This is a story about unsolicited pics...

I'm kind of an asexual being, which is unusual for somebody with bipolar disorder. Of course, I have my moments of madness, where I'm convinced that I'm irresistible to the opposite sex, but it's life experiences that have inflated my ego. With a seemingly unending stream of positive examples that I can draw upon, there is no pin to prick my ballooning self-confidence and self-assured manner. Similar to irritating arrogant idiotic cocaine-snorting men - puffed up with grandiose notions of my own importance - I exude something that draws susceptible creatures in, like attracting moths to a flame.

It is with some guilt and worry that I search my conscience to see if I have become a sociopathic narcissistic conman, out to take advantage of anybody who's ensnared in a web of self-delusion that I have not acknowledged until now. Perhaps, I have lied to myself so successfully, that I believe my own bullshit. I've adopted a strategy of unrelenting introspection and examination of the morality of my behaviour, accompanied by complete heart-on-sleeve emotional openness and vulnerability. However, I must admit that making myself vulnerable appears to have the opposite effect to that which the most masculine of men would imagine - that of bringing out protective instincts and something feminine in women who no longer need protecting from wolves and sabre-tooth tigers... not that I ever believed in such patriarchal fables anyway.

Am I a feminist? Absolutely no way. I prefer boobs that have spent their life supported by a brasier, so that their youthful protestations against the force of gravity have been assisted. I like long hair, not short; I like skirts, not trousers & dungarees; I like giggles & heart-melting eyelash batting, not being told I'm guilty for all the sins of those who share a Y chromosome.

Every female friend of mine reports the phenomenon of receiving - via the medium of electronic communication channels - pictures of the erect male member from somebody with whom they have engaged in the preliminary stages of the courtship ritual. Not a single woman I can name has found this either desirable or sexually arousing, but yet the practice seems to continue unabated. Perhaps these men would have better luck on Grindr, with those of their own gender.

I'm a passive observer. It's as if by having my sexuality neutered by stress and chemicals, I'm able to see the bizarre nature of human behaviour in the same way that you would impassively and objectively view a BBC television documentary about the mating of birds or bees.

When I was younger, I couldn't imagine being in the navy or on some kind of seagoing vessel, oil rig or working another kind of job where I would be away from the steady supply of sex, on demand. It was unthinkable to me that hundreds of men might be confined inside a metal hull, surrounded by seawater and lashed by the waves - for weeks or even months at a time - without the comfort of kissing, spooning and the joy of pure unadulterated fucking.

Even today, as my virility declines, I am still insistent on proximate co-location with any prospective sweetheart, despite the fact I'm lonely and single.

It's probably true that free high-quality pornography, streamed over the Internet for instant gratification of any sexual peccadillo that takes one's fancy, has contributed to a world where every male fantasy is fulfilled - rule 34, which states that porn exists for everything you could possibly imagine, and more that you can never un-see.

What a world we currently live in, where sex tourism is openly discussed without shame, despite it being a form of slavery. Craigslist advertises rooms that are available to young women 'rent free' - the payment being made in kind, not in cash. Webcams and stripping become irresistibly attractive income sources for female students looking to fund their education.

We have become culturally indoctrinated by a myopic and ill-educated worship of money - fiat currency - where we obsess over salaries, bank balances, the cash in our pockets and the value of our homes and other assets. We worry about pension funds and funding our kids through college/university. Yet, we are not smart enough to perceive our own obsession over the ridiculously abstract concept as exchanging pieces of paper with numbers written on them, all day long. The entire globe has been perverted by 'wealth' into a place where girls and women are preyed upon by lecherous disgusting old men. I hope you're happy, with the 'value' of your stock portfolio, while your daughter parades herself in front of an unthinkable number of horny tossers, masturbating furiously... your obsession with 'money' made this happen.

Who am I to talk about such things, when I've been so close to ground zero? There's an easy answer to that - I'm the guy who's well read in economics as well as having first-hand experience of every aspect of banking... I know what money actually is. There really is a magic money tree - the stuff just gets invented out of nothingness.

