A Day in the Life of a Job Seeker

You’re not your job

You’re not how much work experience you have

You’re not the career you want

You’re not the contents of your CV

You’re not your fucking qualifications

You’re the all singing, all dancing crap of the world

This is the adapted mantra from Fight Club that I live by while looking for employment. If I didn’t soak up this message every single day, then I would be having a horrible time. These job applications are harassing like Jimmy Saville in a child hospice. They bombard you with questions expecting jargon, buzzwords, and core competencies as a response. They purposefully make you feel under qualified for every single role because frankly, you are. But so is everyone when they start. If you could walk into a job and know how to do it, some clever fella would’ve designed a robot or software to do it already. Yet you battle through this terribly designed application forms full of spelling errors. You try your hardest and write the best answer you can while making your own spelling errors.

You apply for jobs that 200 people have already applied for because, well, they’re the only jobs available. You apply for jobs you don’t have the right experience for because, well, they’re the only jobs available. You fill this cyberspace void with examples of how great a team leader you are, and that time you saved a cat from a burning building. And a little bit of you dies when you press submit. Not that you’ve lied, or exaggerated, or that you don’t want the job. Just that you are forced to pigeonhole the sum of your life into a STAR formatted highlight reel.

You are hoping that someone will read your answers and understand you, see your potential beyond a few neat examples. But first you have to get the past the all knowing, all wise, computer checker that scans your form and dismisses candidates for not having certain buzzwords and including words they don’t want to hear. John Cuntsbery has been unemployed for seven years.

If you survive the T-1000 CV checker, you know the next stage is against a guy who has been reading CVs all day. Or you’re first in line to be read and they dismiss you because he/she hasn’t had their morning coffee yet. This application checker person is looking for something, a certain experience, a certain character trait, or maybe just a decent understanding of English grammar. They are looking for the X Factor basically. An unquantifiable quality that has is based on how the person is feeling at the moment. You’re up against Simon Cowell – why else would unemployment be so high!?

Maybe you’re one of the lucky ones that receives a call back. You answer the phone like the obedient dog you are pouring enthusiasm down the line like some desperate crack-whore looking for a free hit. They ask you more questions, you answer with more buzzwords but at this point, you start to put some of your actual personality into it. They might even like you and ask you for a face to face interview. To see if you have any Omar-like face scars or whether you will fill their ethnic minority quota.

You put on your best suit, an ironed shirt, tie, and you excitedly turn up to the interview clean-shaven like a reared sheep. You tell the same stories, exaggerate a little bit more - now it isn’t written down its 100% okay to lie... You convince them that you aren’t a complete twatmeister and in fact better than any of the other twatmeisters in the waiting room. They listen, smile, and you leave with a sense of hope.

Then you get an email that you didn’t get the job. Or you hear nothing at all. You managed to get past the harassing Jimmy Saville application form, the T-1000 CV checker, John Cuntsbery, and Simon Cowell but the final hurdle was too much. Fear not! You may have sold your rapidly shrinking soul but there are hundreds of other jobs out there and only a few thousands of people clambering after them.

Your friends, family, and government are on your back quicker than you can say "poverty". Your un-salary creating life continues and people point fingers and blame a lack of ambition and laziness. I'm sorry I was honest and didn't bullshit as much as the successful candidate. I'm sorry I didn't bend over, arsecheeks spread, and just take a big fat one in my integrity and character so I could secure a job. I’m sorry I wasn’t cool with doing 20 hours of unpaid overtime a week. Yeah I didn't play the game but you know what, this game is rigged. It's rigged for the smooth talkers, the dishonest, and the great networkers. 

My great problem is my honesty, I like to put a bit of my non-work suitable qualities into an application form. Maybe they aren't well suited for the working world but I like to be open with people giving me bundles of strings-attached cash. People will say I'm a fool to not play the game, but as soon as I start BSing, I lose a part of who I am. A part I happen to like. I like that I make mistakes, such as incorrectly pronouncing misled as "myzooled". I like that I make inappropriate jokes when being introduced to someone. I like my belief in my ideas and ideals.

You’re not your job

You’re not how much work experience you have

You’re not the career you want

You’re not the contents of your CV

You’re not your fucking qualifications

You’re the all singing, all dancing crap of the world

Without this mantra, you are a sad dog, a meloncollie (Ha, dog pun!). But with it, you know that you are more than the job you have, more than the money in your bank, more than the career you could have.

You are not a cliché written on the back of a skill set.

You are a human being with imperfections, a dirty humour, craziness, and a bit of a foot fetish. You are more than those 500 words of spiel and bullshit. They haven’t rejected you. A tired interviewer has rejected a preconception of you. With this in mind, unemployed life is a little less shit, and a lot more realistic. Nobody is perfect. And remember one thing: For every great job, there is someone tired of doing it.

This first world problem has been solved courtesy of Sobweb (and Tyler Durden, peace be upon him.)

Happy hunting!

A Much Needed Paradigm Shift in Our Working Life

I finally got round to watching I Robot… I know I’m like so two thousand and late. I enjoyed the film and didn’t dwell on any obvious flaws like I often find myself doing with films nowadays, but one thing stuck with me. If robots start to take all the unskilled jobs, what will the unskilled workers do? Is it crazy to think that in 5 years robots will be emptying bins, delivering parcels, and cooking for us? I think it is unlikely. But what isn’t crazy is that computer software will be eliminating certain jobs. As software gets more powerful, easier to use, and accessible then the need for certain mid-level employment goes down. Why employ a translator when google translate or this can do a pretty good job? Why hire an accountant when you have user-friendly accountant software to do the sums for a fraction of the cost? Over two years ago, a robot made a scientific discovery by creating a hypothesis, testing it, and drawing valuable conclusions. Science has long been the pursuit of the educated - an education that isn’t cheap, especially if jobs are taken by machines willing to work 24 hours a day for no pay.

I think mass unemployment will be the defining problem of the 21^st century and I think technology will play a large role. More and more jobs are becoming unnecessary due to technology coming on heaps and bounds and replacing our feeble minds and bodies. One example is this website – I designed and made it myself. This was unthinkable 10 years ago unless I was a computer programmer. Now it just took a bit of reading, a bit of patience, and a small amount of money for the domain. I didn't pay a human directly for anything.

