Elderly people.

by Phil Seaman.

I would apologise for the slightly preachy tone of this piece, but quite frankly I don't care enough to do so.

How many times do you hear an old person say 'Now I'm retired, I'm going to do what I've always wanted to do.' I feel I should make it aware that this annoys me. Maybe I have been spending too much time around the elderly, but there are usually a few things that most people want to do when they stagger into their Indian Sunset.

Gardening

They may want to start gardening, although the cowboy tree removal company 'J.D. Roland & Son' has already taken most of your money, torn up your lawn and cut down all your (perfectly healthy) trees. You may as well concrete over the garden - if only to annoy your relatives. After all, every penny you spend whilst alive is a penny less for their inheritance. Since they are probably just waiting for you to croak anyway, why not piss them off a bit longer and call up J.D. Roland & Son (who also, bizarrely, do concrete jobs - must be talented people, they're in every section of the Yellow Pages) and spend all the inheritance money - it will probably decrease the value of the house as well! Double winner. At least then people would actually mourn at your funeral, even it is just for the money. So gardening - not really for me.

Have a bit of a rest

Another thing the soon to be retired seem to want to do is 'put their feet up'. This appears to be old person slang for 'waiting for the reaper'. Surely it is better to live your remaining years with a smile on your face, maybe with a pina colada in your hand on Eastbourne beach and swear loudly at a teenager spitting on some seagulls than to sit at home. The highlight of the day ranges between having a different type of jam or having Philip Scofield tell a hilarious joke about a tuna paté. When you worked 8am-11pm in that crappy office for 40 years, is this really what you were doing it for? Not for me.


Become the new J. D. Salinger

The third thing that an old person might want to do is write a book. They'll probably go on about how they are now much more experienced and wiser than they were when they were younger, and could never have written anything until retirement. Problem is, you could be the greatest author in the world, but when you finally have enough time to write it, you pick up the pen, begin to write what is likely to be the greatest work of fiction of the century, and then - wham - your heart decides that it's going to deny you your moment of glory after all these years. Bummer.

I'm writing a book. It'll probably end up being one of the worst books of all time, but at least it's avoiding the above. Yes, it's a bit of a bitch to come home and want to sleep, but instead crank out 1000 words a night. It's too easy to say you're going to do something later. If worst comes to worst, at least you're going to give the people at your funeral something to laugh at - the worst book of all time, or the worst of whatever the thing you're putting off until you retire is. But at least you tried. My backup plan if it all goes wrong is doing the National Novel Writing Month. Join me if you dare at www.nanowrimo.org, it's not as bad as it appears.

Not recommended viewing - Hey Arnold - 'Saddest Scene'

This officially scared the shit out of me the other day, enjoy.

My top five downsides to the common cold

Communication breakdown

I'm an incoherent mumbler that practically needs to carry an Etch-a-sketch around with me just to make myself understood at the best of times, and a cold only really serves to exacerbate the problem. Now I have to contend with a mouth like sandpaper and more congestion than London's central zone while I look at my fellow co-workers with the glazed expression of someone coming down from a 14 hour, alcohol and drug fuelled bender, coughing up the inside of my lungs like a chain smoker desperate for their next nicotine hit. All this in addition to my genetic misfortune. In short, most can't understand a word that I'm saying, and the few that can are probably more concerned with making sure I don't drag them down in to the same germ infested abyss I've fallen in to, which brings me on to -

Quarantine

Walking around with a cold is how I expect the affable supporting character in a zombie apocalypse film that manages to get stupidly and tragically bitten feels. Suddenly co-workers and friends feel the mixed emotions of pity combined with the much stronger emotion of instinctive survival. In no way do they want to catch your fucking cold. Of course, in our hypothetical zombie apocalypse flick they'd long since have clumsily finished you off with a shovel. In the office, it's often the case that you can enjoy a whole bank of desks to yourself. This culminated the other day with fellow commuter choosing to stand up rather than sit next to me on the way to work on a full bus (well, almost full). Of course, when you manage to repulse the general public it's time to admit defeat and enjoy your day on the sofa taking in Challenge TV's greatest, you've earned it. I think it's the lack of a line in the sand that makes it such a difficult illness to manage, how to know when you've transformed from work shy slacker to a burden on your workplace. Trial and error, really.

