Quis Custodiet ipos custodes? Or the Pros and Cons of Vigilantism

I had an interesting night last night. I say interesting, closer to infuriating.  A friend of mine questioned the judgement of a doorman in our local club. He was in the right, and wasn’t confrontational at all about it, just trying to reason with the gentleman at the door. For this, he was punched in the face. His brother, when trying to break up this fight, was grabbed by the throat, and both thrown out. Cue chaos. A few months before this, another friend of mine was confronted with a similar situation. “He just hit me”, the doorman said with a smile, 5 ft away from my friend. Needless to say, the wrath of Glasgow doormen came upon my friend with the conviction of the righteous.

If you know your comic books – or your Latin – you’ll have translated the above as “Who watches the Watchmen?” A reasonable question, especially when our watchmen operate outwith the rules they are meant to uphold. Studies claim the police force to be institutionally racist. Soldiers torture in the name of peace. Even our bankers, trusted with the finances of the nation, show as much monetary sense as a 5 year old in a sweet shop. A rich 5 year old. Unfortunately, too many of those in positions of responsibility aren’t the equal of what is asked of them. More unfortunate still is that there is often no one to bring them in line. At least not until its too late.

The solution? Vigilantism. MASKED vigilantism. Ok, maybe not masked, but that’d be cool. If people aren’t gong to do their jobs right, and right the wrongs of the world according to myopinions, I’m gonna do it. I know whats right, don’t I? I know not to steal, lie or cheat. I know when someone has wronged me and mine, and I know just how to respond. In fact, I don’t think there’s a person in the land more qualified to dispense justice than I am. But I wont launch a campaign or anything like that, I’ll just keep myself right. I know a criminal? I should just pop him one every now and again. Guy breaks into my house? Well I’ll just break right back into his. And mess stuff up a bit. In fact, I hear there’s a paedophile down the street. I have some friends who would want in on this, good people.  We can sort this out better than the courts did, 4 years is nothing for what he did…

The scary thing about the above paragraph is that you can almost understand it. Why wouldn’t you want to take matters into your own hands if you’re sureyou know what should be done?  Why wouldn’t you make sure justice was done? In his book The Year of Living Biblically, A J Jacobs talks a little about this.  In his quest to live for a year as close to biblical rules as he could, Jacobs must stone an adulterer. Eventually, he finds an idea target for this stoning, and bombards the reprobate with small pebbles and stones. “I cant deny, it felt good to chuck a rock at this nasty old man. It felt primal. It felt like I was getting vengeance on him. This guy wasn’t just an adulterer, he was a bully. And I wanted him to feel the pain he’d inflicted on others, even if that pain was just a tap on the chest”.

Vengance. It looks cool in film titles, but ugly in action. It looks like justice, twisted by anger into something nasty and self replicating. A little mental virus passed on from person to person through a variety of different acts, none of which help anyone. It almostlooks like justice. Sometimes, if you squint. but its not. The bible says “an eye for an eye”, but as Jacobs discovers in his book, not even the old testament meant that literally. The interpretation offered by Jacobs is that when a wrong is committed, something must be done to balance this. An eye doesn’t need to be taken out to pay for an eye, something of equal value will do just fine. How much jail time is an eye worth? How much community service? Who decides?

I’ve heard that if you called a referendum on the death penalty in this country that it would be a landslide victory in favour.  That we’d say its ok to kill people sometimes, if we think they’re bad enough. We’re right, righteous, and they are despicable. Hey, the two most powerful countries in the world do it, why not us?

Because we’re better than that. Better than vengeance, better than fury and better than final judgements. We stand up and say “no, that is wrong”, and we do notpunctuate that by carrying out the same crime. We don’t use death to condemn killing, and we don’t steal what has been stolen. Vengeance isn’t justice, its just vengeance.