Surely this new technology is creating jobs as well, right? Well yes. But it is creating a fraction of the jobs it is eliminating. There is no point looking to the industrial revolution and blindly saying that technology creates as many jobs as it takes away. The industrial revolution led to machines doing the heavy lifting. This current technological revolution will lead to machines doing the heavy thinking. The will have the technical knowhow and precise ability to perform tasks that have long been only capable in highly trained humans. The jobs that will be created will be highly skilled that let’s face it, not everyone can manage. They take years of training and many years of experience before you can start earning. Will future jobs be for the highly trained and highly driven? The simple jobs are taken by machines and people in poverty, who can't afford to educate themselves for 5 years because they need to look after their family, will simply be left with nothing they can do.

If we don’t do something drastic to halt this decline in jobs then what will happen? Business output will stay the same even though businesses sack their employees, replacing them with tech, while reducing their cost. The business owners will be making more and more profits. This means, if the trend continues, that a smaller proportion of the population will be earning while more are left in unemployment. It is going to be a real social issue. People unemployed will feel worthless and bored while taking handouts from the government. The employed people will feel angry at the unemployed people for taking more of their hard-owned money by increased tax rates. It’s a wealth gap that will be growing larger over this century and tension will grow with it.

The solution?

One way to manage this issue of growing unemployment is to reduce working hours and ban overtime. This will delay the inevitable decline in employment brought on by technology and other factors, as well as spreading the wealth around (shocking idea I know!). Currently we are supposed to have a maximum working week of 48 hours in the EU. I know people working 90 hour weeks in London. According to figures from Labour Force Survey Summer Quarter 2011, in the UK alone, we are doing over 2 billion UNPAID hours of work a year. This equates to ONE MILLION full time jobs. I spoke of sharing the wealth around but what I really mean is a redistribution of work.

The average working week in the UK in 2011 was 42.7 hours, up from 41.4 hours in 2008 (these values do not include unpaid overtime btw). An increase of 1.3 hours in the last 3 economically uncertain years. I don’t blame workers for this. They are forced into working harder and doing unpaid overtime for fear of losing their job to one of the 2.6 million currently unemployed people. That unemployment number could be reduced by 38% if everyone refused to do unpaid overtime. The number could be lowered further if the maximum allowed working week was fewer than 48 hours a week.

This would mean that the current working population would have more free time and the unemployed would find work. But surely hiring more people to do the same amount of work would cost more money and take more work hours? Sure it would. But the reduced amount of people on government handouts would decrease so tax could be lowered. If the government gave tax breaks to companies that hired more people for less time, then they would not lose money. The current employed people wouldn’t lose money either by working fewer hours because they would also pay less tax. A tax policy that stated “if a company decreases its working week to fewer than 25 hours for every employee and hired at least 35% more staff then they will receive a tax credit. These employees would also receive tax relief for working shorter hours.” This sort of taxing could be used as a financial incentive to encourage companies to adopt a shorter working week until it became commonplace. I can’t see a flaw in my suggestion, can you?

Maybe I am oversimplifying people’s greed because of my own lack of financial ambition. But then maybe the people that will choose to work at these companies that encourage shorter working hours will share the same values as me. The belief that money isn’t everything and having more time with family and friends is a happier way to spend our lives. I would take a pay cut to work an engineering job for 25 hours a week, where I would still be given a similar amount of work but just had to be more efficient with my work time. This sort of employment could lead to a cultural shift where perhaps money isn’t the driving force in most people’s lives. I strongly believe that a shorter working week is what is needed for our society to grow, both economically and socially.

Also what about the people struggling to make ends meet while they work 40 hours plus a week? I think it is clear that a fairer waging structure lowering the disparity between top earners and low earners is needed. 1 in 5 people in the UK earn less than the Living Wage. Are these huge companies that pay their workers this pittance victimised by our government by a higher tax bill? No. They are likely to pay no tax or very little tax, as they have the accountants to worm their way out of it. I'm boycotting Starbucks for one. These huge companies ripping off their employees and our tax system are the real scroungers in this country, not people on welfare. If companies like Starbucks paid more then it wouldn't be financially viable to stay on benefits rather than working.

A reduction in living costs in the UK is also something that needs serious consideration. Unfortunately we are in an arms race of sorts with each other at the moment. People are working longer and harder but are paying more money for houses and rent. If we restricted working hours, we would need the government to force a drop in house prices and rent costs. I believe the second home being used as an investment has driven house and rent prices to unsustainable levels and it needs to be lowered by government laws. Unfortunately the law makers will probably have at least two houses so it isn't in their best interest to consider this. A lot of people would find this difficult, as their pension pot shrinks, but not as difficult as it will be in 30 years when the unemployed revolt because there simply isn’t enough work to go around. The riots in the UK in 2011 will look like a picnic compared with what could be coming.

Another idea to consider is that if technological increases are really causing unemployment then how about taxing the technology? For every job lost by a computer, the equivalent amount of government handout given to that newly unemployed person should be taken from that business by tax. This would be a novel way of sharing the wealth created by massive companies that only have a minimal human work force but thousands of machines. Perhaps it is too soon for such a drastic measure as this would surely slow innovation, but I don’t see this as an unworkable solution in the long term.

Why do we need a paradigm shift? We need a change to the basic assumptions of work, such as the 40 hour week. A change in people's perception of what a fair minimum wage is. We need to consider that accumulating possessions and buying new things because we can is not going to bring happiness, and shouldn't be the ultimate aim of our society. We have technology so let's use it and improve it to help us cut back on our work. When we went from a 60 hour working week to a 40 hour one, the industry experts thought it would be an end to progression and cause massive problems. It didn't. We adapted, we had more family time, and leisure industries grew. It's time we rejected the 40 hour week.

I have outlined what I believe may be the biggest economic issue of this century and how we can go about solving it. I honestly think I could write another 2000 words on the subject, however a lot of it has been said before, and until we listen to top economist’s advice (who suggest a 20 hour working week!) I feel I am wasting my time. This TED video talks about the loss of employment due to robots, albeit with a more positive spin. Thanks for reading.

Teleception

This is all about a mild health affliction I have been suffering from for the last few years and how I came about solving it with the help of TV. I had bad skin on my left hand that was red, reptile-like, and small blisters would swell up and become full of puss. I know, I’m a heart throb right!? I haven’t been using krokodil either.

