How do religious people manage to get out of bed in the mornings?

If I were a Christian (or any devotee of one of the Abrahamic religions), I don't think I'd be able to get out of bed in the mornings. For 1200 years, the Catholic church ruled Europe with snipe and subversion and torture and repression until the first awakenings of the Renaissance in the 1500s.

In that time, people believed they knew everything there was to know. They thought the Earth was at the centre of the solar system - and possibly the universe - until the Copernican revolution; they thought the Sun and planets and stars orbited the Earth in 'spheres' and perfect circles (hence the expression: 'music of the spheres'); they thought the stars had a bearing on destiny; they thought mental illness was caused by demonic possession (the usual 'cure' was to drill a hole in the afflicted's head through which the demon would pass); they thought that comets were portents highlighting God's wrath at the sinful multitudes (or possibly highlighting the imminent downfall of certain kings - as happened in 1066); they believed they were made in God's image out of dust; they believed women were inferior and infidels should be held as slaves and chattel.

I don't think I could get up in the mornings with the knowledge that some deity might hold a definite plan for my life. I don't think I could get up if I thought that everything was known and that there were no more triumphs to be had. I don't see how Christians can get up in the mornings with their short-sighted, stunted views on reality.

I don't see how Christians can assume to have definite knowledge on the cosmos and its origin, and the origin of man. I don't think I could get up assuming the world is 6,013 years old and that the Renaissance was a bad thing. I don't think I could get up if I were to believe that women are subordinate and that certain peoples can rightly and justifiably be held as slaves. I don't think I could get up if I were a Christian. My current awe at the beauty of nature would be expunged and replaced with a numbing, dogmatic nothingness. The beauty of evolution and its tangible and delicate dancings through time would be gone. If I were a Christian, there would be nothing more to live for. If I were a Christian, I would follow the teachings of Christ.

A story about a young boy.

The afternoon of the event is as hazy in my mind as the memory itself. It was a sunny afternoon. It might have been May. I think I was nine or ten years old.

On the afternoon in question, several of my friends - kids I hung around with who also picked their noses and scabs - beat up a boy in the year below me. When they were found out, they said that I'd been involved, too.

We were lead to the headmaster's office. His name was Mr Marshall. He was of Welsh stock. He had white-haired knuckles; thick, black hair, and a booming, baritone voice. He was a traditional disciplinarian. I sat outside his office terrified. I felt abandoned, and ashamed of myself for being such a helpless child.

I faced the wall outside his office and started to cry. He was motioned out by our school's kindly secretary, Mrs Smith - I think she was fucking the lollipop man with the screwy eye.

He started to scold each of us. 'Don't cry! Don't you all feel sorry?' He loomed over us. He approached me: 'What are these crocodile tears, boy?' I can't remember what happened next but I was suspended for several days. I was collected - I can't remember by whom - and I remained silent.

This must've happened on a Friday, as the first time I said that I'd not been involved was at my nan's house - I always used to stay with her on weekends. When I told her - on Saturday - she called me daft and, although she had a cold presence, she cared deeply for me. She was, more or less, a surrogate mother who'd take me every weekend 'til I was ten or eleven years old.

My nan made some calls. On Monday morning, I sat in Mr Marshall's office and told him I'd had no part in it (in the shyest, mousiest kiddie voice I could muster). He looked at me, puzzled, and couldn't wipe the quizzical look from his face. The boy who'd been beaten up was called in and sat down next to Mr Marshall. 'Was he involved in the fight?' he asked the boy. After several seconds - an infinity to a child - he said: 'No, sir.'

'Okay,' Mr Marshall replied. 'You're free to go.' As I left the room I was silent and had an odd smirk splashed across my face. In retrospect, I wonder what Mr Marshall felt as I left the room. A girl, Amy Austyn, asked me why I took the bullet. I didn't know then; I don't know now - through fear of social reproach or fear of Mr Marshall? Maybe. They weren't even my friends: they were just kids who came to my birthday parties and whose birthday parties I attended. Amy's got a kid now. God knows what happened to Mr Marshall - he left for retirement in 2000.

Summer.

