Taste crime

I was vegetarian for a few years. Then I revolted for a while, gorging myself on sausages and black pudding. Finally I settled down into what I call a practitarian – when it’s practical, I’ll make and eat vegetarian food, because it makes me feel better, keeps the gut microbiome in good shape and results in slightly less of the planet getting incinerated for my benefit. And when it isn’t practical, I’ll just eat whatever is put in front of me: fish, cow, horse, dog, fucking whatever. This is an especially useful when you’re a dinner party guest, because nobody wants to be the vegan who comes to dinner.

Being vegetarian comes with a few features. Firstly, it introduces you to a wide range of idiots, the main one being the spluttering, red-faced man (yes, it’s almost always a man) who sees vegetarianism as a personal slight. “That’s not natural!” he’ll bellow, whilst wearing clothes made from plastic, driving a car, living in a house, using glasses to see, flying on planes, and working with a job as far removed from nature as you can possibly get. And then he’ll go on at great length about human teeth.

Secondly, being vegetarian exposes you to the ultra-processed plant-based food in the shops which, with few exceptions, is vile. I’m talking about the stuff that ends up in the bargain bin: your pea protein slab, your nuggets of unclear origin, your “beyond meat”. I sometimes test these and I’m always stunned by their terribleness. No flavour. No spice. And, knowing this, the manufacturer often covers the item in a nasty sweet coating, trying (and failing) to hide the wet cardboard texture.

There are two reasons for things being this way. One: there’s a belief that what puts vegetarians off meat is its taste (a suggestion given to me by Sewing Goddess). And meat, by popular understanding, tastes good. Therefore, what vegetarians don’t like is taste, meaning that ultra-processed vegetarian foods can’t contain any of it. This leads to the proliferation of tasteless, textureless crap in our shop freezers. It’s possible that this is a Swedish thing, I’m unsure. Linda Mc Cartney’s vegetarian sausages, for example, I found to be quite good. But any factory-made vegetarian food aimed solely at the Swedish market is, for some reason, almost guaranteed to be shit.

And two: profit. It’s in the interests of those who make ultra-processed food that we keep on buying it. And when someone in a family turns vegetarian, the panicked parents, instead of, you know, just making some lentils and vegetables, will buy whatever crap is marketed to them as being vegetarian so that their child can still enjoy “normal” food, meaning meat (or meat substitute) and some sad vegetables. And so the industrial food producers keep on turning out those bland meat substitutes in the hopes that people won’t discover that vegetarian food is just about making it yourself, from scratch, in a way that does not provide profit for them. Because on no account can people find that out.

This, incidentally, is why so many people could never consider switching to vegetarian food, since they assume it consists of removing the meat from “normal” food and just serving the rest, with a gaping hole on the plate, instead of actually learning how to cook in a different and more interesting way. Because for me, vegetarian food is about making as much of it as possible, from scratch, myself. And there are so many excellent cuisines to draw from. A tasteless slab from a factory doesn’t really cut it.

And whatever you do, do NOT order the vegetarian meal on an aeroplane, because then you’ll get the weirdo meal, that single attempt at covering all those who don’t eat “normal” food: the veggies, but also the nut people, the gluten people, the religious people, and all those allergic to flavour.

Maybe there’s some deeper reason I’m missing here. And if you know it, do tell. Because I can’t see why food conglomerates would keep on pumping out factory-made, tasteless slop that’s guaranteed to go straight to the bargain bin and not make them a huge, stinking profit.

Because that would be the most unnatural thing of all.

/ Paddy

Bad ad tropes

Ads are basically evil poetry. We put up with them because they are everywhere and we don’t have a choice, but we don’t ever really want them, do we? And that is particularly true for me.

There’s some ad tropes I hate extra much. Things that, if they appear, have the opposite effect than the one intended, making me want to fling the product into a lake of fire instead of buying it. And if you want to know what those things are, well, I have you covered. Let’s take them to the next level and show them to the person who matters most – you. Because you, my friend, are so very worth it.

Handmade: When something is described as handmade, it is usually trying to invoke the image of a jolly old lady, a grandma of some sort, possibly Italian, in a kitchen making traditional food. You see it, don’t you? The chickens pecking outside. The cat, probably. Then, when the dish is served, there will be laughter and fiddle music. It all makes me shiver. Because when I hear “handmade” in connection to food all I see is that Italian granny poking it with her sweaty hands, the ash tumbling from her cigg. There’s an ad for chocolate here in Sweden where we see the “artisan” in his chef’s hat pick up the chocolate to admire it, using his hands, the same hands that have just been scratching his knob, or picking his nose. Please, stop it with the handmade. I want my ultra-processed shit food prepared by nice, clean robots. “Made in a sterile and ethnic stereotype free environment”. Now that will get me to buy your product. Handmade … nah, not so much.

