This Blog Post is None of Your Business

As I've mentioned on this blog before, Chris Brown (or Christopher Brown as he likes to be called on the streets) is an awful human being, and his offensively terrible pop music is overshadowed only by a rich history of domestic violence. Now he has teamed up with his former victim Rihanna on her latest album Unapologetic to record the controversial track Nobody's Business, and like a shit Midas that turns everything he touches into shit, Christopher has helped Rihanna create a track that is, well, shit.

Have a listen:

First of all, it would be unfair to disseminate this song without a look at the worst two lines of the song:

Every touch becomes infectious,

Let's make out in this Lexus.

What is it that's so irresistibly romantic about a Lexus? Sure, Lexus do generally make reasonably nice cars, but they are hardly the auto-mobile equivalents of a heart-shaped, rose-petal-strewn bed in a dimly lit room. A Lexus is probably about the connubial equivalent of two single beds pushed together in a Travelodge: the facilities are adequate for all your love-making needs, but you probably wouldn't choose it as the location of a surprise anniversary gift. Do you really want to make out in a Lexus, Rihanna, or are you just saying that because it rhymes with the word “infectious?” I suppose it is quite difficult to find rhymes for “Jaguar.”

“Ain't nobody's business” is the defiant refrain repeated ad nauseum, or at least that's what it says in the lyric booklet (if it comes with a lyric booklet that is; it's probably just pictures of Rihanna's boobs or something. I don't know you can't expect me to do any research.) because those certainly aren't the words Christopher and Rihanna are singing. Instead they repeat the words “ain't nobody bid-na” at you like some strange and disorientating form of Dada-ist high art. This I don't really understand. I mean I know in pop music language is de-formalised and you can expect the odd 's' or 't' to be dropped from a few words here and there, but the word “business” in no way resembles the word “bid-na.” Was it Christopher or Rihanna who came up with the idea of replacing the main word of the chorus with another, completely unrelated and meaningless word? It must have been something that they sat around and discussed. When planning that song someone must have said “hey you know this word “business?” Well, how about we replace half of the letters with a random assortment of vowels and consonants from this game of Boggle?” It must have been something they discussed, because there is no way in the world the two of them could have simultaneously decided to replace the exact same word with the exactly the same Dr. Seuss-esque nonsense word at exactly the same time. There's more chance of SpikeMilligan's “On the Ning Nang Nong” being an attempt at Agricultural Reform that miraculously encountered a string of eighty-eight consecutive typos.

Let's put the aside surreal pronunciation and awful lyrical content for the moment however and focus on the message of the song. It's quite a difficult song to unpick and I'm sure it is loaded with ambiguities and nuance, but I think what Rihanna appears to be saying is that her and Chrissy's relationship is none of anyone else's business. It's interesting that if her relationship with Chrissy is nobody else's business that she would choose to write a popular song about that relationship for an audience of literally millions of people. It seems somewhat contradictory, and possibly even dishonest towards her true feelings (can you believe it?). It seems like what the song should really be saying is not “our relationship is none of your business” but “if you disapprove of our relationship then it's none of your business, but if not then please show your support by buying this song, learning the words and singing along at performances costing £60 a head.”

That's just what I think anyway, although I'm sure it's none of my “bid-na.”

The Milk Fight

15^th September 2012

Today my best friend Michael came round to play. He arrived at 2 o'clock and we frolicked in the garden for hours until we became exceedingly thirsty and had to retire to the kitchen for a cool glass of milk. Feeling sufficiently refreshed, Michael put his finger in his glass of milk and flicked a speck of the milky liquid in my face. In retaliation and with a demeanour of mock outrage I took a sip of milk, kept it in my mouth and spurted out a jet of milk like a fountain into his eyes. Michael, laughing but also blinded by the milk, took his glass in his hand and poured it over my head, at which point I kindly returned the gesture. Things quickly started to get out of hand. “That's it...” said Michael forebodingly, and he disappeared into the garden. Moments later he came back with two large water pistols. “Milk fight!” he yelled. I grinned back at him.

