Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

Quentin Letts killed by a woodchipper

Quentin Letts wishes for John Prescott to die. As he is completely entitled to do. If I were one of the spectral ‘Humourless Left’, that tedious strawman wheeled out by the Unimaginative Right at these times, I would object, but I don’t. Quentin Letts is perfectly entitled to imagine Prescott dying or committing acts of violence, just as Bill Hicks – a slightly superior comic mind – told people who worked in advertising to kill themselves.

Similarly, I am entitled to imagine a happy world in which Quentin Letts falls feet-first into a woodchipper, where his screams of pain are mistaken for cries for attention. “Oh here we go,” says a passer-by as Letts’s shins splatter all over his front garden, “he’s trying to get people to go and look at him again. Well I’m not giving him the satisfaction.”

“No no,” wails Letts over the buzz of machinery, his knees splintering, “I’m actually being chewed up and killed by this woodchipper.”

“Yeah yeah,” tuts his next-door neighbour, hurrying inside. “Just like when you wrote that column about John Prescott, hoping that you’d get lots of outraged attention from it. Not falling for it this time, Quentin.”

"No, this isn't a joke," whimpers Letts, "this is....AAAAAAAAAARGHHHHHHHHHHHH".

See, is funny, no?

I just sent Robin round

Hello,

It's been quite a year, what with one thing and another! But anyway, I am still writing this blog, even if my entries are slightly more sporadic and less interesting than they were, say, a year ago. But things have changed, and as we enter the shortest and darkest (or whatever it is) day, I thought I might reflect on what has changed over the past 12 months. I do this in the form of a 'round robin', the kind that people might slip into a Christmas card on a nice bit of jolly xmassy stationery, in a completely inoffensive way which nevertheless provides tedious comedy bronze to be mined by talking heads on "Grumpy Old Cunts at Christmas" and similar programmes.

This time last year, I had a job. It was quite a nice job, in many ways, now I look back on it, although if truth be told it did leave me somewhat lacking in satisfaction. That's no fault of the job itself, but rather of me - I didn't really get out of it what I put into it. I didn't put an awful lot into it, either. That said, I worked as hard as I could, but it was limited. When you're working in a declining and dying industry with no hope of ever going anywhere, your motivation tends to dip a little, and it's not long before you find yourself counting out the hours.

Anyway, in January, the round-robin letter of a different kind came around. We were all going to be kicked out, or words to that effect. It's the shock the first time it happens; it's annoying, but wearily inevitable, the second. At the same time, I had a personal triumph: I was taken on by the New Statesman to write a couple of blogposts a week. And I've been doing that ever since.So just as one career headed towards oblivion, another began.

I've really enjoyed working at NS ever since and I think the blogposts there have been a bit more thoughtful, a bit more reasoned and a bit more enjoyable than the ones I did here. Which isn't to say that sometimes they haven't been more tedious or woolly, because perhaps they have - but it's hard to find your voice and have the confidence to write what you really want to write. I think I'm getting there and I appreciate all the kind words and feedback that I've had.

While I wrote about media stuff over at my other blog, I've concentrated here on more personal stuff - particularly with unemployment, which has had a terrible effect on me. It really is the most awful, glum, impotent feeling in the world. I've been extraordinarily lucky in that I have been given a lot of freelance work to help tide things over, thanks to the very kind efforts of people who have trusted in me and my abilities, but not having a job to go to was truly horrible. I felt like I was disintegrating and that soon I would stop being a person altogether. Read back through the unemployment posts I wrote on this blog and they're pretty grim stuff.

Still. I'm out of the other side of that now, for the time being. I have lost all sense of entitlement, such that I had any in the first place. No-one deserves a job; you have to go out there and fight for it, especially the way things are at the moment in this country. I feel for the kids who are leaving school now - they've got it far worse than people my age, and they don't even have the experience of a time when things were better. It must seem so much bleaker for them, and it's hard to convince them that it won't be, I think. No wonder they're pissed off: you would be too.

I'm looking to try and develop a new career, away from writing, and we'll see how that goes. At the moment, I am waiting for the results of an interview to see if I can get a university place next September. I hope I get it, and I've done everything I can to get it. If I don't, I'll never give up. I don't want to say too much; we'll just have to wait.