Sometimes our rules don’t work, and the people in charge of them don’t work right either. But its better than nothing. Laws that fall down on human error are better than no laws at all. We cant regulate for every aspect of human nature or possibilities therein, but we can do our best. We try to cover our bases, knowing that someone, somewhere, will be treated unfairly because of this, but that someone else is protected by it. We hope for forgiveness for the lives we make harder, and take comfort in the ones we’ve made better. Most of all, we know that we are not perfect, and that we have to try harder. We keep the faith that there is always a better way, and all we have to do is find it.

I will of course enforce this worldview by any means necessary. Because i think I’m right. Might want to keep an eye on me…

Heisenberg Reflection or the Inverse Quantum Observer Effect

I’m watching you.

But please, please please, dont change on my account. Dont define yourself just because someone is looking for definition in you, or through you. There are lots of names for it – globalisation, interdependancy, sociology etc. People are interacting more than ever before. Across the world, across their country. Across the street. They say that no man is an island, but a few people can be an archipeligo.

With everyone so close to each other nowadays – mobile phones and the internet being the greatest facilitators – its no wonder people are defining themselves more starkly than ever before. Its a post-modern trait, or so I was told at uni. Dividing things up, labeling them, categorising them and numbering them, listing them in various orders and headings so that one man’s one is another man’s one hundred. Everything divided so that nothing crosses. Individuality is maintained. Its not quite good enough nowadays to be part of the crowd, or so the crowd says. Its not good enough to not be fantastic. Exceptional. Extra-Ordinary.

Why are things like this? Thats a tough question, and one I dont think I’m the equal of. What I think I can say though, is the how. How it got this way, how it stays this way.

 Its the media. Its our entertainment, our own abyss and it has gazed also.

 The tendency to label and seperate has been around for alot longer than our most popular shows nowadays, but these modern shows just underline this tendency, surround it with lightbulbs like a dressing room mirror and show it to us with our own faces on. Then it has the audacity to tell us that its “reality”. Yes, thats right. I’ve suckered you straight into a rant about reality television. For the next few paragraphs at least.

The problem with reality television is that its entirely too real and 100% imaginary at the same time. We use television primarily for entertainment, and for the majority of its use, television has been used to broadcast mainly fiction. But then reality TV creeps in. People like you and me on television. But dammit, the second they’re on television, they stop being people like you and me. They become those people. People on television. Stars. Celebrities. Idols. And so we watch, and see ourselves become idols for other people to emulate. You watched this show to see something real, and its turned you into itself. You have its haircut, listen to its music, read its books and magazines. The real people you watched stopped being real the second you watched them, and now, you are the watched. By writers, advertisers, tv studios, newspapers, everything. You are watched to see how you react, and the world around you is slightly changed to make you react more favourably. To make you want to be so much like those former real people, that’d you’d give anything to get there.

The girl from your class who had a good voice is now that girl who tried out for pop idol. That guy who loved playing football is gonna be the next wayne rooney. You can feel it. Creative girl? Renouned artist. Writer guy? Best selling author. Class chav? Front page criminal. Everyone is gonna be big. Everyone is special, and are going to do great things.

But some people dont. Some people are the ones who didnt quite make it. The almost done its. The nearly theres. And according to the media, that makes them not good enough. No prizes for second place, oh no. but there are consequences.

Thats what I’m writing this about, really. The consequences. I dont mind reality TV in general. I change the channel. But between that, myspace music sensations and youtube stars, there is this growing idea that everyone has to be famous, somehow. Worhol was nearly right, he just didnt figure that some people might never get their 15 minutes, but kill themselves looking for it.

Not everyone becomes a star, and for some people thats just devestating. That doesnt just mean the celebrity wannabes. Not everyone is after the limelight in such an obvious way. But with everyone nowadays there seems to be this need to stand out, and when you’re not standing out, you’re not there. if you find out you cant stand out on your own, you stand out with a group. Better than nothing, right? So we split up again. We become goths, emos, ravers, neds, indie kids, rock fans, football fans and everything else. In the face of an expanding world and life experience your identity is more important than ever, so you get it from somewhere else if you dont trust your own quite enough.

