I cocktease, you cocktease, he/she/it (mostly he) cockteases.

Straight boys are weird. Next time one of your straight male friends tells you that he finds understanding women difficult, I want you to laugh in his face. What makes them so weird? This conversation (which I have had maybe 4 or 5 billion times in my life):

“You’re queer? Ugh backs to the wall.”
“No really, you are safe, believe me. I wouldn’t touch you with the butler’s toasting fork.”
“Why, what’s wrong with me? Why don’t you fancy me?”
“Well, your hair is all wrong, we could only have a conversation about football and I am not sure you have washed today, hence the cheap aftershave making my eyes water.”
“Oh…”

So in one conversation, we have gone from Mr Straight fearing for his ring to looking like Cinderella when the Prince tells her he is not looking for anything serious.

Sometimes the conversation ends there and sometimes it gets flirtier and another cocktease is born.

But where does this need to cocktease come from? Look at the gay media, where once you would find articles about the first Pride march in the Czech Republic, you now cannot move for straight ‘Celebs’ wanting to take their clothes off for ‘The Gays’. Now don’t get me wrong, I like to look at a naked man as much as the next person. However, I think there is something disingenuous about straight men rippling their pecs or standing coyly with a hand over their bollocks talking about how they love their gay fanbase and of course they have thought maybe they were bisexual. Really? It’s just marketing. It’s them trying to sell you whatever it is they are hawking. Don’t fall for it. They won’t sleep with you. Especially the repeat offenders, those men who are naked so often that I think it’s time to set up a charity to buy them some clothes. Don’t you get it? They are treating you like you are only your genitalia. Do you want to be the target of this conversation:

“So I have some new tat to sell and I need to raise my profile, what should I do?”
“Take it all off for the gays, they’ll buy anything with enough nipple showing.”

Seriously, think about it. They are not taking their clothes off because they like to, they want you to buy stuff.

And now the whole straight boy world is going down the cocktease route because there’s nobody easier to sell to than ‘The Gays’. Don’t be fooled.

My bananas need four handles! Actually they don’t…

People don’t give a shit about the environment. Got that? They really don’t. I am sure you do, I’m sure you walk to the shops with your reusable bags and worry about food miles and sustainability as do I, a lot! But look around next time you are in your local supermarket, do you feel like you’re in the majority? No, you don’t.

I saw something the other day that really brought this home to me. A man was buying bananas. Nothing wrong with that, I live in the UK and eat bananas (Fairtrade natch) and until global warming really sets in, they will clock up food miles. That wasn’t my issue. My issue was that he had put them in a produce bag and tied the handles together, then proceeded to put the bag in another bag. That’s right folks, bananas in a bag in another bag and that was all the bag contained.

Now if creationists are to be believed then the humble banana makes a mockery of Darwinism because of its perfect hand fitting shape, therefore I can’t help thinking that a bunch of bananas doesn’t really need one handle let alone four.

It was all I could do not to follow him out of the shop screaming “It’ll be your fault when we have to live on the tops of mountains because that’s the only landmass left but you’ll be dead, what do you care?” I didn’t though, I did what every good UK citizen would do and tutted under my breath.

My point is this. I don’t care if you want to put one item in each bag and carry your shopping home in relays, that’s really up to you. But for the love of Jebus, can you please get some reusable bags or at the very least bring your stockpile of bags from the last trip to the supermarket and use them again, you won’t even have to buy bags then! Then you won’t get tutted at by me. Thanks.

Rage inside the machine: A manifesto

So this is how it is. Things get on my nerves, every day, sometimes a lot. And I find myself grinding my teeth and composing rants inside my head. Then one day I thought ‘You know Matthew (I am the only one allowed to use Matthew) you could post these things on the Internet. After all if the Internet has given us anything, it has allowed impotent rage from anonymous people to reach a wider audience.”

I was right, so here we are. Things that piss me off, in no particular order of importance. Enjoy.