Escapism Has Doomed Us All

The more the world sinks into a quagmire that'll engulf us, the more I despise people who say our situation is otherwise.

Screwing Up

What's your one biggest fear? Mine is death. Oh, and spiders....because they remind me of death. If you want to be my boyfriend then you need to be able to deal with spiders in a way that doesn't involve having an arachnid corpse splattered against the wall. Or perhaps radiate a chemical that naturally repels them. Or just be really good with a hoover.

‘Freedom of Expression’

I hate this phrase.

There are many countries where people’s freedom of speech and expression is oppressed, often violently. It is a basic human right that everyone should be given for the sake of a fairer and enlightened society. The problem is that people use this phrase to justify all sorts of twaddle. 

I'm Evil...according to Hollywood

For some reason, us English are regarded as pure evil by Hollywood. If you have a received dialect then apparently you enjoy drowning kittens on weekends. This is all a little alienating considering I have a rather unfortunate accent that sounds like a Bond Villain talking dirty. The only way I could be a hero is if I was Sherlock Holmes, which actually makes sense considering I can only function in society if I’m on an adventure or on drugs.

I’ve always joked that if I carried on acting (and if I was actually any good at it) then I would have eventually ended up playing a villain in a Hollywood blockbuster. But it’s actually true. So many actors here struggle with living in such an insignificant country, clawing their way through endless Shakespeare, and finally bursting into Hollywood…only to play some cackling git in the loudest film of the summer. And then it’s back to the theatre for them as they attempt to salvage any dignity they still have.

Remember Star Trek: Into Bland Title? The sequel that copied Wrath of Khan then removed everything good about it – right down to replacing the Cuban Khan with Scar from The Lion King. Or The Avengers with Loki, the lone English hero beating off a group of self-entitled, self-justified, and over-muscled gits? Or Superman, the all-American one-man holocaust, fighting the English General Zod?

Or Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, which concerns English legend, is set in England, and concerns Englishmen…yet Robin Hood is played by Kevin Costner, and the villain is bloody Snape.

Or lets us not forget Star Wars, where the evil Nazi-like Empire are all English whilst the buff Rebel Alliance are all American. (“So, what makes you want to join our totalitarian regime?” “Well, my accent sounds like Vincent Price winning on the scratch-cards.” “When can you start?”) Although, this is much better than the prequels where the heroes were mostly upper-class white people whilst the antagonists were mostly rebel Indian stereotypes.

Heck, even Smaug from The Hobbit had to have an English accent just in case the audience had any pretence that the hulking death-machine who murdered innocents might be the good guy.

I was even playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which was at first doing a good job keeping its heroes and villains ambiguous when WHAM! EVIL ENGLISH GUY! It’s even infecting my games!

It’s not the fact that we’re always evil that annoys me. OK, it does annoy me, but at least we own playing villains. What bothers me is that we’re never the hero.

You’re only going to see an English hero in a Bond movie. Or in a Tolkein-esque fantasy setting…because Medieval England evokes so much wonder with all its muddy hills and grey castles. Daniel Craig has proven you can have a hunky, grizzled hero who’s also distinctly English. Hollywood seems to think that England is entirely populated by skinny, slightly effeminate puppet masters – despite one of their most popular franchises proving otherwise.

“Oh, but a lot of Blockbusters concern either America or American themes.”

THEN WHY ARE THE VILLANS ENGLISH!?! If they concern America, then the villain should be American. Are the villain’s English just to make us not feel left out? Because I’m able to read stories about cultures I barely understand, and I can identify with everyone perfectly…unless they’re badly written, but that’s another topic.

“Oh, but we Americans are passionate whilst you English are more reserved.”

I wouldn’t be making this post if I wasn’t passionate. And no, I’m not passionate about my country; I’m just passionate about the fact that according to the majority of popular culture, I’m evil. You need to meet more Englishmen, hypothetical strawman I’ve just invented!

No, I’m not evil because I’m English. I’m evil because I kill anyone who uses the word ‘literally’ incorrectly.

The Word ‘Literally’ Is Now Banned

I’m banning ‘literally’ from all discourse. Yes, me – the guy you’ve probably never heard of who has absolutely no authority in the world.

Controversy was stirred last year when the dictionaries changed the definition of the word ‘literally’ because people have been using it incorrectly for so long that societies elite threw their arms up and said: “Fine! If everyone else is going to be wrong, then let’s all be wrong together!”

Coming from a middle-class English background and a secondary school that began like Matilda’s school but eventually turned into the mess that is modern UK education, this confused me. From my pseudo-Dickensian childhood, I always assumed that the dictionary doesn’t change for you – you change for the dictionary. The only words that were altered were words of a sexual connotation (such as ‘fetish’) that were changed just so the headteacher doesn’t get sniggered at during assembly.

Alas, ‘literally’ can be added to the list of words such as ‘sick’ and ‘epic’ as meaningless filler words used when we feel a banal sentence is too short and not banal enough.

For example: “I am literally stuck on this essay.” So the essay is stuck onto a part of your body? You just need to say: “I’m stuck on this essay” or “This essay is really hard. I think I’m stuck.”

But I’ve realised that even when ‘literally’ is used correctly, it makes no sense. An example of the correct use of the word would be: “I’m literally nailed to this chair. Can you call an ambulance please?” Unless you’re communicating with someone who can’t see you’ve been nailed to a chair, it’s pretty obvious that you’re not using hyperbole.

Has anyone ever said: “I am figuratively dying of this hangover?” No! Because it’s clear that person isn’t dying of a hangover, otherwise they would say: “Can you please call a doctor?”

The majority of us are perfectly able to understand figurative expressions. If we didn’t, then we would actually use the word ‘literally’ correctly. Figurative speech is so ubiquitous in modern rhetoric that we clearly don’t need to specify what’s literal – and we don’t, because  people are using ‘literally’ to describe figurative events.

Or maybe we all just need to go back to school…