In search of spiritual guidance

Around this time of year, I generally get a bit nihilistic in my attitudes. I don't know the reason for this - it could be the longer nights, it could be a sort of fin-d'an existentialism, but mostly I think it has to do with being constantly blasted by reminders that it is soon the tawdry consumer festival of Christmas. Whatever the cause, expect a particularly gloomy and bitter Fastrousers until my New Years hangover has worn off.

This year, I decided to deal with my December-dread with a bit of spiritual guidance, and have contacted Focus on the Family, a Colorado-based outfit that specialises in matters moral and spiritual.


Dear Dr Dobson

I was lying in bed the other night, struggling with the doubt and blackness that afflicts all men during that long, dark, sleepless vigil before the dawn. A thought occured to me then - if my arm was just half a foot shorter it wouldn't be nearly so easy to masturbate.

If we were to believe those crackpot Darwinians, natural selection would favour those species with greater impetus to copulate, and so those species physiologically capable of self-satisfaction would be less successful. Clearly then, the auto-erotically convenient position of my hand is evidence of Intelligent Design.

Tell that to those heathens and nay-sayers in the Kansas State School Boards!

Also, I don't think it makes you go blind at all, I think peering at internet porn is more damaging to the eyesight.

Yea, and shall He come unto the World to Smite the UnRighteous (Onanists, Ch4, vs 21)

Fastrousers (Capt.)


I've yet to receive a reply, but I'll let you know how it pans out.

Her Old Man's a giver

In the state of Mississipi, a girl under 18 needs only the consent of her mother in order to have an abortion, just as long as she was impregnated by her father. If she was impregnated by anybody else, then of course the consent of both parents is required.

A Thanksgiving message from Fastrousers

Like the Pilgrim Fathers, I came to the New World in search of a better life, and have survived only by the goodwill and patronage of the indiginous population. (Also, like the Pilgrim Fathers I'll probably end up screwing over the local population that kept me alive). My brave and religious forebears faced physical privation and the threat of starvation, I've had bureaucratic incompetence and Academia to deal with. I'm not sure which is worse.

Seriously, thanks folks. I love you guys.*


*Don't worry readers, normal service will resume next week. Even now I'm composing a 1500 word polemic against People Who Stand in Corridors

Encouraging news from the USA, but Fastrousers urges 'no complacency'

It is less than twelve months into Captain Fastrousers' invasion into the US, but already his controversial plan to bring to the USA a British-style democracy (i.e. a gloomy, miserable nation of gloomy, miserable voters) is already showing fruition. A study by the Pew Research Institute is showing encouraging signs of pessimism, worry and negativity.

At the start of his invasion, there was widespread doubt in the UK over Fastrousers' plan to give the US the gift of cynicism. Many commentators close to the Captain expressed the view that he risked ending up mired in Californian-style positivity and cheeriness. However, persistance and above all a strong belief in absolutely nothing at all appear to be having the desired effect. The poll indicates that the US is subject to a general trend of apathy and gloominess concerning the image of America abroad, and an increase in the belief that things can only get worse. Only high ranking military officials and undertakers bucked the trend, but this was to be expected given the increase in trade under the Bush administration.

When asked for comment, Captain Fastrousers said "this really is wonderful news - first Paris gets torched and now this! When the American people realise that life is nasty, brutish and short, that all politicians are corrupt imbeciles, and that almost everybody is a delusional, self-interested fuckwit, only then will they finally be able to pursue democracy in the way our European forebears intended - with resignation, apathy and tenebrosity. And I think these figures show that we are well on the way of our 'Roadmap to Drear'".

However, the Captain was also quick to warn against complacency. "Every silver lining has a cloud. Only the other day, I was ordered to 'have a nice day', and it is still common to hear people express the sentiment that 'life is good'. We musn't forget that mainstream journalism here is still just as spineless, that Hollywood continues to peddle its naive mythology of 'good', 'evil' and 'happy endings', and that people in many parts of the country persist in the view that 'folks are basically honest and good'. Nevertheless, every decent hardworking American that goes to bed at night embittered and dispirited, every American who wakes in the morning and questions the very worth of getting out of bed, is one small victory on our long road".

It is an ex-sparrow

War, torture, bombings, death - just another beautiful day. Nevertheless, there are people in the world with nothing better to do than stand 4 million dominos on their ends, and who were so incensed that a sparrow knocked a few of them over (23,000, give or take) that they had it killed. Worse yet, there are 24,000 people with nothing better to do than whine so much about the death of a sparrow that a tribute to the anarchic avian is to be broadcast.

Give me a gun, and I'd shoot the whole bloody lot of them.

A further announcement from the Iraqi interim government

OK, we admit it, we may have tortured them a little bit. (Bayan Jabr, Iraqi Interior Minister, and on the advice of my lawyers absolutely NOT chief torturer). Hey, people on the Rieperbahn pay good money for a spot of mild torture, so I still don't see what the fuss is about.

But for those who continue to need some reassurance about Iraqi human rights, don't worry. The USA, officially now known as The Country That Does Not Torture (unless it really wants to) is launching a full investigation.

'OK, there were signs of torture...' (Bayan Jabr)

An announcement

The interim Iraqi government would like to make it clear that whilst they reject legislation banning the use of brutal and physical interrogation techniques, they are in no way involved with the torturing of suspects.

I feel very reassured now - I don't know what the Sunni's are complaining about.