Filling the pistols with milk was a laborious task and in retrospect the spontaneity of our wacky antics did suffer slightly. After a quarter of an hour was spent filling the pistols I was starting to reconsider how I had decided to spend my day, but we had two great pistols filled with milk now and it seemed a shame to let them go to waste.

Michael started off our skirmish with a milky jet straight into my chest and dived behind the sofa to take cover. I took refuge on the staircase and waited for his head to pop out before shooting the creamy liquid into his temple. We carried on in this vein for about 10 minutes before abandoning these conservative measures in favour of more aggressive tactics. We jumped out from our defensive positions and pumped our milky guns until all the milk was drained and the living room was drenched in milk.

A wry smile passed between us. We knew that there was only one way to settle this battle: hand-to-hand combat. In fits of giggles we attempted to wrestle each other to the floor, exchanging a series of head locks and half nelsons. Once we were horizontal we gave up the wrestling in favour of violent tickling, before we collapsed on the milk-soaked carpet, drenched from head to toe in milk and suffering with paroxysms of hilarity.

The two of us laughed until the cows came home.

Then all of a sudden things became very serious.

*

The cows were not best pleased to witness such a wanton waste of milk.

“What the fucking shit, Dave?” said Martin. “Have you been using our milk for your cunting milk fights again? Do you have any idea how long it takes to squeeze that much milk from my fucking udders?”

Linda's tone was that of disappointment rather than anger: “the whole living room is ruined. You must have wasted at least a dozen pints of milk this time David. I'm really upset.” I tried to apologise but she cut me off: “I can't even talk to you right now. I feel so used.”

Martin was unrelenting in his abuse. He called me the foulest names, and just when I felt ready to burst with guilt he took off his large metal bell from around his neck and proceeded to beat me with it. The steel chimed against my ribs like a clock striking ten, all the while Michael cowered in fear, too afraid to speak out.

Eventually the beating ceased and I was left to crawl upstairs into my room alone, where I passed out on the bed.

*

I felt awful about what Michael and I had done. We had completely taken Martin and Linda for granted and treated their milk like tap-water. Their teats were not taps and I needed to remember that. There was a knock at my door; it was Martin and Linda. I was terrified; I didn't want another beating, be it verbal or at the hands of a steel cowbell again.

“David...” they started.

I started to apologise and explain that it would never happen again but they stopped me in my tracks.

“We know David. We overreacted, and for that we too are sorry. So sorry in fact that we made you a little something...”

I knew what this meant. I started to grin in disbelief.

“That's right: milkshakes!”

And the three of us raised a toast to the joys of milk and laughed about our day.

Dave's Faves 2 November

Track List:
1. Pavement - Cut Your Hair 
2. Menomena - Baton 
3. Slow Club - Giving up on Love 
4. Japandroids - The House that Heaven Built 
5. Les Savy Fav - Pots and Pans 
6. Albert Hammond Jr. - In Transit 
7. Girls - Lust for Life 
8. Titus Andronicus - Ecce Homo 
9. Temper Trap - Need Your Love 
10. Moldy Peaches - Anyone Else But You 
11. Neutral Milk Hotel - Holland, 1945 
12. Japanther - First of All 
13. Chromatics - Kill For Love

My Little McEnroe (fiction)

It took me years to realise that Sarah had been fucking Michael's tennis coach. I suppose I did always think it strange the frequency with which Michael was going to tennis—three or four times a week on occasion, and at varying times. The impromptu tennis lessons sprung upon me out of nowhere; I always thought he was just developing urgent and capricious desires for emergency tennis coaching. 'What a promising young sportsman,' I used to think. I was so proud of my little McEnroe.