I have no right to talk about moral bankruptcy when I'm a white male, living in the developed world and after enjoying a life that so many people dream of having - it's a terrible hypocrisy. I glamourise and glorify things that are truly atrocious, don't I?

Perhaps I will be vilified after my death, like those who profited from the more conspicuous forms of slavery and human trafficking of the past. My only defence is that I did not choose the time or place of my birth, nor my parents or my gender - this defence is fairly watertight until when, exactly? At what point do we become culpable for our part in some global conspiracy to enslave the vast majority of humanity? At what stage in life do we accept responsibility for our conscience, our decisions and our moral compass?

This is why I write: when I am dead you will have a corpse, but you will not have the contents of my mind. I'm uploading myself into the cloud, so that you may judge both my inner and my outer self.

You could be the world's expert on human anatomy, but the fatty tissues of my brain would be virtually indistinguishable between my cadaver and any other.

These corporeal vessels which we temporarily inhabit tell us nothing about our minds and our personalities, although I cannot deny that I sometimes receive a sexual thrill when I see a woman's nipple.

"Send nudes" is the precursor to 'Netflix and chill', so I'm told.

Tags: #sex

This is a story about hypocrisy...

I wasn't born into a wealthy family. I don't have trust fund income. I'm practically disinherited. My relationship with my parents was causing me far more harm than good. I don't have lottery winnings, bonds, gilts, shares, Swiss bank accounts, briefcases full of banknotes or any other assets; securities; cash; collateral. I don't even have youth and toned physique on my side any more, so men aren't going to pay for the pleasure of my company, which was always plan "Z" in the event that plans "A" through to "Y" had failed.

I've got 61% of my kidney function left, I can't feel my left foot, although - irritatingly - I do feel pain if I stand on something. I also get something akin to phantom limb pain. As far as my brain is concerned, most of the time my foot doesn't seem to exist anymore, but at night it aches all over parts of my foot, ankle and calf. It aches so much I can't sleep without pain relief and/or sleeping tablets. I drink too much. I put all the weight I lost back on. To top it all off, I'm going to be closer to 40 than 35 soon.

I'm in a precarious position.

I couldn't work doing a job that required me to stand for any length of time. I couldn't work a job that required me to do much walking at all. That rules out McDonalds, stacking shelves and being a security guard. Even the homeless people who sell The Big Issue do so standing up.

So, why would I risk my professional reputation by blogging and tweeting so candidly about every innermost thought and private detail of my life? Don't I care about my job? Being able to find gainful employment is pretty important for me, as I don't own a home and I don't have the fallback option of living with any family member. Loss of income means I can't pay rent or even afford a hostel bed. Putting my private life out into the public sphere looks like I'm jeopardising my career - my reputation - and therefore my job - my income - and my housing. Doesn't it seem like I brought my recent crisis, where I was almost homeless, on myself?

What does homeless even mean, anyway? Well, if you're not receiving social security benefits - job seekers' allowance (JSA) or employment support allowance (ESA) - then you don't get any other benefits either, which includes housing benefits. If I go to the London Borough of Tower Hamlets council offices and find their housing department, and tell them that I have been paying over £2,000 a year in council tax, but I've become homeless, they will just tell me to f**k off, in no uncertain terms.

That's what homeless means: it means that every single safety net has failed you, and you will be sleeping on the streets. It's happened to me. I've been homeless.

You would think that this would make me dash to the Job Centre to sign on for JSA as soon as I lost a job, or phone the government telephone line to apply for ESA as soon as I got sick, but there are rules. Strictly speaking, I've got a job - I'm a company director - and strictly speaking I've already got a salary... it's just that my company hasn't been able to afford to pay me for several months. My company only sells one thing: me. If I'm broken, my company doesn't have anything to sell, so it doesn't make any money.