So much of these identities are attached to the media we consume. The above list was primarily made up of music differences, which makes sense with music being the most obviously subdivided form of media out there. Probably not a coincidence that its the most popular either. Its not just music though, its everything. Everything is an influence. Take a look at your media, your loves and passions, and take a look at yourself. of course you’re going to be pulled to the things that ring truest with you, but how much are you pulled in by something and convinced of its truth? On the quantum level, you cant measure something without changing it, and its just the same on the social level. It becomes a sort of sociological self fulfilling prophecy where the label given to a person changes their behaviour to match the description as closely as possible.

This isnt some blanket statement on society. This doesnt happen to everyone, and its certainly not that cut and dry. But it is happening more and more, and on different scales and settings. Conservative or liberal? Democrat or Republican? Christian or Muslim?

Organisation is fine. Belonging to a group is fine. Categorisation, is fine. But its the absolutism thats the worrying part. The Finality and the expectations. When people join a group, and are described by their “membership”, how can that one word possibly cover everything they are? “emo” or “ned” is one thing, but when its things like “christian” and “muslim”, thats quite another. People are massively contradictory beings, and cant be understood by single terms alone. But thats exactly whats happening, and its generating really, really negative environments and ideas. The Polarisation in the world is evident, with religious aspect to politics and wars taking centre stage. Young men and women of various religions are seeing themselves only through that lense, only in that context, and only seeing others in through that context as well. The result? Suicide bombings. The Westborough Baptist Church. Extremists of every shape and size, clinging to one world view mainly out of fear of the growing choice of them.

Our pop culture is of the fantastic. The message we’re getting is Everyone Has to be Special. When this is channeled positively, it can drive people on to do amazing things. On the other side though, there are people struggling with the idea, the competition, the desire for importance. The message we should be getting is that everyone IS special. We are all capable of greatness and and of ourselves, individually, not the greatness we are told to aspire to. its a catch 22 – The one thing we all have in common is that we’re all unique. We belong to one, huge, diverse and fascinating group, 6.6 billion members, 6.6 billion stars on a massive stage. Sometimes we get so caught up in other people’s light, that we forget our own. They reflect on us, and we dim down and bask in their glow, and forget that someone might want or even need ours.

Earlier I mentioned the abyss, but its not an abyss at all. Its a bright, brilliant light, and its coming out of everyone. Other people can be great examples, but they cant be objectives or end points. Ultimately, its all down to you. And if you think about it properly? You’re a star.

New York, Part two

Now I’m not usually one for Bagels. Sure, I’ve eaten them before, but its not like they’re a staple of the Sutherland diet. So imagine my surprise to find Pax. The average American will be reading this like I’m a starry eyed idiot, but man, we loved this place. Pax is a chain store specialising in essentially breakfast food. Every morning we’d stumble in, and ask for two bagels with cream cheese and bacon, toasted. Add a large coffee and there you have the breakfast of Champions. And it was like this that every day in New York started.

We had plans for New York. We’d get any gift shopping done on one day, central park the next, then chinatown etc. We’d take in some sights, go to some clubs, bars etc. Uh, no. It did not happen that way, and given the brief length of our stay, it never could have. Instead, we crammed in everything we could, every day, until it came to such time as deciding if we were going to a club or not. “You want to?” “Uh, aye, cool” “really but?” “I’m a bit shattered man”….and so it went. Our first full day of course didnt go as planned. Instead of leaving the gift shopping till the end, we did it then. Apple Store, Borders etc. We had a look in Bloomingdales but my bank manager called when I crossed the doors. No way.

