Hegemony Press' source at the Met (Officer Krupkey) has provided me with details of the texts hacked from Mr Blair's phone allegedly by the News of The World, both ingoing and outgoing. Today I present the first selection for your delectation:
From: Paddy A
Rec: 09:48 1 May 1997:
Re:
Good Luck today T! Look forward to working with you. Keep me posted how things go.
(no response)
From: Paddy A
Rec: 10:20 2 May 1997:
Re:
Hey T! I bet you've got a sore head today LOL. Txt Me Back re: The thing.
(no response)
From: Paddy A
Rec: 11:20 3 May 1997
Re:
Hey Tony! Long time no speak. Gimme a text!
(no response)
From: Paddy A
Rec: 11:49 4 May 1997
Re:
R U getting these? Txt bck!
(no response)
From: Paddy A
Rec: 13:42 5 May 1997
Re:
Hey Tone, what's up dude? Are we still on?
To: Paddy A
Sent: 17:57 5 May 1997
Re:
If you don't stop txting me, I'll get the police on you. Stalker-boy.
From: Paddy A
Rec: 18:01 5 May 1997
Re:
WTF?
To: Paddy A
Sent: 18:05 5 May 1997
Re:
LOL LOL LOL GET A LIFE SADDO! HAHAHAHAHAHAH LOLZ!
From: Paddy A
Rec: 18:07 5 May 1997
Re:
We'll fucking get you, you wanker. Just you fucking wait.
Come back tomorrow, when I reveal Tony's texts to "African Princess CR".
Monday, 6 September 2010
New from Hegemony Films
Coming next Summer...
Following in the rich tradition of films such as "Super Mario Brothers", "Prince of Persia", that one what's about Facebook and "Ms Pac-Man's Bedroom Romps", Hegemony Films is proud to present it's forthcoming production - EMOTICON!
Follow the adventures of :p, a wacky, fun guy, and his friends ;) and :o)
Watch him romance beautiful lady :-)
Watch him fight off villains such as :{o) and >:-(
Proposed Cast-List
:p Jim Carrey
;) Christian Slater
:0) Tom Hanks
:-) Penelope Cruz
:{o) George Clooney
>:-( Christopher Walken
(:[]) Enraged Mountain Gorilla
\/(:~o Shocked Lady Gaga
(:0/) Miserable fat faced man (Still to be cast)
Following in the rich tradition of films such as "Super Mario Brothers", "Prince of Persia", that one what's about Facebook and "Ms Pac-Man's Bedroom Romps", Hegemony Films is proud to present it's forthcoming production - EMOTICON!
Follow the adventures of :p, a wacky, fun guy, and his friends ;) and :o)
Watch him romance beautiful lady :-)
Watch him fight off villains such as :{o) and >:-(
Proposed Cast-List
:p Jim Carrey
;) Christian Slater
:0) Tom Hanks
:-) Penelope Cruz
:{o) George Clooney
>:-( Christopher Walken
(:[]) Enraged Mountain Gorilla
\/(:~o Shocked Lady Gaga
(:0/) Miserable fat faced man (Still to be cast)
Friday, 3 September 2010
Massive left wing bollocks
One of the exceptional pieces of nonsense the right whinge likes to put about is the concept that OMFG the BBC is full of Trots and all it's tv shows and radio shows are biased biased biased.
Which is all well and good but you know what? A cursory examination of any tv schedule will show that this viewpoint is patently bollocks.
I have another window open at present. In it, the programs on BBC are listed. As I type, the Beeb is showing that bastion of revolutionary socialism "Bargain Hunt".
Now, if I was a sneery left-wing academic, I'd make some point about how it indoctrinates viewers into the capitalist system right about *here*. I'd probably be stroking my goatee as I said it, and if I was really rebellious, I'd be smoking a Gitane. I won't though. I'll just point. Look. "Bargain Hunt" ladies and gents.