I've had a job again since November, when I've been selling books. It's been fun and I've really enjoyed it - the people I've worked with are all good folk, and the customers are very pleasant too. It's hard work, but it's nice to feel like I'm working again. And from January, I've got a more permanent thing going on, somewhere else. I don't want to say too much about it, as I feel like it's something I will never write a blog about; my writing and my work will be separate, and that's the way it has to be. But writing will continue.

So that's that. I'm sorry that this blog isn't what it was, but then things change, and people change too. I will try and bring back some elements of what made this blog popular, while still writing for NS at the same time. It's not easy, but I'll give it a go in the new year. We'll see how much time I have away from work to do that.

And finally, while everything else has changed, there have been many constants. The constants in life are what keep you anchored; they are the things that stop you drifting off into despair or misery, even when the temptation to do so is strong. As a person who has had depression, and who continues to have it, albeit medicated and more controlled than it was once, you have to keep hold of the constants, and cherish them. But they are more than constants: they are people, other human beings, who care for you, despite all your failures and faults, people who love you, even when you let them down. When everything else - work, ambition, careers, everything else - is taken away, all you have is the people you love, and the people who love you. I am extremely lucky in that I have more than my fair share of those.

Anyway, that's all. Merry Christmas, and all of that. Thanks for reading; I appreciate everyone who has, and who does.

Kim Jong Ill

First of all, Kim Jong Ill sounds quite funny. You know, he was ill and then he was dead. Wait, Kim Jong Il sounds like 'Kim Jong's Ill', doesn't it? Oh, everyone's done that already. And then there comes the bit where people saying 'FFS with the Kim Jong Ill jokes you bastards' starts popping up, and that raises a smile at first. But soon that becomes as irritating as the 'Kim Jong Ill' things. Perhaps even more irritating. And you start to think: Well, those Kim Jong Ill people are just waking up to the joke, and maybe it was quite funny the first time you read it. I told you I was Kim Jong Ill, you know. And then you think: but surely some of these people are just feigning naivety and saying the Kim Jong Ill joke, knowing it's been done a million times already, as a laugh? And then, what does that do to the "FFS with the Kim Jong Ill jokes you unfunny bastards" thing? Does that make it funny again? At what point does it stop or start being funny? And then you think, well, I suppose it's reached the point where the joke itself, and the jokes about it not being funny, have reached the point where neither is funny, and both are unwelcome. So what do you do? Do you just leave the world altogether, because you fear that someone you admire, or respect, is going to say "Kim Jong ILL MATE, MUHAHAHAHA!" and you're going to have to stand there and mutter how pleasant it all is to yourself? How do you survive? Or maybe it doesn't matter at all. Maybe it's all right to just let it happen.

Kim Jong Ill, haha.

I give you special price

Seeing as it's xmas, or very much the run-up to xmas and all things Saturnalian, I've decided to celebrate by SLASHING the PRICES of my book. You can now get the Kindle version for £2.29 or the booky-book version for £7.94. You can't say fairer than that, can you? No. Good.

Abusive

I'm pleased that my New Statesman colleague Helen Lewis-Hasteley kicked off a debate about the abuse suffered by female bloggers. It's a subject that deserved to be heard by a wider audience and it's probably quite an eye-opener for some of us. The more you read, the more you realise it's a widespread problem.

The bottom half of the internet is a scary place, and there be dragons. If TV was like the internet, you'd watch a well crafted 40-minute documentary and then have to sit through four hours of random people saying "Well, I didn't even watch the programme, but I know enough about it to decide that it was entirely wrong" or "Oh dear. The presenter clearly needs to have more sex." This is the wonder of Web 2.0. We have blogs - horrible blogs like this one. We have comment boxes - catflaps that you can crawl through to get your voice heard. We have visitor books full of dirty protests. (Not all the time, of course. Often comments are constructive, insightful things.)

Publishing means you get your voice out there, your words out there. It means you get the odd bit of trolling and the odd bit of abuse, which can be annoying or distressing, depending on the severity or the persistence, and depending on the personal nature of it. I've been called a few names, and I've been slagged off a few times. I've been lied about and accused of things I haven't done. But I have to say, as a male writer, I've never experienced anything approaching the threats described by many female writers over the past few days. It's really shocking, and I can't help but come to the conclusion that it is gender-based, and directed at women, mainly by men.

