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When I was younger I spent a lot of time in the presence of a tubby older man called Lenny. Lenny was always there for me. He used to take me for meals and we used to nibble on most food together, thus explaining his portly appearance. After mealtime we then often used to take a nap together, where I often delighted in the comfort of Lenny’s rotund belly. Before Lenny is investigated as rigorously as I imagine Timmy Mallet must be currently, I must point out that Lenny was my invisible friend. He left my head aged about four when I realized two imaginary friends, alongside a need to add tangible real friends, was a high maintenance balance to maintain. He was elbowed out of my imagination by the other invisible friend, a case of bad winning over good given that my other imaginary friend was a jealous, vindictive, misogynistic, homophobic, racist, genocidal bully. I guess it was peer pressure that made me choose Jesus over Lenny. Hanging around with Jesus involved going to a Sunday school, I got fed better than with Lenny and briefly fell in love with a girl called Alice who shared a love for my invisible friend. When I reached the age of reason, about aged 8, Jesus also got flung onto the scrapheap alongside Lenny, Alice and my heart after she cast me aside.

The point is that a large proportion of the world’s population are happy to keep that one imaginary friend for their entire lifetime, which seems like a disorder of sorts. Frank Noon is a devout atheist who strongly believes that religion brainwashes us, controls us, divides us, and restricts our growth as a species. It hurts him that we’ve been afforded great, complicated, intricate minds, and yet we’ve completely squandered that gift and let ourselves be controlled by things like religion and superstition. In one of his diatribes he hits on the notion that religion is almost a mental illness. Put simply he argues that any faith not based on evidence could be deemed a mental illness, and that ‘it’s undeniable that if you think there’s a man up in the sky keeping score of everything you do then you can’t be entirely sane’. He sees praying as some kind of game, that the rules of probability means they’ll get half the things they pray for and half not, and that the way they then simply write off the things they don’t get is akin to a mental illness. He also notes how people who believe in UFOs are ridiculed as laughing stocks, but that if you actually stop to assess it these people are far more credible than those who believe in God, as there’s genuinely more evidence and likelihood of some kind of alien activity in our universe. As he can often do he facetiously takes things to extremes by suggesting that if religious brainwashing or fanaticism is seen as a mental disorder in law then these people could finally get some treatment, but essentially he’d just love to associate with a humankind that doesn’t need religion to control it, a society that instead educates its young with a strong moral guidance.

The Chronicles of Hope is a series of books based in 2080’s. The first book, ’2082′, sees an experimental intergalactic project when the government get the chance to colonise a recently discovered planet that’s habitable for human life. Fuelled by overpopulation on Earth making life increasingly unsustainable they offer Frank the chance to lead the project, largely because of the stir caused by a speech he does on climate change and global warming. The first chapter including that speech is free to read here. During the speech he fires off about religion and how he sees it as a far bigger threat to the world than global warming. Off the back of such a controversial speech the government see the perfect fit between their project and the chance to make Frank disappear for a while, and Frank decides he has to accept their offer in order to secure the financial future of his family. ‘2082’ is still just 99p to buy in ebook format.

There can’t be many things more galling in this world than pretentious children. On my tube the other day there was a child, floppy looking and no older than 8, who thought he was it. He initially caught my attention by reading a paper in an adult manner. He held it up in front of his face and even licked his fingers at one point before turning one of the pages. It’s a fine line between such a scene being humorously charming and intensely annoying, and he quickly slipped into the latter category when his friend, also too young to have any opinion worth listening to, sat down next to him. As they discussed an article together as if UN head honcho’s I was waiting for one of them to spark up a pipe, when, low and behold, a third friend appeared wielding a musical instrument that clattered into my aging knee.

It got me thinking about just how pathetic a human trait pretentiousness is. Hate, envy, betrayal, greed, selfishness, and intolerance can all lay claim to being more negative characteristics, but at least they involve real, genuine, useful, tangible emotions and feelings. Pretentiousness is nothing, as useful as bacon in Baghdad. I struggle to think of one possible advantage of ‘being pretentious’, other than it maybe being a useful title for a documentary focusing on the lives of rockstar children living in East London.

It seems to drive so many negative behaviourisms. The royal definition is ‘attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, than is actually possessed’. Even more pathetic when viewed in written form, it also spawns snobbery, superficiality, and a lack of humility. A pretentious person’s whole being is about being noticed. You’ll only find them trying to impress with pompous speech and behaviours as long as there are plenty of people around to observe such bullshitery. They think themselves better than most others despite the fact that statistically this can rarely be the case.