The strange thing is that when I was travelling, the skin affliction completely healed up. It had been terrible in Korea and I had gone to a dermatologist and been diagnosed with Pompholyx, which sounds like a Bjork album not a type of eczema. But as soon as I left Korea, it healed up quickly and within a couple of weeks, it looked like I had never had this condition that had been troubling me for over 5 years.

I came back from travelling and within a couple of weeks, the rash had returned and I was itchy as hell again. I put it down to stress, even though I felt entirely relaxed. It was like there was a fire on my hand and the only way to put it out was to scratch the flames away. Unfortunately this just ripped the skin, which led to infection and more swelling. It was a scratch-22.

And then the moment happened. I was sitting on my bed looking at my hand, when an idea just popped in there. There were only two things that I had been using for many years that I did not take travelling: my electric toothbrush and my weight lifting gloves. At that moment, I became Hugh Laurie in House. All the pieces of the puzzle came together to solve the mystery affliction that had been troubling me for so long. It was blatantly obvious – I had been a fool to never realise it before. If Wilson had been there, I would have stormed out of the room without explanation. But he wasn’t there, and I wasn’t wearing any clothes, so I stayed in my bedroom.

It was a fungal infection (similar to Athlete’s Foot but on my hand) called Tinea Manuum, which had been cured when travelling by my superhuman-immune system. When I returned and started lifting weights again, the fungus in the gloves had re-infected my hand and it had worsened again.

The point of this story is my ‘House moment.’ It made me feel like a genius and I was happy to be experiencing it in this way. I wonder how I would have reacted if I had never seen House? Would I have made the link in my brain and solved the case? Who knows!? Maybe I would have used my Scooby Doo mystery solving skills and then gone for a joint afterwards. That’s right kids, Scooby Snacks were actually drugs...

In many ways how we react to the world shapes who we are as a person. If media can affect our reactions so fundamentally then surely we have to be very wary of what we and our children watch. If all I watched was “A Clockwork Orange” then I’m sure I’d be a (more) troubled individual. But is watching it once likely to exacerbate any underlining tendencies in your behaviour? We may never know but as individuals, I think we need to ensure we watch high quality entertainment that shapes us into the type of person we want to be, along with the more twisted things we enjoy.

How many times a day do you find yourself knowingly saying a quote from a TV show or film? I do it several times every day but then again, I have been called a quoter. Okay, how many times have you asked the question: What would Jack Bauer do in this situation? It’s one of the fundamental questions we ask ourselves. When Christians read the Bible, trying to learn important moral lessons from it, and ask themselves “What would Jesus do?” They use this book as a moral code to base their decision on. The rest of us use 24, Dexter, Breaking Bad and South Park.

When we watch these shows, we're not after the moral lesson, we are watching for entertainment sake. But maybe it does affect our moral values and we just don’t realise it. How many times have I done something purely on auto-pilot, with the instructions for my auto-pilot being programmed by the media I had consumed that week?

This is why I want to work in media. I want to shape people’s lives and hopefully educate, entertain, and inspire. I want someone to have an experience and directly relate their enjoyment to my show. If I can have a House moment, then someone else can have a K-Town moment.

Fifty Shades of Earl Grey

I awake with a cold shiver. The heating is off and my breath is visible above my duvet. I feel unsettled and unsure of what I need. My startled, just-awake brain starts booting up and I realise what I desire. I can hear it calling me from the kitchen cupboard like a siren enticing me to the rocks. I shuffle into my pyjamas under the duvet, with the snuggley sheet keeping my prickly, pimpled skin warm.

I move the duvet aside and I slowly make my way towards the kettle. It’s already full; before bedding down for the night I had sensed the urge was coming, and filled the pot in anticipation. I turn the heat up to max and the water starts bubbling. Unable to wait, I pour the half boiled water into my mug and the teabag floats gently to the surface. As it's life leaks into the fluid, Brownian motion takes over, and madness ensues.

Reds become darker and it slowly turns brown - you can tell it’s almost brewed. I give it one last squeeze against the walls of my cup to empty the reserves. I realise that no matter how hard I try, there is always room for one more squeeze. One more push of tea that I’ll eventually swallow. But not in here, not like this.

My hand shakes as I reach for the tall tumbler. I grip it with resolve and open the tap, filling it deliberately. I give a wry smile as I submit to my wild side. I let the moment overcome me and release the tea bag into the cool ocean. It relishes the opportunity and splashes uncontrollably, causing havoc. The now murky waters are a delight to behold.

I tentatively raise the cold tea to my mouth. I’ve done this before but never like this, never without preparing. Never on a school night. I let the aroma envelop me and I wash it around my mouth and soothe it into my stomach. I am lost. I am free. I feel everything and nothing at the same time and my voice has vanished. The silent ecstasy is empowering and unsympathetic. I feel no shame or remorse, just bliss, pure unadulterated joy. It destroys me...

By the time the sensation passes, the sun is up. Had I really been doing it all night? I relish the pleasure of a feeling lasting an instant, that takes an age to enjoy.

The sun rarely lies though and I have a lot to do with this day. I clear up the mess, tip away the unwanted contents of the mug - I'm sorry for using you for such a purpose! I’m somewhat embarrassed by my exploits. How have I sunken this low? Is there something wrong with me to delight in such a sin?

The problem is that the shame is never enough. It’s over before it’s properly manifested and I move on. I think about the pleasure of the encounter throughout the day, the memory seeping into my taste buds like sugary candyfloss stuck to my teeth. I lick my lips and a wave of joy is released, enticing me to my next taste.

It’s the driving force that spurs me on at work and gives me comfort when I don’t get that promotion. It’s the reason I speed when I’m driving home and shout abuse at time-wasters. It’s what completes all my beverage concerns of any given day. It’s the breakfast of champions.

Read part one!

Fitter, Happier, More Dancier

I saw Radiohead last Saturday in Manchester at the MEN. I have seen Radiohead live an awesome number of times (5) which makes them the band I have spent the most money on. Yay for them! They are my favourite band and every time I see them, I have the most amazing night. However it had been a couple of years since I last saw them so I was worried that my ever-expanding cynicism would interfere with my enjoyment of the evening.

I had experienced waves of excitement in the weeks building up to the gig, but this had been quickly replaced by my fun safety net: low expectations. I always go into big events with low expectations because the dream, the idea of the event, is often perfect and I don’t want the real thing to feel like a disappointment because of my overambitious mind. Ideas, dreams, hopes are great but sometimes over-expectation of events and what to expect from people or performers can lead to an empty feeling. I did not want that from this Radiohead show, so I went in with low hopes.

