A Sure Plea for Pleasure

Two months since I last blogged! Two! What strange and splendid things have happened since I last coughed words onto the internet? Well, governmental cuts have been set out, X-Factor has stabbed another collection of songs to death and then burned their graves, and, of course, due to strikes the London Underground has now been replaced by a conga line of in-line skaters.

However, I'm not the sort to whittle a blog out of the redwood of contemporary events. I prefer my writing to be utterly timeless, so that when future species dig my prattle out of the charred remains of the internet, there remains something relevant for them to chuckle about deep within the salty folds of their multiple larynxes and to give a fronds-up.

So I'd prefer to talk about something universal and helpfully vague, if it's all the same to you.  And today it is the importance of pleasure.



From Bad Machinery - this is, let's face it, the ultimate dream.


Pleasure is a double-sided sword, with which one can easily slice up fresh, delicious watermelons, but also stab oneself in the gooliest of areas.

The argument for pleasure in life is little-offered from the top down. By top down, I am not making a sexy request of you (or at least, that is not my primary intention), but rather I mean that this is not something that most self-declared positions of authority take into account.

Consider the split over food. We are told by the government, television chefs and self-styled 'nutritionists'  that junk food should not be eaten, that we should only eat that which provides the very greatest health benefits. This does not take into account the argument for pleasure, in which we decide to eat things which may have all the nutritional boon of an ordinance survey map, but which give us a flutter of pleasure and joy.

Pleasure is important. Whether or not, my glimmer-eyed, sultry reader, you believe in an afterlife (I believe that the likelihood of an afterlife is approximately as high as the arse of the Mariana Trench), chances are you let pleasure dictate a lot of your choices.

This is a luxury heavily afforded to us by our extremely lovely First World, above-the-poverty-line comfort levels. (I assume my readership to be a rough reflection of my own status - which is reasonable, given all the poncy language and analogy I use.) We have laid before us a decorative quilt of choice, and we can choose any particular patchwork we like. But it is true across the world to an extent: people take pleasure in their customs, their sports and their local equivalent of recreational drugs.

Without pleasure, our lives become grim, grey commodities of the larger group; an expenditure without return. It becomes the equivalent of watching an entire episode of Horne & Corden; unbearable.

Human emotions have evolved to give us pleasure in the same way that ants have not... but given the level of similarity between the two species, it could easily have gone the other way. Our emotions are a fluke-gained spectrum, and since we have been given the glimmering golden light of pleasure in which to coat ourselves, we should use it as best we can. There's no point in having a glorious trifle in the fridge and sticking to licking paving slabs for sustenance.

Nonetheless, authority figures lay the argument for pleasure by the wayside, like a trucker's turd. So we see the slashing of arts budgets (so much for non-contemporaneousness), the willy-nilly banning of drugs entirely disregarding evidence, angry judgement of promiscuity and the scorn from high-heeled, blood-footed fashionistas of comfortable shoes.

The difficulty with all of this pressure from above of what you should do is that it means that either people live pleasureless lives, or they scamper off in the other direction like rebellious stoats. That is to say, the latter live lives entirely dictated by pleasure, without regard for their own health or the health and happiness of others.

Now, there is nothing wrong with living a life devoted to pleasure, if your pleasure does not conflict with that of others. Someone with a passion for gardening is entirely welcome to become a gardener, live in their own garden and practise pubic topiary. Selfishness is entirely welcome in this respect. However, a life of selfishness that brings a person into violent oppositon of the pleasure of others is not cool. It's okay to blow bubbles, unless you're blowing them directly into a neighbour's eyeball.

This rejection of non-pleasure also strangulates the concept of moderation. If you decide to do something in opposition to a mandate, you tend to go further with it that you would have in the first place. Even as we speak - by which I mean, even as I carelessly hurl spiked words towards your face -  across the country teens are slamming their doors without actually stopping to think whether they even wanted to paint their bedrooms black, let alone whether they would have got that pierced if they hadn't been told not to.

So the lack of consideration for pleasure in our top-down rulesmiths leads directly to misery of others. Jamie Oliver says 'no Burger Kings, ever', and many people will forgo a pleasure that would, in some small way, have made them happier, if only for the shortest time. Many others will go out and binge on burgers, shakes and fries, in a sulky fuck you to Jamie Bigtongue.

