I have to my increasing distaste and self-disgust (self-obsession if you will) an unhealthy relationship with most things in life. Food, drink, music, art, football, interpersonal relationships, rejection, love, hate, religion, death, sex, politics, war, peace. You name it, chances are I have an unhealthy relationship with it bordering on obsession. Obsession not in the sense of pursuing the morally right way to deal with them, but more in my seemingly endless personal quest to ensure that I fail to deal with them.

Football - Right at the end of Fever Pitch (for once I’m talking about the movie…not the book), the hero realises that his total obsession with something he cannot control (the success of Arsenal FC *spits at floor*) is totally ridiculous and subsequently somewhat dissipated by the last minute championship victory Arsenal secured against Liverpool at Anfield back in the days when they gave you a proper trophy for winning (1988-89 in this case). That the victory hinged on factors that were not only out of his control but also in many ways out of the players’ control (such as the astonishing piece of luck that saw a double deflection fall neatly at Michael Thomas’ feet, or the impending sense of occasion relating to the Hillsborough tragedy that had happened in April that year) only underlined the stupidity in the vicarious belief that your actions or dedication can force the whole world and (much more importantly) the God of Football to comply to your misplaced needs.

Over the last 10 days, clutching pathetically at my “lucky” scarf, I’ve begged, prayed, implored, beseeched, pleaded and supplicated for Liverpool to progress through to a semi-final with a seemingly unstoppable Barcelona. Mainly through a haze of drink and shameless sulking I’ve watched Liverpool outclassed at Anfield and desperately unlucky at Stamford Bridge, to the misfortune of the people around me – for which I am deeply sorry. This self awareness of course does not mean that I in any way intend to dull my passion for the beautiful game, but at least I am accepting I am aware of its utter pointlessness – and also the fact that perhaps a state of shambolic inebriation is not the best way to enjoy it.

Music - For some reason, I take it as an almost personal insult that the average Sun-reading (*spits again at floor* - sticks pins in eyes of effigy of Kelvin Mackenzie); soap-watching, celebrity culture obsessed British citizen has no interest in music except as what Simon Price called a “leisure option”. The music that soundtracks 15 seconds of their favourite romcom; the background noise that plays in River Island while they’re selecting their uniform; the same 5 playlisted tracks on commercial radio on every car journey; that this year’s X-factor finalists will cover for the armchair nation secure in its reverie…secure in the knowledge that this sound is so throw-away you might as well wrap Big Macs in it. Middle class girls in short skirts and working class boys with waxed chests perpetuating the cycles of starvation and hunger locked away in the closets of the suburbs. Who cares?

In the Independent today we have a piece celebrating Guitar Hero and its effect on popular culture. Of course its not just a bunch of bands and corporations trying to make money, there’s even bands in the piece desperate to get their tracks on the game. Bless. For a few short years the internet looked like it had finally taken content control away from fat, pervert record execs and corporations and placed it in the hands of the listener…now it’s back in the hands of the corporations again. You’re not successful if you’re not on guitar hero, providing you measure success in terms of how many dollars you generate.

When I started out in WTP, it wasn’t a commercial venture (thank God says my bank manager) but a love and a passion. I was always sickened by bands who broke up after 5 gigs because they hadn’t been signed yet moaning that they may never ‘make it’ (I’m assuming by “making it” you actually mean “your fortune”). I’m sickened even more by a band that totally reinvent and rename themselves, trampling over whatever beliefs they my have had in order to be financially successful. I sold my soul to the devil, the Kaiser Chiefs sold theirs to Maggie Thatcher. Whatever. I preach from the unenviable position of only having the one choice.

I have nothing against Guitar Hero and its ilk, indeed I owned the original – the round black disc with coloured buttons that you pressed in sequence to get musical notes….Simon I think it was called – but it’s just the mechanical nature of corporate rule and its clamping down of its “optional” diktat on the way we receive music. It’s with these thoughts I make my luddite stand, as a misguided traditionalist wannabe with my nothing but the Hollywood soundbyte below for inspiration.  

At the end of the ordinary 1967 movie “Custer of the West”, Custer tells Sitting Bull that to struggle on is pointless. “What’s the point in fighting on? Why do you fight?” He points to the rows of tepees, women, children, horses and dogs….”You see all this? It’s finished…after us will come machines, iron, steel, trains, industry…guns that kill men by the hundred…all this…it’s finished!”

Sitting Bull pauses in thought as he prepares to order his warriors into their final pitched battle. “For the last time then…”

History and Politics - You see…an unrivalled ignorance of history is what we’re most proud of in the west, I need to understand that the majority of citizens are happy in this state. And who the hell am I to preach anyhow? Have I read every history book? Can I vouch for the impartiality of any of them? Fraid not. I have a belief that our society today perpetuates a cultural position where most of our existence is based around the removal of money from citizens to be placed in the hands or the control of the very rich. From spending on beauty products, cosmetic surgery, petrol, electricity, TV to the sharholders of DynCorp…what do you care in your contentedness? If the average citizen had any desire to study their own history, good luck to them. You might find out why we've been at war with/in occupation of Iraq for the best part of 100 years. Why in the late 70s the British and American governments strived to remove the secular government in Afghanistan, complete with its Healthcre system, freedom of religion and schooling policies for all and strived to destabilise it with funding (That's right people...with YOUR money), weapons and Pakistan based military training camps for what is now regarded as a "terrorist" organisation. All in the name of dragging the Soviet Union into its "Vietnam"....But that's all a fairy story isn't it.

Drink - I’ve decided to cut down/totally cut out my alcoholic intake for a while. Partly because – as friends will tell you – I am one step away from an incontinence nappy and a bed made from plastic sheeting, and partly because all too often I turn into an objectionable twat. Who knows what I’ll make of life with a clear head and my blood at the thickness that God intended…but I’m looking forward to finding out.

For the last time then.

Beep, beep…boooop….paaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrppppppp…..bugger…that was red, red, long yellow, short blue….curse my metal body I wasn’t fast enough Simon.

Reading – “Afghanistan – A Modern History” by Angelo Rasanayagam

Watching – “Hillsborough” – Jimmy McGovern’s drama

Listening – “Join Us” – Bluetip