BBC2, mind you, has always been the home of more left wing, off the wall programming hasn't it? What's on there at present? Well, there's a film called "Odd Man out" (Carol Reed, not bad actually), and then it's followed by the terribly left-wing "Ready, Steady, Lenin". Sorry. COOK. "Ready, Steady, Cook". Again, doesn't seem particularly biased to me...
And you know what, you go through daytime tv, and that's all that's on. Cookery. Bad soaps or cop shows ("Diagnosis Murder", for instance, featuring Dick Van Dyke, notorious for being briefly leader of the Workers Revolutionary Party in the 60s). Lots of game shows. Lots of shows about buying and selling antiques. Or houses. Or antique houses. Or cooking in antique houses with Dick Van Dyke (I made the last one up, can you tell?).
Into the evening, we get yet more quiz shows (including the staggeringly non-pc "Weakest Link", which both features constant insults of the competitors, and also, the darwinian "only the strongest will survive" concept. It's also a prime bit of Game Theory, that relic of cold-war lunacy first thought up by certified psychopaths...where you sit there and think how to fuck over your fellow competitors tactically so you come out "the strongest link". Surely, surely this massively left-wing channel would perhaps have a program on where...everyone co-operates for victory?), dull shows about animals, programs about restoring country houses (yanno, that strikes me as the antithesis of "left wing", that whole, preservation thing? It's...a bit...conservative...isn't it?), genealogy programs (bit blood and volk that, eh?), Gardeners World, Mastermind, bad sit-coms set in middle-class world, blah blah blah. And Eastenders, which, despite being a seemingly working class soap, in a working class area, features nobody on benefits, nobody who works for the state, nobody who works for a faceless corporation, nobody who is a member of a union, and indeed, EVERYBODY is either a small businessman or works for a small business...
Of course, the entire analysis above is me being facetious. I understand completely the point is THE NEWS. That's the issue, that's what the right think is "massively biased".
This is the same news that, when a major strike occurs...say - the B.A. strike - reports on it from the perspective of workers fighting for their rights, on how it affects them on a day to day basis, on the hardship and suffering them withdrawing their labour causes them? Oh. No. Wait. This is the news that reports strikes in two ways:-
(1) the management line as to "how much the strike will cost them"
(2) the effects on the public - and never as "thousands of people who can afford to spend £4000 on a holiday to the US slightly disrupted by people standing up for their rights" but "holiday misery for thousands as BA workers strike!".
The same news that never reports the activities of unions *at all* if there isn't a strike or a scandal or - occasionally - an election, despite the millions of people who are members of such, but reports every fart in the city in breathless detail?
This is the same news that, during the election when the Tories were banging on about the deficit and the vital need to cut, brought up other examples of deficit cutting - for example, the Irish deficit hawkery which has led to their government credit rating being cut and their economy going into meltdown? No, of course not.
This is the news that reports the strength of the pound, or the rate of inflation or house price rises with far far more detail than rises in unemployment?
This would be the same news that ever gives any room for discussion on issues of security and defence...the narrative is never "do we need such a big army?" but "what equipment doesn't the army have?", and well, yes, there's ALWAYS room on this news for people who think removing Trident is an option, eh?
This is the news that reports on the rest of the world only if there's a disaster. Or a war. Or - very rarely - on an election, generally if the country having the election is *predominantly white*.
Or if it does report on the actions of other countries in the world, then we generally get to view - especially if the said country is not white, or not European - those actions through the fog of "what this means for Britain" rather than "what it feels to be that nationality". So, lets see, does the news report the actions of - say - Iran in attempting to (maybe, so people say, I dunno, it's hard to sort your way through the fog of claim and counter-claim) get a nuclear weapon as *pretty damn rational* considering that it's surrounded by American allies, or countries America has invaded/made proxies, and America constantly throws invective at it? Does the news try to get inside the head of the Iranians? No, no, it's always the Iranian Nuclear Threat.