I think I really started to suspect something was wrong when Sarah started taking Michael to tennis lessons but forgetting to take him with her. I would come home late to find Michael sitting on the sofa with a bag of crisps in one hand, the T.V. remote in the other and his mother nowhere to be seen.

“Where's your mother?” I would ask.

“She's taking me to tennis,” was his reply.

Things weren't quite adding up. I was fairly sure that going to tennis coaching usually involved some sort of combination of tennis and coaching, but then I never was very good at sport. Michael used to bamboozle me with tales of his sporting victories; stories of how he'd back-slapped the T-ball into the back of the net from thirty-five yards out. It all sounded so impressive.

It finally clicked when one day, in a naïve attempt at familial bonding I challenged my son to a game of tennis, hoping to witness the fruits of my huge investment in lessons.

He didn't even own a racket.

Do you have a nectar card?

I

It's a Saturday afternoon. Peter is in the pub reading the Independent and waiting for Nigel at their usual table: far away enough from the toilets to avoid the smell, yet close enough for them to make frequent trips now that the years have taken their toll on the middle-aged bladders. Nigel enters with a fresh tattoo on his forehead marked in thick black ink and a beaming smile on his face.

“Hi Pete, how's it going?” he asks nonchalantly.

“Hi mate,” he says while finishing the sentence he was reading in the paper, before looking up at Nigel's forehead and sighing. “What have you got on your forehead?”

“It's a tattoo Peter, obviously. It says “no, I do not have a Nectar card.”

“Well, I don't have one either but I don't brag about it.”

“Yeah but, you know when you buy something in a shop and they ask you if you have a Nectar card?”

“Yeah.”

“And it's really annoying because you don't have one...”

“A little bit, I suppose.”

“So I got this tattoo, which explains clearly that I do not own a Nectar card. That way cashiers can just read the information off my forehead rather than having to ask me, and I can just show the cashier my forehead instead of having to tediously explain my situation regarding Nectar cards. I'm literally saving hundreds of hours.”

“But you just say “no.””

“What?”

“When somebody asks you if you have a Nectar card, you just say “no.” It takes a fraction of a second, and you probably say it while bagging up your shopping or entering your pin number anyway, and thus you can exchange the information at no detriment to your inexplicably busy schedule.”

“Hey, why did you say “inexplicably busy schedule” in such a sarcastic tone?”

“You just spent a couple of hours getting a completely redundant forehead tattoo.”

“Yeah but... Okay so I may not save time at the checkout per se, but at least it's one less word I have to say to the cashier. I hate those people.”

“They having a terribly boring job to do and they work for nothing, you could at least show them some respect.”

“But they have spots and smell like grease.”

“So what?”

“And they always wear those stupid jackets. They're like walking advertisements.”

“That's their uniform.”

“Yeah well... I hate poor people.”

II

Nigel is in Homebase, bagging up curtain hooks, batteries and a floral mug. His excitement is tangible; this is the first time he's had the chance to put his new tattoo into action. This is going to be great, Nigel thought, I am such a practical man. This will show Peter who's awesome.

“That's £12.32 please,” said the cashier.

“There you go.”

“Do you have a Nectar card?”

“I'm sorry what?”

“Do you have a Nectar card?”

“Read my forehead.”

“'No... I do not have a... Nectar card.' Oh right, sorry. Force of habit.”

“Well it's not okay. I spent a lot of money on this tattoo; the least you could do is read it.”

“Sorry I didn't notice. I process dozens of customers every day. I have to ask if they have a Nectar card; it's my job.”

“But I have conveniently provided the answer to your question in writing on my face in order to avoid this trouble and save our time.”