Lack of emotional support

In 2005 I managed to catch mumps, one of those illnesses I always thought people caught in the 16th Century like whooping cough and, well, the black death. It was a week spent looking like the elephant man and watching the only thing that was on TV at the time -rolling footage of the aftermath of Pope John Paul II's death and the process of Catholics trying to re-recruit. Days of swollen glands and black smoke rising from the Sistine Chapel ensued. Although I would in no way recommend this to anybody, at least I was legitimately ill. I didn't have to go to work, generally people felt sincere concern for my welfare and I just spent a week curled up in the foetal position feeling sorry for myself. The worst thing about a cold is that it's one of the only illnesses where you're pretty much expected to just get on with your normal, shit life. You have to email, fax, write letters, try to add value to meetings you attend. These things are a struggle to maintain motivation for at the best of times, without a feeling of bare consciousness and people asking you whether you 'had a late night last night?'

A plethora of useless medication

I remember studying 18th century patent medicines at University a couple of years ago. It was all complete garbage, things like 'Aunt Wellyworths Revitalising Tonic - for excellent nightvision' or ointments claiming to cure baldness and powder profaning to increase heighten your sense of smell. Of course, everyone laughed at how backward these people were without their iPhones and all their crazy, stupid medicine but actually the rows and rows of cold medicine in every supermarket are exactly the same. Without getting too crude (OK, a bit crude), there's pretty much something for every orifice. Do any of them work? No. It's honestly enough to make me want to take all my future expenditure on cold remedies and pump it all in to the development of time travel as a lump sum. If you're interested then I'd probably then go and stop myself from being coughed on by someone in the ATM queue. Then probably go and invent Pogs again or something, the world would be my oyster.

Sleeping

Without throwing too many superlatives at it, sleep is pretty much the best thing going. I've heard that V Festival is good and Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 is up there, but really, my mind is made up. The day that my deafening alarm tone sounds and I find myself looking forward to getting up for work should mean that the space time continuum has imploded. I'd expect to go to work in some kind of parallel world where traffic drives on the opposite side of the road and my money actually translates in to enough Euros to buy things. Regrettably lying face down in to a pillow while the sun slowly comes up whether you've had your eight hours or not is a hugely unpleasant experience.

Track of the week: Scala & Kolacny Brothers - Creep (Radiohead cover)

This is a quite eerie, beautiful, almost creepy version of the original that is doing the rounds at the moment in a trailer for new Facebook story movie The Social Network. Worth a listen -

Dealing with rejection.

Hi, as I seem to have blagged my way onto writing for Rooha, I thought my first piece should be on rejection. Now, I'm sure that you've all had your fair share of knockbacks, we all have, but it seems that some things don't change. Hell, I bet even Tom Cruise had a few ladies turning him down because he was "too good to be true." (and, well.... Scientology is just that proof of this.)

But back to the real world where problems cannot simply be forgotten by throwing an incomprehensible amount of money at it, (or just putting it down to those bloody aliens) And I don't really want to touch on relationships, mainly because I'd be here all day. However, elsewhere in life we encounter rejection all the time, whether it be being last to be picked for the school team at any particular event, be it football, chess, kiss-chase... (I'm still not 100% au fait with the rules on the last one, although perhaps that helps to explain my multiple issues with girls.)

The real crimes against your being, the metaphorical slap in the face, or kick in the balls (I feel that really helps to conjure an image of true unadulterated hurt) is when you have done something, that in your heart you know will come back and nibble at your conscience. Such examples, (and I'll use some from personal experience) are;

1. Maintaining a lie, usually to family; but always somebody who knows you well enough to eek out the truth. One such example, I decided that instead of showing my maturity when producing the most godawful smelling fart in existence, I calmly blamed my dog, and kept blaming my dog for around a week. He was left outside for a number of nights, and my guilt was in overdrive. (sorry Chip...)

