpinning the mundanities contained in this blog.

And hey, don't get me wrong here, I can see where you're coming from. We could, after all, be discussing climate change, or the hundreds of species that have disappeared during our custodianship of the planet in the biggest sustained extinction event since that asteroid landed on the dinosaurs. Maybe we could be talking about the percentage of the planet that starves while good old Dave keeps British streets British, mainly by ridding them of the Scottish, the homeless, those with left-wing opinions, and people from other countries who've asked for our help. Maybe, you might well think, we could be talking about a thousand more important topics than the audience statistics of this one inane blog amidst the urine-soaked sea of inanity that is the internet.

Yes, you may think that there might be more important things to talk about. But then, as we've established on multiple preceding occasions, you're very often wrong. And in this case, as again in every preceding case, I'm going to tell you more about how very wrong you are.

For example, in a recent television advert for a certain banking company (and it doesn't really matter which one it is), targeted not quite at potential customers but instead the young and unemployed, a youthful person adopts a look of practised earnestness into the camera and offers the viewing audience of job-seekers some wonderful nuggets of advice on the important role played by the internet in the creation of a truly great cv. 'Social media', says our job-wise friend with all the prophetic insight of a modern-day Pythia, 'kind of shows people the real you.' 

Now, regular readers will be aware that I would normally follow a quote like that with a suitable commentary exploring the ramifications of said quote. Instead of doing that, though, I'm simply going to sit back and repeat the quote, albeit interpolated in order that we can appropriately dwell on every drop of this wonderful material. 'Social media', the actor begins, and hold on to your hats viewers because this guy's about to really tell us something, 'kind of shows people', and wait for it good viewers because the end of this sentence is even better than the beginning and middle, 'the real you.'

You'll understand, I hope, that the main reason why I'm forced into the position of repeating the quote is because there are simply too many things achingly wrong with it, and that effectively voicing such an embarrassment of paucity in just one post-quote quip is, sadly, impossible. Some possibilities that occurred: social media does not show people the real you, unless 'the real you' happens to be an amusing meme about a really long cat. Or: social media does not show people the real you, because social media retreats from words like 'people' and 'real' while eagerly stumbling to gurn moronically at its own dribbling face. Or: do you think the poor would-be actor who landed the job of 'second person in banking company advertisement' made the best use of his social media? Or: do banking company social media accounts contain the real selves of those in charge of the banking company, and does looking straight at those accounts thus make your face melt like at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark?

As I say, if you thought there were more important things out there than the statistics behind a blog on the internet, maybe different things I could talk about to get across what actually matters, then this particular advert is here to tell you that maybe, just maybe, you might be wrong. I mean, talking about yourself on social media can get you a job, kids, so long as the 'real you' on social media is someone who your prospective employers kind of like, and so long as both you and your employers are comfortable with the idea of their nosing through your 'real you' as if it were yesterday's copy of the Financial Times. And I mean, if social media can land you a capitalist job in the capitalist capital of a capitalist country, then maybe, just maybe, the meta-commentary provided by a discussion of the audience statistics underpinning your social media 'real you' could be the most important thing ever. Ever. 

And hey, if people who go about conducting the glaringly biblical sin of usury as if it were a profession don't know what they're talking about, then who does? 

Notes: 

1. In the videogame Saints Row IV, players enjoy a tongue-in-cheek, self-aware narrative which includes plot points such as becoming President of the United States, combating a fairly thespian alien invasion, taking control of a virtual Earth, and having sex with a floating robot. About the only thing that I had trouble with in the game was the idea of it being narrated by Jane Austen. Not the fact that the aliens had snatched Jane Austen from her own time and that she was now narrating the story of gangland criminals turned intergalactic heroes, but the fact that she was apparently content to narrate such a story when she could, surely, have been writing about what they all had for dinner. Sometimes one can simply strain the suspension of disbelief too far.

2. Yes, I know that the title to this post bears little relation to the content. But seriously though, have you seen Star Trek: Into Darkness? Did you also like it when it repeated the plot of that Star Trek film from thirty years ago that was much better, only it didn't make sense this time around? Do you remember when you were excited to find out how Lost would end? Ha.

3. I hope you weren't really expecting anything on blog statistics. If you were, kindly get out.

When The Title Of A Work Is Also Stated In That Work

I don't know about you, but I really love it when the title of a work is also stated in that work.