Most sold: You see this a lot here in Sweden. “The nordic’s most sold sexual lubricant!” is assumed to be something that shift units. I guess it’s the “A million rats can’t be wrong” school of logic. But, honestly, why should I care that something has been bought loads of times? Is it suddenly more appealing just because all those saps fell for your advertising? You show me a thing that’s “most sold” I will sniff at it and go elsewhere. I am, after all — or have been constantly told by ads that I am — an individual and a free-thinker who knows what he wants. So get your story straight.

“Sweden’s most sold single malt whiskey” as if that were a good thing.

Designed in Sweden: This bugs me immensely. What this means in reality is that a Swedish company, who used to push the “We are Swedish” angle, has moved their manufacturing to a cheap country but still want to harp on about their product’s quality. “Made in Slovenia!” doesn’t shift many units (except perhaps in Slovenia) so instead they tell us it was designed here, in Sweden, by clever proper people, you know, people like you, but better. People wearing beanies that don’t quite cover their ears. Because, clearly, those Swedish designers have a bigger affect on the quality of the product that the people who actually make the thing. Do fuck off. If it’s made in Sweden, tell us that. Otherwise, put a sock in it.

Cutting-edge science: What other kind of science would you use? Old science? Second-hand science? New-age science (bring me the crystals and the brass gong, Jasmine). Again, begone. It’s a non-claim, a phrase put in an ad just to have the s-word appear somewhere. And it annoys me.

Exclusive: People rarely seem to think about what this actually means. An exclusive product is one that only some people can have. That’s what it means, you see: to exclude some group. Generally, those without money. These days, though, we’re being lead to believe that it just means “good”. I’ve even seen “Exclusive and affordable” used in ads. Nope, sorry, it can’t be both. Pick one.

Ukulele music / whistling: Ever since I saw this hilarious video by Irish music youtuber tanatcrul I’ve been aware of these massively irritating audio tropes. Clapping also fits into this category. If your ad soundscape includes any of these, you can be sure I’ll promptly close my ear-holes.

You are unique: And here it is, the most cynical of all “Buy this!” tropes. Here you’re being told that nobody else is like you, therefore you should buy this thing (maybe it’s exclusive?) that everybody else has, because you are so special. Go on, love yourself! Marketers, I beg you, please stop doing this. It’s mind-numbingly dumb. And no, I don’t love myself. Only awful people do that.

So, to summarise, if you want me to buy your shit, try something else in your ads. Maybe something funny or weird. Or how about truthful? “We’re destroying the natural world to create this thing you don’t need, which will end up in a landfill, or wrapped around a turtle, but which makes your life a tad easier.” Or: “Fuck biodiversity, here’s a barely edible industrial product made from amazon rainforest beef and palm oil.” I mean, I probably won’t buy it, but it might make me love myself a bit more.

You know, like a psychopath.

/ Paddy

A burger too far

An article in this free Stockholm newspaper informs us that the gourmet burger, at least in Stockholm, is no longer trendy. Count me unsurprised. I mean, it was only a matter of time before we realised the emperor had no buns, lettuce or cheese. “But he’s just a piece of burnt meat!” the villagers all shouted, pointing and laughing, before they headed off for a poké bowl and a tasty spirulina shake.

This whole burgers-are-fancy thing kicked off about ten years ago in Stockholm, or at least that’s when I started noticing it. I assume some Swede had been to New York and got the idea there, since that’s where most Stockholm trends tend to come from (bonus points if it was stolen from a cool area like Brooklyn). One of Stockholm’s loudest gourmet burger chains (yes, we’re now using the words “gourmet” and “chain” in the same sentence) slammed open their doors in Stockholm in 2018. These people with the name “Bastard Burgers” – oh dear – had an extremely tiring “We’re no-nonsense proper men from the north of Sweden!” aesthetic. They’ve also used a slogan which said, in English, “Treat yo’self like a bastard” the stupidness of which still boggles my mind. 

Since then, more chains have followed, so many more, with different (but aggressively cool) names. If you ask me, all of them could have the same name: Overpriced Burger. Because that’s what they did – taking something that we’ve all agreed is cheap and trashy, then making it “gourmet” and charging twice as much for it is little more than a cynical marketing ploy, and is not going to last.