Of course, sensible people will occupy the middle ground - indulging in pleasures in moderation, while maintaining a healthy respect for others. But sensible is surprisingly hard to find in a race that hasn't evolved with modern-day sensibility in mind. It is more common than smallpox, but less common than anti-vaxxers - a potent ratio.

So overall, remember: everything in moderation. But do make sure that you float your boat, or it will languish and eventually be used as the venue for a youth rave. And nobody wants that.


Fun Fake Fact Friday

Due to many weeks' absence, this is something of a bumper load. Don't forget - to take part, simply go onto Twitter on a Friday and make up something with the tag #funfakefactfriday. I try to put all entries on this blog, so everyone can see just how flipping clever you are, once and for all, the jerks. Uncredited ones are, of course, my own little contributions of lexical spittle to this great bucket of fun.

Capitalism is an ideology in which people pay for goods and services with Scrabble letters.

The Pope’s favourite swear is the Holy See Word.

2006: heart defect rates soar. 2007: 50% increase in Will-writing. 2008: Number of surprise birthday parties triples.

The Pope has described his trip to Britain as “the worst Saga holiday yet”.

Cherie Blair has made a “book of shame” to punish Tony when he misbehaves, full of New Statesman reviews of his book.

Last year, over twenty thousand relationships were started after people accidentally put kisses on the end of work emails.

Physiologically speaking, the closest living relative of the walrus is Andrew Lloyd Webber.

90% of call centres are based in Hull. Workers use Indian accents to disguise their poor working conditions.

The most common operation on insecure male elephants is trunk enlargement surgery.

The Sexiest Pasta Award 2010 was won by cunniloni.

New health and safety laws now require gentlemen with handlebar moustaches to be fitted with brakes.

Roger Moore is not the actor’s name, but rather a statement of his intent.

George Lucas was killed & replaced by twin brother Jorge, intent upon retroactively ruining all his brother’s successes.

After comprehensively beating the Nazis, the Dambusters turned their attention to their other nemesis: beavers.

Due to its constantly opposing Poles, the Daily Mail is, technically speaking, a racist magnet.

Sesame Street’s Bert and Ernie are based on the Hamiltons.

Just as water is only holy when blessed by a priest, it takes a vicar to make pastorised milk.

Newton wrote a sub-clause to his third law of motion: “Except in the tabloid press, when it is wildly disproportionate."

To discover the original Biblical Word, scientists at the Large Hadron Collider plan to smash together two particle verbs.

A sequel to The Social Network is due out in 2011, entitled ‘The Social Network 2.0: Rise of the Fail Whale’.

The Dung beetle buries poo; the Deathwatch beetle buries carrion; the Conciliation beetle buries hatchets.

The Heimlich Manoeuvre is famously named after its inventor, Dr. Manoeuvre.

According to recent scientific experiments, three things affect time: mass, frame of reference and bladder capacity.

The ‘deep film advert voice’ is, in 80% of cases, voiced by Anne Robinson.

Robbie Williams is actually a character creation of wacky-voice man Robin Williams. He says he’s “punishing Britain”.

In Latin, “Angela Merkel” translates as “angel’s bum-crease”.

Little-known forensic geography deals with criminal landscape. It has imprisoned Bluff Point, Sharp Edge & Milton Keynes.

The American Bald Eagle is now officially extinct, having been replaced by the American Toupée Eagle.

One must look into a mirror and say ‘handyman, handyman, handyman’ to summon Handy Andy.

Science has illuminated the atom & the opening seconds of the universe but cannot explain the existence of Ryan Seacrest.

A “birds-eye” view means to imagine a scene covered in breadcrumbs.

The tough and surprising qualities of the bodily fluids of Texans has lead to the development of both Goretex and Semtex.

It is predicted that by 2014, football’s status as the UK’s “national game” will be overtaken by scratchcards.

Dame Judy Dench has a chin on her brain. This is medically known as a ‘brainchin’.

Entering UP UP DOWN DOWN LEFT RIGHT LEFT RIGHT B A Enter on the Google Analytics page will instantly triple your traffic.

N-Dubz’s Dappy cannot properly wake up in the morning without performing some substandard freestyle rap to his Coco Pops.

Exploding fireworks are execution pods for fairies.

5th Nov’s Santa is Daddy Blammo, who has a beard of sparklers. He gives fireworks to good children; burnt fingers to bad.

Technology advances mean you can now buy ADHD-ready TV, which flicks between channels randomly every few seconds.