Here's how the government process goes:

Q. Have you lost your job?

A. No, I have a job

--- I'm not eligible for JSA --

Q. Are you able to work?

A. Yes, I do unpaid work every day, without too many problems

--- I'm not eligible for ESA ---

Q. Are you receiving JSA or ESA?

A. No. I'm not eligible for either

--- I'm not eligible for housing benefit ---

So, I get shunted out of the welfare benefits system and into the hands of the NHS, who view me as a vulnerable person in crisis. Therefore I could be hospitalised for 24 hours, 28 days or 6 months, purely because otherwise it's pretty clear that I'd be fucked. I could be housed in a crisis house for a couple of weeks. However, until I tell the government a white lie - that I'm so disabled by mental illness that I can't work - then none of that income tax, national insurance and council tax that I paid over the years, is going to be used to give me some assistance with housing and income, until I'm recovered enough to go back to working full-time. Equally, I'm not going to get any paid employment until I omit to tell a prospective employer that I have had some health issues and need to work part-time, until I'm well enough to work full-time.

Do I kowtow to the government for less than £100 a week of ESA money? When you lose your ESA, you lose your housing benefit too. Where's that going to get me? Back to square one.

Do I start a full-time job earlier than I'd like to? I pretty much have to. I don't have any other options, given that the other options lead back to the same place: homelessness.

There are a lot of things that make my situation very unique and hard for the 'one-size fits all' government systems to cope with. Nothing is left to the discretion of the people who have to deal with the unemployed, the sick and the homeless.

As Joseph Heller described wonderfully in Catch 22, there are situations where to act rationally leads to the least desirable outcome. Most men don't want to fight in wars, because they'll probably be killed. Therefore if you're driven insane, that's actually the most sane response - through your madness, you also proved your sanity, ergo, you're fit for battle. Quod erat demonstrandum.

I've made my choice to use my professional reputation to get work, but I also have every detail of my private life and my psyche fully on display in the public sphere. I have no security. I have no job. I'm soon to have no home.

I would be a hypocrite to take down this blog and delete my Twitter account, because I've lived for 2 years in the public sphere, documenting very private and personal matters, which might seem to contradict my professional reputation that a person may glean from my CV, LinkedIn, meeting me, talking to me and talking to the people I've worked for and otherwise know me in a professional capacity.

It seems cowardly, having taken the brave step of being honest with 7,000+ Twitter followers, that I would hide these 750,000 words from a handful of people, because I'm afraid of damaging my professional reputation and career. We're all human and we're all fallible. To err is human. However, to document one's own mistakes and shortcomings is not at all common. To put more of yourself into the public sphere than is hidden away in any other dark recess of the world, including your own brain, is exceptional. I read things I've written less than a year ago, and I don't remember writing them, but I did. I wrote it all; every word.

It seems stupid, having an excellent professional reputation and a successful career spanning 20 years, and having made a great deal of effort to secure vital income and housing, to risk losing it by having my private life and confidential matters, publicly available. My job security depends on my employer's confidence in me to do the work that I'm highly qualified and experienced to do. Most people hide their weaknesses and their struggles. To project a false image - to be vain - to protect your ego and appear impressively faultless, is the normal thing to do.

Do I stand by my labour of love, and defend it, despite the vulnerable position it puts me in? Do I capitulate under the pressure to conform to social norms, and hide this other part of myself away in some private recess?

What's going to happen? Is it true that putting unflattering things into the public sphere is automatically damaging to your professional reputation? Who's been brave or stupid enough to try the irrational and risky thing that I've done? Who would be brave or stupid enough not to pull the plug, to de-risk the situation and limit any damage that might be done?

I can't pull the plug. I need this blog. I need this identity. I need to be brave, even if it feels stupid, because otherwise I'm a hypocrite.

In the world I want to build, we don't need alter-egos; we don't have a professional persona; we don't maintain flawless CVs with no gaps between employers; we don't make a distinction between who we are privately and who we are publicly: we are just ourselves, all the time; warts and all.