Isn't summer great? Hot, clammy, sweaty, sun-burnt. Isn't it great? I like the fact that I can go to the beach and hear other people's shitty music, so it's a win-win for me. I like seeing thousands of partnered women showing off their tits and arse-cracks. If you get the angle right, you can get a good look at their pussies, too.

I like going to the beach to be with happy, cool people who have tanned skin and white teeth. I, on the other hand, have white skin and tanned teeth. My skin reflects must of the sunlight away from the beach, blinding many innocent children in the process.

Don't you love the sea? It's cool... and full of shit. It's salty. It burns your eyes and makes you want to tear out your own throat. Isn't it great? And God love all the children; those happy smiles laced with the knowingness that mummy and daddy - and their fat wallets - are never too far away.

I was accosted by a woman in the sea today. For some strange reason, she told me she's a born-again Christian. I don't go up to people telling them I'm an atheist. Maybe I exude an aura of infidelity on which these God-botherers can pick up. Anyway, I entertained her beliefs. She said: 'Isn't it a lovely day. I'm happy in the knowledge that eternity is never too far away, though.' I hope eternity caters for the mentally ill - maybe there's a special wing. I guess Heaven's nothing more than a mental asylum for all these warped, religious minds.

Although Brighton beach is pretty hellish - what with the massive pebbles and the glaring, blue, reflective haze - I think I can manage it just for one day. On that thought, I think I might have a beer... maybe ten or twelve.

Friday afternoon in glorious Brighton.

I've just this minute come home, my mind racing from the dog stadium scum hole that is Brighton. I left the house at around 1.30 with my dad. We put on a bit of The Lonesome Crowded West (much to his discontent) and jammed to Jesus Christ was an Only Child before gasping in awe at the thunderous, heavenly, strawberry-scented pussy that is Doing the Cockroach.

But then we arrived at Asda - the supermarket which usurps Lidl in its shoppers, which are, to put it lightly, the outcomes of second-rate spermatozoa. My dad got a little trolley which turned out to be wonky. I pushed it towards the shop but then left it after my dad noticed its mechanical faults. 'You idiot,' he shouted, in full view of dozens of Coke-swigging, ice-cream-eating cretins with hazy eyes. 'There's a pound in it still.' I was so taken aback that I didn't know what to do.

Eventually, I went back to the car to grab my stuff. I returned the keys to daddy dearest, but not before buying a piece-of-shit sandwich - chicken and bacon, if you must know. At the cigarette counter, a woman plastered in tattoos was taking her time whilst her little blonde daughter bellowed and shouted commands. She began to hit her mum. The woman looked around bovinely as if to see what was going on. The kid continued. If only I had a pistol at this point - sometimes I salute the United States of Gun Crime.

I walked along the seafront as a gale blustered against me. I tried to read a bit of Love All the People (Bill Hicks), but my mind was somewhere out there with the wheeling gulls. Eventually, I got into the chapter and liked what I read - I'd finally got to the bit where he sends John Lahr a letter about being censored on Letterman. Suddenly, I gazed up from my book and noticed three young boys all wearing similar, blue checkered shirts. I braced myself for the worst. As I passed, I heard: 'Oh! I can read and walk.' I thought to myself: 'Yeah? Well I can walk and shut the fuck up.' I said: 'I like your shirts. You're aware you look very similar, right?' God, I'm pathetic - what a weak comeback. I don't know whether I can take this shit for much longer. My blood is English for sure but I'm sure my real family waits for me on some distant, wind-battered shore (other than Brighton's).

Some semblance of normality returned when I went to Waterstones - I hate the Library (even though I use it quite often). I grabbed Nelson Mandella's autobiography and caught the elevator to the fourth floor. I went to the politics section and grabbed a few Chomskys - not before getting a book on linguistics by him. I also got Flat Earth News (which I've been meaning to read for years) and The Conscience of a Liberal. I ordered in a few George Carlin books and felt a sudden, pink-tinged rush of hope. If only I can wait three weeks 'til they arrive - then I won't have to do something regrettable to any of the young urchins of this town.