80% of tweets containing the word 'stop' are directed at @mchammer's account.

The ‘X’ in ‘X Factor’ stands for Scientological final boss, Xenu. Tests on previous winners reveal huge thetan-counts.

In 2007 a hedgehog was discovered in Neath, South Wales, that had evolved a fireproof layer over its whole body & spikes. (waldinho2000)

The varsity boat race was originally between cambridge & hull, as oxford was indeed percieved as 'a right dump' 'til 1923 (l0fty835)

TV's Rodney Trotter, Nicholas Lyndhurst, is 256th in line to the Norwegian throne. (Waldinho2000)

Wayne Rooney agreed to stay at Man Utd after he offered a recurring character slot in Coronation Street as Lenny, a tramp. (waldinho2000)

'As the crow flies' used to mean 'upside down'. The current meaning emerged after further ornithological research. (tomOdaighre)

Most moles do not, in fact, live in holes. This myth was popularised by the hit song recorded by Mr. A. Mole of Swindon. (verbalslapstick)

Wine gums originally had teeth in, but they fell out due to all the sugar. (BigShimmeryWall)

Norman Wisdom's will specified that his pallbearers must trip and drop the coffin into the grave. (TrumptonFireman)

Donald Trump knows he looks stupid (Trumpton Fireman)

HP Lovecraft took his pen name from his favourite sauce fetish website. (BigShimmeryWall)

Former Norway defender Henning Berg is actually 60 feet tall. When playing, 9/10 of him was always under the pitch. (BigShimmeryWall)

At his first PMQs as Labour leader, Ed Milliband asked David Cameron to pull his finger. (Waldinho2000)

Fun Fake Fact Friday was voted the best Internet non-fiction read for 2010 by Richard and Judy (l0fty835)

BlackBerry and Apple are working together on a top secret joint project called Crumble. (TrumptonFireman)

Peanuts have a skin so they look more like toes because people needed reminding to wiggle their toes during long flights (2ssam)

Earlier in evolution, human knees bent the other way, so they could run away from a predator, while taunting it. (stevebunce)

The days are longer in the summer due to it being warmer; in winter, they contract and are shorter. (stevebunce)

Drivers who crash into rubber trees are killed by the rebound, not the crash itself. (TrumptonFireman)

At the end of a tour, Bruce Springsteen allows members of the E-Street Band to bring in boardgames from home. (BigShimmeryWall)

The eye of the portraits in art galleries follow you around the room. But if you hold up a mirror they close. (TrumptonFireman)

Blu-Tack is actually a by-product of the liposuction industry. (TrumptonFireman)

Pavlov's earlier experiments included making a leopard throw up when he played a bassoon & a budgie that swore to techno. (BigShimmeryWall)

Whenever the Circle Line closes, Boris & Cameron smash particles together by taping them to their bikes and riding at each other. (BigShimmeryWall)

Ed Milliband has the exact same hand-type as Danny DeVito. (Waldinho2000)

Ribena is Latin for Blackcurrent. (Locko8668)

Approximately 1 in every 7000 bulls is born with six testicles or more. (MartynDRoyce)

Sunny Delight was invented by Sunny Dee, brother of infamous restauranteur Maître. (d1rty_w0rds)

@RufusHound has climbed Everest 9 times and has lost half of all his toes to frost bite. (Dannybooks)

Did you know that all sardines are technically Venezuelan? (RufusHound)

Fluorida gained notoriety as the world cosmetic dentistry capital - though the "U" is usually omitted. (via McGuireDavid)

The weather in Amarillo is directly proportional to the level of Tony Christie's endorphins (Waldinho2000)

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs fell out 27 years ago after Jobs accused Gates for cheating at Risk. (Dawson001)

Terry Nutkins started his career in specialists' amateur pornography. (Dawson001)

McDonalds were the official sponsor of WWII. (Dawson001)

Dracula's mum was a vegetarian. (Dawson001)

The Pope had to take a detour early to shit in the woods. (Dawson001)

It's costing the UK £100 million for the Pope's visit. £12 million while he's here and the rest for child counselling. (Dawson001)

The Popemobile would survive a nuclear attack; brilliant but the button to open it is on the outside! (Dawson001)

Hitler came up with the ice cream van jingle. (Dawson001)

The Texan state motto is: "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and Texas." (tomOdaighre)