Like, when you read a book called, I don't know, let's say it's called Well This Is Another Awful Mess Of Adjectives, and you'll open it up, and right there on page 233, someone will say 'well, George, this is another awful mess of adjectives', while looking in the book at an awful mess of adjectives that they've thoughtfully detected and which also happens to be described via an awful mess of adjectives. When that character says that, reader, I love it. 

When the title of a work is also stated in that work, my dearest reader, I don't mind telling you that it fair gives me the tingles. For example: if you happen to be watching, let's say it's a movie called Look At This Right Now Please Because I'd Really Like You To Look, and in that movie at about the 2-hour mark something absolutely look-worthy will happen, except that one or more of the characters in the movie won't be looking at whatever that happening is, the silly goose, and another character will have to turn around and say 'hey, Vincent, why don't you look at this right now please because I'd really like you to look'. When that character says that, you'll think 'Wow! Not only was that something that someone might say in that particular circumstance, but it's also the title of the movie that we're currently watching!' And when you think that, I'll gently reach over and squeeze your hand so you'll know that you're not alone in this amazing experience.  

I tell you, reader, when the title of a work is also stated in that work, it's about the greatest thing that can ever happen ever. Like, if you're watching a play called Oh Wow It's Happened Again And Now I Have To Jump Up And Down And Scream Excitedly In This Super Quiet Theatre, and you get to the tense third act and something that has previously happened to one of the characters in the play again occurs - and when that thing happens, and it also happens within a scene that happens to be set in a super-quiet theatre, and it happens in relation or proximity to a character who has a likelihood towards jumping up and down and perhaps also screaming excitedly, and that character says 'oh wow it's happened again and now I have to jump up and down and scream excitedly in this super quiet theatre': when that happens, dear reader, it makes my head explode. 

And when I then realise that I'm actually sitting in a super-quiet theatre myself, watching this play, and that the actor has actually really jumped up and down and screamed excitedly while saying the sentence that's also the title of the play, well, it makes me want to pick up the fleshy meat of my exploded head off the floor, piece it painstakingly back together, and then explode it again, because wow! In fact, what it really makes me want to do, when I go to see a play called Oh Wow It's Happened Again And Now I Have To Jump Up And Down And Scream Excitedly In This Super Quiet Theatre and the character in the play jumps up and down and screams excitedly while speaking the sentence 'oh wow it's happened again and now I have to jump up and down and scream excitedly in this super quiet theatre', what that really makes me want to do, dear reader, is say the words 'oh wow it's happened again and now I have to jump up and down and scream excitedly in this super quiet theatre', while also jumping up and down and screaming excitedly in this super quiet theatre. And when I realise that my words are also the words that the actor has just said in the play titled with the same words, and maybe, oh I don't know, maybe there was also a play within that play that the character was rehearsing which was also titled Oh Wow It's Happened Again And Now I Have To Jump Up And Down And Scream Excitedly In This Super Quiet Theatre, when that happens, well, it makes me wish I hadn't exploded my head twice already because I'm going to need to do it at least once more. 

And then, when my head has exploded for the third time, and you turn to my gushing headless trunk of a corpse, drenched in my spurting blood and bile, and you scream 'oh wow it's happened again and now I have to jump up and down and scream excitedly in this super quiet theatre', well, I don't mind telling you that you might cause me some pleasure.

Because, to be clear, when the title of a work is also stated in that work, I think it might be about the cleverest thing in the world. 

Open Mic Night At The Badger And Crow

Directions: So I'm thinking this particular piece will be in the style of a comedian's monologue, right? So there'll be the odd joke, and maybe some stage directions to self, and plenty of misdirection. But it'll actually also be challenging, and intelligent, and emotionally rooted. It'll be deep, and rich. It'll be rich, this, you'll see. You'll take it all in, this comedy, and you'll say to yourself, ha, that's rich.

So I step up to the mic, and I start with a real quick one-two opener. Predictable, crass. Why was the chicken across the road? Briefly pause, screw up face, glance stage left, lean into audience. Because it had been run over. Pause again. Sigh affectedly, leave mic, start to leave stage, pretend to remember something, return to mic. But, I say, returning, that's not actually the story I wanted to talk to you about.