The pretentious nerd is probably the worst form of pretentious being, their whole existence centred around snitchy misuse of the concepts of intelligence and culture. Instead of appreciating the very essence of life and seeing what the world has to offer they’ll lock themselves in their bedroom and fester whilst engaging in some kind of niche hobby. Emerging only when their own company becomes so stifling they even get bored of pleasuring themselves, they emerge armed with ammunition intended to try and make others feel stupid. It’s almost a form of bullying but because the nerd is craftier about their trade it’s the brute who snaps in the face of such provocation that’s the one roundly booed by society.

Frank Noon comments in ‘2082’ that ‘if anyone calls anyone else uncultured in my opinion that person is then instantly unintelligent. It means they can’t understand that some people have got different interests and views to themselves. The definition of cultured is something like to be enlightened and educated. If you then call someone uncultured you’re damning them for not being educated which is disgusting as it’s probably not their fault. Also that person might be more enlightened than you on subjects such as football and fried foods so you’re not as knowledgeable as them on those subjects. Who’s to say that being interested in art means you’re more cultured than someone interested in football, which is an art anyway in a sense. Whatever happened to real people, those with sincerity, honesty, people with a strength of character?’

Frank Noon is one of those people and if you want to follow his journey then now is the best time to jump on board, with ‘2082: The Chronicles Of Hope’, FREE to download on kindle until Monday 6th May. I feel a little pretentious even supposing that anyone might read this but if you do then please spread the word. Thanks

St Georges Day. As I write this the sun is out so there’s every chance my face will be various shades of red and white, if so it won’t be by design. I’ll celebrate it by doing nothing different to the norm, apart from maybe using it as an excuse to up my tea intake for the day. See, i’ve never really understood patriotism or nationalism. When a concept divides people and teaches them to hate those that they don’t know or understand then I struggle to see its positive influence on society.

I feel lucky to live in the UK, I love and appreciate the fact that I was born here, would rather live nowhere else on the planet, and in no other generation than we do now. I think the UK has a soul that most other countries can’t match. I like our weather (it has character), our music is the best in the world (we never spawn and nurture megastars as sickly and twisted as the likes of Justin Bieber), I even like our transport system. Living in London you never have to wait more than 3 or 4 minutes at a bus stop, that’s pretty good, and then when you do get on the bus the average journey is awe-inspiring for those like me who like to dabble in the art of people-watching.

That’s another reason to love the UK, the people. I think there are more interesting characters per head of the population than in any other country in the world, and with those characters firing off against each other I think we’re also blessed with the best sense of humour in the world. I’m convinced we’re the only country who sends round millions of jokes the second the latest over-hyped celebrity dies. I think that’s an incredibly cool culture and is born out of the art of laughing in the face of adversity, something we seem to have perfected better than any other nation. It helps to give you strength, and it’s so much cooler and creditable to take strength from that instinctive attitude rather than from that other oh so divisive concept, a belief that an invisible man in the sky is looking out for us every step of the way.

My beef is this. For a lot of people St George’s Day is an excuse to spout about how they’re ‘proud’ to be British. I love the UK but feel no pride whatsoever in ‘being British’. Pride should surely be attained by achieving something – flying out of your mothers womb in a certain country doesn’t seem a notable achievement worthy of shouting about. The whole concept of National Pride spawns unanswerable questions, and that in itself usually indicates that the belief in question is largely misguided. Ask someone why they’re patriotic or why they’re proud to be British and it’d be almost impossible to receive a logical response. The fact that a lot of us don’t question why we hold certain beliefs suggests a level of brainwashing somewhere along the way. Indeed we’re pounded with the flagstick of our nation almost from birth and many go on to happily kill and die for their country, not questioning why they’re doing so and what their country actually means to them. As much as I love living in the UK I can’t imagine being in a position where that attachment to a flag means that I’d go to war. Even if you get carried away with the task in hand and merrily kill other human beings you’ll be left with images that will then torture you for the rest of your life, all this in the name of the owners of your country that care not a jot about you and will toss you to one side once your duty is done.

