It’s gone and it ain’t coming back

During a frank and lurid discussion, Derek & Clive (Peter Cook and Dudley Moore’s hilariously foul-mouthed drunken creations) pondered the nature of their masturbation habits. “I was having me Wednesday, 9-in-the-evening wank” Derek begins, describing in exhaustive detail how he went berserk, pulling down all the furniture and fittings and being sick in the ashtray. When his wife walks in, he tells her there are fourteen Russian spies disguised as wallpaper threatening to shoot unless he fingered his private parts.

I bring this up for two reasons. One, any excuse to talk about masturbation is not one I will pass up lightly, especially as I heed the advice of my dear mother, who told me “write about what you know”. This as opposed to writing about Crimean War battleplans, old Canon photocopiers or being popular at school. Two, Derek & Clive went from male bravado regarding solo sexual encounters (scrap that… I don’t think self-pleasure can ever be an ‘encounter’, unless perhaps you are bi-polar) to bragging about the severity of their respective cancers in a manner which forcefully reminds me of the assorted miseries of Facebook.

“I’ve got cancer of the mortgage, I’ve got cancer of the garden”.

“I’ve got cancer of everything”.

“I’ve got cancer of the universe”.

“I’ve got cancer of the cosmos”.

“I’ve got cancer of never having existed in my fucking life”.

“I’ve got cancer so enormous people can’t even see it”.

On and on they rattle. This exchange struck a chord with me, as it mimics the post-weekend comedown statuses that people post on Facebook to celebrate their hangover, as if feeling like a downright sack of turd on a Sunday morning is somehow vindicating the smell of Red Bull on their breath and their pitiable little lives. Equally annoying are the endless pictures taken during a night out and uploaded a day or two later, with the insecure and vulnerable taking snaps of each other pulling goofy faces just to prove they were BANG ON IT. Most nightclubs nowadays are turning in to a tourist hotspot because you have to keep ducking and diving in order not to spoil other people’s snapshots of merriment.

As a young adult I cringe over most of this. Whenever I see a batch of freshly delivered morning-after-the-night-before updates in which the letter ‘g’ is assaulted with a menace usually associated with Green Street, I contemplate whether Doctor Who is doing us a disservice by saving the planet time after time. “Hangingggggg” they declare, overjoyed with their onomatopoeic wordplay, thinking in their deluded minds that they are Oscar Wilde minus the gay. Here’s my three point plan if you do this yourself. Step away from your mobile phone, go for a jog and stop Instagramming pictures of your gelatinous full English brekkie to demonstrate to the online world that you had one too many Bacardi Breezers last night, and now you’re paying the price for it in saturated fat and an increased chance of bowel cancer.

All that said, I am a terrible drunk. I don’t suddenly become a Millwall fan, kyboshing anything in sight. I am usually quite a cheerful drunk – excepting the time I sobbed outside a nightclub, blubbing “I wish I was good looking”. But I rarely remember anything that happens once I move past my fourth pint and as soon as spirits get thrown into the equation, I go all Ringo Starr and it’s goodnight Vienna. Only last month, on our regular bender to Sheffield, I woke up on the corridor floor of a hotel, miles away from the Travelodge I was staying in, splayed in a heap on the floor opposite a lift. I awoke at 6.30am and exited via a keypad-guarded door, offering a passing taxi driver my remaining £6 to cruise me home. It was in the taxi, endeavouring to piece together the slideshow of my drunken oblivion, that I realised I had a sock missing. My shoes were on, but I only had one sock. Don’t. Ask.

So, more than most, I probably warrant a good Facebook hangover status, perhaps something about checking whether the condom in my wallet had been used, because you just never know. However, I am not the biggest fucktard in the universe, so I keep these anecdotes to share with friends when conversation runs a bit thin and everyone needs cheering up with tales of my humiliation. (I will ignore the fact that I’m writing about this on a publicly available blog because it’s an entirely different medium of communication and because no-one reads this bloody thing anyway.)

A couple of weeks ago, events came to a peak. I actually quit Facebook. No longer shall I get irritated by the needy scrawlings of identity-less bozos, looking to fill an interesting person-shaped hole in their life by letting six-hundred hangers-on know every thought that runs through their head, often amounting to three posts a day, one about reality television, another offering a link to a shit pop video and some coded message to an ex, punctuated with dozens of exclamation marks, when the comment is neither funny nor shocking!!!!!!

So I took my Facebook profile and ran away to a cave, existing day-to-day by licking walls for moisture and stewing moss. Almost. What scares me is that I don’t miss it in the slightest. Facebook warned me that I would never be able to retrieve my photos or activity ever again if I quit and didn’t return within two weeks. I wondered whether I could cope without my regular dose of unhinged egomania filling the gaps between deciding how I won’t find a girlfriend this month. That fortnight has passed and I have not pined for it once.

Some people leave the site for noble reasons, usually to do with the privacy settings, complaining that companies can manipulate unknowing users. Unfortunately, my lone exodus of the social networking site can be attributed to a fateful night in a Brighton nightclub, in which photographic evidence emerged of me tonguing a fat girl so roughly you’d think I was trying to suck the plaque off her wisdom tooth. Singularly, this might not be an issue, merely an ill-advised bit of harpooning that would enrage Greenpeace were I to engage in the same activity in Japan. However, twenty-four hours later another set of photos were uploaded, this time even less coy.

There I am, flipping two fingers to a camera. There she is, bending over, holding a conversation with my dangly bits. Of course, the camera angle makes it look raunchier but that cannot be helped. Comrades told me I was a hero and that receiving head having a girl talk at your privates in a club was a Herculean affair. Yet it left me little choice but to seek an exit from the mileage that photograph offered to friends and potential employers.

I’m not trying to be cool and mysterious by logging out of the one great cross-generational site of my generation. Problem is, Facebook’s a way of life now. People will ask me to add them and I’ll have to look like a luddite or a socially inept arsehole. The fact I’m both should be of no meaning. In keeping with the traditions of one-upmanship and hyperbole employed by the website’s millions of users, I’ll just have to tell them I’ve got cancer of the Facebook.

Shout at the devil

You know that feeling of being out of control? That knowing, ebbing thought-bubble that things may not be within your jurisdiction, when the future lies ahead of you but you don’t know whether you will be greeted at life’s next junction by a coffin or the winning EuroMillions numbers. I feel like that when I play snooker and, though the link may seem tenuous, Motley Crue certainly were out of control too. Indeed, snooker and Motley Crue have a lot more in common than silly outfits (I’m thinking the bow ties and waistcoats) and being at their most popular in the 80s. Let me explain.

Motley Crue – they have an umlaut in their name but being technology’s answer to fourteenth-century druids I cannot find it on my word processor – were mental. Proper nuts. The details are all laid bare in ‘The Dirt’, the band’s autobiography, and it’s the most disgusting but engrossing book I have ever read. Much of the time, their outrageous tendencies were confined to drug-fuelled bonhomie and standard rock star excess cliché.