I'll make the point here that I don't want Iran to get nukes as much as the next man, but pretending that there aren't basic, real-politik versions for it to want a nuclear weapon as much as there are basic real-politik versions for this country to want to keep nukes, instead pretending it's all about one man being a meglomaniac lunatic, well, that's very left-wing isn't it?.
One could go on. Of course one could. These are just the examples I plucked from the air in my lunch-hour. Feel free to add more.
Massively left-wing? Mark Thompson, you are the Weakest Link. Goodbye.
Which is all well and good but you know what? A cursory examination of any tv schedule will show that this viewpoint is patently bollocks.
I have another window open at present. In it, the programs on BBC are listed. As I type, the Beeb is showing that bastion of revolutionary socialism "Bargain Hunt".
Now, if I was a sneery left-wing academic, I'd make some point about how it indoctrinates viewers into the capitalist system right about *here*. I'd probably be stroking my goatee as I said it, and if I was really rebellious, I'd be smoking a Gitane. I won't though. I'll just point. Look. "Bargain Hunt" ladies and gents.
BBC2, mind you, has always been the home of more left wing, off the wall programming hasn't it? What's on there at present? Well, there's a film called "Odd Man out" (Carol Reed, not bad actually), and then it's followed by the terribly left-wing "Ready, Steady, Lenin". Sorry. COOK. "Ready, Steady, Cook". Again, doesn't seem particularly biased to me...
And you know what, you go through daytime tv, and that's all that's on. Cookery. Bad soaps or cop shows ("Diagnosis Murder", for instance, featuring Dick Van Dyke, notorious for being briefly leader of the Workers Revolutionary Party in the 60s). Lots of game shows. Lots of shows about buying and selling antiques. Or houses. Or antique houses. Or cooking in antique houses with Dick Van Dyke (I made the last one up, can you tell?).
Into the evening, we get yet more quiz shows (including the staggeringly non-pc "Weakest Link", which both features constant insults of the competitors, and also, the darwinian "only the strongest will survive" concept. It's also a prime bit of Game Theory, that relic of cold-war lunacy first thought up by certified psychopaths...where you sit there and think how to fuck over your fellow competitors tactically so you come out "the strongest link". Surely, surely this massively left-wing channel would perhaps have a program on where...everyone co-operates for victory?), dull shows about animals, programs about restoring country houses (yanno, that strikes me as the antithesis of "left wing", that whole, preservation thing? It's...a bit...conservative...isn't it?), genealogy programs (bit blood and volk that, eh?), Gardeners World, Mastermind, bad sit-coms set in middle-class world, blah blah blah. And Eastenders, which, despite being a seemingly working class soap, in a working class area, features nobody on benefits, nobody who works for the state, nobody who works for a faceless corporation, nobody who is a member of a union, and indeed, EVERYBODY is either a small businessman or works for a small business...
Of course, the entire analysis above is me being facetious. I understand completely the point is THE NEWS. That's the issue, that's what the right think is "massively biased".
This is the same news that, when a major strike occurs...say - the B.A. strike - reports on it from the perspective of workers fighting for their rights, on how it affects them on a day to day basis, on the hardship and suffering them withdrawing their labour causes them? Oh. No. Wait. This is the news that reports strikes in two ways:-
(1) the management line as to "how much the strike will cost them"
(2) the effects on the public - and never as "thousands of people who can afford to spend £4000 on a holiday to the US slightly disrupted by people standing up for their rights" but "holiday misery for thousands as BA workers strike!".
The same news that never reports the activities of unions *at all* if there isn't a strike or a scandal or - occasionally - an election, despite the millions of people who are members of such, but reports every fart in the city in breathless detail?
This is the same news that, during the election when the Tories were banging on about the deficit and the vital need to cut, brought up other examples of deficit cutting - for example, the Irish deficit hawkery which has led to their government credit rating being cut and their economy going into meltdown? No, of course not.