And, according to the article above, it hasn’t. Bastard Burgers and others are closing many of their Stockholm outlets. They’re all blaming the pandemic, inflation and changed food habits, but to me it’s pretty obvious the burger bubble has just burst. We’ve done this, we’re bored with it, we’re moving on.

I’m not that sorry to see it go. Besides being food for children, and horrendous for the environment at a time when keeping our gasping planet alive needs to be our primary focus, burgers just aren’t my thing. Not for any health reasons, I’ve just never liked them. Too much meat, too much grease, the whole eating-with-your-hands thing, all the slopping … I just find them kind of gross. And whenever I’ve convinced myself to have one, I always feel a bit ill and bloated afterwards. Added to this is the requirement to add fries so it feels somewhat like a meal, further caking my arteries. Hey, I’m old, I have to think about shit like this. Don’t worry, you’ll get there too, trust me.

If you like a burger, good for you, don’t let my whining put you off. Keep on doing your thing and be happy. In fact I’ve heard the Bastard people are quite approachable and friendly. Good for them. But for the rest of us, it can’t be denied that the gourmet burger is on the way out. We’ve all seen through the ruse — paying twice as much for impractical, slightly more cool and manly junk food — and we’re done with it. Or, more likely, we’re all just jaded and are moving on to Stockholm’s next food trend. And whatever that is, I can predict the following: it will be stolen from New York, it will be marketed to us in some embarrassing way, and it’ll be horribly destructive to the environment. I’m thinking rhino-horn flapjacks. Or amazon rainforest deep fried parrots. Or maybe New York pizza rat pizza, with extra whale liver and panda fries.

And trendsetters, if you need a sad slogan in English for your new Stockholm eating experience, do call me. I’m cheap* and very, very good at bullshit. 

/ Paddy

*Actually, I’m not that cheap…

Undedicated follower of fashion

I like to keep an eye out for what the latest fashion trends are.

Not through visiting clothes shops, though. I’ve become a tramp in that respect, only wearing stuff I already own, or stuff I save from the garbage room of my building (so much of which is in perfect condition, requiring only a wash), or stuff bought second-hand, if I really feel like pushing the boat out. The boat, of course, is one I made myself, from old pallets, IKEA bags, onion skins and sticky tape.

No, I get my fashion updates from watching what people are wearing. You know, by looking at the world as it passes me by. I know, right? What a boomer.

Last year’s thing with large black stompy boots was one I approved of. In case you missed it (and I don’t see how you did) as a women between 15 and 35 you became legally required to wear large-soled black boots without laces. In fact, the bigger the sole, the better. Now, as a fan of both industrial music and Judge Dredd, I very much approved of this trend. However, I did find it a bit sad that people only started wearing them because they were suddenly “in”. The black stompy boot is forever, not just for Christmas.

Then there’s yoga pants. The skintight, no-curve-left-to-the-imagaination yoga / training garment has been on quite the journey over the last decade. First it was promoted from something you only have at the gym or yoga class (hence the name) to something you can wear around town. Underwear as streetwear, basically. Since that first barrier was breeched by the efforts of cunning cold-eyed marketers, we’re now getting a new iteration of outdoor yoga pants every season, varying in pattern and style. The latest is the “creased fabric around the bum giving the impression the thing is jammed right up your arse”. A weird look, no matter how many TikTok followers you have.

But the thing I’ll never get used to is the return of 80s jeans. It staggers me that the single most hideous item of clothing from my childhood is the one pulled from the slurry pit of history, dusted off and presented to a naive public as something cool and modern, and that they fell for it. 

Again, the people you’ll mostly see wearing this are women between 15 and 35 (the chosen target group for commercial concerns selling dump-in-the-desert fashion). It’s not their fault, really, it’s just what the shops have decided we should have. And selling the devil’s jeans only works because the buyers weren’t there the first time around. They don’t know we already agreed that 80s jeans are hideous. I remember it happening. We sat down and said, no, never again. And yet, here we are. Again. 

This is what makes middle aged people sceptical about fashion. We’ve already seen things explode onto the scene until they’re fucking everywhere. We’ve seen people desire them and fill the world with them, until the tipping point comes where we all realise we’ve been bamboozled, and the stuff we’re wearing is just over-priced, over-trendy and embarrassing. And off to the Atacama desert it goes. We’ve tasted that particular style becoming sad, and it’s a taste that can never be erased.