I am guilty of imagining utopian ideals, but this is different. The lines between work & home life; public & private life; speakable & unspeakable; stigmatised & unstigmatised... those lines are being blurred and people are becoming proud of identities that 50 years ago were literally illegal under UK law.

We have laws that prevent discrimination on the grounds of gender, sexual orientation, religion and a host of other things, but a woman may still choose to publish a book under a male pseudonym, when gender bias shows that she will sell more books if she does so.

I would be vain and egotistical if I painted myself as some brave campaigner for ending the tyranny that a 'career' and the painstaking care we take over our professional reputation, wreaks on our lives. However, this blog has helped me to overcome career-ending obstacles. What can you say your spotless CV brought you, when you eventually crumbled under the pressure to maintain an unsustainably perfect façade?

I recently said "vanity and ego: I hope they keep you warm at night". I said it slightly maliciously, with my words dripping with sarcasm. I felt regretful for saying that to somebody.

Perhaps therein lies the truth of it all: is this a vanity project, or is it the very definition of a deflated ego to publicly display the side of your character that you always kept hidden?

I'm going to decide, because I assume nobody is going to read this. To assume I have interested readers would be vain.

It feels like a pretty brave thing for a stupid person to do.

Tags: #career

This is a story about fragile male egos...

Insecurity. Wrenching away my self-confidence, my self-esteem, my sense of value. Insecurity is degrading and causes me to say things through fear and pain, further undermining my decaying self respect. Those sensitive subjects; the nerves; the over-reaction. What am I even arguing about? I can't admit it, because it's too shameful and it leaves me even more exposed. I feel so vulnerable. I can't tell anybody what my weaknesses are.

"Pervert!"

She never said it, but she could. It's not normal to like sex. I'm a freak; a weirdo. I'm a dirty old man for wanting sex. I'm too much of an easy target. It's too much fun, to knock somebody back when they're vulnerable. What power! What fun!

I haven't worked since September and I'm rapidly running out of runway. I feel pretty useless. I can't risk spending money on holidays and eating out. I don't feel like a provider. I don't feel very manly.

Without work or hobbies, I don't have any projects to feel proud of. I have this blog, but it's easily dismissed as a ranty diary, with no real substance behind anything I write. Anybody can voice their unqualified opinions on the Internet, can't they? Just another ignorant stupid voice. Nobody cares what I've got to say, because I'm not speaking in a professional or academic capacity.

The antidote to the fear that my chequered history might be discovered, is to write candidly about it. However, I'm no more than a couple of months away from being bankrupt and evicted onto the streets. I'm no more than a few clicks of the mouse away from relapsing into drug addiction. I'm months - if not years - away from financial security, luxury holidays, fine dining and the rest of the trimmings of wealthy urban lifestyle.

It's been so long since I had all the pieces of the puzzle: the job where I'm an expert, the income that exceeds my expenditure, the savings that give me a safety net, the comfortable and secure place to live, the friends who give me a social life, the hobby that I'm good at, and the girl to share the good times with. Who wants to share in my misery, depression and the unravelling of my life?

Every insecurity - am I fat, ugly, stupid, worthless? - becomes amplified the longer I languish in obscurity. I'm a hermit, writing in my bedroom and pushing my words out into the ether. Who even knows that I exist? Who am I? Why was I even born?

My entire existence is fixated on financial income. Without money, I'm nobody. Every failed interview is a disaster and depression threatens to consume me. I drink copiously to cope with the stress and anxiety, but it's a flawed solution. I know I could take a low-paid job that I could do with my eyes closed, but it would pain me to be so undervalued; under-appreciated; unchallenged.