Half of the above views are mine, and half are courtesy of Frank Noon, the protagonist in ‘The Chronicles Of Hope’, a series of Political Fiction books featuring an atheist, visionary, humanitarian working-class genius politician. The first book, ‘2082’, is an Amazon bestseller with the eBook still 99p for a limited time. Please check it out here, my intention is merely to make people think and question everything a little more.

p.s. If any fervent nationalists read this and get agitated by the random use of ‘UK’, ‘English’ and ‘British’ as terms by which to describe my being, the fact is I genuinely don’t really know what all of them mean and constitute, and what’s more I couldn’t give a shit. Im just a poor red-headed man who happens to have been born in england.

It’s undeniable that Religion has restricted our growth as a species, it’s undeniable that over the years more people have been killed in the name of God than for any other reason, and it’s undeniable that if these religious folk chose to love one another rather than an imaginary God the world would be a better place. That should be the simple Easter message right there but this week I’ve been challenged, by the mentally challenged ironically, and thus have to respond.

It’s not an unusual feeling to be challenged, we get challenged everywhere everyday. It’s a challenge to get out of bed, especially when it’s colder than Antarctica outside and you live in a basement flat where spiders goad you at every turn. It’s a challenge to work a toaster, especially when your eyes are yet to fully open and the said toaster is about 35 years old. The ATM machine challenges you, firing numerous questions at you like you’re its bitch whilst you’re still half asleep. You deal with it. Improvise, adapt, overcome is a good motto for such minor challenges.

If you challenge people’s beliefs however, they seem to get fabulously offended. This week I’ve been called a ‘gaytheist’ and told that if God doesn’t call going to punish me he will call coming back. It’d be easy to infer a link between the inability to use the English language properly and beliefs clearly lacking in intelligence, but, actually there’s no but, it’s just easy to make that link. What I’ve learnt is that these people are geniuses in the art of argument, given that their blind refusal to engage in reasoned debate only antagonizes and enrages their opponent further. This is my forum to respond and the Bible, clearly the most successful Science Fiction book of all time, would seem like the logical place to start. Though early sales of 2082 have been great you could multiply the influence of anything I ever write by an infinite number and still not get anywhere near the influence of that book.

In some ways you can see why. The Bible is incredibly well written, an epic masterpiece. Some of the proverbs in there are original, great and visionary. Also it’s given us so many great ideas and lessons on how to form a society, so we should be grateful for that. The depth of imagination involved in the fiction is also laudable. Imagining that there’s this invisible man in the sky, an invisible man who watches over us, a man with a list of ten things we shouldn’t do, that if we do any of these ten things we’ll go to hell, the depth in such character creation is commendable. From this good start though I think they then missed a trick, ‘they’ probably being the religious and political bigwigs who got together to write this masterpiece a few thousand years ago.

The God in the Old Testament is a jealous, petty, vindictive, misogynistic, homophobic, racist, genocidal bully. If they had just sharpened up this character development the legacy of religion and the path it set humanity onto could have been so different. We’ve got to assume that the intention of the mantra was to control people and keep them in line. Why then didn’t they make this God a nice humanitarian man? Or better still a woman, given that 99% of all the negativity in this world was established or initiated by men. We’ll probably never know the answer. Maybe they were evil visionaries who wanted the book to create divisions within society, keeping the little folk fighting amongst themselves, and thus allowing the rich and powerful to become even more rich and powerful. Or maybe that gives them too much credit, we were less intellectually advanced beings then than we are now (and now the majority need alcohol and money to enjoy their lives), so maybe their character creation was just naively inept and short-sighted. Regardless, neither scenario would’ve been positive, given that the intention and consequence of the book has been to brainwash and restrict the development of our species.

Nowadays the book wouldn’t have stood a chance of being published. Imagine if it’d been sent to a literary agent. They’d first highlight some of the glaring omissions in the story, the biggest that seemingly it just misses out the first hundred years, that the first few chapters don’t even seek to explain how god created the universe, I’m sure an agent would suggest it should be rewritten to take into account the timeline of evolution which is now is based on scientific facts. An astute agent’s next observation might be to highlight the unrealistic anomalies that feature in the book. The protagonist created homosexuals then banned homosexuality? He was an advocate of free will but told us exactly how to use it? He proposes thou shalt not kill as a commandment but seems to allow exceptions for witches, homosexuals, heathen enemies, muslims, slaves, the adulterous, rebellious kids, and blasphemers?