On the way back into town - and this is the happy highlight of my day - I saw a drunk man sitting in a garage opening listening to blaring 80s tunes. I gave him the thumbs and said: 'Hey, dude!' He smiled back, although he probably thought I was mocking him in his state of careless insobriety. I wondered whether I should've gone back to sit with him for a bit; maybe learn some real stories. My more pragmatic, consumer side kicked in, though, and I remained on the beaten path like the rest of the bleating herd.

I walked to The Level (a local park) after popping into Sainsbury's for some pressé. As I approached, I saw a woman in a black hat. She's a relation of my mum's but she's quite backwards. I was feeling full of pep for once so I approached her - bearing in mind I've never approached her before. 'Do you know Karen Head?' I asked her. 'No,' she replied, along with some other incomprehensible drivel. A black man saw me speaking to her and noted her flustered state. He ushered me over as if maybe I were the one with mental problems. 'What are you doing?' I explained the situation to him (obligingly, of course - seeing as it was none of his business (maybe he's a Christian or something)) but he didn't seem to understand. He asked me: 'Are you okay?' I replied the only way I know how. Besides, how do I know if I'm okay? You tell me. Use your own amazing powers of discernment.

I sat down on the grass and drank my pressé. The sky was dotted with rafts of cumulus clouds and a faint wind lapped at my bald head. 'I'm a prisoner of my own thoughts here. I hate this park,' I thought. I drank up and left, inadvertently leaving behind my bottle. I need to keep hoping, but how can I contend with some of these people? This city is bearing down on me like judge and jury and I don't like the feeling. I'm stuck here - in this gorgeous town which is my own personal hell. I feel like crying. Buckle up, son. You're a man now. My head is dizzy from my flurried typing. I guess I'd better do something prosaic like cook dinner.

Note: I originally wrote this in the present tense but then changed it to the past. If anyone sees any mixing of tenses, please tell me and I'll correct the errors.

The Changing of the Guard.

I was perousing the streets of London when I stepped into an odd scene - thousands of tourists were crowded 'round Buckingham Palace.

Unbeknowst to me, the Changing of the Guard was about to take place - a ceremony in which hundreds of the Queen's Guard parade around the forecourt of Buckingham Palace.

The scene started with a trumpeting of bagpipes. Somewhere in the distance, a column of costumed men were charging the streets, but the view was obscured by the Queen Victoria Memorial - a colossal statue aloft which rests a huge, golden angel.

The men, replete in suede-coloured skirts, ceremonial jackets and green berets, were led by two policemen atop strident horses.

Behind them, wearing bear-skin hats (which now may be synthetic) and red uniforms, several guards led, keeping time with their drums. Also, there were red-bereted men - two of which held swords outstretched and the rest of which held guns of some sort. (Perhaps semi-automatic machineguns.)

A few minutes later, a few dozen bear skin hat-wearing guards arrived, playing brass instruments - mostly trumpets, trombones and the odd tuba or saxophone.

Once inside the gates and regimented, their commander - sounding rather pained (as if constipated) - ordered the men to start marching, which they did - but only briefly.

Next, black-suited men on horseback arrived, wearing golden helmets - a white gold - with red tassels coming out the top of them. Their leader sounded a trumpet.

The guards assembled their stands and planted their sheet music, ready to perform, whilst a few started to sound their bagpipes. The captivated audience was continually told by a fiersome-looking, horse-mounted policeman to keep from the centre of the pavement.

A gentle song started to be played. With a gentle flute sounding, crashing cymbals, soft horns and rapping, wooden sounds, the song started in a playful manner.

After a while, though, the dullness wrapped in colour started to gall me, so I vamoosed; it's a 24-degree-hot day and there are plenty of other amply packed attractions to see. I hope Queenie enjoyed it, though.

Education.

I wear my A*s like a badge of honour. But what do they mean? Are they, as some people say, worthless compared to the worth of qualifications twenty years ago? Do they indicate a hard-worker or merely someone who's worked hard at absorbing the wrong ideas and ideals?

Such a person's grades will certainly guarantee them a good career - if they want want such a career and think it worth their pursuance.