One chapter, however, stands above the rest as a testament to things getting out of hand. Two of the group bring a pair of groupies back to their hotel for general lights-off frolics. On this occasion, Nikki Syxx decides, for reasons best kept to himself, that one of the girls should have a toothbrush and toothpaste tube inserted into her vagina. I suppose that’s one way of solving the age-old conundrum of post-coital bad breath.

Not yet finished, Nikki also inserts the hotel room’s phone receiver up there as well, which makes me wonder if we’re talking about a vagina or a filing cabinet. The other groupie, whose thoughts on the events unfolding before her eyes would doubtless be fascinating, is then asked for her parents’ phone number. Said digits are hammered on the phone and the scene is complete.  One girl is talking at another’s crotch, answering her mother’s muffled questions saying “yes, we’ll be home soon”. Nikki admitted that he lost all respect for himself as well as womankind that day and I cannot entirely blame him. Rumour has it that film rights have been bought for ‘The Dirt’, which makes me wonder how such a scene will fit on the big screen without being placed beyond a paywall or on YouPorn.

So we have established that Motley Crue simmered on the borderline of insanity. Well, surprisingly, snooker is much the same. It’s the most psychologically demanding pastime out there. If you think snooker is sedate, the indoor equivalent of a game of cricket on a gentrified village lawn, think again. I have finished a best of five match more exhausted than when I ran a half-marathon.

Many people play snooker to get away from the fripperies of modern life and take a break from the constant nagging of ‘er indoors. Quite often I hear people say they play the game to relax but half an hour later they can be found hyperventilating in the corner of a leaky hut, cursing a missed opportunity and muttering swear words of increasing intensity under their breath. It is the only game, as far as I’m aware, that makes perfectly ordinary people shout “Fuck. Tits. Wank. Prick” in quick succession, and that’s when you’re playing decent.

It must mean something that an outburst like that would be considered a perfectly reasonable response to missing an easy black. I am a docile creature, rarely awoken from my slumbersome attitude to things going Pete Tong. In recent months I have vested anger in print towards Manchester United fans, Christmas radio, prostitutes in Magaluf, the coalition government and landlords. But this is all exaggerated and my shackles in real life aren’t nearly as easily raised as they are when I’m writing. Nonetheless, if truth be told, snooker has occasionally made me hold a single-word conversation in my head, which involves the worst swear word repeated endlessly. I’m playing a sport I profess to love, yet at intermittent moments, all I can think is “C**t, c**t, c**t, c**t”. It’s not even directed at my opponent, usually just the fuckpig of a game itself.

Quite madly, some of the players I used to watch on the telly now play in the same tournaments I enter. A few months back, David Gray, a one-time world Top 16 player, popped along for a tournament in Brighton. Usually I’m rubbish when I meet anyone famous. On the razz, after one too many glasses of shandy, I chanced upon Paul Weller – the Paul Weller – and told him he looked like a Paul Weller lookalike. His mates laughed and said “you could make some money out of that Paul”. David Gray may not be on the same level of fame as the Modfather but he’s well known in the game so I was apprehensive about  saying anything. I finally plucked up the courage when he sat down beside me.

“I used to watch you on the box when I was little” I said, noting as I did so that things have changed drastically in the world of snooker in the past decade. Back in 2000, Ronnie O’Sullivan had a full plume of hair and John Virgo made sense. Now the Rocket is a crazed recluse who only comes out of hibernation for the World Championships after farming for six months (I kid ye not) and John Virgo is the king of the nonsensical aside. Asked by Ken Doherty what Mark Williams should do to improve in a match he was losing heavily, Virgo harrumphed and said “he needs to start playing better”. Oh mighty oracle! Such insight!

David Gray nodded solemnly. “Time flies dunnit” he wistfully said, bearing the unmistakeable scars of a man who plugged away on the circuit for years, never quite making it. It didn’t help that he was off his rocker most of the time. In 2009 he was found unconscious in his underpants on a Thailand high street following a bender with his mates. Yet here he was, sitting beside me, wearing a hangdog expression and competing for £100 and a mention in the local newspaper. He still didn’t win.

Alcohol consumption is undoubtedly a common theme between the Crue and the boys on the baize. When we used to enter competitions in Prestatyn, a number of pros would turn up and spend the weekend nursing a pint of cider and blackcurrant beside the bar, getting royally smashed. Of course, I did the same. Hell, I was in such a state the last time I went, I forgot my own name. But these people were the best in their field, indicating that heavy boozing is what life on the road must entail, whether you’re Steve Davis or celebrating a number one record.

One big difference is that snooker is not a sexy sport, unlike the untethered promiscuity of a band on the run. It originates from pubs and working men’s clubs, not exactly a hotbed of sexiness – although darts gets a pair of dolly birds to walk the players to the stage, an ingenious ruse which only manages to make the players seem fatter and uglier than their already fugly appearances. God help a sport when Judd bloody Trump is its pin-up. He might be a stunning player but he looks like a poor man’s poor man’s Justin Bieber and has the charisma of wet pavement. His interviews come from the Steven Gerrard school of looking mildly ill-at-ease while dispensing pointless platitudes. Definitely not sexy.

There you have it. In many ways, snooker is similar to Motley Crue. The feeling of spinning totally out of control. A host of mad and bad characters. And the loneliness of touring, although in snooker there’s not even an easily manipulated groupie to use as a toiletries bag to stave off the boredom.

Staring idly out of windows

If there’s one group it’s easy to scapegoat, it’s the unemployed. You know the ones, littering every street corner with bottles of Boost and permeating the air with the slavering drawls of an army of attack dogs; the feckless, lazy scroungers who know every nook and cranny of ‘Halo 3’ yet adopt a look similar to a giraffe asked to hop-scotch when you mention the term ‘National Insurance’.

Satellite dishes hang from their roofs to beam trash TV direct to their living rooms, which are cluttered with empty vodka bottles, used needles and a thin layer of grime that covers everything, including the seventeen children being raised on Jobseeker’s Allowance who flit between school, jail and crime like a space hopper with ADHD. They are the losers, the undeserved, the morally vacant scrotums of a society they don’t deserve to play a part in. These people should be punished and ordinary working people should rise up and rebel against these scumbags, carrying them aloft to a burning pyre where they can die, agonisingly, in full public view.

This is the dire picture much of the media like to present. Barely a week passes by without some slum Mum plastered over the front page of The Sun, surrounded by destitute sprogs posing for the camera rather awkwardly. Two of the kids will be wearing NHS specs, while the teenage girl will invariably be massaging a baby bump. “Smile! You’re going to be national hate figures!”

I swear blind they recycle these families, especially as the quotes seem identical. The mother will usually bleat that having enough children to set up a primary school in her loft conversion is an inalienable “human right” while the father – often a cider lout wearing Lonsdale tracky bottoms – arrogantly declares he has no need to find a job as state benefits are generous enough to fund a cigarette habit, a few lock-ins down The Basketmaker’s Inn and the occasional night with a Lithuanian hooker.