I’m boring myself with this rhetoric. Given that you only live once for 80 odd years Jean Paul Sartre probably had the right idea, a man so thoroughly atheist that he believed the whole subject of God to be beneath discussion. Fuck Religion, just enjoy your life, do what you want as long as it hurts no one else, and be kind to people, there’s the alternative Easter message. There’s more goodness at the heart of that than the intent of all Ten Commandments put together.

p.s. Frank Noon is a revolutionary, atheist, visionary, working class genius of a politician. He is wiser than God, kinder than God, and more real than God given that there must still be some hope that a politician of his ilk will come along one day and change the world. 2082, the first book in The Chronicles Of Hope series, has been out for a month and is still in the Amazon bestseller list. The eBook is still 99p and I’m fighting to keep it that way, with the intention merely to make people think and question everything more. Please spread the word.

As ‘2082’ sits in the Amazon sci-fi top 10 eBook chart (a great start, thanks to all who have bought and spread the word), I thought I’d write a little piece about where the books were born from and the intention behind them. This is going to involve talking about myself which I’m still not overly comfortable doing, so apologies if I copy and paste bits out of my cringeworthy author bio’s along the way.

I’m still a local Government officer in London, and about three years ago I started writing these books. After receiving B.A. degrees in History and Politics my excitement at moving to London gradually began to wane as I found myself a monotonous cog in the government system. Seeing how that world works from the inside initially manifested itself as searing cynicism and spawned a disappointed, and annoying, idealist. One day at work a few years ago an inner spark fired (the flint being extreme boredom) that fuelled putting pen to paper.

The ideas for the characters came first. I was sat on the tube one day and glanced opposite. The man sat opposite had silver hair swept into a side parting, a smart briefcase, long beige mackintosh, and was reading a copy of the financial times. He glanced up occasionally to genuinely sneer and flash dirty looks at an unkempt looking black man opposite him. Unfairly but instinctively, in my head I ripped this pompous racist apart, myself probably guilty of stereotyping as much as him.

The whole scenario got me thinking about stereotypical characters and made me think that the most interesting characters I know are those who don’t fit a set stereotype. That became the basis behind the ideas for most of the characters in ‘2082’, with the government project a totalitarian one based on a personality machine. With several recent revelations about how the government and social media sites are collecting this very data, it isn’t hard to see how such information could potentially be misused in future and make this a realistic concept. In the face of intergalactic contact you’d have to assume that our leaders would cope with it in the most short-sighted and misguided way possible, given that this is how they’ve dealt with most quandaries over the last few hundred years.

The Chronicles of Hope series of books is just that, a story of hope. Without giving too much away it’s ultimately a utopian vision of a hopeful future for humanity. The intention behind the books is merely to challenge people’s beliefs and make people think and question everything, and i’ll probably be losing money on this first book when advertising costs are totted up. I’ve genuinely never been motivated by money, I don’t subscribe to the theory that it brings happiness, but I do understand that having none will often bring unhappiness if it stops you having the lifestyle you want to have. Fortunately my income and circumstances to that end have always been very middle of the road, something that feels like a privilege in this world we live in.

I think the Che Guevara in me hopes that the more people think and the more people work out that we’re owned by the world’s leaders and have no say in society, the closer the world might come to some kind of uprising and revolution. Despite that, there’s no great moral message at the core of the books, I’m well aware that the pile of shit is probably too deep now for such change. My hope is loosely that more people thinking about some of the issues raised could lead to more people refusing to accept the failings of the society in which we live. Either way, we only live once so the logical conclusion is probably just to look for the humour in such situations that we have no control over changing.

I’ll endeavour to keep the 1st book in The Chronicles of Hope, ‘2082’, at 99p or less in eBook format for the foreseeable future. Thanks for reading.

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We’ve had no political alternative in this country now for decades. Politicians from all parties now seem to be cloned from public schools around the country, and without meaning to be offensive and obviously generalising, that pool seems to be mostly made up of narrow minded rich kids. Frank Noon is a politician that finally bucks the trend. Of a middle class background and upbringing, with a working class diet and friendship group, he’s open, honest, a visionary thinker, and has a great affinity with the proletariat; all attributes easily deemed as alternative in light of the character of your average politician.

In ‘2082’, the 1st book in The Chronicles Of Hope series, Frank gets offered the chance to lead an experimental intergalactic project on Planet Muta. The project seemingly fuelled by overpopulation making life on Earth increasingly unsustainable, Frank is chosen largely because of the stir caused by a speech (link to 1st chapter) he does on climate change and global warming. He takes on the assignment in order to secure the financial future of his family, and soon finds himself in charge of a cross section of the population at odds with themselves and the situation. The political scene has changed little in 2082 from what it is now, and as Frank begins to get a grip on things preaching becomes his favourite past time. He highlights how the worlds leaders have been completely inept in running things the last few hundred years, and gives a scathing critique of almost every facet of society that the government have created in that time.