On Saturday night we meet some people; I'm drunk. Making polite conversation, I'm asked what I do. Nervously, I say that I'm an IT consultant, but it feels like a lie. I work for less than half the year and it makes me unwell; I hate it. My debut novel is mentioned and a dam is broken; I'm gushing forth with rabid enthusiasm about my writing. I can sense that my eyes are wide open and there's an intensity to the way that I'm speaking. My speech is almost pressured; rushed. Then, I think that I've become horribly egocentric. I regret talking expansively about myself, in response to polite middle-class smalltalk. I'm embarrassed about how narcissistic I am.

She tries to reassure me, but I struggle to believe what she says. She's a famous bird off the telly and she even passed her O-levels without cheating or nuffink, so what does she see in me? Surely she's dumbing herself down, so that I don't feel as intimidated?

Gender roles are reversed. She takes me out for dinner. She says she'll protect me. I could easily become her cheerleader; idolise her; put her on a pedestal.

I dig into my archives, looking for things that I'm proud of. The problem is that most of it was years ago. What am I doing at the moment that I'm proud of? I haven't yet managed to find a publisher for my novel, let alone a new IT contract. What opportunity do I have to strut my stuff?

A game of Monopoly: now's my chance to demonstrate my entrepreneurial business talents!

But, there's too much pressure on this rare opportunity and it's a game of chance. Luck doesn't go my way and I'm losing, despite playing a winning strategy. The board gets flipped over and the pieces go everywhere. What a bad loser!

What can I do? I'm damned if I do and I'm damned if I don't.

Tags: #sex #relationships

Contents

Chapter 1: The Caravan

Chapter 2: Invisible Illness

Chapter 3: The Forest

Chapter 4: Prosaic

Chapter 5: The Van

Chapter 6: Into the Unknown

Chapter 7: The Journey

Chapter 8: Infamy

Chapter 9: The Villages

Chapter 10: Waiting Room

Chapter 11: The Shadow People

Chapter 12: Enough Rope

Chapter 13: The Post Offices

Chapter 14: Unsuitable Friends

Chapter 15: The Chase

Chapter 16: Self Inflicted

Chapter 17: The Holiday

Chapter 18: Psychosis, Madness, Insanity and Lunacy

Chapter 19: The Hospitals

Chapter 20: Segmentation

Chapter 21: The Cell

Chapter 22: Wells of Silence

Chapter 23: The Box

Chapter 24: Jailbird

Chapter 25: The Scales

Chapter 26: Descent

Chapter 27: The Syringe

Chapter 28: Anonymity

Chapter 29: The Imposter

Chapter 30: Wish You Were Here

8. Infamy

The eldest brother could do no wrong in his mother's eyes. He was quiet and studious. The teachers at school said that he was destined for great things - provided he tried his best - which echoed his parents' long-held hopes for their first-born child. Despite being unpopular, bullied and having few friends, academic achievement was the only thing that seemed to matter in his life, or so he was told by the adults he came into contact with. Wanting to please those anxious faces that looked on, scrutinising every piece of schoolwork, exam grade and report from teachers, he had allowed himself to be moulded into the 'perfect' son. Dressed by his mother and developing no independent identity of his own, his impeccable manners and good behaviour had other parents clucking with jealousy, as their own children were defiant, argumentative and seemed intent on ruining their futures.

The youngest brother was infantalised; babied; mollycoddled. Adorably cute, he had a look in his eyes that could melt any heart and the entire family delighted in showering this child with physical affection and encouraging childish traits that were seen as funny and part of his delightful young character. The words he mispronounced were adopted, so that grandfather became "Gaduda" and a favourite uncle became "Cunigu". The babbling of a baby created an entire new and impenetrable lexicon that only the family knew and understood.

The middle sister held her place in the family as a gender-stereotyped girl. Dressed in pink and floral outfits, she had been showered with traditional toys like dolls, plastic ponies and role-playing sets for obedient housewives. She seemed to be developing normally, playing nicely with her soft toys - having make-believe tea parties for all her bears - as well as thriving socially at playgroup and school.

