Dear Kate Beckinsale

Dear Kate Beckinsale,

I do not celebrate Christmas. I am an atheist to an admittedly extreme extent and so these celebrations mean nothing to me. However, I am willing to forsake it all and become a god-fearing Christian if you arrive in my bedroom tomorrow morning.

Now I'm not particularly fussy. I'm not asking for the costumes from Underworld or Van Helsing. That'd be flagrant abuse of the arrangement. However it is that you think you look pretty that will do for me. And bring those fascinating hazel eyes with you.

Even if you don't turn up I hope you personally enjoy your holiday. I must of course for appearances and continuity say the following:

Get your shit together.

Yours Faithfully,
Mr. Southey.

Dear Emotion-Bullies

Dear Emotion-Bullies,

I call you bullies because you always think that your armchair psychology and anecdotal evidence are not only absolutely correct but also a substitute for good, old-fashioned common sense.

When people get angry it is your experience that they hate themselves because that's what you've managed to surround yourself with. In your mind it's definately not because some things are worth getting angry about. When people have low self esteem you always blame parents and you always seem to have a half-arsed solution that doesn't come anywhere near the years of toil and emotional auditing required for people to shed these chain from around their shoulders. Never mind that low self-esteem may well come from any human interaction where you are left completely undervalued.

You talk at great length without really making yourself clear about a subject you know little about and yet you still feel it is best to hand out advice to people who may genuinely be looking for solutions to the things that affect them most.

Please stop. Refer them to psychiatrists, even if they are a bunch of quacks. Some things cannot be done alone and if their friends can't help then the professionals may have a better shot than some middle-aged fool trolling the internet for desperate souls to devour.

Get your shit together.

Yours Faithfully,
Mr. Southey.

Dear idiots who don't know what they are talking about

Dear idiots who don't know what they are talking about,

I know that you think you know what you're saying. Your confidence is almost charming. However, anybody with a rudimentary knowledge of everything such as myself knows you're just using words to glam up your point.

Stop using the word evolution for things that are not to do with speciation. Evolution is a very specific thing and the theory outlines that mistakes are not the cause of it. Only catastrophic mistakes interfere with evolution, otherwise it might well be survivable. You mean adaptation. Adaptation is a process of fitting to a new purpose or circumstance. It's a biological term too but it fits in with living behavior not simply genetic predisposition. Over using the word evolution helps to confuse those who don't understand it and elongates pointless scientific arguments with those that are not even remotely scientific.

Also, I beg of you, stop using the term relative in a way that you think is a wink to relativity. You mean comparative. Relativity is pretty specific too and I'd like you to stop touching my precious science. When something is relative to you, you are talking of comparison. When I talk of something relative it's about observing the universe with a dependence on my current velocity and position. There's a bit of a difference.

Finally stop using the word theory. You don't understand the word theory if you have no proof and call it a theory. When you say "I have a theory that all oranges are actually blue" or whatever bollocks it is you're coming up with that drug-addled day; you mean "I am postulating that all oranges are actually blue". This is very confusing for you I know but that is because you have no idea what you are talking about. I see this word misused by people postulating and by people dismissing: "It's only a theory". Yes, it's only an accurate, experimented, proven and peer reviewed theory yes. No, it is not necessarily accurate but then at least it's a working idea. The Theory of Gravity had holes the size of the sun in it. Relativity put pay to that. It doesn't make the mathematics behind Gravity wrong, it simply meant that the implications were not accurate so it had to be refined properly.

Stop using my language if you can't deal with this or get your shit together.

Yours faithfully,

Mr. Southey

Dear Spokesperson to the Disappointed Lapland Adventurers

Dear Spokesperson to the Disappointed Lapland Adventurers,

While I would like to take this opportunity to sympathise for all those you represent, I'm not going to. We've all been ripped off at some time or another. Sometimes it is unavoidable and irreparable. However, most of us never have the opportunity to see it coming. This misadventure to Lapland should have been sniffed out a mile off. Allow me to explain.

The Lapland Adventure that you were all so looking forward to for your children was situated in Dorset. Anybody who has been to Dorset for any length of time that is longer than simply driving through it knows that the entire county is a hole. And not just any hole. This hole is the very model of a modern major ramshackle. You don't need extensive market acumen specific to the leisure industry to know that Dorset can't even manage an English county never mind a Winter Wonder Land.

My letter is a little late after the fact and I do apologise. I only came to notice that the story was coming out of Dorset today.

Perhaps next time if you want a Christmas experience for your children keep it at home behind closed doors where it belongs.

Get your shit together.

Yours Faithfully,
Mr. Southey.

Oh I nearly forgot

Speaking of my useless generation: Charlie Watson is 22 today. Three more years and he'll be a quarter of a century old. I love putting ages in the context of biblical amounts of time. It's scary.

Many happy returns Charlie.

How utterly depressing

The elderly thoroughly fucking depress me. I'm not among the ranks of the youth that simply sneer at the wrinkly and wise. I mean they genuinely make me feel utterly bloody useless. This is a shame because I do a lot of favours for the woman that dared spawn me. Outside of her matriarchal duties of telling me she worries about [apply or eliminate the following as applicable: my lack of consistent occupation/diet/sleeping habits], she manages a residential home. A damned fine one, for she shares genes with me and I am of course amazing.

Talking to some of the occupants there is a mixed experience. Some of them due to the cruel march of time are genuinely doo-lally. Others are simply stoic, facing down the onset of age with a steely resolve and almost a positive slant on the few opportunities that come before them. I had a conversation today with a lady of Ninety-Three years. It was a pleasant conversation. What thoroughly depressed me is that some people my age aren't as switched on as she was. It wasn't like she was a quantum theorist or anything. It's simply in the things that she asked about and I explained she genuinely understood and took on board.

The fact that some people at my modest age probably could video something and have it uploaded on youtube before they actually knew or understood what it was thoroughly fucking depresses me. The thing that reminds me the most is that three or four generations ago we were tough as old boots. Now we're soggy complacent wastes of what is essentially energy slowed down significantly below the speed of light. Possibly gawping at a wall. Wearing a trilby.

It's enough to make you go hang yourself. My generation disappoints me.

One Stop Moral Shop

If you want the morals of the world in stories that aren't as old as civilisation you should watch Quincy M.E.