He’s stoically atheist and wants to push humanism as a way to mould and shape society, strongly believing that religion controls us, divides us, and restricts our growth as a species. It hurts him that we’ve been afforded great, complicated, intricate minds, and yet to him ‘we’ve completely squandered that gift and let ourselves be controlled by things like religion and superstition’.

He’s appalled that most of the time our leaders’ outlooks are so limited that all they bang on about is our country, our own town, our own suburb, and our own street. That over the ages they’ve not only pushed nationalism and made us a frightened populous scared of other countries peoples, but they ‘also support localised rule and the divisions created by that, effectively getting us all fighting with each other whilst they live their comfortable bourgeois lives’.

He sees education as the long-term key to shaping a better world and thinks we should question everything and that children should be taught this. He notes that currently politicians and businessman now control everything we hear and learn to an extent, through media and other avenues, and that ‘their worst nightmare would thus be a population capable of critical thought’.

He thinks we should be led by experts, scientists, visionary geniuses and philosophers in moulding most areas of society and, in doubting that change is possible when politicians are so misguided with seemingly selfish and narrow-minded intentions, he concludes that the notion underpinning society should be that ‘life’s about enjoying yourself, and if what you enjoy doing doesn’t affect others in a negative manner or harm anyone else then it’s simply no problem’.

I’ve just heard that ‘2082’ is being promoted by Amazon, so you can buy the 1st eBook for 99p for a limited time only! If you visit www.thechroniclesofhope.com you can read the first chapter for free and there’s also an interview on there with Frank where you can get to know him a little better.

Take your Monday to Friday routine, how many genuinely interesting people do you come across on a daily basis? You arrive at work after a journey on a silent tube train packed full of lemmings who don’t make eye contact with each other, and who sneer if someone dare chat or cough. 80% of your work colleagues will instantly regale you with tales of their route into work and the London transport system, while the other 20% spout on about the weird dream still fresh in their head from their nights sleep. Most of the rest of the day is then spent talking about food, analysing how hungry they are, what they’d like to eat, or what they’re actually eating. One colleague might occasionally create commotion and debate by querying the safety of some food that is slightly past its use by date, the ironic thing being that you suspect that the bacteria forming on their food probably leads a more exciting life than they do.

Most would contend that the lifeless individual who orders shepherds pie from a motorway service station is ‘boring’; most would contend that the man with a beard found lurking in the background on the antiques roadshow is ‘boring’. I’d contend that it’s the people who would refer to themselves as ‘extrovert’ or ‘wacky’ who are in fact the most boring members of society. A lot of the time people who crave instant excitement through ‘wacky’ pursuits are ultimately trying to make up for the fact that they haven’t the brainpower to amuse themselves, and someone consciously trying to be unpredictable is, by their very nature, an incredible bore.

Responsibility breeds boredom and unless you’re a fellow parent there can’t be many things more boring than people talking about their children. I always feel compelled to point out that most children haven’t formed a traceable personality until the age of about 2 and that looks-wise they seem to resemble a frog in their early days. Some even show you photos of the child when in the womb now which is just ridiculous, how long before we photograph a man’s testicles to show the baby at a really young age.

It’s society itself that makes us boring in a sense as most people seem compelled to tow the prescribed line. The government would love nothing more than to preside over a people that are conforming and too stuck in their own drab routines to think and question just how much they’re getting fucked. The characters featured in ‘2082’ largely come about from the governments crude way of dealing with overpopulation and the utilisation of a recently found planet habitatble for human life. One of Frank Noon’s remits whilst fronting a secretive government project on Planet Muta is to reform characters described as problematic and non-conforming. He quickly realises that these ‘problematic’ characters under is tutelage are just that, characters, quickly summising that ‘the whole situation is just barbaric, these people don’t need correcting or reforming, they’re characters that we should be proud of’. He embraces the querks and personalities of the residents, is rightly outraged when he realises the monikers they’ve been attributed (such as racist hippie and vegetarian gangster), and concludes that he’d certainly ‘rather share a pint with anyone here than with any of his political peers’.