After puberty, the girl had grown into a young woman more quickly than any adult was able to comprehend or adjust to. When they looked at her they could not see beyond the image of a child that had cemented itself in their minds. Clearly, at the age of 13 or 14 she was still very much a child, but there was a kind of denial amongst family and teachers that this girl was maturing much more rapidly than her peers in a way that denied her a place as either adult or child.

At school, only the children could see what was happening to Lara.

Becoming quiet and withdrawn, Lara fell out of favour with her friends. She wasn't fun anymore. She didn't want to laugh and giggle and gossip and exchange misinformation. Talking about who had started their periods and what bra size they were having to buy, some confusing changes were slowly slotting into place, as the adult world careened into their carefree childhood existence.

The family were distracted. Lara's eldest brother was being coached for important exams and groomed for a top university place, even though his education had many more years until its completion. Lara's youngest brother had a streak of star-like quality now, and it was being considered whether the family would try to get him into a school with better drama and music facilities. A future in the performing arts seemed to beckon for Lara's little brother. The family indulged him as he sang, danced and generally entertained them, captivating every available bit of their attention.

Under the auspices of furthering her studies, Lara had started to travel into the city centre to visit the main public library. Without adult supervision, she had been free to peruse the shelves and select whichever books she wanted. Peeking at older girls and young women who she thought dressed nicely, she imagined that they could be the role models or peers that she seemed to be missing in her life. Listening in to snippets of conversation and looking at the books they chose, Lara came upon a cache of literature that was 'age inappropriate'. The elderly librarians didn't know much about the books that they stamped for Lara to take home.

Magazines provided a trickle-down of information through the girls in school. Well-thumbed copies of Just Seventeen were mostly read by giggling groups of 13 and 14 year olds, who pored over the agony aunt sections and articles about boyfriends. The children mostly came from reasonably wealthy and well-to-do families where they had led sheltered lives, but there were many who had been involved in fumbling trysts and could combine their first-hand knowledge with the information gleaned from the pages of teen magazines.

Lara drifted further from her original childhood friends who covered their bedroom walls with posters of boy bands and listened to saccharine-sweet pop music.

Print media slowly sexualised the schoolgirls, with magazines that were supposedly pitched at adults being more commonly read by 14, 15 and 16 year olds. These magazines - such as Cosmopolitan - featured sex positions and even blow-job techniques under titles like "How to Please Your Man". Fashion magazines were boring by comparison and Lara found Vogue pretentious.

There was a disjoint, a gap, between magazine articles that were light on any real detail, and what was shared between the braver and more adventurous girls who had experimented and fooled around with their first boyfriends. There was no romance in being roughly fingered by an overexcited 14 year old boy on a cold park bench, both tipsy from swigs of cheap cider straight from the bottle. The experiences were confusing, unpleasant even.

Lara had filled the gap with romantic and erotic novels, and the detail of not only the mechanics of the acts but also the feelings of love and lust filled out a much fuller picture of what boyfriends and sexual activities were all about. Lara started to feel contempt for the spotty horny boys at her school and the gaggle of catty girls who circulated vicious rumours about each other as well as boasting of experiences that were missing the caring caress and vital connection that Lara now desired in a boy who was as mature as she was.

By broadening her sphere of knowledge through reading, as well as careful observation of the mannerisms of young women rather than her peer group, Lara began to take on an aura of being quietly self-confident, knowing. As the school year wore on, she started to appear dark and brooding in a way that had a sultry kind of attractiveness. Lara wasn't becoming a goth but there was an intensity in her eyes that was extremely intimidating to other girls, as well as to her teachers. More and more boys started to take an interest in Lara. She was becoming more and more removed and aloof from day-to-day school life, making her seem unattainable. Rumours circulated that she had an older boyfriend who rode a motorbike.