When I found my seat, up and behind the gods, I remember thinking that I was too far back. I was about 8 rows from being the furthest available seat away from the stage. I wanted to be standing at the front, in a dancing sweaty mess of people, bopping to the geniuses in front of me. Live music is a great shared experience that you can have with thousands of people around you. It is social bonding between you and your fellow man, woman, or in this case, Radiohead groupie. But being restricted from this standing pit of freedom, and being placed in the confinement of a chair, miles back, was going to be torture.

My immediate idea was to run down and jump the barrier to get into the standing arena when the lights went down and the music started. But then the lights dimmed, the support act Caribou entered and played three engrossing songs that got me moving a bit in my seat. The excitement was building and half an hour after Caribou finished, Radiohead entered the stage.

Even from my seat at the top of Zeus’ mountain, I felt the immense roar of excitement rushing through everyone’s bodies. Tonight was going to be an adrenaline pumped, serotonin fuelled, Radiohead shaped explosion of brilliance.

The first song sent shivers down my spine and the hair was standing up on the back of my neck. I was no longer confined in my chair, I was free. I danced chaotically and as wild as my out of rhythm Jewthiest body could muster. It was the purest, unadulterated, un-inebriated feeling a person could get. The MEN was mine and everyone else’s chapel for the evening.

Radiohead are to music what orgasms are to sex. They are the peak, the pinnacle, the climax. The layers unfold in my ears in sweet, original, and surprising ways. I am encapsulated by the sound. Thom’s singing voice is angelic with sinister lyrics and upbeat drums. This is pure joy. I am at peace with myself and the world when I listen. Really listen. I feel happiness, and I wish everyone had this relationship to music, and especially to Radiohead. Why are we embarrassed to talk about moments like this? It is normal to talk about how much fun you have on a boozed up night out but as soon as it’s from something so abstract as music, people get embarrassed. Well, not me. Not today...

Anyway, back to the gig. Their new “King of Limbs” songs and other internet releases were much better than the recorded versions. The songs came alive as Thom raved out to them. The beats were fast and the music had a much dancier feel to it than other times I’ve seen them. What a night!

A top top gig. I recorded a few songs and below is my favourite video - not a dancey song but I love it! You can also watch the entire Radiohead glasto set from 2003 here.

Urinating at Notting Hill Carnival

Here’s a story of one of the most eventful urinations of my whole life, which happened at Notting Hill carnival, a couple of months ago. I'd drunk a fair bit and was needing to find somewhere to relieve myself. Being a male, anywhere would have done; an alleyway, a bush in the park, an assortment of plastic cups. But none could be found.

The side streets had been boarded off by the police to keep the party all down the one main street, so I had to use the designated toilet areas. This meant a very long queue.

Now when my brain tells me "hey, you're gonna have to urinate soon." I've basically got about a 30 minute period until it's all over. So I queue up to this toilet that is down some stairs and into a building; there's just the one toilet and the queue is moving ever so slowly.

There are some speakers in the window playing some raggadub and the vibrating bass isn't helping my bladder one bit. I reach the bottom if the stairs and am now just 5 people away from my destination, when out of nowhere comes a group of 5 girls, who push in the queue and stop behind me.

The girl who had previously been behind me quite rightly and politely said "Excuse me are you in the queue?" by which she meant “what the devil are you doing?”
The leader of the girls said "yeah we are in da queue, we're gonna use the toilet, you thick or sumfin?"
"No, I'm not thick, but you should go to the back of the queue instead of pushing in."

At this point, out of the blue, the 5 girls just attack the girl behind me, grabbing her hair and slapping her. So me and this other chap try and break it up. But I'm not gonna lie, I was clearly the weakest person in this situation. During the scrapping a window got broken and the group of girls ran up the stairs and away. They left this poor girl behind with her bag upside down on the floor, some hair ripped out her head, and she had a broken nail. And not just any old nail it was a proper nice one that she'd clearly spent ages painting.

As I helped her with her stuff and gave her my one and only bacon shaped plaster for her bleeding finger, she seemed surprisingly calm about the whole thing. Until the woman who owned the building came storming out and told the girl that she had to leave because she had broken the window. The girl and I tried to explain that it was this group of girls who had since left but the woman wasn't having any of it and she demanded that the girl gave her some money to pay for the damaged window and then leave.

At this point other people began to back us up and the woman begrudgingly went back inside and let her stay in the queue.

This experience made me a sad man. Like, it's meant to be a carnival celebrating everything good about the Caribbean culture, and you can't even go for a wee without a group of kids attacking you. Disgrace to their race.

Poor girl didn't even seem angry or anything, she just seemed embarrassed.
How angry must those girls have been to just attack someone for no other reason than that she didn't want them to push in front of her?
I blame the parents.

Happy ending though - I got to use the toilet for free. They were charging a pound each but the whole commotion had left the people in charge distracted.

Fifty Shades of Tea

I had a very moving experience while doing a typically English thing - drinking tea. It all happened when I was a little bit inebriated and needed a nice refreshing cuppa. Please don’t judge me on what happened next – we all give in to temptation sometimes.

50 Shades of Tea

Romanteac, liberateang, and toteally addicteave, this is a story that will obsess you, possess you, and stay with you for ever.

I love making tea; the expectation and the excitement of what is to come. Nothing too much surprises me anymore but sometimes routine is as much fun as an adventure, far from the mundane that we are led to believe.

So here I am, standing in the kitchen, doing something typically English and oh-so familiar – boiling the kettle for a cuppa. And by cuppa, I mean English breakfast tea, served in a mug with a splash of milk.

The kettle is boiling and it’s all going swimmingly, until I notice it’s got slightly too much water in. I make the necessary calculations with ΔH_vap, UAΔT, etc but by the time I finish the sum and realise that I’m best off removing some of the water, thus allowing the kettle to boil faster, it’s already boiled and it is too late to change anything. It isn't all bad though as I have solved a Chem Eng puzzle in my head, keeping myself entertained while I wait, and now the boiling water is ready. Satisfied with my achievement, I pour the water gently onto the teabag and wait.

Moments earlier, I had poured a lovely glass of fresh, cool tap water, which is now sitting invitingly close to my cuppa. I firmly squeeze the tea bag, strengthening my brew, when a curious idea has the audacity to pop right into my head. It is such a blindingly obvious notion that I am unsure as to how I have never thought of this before, let alone performed it unconsciously from instinct. I spoon the teabag out of my hot tea and plop it into the glass of water.