Ironically, the only things I bought that day could have easily been bought at home – ipod, comic book (watchmen, finally) and a green jumper that I am wearing now. Halfway around the world and I still bumped into the familiar, everywhere. Even had a nice conversation with the girl who served me in Borders. She warned me of the difficulty of reading Watchmen, but I assured her i’d be ok. We talked comics for a bit before I left.

We set our sighs on Greenwich Village. Hipster central! We followed the directions the best we could, and there it was….Chinatown. A wrong turn or two maybe, but this would do just fine.

Chinatown, as if you couldnt tell...

This is where I had to feel sorry for Craig. Poor son of a bitch had to contend with my searching high and low for shops selling, well “cool” stuff. Being an anime and manga fan, and fascinated by the east in general, I was buzzing. Eventually I had to resign myself to the realisation that 95% of the shops in Chinatown sell produce or fish. And lamps. I did, however, manage to secure Nana 2 and a Deathnote spin off movie. It wasnt the “stuff” that mattered though, it was the being there. This strange little corner of Chinese culture in the middle of New York. Of course, it sat right beside a strange little corner of Italy, and slowly but surely you see that New York is probably the American ideal in its purest form. Its where everyone went, where they arrived looking to set up a life for themselves. This was the metling pot on full heat.

So we left China and made for Italy. A different place entirely. Not so much produce and fish as much as bags and pasta.

Little Italy

The best thing we did in Little Italy was Eat. After a few beers in a bar that reminded me of Cheers (no one knew my name, gutted) we found a little pizza place, and were very impressed. Who knew Italians could make good Pizza? To be honest, my main memories of Little Italy are the welcoming cold of the beer and the awesome Pizza. And a guy from a resteraunt trying to heckle some chinese kids into eating there by shouting Japanese greetings at them.

The next few events, I cant say I’ll ever forget. We walked for a while, a long while. The streets were lined with people selling bags and jewellery and wallets, hot dogs and pretty much anything you wanted. There was a man collecting for the homeless on the street. A big man, black, in his 50s at least, long hair and beard. Bombastic. He saw me in a Superman tee shirt, and yelled immediately: “SUPERMAN!! He ALWAYS helps people! give to the homeless man!” Ok, so i was suckered in with the Superman reference, but we spoke to him a while. He asked how we were, and we said we were good. We returned the question. “I’m ALIVE baby! Its all good!”. To this day, I think that is the best attitude I have ever heard from anyone.

Its an attitude that was apt for the next part. We walked down, and down, south, and a little west. We walked down the Avenue of Heroes, and towards cranes and boards and fences. Tall buildings surrounded us, until we reached the most obvious gap in the sky, the World Trade Centre. Not quite sure what to do there, we sat down. Do we take pictures? Could be a bit crass. How do we see inside the fences? As we sat, a man came up to us, selling a book showing everything that happened on 9/11. The pictures in the book (which we didnt buy) reinforced the scale of everything. The buildings in front of me that I thought were huge were shown beside what used to be there, dwarfed. In the end I decided that one picture could be taken there. Alot of people died there because of nothing they had done wrong. The crash of the towers falling was ultimately felt across the world, and is still being felt now. But they were doing the best thing people do in times like that. They rebuild.

Rebuild.

New York. Part one.

I was going to do this big blog on interconnectedness. How without even realising it, we’re always linking in the things we do to one another, things we’ve already said or written or done It was going to be huge, so huge in fact that I’m a bit scared of it, so lets leave it for now.

Instead, I’m going to talk about my trip to New York, (the reson why you’ve gone without a blog in so long…).

New York, is big. Its very big actually. New York is so big, that you cant see even half of it in, say, four and a bit days. And thats just Manhattan. We definatley tried though. Arriving at about 10:30pm, after our flight had been delayed by five hours, we were tired more than anything, but excited. We decided to hell with it, we were going site-seeing. Just a few blocks down and a few blocks across was the tallest building in New York, the Empire State Building. It was lit up perfectly, cinematically, and reminded us exactly why we’d just spent 14 hours travelling suspended 36000 feet in the air in a metal tube. There are two observation decks in the building – the 82nd floor, and the 102nd, and we didnt come all that way for second best. After about four elevators and one metal detector, we run into some english accents, and a security guard who tells us that the Empire State Building is a Glasgow Rangers building. Seems home follows us everywhere.