See, I actually wanted...I actually really wanted to talk to you about my relationship with God. Now, before you get worried about this, or wonder anxiously where it might be going, I should probably just note that God is the name of my pet Galápagos tortoise - or, more properly, my three-year-old daughter's pet Galápagos tortoise. Now God is in many ways a real rarity, a beautiful creature, but he is also by turns capricious and cowardly and, so far as I can tell, appears to dislike black, people and gays.

Now, before you get annoyed about that, I should probably also have noted that my three-year-old daughter actually has four Galápagos tortoises, and she's not terribly good at naming pets. Black is the oldest of the four, and her name makes some sense given that the Galápagos tortoise's shell darkens as the animal ages. And People's name, we think, is an early attempt at the word 'pebble', which the relatively small People does look quite like when placed next to the other three larger tortoises. We're not too sure what my daughter's thinking was in regard to Gays' name, and to date she refuses to be drawn on the matter.

Now, I'm the first to admit that having four Galápagos tortoises called God, Black, People and Gays can sometimes be a bit of an embarrassment. But we believe in letting children learn freely, and at the least it's not a bad conversation-starter. Sometimes when we tell people that our daughter has called her pets God, Black, People and Gays, they find it sweet, and playful. And sometimes they'll say 'that little bitch'. Now that may, I grant you, seem like a harsh thing to say about a three-year-old girl to her parents, but that's probably a misunderstanding that can be cleared up by telling you our daughter's name.

Some people, I know, might say that an appropriate name for a daughter might be Violet, Juliet, Rachel, Sarah, something along those lines. And I agree that does seem to be the normal way of things. But they don't exactly stand out from the crowd, do they? And, what's more, I should also perhaps have pointed out before now that, strictly speaking, English isn't our first language, not our country of origin as it were. And when we moved here and heard the things couples say to each other, we sort of assumed (wrongly, as it turns out) that they were being romantic, uttering sweet nothings as I think you say.

Where I come from, we say things to each other like 'sweet of my eye', 'light of my day', that kind of thing. And these are good names, too, for children. Still, we didn't want our daughter to be teased about having a foreign name, so we gave her an English one too, inspired (wrongly, as it turns out) by the things that your couples say to each other. Her name in our language is, well, it would be difficult for you to pronounce, but it roughly translates to 'most perfect person to whom I could speak'. Her given English name, for better or worse, is 'little bitch'.

So you can well imagine, I hope, that when our English-speaking friends say 'that little bitch', they're not necessarily saying it angrily, but rather with that kind of shake of the head one makes over a child's precocious or mischievous act - as you might say 'oh, that Tom', or 'oh, that Michael'. My understanding of names in your language has, as you can tell, grown in the last three years - although my daughter's grasp of the subject is still perhaps questionable.

Anyway, the other day, I turned to God in our garden and I said 'God, as capricious a tortoise as I know you are, I still remain stunned by your habit of eating all the pretty flowers while refusing to uproot any of the weeds'. And God looked at me, his wrinkled, funny little head gently poking out of his carapace of stone, and for a moment I thought he nodded in a kind of guilty understanding. And then he paused for an aeon, before climbing ponderously on top of Gays to reach what was undoubtedly a tasty but also potentially prizewinning tulip. Gently, God tore off my flower, and I said 'God', I said, 'what we have here is a failure in both communication and appropriate gardening methodology'.

For her part, my daughter sat in the nearby herb patch and burbled, sagely. On the whole, you see, my daughter has an innate and helpful ability to produce puns in a manner which God appeared to that point to lack - and I'm happy to say that our relationship with her is rather better than our relationship with God, which revolves mainly around his abuse of our garden and his liking for carrots.

Now that, basically, is the end of the story, the monologue, but I felt like it needed something more concrete at the end. A really conclusive, punchy finish; a final joke, something that ties it together. And I looked at the ingredients list - God, tortoises, three-year-old daughter - and I thought there must be something here. Honestly, I really thought about it at length, but came up with absolutely nothing. Empty-handed. And I said to myself, well, I can't be a very good comedian after all, and I should probably pick a different route in life, you know? A different vocation.