This is the news that reports the strength of the pound, or the rate of inflation or house price rises with far far more detail than rises in unemployment?
This would be the same news that ever gives any room for discussion on issues of security and defence...the narrative is never "do we need such a big army?" but "what equipment doesn't the army have?", and well, yes, there's ALWAYS room on this news for people who think removing Trident is an option, eh?
This is the news that reports on the rest of the world only if there's a disaster. Or a war. Or - very rarely - on an election, generally if the country having the election is *predominantly white*.
Or if it does report on the actions of other countries in the world, then we generally get to view - especially if the said country is not white, or not European - those actions through the fog of "what this means for Britain" rather than "what it feels to be that nationality". So, lets see, does the news report the actions of - say - Iran in attempting to (maybe, so people say, I dunno, it's hard to sort your way through the fog of claim and counter-claim) get a nuclear weapon as *pretty damn rational* considering that it's surrounded by American allies, or countries America has invaded/made proxies, and America constantly throws invective at it? Does the news try to get inside the head of the Iranians? No, no, it's always the Iranian Nuclear Threat.
I'll make the point here that I don't want Iran to get nukes as much as the next man, but pretending that there aren't basic, real-politik versions for it to want a nuclear weapon as much as there are basic real-politik versions for this country to want to keep nukes, instead pretending it's all about one man being a meglomaniac lunatic, well, that's very left-wing isn't it?.
One could go on. Of course one could. These are just the examples I plucked from the air in my lunch-hour. Feel free to add more.
Massively left-wing? Mark Thompson, you are the Weakest Link. Goodbye.
Tuesday, 16 February 2010
New from Hegemony Industries...
We here at Hegemony Towers are always looking out for our loyal customers.
So much so that we have turned our wisdom to more pressing issues than "Which beer should I drink next?".
After a lot of research (watching all seven series of "The West Wing"; reading a series of unfunny Martin Rowson cartoons; finding an article in The Economist that doesn't have the argument "the solution is more capitalism"), we present to you the first in our ongoing series of "suggestions to solve the world's ills".
The War on Drugs - after much consideration, the Hegemony Thinktank has come up with a 3 step plan for you....
(1) Legalise all drugs.
(2) Make any conversations about what fun drugs are illegal, on pain of death
(3) only allow said drugs to be served in working mens clubs. After the fourth pint of mild.
This will have the added bonus of reviving a side of the economy currently suffering from the after-effects of the smoking ban.
Israel and Palestine - a two state solution obviously presents problems. A one state solution has the problem that it could leave one side out in the cold. So...
One state. Write the name "Israel". But pronounce it "Palestine".
There, everyone happy.
The War on Terror - Look, Osama and his crew are not going to be happy unless they have the Caliphate back. Which is an unrealistic expectation in the real world.
Ooooh. Now. You see, Mr B-L is obviously technologically literate. And, as well as this, as that whole 9-11 thing shows, he has an understanding of that whole Baudrillard, society of the spectacackle, we are all living in a virtual world thang.
So, I present...Second Life: The Jihad Edition. Perfect. Get Osama and his buddies hooked up, in those funky VR headsets, like what they had in Lawnmower Man. They can wander round a totalitarian, clerico-fascist heaven. Meanwhile, the rest of us can get on dealing with the important shit, like that whole food-water-air deal. Jobs a good un.
Come back next week, and we will solve global warming, Broken Britain, The Credit Crunch and why ITV never has anything watchable on a Saturday night.
So much so that we have turned our wisdom to more pressing issues than "Which beer should I drink next?".
After a lot of research (watching all seven series of "The West Wing"; reading a series of unfunny Martin Rowson cartoons; finding an article in The Economist that doesn't have the argument "the solution is more capitalism"), we present to you the first in our ongoing series of "suggestions to solve the world's ills".
The War on Drugs - after much consideration, the Hegemony Thinktank has come up with a 3 step plan for you....