When writing The Chronicles Of Hope series the characters came first, provoked by the way people tend to instinctively stereotype. In thinking about the characters I came to the conclusion that the most interesting and fascinating people in life are those whose personalities you can’t pin down to a set stereotype. Goths, hippies, anyone with predictable and stereotypical identities are in fact entirely unoriginal to me and I largely find them a bore. I like people you can’t pigeonhole and such characters are rife in Clashton, with their ‘contradictory personalities’ highlighted in the crudest possible manner.

Last word to Frank Noon, who highlights how boring people can be sought after, namely as a potential life partner for his youngest daughter Jess who isn’t happy at the lack of excitement her new boyfriend is bringing to the table. ‘I like him, boring’s good doodlebug. My ideal boyfriend for you would be someone called Ray, something like that. Ray has a nice steady moustache, he drives a Rover. He drives this Rover to his job as a Financial Advisor. He works a steady 40-hour week, his job pays well, provides for your entire future. He respects you, so much so that he doesn’t have sexual relations with you out of wedlock. You have two children, live a happy, peaceful, faithful existence and live happily ever after’.

‘2082’, the first book in The Chronicles Of Hope series, is out on March 11th.

If you work for the Daily Mail, kill yourself. There is no rationalization for what you do and you are Satan’s little helpers, filling the world with violent garbage, you are fucked and you are fucking us, kill yourself it’s the only way to save your fucking soul. That’s of course paraphrasing Bill Hicks’ rant against marketing but the parallels are there, and I’d suggest the influence of Mail run newspapers is just as negative an influence on society. The Mail’s headline the other day was ‘18 months after riots that shocked britain just 15 out of 200 convicted foreigners have been deported’. What difference does this make to anything, how can that ever be the point? Get these 15 foreigners out of the country and that’s it problem solved, we can sleep easy? If that’s the case and this happening would actually make you feel a little better about things then again, please kill yourself. That’s their world view in a nutshell, as long as it doesn’t affect us in our nice little developed country then who cares. I remember a headline during the Libyan crisis when Gadaffi was riding roughshod over his people that said ‘Get our people out of Libya’. Yeah, who cares about the Libyans as long as our lot are ok. Again if you think like this then you are evil, please kill yourself.

We seem intelligent enough to understand that a lot of what is written in tabloid newspapers is sensationalist at best, untrue at worst. That we’ve then allowed ourselves as a culture to become obsessed by the celebrity and scaremongering that such papers thrust in our face at every opportunity is akin to brainwashing. Their influence is so far reaching that the government actually seem to sometimes form policies and even legislation off the back of newspaper campaigns. The Daily Mail, Metro and Evening Standard (the latter two distributed for free in London thus broadening their influence further) seem obsessed by binge drinking. You can’t go a week without one or all of these rags publishing pictures and stories about young people drinking vast amounts of alcohol and then either squatting in the street or punching a granny in the face. As these papers slam the ‘binge drinking culture’, the right-wing readership rage against something that has most likely never directly affected their lives. The government then brings in policy after policy to try and curb this ‘threat’ to society. The facts are irrelevant, and figures will be twisted to make their sensationalist point. We’re actually drinking less than we ever have done in this country and it’s been on a natural downward trend forever, we don’t need to introduce narrow-minded short-term policies or legislation on top of that that penalize everyone.

The Daily Mail’s ethos is insular, divisive, self-important and full of hypocrisy (raging against the sexualisation of children then stacking their website full of the offending images). Each article in is written by cowards to be read by cowards. If they’re not shoving into our faces obscure things that can kill us, they’ll go with the obvious things like smoking or cancer. They’ve created a population of people who are scared of everything. Scared of foreigners and those people different to themselves (xenophobia or racism anyone?), scared of gay marriage, gay people, scared of disease and germs, scared of benefit scroungers (but not the criminal ruling class that regularly thieve money off the state using tax havens and loopholes), scared about their diet, scared about drugs (legal or not), scared of terrorists and especially overseas dictators (despite the fact that the leader of our own country often ticks both those boxes if you happened to have been born in a different country).

So, these poisonous, evil, narrow-minded, self important hypocrits, who are they exactly? Well they’re intelligent human beings. If they’re intelligent enough to put pen to paper and write a cogent article (albeit one aimed at easy ageing prey) then they’re intelligent enough to be aware daily that they’re wasting their lives by actively making the world worse and are aware of the power they possess. They sold their soul the day they agreed to work for The Mail or The Sun, and let’s hope this realisation weighs heavy on their minds daily. The hope is that as a species we’ll evolve to have bigger balls as well as bigger brains, that when we see a headline like ‘30p on cost of pint can cut deaths by a third’ we know instinctively that it’s untrue. It’s impossible to speculate whether there is a more sinister link between the paper and government propaganda, but it can make a difference if we refuse to buy such trash.