I’m sure, if there’s anyone alive from the 1920s, they’re looking at today’s young men, going: “A pencil moustache, are you kidding me? We all agreed those are done with. DONE WITH, I tell you!” And he’ll probably poke someone with a walking stick and then buy some stocks, being a caricature from the 20s.

But this constant regurgitating of old styles is what the fashion industry wants, and so that’s what we’ll keep on getting. In fact, before I depart this mortal coil and get dumped somewhere myself, I expect to see 80s fashion making at least one more major comeback. And I’ll be stoutly against it, complaining that everyone is a sap for falling for that rubbish once again, as I sit there, dribbling, in my retro 70s coat and 40s hat.

Wondering where in the Atacama desert I’ll end up, and if it’s nice there.

/ paddy

In Defence of Nothing

There’s a leaning — it’s too small to be called a movement — in Stockholm towards putting amateur art into places considered “ugly”. Common targets of this reverse vandalism are the structures holding up bridges, and those tunnels that pass under roads. Often it’ll be a gang of enthusiastic kids roped in from a local school, or a clutch of youngsters doing a summer work program, who are send out with buckets, paintbrushes and a naive but heartfelt desire to make the world a nicer place.

The articles in the local paper that inevitably cover this happening will enthuse about how some grey and boring (it’s important to use the word “boring” often) surface has now become colourful and exciting and will have art on it. Golly! And I find myself (and if you’ve followed me on any forum you’ll probably have seen this coming) in a pose of leaning back, arms crossed, bearing a surly middle-aged frown, saying, “hmm”. Because I do not agree. And I will now proceed to tell you why.

See, I don’t think the “art” made by clearly enthusiastic but not necessarily talented young people is better than a bare wall. A bare wall under a bridge has a sort of brutal majesty to it. It’s gritty and pure and serene, and it’s saying something: here is the city, here is how it works, warts and all. An underpass is the same. Even if the tiles are grimy, the lights flickering in a manner dangerous to epileptics, the piss pooling in stains on the ground, it’s still sort of beautiful. Grim and timeless.

What neither needs is badly daubed illustrations informing us of how awesome peace is, or how we are all the same inside, or how we should look after the Earth and all the cute pandas on it. Great messages, I agree, but also trite. Just because people want a thing to be “art” does not make it so.

This belief that something is always better than nothing is reflected in other ways in the flaming slow-motion train wreck of a civilisation we currently cling to. There is the issue of silence, for example. Once I was at the Stockholm Central Library to study. However, finding a silent place to do this proved difficult. I finally found a small room where several people sat, silently working. Beautiful, I thought, and joined them. I was not there long when a man and a women popped their heads in, saw how quiet it was, then came in and proceeded to have a meeting. They chose our room because it was quite, but did not consider that their chatting was now destroying that silence. And no amount of glowering or annoyed page turning on my part could get that message across. So I had to find another room.

(Sweden, incidentally, is a place where you don’t have to be silent in libraries. It probably come from their fear of conflict. In fact, a library I went to when I studied 20 years ago had a silent section. In a library. Where people would usually, but not always, keep it to a harsh yet deeply annoying whisper.)

You’ll see the same effect on the subway. I go on, find a seat where people are not nattering or looking at youtube without headphones (a curse upon then) or having a loud phone call on speakerphone. I sit there, relieved, and pull out my book. Making this the perfect quiet spot for the next idiot passing who wants to make a loud phone call. And he will sit there and he will do that. Because it can’t be that the people in those seats want silence, oh no. Silence is only ever a placeholder for noise.

This goes further. Cafés, bars and restaurants are huge culprits. If I go to one of these by myself, I will want to peer at my phone or read a book or just stare at the wall. If I go with other people, I will want to talk to these people. In neither of these two scenarios does music help me reach my goal. I really don’t know what it’s for. Unasked-for music distracts me hugely. If it’s there, I have to focus on it. In a nightclub, sure, it serves a function. But in a restaurant, where people are talking? Is it to mask the chewing? Or maybe to make us all feel like we’re in a film?

I select the café, bar or restaurant I want to be in based on how low (or lacking) the music is. Which leaves me with very few choices. I know about the thing where people apparently eat up and get the hell out faster if loud music is playing, like in McDonalds, but this can’t account for all of it. I think it just comes from the average person’s horrible fear of silence. It is why small-talk exists, after all. Silence to many means that something has gone wrong. Noise must exist, either pointless babble that the other person is not remotely interested in, or the background dirge of random, grating music.