But then, as if by magic, or religion, or a heady combination of both, God the Galápagos tortoise turned his little funny wrinkled head towards me - no, he really did - and he - and this is the bit of the story that you might not quite believe, but it's absolutely true - God my daughter's Galápagos tortoise absolutely shot across the garden and up he climbed onto my shoulder. I do realise that, unlike the rest of what I've said, this perhaps seems a bit far-fetched. But honestly, it absolutely happened: it was like he'd accomplished the movement of a thousand years in a day, or in this case in a blinding flash.

It was like his ways weren't the same as ours; his ways were somehow different. And he's on my shoulder, God the Galápagos tortoise, and he puts his little funny wrinkled head right up against my ear, and he says, even before I've registered the shock that God my three-year-old daughter's Galápagos tortoise is speaking to me, he pokes his head up to my ear and he says 'No', he says, 'you definitely should be a comedian; it's about time you came out of your shell'.

Thank you, goodnight.

Why Don’t We Sit Down And Have A Nice Long Chat About Those Of Whom We Do Not Speak?

If you’re reading this because it’s several years in the future and I’ve put this blog down on my ‘academic’ curriculum vitae (as the kids used to call them), perhaps as an example of my diverse research output (as the slave-traders used to call it, and do still), then I’d like to take this opportunity to apologise.

Mainly, I'd like to apologise for the unseemly banner-like title to this particular blog area. ‘Waspinator-for-President’, indeed. What must you think of me? What kind of academic merit could such a title possibly infer? But look, I’m hardly the first to have a title that makes little sense: Thomas Dekker’s Dekker His Dreme isn’t even spelt correctly. Ah-ha, just kidding. Or ‘jk’, as the kids used to say. Or ‘J.K. Rowling’, as they mainly didn't and shouldn't still.

Anyway, look, let me excuse myself. More than that: let me tell you something about myself. Yeah, you've seen my astonishing articles on that one thing that happened a long time ago that doesn't really matter, and yeah, maybe you think those articles are pretty worthwhile and interesting. Maybe you’re even right (but you’re probably not). Despite that, we both know that you're going to need more than just worthwhile and interesting to hire me for your amazing position. Hey, I'd probably want more than worthwhile and interesting too.

No, you're here, I imagine, because you'd like to 'get me', as the nineties used to say. You'd like to know what makes me tick, as clockmakers used to say, what happens under the hood, as purveyors of automobiles, folk myths, and nursery rhymes used to say. You'd like to know what it is, if anything, that makes me so special. Well, let me help you with that.

This, dear reader, is what I'm like: what I like to do when I’m by myself, which, let's be honest, is pretty much all of the time, is to stroll into town, buy a cracking novel from Waterstones (the UK’s go-to store for all your novel but actually mainly not-so-novel needs), and sit down with it in a lovely coffeehouse for a couple of hours. And yes, I am aware that there are a lot of things wrong with that sentence. Why am I buying anything from evil, evil Waterstones? Have they ever sold a decent book? Didn't they use to be a stationers, for goodness’ sake? Aren’t they still a stationers, more or less?

And yes, why am I wasting time reading books when I should be working on socially-relevant, impactful, money-making research? Well, those are all good and worthy questions, and I thank you for asking them.

All the same, I think the most important question you're probably asking is 'but what sort of coffee are you drinking for a couple of hours?' And I'm glad you're asking that, if you're asking that, because unlike the other questions I have an answer all ready and prepared for you. For that matter, I also have an answer for you if your question was 'but what book are you reading?' And the answer to that latter question is that I would like you to kindly mind your own business. Perhaps you weren't aware, but people who think they can understand anyone based on what books they’re reading are just really, really annoying. If you're one of those people, then you should know that I dislike you immediately and immensely and that, on the whole, I’d like you to burn.

Oh, or songs. People who would want to take a look at my music collection to see if they can see into my soul can go and jump off a very, very high bridge. And hey, make it high enough that you can listen to some music on the way down. You'll probably learn something amazing. Thankfully, not for very long.

Anyway, if you'll actually let me get to the point, what I wanted to do was tell you all about my choice of coffee. And personally, I think that that one little fact can tell you everything you need to know about me as a potential hireling in your fine academic institution. I mean, let's be honest here, I think we both know that higher education has seen much better days. Money is tight, and jobs are rare. You need the right person in every position, and you need to make every position count. Well, that's all fine, but the right coffee in that person counts for a whole lot more, let me tell you.