As I do this, I hesitate; it’s a big decision. I pause, toil with the idea in my head, ask myself several questions. Why have I never done this before? Why has no-one ever told me I can do this? Is it some dirty secret that everyone keeps from each other? Is it dangerous?

My temperature is rising sharply with these dark thoughts but my mind keeps on racing. Should I be doing this? Who knows what will happen when I take a sip? Could I get hurt?

I start the adventure with what I am used to; the regular breakfast tea. I grab its big red spotty handle and am surprised by its warmth. As I grasp it firmly and draw it towards my mouth, the milky broth warms my hands, which runs up my arms, making me shiver at the pleasurable familiarity.

The first sip still surprises me. It’s nothing compared to the very first time and the excitement of the unknown, but I still take satisfaction from it. I gulp, I swallow, I gulp, I swallow. I gulp until my lips are red and sore. I swallow until my throat is soaking with fiery fluid. I gulp and swallow every last drip, and now I am ready for what is next.

I pick up the glistening glass, and with one look, I can tell it desires my lips. I go in quick, eager, like a teenage virgin, accidentally spilling some on my chest. I let the excitement take over me - I am experiencing, not thinking. It tastes sublime, everything I had hoped for, and I explode in an instant, quicker than expected.

My first experience...

This all happened a few days and I am a little embarrassed by my over-enthusiasm but I still look back on this experience with fondness. I am proud to have tried something so out-there, so unaccepted by common tea drinking folk. “A cool subtle charm, coupled with a refreshing quench” would be an appropriate tagline for this encounter. It was a contagious experience and I now wonder whether I will ever be able to stop myself from doing it again. I think everyone should try this and promote it, so please share this inspirational and downright dirtea idea.

A Twenty First Century Read

A lot of us like to spend most of our “reading life” on the internet nowadays. Thirty years ago, a person would spend the majority of their reading time with a newspaper, a religious text, or a book. Then along came the computer and things slowly began to shift towards hurting your eyes by reading from this large glaring grey box.

I remember when I was in secondary school in the late 90s and I started to use Encarta 95. I would be given some homework on Henry VIII and instead of the local library; I went to the computer in the spare room. My mum would mutter at me that I should go to a library because they have many books with lots of information. Even with the limited resource of Encarta and at such a young age, I still scoffed at the suggestion. Encarta 95 had the answers and it was so much easier, more accessible, and most importantly - it had a copy and paste option. Encarta may have had the answers for a 12 year old but at this time, it wasn’t particular useful for many adults. So they didn't use it. It was left in the capable hands of the kids who were becoming very comfortable with searching for information and manipulating it clearly using Word.

The teachers were quick to catch on to Encarta so you learnt from a young age to plagiarise well. An important lesson that proves very useful when progressing through school and onto higher education. Then along came the internet, or at least the internet that resembles somewhat the wealth of information that is on there today. Essays became about Google searches, plagiarising other people’s work in a coherent way that answered the relevant question, while adding your tiniest bit of insight into the solution. We became experts at skimming and summarising.

Not only did we use computers for work, it started to become our main source of information on all things. An endless volume of knowledge that rivals the world’s greatest library available at our fingertips for a tiny cost. We now have more information available to us, whenever we want it, than at any other point in the history of humankind. You want to learn something, it’s on the internet and if it isn’t, someone will put it up for you. Let that sink in for a moment… We have access to so much useful information, which we could use to change the world, right now in front of us. Yet we use this time to read about celebrity gossip and read articles by idealistic writers.

This mountain of knowledge was unthinkable for Tom Average 20 years ago, let alone 60 years ago. No wonder how overwhelming my parents find the internet.

And what’s even crazier is we don’t just use the internet for information. We use it for everything: shopping, news, marketing, music, TV, friends, dating, events – the list is literally endless. But I digress, I want to talk about how the rapid expansion of the internet in the last 10 years has revolutionised the way we consume text.

We are now bombarded with choice for where we get our written information. It’s no longer Encarta, a real encyclopaedia, a newspaper, or a library that we have to choose from. For something like a film review, we have dozens of ways of checking information. We have IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, and a host of others, as well as bloggers and the scores of news networks with media divisions. Who do we choose? Well we form certain favourites for things, such as YouTube for videos – unless it’s only hosted on another site like Vimeo. These alliances with websites are temporary but strong. YouTube is my first stop on the music video search and will be for a long time I think. This alliance may eventually break away if a rival service comes along – maybe something that incorporates YouTube and all of the other video sites in a convenient and easy way.

When it comes to reading text and by text I mean current news, and “old” information. “Old” information being ideas that have been around for a while and are not related to current events, such as philosophy or established science. Now when it comes to “old” information, I think we read the volume of information we find interesting and necessary to answer our original query. Unless we enjoy the writing style, we read the bare minimum to answer the question. I think this a big difference when compared to how we used to find information from books. We haven’t invested into the webpage so we have less motivation to finish reading all the available information. The investment we made before the internet could be financial by buying a book or even just investing our time into going to the library to search out this understanding. All we do now is click.

This instant and abridged version of events presented by websites breeds a short attention span. Just like using Encarta, we are taking exactly what we need and nothing more. Often we don’t continue to read in more depth because not only have we zero investment in the webpage, but there is this endless source of data available to me. Why read more on this subject when there are millions of other things I can learn about!? Thirty years ago, you might have finished reading the entire explanation in an encyclopaedia, or studied in more depth the theory of evolution, just because you had invested time into finding the source of knowledge.

The source is right there now, it’s called Google and it can get you about 13,920,000,000 results in 0.17 seconds with seven soft button pushes. You can then just read the synopsis, get the gist, and your imagination feels in the details. Or more commonly the details are never filled in, they are lost. I think a consequence of this attention deficit and abridged version of the story is that we lose out on our focus and concentration of that particular subject. We have found the answer in 0.17 seconds and read it in 10 seconds. This rapid way of answering questions has a consequence; it doesn’t have time to stay in our long term memory. It is forgotten before it is accurately analysed. It’s in one synapse and out the other. 