(If someone knows an actual reason for this music in cafés etc, do let me know.)

I have, in fact, gotten into the habit of asking the staff to lower the music. They look at me oddly, but usually they will. One time, I was forced to do this when me and my partner went into a restaurant and sat in their empty basement room because it was silent, at which point they turned the music on there. Because of course two people eating dinner need noise blared at them.

So our society seems to have a deep-seated belief that something — no matter what it is — is always better than nothing. A doodle will always trump a grey wall. A noise will always improve on a silence. An activity is considered superior to a quiet night sitting at home. Which is why I’ve started to appreciate churches. You can sit there, in gorgeous echoing silence, and just drift off with your thoughts. Until, of course, the church staff come in to do some job and talk to each other at normal volume. Because, obviously, churches in Sweden aren’t quiet zones either.

Silence is golden, people. As is nothing. So let’s just leave them the fuck alone.

Jazz on the Train

I was on my way to work. It was a typical March morning in Stockholm, which meant the weather could be snow, or blazing sun, or icy gales, or all three at once.

On trains, I am peculiar, especially in the mornings. Things annoy me and they annoy me five times more than normal. These things include (but are not limited to):

• People eating their messy breakfast on the train
• People having loud conversations on the train
• People shoving their massive luggage into other people’s way
• People putting on makeup on the train
• People with awfully leaky headphones

Of these, the headphone leakers are the worse. Yes, I’m sure your music is fun to listen to, but if you insist upon playing it so fucking LOUDLY then use good headphones and not those pieces of cheap shit they gave you when you bought your mobile telephone.

But no. People will play the most appallingly annoying music at full tinny volume, in total disregard for those around them (meaning, of course, me).

So on this particular March day, I was noodling about on my phone, reading news, playing a game, the usual sort of thing, when a man got on the train and sat close to me, wearing headphones. And the air suddenly filled with jazz.

Not good jazz either. Shite jazz, with the same piece repeated over and over. I did my usual scowling but the man didn’t notice or care. Then I wasn’t sure it was him, so I scowled at some other likely leakers in my vicinity, and shook my head, and muttered to myself.

The music kept on going, becoming more and more annoying. So finally, I moved. At which point I noticed that the music, oddly, was now coming from ahead of me, and not from behind.

And it clicked.The music was coming from my own mobile, from a game I had been playing. Luckily I was spared any embarrassment as pretty much everyone around me had headphones on and couldn’t hear a damn thing. The sweet and awful irony.

Note that I didn’t mention dogs on the train being a thing I dislike. I’m trying quite hard to like dogs and so far it seems to be working.

Until someone invents leaky dog headphones and I am forced to go postal.

/ paddy

Turning A No Into A Yes

Me and the boy just watched How I Met Your Mother, season 3, episode 13, entitled “10 sessions”.

It follows our hero Ted as he goes to a tattoo removal clinic. The doctor is female and “hot” and Ted feels a “vibe” between them. So he asks her out and she says no. She can’t date him as he’s her patient. Ted asks if she will date him after the treatment. She tells him sorry, but no.

And then THIS happens.

Ted goes to his friends (mixed male and female) to get their advice on how to convince this lady to go out with him. As they discuss it, not one of them says, “Um, Ted, she said no, dude”. Her answer is not allowed to be absolute. Ted is a “nice guy” so the lady doctor must be mistaken. Or married. Or lesbian. Or confused. Hell, there must be SOMETHING wrong with her.

So over the course of Ted’s ten removal sessions, he and his friends plot wacky and hilarious ways to get her to say “yes” to Ted. But they all fail and the bewilderment from Ted just grows. Why doesn’t she want to date him, damn it?

(I could take a very long aside here on Ted’s friend Barney, the loveable misogynist and player, who you just want to stab with an ice-pick. He’s arrogant, sexist and petty and yet they all love him anyway. Good old Barney. You massive, suit-wearing shit.)

Anyway, at the last session, Ted asks the doctor out again and finds the reason she won’t date him. It’s not that she just DOESN’T FUCKING WANT TO, it’s that she is a single mom and has no free time. So Ted manufactures a quick 2-minute date where they dash around town and do some fun stuff. And finally, for Ted’s persistence, she kisses him. Conquest is ON.