The view was…vast. I didnt just want eyes on the back of my head, I wanted them all around (at least to, say, my ears, the building itself stoped a 360 degree view) You could see everything if you looked for it. Statue of Liberty, Chrysler building, and the weird gap in the skyline where the tallest buildings used to be. We were up there for about an hour or an hour and a half, just looking. Us an about 70 other people of course, even at midnight the observation deck is crammed. Looking over one side, we saw directly on to a trendy bar where stood taking pictures of us, and being snapped in return.

102nd view

The way down was full of movie memorabilia – a clipboard from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, a poster from King Kong, and row after row of plastic and glass model Statues of Liberty.

We werent 100% sure where we actually were. Two guys running on a mountain dew and a slice of pizza, “somewhere near the empire state building” at 12:30am. We just walked, and sooner or later hit 5th avenue. This bode well as our hotel was on 3rd avenue, it shouldnt be too far away, should it? Walking home gave us a few sights too. St Patrick’s cathedral, which looks amazingly creepy at night. Then my personal favourite, the statue of Atlas. I think i’d been watching the news too much, but I cant help but think of Atlas as the American people. Well meaning, almost all of them, doing their best, but for whatever reason they’re bent double trying to support the weight on their shoulders, one they didnt ask for specifically but wont let go of either. America and Americans are pretty villified over here, sometimes they do it to themselves. I cant help but think though that the average American is just like the average anyone else – trying to do their best, hoping they’re doing right. Not the people’s fault that their politicians arent as altruistic as they are. People get sick of America leading charges, but the next time a charge needs led, they’ll expect America to be up front. With great power comes great responsibility. (Amazing fantasy #15) and no one has more of both than the USA.

We eventually found our way “home”. The Pod Hotel. But I’ll blog on that next time. My first few hours there are quite enough for now.

With great power...(I love spiderman)

The Web

People change things. No matter where they are, or what they are doing or trying not to do, people change things. You see it all the time in science fiction, someone goes back in time, steps on a butterfly which had an almost unbelievable effect on whether or not person X was born. Person X is not born, and Poland rule the world. On a smaller scale though, its still true. The tired cliche is ripples – each one of us makes countless ripples every day throughout the lives of everyone we know and half the people we dont. Take one of us out, and our ripples stop.

I dont think we realise how important these ripples are. I dont think we’re aware enough of our presence. The internet is a great example of this, as thousands upon millions of people log on every day and access their web presence. Relationships have been built on this bundle of 1s and 0s, some people have even lost their lives to it. I have been lucky enough to find one or two real friendships, that matter as much to me as those not started in the flesh.  I know that were my friends to suddenly not exist on the internet, I would notice, very quickly.

How much of a person goes into their internet self? People can go on to a social networking site, and load up pictures of themselves, tell you about their good times and bad times, their interests and hobbies and favourite songs and films and books….Some of these people then die, leaving their little web selves flickering solitary online. Their sites become shrines, mementos and memories of friends long gone. A digital fingerprint saying that this person existed in a sea of unmeasurable information.

The problem I have with this is that information can be destroyed, deleted. What becomes of my online friends and I if we’re deleted?  I think this is why people like “things” so much. Keepsakes. Physical reminders of their lives, and the lives of others. I once tried to get pictures of me and all my friends, just one on one or in a group. It was something to say “we know each other”. Something to remember them by when everyone goes their separate ways, or even if we never do.