All of this directly contradicts reality. Of course, saying that the tabloid press contradicts reality is not a huge revelation: forever it has been so. These are the same newspapers that put stunning topless women on page 3 for millions of readers to ogle, but Hayley, 22, from Morecambe, would never give me a private viewing in a million years without the aid of Rohypnol. These are the same organs that seem to care who Harry Styles (of One Direction fame; ask your twelve-year-old daughter) takes home after a night partying with assorted beauties and paparazzi, when in a straw poll conducted with myself, I would sooner fall asleep in an operating cement mixer than read extraneous details about who a millionaire teenage brat was poking. These are the same outlets that thought the best way to illustrate the tragic death of a young woman at the hands of her famous athlete husband, Oscar Pistorius, was by printing huge front-page pictures of the dead woman in a bikini, looking hot. Nothing says “I’m sorry for your loss” better than a wank-friendly lingerie snap.

The reality of unemployment, however, is far darker and murkier than any tabloid hack dares make it. It’s all very well printing so-called gossipy ‘stories’ about boyband heartthrobs which may promote nothing other than an amnesty for Superdry clothing, but the lies and propaganda served up to denigrate the unemployed affect people’s quality of life. And these people don’t have enough money to go on lavish holidays or hire a bodyguard, unlike the tweeny-boppers who infest showbiz columns in The Daily Mirror.

This is best demonstrated by the latest news from the good ship Costa Coffee – the tax-paying, decent employers as opposed to Starbucks, who just days after being hauled before Parliament for barely paying enough tax to subsidise three municipal water fountains, decided to slash employee benefits like holiday pay, winning the Chris Huhne Award For Rubbish PR – is that 1,701 people applied to work in one of their new chains. Just eight positions were available in the Nottingham branch and a Costa spokesperson said that applicants included recent graduates and former managers.

David Cameron and George Osborne love to paint the unemployed as a homogenous lump of needy blighters, sucking on hashish pipes and staring idly out of windows, but when appointment rates at a high street coffee shop are running at 200:1, that’s a much more pressing issue than the odd human gumball machine with zilch self-respect or self-reliance. Let’s not forget, this was for a job in which the most mentally demanding task would be to memorise the ingredients of a Caramel Frappuccino and understand those permanent marker hieroglyphics that barristers make on the outside of their cups. This wasn’t for General Secretary of the United Nations. It was to mop up the gooey brown spillages of clumsy patrons and 1,693 people will fail to even get that gig.

Presumably the bulk of those applications were made by people without a job, unless you’re in the unlucky position of seeing the £6.10 an hour wage as a promotion. Therefore, the broad brush painting of unemployed people as worthless scum is inaccurate and misleading. Application forms aren’t the easiest things to fill out, so it shows how desperate people are for paid employment that they trawl through acres of forms and answer eye-popping questions like “Is your gender the same as the one you were assigned at birth?” I’ve often thought that if you think you have a good chance of winning a role at an interview stage, it must be very tempting to tick lots of equal opportunities boxes because you will fulfil all sorts of quotas if you’re a half-Filipino, half-Bulgarian, post-operation transsexual with mobility issues.

Much is made of the ‘easy life’ the unemployed live but it’s rubbish. On occasion, my parents have been jobless so I have seen firsthand the demoralising effect of being without work. Waking up at silly o’clock and cow-towing to a belligerent boss and making small talk in lifts with Kevin from Accounts may not seem like paradise on earth. But it’s a whole lot more enjoyable than feeding your sensory system a junk diet of pound shop David Dickinsons, Sarah Beeny rip-offs and 25% extra free packets of custard creams. Even channel controllers are in on the hatchet job, making the least fortunate feel worthless. During the day – a peak time for curtain twitchers – terrestrial television broadcasts programmes where Jospeh and Hayley, a hip twentysomething couple from Islington, are looking to buy their first holiday home in Bratislava. Meanwhile the only people tuning in are sitting on a hire purchase couch and jotting down the phone number for Wonga.com during the ad breaks.

There are, without doubt, some people who abuse the system, wringing every penny they’re owed from a state which can at times be over-weaning. By focusing on the extremes of these abuses, harder and deeper benefits cuts are being targeted at the poorest. At one stage on the dole, my whole family were expected to live on £94 a week. Utilities, clothes, groceries, school uniforms. £94 a week. If you apply for a job at Costa Coffee, you’ll have a 1 in 200 chance of digging yourself out of that bloody great hole. Good luck.

The privatised machine

Worrying developments, people. I find myself on the side of The Man over the little people, albeit not through choice and not with any ideological fervour. A few weeks back, a horde of angry students, many shouting “Ra ra ra!”, started occupying Bramber House, a conference centre opposite where I work which usually hosts cosmically dull events about paperclips. They stormed the barricades (well, a revolving door) and announced they would not be leaving any time soon.

Initially, there was a policy of containment. No-one was being allowed in and once you left, you were gone. Private security firms, somewhat  ironically considering the nature of the event – ‘Sussex Against Privatisation’ – were drafted in to stand by the exits with badges on their arms and emit a general aura of menace, thus proving that private sector contractors give off the humanitarian warmth of a sharp ground frost. After a few days, presumably because the pong of dozens of unwashed students became unbearable, arrangements became much more relaxed and now students swan up and down, apparently taking on ‘shifts’ so they can never be chucked out.

The reasons for the occupation are sound. The University, with all the wisdom and foresight we expect from a leading Higher Education provider, have decided to outsource a swathe of jobs. Clearly, all the evidence, especially that coming from the beef burger industry, suggests that privatisation is always the answer to life’s manifold crises. These proposed changes happen to affect the lowest-paid, hardest-working manual workers on campus and daren’t touch the Vice-Chancellor or the important bods who sit in roomy offices counting post-it notes and holding meetings about meetings.

Apparently, outsourcing these people’s jobs will not result in redundancies, or so management have argued, not entirely convincingly. Quite how they can guarantee this when their actions are explicitly handing control to private enterprise who will then dictate terms and conditions, is never spelt out. The feeble arguments perpetuated by the authorities did not appease the occupiers, and neither did the University Vice-Chancellor’s long-awaited response to the situation. He waited ages before making any kind of public pronouncement over the matter, meaning he probably had more to say about the lack of toilet paper in the staff loos than the occupation for a long while. According to The Guardian “Michael Farthing responded to the protesters by asking them to leave the building in return for a meeting with the registrar, John Duffy”. ‘Cos obviously nothing gets the pulse racing of a lefty, lentil soup-slurping, never-seen-9am student like a meeting with a Registrar. Better crack open the Xanax for that high octane thrill ride.

Mr. Farthing can’t have been serious. The presumption that a protesting student will be satisfied with a meeting – with agendas, minutes and more AOB than you can shake a stick at – beggars belief. There’s no reason for a civilized discussion about the pros and cons of the University’s stance when something glamorous and visible and daring like an occupation is taking place. Instead of fighting over the last chocolate bourbon in the biscuit box and making small talk with people they will be arguing against in a few minutes, they could be swinging from the ceiling, playing party songs and camping in a conference centre commune with dozens of fellow long-haired denizens of the politically active world.