Is such a person better than the man on the street just because of the fact that from an early age they've suckled at mummy's teat and plumbed daddy's pocket?

Education shouldn't be about competition; it should be about the joy of finding things out, enlightenment and self-improvement.

I grew up in modest circumstances. I still live with my parents - I'm twenty; give me a break for frick sake! I attended a state school. I've always been a C-student - but one who promises brief scintillations of brilliance.

What's the use in getting nothing but A*s if one comes out with a level pegging in each subject? One might as well've not seeked education at all for one has found out nothing about oneself. The word education, after all, comes from the Latin 'educare' which means to seek - especially from within.

Education requires interest and uninterest. What's the use of plying the trades of every subject if all one accomplishes is a finding out that one finds no one subject palatable to one's liking?

Ideas aren't bricks and mortar. They're not absolute. They're progressive - successional. They shouldn't be implanted*; they should grow from the seeds which have blown in the mind's winds since restless youth and now wish to be granted settlement.

There's no rush; a flower doesn't bud any old inopportune moment - it needs to be met with the right conditions at the right time.

*I am of course not talking of such things as Euclidian geometry or, as a matter of fact, most areas of mathematics!

Saturday night on Brighton beach.

I went to the beach last night with my best friend, Adam. We had a few beers and a tipple of wine.

Summer brings out the best and worst in people. I say this because it encourages a closeness and a feeling of sharing that no other season really allows - apart from a huddling 'round the fire at Xmas. It also encourages a brutish selfishness and disregard for other people.

Bottles, cans and chip trays were lain strewn about the beach unconcernedly by bastards of a seemingly untappable degree.

The people were most probably wholly out-of-towners who have no regard for our city's well-being. Why aren't they made to pay congestion charges for clogging our roads? How can we let them get away with defacing our city without making them pay in some way? How can we let them get away with it, full stop?

Relax, man, it's summer - don't be such a stiff. Get a bloody backbone! This is your country. More importantly, it's our city. It's my city, and I happen to like it. Dispose of your trash properly or take it home with you.

Adam and I chatted and mused on life, death, love and our non-existent love lives. Summer - the time for myriad gorgeous girls. They all terrify and invigorate me at once. They all inflate my male urges and calm me at once.

Why must people be so careless and horrid? I feel sick to my stomach, but in the morning I'll awake with a renewed sense of hope.

In the morning I'll feel the sting of a body purging itself of alcohol. I'll feel a shagpile. I'll feel befuddled and bitter. But I'll go down to the community scheme. I might go to the beach and maybe I'll help to clear the litter if some poor, glorious buggers haven't already done it. I'll fight with inveterate compassion those who give little thought to consequence.

Books.

We'll go to a record shop and buy volumes costing three pounds. We'll buy novelisations in HMV for a pittance. We'll buy buy-one-get-one-free books in Borders. We'll buy books. We're eager for self-fulfillment. We're hungry for the self-worth contained in the slim volumes of popular prose. We'll read just to keep the demons at bay.

We cite authors like they're type-cast. We cite them in platitudes. They're just the icons and pin-up boys of our self-disgust. They're immediate idols we can conjure up just to feel as if we're widely read or as if we know anything at all of the maelstrom of knowledge contained in a classic.

We read our shit-poke books written by the shit-poke authors of the day. A book is a treasure of limitless power. Books are becoming a defunct and prosaic platform for imparting knowledge. Take your time - you have your life. Ask around. Buy books because they're books; not because you want a vain sense of self-fulfillment you think you may find lurking in the pages of a Paul McKenna or some other dross self-help guide; self-help guides are the last refuge for the helpless.

A book is a journey. It's a mirror of society and the human condition. A book can be dangerous and revolutionary. A book can be a window into the soul or a chute which leads straight to hell. A book is what you make of it.

Sylvia Plath, Cormac McCarthy, John Steinbeck, George Orwell, Kurt Vonnegut, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Joseph Heller, Charles Bukowski, Pat Barker, Hunter S. Thompson, Jack Kerouac, The Bronte Sisters, Bill Bryson, Jack London, Aldous Huxley, William Burroughs, J. G. Ballard, Franz Kafka, Vladamir Myakovsky, Joseph Conrad, Albert Camus....