2. Hearing the immortal words... "I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed in you". This sentence, and it truly is a sentence as you find yourself searching for comebacks and excuses, has to, be the most rejecting and painful thing that a parent can say.

3. Last but not least, relationships. I know what you're saying, 'but you said leave it for another time?!' Well, you've misquoted somewhat, but the point remains, rejection from a potential significant other, is so undeniably crushing that I think it may even beat point 2, let's face it, there's only so many times you can be told, "it's not you, it's me".


So, my philosophy to life is, eventually I'll have to deal with the consequences of my actions, but for now everything is top gun.

Pint of bitter, please, landlord.

For some reason, now unfathomable, I once thought that I would not only be aware, but at the forefront of popular culture well into my seventies. Unlike my father, I would be picking up the latest #1 hit album on the way to the pension office (if such a thing still exists after the Cameron debacle has finished its reign of terror). Then I would go down the local club and dance the night away, a bottle of toxic florescence half-finished in one hand, the change from a £50 note in the other.

Alas, it has taken but a few years to realise that I would prefer to sit down the local pub (no music, preferably nobody else under the age of 50, a sour faced barman) with a pint of ale. I now look at disgust at the 'buy 2 Wkd's 4 £10' signs that I would have loved maybe even just two years ago, as I sit down by the window and complain about a child riding a bike outside. Bastard.

The moment of change came this weekend - I was reading the Guardian website, when I came across an article about the Libertines and their recent headline performance.

"You might wonder if this dated-sounding guitar band who fudge every solo and talk nonsense inbetween songs had in fact lost their way to the BBC Introducing Stage. But then you were never going to get it. Those of us who've ever invested even a sliver of emotion in this band, however, were paid-back 10 fold, the willing of the crowd emotionally auto-tuning out the musical mistakes."

I was never the greatest fan of the Libertines, but I would readily shout along to 'Don't Look Back Into The Sun' on a dancefloor filled with similarly intoxicated people. But the comment 'dated-sounding' was the wake up call - things had changed, and I had fallen by the wayside. One of the first comments about the piece read:

"I'll never forget the first time I heard The Libertines perform Don't Look Back In To The Sun on the NME awards, it was my first step towards falling in love with music."

When the first Libertines album came out, it was September 2003. I was starting Sixth Form and I remember reading an article, probably in a shoddy tabloid, about how Metallica were headlining the Reading/Leeds festival. One of the lines read something like, 'When I was younger, Metallica were the greatest thing I had ever heard - back in the 1980's, they were the thing that made me pick up a guitar.'

I remember thinking that I would never get in a position when I would need to reflect on things, as things would never pass me by. Yet, the music that I had grown up with has been confined to a period of history, to replaced by, well - I don't know, I don't listen to it. One glance at the Top 40 confuses me to the point I wonder if I have dementia. Even Oasis have split up.

It seems, with The Libertines in tow (a questionable companion, if ever there was one), time has not just caught up with me, but sprinted ahead. Shit.

-Phil Seaman

Useful advice for any night out (part 1)

Just give in and smoke

As I understood it, the 2006 smoking ban was supposed to mean that smoking was going to be so unbelievably difficult that nobody would bother doing it any more. Smokers would become abject, lonely figures trying to light cigarettes in the rain while staring disconsolately at their friends having a great time toasting marshmallows by rustic, roaring log fires. Eventually there would just be packs of cretins standing outside dismal looking offices holding those Nicorette fake plastic cigarettes. All those years of not giving in to peer pressure were about to pay off thanks to sweet, sweet litigation. What has actually happened is that people still go out to smoke en masse and I've just ended up holding their coats. Oh, and because there's no sweet smelling smoke to cover it, venues now smell like some kind of body odour ravaged secondary school youth club. Well, frankly, fuck that. In response to the 'you wouldn't start your night like this' ad, I may not have planned to get ketchup on myself and fall asleep in my clothes, but I didn't plan on becoming becoming a human coat rack either. Life is full of surprises, really. I do often think on one of my drunken jaunts in to smoking that it does regrettably taste fantastic and is definitely something I could get addicted to with enough commitment and perseverance. I suppose that's how it starts, I'm going to end up walking around chewing nicotine flavoured chewing gum and it'll serve me fucking right.