Celebrities like Mark Steel and Josie Long have made their support known, alongside world-famous, all-round excellent person Noam Chomsky. It’s uncertain whether Sussex alumni Frankie Boyle supports the students, although considering his description of Sussex’s brethren as a bunch of “boring cunts” in his autobiography, I suspect he may not speak in glowing terms. Furthermore, ITV and BBC have run news reports about the demonstration which has only served to increase the self-importance of those involved.

All of this fuels the lie that these students are making a difference. It’s quite sweet, really. Only the other day, one of the occupiers shouted from the rooftops that they were “making history” with all the exuberance and unalloyed naivety that you expect from someone who has never participated in Real World Shit. Such is the history-shaping profundity of what is occurring, surely the common question “Where were you when JFK died?” will be replaced with “Where were you when you heard that forty-two students and a boom box invaded a 200-seat auditorium, proceeding to drape flags out of the window and engage in terrace chants?”

Sorry to be so cynical. I sort of wish I was like them, all head-in-the-clouds, idealistic and certain of their convictions. To the tune of ‘Yellow Submarine’ they shout “We all live in a privatised machine!” and wonder why people roll their eyes. I work with some of the people protesting and they may read this and be disgusted by my bourgeoisie outlook (I would never use the term ‘bourgeoisie’ but it’s often deployed when you’re left-wing and you’re arguing with a normal person so I’m isolating that line of attack), especially as a couple of them wanted me to sign a petition in blood and jettison my job to join in.

I said earlier I was on the side of The Man. Not quite. On the one hand, I doubt whether this action will make the slightest bit of difference in the end and that’s what stops me from doing anything more pro-active. On the other hand, I admire the spirit of resistance and am partial to a bit of aggro to keep us on our toes. It’s true that I am being inconvenienced by their ploy but not to the extent that I’ll dash into Bramber House with a fire extinguisher and clop every man, woman and child unconscious. I am too amused by the protest to care that it gives me an administrative headache. We have a number of events booked for the conference centre and the protesters don’t look like budging, so I have been busy booking other rooms. It’s a mild hassle to be honest and one that I have no problem putting up with when I see hapless political romantics swooning over the occupation and declaring it the greatest thing they have ever seen.

I despise some of the bullshit jargon that emanates from the University, which argues that there has been an extensive consultation process. The protesters argue that this has been thoroughly non-existent and could not have been less productive unless Michael Farthing shook a Magic 8-ball, asking “Shall I attempt to push through this significant alteration to life at Sussex with reasonable discussion and a mandate?” Clearly he received ‘fat chance’ in response.

Plowing ahead with the plans, the University announced it was involved in “competitive dialogue” with potential companies for outsourced contracts. Competitive dialogue? How does that work? “I see your line about ‘savings’ and I raise you ‘costs and efficiencies’”? On a YouTube video made by UniTV detailing the movement and its aims, some wag in the comments section bellows “SUSSEX WILL NOT BE HIJACKED BY A SIX FIGURE SALARIED SADO-MONETARIST CABAL”, surely a perfect example of competitive dialogue if ever there was one. I’m intrigued about what constitutes a sado-monetarist though. George Osborne in a BDSM nightclub?

Anyway, there it is, I’m caught in too many minds and I don’t feel fully committed to any particular emotion. Admiration, mild annoyance, respect and frustration all play a part in this mad game.

Constant vigilance against death

There are many things designed to make you feel like a proper adult. Take national institution Movember, in which automaton-like numbskulls grow a ‘tache ‘cos they think it makes them edgy and gives them a semblance of control over their lemming-esque lives of morbid boredom. It’s for people with a to-do list longer than a porn star’s dong, but with none of it making a difference to anyone’s lives. They are unable to control anything other than the hair on their upper lip, so they turn this power into something bigger and better than it really is. Were I to join them in my teens, I would’ve looked like an old biddy in an inattentive nursing home. Now I can grow facial hair which is dark and bristly, although I rarely exercise my freedom to partake in Movemeber because the resulting face furniture looks like it needs its own CRB check.

Attending a Health and Safety Risk Assessment Training course did a better job of making me feel like a mature being. I deal with kids all the time (not in a botched Newsnight investigation sort-of-way, I promise) as I visit schools to give talks and welcome groups to campus at the University of Sussex. With children as young as ten visiting us and ninety adolescents attending a five day residential summer school, your average Health and Safety officer would quiver with worry and ask how such activities happen without fatalities occurring on a daily basis. They must think that body bags are issued as standard to each University department.

To calculate the risk of something, we must use a severity index. This is what I think Jill, the blonde-haired damsel who headed the session, was trying to tell us with the aid of the driest PowerPoint in the known Universe. Then again, she could have performed a striptease and I wouldn’t have noticed, for she exhibited the enthusiasm of a recently culled badger. The severity index takes two things in to consideration once a hazard has been identified. 1) The potential for the hazard to cause harm. In a worse-case scenario, could it involve a paper cut or being messily impaled on a railing, with your intestines wrapped around a metal spike like grizzly cotton candy? 2) The likelihood of something occurring.

Both considerations are judged on a scale between 1 and 5 then multiplied. If the score is 15 or above, control measures need to be introduced because the hazard is too great. All of this seems like arbitrary, whimsy nonsense, not the cornerstone of an entire industry dedicated to scaring the shit out of everyone. I thought our briefing session would combat the perception that Health and Safety is pointless bollocks, offering straight-up, no-nonsense and sensible advice. I was sadly mistaken.

The department at Sussex is bloody huge. They have a massive building towards the back of campus, four pot plants in reception and enough staff to re-populate a medium-sized planet in the event of a nuclear holocaust. Such was the randomness of the advice, I wondered if the next slide on Jill’s presentation of depression would suggest that we should only intervene when Saturn is rising in the vicinity of Neptune, the eagle has landed or the grand old Duke of York runs backwards up an escalator.

We were then asked to consider some of the hazards that we might chance across in our day-to-day work. Take choking. Seriousness of the situation? DEATH, Jill said, sternly. Likelihood of it happening? We welcome around 400 children a week to Sussex and never once has there been a choking incident, excepting the occasion when a stunned teenager discovered a bowl of rubbery, days-old pasta with a disgusting blob of menstrual sauce on top would set him back £4. No, you can never be too sure, says Jill, writing 2 on the wall, to widespread disbelief. How can you reduce the risk of choking? “Right guys, we’ve got a real treat for you today. We are whisking you away for lunch at a chicken farm, where a tube will be slid down your throat and a nutritious serving of congealed mush will be mainlined to your stomach. Unfortunately Mustafa, I don’t think it’s halal. Sorry peeps… Jill’s orders”.

Another example. Getting run over. Seriousness? DEATH. Likelihood? Again, no one has yet been mowed down by a double decker but Jill said the bus drivers were fairly unforgiving and that we should mark it as a 3. So now we would be in neglect of our duties if we didn’t do something to curtail the risk of being run over. My tactic works fairly well, which is to shout “Don’t get run over!”. Works every time.

Campus tours used to take in the Student’s Union, which for some people forms an integral element of the student experience. I only ever came in to contact with them when they marched past me protesting about something inconsequential and embarrassingly left-wing. They would meet at Library Square and make the heroic trek along well-lit pavement stretching almost 400 metres to Bramber House, whence they would stand around looking glum and chanting about what they wanted and when they wanted it (usually “now” – they were impatient buggers).