I mean, I've seen colleagues (or people, as we used to call them) come and go. I’ve seen them go rather often, to be honest. But coffee, coffee is for keeps. Coffee won't let you down, and coffee won't walk out on you. Coffee will always perform to expectations, it will always meet its targets, and it will always be very tasty indeed. The last time I checked, I believe you found that people constantly under-perform, rarely meet targets, and are only slightly tasty, depending on the precise farming practices involved. Will coffee make you fall asleep during a lecture? It will most assuredly not (dependent on blend). Will coffee drone on about the relative merits of obscure theoretical practices? I don't think it will. Can coffee, properly applied, turn every academic into a model employee and lover of bullet-pointed writing? Well, no, maybe not, but it will at least help you weed out the ones with weak hearts.

So anyway, the right choice of coffee is important, you see, because when you're sitting in that coffee shop for a couple of hours with the picture-book you've just bought from Waterstones, well, you really have to consider several important issues.

Firstly, of course, you need to be able to sell the academic brand: now, if I was employed at your institution, I think you'll find you get not just an employee, you also get a walking (well, sitting) advertisement. And don't underestimate the importance of advertising, particularly of the walking (well, sitting) variety. Oh yes, I'll sit in coffee shops for hours attracting people towards your fine academic establishment, simply by my being there. It's called stealth advertising, you know – nobody sells products any more, they sell lifestyles. And don't worry, because you can count on me to sell the higher education lifestyle. When people see me looking bored and reading books for two hours in that coffee shop, trust me, they too are going to want to look bored and read books for two hours in that coffee shop.

Now, you might think that that would primarily bring business to the coffee shop, but wait, because those people are also going to ask me, 'how is it possible that you can do this?', and I'll tell them, 'well, it's because I have benefited from higher education, and you can too!', and then, well, the money will really just roll right in to your institution quicker than you can say everyday phrases such as ‘increased student quota’ or ‘line of branded polo shirts’.

And secondly, the right choice of coffee is also important because, when you're sitting and looking bored for two hours in a coffee shop while reading excruciatingly pretentious books that you've bought from Waterstones with the aim of impressing people who are never going to be looking anyway, not once, and really, what point would you even be trying to get across, and it's not like you'd even want to talk to them anyway because they’re probably horrible, well, look, when you're doing all that the right choice of coffee is quite important.

Wait. Okay, hang on. Sorry, I really seem to have lost the thread of my argument a little. Just give me a second here, please, and I'll try to get back on track.

Right, yes: choice of coffee; that was it. What I was saying, here, is that the right choice of coffee is important because, when you're sitting around for two hours, well, two hours is a long time to be sitting around just drinking coffee. I mean, you need to be able to pace yourself. Sure, it's fine when you're younger, and you can do what you like without any ill effects, and you can drink coffee after coffee and not even have to need the toilet. But when you're not younger any more, it all becomes a bit more problematic. Years ago, I too could drink espresso after espresso after deliciously dark espresso. And yes, I'm not going to lie to you here, I miss those days very much. Very, very much.

And I mean, yes, of course, sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night with the taste of espresso on my lips and on my heart and with only the faint memory of a bitterly broken dream. But who doesn’t? And I mean, yes, of course, sometimes I think of those long gone days and cry tears composed only and entirely of the espresso I so fervently wish I could still drink. And yes, of course, then I suck those tears gently from my own sunken cheeks with a stolen straw. But who doesn't?

So the right choice of coffee, you see, is really quite important. What you need is to have a type of coffee that you can drink for two hours and not, well, go a bit crazy. And what I am here to tell you in today’s blog is that, so far as I am currently aware, such a coffee does not exist.

Notes: Oh yeah, going by the title, this blog entry was supposed to be an amusingly out-of-date review of M. Night Shyamalan's The Village. You know what? Clearly even I just couldn't be bothered. Here’s your review, pedant: it sucks and it goes on, like, forever.

Today’s Blog Posting Is Almost Certainly Not A Joke

A short but important note on my sometime perfect, now somewhat fractured, eidetic memory:

I can easily remember what I had for lunch on any precise day three years ago, and I can easily remember what I was wearing at the time. I can remember at exactly what time I had that lunch, too. I can remember the lyrics to songs by Busted. Which, to clarify, I heard once on the radio and would probably not choose to remember if given the option. Indeed, I can remember lots and lots of random things. But I can't remember faces, you see. That is, I can recognise them on viewing; I know who people are when I see them. But I can't put a picture of them together in my head, I can't remember them after they're gone. I can look at someone, shut my eyes, and not know what they look like. I leave the room, and they're not even a memory.