Of course, I dont need things to remember my friends. I remember them by remembering myself, and thinking of who I’d be without them (I try not to think for long on that, I’m delicate). I know that my memory though, wont always be there. Maybe I’ll just plain lose it, maybe I’ll just plain die. Which would suck. I’m half tempted to just write in a book somewhere “stephen sutherland is friends with …”, you know, whoever. Just so its noted.

Like many of my posts, this one has meandered a little and I apologise. The ideas I had are merging into one another, takng up remnants of conversations with people, mixed up memories. I’d much rather have the memories than the post of course, but I would like you to read it. This blog could theoretically be the one peice of evidence I was ever here (assuming aliens or something kill everyone I know, and I “stick it to the man” by deleting my social networking sites). If that is the case….I better start writing better.

Return

Ok, so operation “good blog” didnt start off so well, but that doesnt mean it has to stop. I made this decision when I started this blog that it wouldnt have anything to do with my life, just a bunch of musings, reviews and general geek chat. Then the occasional thoughtful thing crept in, like my last post. Trying to keep my life out of my blog is entirely pointless. Even if I just write reviews, I’m still putting across my personality, my views and my outlook, even if its not to do with my life directly.

Everything to do with this blog so far has been entirely indicative of my personality. I started with the best of intentions, just wanted to talk about my favourite things, keep myself hidden away from it. Then I started to think a little more than I intended, and we got some posts on suicide. Then I let my life get in the way of this, and it fell by the wayside. I imagine if I hadnt been so against posting things about my life then this blog would have been peppered with posts.

So I am making a change. In alot of things, but lets just focus on the blog for a moment. I’ll still do reviews and the like, rant about my geekish peeves and the state of society, but the blog will probably not be as dedicated to the reviews as before unless in special cases. I’ll try and post every week on something, and maybe include a few paragraphs at the bottom of some reviews of comics or tv shows or manga or anime or whatever. The bulk of my blog, I hope, will be of substance. be it about my life or just life or just something, I’ll just do my best to make it interesting for you.

Here it goes then, blog take two. If it first you dont succeed…..

the first A in Shazam.

Its not your fault.

Global warming, people trafficking, terrorism, facism,  the housing market crash, the credit crunch, diabetes, obseity, cloning, porn downloading paedophiles or race hating xenophobes. Its not your fault.  Not yet.

I came across an article the other day, an interview with my favourite comic book writer Grant Morrison. Right now your concerns should be double. One, that I’m about to go into some comic book rant, and two, that anything said by Grant Morrison is to be taken with a mountain of salt. For once thats not the case. When asked about the recent themes of death in the comic books he is writing, Morrison responded:

“It either means that I am going to die next year or else, the way I see it, I’ve just been tapping into something, especially since 9/11, this sense that the whole culture feels quite dark and threatening. It kind of feels like the end of western civilization and like we’re somehow all to blame for it. I had Superman saving the little Goth suicide girl in All Star Superman #10 as a representative of that feeling. A lot of sensitive young kids out there are carrying the weight of our culture’s dark side of guilt, self-hatred and barbarism. When those kids cut or harm themselves they’re expressing and contextualizing an entire civilization’s unconscious death wish. They’re acting out the pain and shame of a whole society and acknowledging all our darkest impulses because ultimately someone has to. When Superman hugs Regan, he’s hugging us all.”

I think he’s on to something. In fact, I think he’s hit the nail on the head with the largest hammer he could find. Morrison puts it back specifically to 9/11, but just two years before I think we saw it start, millenium fever.  Be it modern millenarianism or a deep seated, hard wired curiosity about the end of the world, we’ve been waiting for the apocalypse for a while now. Ask the more cynical members of society and you’d probably hear that civilisation at least has ended. Not a day goes by where a new, grizzly murder or crime isnt reported. We load up on the details and discuss them at work, or university or at home, we speculate and sigh and feel bad, while waiting on the next detail to be released.  Some of us make jokes, some of us pretend it isnt happening. It is happening though, and while we push so much back and out of our minds, it has to come back on us. Everything has an effect.

