I was just there! Ten years ago!

No picture. Can’t be bothered. A bit rushed. SOZ.

I’ve seen a couple of people on Twitter – front page twats, other people I’ve stumbled across and mainly not people I know, like or follow thankfully – commenting on the situation in Egypt. Fair enough. Then they say things like “I was only there last year!” and it makes me want to pin them down and vomit in their face until one of us dies. Because that is a stupid, egocentric and utterly worthless thing to say.

Being somewhere a few hours before a major incident occurs: fair enough. You just missed it. If, for example, your flight landed at Moscow airport the other week and an hour after you’d jumped in a taxi outside the arrivals building it had been suicide bombed, then yes – that’s fair to comment on. Worry about, even. Call it a lucky escape, if you will.

Being somewhere a day or two – or even a week before a major incident occurs: okay then. I also think that’s fair enough – your experience of a place a week after you’ve left is still fresh in the memory. It’s not quite ‘oh my god I’m so lucky to have just missed it’ territory, but it is fair to point out you were just there the other day.

Being somewhere 19 years before a major incident occurs: fuck off. Okay, so people aren’t going wild with this kind of thing, I’m just applying my timing to that. I was in Egypt 19 years ago. A lucky escape! I WAS ONLY JUST THERE! Oh my god! Etc. If you were there  a year ago, please shut up. Express your opinions on the revolution, tell us of your emotional attachment to the country and its people, make jokes about the president escaping in a flying pyramid BECAUSE IT’S STARGATE – but don’t belittle the situation by thinking you having been there once matters one iota. It matters not one iota. You were once in a place where some stuff has happened. That’s it. Your ego, your sense of self-preservation and whatever else may be telling you to cry “FIVE YEARS AGO I WAS ON THAT STREET!”, but please don’t. Just for me. I find it annoying.

I have nothing against the statements like ‘I went, it was nice, I am sad that it has been blown up’. That’s understandable and fair – you have a greater appreciation for a place on having been there. But to think it’s in some way important that you were there a month ago and now it’s been flooded/destroyed/filled with geese? No. that’s less your concern about the place, more your own fear of death/injury/being mildly inconvenienced by geese.*

Unless, of course, the place you were blew up, you were there a month ago and you left a “certain something” hidden away in the same place where the blow-up happened, and you may or may not have put some kind of month long timer on the CERTAIN SOMETHING. Possibly filled with geese. Then you probably have more of a vested interest in the situation.

N.B. I am aware that calling what people say ‘worthless’ is somewhat daft, given the name of this here blog. Also it’s needlessly aggressive. But so what? I AM RAGE-O 9000.

*I am aware this par just repeats my earlier points. I wrote it yesterday, but wanted to leave it in so I could keep something about geese in it.

This just in: I’m not a good writer

This may come across as fishing for compliments. It isn’t. It may come across as faux-humility. It isn’t. It may seem disingenuous, false and downright twatty of me to say. It’s not intended to be.

I don’t think I’m a very good writer.

Now, I bring this up right now for one particular reason. I’ve had this post mapped out in my head for a while, but I’ve put off writing it up because I can’t see it being seen as anything other than an “oh look at me, I’m the unwitting genius” kind of thing. But yesterday I was complimented by four separate people who all said I am a “good writer”, and today I received an email telling me a children’s story I have written has been selected for recording on a website dealing in that kind of thing.

It brought the thought to the front of my mind and made me think it hard and strong once more: I do not think I am a very good writer. I find what I do to be very much by the numbers, I rarely make myself laugh anymore and I don’t try nearly as hard as I should.

I read things by other people – I won’t name names as I’m not nice enough to – and I see it as the kind of thing I would find impossible to even come close to emulating. I’m not an intelligent writer, I have little in the way of flair or panache about what I do – I find my copy very workmanlike. I don’t think it’s bad, but I just don’t see why people think I’m particularly good.

Still, I must be doing something right. So I reckon I’ll just carry on as I am. Maybe one day I’ll be ballsy enough to grow an ego. When/if that day comes, you’d better watch out. The few things I am arrogant about, I am fucking arrogant about.