Ambassadors used to show them inside the Union. Unfortunately, we had an ‘incident’ on one visit around five years ago. A school complained that pupils were returning armed with fistfuls of condoms which they had picked up at the LGBT centre. We had to incorporate this in subsequent Risk Assessments and the Union became out-of-bounds. Quite why this was an issue perplexes me. Of course, if students were visiting us in order to raise aspirations but ended up rutting in the Common Room for teenage kicks, this is far from an ideal outcome. On the other hand, if the kids were sexually active, why was it a bad thing for them to not get Chlamydia? The back seat of the coach journey home is unlikely to become a hotbed for frat-house shenanigans just because they’ve nabbed a rubber, unless school trips have changed drastically since I went on them.

What a lot of these things come down to is common sense (or a huge deficiency of it). If you swallow a whole leg of chicken and wind up in the Heinrich Manoeuvre with a stranger, then you’re a twat. If you run across the road just as an enormous truck turns a corner, you’re giving the Grim Reaper every opportunity to take you for his own. I shouldn’t have to write risk assessments to mitigate the effects of idiocy.

What’s worse is that the system doesn’t even work. We asked Jill if we had to store our risk assessments in a particular place or send it to an organisation so that it can be monitored. No, Jill said. We just need to have it saved somewhere so that if something dreadful happened, we could show the Health and Safety officer that we took every precaution.

“Couldn’t we just quickly re-write our risk assessments after an incident happens so that we don’t get in trouble?” my colleague chipped in.

On Jill’s face you could see the edifice crumbling. Her world was not making sense anymore. In an instant Jill composed herself again and said we couldn’t do that.

“But there’s nothing to stop someone” my colleague continued mercilessly, as Jill wondered whether everything would ever be the same again.

Streams of paperwork, hours spent thinking up inventive ways people could meet their maker, hastily adopted control measures and yet the system is still open to fraud and manipulation. That’s three hours of my life I’m never getting back.

Let’s do the time warp again

At the beginning of a match of snooker with a mate, he told me there would be a party going on downstairs. It was someone’s 30^th and all the stops had been pulled out. I counted at least seven balloons and three “Happy Birthday” banners were hanging limply on the wall, which I guessed were pulled out every time someone celebrated their day of birth. I could see a cobweb on one.

The venue was a small-town British Legion which has probably seen better days, including the time it was bombed during the War. Every time I enter there is an old couple sitting by the bar, both stooped and ageing. They sit there all night. When the man speaks he has to press his hand against the trunk of his neck or no sound will come out. The woman looks like a homeless Princess Anne. They sit by the fruit machine and comment unhelpfully while you play on it. I swear when people’s backs are turned they raid it.

You would only find such a place in a parochial town, the kind of area where you suspect the twenty-first century is viewed with rampant scepticism. One big tell-tale factor is that the meat raffle is still a big deal. I used to think meat raffles were the stuff of legend, the kind of working class activity probably outlawed by New Labour. It really shouldn’t exist in leafy Sussex, but I have witnessed the draw with my own eyes and can confirm that winning a pack of Cumberland sausages in a bar still holds immense value for those who take part.

Adverts for upcoming gigs didn’t exactly lift the prevailing mood of an aversion to modernity. “The Firetones this Saturday! Regulars at the Legion, they will be playing all your favourite rock ‘n’ roll classics from the ‘50s and ‘60s”. I asked one old lag at the bar if the band were any good. He said “yes, if you like that modern crap”.

My friend had been formally invited because he once went out with the girl who was celebrating her big day. “Fucks like a bag of spiders” he told me knowingly, before spilling the beans on the rest of the motley brigade who had turned up in full fancy dress.

“See her, thin girl with the dreadlocks” he said, pointing to the bar.

“Yeah” I replied, “that’s a rubbish outfit”.

“That’s her real hair”.

“Oh”.

“Well, she’s mad. Her brother is serving time for GBH and her whole family are nuts. She likes to sing ‘We Are The Champions’ after a few drinks. You can’t take the microphone off her during karaoke.

“Bloodyhell”.

“See that bloke over there? Bald head, glasses, facing the other way? Had an affair with his cousin”.

“Right” I said, all my suspicions proving well-founded.

“And her, the old girl on the dancefloor, face like a smacked arse”.

I looked but there were OAPs all over the dancefloor and most of them could pass for members of the undead.

“No sorry, where?”

“There” he said, doing that unhelpful thing that people do when you can’t see where someone’s pointing, ie shoving their finger in your eyeline. This time I saw. She had painted her face white, with black around her eyes so she looked like a cross between a mime artist and a panda. Judging by the wide berth all the blokes were giving her, she probably has the reproductive patterns of a panda too.

“She’s properly mad. Friend of the family. The lift does not go all the way to the top”.

The birthday girl, a pretty blonde with an alcopop in hand, came over to say hello.

“Alright darlin’” my mate said, kissing both cheeks.

“Glad you could make it” she said, smiling.

“We had some good times didn’t we, babe”.

“Yeah” she said, turning to meet my eyes, “but he took advantage of me”.

“No I did not” he said in mock surprise.

“In a good way” she said, with a wink.

“I tell you now” he continued, “I always had respect for you, ‘cos you could suck-start a leaf blower”. She giggled with a mixture of embarrassment and pride.

“Anyway, who are you?” she asked, looking me up and down, unexpectedly adding “You’re quite fit”. She was wearing a rather revealing top and as I began framing a response, I became conscious that my head was moving up and down as if I was watching a vertical tennis rally.

“You’re not bad yourself” I muttered, fighting to keep my gaze steady. Inside I was skipping. “Quite fit” she said! Usually I’m compared to an overlarge freight-damaged potato, so “quite fit” is definitely a step in the right direction, even if the modifier was a bit disheartening – there’s a world of difference between “you’re beautiful” and “you’re quite beautiful”. On a man’s wedding day, were he to say the first, he would be performing his duty as a husband. Were he to say the second, he would be signing divorce papers days after the ceremony.

The birthday girl moved on to the next well-wishers and my mate continued his hilarious narrative of the movers and shakers in the small room.

“That bird by the billiards table wearing the Nun outfit. Total slapper. She’s been under more sheets than the Ku Klux Klan. And him, wearing the cardigan and sitting on the stool. Looks like Jonathan Edwards after six cans of Special Brew. He’s my accountant. Lovely bloke. Total drunk. The local taxi company sends a car here every night at 11 because he’s in no fit state to get home. He lives sixteen doors away”.

“I’ll try one more” he added, finally reaching the bar and topping up his double vodka and coke, “then I’m getting my costume on”. The DJ was pulling out all the classics and things started getting slightly out of control.