See how Frank Noon, an alternative politician, deals with the scourge of such media influence (and by God does he deal with it) in The Chronicles Of Hope. First in the series of books, ‘2082’, out on March 11th. SIGN UP TO THE NEWSLETTER ON THE WEBSITE BEFORE MARCH 5TH TO GET 1ST EBOOK ENTIRELY FREE!

Racism is an abhorrent concept that taints our species. I’ve read many an article recently, spawned by a debate born on the football pitch and then played out in the tabloid media, suggesting that we in this country are ahead of the game when it comes to dealing with the scourge of racism. It’s all misguided if you consider that presently if you’re in the UK and you’re black you’re 30 times more likely to be stopped by the police – a record which is the worst in the world, worse than South Africa’s. This figure has tripled in the last five years. Clearly the concept is nowhere near elimination in our society and yet the media continually pat our backs and tell us that we’re doing a whole lot better than the rest of the world in trying to combat it. Any backpatting is certainly premature, especially with slavery so prominent in Humanity’s rear view mirror.

I think the tabloid media fight a misguided fight when tackling the argument by continually considering the use of racist language. They perpetuate the belief that if you call someone a black prick (someone who is black) then this makes you a racist. My contention is that it doesn’t, in itself, make that person racist or constitute racism. In my youth I’m sure I was called a ginger prick on more than one occasion, largely because I was just that. I had ginger hair and I often acted like a prick. The insult often came on the football pitch but never did I consider the insult racist, and never were the comments described as racist. Similarly if a rather rotund kid on the opposition was the man dishing out the insult I’m sure I responded by calling him a fat prick. It highlights that most people are instinctively aware that when a slender white man with dark hair on a football pitch calls a rival a black, ginger or fat prick it’s not with a considered deep-held belief that being white with dark hair is superior to being black, ginger, or fat, it’s merely an instinctive way of referring to a rival in a derogatory manner.

A racist is defined as ‘a person with a prejudiced belief that one race is superior to others’ and using that definition genuinely racist people in this country may well be few and far between. Those that are genuinely racist would seem to either be complete cowards scared of people they’ve never even met (Nick Griffin), or they’re completely ignorant and suspicious of people they haven’t been exposed to (Your Nan). The hope as we move forward as a species is that evolution will provide people with a bigger set of balls and a bigger heart, and thus will take everyone they meet at face value, regardless of the colour of that face. The integration of more and more cultures will naturally help this process along, in which case the misguided influence of the media as above may well serve to hinder rather than help the process along.

All in all racism is a tricky subject, and one that poses more questions than answers. Why is picking on someone’s skin colour to refer to them by so much worse than referring to someone by their hair colour or weight? Are we saying skin is more precious than hair? If so then why is calling someone a black prick considered worse than calling them a bald prick? Maybe the best way to deal with it is to just look on the bright side, let our species evolve and hope that as it does racism will naturally be eliminated. Surely we’ll evolve to a place where people are aware that projecting hate towards someone, something, a whole race of people, means that you’ve consciously decided to spend a large proportion of your life feeling outraged and angry. As Frank Noon notes when dealing with Hubert, a man deemed a ‘racist hippie’, ‘you’ve made being a racist your passion, but surely a passion should be something that you enjoy doing, something that makes you feel good, not something that makes you feel embittered and resentful?’. Until that time if we find ourselves the target of racist language then lets just laugh about such things rather than getting offended, that’s also a conscious decision we can make. And if you want to racially abuse me then please call me a strawberry blonde prick as my hair colour has lightened considerably since my youth.

With such ignorance seemingly driving the ‘fight’ against racism it’s no surprise that in the year 2082 the issue of racism is still prevalent. The use of stereotyping, racisms sister concept, is something that drives the governments project on Planet Muta. People with personalities deemed a threat are shipped to Muta as part of an experimental project designed to ease the burden on an overpopulated Earth.

‘2082’ is out on March 11th, with free first chapter now online.