(1) Legalise all drugs.
(2) Make any conversations about what fun drugs are illegal, on pain of death
(3) only allow said drugs to be served in working mens clubs. After the fourth pint of mild.
This will have the added bonus of reviving a side of the economy currently suffering from the after-effects of the smoking ban.
Israel and Palestine - a two state solution obviously presents problems. A one state solution has the problem that it could leave one side out in the cold. So...
One state. Write the name "Israel". But pronounce it "Palestine".
There, everyone happy.
The War on Terror - Look, Osama and his crew are not going to be happy unless they have the Caliphate back. Which is an unrealistic expectation in the real world.
Ooooh. Now. You see, Mr B-L is obviously technologically literate. And, as well as this, as that whole 9-11 thing shows, he has an understanding of that whole Baudrillard, society of the spectacackle, we are all living in a virtual world thang.
So, I present...Second Life: The Jihad Edition. Perfect. Get Osama and his buddies hooked up, in those funky VR headsets, like what they had in Lawnmower Man. They can wander round a totalitarian, clerico-fascist heaven. Meanwhile, the rest of us can get on dealing with the important shit, like that whole food-water-air deal. Jobs a good un.
Come back next week, and we will solve global warming, Broken Britain, The Credit Crunch and why ITV never has anything watchable on a Saturday night.
Monday, 15 February 2010
It's a simple idea, and i am sure everyone will think of a way around it...
But serious, whats to stop every single non-white now joining the BNP, taking it over and changing it's name?
I suggest BMP. British Muslim Party.
I suggest BMP. British Muslim Party.
Wednesday, 2 September 2009
We are here, because we love you.
The current reading material in chéz Hegemoné (oh, the pretensions) includes "Herzog" by Saul Bellow, "The History Man" by Malcolm Bradbury and several Thomas Pynchon and Philip Roth novels. This, combined with the recent viewing of both series of "A Very Peculiar Practice" and the recent reading of "Wonder Boys" by Chabon ("Shhhhhhhhaboooon!") brings the reader to ask the question:-
How badly do campus satires date?
Now all of the above are satires, of one form or another, of academia, of post-academia, or of academics. And all of them creak, to some degree or another. The Pynchon and Roth books have a certain vigour about them, a post-60s freewheelin' freeflowin' freefallin' rambunctiousness which allows the dated element of the subject to be glossed over. In this po-mo post-milliennium post-irony post 9/11 world, they still feel of a different world, completely, and the "satire" element is dead. But they manage to last to some degree (this is also helped in Pynchon's case by the very bagginess of his narrative - all human life is contained therein).
"Wonder Boys" has dated the least but given it's not yet a decade old, you wouldn't have expected it to. It's quite difficult to read after seeing the film first - one finds it impossible not to picture Grady Tripp as Mr M Douglas, despite him not physically resembling the character in any way.
"Herzog" is about an academic. It's supposedly Bellow's classic. One can see the lineage from it to Roth and Pynchon but Bellow is a pallid version of those two gentleman. There is no fire, no energy. I can find little or nothing worthy of admiration in it, despite the odd phrase of beauty or interest. I cannot see - to be honest - why precisely Martin Amis, Malcolm Bradbury et al venerate(d) the old codger.
Which leads us on to "The History Man" by the late departed Mr Bradbury. This was, apparently, in it's day a sensation, a vastly comic (which, we can agree, is different to satirical) but also savagely satirical piece of work. One only has to read the recommendations on it's cover, from Auberon Waugh to Kingsley Amis to Martin Amis to Uncle Tom Cobbley and all to realise the respect in which this book was held. I've virtually finished it. It's a nothing of a book. Seriously. It may have had the power to move mountains at some point in the past, all thunder and lightning, but now it's more a wet fart.