The woman with dreadlocks had opened hostilities with thin air, shouting at no-one in particular, only drowned out by the ear-shattering volume of the disco. Kids had started whizzing around all over the place, untamed and feral, colliding with legs and tables. The slapper in the Nun’s outfit was striking up conversation with every man in the room and it seemed only a matter of time before I would be next. The birthday girl was being handed shots of sambuca, which she necked faster than they could be poured. My mate had gone next door and re-entered the room as Sylvester the cartoon cat to guffaws and cheers from the gathering. The drunkard accountant had just dropped his drink with a deafening smash, prompting mingled swear words and apologies. The mad woman wearing face paint was whispering in the DJ’s ear and seconds later I understood why.

As if to complete the surrealness of the scene, ‘The Time Warp’ (t-t-t-time warp) bellowed from the speakers and she rushed to the centre of the dancefloor, joining a select bunch of misfits to perform the routine. As the chorus reached its denouement, she seemed to be readying herself for a big moment. Right on cue (“Let’s do the time warp again”) and centre stage, she ripped open her dress, a la Bucks Fizz, to reveal just a bra and knickers.

I was laughing so much I was in agony. I actually fell to the floor in hysterics.

“God bless her” my mate said at the urinals ten minutes later. “That’s her party piece”.

Man United fans are idiots

Some things in life are constant. Take the ever-increasing amount of packaging on Christmas presents, devised to make the day itself a tumultuous set of tantrums while I desperately try to put together a Batman lair for the little bro, which might as well be a nuclear submarine. Another constant is gravity, although I have my doubts. Anyone following the career of Tulisa would come to the conclusion that if what goes up must come down, by now she should be standing on street corners in a red-light district, funding a crystal meth habit. Then again, as that video testifies, she does go down sometimes.

There are also cultural truisms, such as the fact that Manchester United fans are idiots. This is not extreme shock-jockery like you find from right-wing American radio types or chatty ‘no-holds-barred’ columnists in women’s magazines who lead you through every twist and turn of their diets like a Karen Slaughter novel. It’s a scientifically proven fact. I can find men in white coats and goggles who will tell you much the same if you give me a bit of time and the costume shop is open. It’s a contentious point, not least because decades of football glory has recruited an army of lounge supporters to the ManYoo cause, whose idea of going to ‘watch the game’ involves sitting in a Wetherspoon’s on a Saturday afternoon, drooling over the barmaid, necking bottles of Carlsberg Export and shouting random swear words every time an opposition player touches the ball.

Not one lone supporter of Fergie’s army has an ounce of common sense when it comes to football. They are all blowhard, ignorant twits, parroting every word Sir Alex Ferguson speaks from atop his towering inferno of bullshit, blissfully unaware of their ability to think independently. In case I get mobbed in the street when I walk past Wetherspoon’s next weekend by a hoard of irate pot-bellied creatures with ‘Rooney’ emblazoned across the enormous breadth of their back, I should point out that some Manchester United fans are lovely people. By airing such thoughts I may be accused of Unitedism but some of my good friends are Red Devils fans. When the conversation stays away from the beautiful game they can be engaging people, almost sane enough to be allowed to mix normally with the community.

Yet the second football is mentioned, these screwballs have no idea. Literally no idea. When they pontificate about the sport, I just want to slap my forehead on my palm and chop off my ears. I support Lewes, a small provincial club with an away ‘following’ which rarely exceeds a 4×4 and a couple of rickshaws. A few years back, Lewes took a couple of hundred fans to Eastbourne Borough for a top-of-the-table local derby and as we swelled the away end to breaking point, we felt like the non-league equivalent of the extras in Ben-Hur.

When I tell United fans that I support a club like Lewes, they contort their face and repeat my team’s name, as if I just mentioned I was having an affair with Edwina Currie. They fail to comprehend that a team below the Premier League exists, less so that a human being would willingly support them. After all, they could be watching a team that wins everything. Another thing I’ve noticed is that all United fans come up with a ‘valid’ reason for supporting them, some bollocks about their Granddad’s best mate’s pet chinchilla’s uncle, who used to sell match programmes outside the ground in 1953.

One such bell-end told me that Arsenal’s admirable and sensible financial restraint was a stupid policy and that football was all about winning. Well, that must be of great comfort to the hundreds of thousands of huffing and puffing men and women who take to their local playing field every week for a shot of glory, a half-time orange and a knackered hamstring. Are all the scarf-draped supporters of basket cases like Grimsby, Rochdale and Liverpool just wasting their time in fruitless pursuit of the Capital One Cup? Does running a club properly count for nothing? Is the size of your trophy cabinet the only way you can measure how valuable something is?

Apologies for the rant, and if you know me at all most of this will be repeating what I have said many times before, usually at volume after a couple of pints of Weston’s organic cider. I adore football but it’s being ruined by a cartel of know-nothings, for whom exorbitant wages and a poor culture of sportsmanship has become standard. Greedy foreign owners ratchet up the price for ordinary supporters to pay off their own company’s debts or buy players worth millions of pounds who spend months warming the bench with a hurty knee.

There is an absence of heart in top flight football, with a few notable exceptions like Swansea, Everton, Arsenal and Norwich. It’s just a rich man’s version of Monopoly and for the last few years Manchester City have landed on Free Parking, spent squillions and ended up with a highly talented squad of individuals that are far removed from their old Maine Road ground and the smell of desperation that greeted each season, a time when a top half finish would be considered an achievement to rank alongside the discovery of DNA. Ask any true City fan, not the band-wagon jumpers who began supporting them when a rich Arab started waving his chequebook around, and they will confirm that something has been lost. It’s not real success, just glory based on being able to outbid rivals, not team spirit or shared endeavour.

United are the worst though. I still remember the banner unfurled at Old Trafford after City were crowned champions last season, which read “United = History, City = $$$”. You couldn’t make it up. This undisputable imbecile, who is following the team with the biggest income on earth and whose debts are in excess of half a billion pounds, has the cheek to claim Manchester City are winning the league through money! What about all the titles you’ve won since 1992? I’ll tell you now mate, you didn’t emerge triumphant time and again despite a wage bill of six shillings and a packet of pork scratchings. I can best illustrate my point when I remind you that United spent in excess of £25 million on Juan Sebastian Veron, who was nothing more than a hairpiece and an attitude.

I don’t have an issue with people who watch them regularly or have a season ticket. It’s the armchair bandits who use the words ‘we’ and ‘us’ when describing their side’s efforts that make me angry. “We were so unlucky the other day, that referee has it in for us” they moan, often disputing something like a debatable throw-in which led to a goal kick, which led to an injury, which led to a free-kick, which led to a 35-yard audacious lob, which can all be blamed on that clueless ref for giving a dodgy throw halfway up the pitch.

Maybe it’s me being old fashioned. In fact, I know it is. But when I saw relegation contenders Lewes beat league leaders Dover 6-2 on Boxing Day 2010 after being 2-0 down, I knew that Manchester United fans immersed in their titles and millions would kill for a real football experience like that. Of course, many would scoff and call me mental but their affinities run as deep as their widescreen TV, so their opinions are irrelevant.

I propose a new rule, one punishable by death if ever broken: you cannot use collective pronouns if you have never seen your team play at their home ground. Having a Sky+ box does not make you a supporter. You have no idea what football means.