These are all but a few writers I know of quite scantily. I don't profess to be well-read but I admire these authors none-the-less based on what I have read. I know that many of you reading this may've read all of these authors, but, for those of you who haven't, the pages wait eager to be turned.... If you have any favourite reads I've neglected to mention or comments on points I've brought up please fill your boots.

My son.

I'm more proud of you than you could ever know. All your misgivings, slurred words and impurities make you a broken treasure to behold.

As you walk down the path of youthful self-destruction I see in you myself walking the same path thirty years ago. The path will eat you alive and yet, at the same time, you will devour every square inch of it which falls under your feet; like the Egyptian snake devouring itself. You need to grow, as I have and as others before me have.

The road is long and laid by another's hand. The question is this: will you walk your own road? Will you have the courage to flout the compass and the stars and walk with the faint murmerings of the heart? When I die I will see you on the crossroads of your life. I will hold a sign. I will hold a sign and you will know what it means; you will know the direction to which I point.

One day you may see in the mirror your old man. But you're not me. I have shaped you out of dough and set you baking. May you rise in the oven of life and fill with the effervescense of experience. You will see me in the mirror next to you but we will never merge.

I will kiss your head like I did when you were a child. Words come few and actions are often impotent but you have been taught well. You have been taught well because you have been taught that there is no one way to live. Carry on, my son. Carry on.

One day you will love. You might marry; but, in your case, maybe you won't. You might have a child and question why. Life might seem meaningless but it's all we have. We must carry on, like dust blown from the great unknown. Having a child is just another experience. Life is renewal. Life is a many-faced beauty which shimmers golden light in a hall of mirrors. Life is a many great things and yet nothing at all.

An accomplished writer.

There is no such thing as an accomplished writer. A writer must be a formlessness; a facelessness; a shapelessness. A writer must hold dear his values and morals whilst wrestling with the ghosts of feelings past and the echoes of feelings future which rebounded way back when and only now re-arrive as fuzzy distortions of future consequences.

An accomplished writer is merely a writer who's given up the pursuit; a writer who's accepted that he is merely a penner of prose and knows nothing of the art form.

A writer must ever-develop and never lose the spark of fire born in the first fumbling, impassioned expressions of his heart. A writer must be the phoenix. A writer must never look back in shame but merely look back at what could've been but now is and what could be. Feelings have no bearing on time or destiny. Just strive and try.

If you try to write, you won't be able to; you'll merely force out the words like miserable excess - like excreta weighted with the insoluble fibre of an idiot's load. Don't try to write; just write.

Bugs.

I stopped looking at bugs when I was ten. I thought I'd never see them again - the woodlouse carrying its eggs or the scuttling ants. But I didn't stop looking; I merely changed the subject. The bugs grew larger to human proportions - to humans.

With our nests, our queens, our prey and predators, our enemies, our rituals - we're no different. We're just bugs being bugs to the extreme. We're no more than the wasps and hornets of the world - only flightless.

Aren't we glorious?

But rather than retreat to subterranean realms, this bug will try to escape its chrysalis stage. Many bugs the world over are doing this. One day, maybe we'll all grow wings and take flight and see horizons unavailable to our ground-based forebears.

To the insects, arachnids and arthropods - the many species* of human - I say may we one day lose our limbs, our fangs and stingers, our shells, our pessimistic feelers; may we one day become one with the air.

May we feed on the pollen of progress and the nectar of spirit. May we rest in love's sanctifying shade in summer whilst the grand, yellow plasma orb suspended in the sky nourishes and tortures the very earth it gave scope to exist.

*I am of course using the word 'species' figuratively here.

The curious case of the mischievous boy in the Pelham Street library.

Upon walking to college this morning I had a spring in my step; walking to college, but not for college. Alas, there is but one lecture today from someone imparting their knowledge of the exciting world of public affairs. Beach and sunshine or public affairs? Beach or public affairs? Well, I think I'll just take my revision notes down to the beach.