"A Very Peculiar Practice" - mainly watched in a frenzy of nostalgia for my alma mater - held some power still because it showed the battle between academia and managerialism, and also because of the character of Jock McCannon, all alcoholic scottish King Lear posing. Again, however, it's toothless.
One has to wonder, really, looking at my list of the above novels and films, about that initial question, about the ageing. Is this something inherent to satire, or is it something which affects all culture? (I have noticed, in the past, how 90% - to grab a completely random made up figure - of all comedy ages badly. In some cases, to the point of complete unfunniness. If you don't believe me, listen to the comedy stylings of "The Goons", the funniest thing since the Black Death)
But the campus "comedy" or "comic" novel dates worst of all. Of all the examples of the genre I can recall, perhaps only "Porterhouse Blue" is over 20 years old and still has an impact, and even this is lessened with age.
Conclusion: Creative Writing Lecturers, pick a new fucking subject. Please.
How badly do campus satires date?
Now all of the above are satires, of one form or another, of academia, of post-academia, or of academics. And all of them creak, to some degree or another. The Pynchon and Roth books have a certain vigour about them, a post-60s freewheelin' freeflowin' freefallin' rambunctiousness which allows the dated element of the subject to be glossed over. In this po-mo post-milliennium post-irony post 9/11 world, they still feel of a different world, completely, and the "satire" element is dead. But they manage to last to some degree (this is also helped in Pynchon's case by the very bagginess of his narrative - all human life is contained therein).
"Wonder Boys" has dated the least but given it's not yet a decade old, you wouldn't have expected it to. It's quite difficult to read after seeing the film first - one finds it impossible not to picture Grady Tripp as Mr M Douglas, despite him not physically resembling the character in any way.
"Herzog" is about an academic. It's supposedly Bellow's classic. One can see the lineage from it to Roth and Pynchon but Bellow is a pallid version of those two gentleman. There is no fire, no energy. I can find little or nothing worthy of admiration in it, despite the odd phrase of beauty or interest. I cannot see - to be honest - why precisely Martin Amis, Malcolm Bradbury et al venerate(d) the old codger.
Which leads us on to "The History Man" by the late departed Mr Bradbury. This was, apparently, in it's day a sensation, a vastly comic (which, we can agree, is different to satirical) but also savagely satirical piece of work. One only has to read the recommendations on it's cover, from Auberon Waugh to Kingsley Amis to Martin Amis to Uncle Tom Cobbley and all to realise the respect in which this book was held. I've virtually finished it. It's a nothing of a book. Seriously. It may have had the power to move mountains at some point in the past, all thunder and lightning, but now it's more a wet fart.
"A Very Peculiar Practice" - mainly watched in a frenzy of nostalgia for my alma mater - held some power still because it showed the battle between academia and managerialism, and also because of the character of Jock McCannon, all alcoholic scottish King Lear posing. Again, however, it's toothless.
One has to wonder, really, looking at my list of the above novels and films, about that initial question, about the ageing. Is this something inherent to satire, or is it something which affects all culture? (I have noticed, in the past, how 90% - to grab a completely random made up figure - of all comedy ages badly. In some cases, to the point of complete unfunniness. If you don't believe me, listen to the comedy stylings of "The Goons", the funniest thing since the Black Death)
But the campus "comedy" or "comic" novel dates worst of all. Of all the examples of the genre I can recall, perhaps only "Porterhouse Blue" is over 20 years old and still has an impact, and even this is lessened with age.
Conclusion: Creative Writing Lecturers, pick a new fucking subject. Please.
Tuesday, 1 September 2009
Openings
I have no intention of ever posting anything about my day here. About my life. Aside from, maybe, the thoughts that emerged in it.
Today I have mainly been thinking of the conversation with my compadre on Saturday.
"What, precisely, would it be like to be a school contemporary of Barack Obama?".
Now, seriously here, when you are in school with people, you can make the odd excuse for people being a little more successful than you. Hey, they are, y'know, a different class, the well off swine. They work harder. They might be a little better at the whole exams/schoolwork thing. They are lucky. Better looking. Suck up to teacher. Yadda yadda yadda.