Already, a few predictably contrarian rumblings have started. Ooh, these women, they just need to 'man up' and get on with it. Everyone gets abuse; if you can't stand the heat, and so on, they say. But it is not just online abuse. I think we all expect a bit of abuse when we write stuff. It happens if you have an email address, a comments box or a photo byline. But judging by what I have read about and heard about over the past few days, the only sensible thing to recognise is that there is a particular kind of abuse aimed at women writers, and that it's not really the same thing as the (distressing and upsetting, but different) abuse levelled at writers of all kinds. It's not even a particularly subtle thing to recognise. It's really there.

I say all this despite having been accused of being a misogynist myself, of hating women, of abusing women, of wishing violence and death on women, due to things that I've said or written. I'm not and I haven't. But then that's exactly what an overprivileged woman-hater would say, isn't it? Well, it's not for me to judge. And I'm not doing the 'poor me, I've suffered too' thing either. Whatever minor inconveniences I've gone through are nothing compared to the awful threats and abuse endured by women writers who have dared to have an opinion or dared to say what they want.

This isn't about creating an environment in which women can't be criticised when they're wrong, can't be called idiots when they're idiotic or can't be treated with the same respect (or lack of it) that we've given to male writers. It's not about that. This is about a particular kind of abuse that is reserved only for women, which is happening, and which is documented. We can pretend it's not there, or that it's not important, or that these writers are just oversensitive female types, but that just isn't right. Sure, I've been called a cunt plenty of times, and it's been annoying and hurtful on occasions, but no-one's threatened to rape me or said that I deserved to be hurt. That's a whole different world of intent, and aggression. We need to recognise this.

On the up

So, I got offered a job. It's part-time, over Christmas, but it's something wonderful after so long, and I can't wait to get started on Saturday.

This will mean a couple of things. Firstly, no more bleating from me on here about not having a job - although it has been four months, and it did seem like nothing was going to change. Secondly, maybe not quite so much posting (as if there was loads anyway) while things sort themselves out. Or maybe there'll be more, I don't know.

I had a lovely email the other day from a reader asking if I could bring back the Enemies of Reason to what it was, before I'd lost my job. It was really nicely put and I found it quite touching. I'll try, that's all I can say. I don't know if I can, but I'll try to write the sort of stuff I used to do. We'll see how it goes. There may be other projects here and there, so we'll see how they go.

In the meantime, it's looking better.

Positively speaking

I'm far too gloomy. Things are going to be all right, and everything's going to be OK. I know this much is true, because generally this is how these things work out. It's hard to remember, when you're in the middle of a losing streak, what it's like for things to go your way; but you have to remember that they do.

I'm trying to convince myself, but I remain sceptical, even as I type the words. Sure, I say to myself, it's all very well saying that things are going to improve, but with no evidence that they will, how can you believe they will? I suppose you can look back on times when you felt that way about other things, and situations improved, but then how can you be sure that will repeat itself now? But it will, I reply, it will. Things will get better, and this angsty nonsense will be just a memory. It's the attempt to replace fear with hope. It's the idea that things will go right, because they ought to, because they should, rather than because there are any indications that they might.

Is it better to be told nothing or to be told something? I don't know. I got an email yesterday from a supermarket, as I'd applied for a job there - 16 hours a week picking things off shelves for home shopping, from 3am to 6am - but was told the same old "However, on this occasion" niceties. The pleasant lady who wrote to me - well, I assume it was the same email copied and pasted to everyone, but still, I found the wording less brutal and somehow more comforting than usual - said that she was sure (sure!) that my hard work would pay off and I'd find something to. I imagine all the other no-mark failures like me were temporarily prevented from feeling the same rage of inadequacy. I don't know.

How the fuck do you turn something like that into a positive feeling, a pleasant sentiment, a thing that makes you feel better about yourself, rather than worse? Well, I have thought about it. You have a lot of time to think about things when you're unemployable, as I am, and you do get a chance to be philosophical, as well as to pointlessly ruminate endlessly about where you went wrong. But if you can be philosophical, rather than dwelling on where you went wrong and wondering whether it's ever going to go right for you again, you can try and salvage some positive things from the wreckage.