@robertbreeze

A couple of months ago a man was jailed for 8 months for wearing a t-shirt bearing an offensive slogan. IMPRISONED, AWAY FROM HIS FAMILY FOR 240 DAYS, BECAUSE HE WROTE A SLOGAN ON A T SHIRT IN FELT TIP PEN. The law the man was charged with is over 25 years old and comes from the Public Order Act 1986, stating that ‘a person is guilty of an offence if he/she displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive or insulting, thereby causing that or another person harassment, alarm or distress’. The wording of this particular law means that someone just needs to be offended enough to report you and then the police are obliged to investigate and pursue a disposal .i.e. a caution or court charge/prison. So all it takes is for one or more people to be sufficiently offended enough to report you and the police are involved. Just watch points of view to see what people CHOOSE to get offended by nowadays and you’ll realise what a frightening thought that is.

The fulcrum around which this debate lies is the concept of a joke and the notion of freedom of speech. The concept of most jokes is pretty basic… when someone says something to you as a JOKE most commonly they don’t mean what they say, or they are exaggerating what they say for comic effect. If you mean what you say then it’s not a joke. If the subject, observer, or listener of any joke understands this then they surely shouldn’t take offence. Having a sense of humour is essential in this world we currently live in to shield yourself from the injustice and reality of the mess that surrounds us. If an evolved 21st century human being doesn’t understand this and the concept of a joke then they will simply join the ranks of those with no sense of humour who spend their lives getting offended. It’s a vicious cycle full of offence, which last time I checked wasn’t a particularly positive feeling to CHOOSE to experience.

The worry is when people accept that something was a joke and then still then see it as a punishable offence. It happened with CHILDREN getting jailed for posting about the riots on facebook, and with CHILDREN getting jailed for JOKING about missing schoolgirls on facebook. A policeman interviewed in the aftermath of the t shirt case said that ‘to joke about the events of that morning (when the policewomen were shot) is morally reprehensible’. That may be but even if the individual in question actually held such abhorrent opinions society should never ever be allowed to imprison someone for having an opinion. The fact that it was acknowledged as a joke and yet still interpreted with maximum authoritarianism is without doubt proof that we’re currently living under the most oppressive rule in my lifetime and edging ever closer to an Orwellian existence. The government clearly frown upon and want to disallow citizens from having opinions, rather than encouraging a society based on notions of critical thought and questioning everything, as Frank Noon argues for continually in ‘2082’.

It also needs noting that the CHILDREN in both of the above cases were out of work, due to the failures of various governments over the last couple of hundred years. Judging by the misguided nature of their behaviour they were also under-educated, due to the failures of various governments over the last couple of hundred years. They attempted jokes no more offensive than many comedians do, just without the required nous to pull them off in the same polished manner. In spite of this in both cases the parents stood by the authorities decision to ‘teach their children a lesson’. In both cases vengeful mobs cheered the decision, seemingly unaware that the same powerful, rich and successful people who jail CHILDREN for having an OPINION do nothing to stop prominent entertainers raping children.

In 2082, the first book in The Chronicles of Hope trilogy, Frank Noon acknowledges that ‘this may well be as ‘intelligent’ as we’re going to get as a species, that evolutionary speaking our generation has the perfect balance between high intelligence and a balanced personality’. If these ideas ring true then I think Frank’s simple conclusion that ‘we’re doing a really bad job with that’ is more than fair. We don’t question things and turn a blind eye far too often. We’re turning into robots afraid to accept that others are allowed to have opinions different to our own. The hope is that people will question more and uncover more situations of such hypocrisy and injustice. The hope is that people will challenge situations where freedom of speech injustices occur. Frankie Boyle did exactly this not so long ago and thankfully won his case. The hope is that the wider public will take on board that it doesn’t matter if the majority consider an opinion to vile, misguided, or ignorant; that they are all just OPINIONS. Everyone has the freedom of choice to disagree with an opinion rather than get offended by it. And if the subject isn’t wise enough to do this then let’s all make JOKES about and laugh at these morons who CHOOSE to get OFFENDED, just to make ourselves feel a little more sane.

A quick word to finish on The Chronicles of Hope, my trilogy of books that will hopefully make people think and question everything a little more. That is its simple intention. If you visit the homepage you can now read the first chapter for free and see why his speech on why religion is a bigger threat to the Earth than global warming caused such a stir and led to him being offered the lucrative assignment on Muta. There’s also an interview with Frank where you can get to know him a little better. ‘2082’ is out on March 11th, and will be just 96p to buy in ebook format for the first few weeks.