The best albums and tracks of 2012

I don’t know where I’d be without music. Probably a lost, dark, desolate wasteland, sucked of all hope and optimism. So probably Woking. I spend hours on public transport every day and the only thing keeping me sane is my earbuds playing sweet audio magic. Forget those blokes with a Mojo subscription who tell you that music was only ever good in the late 60s. In the last twelve months alone there has been some amazing stuff out there and presented here are my favourite 20 albums and tracks that have made those long journey whizz by.

ALBUMS

1) Beach House – Bloom

This album has stayed true all year and I still listen to it at least three times a week. I have developed a fondness for shoegaze-y, dreamy anthems and Bloom is bursting with them.

2) Bruce Springsteen – Wrecking Ball

After the crap ‘Working On A Dream’, Bruce’s new album delves into new territory: soul on ‘Rocky Road’, celtic hoedown on ‘Death to my Hometown’, as well as trademark blue-collar rock ‘n’ roll.

3) Pulled Apart By Horses – Tough Love

‘Tough Love’ came out aeons ago but stands up as the best hard rock album of the year, a pummelling eargasm of melody and daft lyrics.

4) DIIV – Oshin

Another dream-pop masterpiece. Every song sounds roughly the same as the last one but it’s all done with such precision it hardly matters.

5) Madness – Oui Oui Si Si Ja Ja Da Da

Admittedly it’s the worst album title of the year, if not all time. But the follow up to ‘The Liberty of Norton Folgate’ is a suite of classic three minute pop songs that show Madness have plenty left in them. Even my Dad likes it, and he hasn’t liked a record since 1971.

6) The Gaslight Anthem – Handwritten

‘American Slang’ was disappointing but the follow up sees the New Jersey band amping up and laying claim to the rock heartlands.

7) Dexys – One Day I’m Going To Soar

An already brilliant album was made better after seeing it performed live at the Brighton Dome. It’s hilarious and Kevin Rowland is on top form.

8) Two Door Cinema Club – Beacon

If it’s not broke, why fix it? Two Door Cinema Club stick to the formula that won them hundreds of thousands of fans and is just as good as ‘Tourist History’.

9) Breton – Other People’s Problems

A woozy set of electronic pop which delves into hard-edged beats, sampled strings and a gazillion sugar-rush choruses.

10) The Maccabees – Given To The Wild

British indie rock is in safe hands with bands like The Maccabees. On their third record they push into Horrors-ish noodling and Arcade Fire-like epicness but still sound great.

11) Howler – America Give Up

12) Lana Del Rey – Born To Die

13) Leonard Cohen – Old Ideas

14) Toy – Toy

15) We Are Augustines – Rise Ye Sunken Ships

16) The Hives – Lex Hives

17) Hot Chip – In Our Heads

18) Wild Nothing – Nocturne

19) The Darkness – Hot Cakes

20) Metz – Metz

SINGLES

1) Plan B – iLL Manors

An all-out political rant, backed by shouted vocals of “Oi! You little rich boy” and frantic descending strings. He calls David Cameron a “cunt” and for that reason, amongst others, its’ the best track of the year.

2) Churches – Lies

Indie disco magic, with a lurching bassline and a soaring vocal.

3) Foals – Inhaler

A taster for new album ‘Holy Fire’ and it sounds amazing. ‘My Number’ is every bit as good. Foals have grown some serious balls.

4) The Rolling Stones – Doom and Gloom

Proof there’s still life in the old dogs yet, with Jagger singing about piloting a plane full of zombies. Up there with their best.

5) Garbage – Automatic Systematic Habit

A heroically shit album, made all the worse by this cracking opening track, a mad blizzard of synths and guitars.

6) Bob mould – The descent

The Sugar and Husker Du frontman is back with what he does best, drivetime punk rock with extra melody.

7) Hot Chip – Motion Sickness

Award for best horn section of the year, as Hot Chip get down and dirty on the dancefloor

8) Muse – Panic Station

Muse get funky with surprisingly great results.

9) Tame Impala – Elephant

Glam rock riffage and psychedelic solos. Yes please.

10) The Vaccines – Teenage icon

Scratchy and loveable pop song about being young and rubbish.

11) Fun – We Are Young

12) Haim – Forever

13) Palma Violets – Best of Friends

14) Of Monsters and Men – Little Talks

15) Arctic Monkeys – R U Mine

16) Swesish House Mafia – Greyhound

17) Grimes – Oblivion

18) Django Django – Default

19) M83 – Midnight City

20) Crystal Castles – Sad Eyes

2012 was a fine vintage

As the warm afterglow of the Christmas parties fade away, bellowed karaoke still ringing in one’s ears and the mucky red grime of oriental chicken ribs clinging to one’s fingernails, it is a time to reflect upon events of this most monumental of years. 2012 was special in so many ways. It’s galling to think that in my lifetime, I am hardly likely to experience a more pleasurable year unless I start dating a nymphomaniac Brazilian model.

The aforementioned Christmas parties were excellent fun, even if I danced like a pissed horse to ‘Gangnam Style’ at both. The first was work, the second for my snooker club. I quaffed everyone under the table until I ended up under the table, passed out. The office Xmas party involved ‘Management-Speak Bullshit Bingo’, with drunken screams indicating someone has a full house after Kevin, hirsute caller and the only sober person for miles, called out “Let’s run that idea up the flagpole”.

One of the bosses, possibly holding the title ‘Campest Man Alive’, was a cesspool of innuendo and filth all night, helped on his way by a bottle or three of Cava. A secret Santa had been organised for the office and as Kevin got ready to hand out the presents from a bin-liner, the boss shouted “Kevin’s emptying his sack!” When ‘It’s Raining Men’ came over the sound system, he hollered with delight “This one’s for the gays!” which didn’t exactly narrow it down. In his office, Kevin is known as the only straight in the village.

So yes, 2012. What a year. I guess the crowning moment was the Olympics and Paralympics, those glorious two months when being proud of your country didn’t involve marching with the English Defence League and holding deep reservations about men with turbans. The Opening Ceremony created a modern ideal of Britishness. We’re mad, we love cricket, we pay for a National Health Service (up yours America) and yes, undoubtedly, we have a wonderful sense of humour. Where Beijing four years ago was like a water fight in which the richest kid in the neighbourhood bought along his Dad’s fire hose, London was an altogether more homely affair.

Four years ago, the Chinese authorities wanted to show off that they were kings of the world, sitting astride the world economy like a Hell’s Angel on a Harley Davidson. We wanted to show that with a bit of elbow grease, a bit of luck and dozens of flying Mary Poppinses, we might one day be the palace jester. We could never have outdone the Chinese precision and militaristic overtones, so we decided to show the world we had a heart.

With the nation on a collective high, the athletes decided to make us wait for our first gold medal. Nearly a week passed before we celebrated the top prize. I managed to miss the last week of the Games because I was in Magaluf on my first lad’s holiday, so I may have missed a third of possibly the last Olympics to be held in my home country during my lifetime, but still managed to see my fair share of watersports.

There were so many magical moments during the Games, but perhaps top of the pile was Mo Farah’s first win in the 5000m. A Somali-born refugee bringing home the glory in the colours of his home nation was better in conquering Daily Mail-esque fear of ‘The Other’ than a million multi-cultural experiments. The last time I was shouting “Come on Mo, come on Mo!” I was watching the EastEnders episode where Little Mo kills Trevor.