I wonder if this type of information intake has caused a generation of people who find it difficult to concentrate for long periods. I know I do. No wonder all these kids have attention deficit disorders. They have been born into the instant internet age. Another consequence of this is the instant gratification age we are now in as well. Do you remember when you couldn’t remember who was in a film? You’d recall the actor’s name days later and phone up your friend to tell them. There was great satisfaction in diving into the realms of your mind to retrieve that knowledge. Now it’s a simple search and the answer is there. An instant gratifying moment – very common to the 21^st century person.

My final concern over this new type of learning and reading is for the writers and articles themselves. As a writer you are forced to come up with a snappy summary in your first paragraph and an even snappier title. How many times have you clicked on a link because of a witty title? I do it all the time. And let’s not forget that clicks = cash. My favourite recent headline was a BBC article called Nazi Buddha 'came from outer space'. How can you not click that!? It could easily be a real life fourth Indiana Jones storyline… and there is no way that this article can be worse than that film. No way.

In order to entice us – the scavengers of news – the articles must have a clever title. That is something I have noticed from the response I get from my own writing in relation to a snappy title. This title obsession can devalue a story, especially one about a complicated issue, but worse it can mislead about the content.

The twitter-verse is a bizarre world of 140 characters and this means that snappy titles are all you have. So sometimes a jokey news article title can turn into a hot bed of confusion. A serious debate can break out because people have misunderstood a title and invented a fabrication. They have then spread this fabrication and before long, people are reading tweets as facts. Tweets are thoughts. And thoughts are not facts. An example of this misunderstanding is when a “joke” news website posts a ridiculous headline, which is obvious satire, but eventually is copied and passed on to someone who takes it at face value.

It happened to me with a fake satirical Sky Sports News account on twitter. Sky Sports are my go-to sports news internet alliance so I trust them. So an account using their brand has tricked me… No harm done because I found out, but what if I hadn’t. I would’ve looked like a fool in this instance. But how about when it comes to something more serious than John Terry being a white c***. I can get fooled and not realise it and then I have this idea in my head, which I may even share with others, and I don’t even know that it’s codswallop.

Do you remember that story about Samsung paying their fine from Apple in coins? It was bullshit but it got reported on a number of news networks, including the Guardian. It stemmed from a fake story that spread on twitter and made it on to our trusted news outlets. It’s still available to read on news websites over a month later. This Samsung coin story is a great example of a successful meme. I’m not talking meme, like breaded cats, I’m talking meme in terms of an idea that spreads. Therefore a successful meme is one that spreads far and high. A story about Apple and Samsung with the concept of paying a billion dollar fine in coins is a very infectious and sharable idea.

The internet is making us read and learn about things that make catchy titles. 24 hour news entertainment networks are capitalising on this and are dumbing down or more frequently humouring up titles for this exact reason. We are far removed from the time where we bought a book on a subject and read the thing in its entirety. We just want the gist, the story in a nutshell please.

Tl;dr: We are no longer investigative explorers of knowledge, we are short study learners looking for our quick fix. We have become slaves to slogans.

A Warm Welcome to UmBongoDreams

A new contributor to Sobweb Productions is born today... Welcome, UmBongoDreams! We have a (new) tradition of asking a couple of questions to our contributors when they join. Let's see what UmBongoDreams has to say:

What do you want to do before you die?
Not that I'm criticising your interview style but I've always preferred the question 'what do you want to do while you're still alive' rather than '..before you die'; it just has a better ring to it I think.

But I suppose all the normal answers such as travel the world, have a family, skydive ... but I guess in terms of what I hope to achieve in my life, I've always had an image of moving to North America and setting up a bar. Dream Big I know. I don't know what it is but I could never see myself in a '9 to 5' style career and I think owning my own bar would give me my much needed daily amount of social interaction as well as a reason to get up in the mornings and a not too stressful working life. I'm sure that owning a bar is a lot harder than it looks on It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia with not as much free time in the day to go on acid trips in morph suits as them but I can do basic accounts and I have a fondness for cleaning.

I've always found the city of New Orleans alluring. I saw a documentary once where Morgan Freeman talked about the birth of Blues and Jazz and ever since I've wanted to visit.

Canada has also had my attentions for a while, specifically British Columbia which as a province has an amazing blend of animated city night life and breath-taking mountain range scenery.

I can really see myself living somewhere like this and plan to do a trial run in my gap year, whenever that may be.

I don't have any definite plans in mind for my life, but when people ask that is my default answer. Travelling is the main item on my agenda though. The way I see it, we don't get to choose which country we are born into, I got lucky with the UK. And now I have the opportunity, should I wish to take it, to see as much of the world as I can; and I intend to.

Favourite quote?
Quotes are a strange thing for me. I see people use them on a day to day basis where they lazily use other people's words to express their own feelings. I think the more people use quotes rather than trying to re-word them into their own style, the more these quotes will become diluted and vague in their meaning. However I am one of these people who uses quotes a lot and one that I always find myself returning to is from Jim Morrison, a sort of hero of mine in many ways, who said;

"It's a funny thing, I noticed that when people are joking they're usually dead serious, and when they're dead serious it's usually pretty funny."

Thanks for the insight UmBongoDreams.

And now, for your enjoyment, here's a sneaky sample of the sort of thing he'll be posting.

I ordered some DIY Night Vision Goggles from eBay ...

... I'm a little disappointed to be honest.

Come Down With Me

A fantastic TV show has been on for the last couple of nights in the UK called “Drugs Live: The Ecstasy Trial” on Channel 4 about MDMA, which is the good stuff in ecstasy. They are performing MRIs on people under the influence of the drug, in a double-blind trial, to discover how it works on the human brain, as well as performing a variety of other tests on the 25 subjects. These subjects included a writer, an editor of The New Scientist, a politician, a priest, an ex-SAS soldier, and Keith Allen. The aim of the show was to open up the public to the idea that this drug could be used as a cure for certain mental health conditions. It was a wonderfully frank and public look at one of the most talked about recreational drugs on the planet.

Whether you agree or disagree with people taking MDMA for fun, we should explore the effects of such a mood altering drug for a number of reasons. The main reason is the obvious benefits such a drug could have on the treatment of a variety of mental illnesses including depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. To simply dismiss a drug’s usefulness for such serious and common diseases as above, on the grounds of an arbitrary law enforced by every human civilisation seems very archaic.