Beware the dangers of drunken midnight cookery

One unexpected effect of alcohol is that it has tended to increase my sense of ambition in the kitchen. I don't know why this is, but I've come in from a night out more than once and thought stupid things like 'wow, I could murder a Sunday roast right now, where's my Jamie Oliver book?' It's that kind of hazy logic that has resulted in me waking up next to broken eggs all over the floor, my Jamie cook book covered in flour and the hob being left on while I tried forlornly to whisk batter the night before. Worst Yorkshire puddings ever, for the record. There have been other times when I've woken up with my arms folded, tried to recount my actions and realised that I was actually waiting in preparation for some kind of frozen pizza to be ready which I have since cremated in the oven after an accidental 60 minute ordeal at gas mark 8.

For this reason, allowing someone else to take care of food preparation is generally a good plan. In fact you can usually tell how drunk you are by how much food you buy at the end of any given night. 'Yeah, hello mate, can I get a, er, 15” pizza, then can you put a kebab on the top of it and then stick another 15” pizza on top of the whole thing and just drizzle chilli sauce over it all? Yeah, yeah like a giant sandwich, nice one. How much is that? 23.40? Sure, here's 30'. If you're feeling more wasted than usual you might even order something else to eat while the skilled staff at World's Best Pizza & Kebab construct your pizza kebab abomination which you can fall asleep face first in to if the urge takes you. In the past I have known people who have acted like they are the owner of a British Airways gold card because the owner of one of these shit heaps gives them a free Coke every time they order their avalanche of food. This really isn't the bargain you think it is. You've qualified for this sweetner because over the last month you've managed to fund new iPod Touches for the owner, his wife and their seven children.

Don't argue with bouncers

Having a disagreement with a bouncer is a lot like when you accidentally hit your toe against a chair and then decide to start an unwinnable fight by taking retribution against the chair. Kicking the shit out of an inanimate object, it's a move that generally does more damage to you than it. My main disagreement with bouncers is usually a difference of opinion around whether I am or am not to too drunk to enter their one word syllable named venue. Naturally, I am clearly completely off my face because no sober person would ever go in to somewhere called 'Chaos' (ficticious venue name– other bars are available) to pay 3.70 for a pint. What's more, some blonde girl carrying test tubes full of shots has already tried to sell Choas to me with the promise of cheap drinks so we all know why we're here. This is therefore a mute point, of course I'm drunk. That was always the plan, it's like KFC turning away fat people, it's a nonsense. I don't really understand - I'm standing at the entrance to the door, I'm holding the money I've just gone to the cash point a second time to withdraw, even if I don't manage to spend it all on more drinks the chances are I'll drop most of it in the floor. I think that I have plenty to offer as a customer. Despite this irrefutable logic, I have yet to convince any doorman in this scenario.

Don't use Red Bull as a mixer

It's hard to imagine that someone realised that Red Bull and vodka were a good combination by any other method than dire necessity because it was the only possible mixer they had available. It was probably that or soy sauce. There are few more uncomfortable feelings in life than writhing in bed trying to get to sleep when you're high on the amount of caffeine that only 18 cans of Red Bull can provide. Not only that, it also gives you the kind of raging hangover that requires the ingestion of about 6 pints of water to rehydrate you. You have to wonder what the pioneers of this were thinking. As an added bonus, because energy drinks are something you encounter in day to day life, you might also experience relive your restless night as some kind of Vietnam style flash back which may even prompt some light sickness while at work sitting next to comotose coworker looking for an eleven o'clock pick me up. Well there's something to look forward to.