This right fucking here, THIS, is the problem with the view of women in culture, media, television, all of it. A woman simply can’t say “no” to a man and mean it. She must be wrong. She must be “convinced”. And this aggressive, objectifying and shitty behaviour slides right by in a “normal” sitcom. It’s everyday stuff. Nothing out of the way. Even the women in the sitcom agree it’s fine to do it.

What sort of a generation of men are we making, feeding them this behaviour as normal? Jesus Christ.

In order to avoid a stroke, I shall now sign out. But first, here’s the closing line of the episode. Hang on to your hats. Ted says to camera, in a voiceover: “And that, kids, is how you turn a no into a yes.”

No further comment required.

/ p

Your Inner Geek

So I just watched that episode of Big Bang Theory about the One Ring. While it was fun, the description of the male characters’ behaviour as “geeky” came up several times. And it made me realise that this whole “I’m proud to be a geek” movement is really starting to annoy the tits off me. I’ll now tell you why.

A geek is basically a fan of things that aren’t cool. And who decides what is cool? Cool people do and always have done. By calling yourself a geek to somehow “reclaim” that word you are just adding to the idea that there are different kinds of interests – cool ones and geeky ones. And some are more important than others.

When I was in school I got shoved around for liking “stupid” things like fantasy and science fiction. Whereas my thuggish peers who liked football had no such problems. They knew piles of stats, they collected sticker albums, they treated football like it mattered. They even dressed up as the players, cosplay if ever I saw it. For some reason that was all okay. But making a joke about Star Wars was grounds for a thumpin’. Which was odd, as discussing in massive depth some men kicking a sphere around a field was fine.

Football isn’t the only thing. There’s music. Sport. Cars. Soap operas. Movies. Classical Music. Wine. Very rarely if ever do you hear fans of these activities described as “geeks”. Most usually they are “fans” or sometimes “experts” or even “connoisseurs” even when the level of pointless trivia involved is mind-blowing.

A geek is simply a person with a burning interest and unreasonable level of knowledge in some area. That makes you a “something” geek, whatever the thing in question is. You cannot be just “a geek” in the same way that you cannot be “a fan” without first saying what you are a fan of. By buying into this current usage, you are essentially saying – “yes I agree with you that my interest is of less worth than yours but I’m anyway still okay with that, if it’s alright with you and the cool people, sir.”

Well fuck that shit. All interests are just as valid, be they tattoos, curling or Pokemon. If you want to show “pride” then stand up for yourself instead and demand that all interests are taken just as seriously. They are, when it comes down to it, all equally disposable and useless.

From now on, I will call every geek a geek. Sports geeks, wine geeks, opera geeks. Geekery, all of it, and nobody should be offended by it. And if they are, well, tough. I think it’s also time to remove that desperately proud and apologetic “I’m a geek and proud of it!” from your various online profiles. It says precisely nothing. Because we’re all geeks, every one.

(Except for, you know, the poor and hungry. Although they might still like football.)

/ paddy

Vanilla Sex And Chocolate Sex

I’ve always been vaguely irritated by the phrase “vanilla sex” and now I’ve worked out why.

For those of you who don’t ever read anything ever, vanilla sex means “normal” sex. You know, the whole act of putting it in and out and shaking it all about. Making the beast with the two backs. Shagging. Bouncing on the naughty trampoline. And so on.

More precisely though, it means “normal” sex when talked about by people who would really like to point out that what they do isn’t “normal” sex. That the basic act just doesn’t get them off as they are complicated and edgy. Hence vanilla, supposedly the most boring of ice-cream flavours, although personally I find chocolate more boring.

Now everyone may do whatever the hell they like in the bedroom, as long as it’s done between one or more consenting adults. I have no protest there. What bugs me is the vaguely disguised snobbery, the insinuation that my sex is boring whereas your sex is dark and interesting. I bloody hate snobbery. I don’t like wine “experts” telling me how their drink is superior to beer. Or literary book snobs who look down on science fiction because it’s “far-fetched” while reading every unlikely detective story or magic realism novel that exists. Or music snobs who look down their noses at what other people are enjoying, totally convinced those others are “wrong” but don’t yet realise it.

But sex is sex. If some people get off sufficiently on “normal” sex – and there’s a hell of a lot to do in that area – that’s fine. But if your senses have become so dulled, and your excitement pathways so hard-triggered that you can only get off if somebody is dressed like a latex horse, then I think the problem is yours and not mine. (Although, it must be admitted, latex is very nice.)