Anyway, the reason for my walking to college was to do something for my dear mother. If you must know, I had to book her flight details so she could fly to Dublin to see her daughter's wedding dress being fitted. About 200 metres from the college building I suddenly recollected that I'd forgotten the damn piece of paper on which the passport numbers were written. An impromptu 'Fuck!' would serve the occasion well at such a point.

Luckily, my mummy knows me well. She has initiative. 'Don't forget your phone, Rob,' she calls out. 'Oh! Actually, take nan's, but don't lose it or else she'll skin you alive!" So when I arrive we have a little bit of correspondence. I put on my helpless son voice and she replies in a dark, menancing, fretful tone that only a mother with three bastardly children and 30 years of porridge-cold love could embrace.

I sit by a computer. 'Bing! Bing!' goes my phone. I saunter off to the counter phone-in-hand to request the borrowment of an ink-containing vessel for the implementation of hand-written type - a pen to you and me. However - and this is where the story gets juicy - the lady there has no interest in granting me this most perfunctory favour. 'I'm sorry but you're going to have to take that outside,' she says. 'But I need a pen and paper,' I reply. 'Well, I'm sorry but you can't take office equipment outside the library,' she says, much to my dismayance. 'For fuck sake!' I think. The thought expresses itself quite apparently across my face. 'Excuse me, but what am I to do?' I reply. 'I need to take this - it's important - but you won't give me a pen and paper,' I say.

Finally, my quandary is broken and shattered - along with her morning resolve - when she hands me my desired items and exhales in exasperation. She best find some other schmuck to try her office bureaucracy on this morning. I take down the passport numbers and walk back in. 'I'm sorry,' I say, as I hand her the pen. I throw her a little smile. She doesn't like the throwing of my little smile so she reflects it with an upside-down version of said smile.

I sit down again with a brief smug look before the following thought occurs: 'Shit! I'd best get back to finishing the damn flight document.'*

*I wrote this piece mostly in the present tense to convey the immediacy of the event. Sorry to you if you're a tense pedant but I shall flout the past-tense just this once. I should also let it be known - to avoid confusion and deliver my readers from unremitting suspense - that I attend City College in Brighton

Love - a super-position of the heart & a sinking of the soul.

We're like two teenage delinquants fervently bashing from each other the fusty, cherished spirits of our youth.

I love you; you love me. But what is love? Is it the unrequisited binding of two souls? Is it a biological imperative? - A necessity of no further compulsion than the ebb and flow of the air and seas?

Is it the ending of happiness; a giving in to a crushing despair and the attacks of an amourous beast?

Do I love you because I'm touched by the hand of some higher power? Do I love you, or what you resemble? Is love, rather, maybe the spines of some great formless, snarling, pearly-jawed beast with jangles reeking of the fusty ardour of passion?

Well, all I know is that love is standing on the edge of oblivion and staring into the eyes of the abyss whilst standing aloft the precipice of glory; a point reaching no higher, with the sullen depths of perfunctoriness all about it.

Well, love is a being lost on a path whereas unlove is a being lost in an ancient wood. It's a welcome lost; a lost with a sense of direction.

Lead me where you will, love, for I will rove your paths 'til the very sinews of my being are made void. I am lost within the grand scheme of her. May she keep me contained - her prize; my master.

She is my path through the despair and half-light confusion. And when I think the path ends I discover that the mechanisms of change make paths anew.

Is love the projecting of certain unpossessed and unpossessable qualities onto another? - A realisation in another what one can never possess? When you find that person who you'll deify abreast the altar of the human heart you will feel an unworthy dog. But she sees in you a man 10 feet tall; a man of morals and kindness and sanctity.

When you find her, you may both eye the fickle nature of love. The pieces may not naturally fit. You must re-search the box for pieces you thought previously discarded. But don't let it pass you if you find it. Love is a sinking despair and a super-position of the heart. Love is a thankfulness for the blessed futility of our pathetic lives.

Auntie.

She sat beside her, almost juxtaposed against the frail, dying figure, looking radiant under the soft light within the deathly pallor of the room. Light like pastels was splayed over the younger woman's face, revealing her gentle eyes.