“It seems like you're only wasting more time by having this conversation. Do you think I enjoy having to ask everyone if they have a Nectar card. “Do you have a Nectar card? No.” “Do you have a Nectar card? No.” “Do you have a Nectar card? No.” For every single customer. Nobody has a Nectar card; they're completely useless. I know that as well as you. I'm not an idiot. I don't do this for fun, you know? I don't go round all my friends and family asking if they have Nectar cards and discussing the potential benefits of Nectar cards. I work for a multi-national corporation that is affiliated with the Nectar card company and therefore I am required, as part of my contract, to ask every customer if they have a Nectar card, and enquire as to whether or not they intend to get one. You don't need to get a tattoo to tell me how annoying that is.”

“Yeah well... I hate poor people.”

And with that Nigel fled into the distance. The sound of his plastic bags bumping irritatingly against his knees drowned out the cashier's explanation that actually he was from a middle-class family and was working part-time in order to earn a bit of money for himself and, by the way, could he interest Nigel in a Hombase store card?

The Pursuit of the Adolescent Beard

If I were King for a day and I could do whatever I wanted... I would probably be disappointed by the limited power of the monarchy in modern day Britain. But if I was to become King and with this change I gained some sort of sovereignty over the nation there would be one law I would wish to enact. “What is it David? Would you aim to create jobs in order to combat this country's staggering levels of unemployment?” Of course not, guess again. “Would you reform the tax system and make it impossible for the super-rich to avoid paying millions of pounds in tax?” Don't be ridiculous, I have no time for these petty scruples! For there is one issue closer to my heart than anything else in the world; one issue that makes my heart swell with passion and stirs great indignation within my soul, and if I could make one law in this country it would be this: you should only be allowed to try and grow a beard if you are able to attain full facial coverage.

I don't literally mean the whole face, forehead and all; I'm not that ambitious. I just mean the parts of the face where beard usually grows. The parts of the face which, if you were to lie down on your front and rest your head in your two hands, while looking upwards in a naïve and playful manner, it would be the part of your face covered by your two hands. Plus the upper lip too—that is also an important part of the beard situation.

If you do literally have full facial hair coverage—forehead and everything—then maybe overgrown but fashionable facial hair isn't for you, and you might want to shave that. On the plus side though, if you've got a forehead covered in hair then you essentially have fully customisable eyebrows. You can also combat the effects of ageing with a completely manageable hairline, so it's not all doom and gloom.

Growing up as a teenage boy among other teenage boy I encountered so many people trying to grow beards before their time. They would come into school with about twelve hairs on their faces; five around the left sideburn area, five around the right sideburn area and two inch-long hairs protruding from the chin.

“Have you noticed, David, I'm growing a beard?” they would say to me, audibly proud of their achievements. “Where's your beard? Can you not grow a beard? How ridiculous you look standing next to me and my beard,” they would gloat, while twisting both their chin hairs around their forefinger (the adolescent alternative to the classic beard-stroke manoeuvre).

My reply would always be the same: “No. Like you I've also grown twelve hairs on my face, but unlike you I didn't think my face needed to be adorned with pubes. Do you know who else has a beard like that? Have you seen that woman that walks up and down the Botley Road rifling through bins and collecting carrier bags? The one that shouts at you if you make eye-contact, with the questionable personal hygeine? The Bag Lady, that's right. You have the Bag Lady's beard.”

Then they would say, “wow David that's a pretty hurtful thing to say to your friend; you should try being nicer to people and then maybe everyone would like you a little bit more,” or some rubbish like that; I don't know I wouldn't be listening. “And anyway, even if I do have the Bag Lady's beard then you've said the word beard so it's still a beard.”

“No it's not. When a woman has twelve hairs on her face she has a beard; when a man has twelve hairs on his face he has to shave. That's a cutting edge observation about gendered societal responses to body hair for you there.”

“Thanks David, you are great.”

“Yeah, I suppose you're right.”

Where was I? Oh yes: don't grow a shit beard. If possible, go back in time and tell your sixteen-year-old self not to grow a shit beard.

Or, you know, do what you like. I probably won't say anything.