The town of Bridgend in Wales has recently seen a massive rise in the number of suicides, particularly amongst teens. The increase in suicides in young people is very worrying, with statistics showing suicide to be the third biggest killer of peopled aged 15-30, although the Samaritans estimate that it is the second biggest killer of young men after general accidents. Sadly, I think you’d be hard pushed to find someone who hasnt been touched  by suicide. If not a friend, then a friend of a friend.

I fall on the side of Morrison’s argument, that many people, especially the young people of today, are picking up the sheer guilt and oppresiveness and sense of impending doom and they dont know what to do with it. Its easy to mock the sensitive, the self professed or unwelcomly branded “emo”. Its easy to think that there’s nothing wrong, to forget about it. But when too many people turn a blind eye, to too many people who need something noticed, something terrible happens. You dont need to be Superman to hug someone, or be in tears to need one.

Now, I’m not saying that people today are sensitive and all crying inside, quite the opposite. People are strong and their survival instinct goes farther than just physical danger. We’ll push on, and try to get by any way we can. We’ll look for the light in every situation that seems that bit too dark. We just dont do it together. Its funny, and kind of not, that in a massively interconnected world, its easier than ever to feel alone. You’re just lost in a bigger crowd. We can look at the ills of the world and think there’s nothing we can do to stop it, we’re only one person. But what happens when one person meets another, and another, and another, and they decide to make a change? Well, you can get terrorists. These people who have had such a profound impact on our society. Thing is, there are more of us than there are of them. So why are they grabbing all the headlines? The ills of the world are not our fault. We didnt get the world to where it is. However, we are who decides where its going. There are no problems in this world that cant be solved. From an upset friend to a war torn country, when people work together, they can change things. For all history is riddled with examples of war and death and mankind’s great mistakes, its also full of our triumphs. I’m not just talking about the walls that have been torn down, the wars won against, frankly, evil, the prisoners released from crimes they didnt commit or the civil rights finally won. I’m talking about the friends who have been consoled, the hands that have been held and the shoulders that have been cried on. The little things. When all’s said and done, people arent that bad. We’re not bad at all.

I used to think that feeling guilt for something thats not your fault made you a good person. Then I thought it was weakness. Now I just think it makes you sad, and thats much, much worse. Save all that guilt you have for something you didnt do or have had no control over, because you’ll need it. You’ll need it for when you do mess up, and you’ll need it for making amends.

The weight of the world is too much for one set of shoulders, so dont even think about carrying it, or letting someone else do the heavy lifting. Whether the end of the world is nigh, or its just beginning, we’re in it together.  And we can make it.

Chapter 1, in which introductions are made and intentions declared

Hi, thanks for checking out the blog. As this is the first one, I’m just going to introduce myself and then run through the format I hope to follow for each blog after this.

My name is Stephen, I’m 22 and live in Port Glasgow, Scotland. I’m between places right now. Uni is done, and something else hasnt started. I do admin work for an agency and write when I get the chance. I’m your general all-purpose geek – comic books, sci-fi, films and TV, anime and manga etc –  however, I function in society. I love my music, and have a weird thing about the sky.  I want to experience more than I have so far in a shorter space of time, and do it on my terms.

I’ll post at least once a week, with some reviews of things I’ve read, listened to or watched etc. This will be at least one comic  book every week, and anything else from music to films or tv shows, art etc. I’ll post at least once every fortnight on something that isnt review related. A digital display of some thought thats been rattling about in my head. Maybe I’ll rant about current events, or give an opinion on politics. Maybe I’ll say that dogs are worse than cats or that I really have a grudge against bees. I’ll say something I’ve thought of all by myself, and not just review something that I havent.  First review date will be within one week of today, and the first non-review blog withing two weeks of today.

I hope you’ll keep checking the blog and enjoy what you find here, and I’d love any comments you have on it. Dont be shy.

S