If you think I’m being too sensitive, think about this. Have you even heard the phrase “vanilla sex” being used by a person who isn’t into kinky sex, or used in a way that isn’t sneery or condescending? I haven’t. People who say “vanilla sex” almost always do it with a slight edge of superiority. They may not say it flat-out, but to them I am boring, and they are not.

Well, if you claim I’m boring, I claim the opposite. I claim my mind is expansive and creative enough to enjoy the feelings and act of sex without accessories, whereas your poor deprived noggin requires props and a lot of effort to feel what I feel. Just because I can get off on the basic act of copulation, and you need props or mindsets, that doesn’t make you more “complicated” than me. It just makes you different.

So enough of the “vanilla”. What I enjoy is sex. What you enjoy is sex with an added layer of mind-games, scenarios and props. So fuck away, just don’t look down on how I do. And let’s all try to live in sticky slippery salty harmony.

/ paddy

Ikea’s Invisible Woman

Today there’s been a storm in the Swedish media (and most others too) about Ikea. Apparently they’ve been airbrushing women out of their catalog for the Saudi Arabian market. The Saudis don’t like looking at photos of women. Especially not women hanging out at home and having the audacity to WEAR PYJAMAS. The filthy tramps. Pyjamas! What will the children think? Or maybe they’re not allowed to think at all? Phew, close one.

So, anyway, Ikea doesn’t feel it should take any responsibility for the way their oil-rish customers would very much like to shit on human rights. They’re just there to sell furniture, they say. Very nice, Ikea. How useful that your corporate “ideals” are exactly the same ideals that will earn you lots of money. What a very happy accident. Let’s suck money out of a country that oppresses half of its population, while rabbiting on about “female empowerment” in other areas. Areas, by another amazing co-incidence, that will ALSO earn Ikea lots of money. Wow!

Screw you Ikea, you corporate slug with your shitty furniture and your high opinion of yourself, using your power and influence for nothing good whatsoever. Take your carefully constructed “we care” bullshit, insert it firmly into slot B and turn it a full revolution. Either direction is fine.

Click through the photos in the Swedish newspaper (first link above). There’s a photo showing some Ikea designers, and the same one in the Saudi catalog but with the single woman removed. I bet she’s happy about that and can’t wait to work for Ikea again.

But I have a solution for Ikea. Just release the catalog without women or men or any people at all, and instead put all the people on separate stickers. Then we can have a jolly old time putting in people of whatever race, sex, or flavour into any situation we desire. Imagine it! Grinning babies in ovens. A line of men’s heads on the top shelf of a Billy. A woman showing her hair. A scary man hiding under the children’s bed.

And presto – suddenly nobody is offended! Endless fun and chuckling for all! Except for the ones who have to suffer for it, in a country Ikea will do nothing whatsoever to improve. Unless, of course, there’s a profit in it for Mr. Kamprad. Then it’s all steam ahead, and corporate bullshit to maximum. Cash ahoy, mateys!

(Photos above were nicked from here, where there is also lots of other good photos.)

/ paddy

Tintin And The Massive Tit

Occasionally an article in a newspaper makes me so mad I just … just want to … dammit.

And here it is. And here too. And here in English. (Warning – it’s from The Local.)

This enormous cockwallop is the “artistic leader” at Stockholm’s culture centre (big building, middle of town, can’t miss it). And he has decided, in his beardy wisom, to remove all books that have “racist or homophobic” bits. Starting with Tintin.

Well, regardless of your view of Tintin and colonial literature, here’s some news for the sideways-cap wearing wonder. Which, as a “culture leader”, he damn well ought to know. You can’t ban books. I repeat. YOU CAN’T FUCKING BAN BOOKS. This is the one golden rule that we may never forget. You ban books, you’re a fucking dictator, or a fanatic.

However, this dopey-eyed git thinks he can, because it’s all in a “good cause”. He’s doing “the right thing”. Yeah right, like nobody has ever thought that before. And now he’s got his staff running around like his little minions and scouring the shelves for books that don’t fit his fucking defintion of “okay”.

Sure there are racist bits in old books. But surely they have to be written with racist intent in mind to be really racist? And perhaps instead of banning them, we could use these books to start a discussion? Explain to kids: “here’s how things were back then but now we see it like this. What do YOU think?”

But God forbid that people would be asked to decide for themselves. Instead this little hispster emperor will fix it so that no children or parents without money can make up their minds for themselves. Nice one, your majesty.

I have a serious plan to get a bunch of people together, buy all these “forbidden books” and sneak them back onto the shelves, one by one. Because we DON’T FUCKING BAN BOOKS to protect the poor innocent woman and children from their evil ideas. We just fucking don’t. Not now, and not ever.