And that's not all, either; not by a long shot. On the whole, you can't imagine how harrowing my life has been. I can't tell you what a sunset looks like. I can't imagine the shape of a bird. I mean, I can tell you the names of every single bird under the sky if you'd like to hear them, and I can tell you to what genus they each belong. But I can't tell you anything about how seeing those birds or that sky might have made me feel. I can see photographs that I have taken, and I can remember the second of the minute of the day when I took the picture – but turn the picture around and suddenly I cannot describe it beyond a blank.

So, yeah. It hasn't been so good. Not to put too fine a point on it, in fact, it has been fairly bad. I have been, in every meaningful sense, irrevocably lost.

But then, and this is absolutely a true story, I met you, and everything changed for me. Seriously, my life changed. Suddenly, the blank spaces in my memory were all excused. Suddenly, not being able to remember faces didn't really seem so bad. No, it didn't seem so bad at all. Because, and I'm just going to come out and say this, your face is really, really ugly.

Now, I may not be able to remember what breakfast looked like this morning, but frankly, that’s a small price to pay if I can also forget your horrible, horrible face. And hey, if I should chance to see you again later, well, I guess I'll also get another chance to see what that breakfast looked like.

Because I'll have vomited, you understand. Because, in case this wasn't clear, you're very ugly.

Notes: Okay, fine, it's a joke. Are you happy now? Are you?

I've Been Gone So Long We Should Maybe Write A Song About It

Hey there.

If you're a little like me, then you too have probably

been spending your deleterious days thinking ‘oh!’

‘to where on this good, improbable earth has

the waspinator-for-president blog disappeared?’

And you know, you shouldn't feel at all bad for

thinking that sort of thing. All of us have thought

at some point or another. It's just part and parcel

of being human. And as these things go, you,

you, my reader, you are human, more or less.

This need you’ve been feeling: it is, you might say,

simply part of who we are. And as things go, you,

horribly pathetic, annoying, execrable you,

you are who you are, human too, more or less.

It's really okay to feel the kind of deep, abiding,

the longing horrid need you've been long feeling.

It's okay, really, to feel that kind of need. I mean,

you know what, hey, we've all felt needs now and then.

Seriously, we've all felt needs.

It's all part of being human, isn't it?

We're all the same, after all, aren't we?

I mean, seriously, since the dawn of time,

we've all had that kind of need, now and again.

Everyone feels the way you do, sometimes.

So don't worry. And I mean, I of all people,

and I just can't be any clearer about this –

of all people, I do understand all about what it is

that you've been going through. I do, really.

But look.

I mean, yes, of course, we all have needs.

Yes, sure, we all have some slightly odd,

some unexplainable feelings from time to time.

And sometimes, yes, sometimes thoughts can

kind of sneak up on you without you really planning

to think them. Sometimes, they sneak up on you

so surprisingly, in a blinding flash, that it feels like it's

not even you who definitely thought them (you did).

And yes, I realise that sometimes those horrible

un-thought thoughts can be just a bit disturbing,

even though it's totally not your fault, and never,

never you doing the thinking of them. I know,

yes, sometimes they do involve chimpanzees.

But, you know, just come on. Really, come on.

Look, honestly, I think what I'm trying to say here,

and maybe I'm not being quite clear enough,

but what I'm trying to say here, is that, well,

you know.

Look, yes, I get it. I really do. Of all people I get it.

Believe me, I understand what you're going through.

I probably understand it better than anyone, because,

frankly, that's just the sort of wonderful person I am.

I mean, I can be a pretty understanding human being.

When you're by yourself, your mind can wander.

When you're on your own, of course your mind can

wander a little. It's only natural. And yes, sometimes

it might wander rather a lot. And that's perfectly

natural too. And yes, sometimes it wanders so far

that you find yourself. And you realise, I mean really

really realise, that you quite like those chimps.

You realise, I hope you realise, that you’re terrible.

Also: a reminder to send me the pictures, please.

Notes: This time, Believer, this time.