So I look at it like this: any sense of misguided entitlement that I may have had before all this began is gone. And that must be a good thing. I realise that I'm not entitled to a job, I don't deserve a job, I shouldn't be 'given' a job. No-one should 'give' me a job. I should get one. I should take one. I should fight for one, and win one. And when I do get one, I'll be more grateful than I used to be, when I took working for granted, when I grumbled and complained about how awful things were working where I used to work. I'll just be pleased to have some money and to be able to know where it's coming from, and not look ahead two or three months with a sense of dread and hopelessness. I'll be able to look my partner in the eye and feel I haven't let them down or failed them; I'll be able to feel better about myself, that I can work.

That's all positive, I think. It may have taken this experience to change my attitude a little, but I feel I am changed. I feel I am much more humble and much less arrogant about it all. I realise I don't deserve anything. Having qualifications and a degree don't matter, if you haven't got the right experience. Sometimes having the right experience isn't enough. Sometimes having the right experience, the qualifications, the degree and being really good at your job isn't enough. Sometimes you just have to be in the right place at the right time and give the right impression to the right person.

So there it is. That's what I take from all this. There are a couple of ways of looking at it: I could sink into despair and think that this is a new low, a new shame, a new humiliation. Or I could think that this is just what I've needed for some time, to make me appreciate the things I do have, when I get them back. Whenever that is. I suppose it's easier to take the first approach, to be helpless and hopeless, and I don't criticise anyone who does, because I know I've done it. But I am trying as hard as I can to think the other way.

Stranger to the seasons

A great poet* once wrote "A man without a job is a stranger to the seasons." And I can see that. One day blurs into another, and one week blurs into another; if you keep the curtains closed, you don't even have to be troubled by the other human beings outside. Days and weeks pass by, without any significant change. The rejection emails stack up; it's got to the stage where I'm getting rejections for jobs I can't even remember having applied for.

Ah well. Let the phone ring: one thing you learn early on is that nothing good ever comes from phone calls during the day; it's not someone trying to give you a job or help you out - it's someone who wants your money. Everyone wants your money when you're unemployed. You're bombarded by daytime TV telling you to blow it all by playing online bingo, or try and get some more by claiming for an accident you haven't had. All the adverts merge into one, too. Soon there will be people combining online bingo and accident claims in one handy website; play bingo while you're waiting for the compo for that broken leg. And slip off into the usual trance, the usual distractions that keep you from achieving whatever it is you want.

I don't want to sound depressing, but there it is. There's no point in me pretending this is fun, because it isn't. I'm sure you could do better, if you were me. You'd have found something by now, got on your bike, off your arse, and done everything I haven't done; I can sense the disapproval, the probably not misplaced cynicism. But it's not as if I haven't been trying. Applying for jobs nowadays is a tortuously long process, as I've said before, and can't be speeded up: if you want to do a decent job on each application, which requires you to enter your name, grades, ethnic origin and membership of professional bodies (whatever that's supposed to mean) over and over again, as well as spinning your straw into gold in the personal statement section, it takes time.

It's like having a job, but without the money. Or the job.

Anyway, Christmas temping work is the latest wheeze to distract me. I've applied for as much as I can find, but I'm not entirely hopeful, I'm afraid. There are many, many people round here who've been recently made redundant in retail, who are probably better placed than me to fill those vacancies; still, I put the applications in, and should I get called to interview I'll try to display my desperation as enthusiasm. Long gone are the days when I was optimistic about applying for positions whose adverts contained words like "commensurate". Now I just want a fucking job.

I haven't been standing still. I have a plan, though it may take some time: I want to do a PGCE, to teach in a primary school. I've done some weeks of experience, and I've loved it. In four weeks of working in schools I've felt happier than in 12 years of journalism; I don't feel like I'm winging it, or somehow deceiving everyone, or that I'll be found out as a fraud at any moment - I feel like I can do this, in time. It's not easy, and I have every respect for those people who do the job, which is demanding and challenging. But it feels like the right thing to do, and something that I can be good at. I guess you either know or you don't. So we'll see. I'm doing everything I can to succeed there.

In the meantime, I'd just like a job. Any job. Anything. Anywhere. Something I can do. Get me out of the house. Give me the watercoolers or the freezing cold warehouses. Give me the office banter and the canteen. Give me people. People, and life, and the feeling of being part of something, of doing something worthwhile, something that matters. Give me back the seasons. I miss them.

* Ralph McTell