And, let me add, none of this has anything at all to do with this cock getting exposure for his “music career”. He is a “rap artist” apparently. And I bet he’s just excellent. Really, I do.

/ paddy

Buying The Building

My special lady (I hesitate to call her “girlfriend” as she’s not a girl, nor just a friend) is in a bind right now. She’s been renting a flat for 22 years. She’s seen her kids grow up there. Her entire adult life was spent there, every giggle and tear. And now the morons in her building want to buy it out.

Here’s how. By some strange magic, rental tenants in Sweden can sometimes buy the building from the landlords (usually only from the state-owned rental companies). Basically, instead of owning a flat, you now own a share in a building (as nobody ever really owns a flat in Sweden). And those who don’t want to buy, or just can’t, will have to move the fuck out or stay on as a tenant of their previous neighbours.

A lovely meeting with the neighbours.

The plus in buying a flat like this is that you get it well below the market price and make a bucket of money when you sell it. The minus (besides losing a piece of your soul) is that you are now partly responsible for everything going wrong in the building. Every water leak and rat infestation is suddenly your problem. And you get to have lots of meetings with your neighbours. Which, as you can imagine, is a wheelbarrow full of joy.

Personally I would pay good money to NOT have to go to meetings with my neighbours and endlessly discuss washing machines. But that’s just me

People in favour of this process always want to do it for the money, to get a start in the property market. Oh, they’ll give a raft of other reasons when asked. They’ll go on about having more of a say, of getting a better feeling of community and blah fucking arse blah. But we all know the truth, and so do they. They’re doing it for the profit.

This buying-out process is pushed forward, and usually started, by real-estate agents. They’ll convince the saps about how much they’ll save, when in fact only one group is guaranteed to make money during one of these buy-outs – them. The real-estate bottom-feeders make their promises, take their cut, and disappear.

Does anybody really think real-estate agents do ANYTHING for any other reason than lining their own pockets? They couldn’t give a flying fuck if these people pay more per month after the buy-out or not. They want their cut, and then they’ll fuck off, back under their fucking rocks where they belong.

What stuns me about this process (besides the fact that anybody actually believes anything a real-estate agent says) is the following:

People sign rental contracts, knowing them to be rental contracts. It’s not exactly a secret. The rental system had given you, and thousands like you, a place to live when you need it. A chance to start a life in your own apartment. Since private rentals are very hard to find in Sweden, getting a flat through the official queue is often the only solution besides buying. (Or sharing, which Swedes are very reluctant to do.)

And then, having signed a RENTAL CONTRACT on a flat, what do you do? You buy it up and remove it from the rental market. You deny the same possibility to other people that was given to you. And do you know what that makes you? A selfish prick.

I’ve nothing against buying apartments. I bought one once myself, and I sold it again for a profit. The only thing I dislike about the process is giving money to real-estate agents, who should be soundly whipped and rolled in dog-shit at every opportunity.

People in favour of this will go on and on about “buying out my apartment”. And what, surely, can I have against somebody just buying own their own apartment? Hang on, though – YOUR apartment? In what way, shape or form is a rental apartment YOUR apartment? It’s a rental, you dumb shit. You pay the rent, you live there. What in this deal makes it YOURS?

I never want to do this and I don’t fucking care how much I earn. There are a bunch of people who say this too, that they “don’t believe in it” but then go ahead and do it anyway when the chance pops up. Newsflash, people: if you believe in something ONLY IN THEORY then you don’t fucking believe in it at all. Just take the money and run and wipe your arse with it forever.

If people want to buy and sell apartments, fine. It’s a worthwhile investment, I get that. And it’s nice to paint the kitchen whatever colour you like. So by all means, fire away. But if you go into the rental system with the ambition of removing flats from the rental system, to your own benefit, then you are a dishonourable scumbag. You are destroying opportunities for future generations who have one less rental flat at their disposal. People just like you were when a rental flat came along and saved YOUR ass.

Now my special lady is forced to move, while her neighbours face paying the same as they paid before, but suddenly have a pile of responsibility to go along with it. While real-estate agents grow fat, sticky and flatulent on their grimy little profits. Win-win. Except for the rest of us.

Many people appear to think that owning absolutely everything in the world is a solution. While others like me think it might very well be the problem. And I could be wrong here, but at least I’m not a scumbag.

Or worse still, a real-estate agent.

/ paddy