Think about some of other medications, and how regularly they are prescribed considering the vast harm they cause. Chemotherapy is an example. It kills you. It is literally poison and the reason it works is that is destroys your cells, including your cancerous ones, and when your body starts healing, it is hoped that your body will fight the cancer and manage to beat it in this weakened state. Chemotherapy is used very regularly and with good reasons; it saves lives. And it is legal.

Is cancer more dangerous than post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)? In most cases, yes. Cancer will kill you while PTSD may just ruin your life and mental health. Is MDMA safer than chemo? According to the limited scientific data available, yes, but we simply don’t know enough about MDMA to be sure of the side effects. Hence research is needed… And now!

Mental health isn't valued as highly as physical health by the general public. I think this is because we are led to believe that those suffering from mental illness are somehow weaker and we respond less sympathetically to them. They are not weaker. They are just unfortunate, similar to someone who develops breast cancer. They are unlucky.

Another issue with that some illegal drugs, such as DMT and MDMA, are never researched on because of patents, believe it or not. The patents are old and have expired. Therefore these massive companies have no interest in seeing if these drugs can be useful aids in helping us fight certain mental illnesses. Why? Because if a company spends their money finding it out, any rival pharmaceutical company can use their research and release the drug without spending all that precious R&D money. It is within the best interests of the company to create a new chemical they can patent that can help, even if it less effective than MDMA. That and the fact that researching a drug that is outlawed internationally costs a LOT of money.

Why is MDMA outlawed internationally? Scientific studies suggest it is less dangerous than horse-riding (according to the ex-advisor to the UK government on the misuse of drugs, who also helped with this Channel 4 programme) and less dangerous than aspirin (according to a top UK police chief). Are these highly respected members of society wrong? Maybe, but the truth is we simply don’t know because the research isn't there. The only thing we do know is that the media machine made it abundantly clear that you should not say something so positive about an illegal drug and expect to keep your job.

We have parents of teenagers that have died from ecstasy screaming that it kills, against thousands of regular users who swear by it. The fact is that many people have died from MDMA because of poor communication by the media. It is stressed that you must drink a lot of water and this has caused people to die from drinking too much water (Leah Betts being the most infamous example). Drug takers must research the drug before taking it! It is time we put aside our biased sunglasses that are based on either personal experience with the drug, or a screaming negative-focused media. It is time we let the scientists do what they do best and test their hypotheses. They need to do this to help the thousands of people that could benefit from its use.

And they also need to do it to relay the idea that mood altering drugs aren't necessary bad, m'kay. People are different. We have ups, downs, good weeks, bad weeks, productive periods, and lethargic periods. People also enjoy different pursuits. Some like tennis, some like getting incredibly drunk, some like a good book, some like one night stands. This variety in behaviour and activities is what has made us such a successful and intelligent species. Why do the global authoritarians believe that taking a drug that alters the chemical balance in your mind is a bad thing? Who thinks that alcohol should be banned? Alcohol would appear to affect more of the brain than MDMA, according to the latest studies.

Our brains are just massive bags of chemicals reacting with the environment around us anyway. The food we eat, the coffee we drink, the amount of sleep we get, the traffic on the way home – all these things alter our mood. This change in mood, change in perception, is beneficial. It allows us to see things differently, to think differently, to experience differently. Variety is the spice of life, a common cause of creativity, and this is a good thing. So why can’t a capable person, able to make decisions based on the evidence available, be allowed to take certain specific substances that alter their perception? They know the risks involved, which are lower than driving or alcohol. So why can’t fully functioning adults buy this substance legally, where it can be taxed and regulated?

I do think that people under 18 should not take these mood altering drugs though. The mind is developing and flooding it with an artificial chemical will have unknown and possibly dangerous consequences. The data isn't there to suggest it is terrible but from my experience of seeing people take drugs from a young age, I would think it is not advisable.

The line of thought that suggests that street MDMA is cut with poisonous chemicals and therefore banning the substance somehow stops the problem is a circular argument. First of all rat poison, or whatever toxic chemical these evil drug dealers apparently use to cut a drug, will be far more expensive than caffeine, or aspirin, or a variety of other substances. Why would they cut it with poison? They are running a business, an illegal business at that. Do you think hurting your clients is a good business strategy? It summons the police to you for one, and ruins your client base! Furthermore, this is an exact reason to legalise. If it was regulated by the government you wouldn't have these problems. People are going to take drugs, no matter how many times someone tells us lies about the effects. This line of argument is moot and should be squashed away in a box of terrible ideas for eternity.

Relying on the mass media for information is a dangerous game. If you only got your worldly knowledge from news networks and tabloids, you'd be seriously distressed about everything. They don't print good news about anything, let alone taking an illegal drug. If I only believed what I read in the news then I would think every teacher is a sex offender, every footballer is a racist c***, immigration is out of control, and the country is seriously in trouble. My point is that reporting news is really about reporting negative news, because it is more interesting and sells more papers.

The issues with recreational use of MDMA are the same as alcohol. You have to:

1. Know you limits.

2. Know when you are using it too frequently.

3. Stop if you start to have negative effects.
4. Use in a comfortable setting.
5. Be informed about how it will affect you. (www.erowid.org)

These rules are difficult to follow because of the rituals and cycles of behaviour people get in to with crowds of friends. But if you use any drug to excess, it will cause you problems. The problem is that so little is known about addiction, and the best way to break people from addictions, that illegality is viewed as the best solution. Pushing the problem to the other side of the law only moves the problem. It doesn't stop it and it certainly doesn't solve it. It is time we accepted that people will use and we need to learn the best way to educate, to regulate, and to treat addiction.

To finish, I would like to point out some annoyances I had with the Channel 4 TV show. I didn't like some of the leaps they made from the tiny survey. At one point, one of the experts suggested that because only 1 out of the 25 test subjects had negative effects from MDMA that perhaps only 4% of the population would be affected negatively in this manner. A much bigger test group is needed before such a wild hypothesis can be made – otherwise it is just speculation. However, this was a live show and unfortunately such exaggerations can be spoken in the moment, so I'll let it go...

What I won't let go is the terrible camera angles that they insisted on using. During an interesting discussion, they suddenly cut to a black & white camera that was panning across the studio. Terrible directing there. The content is interesting enough, the speakers are very clear - let's listen to them without the distracting angle changes please. My viewing enjoyment suffered... Maybe some MDMA would help??

The "live" aspect of the show also made it cut-away from people too soon and Jon Snow would interrupt experts mid-sentence. I feel like an edited version would have been better, however I wonder whether an edited version would've been allowed on TV...