Apparently condoms were laid out in every athlete’s apartment, because when the world’s fastest and fittest individuals come together in an enlarged version of a Hi-De-Hi holiday camp, you can barely move for fornicating basketball and volleyball players. The athlete’s village must have morphed in to your first house party, where you daren’t open a bedroom door in case you embarrass your best mate while he’s trying to lose his virginity.

Such titillating details delighted The Daily Star. Usually their front pages are brimming with sex scandals, sex and footballers doing silly things (usually involving sex). But for three weeks in the summer, no-one gave a Tooting & Mitcham who some blonde bombshell had been having it off with that week. So while most newspapers were revelling in British glory, The Daily Star exposed shocking secrets of the athlete’s nefarious activities from Games past and present, meaning they could meld their twin passions together: sex and ‘whatever’s in this week which will make people buy our snot rag’.

Usually, the BBC Sports Personality of the Year belies its title with a parade of sickeningly uncharismatic dullards, often considered some kind of sage after a vaguely amusing turn on ‘A Question of Sport’ involving Phil Tufnell and a stray comment about a golf player’s balls. Yet this time round, the illustrious likes of Jessica Ennis, Mo Farah and Bradley Wiggins were vying for the trophy. Wiggins walked away with the crown to cap an incredible year. Not content with winning the Tour de France, he also racked up Olympic gold in the cycling time trial.

To put this in to perspective, Lance Armstrong needed a round-the-clock team of colluders and scientists to win the yellow jersey. He disappeared to mountain retreats for weeks to avoid drug tests while he took all sorts of injections and replaced his blood, yet still denied any wrongdoing. When his dirty linen was finally washed in public this year, Armstrong became the sporting equivalent of Jimmy Savile. The analogy goes further because it has been alleged that practically everyone involved in cycling during Armstrong’s heyday was cheating, whilst you daren’t watch any BBC repeats from the 70s in case some raging paedophile leers at you. So many cyclists have been expunged from the official records due to doping that I will probably be awarded 16th in 1997 for when I rode to the shops and back to buy a packet of Pokemon cards.

Meanwhile, in the well-populated province of Nuttersville, the end of the world, supposedly December 21st, came and went without a blip. The night before our alleged Doomsday, many people decided to post meaningful, insightful and illuminating final Facebook or Twitter statuses, just in case alien archaeologists of the future wonder why someone’s last words were “Fish and chips dinner ftw”.

Among the tropes of wisdom posted by friends, which let us not forget may have been their last utterance before a fiery death, my favourites were “Roger Moore was a shit Bond” and “I call my testicles Ant and Dec”. It does raise an interesting point though. If you had one thing left to say, what would it be? “Shit, wrong button” would be my contribution, to make it look like I have more power within the four never-ending walls of this universe than I actually do.

2012 was also an extremely interesting year in politics too. Barack Obama emerged victorious in the US Presidential election, despite Karl Rove’s denials on Fox News, where he refused to believe Obama had won the battleground state of Ohio. The news anchor then instigated a priceless piece of live television when she went to find the statisticians who had made the call. The camera followed her to the maths (sorry, math) factory to confirm there was no way back for the Republicans. Mitt Romney was a suspicious man who would be called a “second hand car dealer” were he to live in East Anglia, the preferred insult to someone of a shady nature who can’t be trusted with a rusty spanner let alone a nation of 300 million people.

In Britain, lots of exciting things happened too. The phone-hacking scandal blew up in a big way, leading to a national newspaper closing for the first time in years. Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson were both asked to comment on the scandal but were busy adjusting their taste buds to the featureless food found at Her Majesty’s pleasure. There was plebgate, politicians of all shapes and sizes trying to take credit for the Olympics, a Cabinet reshuffle (the words ‘Titanic’ and ‘deckchairs’ come to mind), a Nick Clegg apology on tuition fees and Nadine Dorries eating bollocks rather than speaking them.

But there is one story that ranks above all these in terms of significance, one which shall be taught in years to come as the defining political moment of our age; Eric Pickles was forced to defend his department’s spending on biscuits this year, which has increased by £10,000. The history textbooks shall remember the early years of the 21st century thus: “Millenium… 9/11… Reality TV… Iraq… 7/7… Banking collapse… Minister enjoys one too many Jammy Dodgers during inter-departmental meetings”.

Ministers are prepped in bashing the opposition from day one but the tongue-lashing unleashed in defence of Pickles was quite extraordinary. For those not in the loop let me briefly explain how politics works. Practise bashings are held once a new minister is positioned in a government office. Spin doctors drop by to see if they can achieve the required level of apoplexy when discussing the furnishings. “This is typical of Labour. Not only did they leave us up Stock Exchange Creek without a paddle, but they also chose aqua marine blinds for my office and a rather hideous painting in the foyer. There is no limit to the wastefulness and poor decision-making of the previous incumbents”. If they pass this test, they are shoved in front of Jeremy Paxman and confronted about everything the government has done, ever.

Before we see how some junior boxwollah covered the arse of his boss, we need some numbers: in just seven months, Pickles’ department spent over £42,000 on snacks, which seems a bit steep. However, according to The Sun, “Local Government Minister Brandon Lewis pointed out that the snacks bill had fallen dramatically since Labour lost power in 2010 – when it hit £456,142”. Lewis went on to slate the previous government in an epic rant. Aside from the absurdity of political attacks based on biscuit bills, how can half a million on Hob Nobs and Skips be justified? Were they holding political prisoners, or did John Prescott often pop round for lunch?

Aside from the makers of chocolate bourbons, the Queen also enjoyed a fantastic year. Her Diamond Jubilee reignited the passion that Brits feel towards their monarch. Various dewy-eyed commentators looked at opinion polls which said she was as popular as oxygen and declared her position was safe forever more. These idiots need only look back at opinion polls from fifteen years ago – around the death of Princess Diana – to know that opinion can soon change.

With ease, her Grandson Harry brushed off an incident in Las Vegas where he was snapped naked in a bathroom during drunken japes with mates. This raised the prospect of the King’s message on Christmas Day 2063 being a little livelier than what we’re used to – the newly crowned Prince will tell his subjects “I bloody love you” before vomiting on a corgi and trying to set fire to his farts.

Yet the people love Harry. They love William ‘n’ Kate. They love that old codger Prince Philip with his well-timed bladder infections. It was one of these urinary problems that kept Philip away from the grand concert held to celebrate sixty years of Elizabeth II’s reign. The sight of Grace Jones hula-hooping may have been odd but weirder was when Madness, titans of the ska era, performed ‘Our House’ atop Buckingham Palace. I don’t wish to be a reverse snob but you’d have to be a rich bastard if, to paraphrase Suggs and co, the Queen’s residence was in the middle of your street. I felt that performance tipped towards satire, but the straight faces on display indicated I may be the only one to feel a little queasy.

Nonetheless, raise a glass of something strong to 2012. Rest assured, Prince Harry will be doing the same.