On the bed a woman of eighty-three was lying. A grey mop of hair was flicked back over her face and her eyes were the blue of a fjord lake in summer. Her lips were cracked and peeling and her hands were soft and cold, like the texture of night satin.

The old lady struggled for air and her eyelids were weighted with a thousand centuries of fatigue. She'd fallen two weeks previous and damaged her hip. Now, all she keeps muttering is: 'I want to go home'. Home - to where she'd be safe; the place she knows well. Home - to where she'd be completely lost; her dark haven in the light - her fortress made of straw.

She has ten children, only four of which my mother knows. Her partner died two years ago. They lived together for eighteen years. She's utterly lost now. I think she's scared of being found.

She was my auntie. Her life was tragedy, comedy, love, hope, death, decay, renewal, violence, peace, squalor and odd spots of being preyed upon by spineless thieves. She died on April 30th. She rests nowhere - only in the turbulence of our memories. She was cremated on the 22nd of May. May our memories treat her gently. May we inter her into the depths of peace but never forget. I'll see you on the other side of the other side. I see you still.

The Brighton Pier and me.

When first confronted by it, the Brighton Pier – known formerly, and fondly, as the Palace Pier – stands quite colossal, jutting out from the seafront like a limitless platform.

A child may see it as a gateway to a world heralding infinite fun – of bumper carts and thrill rides; but to an adult it’s a gateway to a world with fewer jingling pockets… or is that more?...

It’s a landmark of immense prestige, recognised and treasured by Britons and foreigners alike. And it’s old: opened in 1899, it still continues to attract tourists.

Sadly, in the eyes of many Brighton folk, it has become a veritable chav hive, with many samey and ‘dispiriting’ shops and a god-awful karaoke bar. That being so, it’s still a token of our past seaside glory - and our future, too, with what looks to be a promising summer ahead.

What does it mean to me? Well, nothing really. It's a nice place to go for a stroll on a lazy afternoon to look out to the Brighton Marina or out to Worthing or Lancing, and some of the food isn't too bad, either - by some I mean just the fish 'n' chips, Chinese cuisine and donoughts (the crepes are rather... how do you say? Crap!)

Despite feelings of ambivalence, it still inspires many cherished memories in those who know of the old bugger and, hopefully, will continue to.

If you’ve visited the Brighton Pier (or any other part of Brighton) I’d be happy to hear your thoughts as a condensed, interesting musing in the form of a comment.

Is it me or is Lady Gaga the devil incarnate? (A miser's ramble.)

It certainly seems her stage-name is somewhat metonymic, for the fucker certainly is nuts. I started to become suspicious of her after hearing her dross single 'Just Dance' a few months ago. Then, a couple of weeks after that, she released her second single 'Poker Face' which seems to say something about her Texas Hold-'em abilities.

What I really can't stand about her - apart from the fact that her lyrics are non-existent and her songs are lame as a paraplegic's legs - is the ridiculous amount of posing she does (in both her videos and on stage). Last night she appeared on Friday Night with Jonathon Ross to perform Poker Face. Immediately, of course, I noted that her poker face must just be her normal countenance as she mostly seems to enjoy pulling Madonna-esque vogues.

In her performance, she switched intermittently from her regular, lame style of singing to growls and barks reminiscent of the howls of a hoarse, 50-year-old jazz singer with bronchitis. All the while, several background dancers - all black - jumped around trying to jazz up the poor charade, thus trying to remove from the fact that she has zilch talent.

It really says something about 21st century music when this pathetic piece of work can claim the number 1 spot twice (and shortly afterwards be pipped to the post by post-glory, ageing Irish rockers U2). It also says something about the standard when any record producer would take note of her 'music' at all. Is there any original talent out there at the moment? Well, yes. My money's on Madeleine Peyroux and Doves to bring up the standard over the next couple of weeks - at least.

There is one good thing about her, though: she certainly seems to give scope to young people with speaker-equipped mobile phones to ceaselessly annoy commuting adults. It seems they all must relate to her and the fact that no one can possibly ever read their secret, teenage poker faces. Well, my young dears, poker faces come with time, and maybe one day all of you will be able to see through Miss Gaga's poker face into the interminable void lying just beyond the expressionless surface.