All completely reasonable excuses in the teenage mind, I would say. Maybe you can hold on to a few of them till adulthood. Maybe, if you are the kind of person who believes everything is an excuse for something, you can hold on to that for years to come.
But, there's a point, surely. There's a point where you stop and think "oh. hang on". I'd say that point has now officially happened for the high school contemporaries of Mr O. I mean, yeah, he's not exactly stupid, and he seems the type who worked hard. But he's the FUCKING PRESIDENT OF THE USA. And you sell aluminium. In Des Moines. Not very successfully.
I wonder if anyone has done a study of these individuals. I wonder how high the suicide rate amongst them is now.
(Idea: newspaper article, you know, one of them Sunday Supplement jobbies. With pictures of maybe two dozen of his school contemporaries and a little potted history of their life post growing up with "Barry")
I suppose you could always try to marshal a defence about how he's not very good at it (at present, I would say, the jury is out. Foreign Policy is a yay, Domestic is a bit more patchy) but really, thats just sour grapes isn't it? That's like being in school with Brad Pitt and saying "yeah but Benjamin Button was a bit shit wasn't it?" (which, again, it was).
It's a given, really, that most of us in the world are in the middle. We aren't the guy from school who ends up on "Crimewatch" for molesting pigs. But we aren't the guy who ends up President of the USA either. What must really grind is being the one in school who everyone THOUGHT would be a success and ended up in the middle. Whilst the quiet guy from the back of the class ended up Bill Gates. Or Barack. Or Brad. Or, jesus, even being David Hasselhoff is more of an achievement than most of us muster.
Conclusion: The ambition gland should be surgically removed if you aren't half way there by 25, for your own mental health.
Today I have mainly been thinking of the conversation with my compadre on Saturday.
"What, precisely, would it be like to be a school contemporary of Barack Obama?".
Now, seriously here, when you are in school with people, you can make the odd excuse for people being a little more successful than you. Hey, they are, y'know, a different class, the well off swine. They work harder. They might be a little better at the whole exams/schoolwork thing. They are lucky. Better looking. Suck up to teacher. Yadda yadda yadda.
All completely reasonable excuses in the teenage mind, I would say. Maybe you can hold on to a few of them till adulthood. Maybe, if you are the kind of person who believes everything is an excuse for something, you can hold on to that for years to come.
But, there's a point, surely. There's a point where you stop and think "oh. hang on". I'd say that point has now officially happened for the high school contemporaries of Mr O. I mean, yeah, he's not exactly stupid, and he seems the type who worked hard. But he's the FUCKING PRESIDENT OF THE USA. And you sell aluminium. In Des Moines. Not very successfully.
I wonder if anyone has done a study of these individuals. I wonder how high the suicide rate amongst them is now.
(Idea: newspaper article, you know, one of them Sunday Supplement jobbies. With pictures of maybe two dozen of his school contemporaries and a little potted history of their life post growing up with "Barry")
I suppose you could always try to marshal a defence about how he's not very good at it (at present, I would say, the jury is out. Foreign Policy is a yay, Domestic is a bit more patchy) but really, thats just sour grapes isn't it? That's like being in school with Brad Pitt and saying "yeah but Benjamin Button was a bit shit wasn't it?" (which, again, it was).
It's a given, really, that most of us in the world are in the middle. We aren't the guy from school who ends up on "Crimewatch" for molesting pigs. But we aren't the guy who ends up President of the USA either. What must really grind is being the one in school who everyone THOUGHT would be a success and ended up in the middle. Whilst the quiet guy from the back of the class ended up Bill Gates. Or Barack. Or Brad. Or, jesus, even being David Hasselhoff is more of an achievement than most of us muster.
Conclusion: The ambition gland should be surgically removed if you aren't half way there by 25, for your own mental health.
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