There is a large scope for some very interesting and enlightening experiments involving MDMA and other drugs. I hope to see and read about a lot more studies. For instance, most ecstasy users will take other drugs while on MDMA and also be in a completely different environment to the test subjects who were inside an MRI scanner and hospital building. These other influences need to be looked into and studied to see how they alter the MDMAmazing experience.

One day in the future we may look back at this time of our history as the prohibition years, like America with alcohol in the early 20th century. We may say that forcing this massive economy underground into the hands of criminals caused considerably more harm than legalisation has. We may say that the best cure for PTSD is MDMA. We may even say that MDMA is a beautiful chemical that when used in moderation in the right setting can improve one's life and break down boundaries between people. I wonder whether this will happen in my lifetime... I seriously doubt it.

P.S. A cult hero / new meme has been born in the form of Shabs...

Things You Own End Up Owning You

This is a fantastic line from a brilliant book and also one of my favourite films, Fight Club. It's one of the many quotable lines from the film and this is my middle-class, "I've moved back in with my parents", interpretation of it.

My mum loves to have a tidy kitchen and everything has to be in its right place. This includes the dishwasher. It has to be 100% full, all the plates must be rinsed, and everything in its particular spot of course. I appreciate a good Jenga mission when it comes to dishwashers and I definitely fall on the rinsing plate side of the dispute - it is not a food disposal machine for Christ’s sake! So yeah, I get where my mum is coming from. However I am somewhat inconsiderate when it comes to taking glasses from my room to the dishwasher.

That journey is one I took 3 times the other day as I had 10 glasses in my room. I filled the top part of the dishwasher while the bottom part was around 90% full. This left my mum in a predicament that she has to deal with every couple of days: How to fill every available space in the dishwasher before putting it on. She told me that I should just wash them up rather than use all the space, as there was still room for a couple of plates.

I realised that this is what Tyler Durden meant when he was speaking about things owning you. You buy a dishwasher because you don’t want to clean things by hand anymore. Old school washing uses more water, takes longer, and messes up your beautiful hands. But then you become so obsessed by the dishwasher and the control you have arbitrarily put on it in one way or another, such as having to fully load it before letting it run - you lose sight of why you bought it. It is there to do the washing up for you, to make your life easier, not to force you to do washing up and to agitate you into filling it 100%.

You feel obliged to complete the ritual of the item, in this case making sure it’s fully loaded. This is true with many things we have. Something like facebook. If I have a notification, I have to look - it’ll drive me crazy if I don’t. Another example is when I first got a mobile phone. I bought it so I could keep in better contact with my friends (and to play Snake). But then I hear the vibration of a new text while I’m drifting off to sleep, and I have to read it! If I don’t know who is texting me instantly, it’ll bug me and I won’t sleep, even though the last thing I want now is contact with my friends telling me how drunk they are!

I bought a car so I could be comfortable in it and drive around in style. I ended up cleaning it every 5 days and driving myself mad when I accidently spilt coffee on the interior.

If I buy a tablet computer to make things simpler and easier, I'll end up spending hours figuring out how it all works, only to never use half the functions. If I were to use it, it would take longer than a computer, and will ruin aspects of my social life.

If I hear my smoke alarm bleeping. I have to heed its warning, and escape my burning house alive.

Okay maybe that last one is helpful but do you get the point? You buy things with good intentions, but you end up being overcome by your addiction of being obsessive with things. You eventually spend hours doing something that doesn't benefit you and you don't even enjoy yourself doing it. It just becomes another task you have to do.

What is particularly ironic about this whole post is that it was all started by a Fight Club advertisement on my facebook wall. That inspired me to write this and spend my time on this. Things you own end up owning you.

Opportunity To Work On A Short Film

안녕하세요,

Sobweb Productions is looking for a talented young British Korean who can help with an online TV production. The show is a comedy about three Brits who move to Busan, South Korea to teach English, and the excitement, trials and tribulations they encounter whilst living there. We are filming the short film in London with the aim of it leading to a commission for a six part television series.

South Korea is a fantastic country with a vast history and a very bright future, and it is leading Asia and the world in a variety of areas. However it still remains somewhat of a mystery to the majority of British people who tend to think of China and Japan when considering East Asia.

We talk about the importance of globalisation in the UK but what we really mean is westernisation. If we truly want globalisation, the western world needs to absorb some other cultures as well. This project will help to bridge this gap and put South Korea in the spotlight and into the British public’s consciousness.

The show informs the audience of various Korean quirks from a western standpoint in a humorous way. The production also shows how South Korea is leading the world in technology and the aesthetics of the show reflects this.

We are looking for someone who shares our vision, is committed and dedicated to the production and will put their all into it. Any experience in film making is preferred but not essential.

We want someone who will act as our primary Korean handler. We need a keen partner to work with our location manager and find places suitable for shooting in Korea Town, New Malden, London. This is where we plan to shoot the film that we hope will lead to a commission.

This is an independent production and will provide you with experience in programme making and pre-production. However, it will not provide you with an immediate salary as funding is limited for this independent production.  This job will reward you with great experience and knowledge that you are helping to spread the word about Korean culture, throughout the UK. We hope that we will be able to provide future paid work if the short film is successful in securing a commission.

Major Roles

- Improving the screenplay by ensuring that possible cultural inaccuracies are reviewed and addressed.

- Working with our location manager to scout and secure locations in Korea Town, New Malden.

- Helping with auditions for Korean actors.

- Providing on-set expertise in Korean pronunciation and customs.

Minor Roles

- Help to secure funding with Korean companies and art grants.

- A small amount of translation work, primarily for the screenplay.

Experience Required

- Fluent in Korean

- Good communication skills in English

- Detailed knowledge of Korean culture

- Currently living in London.

- Has spent a minimum of 3 months in South Korea.

If you would like to apply for this fantastic opportunity, please send an email to contact@sobwebproductions.co.uk explaining why you would like to get involved and the skills that make you the perfect fit for the role (in English please). Applications close at the end of October 2012. We will start interviewing immediately so get those applications in!

There are other roles available in the team so if you have experience in film and would like to share some of that, please contact us. Sobweb Productions is a young production company in its early days but we are growing in numbers. We look forward to welcoming you to the team. 

감사합니다,

David Sobell & Kathryn Pascoe

Director & Producer