Why Olympus represents a threat to society

Technology is wonderful. In some respects it has, admittedly, failed to live up to the promises of my youth (I’m still waiting for the personal hovercraft that Eagle assured me we’d all be commuting in by the year 2000 – further proof that the automotive industry is mired in inertia). Then again, even Dan Dare never envisaged that 21st century advances would allow the Nigerian Minister of Finance to offer thousands of people worldwide the latest sure-fire money-making opportunity at the touch of a button, or that the same advances give me the ability to block the Nigerian Minister of Finance’s emails equally easily. Well done the technocrats.

One downside to all this seductive electronic wizardry is the popularity of some extremely pointless devices. Take Blackberries, the latest manifestation of the strange myth of ‘electronic personal organizers’. They don’t do anything that a decent diary and a pen can do (except, of course, lose all your personal information at inopportune moments), but still executives find it impossible to be taken seriously without one. They are the tribal feathered headdresses of 2005, and just about as utile. Presumably, the reassuring presence of a Blackberry in the pocket allows middle managers to fool themselves that their lives really are busy and important enough to warrant the storage of 50,000 phone numbers and 10,000 diary dates.

The affordability of digital cameras is an advance that treads the line between media revolution and miserable travesty. On the one hand, they have the great potential that almost anybody can visually record the space around them and instantly upload those images to the web, making them available to an entire planet. On the other hand, they have the dismal drawback that almost anybody can visually record the space around them and instantly upload those images to the web, making them available to an entire planet. The sad fact is that most of us are stupid and unimaginative, and this is no more in evidence than in what and how people choose to photograph. Allowing every untalented individual publishing access to the entire planet is in no way an advance – William Caxton has a lot to answer for in instigating this trend.

In the past, the cost of film and processing carried with it a consequence. Every crap, blurry and unoriginal snapshot was a wasted opportunity, carrying a financial penalty. More importantly, the general public was unable to unleash these dire portfolios to an audience wider than friends and family (who should have known enough to have had an excuse ready anyway). Not so in these times. The Internet is chock full of blurry pictures of people’s wives at the zoo, and the streets are full of Ansel Adams wannabes brandishing the latest Canon tool for photojournalistic greatness. The only way of thinning this insipid herd is to hope that they take one too many steps in the wrong direction whilst lining up the perfect shot of the Grand Canyon/Mont Blanc/feeding time at the lion enclosure etc.

It’s true what Bill Gates says, technology really does empower people, in the same way that democracy empowers people. Which is the strongest argument I have yet to hear in favour of limiting its access to an ignorant, steaming proletariat.

The only reason they built the Eiffel Tower out of steel was to make it fireproof

There's a lot of talk at the moment about the failure of French society to integrate the growing North African population. As a former resident of Villeurbanne, a suburb of Lyon not dissimilar to the Paris district currently hosting an unlicensed barbecue, I feel I have some authority to comment.

To those who say that North African immigrants are disenfranchised, I say poppycock. If they were that culturally isolated they wouldn't be engaging so enthusiastically in the French national sport - rioting. From the papists massacre of the huguenots, through the glorious revolution (at least they had the right idea about the aristocracy), on through the Paris riots of the sixties and the more recent actions of their farmers, fisherman and lorry drivers, the French have a wonderful history of being a complete pain in the arse to anyone who doesn't share their unsound views.

Given that I'm discussing a nation here that is almost completely devoid of any latent sporting ability, with a list of battle honours that stopped abruptly after Agincourt, and who's greatest cultural icon remains a 4.5 ft high sex-pest. Given these inadequacies, it is perhaps not surprising that the populace have traditionally thrown their pride and passion (not inconsiderable in the case of either) into civil unrest. The main point is, well done to the Algerian immigrants and their sporting opponents the CRS, or as they say in Paris 'bienvenue en France, prenez un cocktail Molotov et joignez la fete'!

As an aside, the only time the French have kept a steely silence was when the Nazis were carting off all their Jewish people. And they wonder why I refer to them as 'collaborators'.

Platform justice - a call for action

I would like to extend my congratulations the Beunos Aires commuters who sparked a five hour riot and torched their train on hearing the news that their already delayed service was cancelled.

This is my call to arms for the commuters of London, a cry to follow the lead of our brothers in Argentina. The next time your Tube train is delayed in a tunnel due to 'unexpected signal failure at Baker St' (the same unexpected signal failure that has happened every day for the last five years) don't just quietly groan and tut. March towards the front of the train, break down the door to the driver's cab, and use the radio to give the signalling centre a full-on bollocking. The next time that South-West trains cancels a service or stops at Clapham Junction for more than fifteen minutes, leap out and set fire to the carriage using your copy of the Metro. The next time some poe-faced depressive looks like he's about to throw himself in front of the 1748 to Swansea (via Reading), gather some fellow travellers and pummel some fucking sense into the selfish git. Above all, next time that the Tube drivers announce a strike in support of their demands for an extra chocolate digestive with their tea break, declare a Jihad against the RMT, and pronounce an Iranian-style fatwa against Bob Crow. As you know I am a tolerant man, but even I have to admit that the mental image of thousands of office workers running amok through Kings Cross lynching these work-shy bolsheviks warms my very soul.

Those who have never lived in a city like New York or London, who have never suffered the indignities of that mild panic following a half-heard and unintelligible station announcement, will probably think I'm over-reacting a bit. These are the same people who think that instant execution for anyone blocking the turnstile topped my 'Tube-justice' poll due to some ironic British humour. Well consider this, residents of Denver and Los Angeles - it's almost twelve months since I last had to travel around London by train, and I'm still pissed off about it.