When I've failed to understand the meaning of this song, I wonder how young people must feel. Do they know what it means? Or is it just another piece of senseless, self-regarding shit spun to make confused, young people - we all were at one point - feel it's really special and thus go out in their droves to buy it? Apparently - according to an interview on Jonathon Ross - the inspiration for Poker Face came to Gaga after she was having sex with a man whilst secretly imagining the man to be a woman.

All I know is she's no different to the 50 Cents and Eminems of today, who, without end or remorse, advocate glamorous and undignified lifestyles unattainable by any right-thinking or sensible person with both a conscience and a decent taste in music. Although I can tolerate her, evangelical Christians must see her as some sort of portent highlighting the impending apocalypse, right? Meh! Maybe they don't and maybe I'll just dance along as my brain begins to turn to mush. Or maybe she's some futuristic-looking Jesus who's come to judge us by spinning god-awful music to a hungry-for-shit society. Whatever you do, don't take it! You'll be doomed!

Well, after all I've said I think I'll just reflect by leaving you with that age-old sentiment: one person's shit is another person's diarrhoea is another person's constipation. All that I can say for sure is that if Bill Hicks were alive today I'm sure he'd immediately shoot himself in the back of the skull upon seeing this Chimera-like freak, composed of the dead limbs of a thousand talentless musician hacks. Goodnight!

For those who wish to join the good fight, join the following Facebook group: Lady Gaga Must Die. Thanks, all.

A diatribe against self-service checkouts

The supermarkets of today are horrid things. They're impersonal and serve only one purpose: to make consumers aware they need to consume (a word that seems to de-humanise human need, reducing it to terms understandable only by way of monetary value). If anything highlights this truism more it's those deeply dispiriting things we call self-service checkouts.

Whenever I enter a supermarket these days I sweat. I never buy more than a handful of items so I rarely use checkouts. How I miss the odd chinwag. Despite the blandness, indifference and, often, bitterness of some checkout assistants, I'd take them any day over a self-service checkout. Firstly, one approaches and waits for the thing to reset after the last mug has bagged their stuff and gone on their merry way. 'I'm ready for your custom now,' it says quite glaringly. The bigger items are a breeze, but try swiping a cream egg or searching frantically through the options for a chocolate choux bun.

After the swiping of each item, one is forced to bend down and bag each one. But that word, of course, just means plonk the item on that little, white plastic square and wait for the damn thing to shut up. At the end of the chore, it's time to pay up and get out.

With sweaty palms, I reach into my pocket and pull out some spare change, all the while some desperate-looking person behind me is looking for some bastard or another to hurry up and finish so he or she can get in there quick-smart and then get the hell out. I pull out some coins and begin to insert them, feeling quite insecure as I notice that there are mostly pennies in my hand. I look to see if any coins have been rejected by the machine and then re-insert the damn things if they have been.

Horrah! It's tendering the receipt! 'Receipt?' I think to myself. A receipt for four items totalling just over two pounds? Well, if you must, you daft machine, you! Inevitably, I scrunch the thing up but refrain from throwing it anywhere; instead allowing it to take its rest in the infinite receipt graveyard that is my jacket pocket.

I walk out to the escalator and wait behind a line of innumerous old biddies, all moving down the thing at 2 miles an hour with their trollies. 'Prepare to disembark from the escalator,' the thing announces. I inveterately laugh at this point but secretly cry; thus decrying the pathetic country in which I live.

I think about the future, when all local markets and grocers will have inevitably been crushed under the corporate foot of Britain's many supermarkets. I ponder a time when the supermarkets will possess all the lard in Britain and prepare to administer that lard around the gaping arsehole of the government before inserting their lengthy, blood-throbbing, corporate cocks into the orifice (not that that probably isn't done already). I think of a time in a few years when signs above checkouts will no longer read: 'Five items or less' - or 'fewer', depending on the literacy of supermarket executives at such a point - but rather: 'Five items or get the hell out of the shop and fuck off somewhere else.'

I can't wait for such a time, can you? But until then, I think I may just start using the regular checkouts again.