Trains for the Dissatisfied (fiction)

When the train to London slows to a standstill in front of me I realise that my carriage is broken. That might sound dramatic or even catastrophic at a push, but I can assure you it's not. Really the train is fine; it pulled up to the platform effortlessly and it will leave in the same way (effortlessly that is; it will continue on it's course through the opposite side of the station if you have to be so pedantic). The train is quite capable of carrying on as normal; the engine hasn't blown. The wheels are resting on top of the rails just as they should; they haven't become de-railed through a collision with an abandoned vehicle or a particularly large pile of dead leaves. No, the problem is not with the whole train but with a single carriage. “Which carriage?” I hear you ask. My carriage, as I said.

At least I can only assume it's my carriage. For you see my carriage—the one listed on my seat reservation—is carriage C, and working from the back of the train I've walked past E and D and found myself at a carriage missing a designated letter. The LED display on the side of the carriage that has provided me with the letters of the preceding ones seems to be out of order. This hasn't stumped me though, for I've managed to deduce, using my advanced knowledge of the alphabet, that the next carriage must be carriage C, and therefore my carriage.

And that is the extent of the faults with my carriage: the LED display isn't working, meaning that inside the train the seat reservations won't be shown electronically above the reserved seats, and thus those that have pre-booked seats are forced to contest with those free spirits who just turn up on trains unprepared and hope to find a place to sit. Like I said before: it's not a big deal.

In fact the problem is even smaller than one may have previously assumed, for there are dozens of seats available for myself and the other passengers wishing to find seats in carriage C of the 9.36 train from Cambridge to London Euston. I discard my reservation and find a seat facing forwards next to a window, which is all I ever ask of a seat on public transport. My satisfaction seems to be shared with all of my fellow passengers except for one woman, whose voice is inescapable:

“The seat reservations aren't being shown,” she observes, “we're not going to get our seats.” Although her language is plain her discontent is detectable. She has two small children following behind her, to whom I assume she is speaking but I doubt they're listening. While her comments may have been spoken at her children they were obviously meant to be heard by a wider audience.

A few moments pass and the ticket inspector starts to make his way down the carriage and the woman approaches him. The aisles are narrow and there's nowhere for this poor man to run.

“Why aren't the seat reservations being shown?” she asks.

“I'm afraid the LED displays aren't working in this carriage,” he replies.

“I have two kids and I went out of my way to reserve seats around a table so that the three of us could sit together. Now there are other people sitting in our places.”

“I'm really sorry about that.”

“Well that's not good enough.”

“I'm sorry but there's nothing much I can do.”

“I'm not very happy about this.”

“I know. I do apologise.”

“Hmm.”

The ticket inspector carries on walking and the disgruntled woman pauses before fitting herself and her two children into two seats; quite easily too may I add.

Why do some people insist on doing that? Why do they have to complain about insignificant things to people completely powerless to change anything? Of course that ticket inspector doesn't know how to fix the LED displays in a carriage. Even if he did have the electronic expertise to repair such a fault it's not part of his job anyway; he's too busy inspecting tickets among other things. Or maybe there are no other things, I don't know, but the point is that that woman was never going to get anywhere directing her complaints at him, and if she stopped to think for a second she would have realised that. Or perhaps she knew full well the futility of her whining but spoke up anyway just to spread a bit of dissatisfaction. I bet on the way here she had a go at her taxi driver about the traffic.

I can't see the point in getting hung up on these things; on the traffic or the weather or the price of fish or the Wi-Fi capabilities of your local Starbucks or the LED displays of a train carriage. Most of the time the problem isn't even caused by anybody you could point a finger at so why bother? It's hard enough to be happy without dwelling on these tedious grievances.

Thankfully the woman doesn't speak up for the rest of the journey and we make it to Euston unscathed. I think she realised rather quickly that two train seats provide more than ample room for the average woman and two tiny children, but I doubt she'll be hunting down the designer at First Great Western trains to thank him for such a spacious journey.