The children elevated Lara to a status normally reserved for 'cool' adults. To treat Lara like an ordinary pupil brought anarchy to the classroom, as if the teachers had started calling each other names in front of the children. To her teachers, Lara was now untouchable, in the interests of preserving some authority. Lara wasn't interested in making trouble, so an uneasy truce came to pass. Lara would not show any disrespect for her teachers or contempt for her schoolwork, but no teacher dared to ridicule and belittle her for fear that they themselves would be laughed out of their class.

Nothing was especially wrong that warranted Lara's parents being contacted, but Lara was becoming feared and revered at school. The girls knew that their boyfriends' eyes were drawn to her and Lara could feel herself attracting an increasing number of staring faces. She started to become comfortable with male attention and would even delight in returning a boy's gaze in order to make him blush, caught looking. A kind of unspoken reputation made her unapproachable. No boy from her school was bold enough to try and speak to her anymore. The legend of the older boyfriend became cemented as fact, even though Lara by now had started to feel a little disappointed that the older boys seemed somehow immature. Refining her style, her sense of dress, in a subtle way that she copied from young women who seemed confident and happy, she started to draw attention from young men, some of it unwanted. These men were crass and crude, and harassed her. They had nothing cosmopolitan, cultured or urbane about them. They were likely lads who fancied themselves as a hit with the ladies. Lara was repelled by these ugly creatures who dressed in sportswear, had gold chains, earrings and wore far too much aftershave. These young men were only ever brave enough to make an approach when accompanied by a group of their friends, watching with a slack-jawed smile as the sullen Lara silently dismissed them with crushing indifference.

Lara imagined that when she left school for university she would find a completely different set of people. Young men who were more mature and romantic, she imagined a boyfriend who could be her equal; somebody she could respect. It wasn't that she was saving herself for true love, but more that she hadn't yet met anybody who measured up to her expectations. The more she read, the more she developed a better sense of the kind of guy she wanted to date, which included a kind of worldly-wiseness, experience and a self-assured manner that was lacking in schoolboys and men who hung around near schools trying to pick up teenage girls.

Age 15, with a mature body and the comportment of somebody older, Lara started to draw the attention of more predatory and silken-tongued men who attempted to woo her with more subtlety. Hanging around on the fringes of school social events and struggling to find a group where she belonged, several well dressed young men struck up casual conversations with her. At first, she felt as though she was beginning to make new friends and would perhaps soon have a new gang to hang out with. Brutally, she found that it was a ruse and these men would try and kiss and grope her after some perfunctory chat. Lara became despondent, beginning to lose hope that there was anybody out there for her who didn't want to just get in her knickers.

At weekends during a mild late September, she had taken to reading a book in the park on a favourite bench that was partly shaded, but still had enough sunlight that she was pleasantly dappled with warming rays. Today, there was a young man sat on one end of the bench who was ghostly pale, wearing a winter coat but still shivering. His coat was pulled up to cover the bottom half of his face, but his eyes were shining brightly, with dark rings underneath. He looked as though he was suffering with a fever and his forehead was a little sweaty.

Lara hesitated before sitting down, but she decided that the man's body language suggested he was trying to make himself as small and inconspicuous as possible. He seemed non-threatening and he was sat right at the other end of the bench. Lara took her usual seat and began reading, somewhat distractedly.

She imagined that the man would get himself up and off home to bed soon, but as the afternoon wore on, he was still sat there. Lara was hardly getting any reading done, but she had a stubborn temperament and was determined that she would attempt to read for as long as she normally would, even though her thoughts were filled with concern about the wellbeing of her companion on the bench.

Eventually, her patience ran out and Lara stood up to walk home.

"Are you OK?" she asked the young man.

The man lifted his eyes slowly to meet hers. There was pain behind them. Not physical pain, but something else. His expression of discomfort softened with her question, but he seemed shocked that anybody had addressed him or even acknowledged his existence. It was as though he thought he was invisible up to that point. There was something incredibly vulnerable and raw about this man; not just the sickness that he seemed to be suffering with. Lara felt a surprising protective instinct for this slim and pale young man who had a haunting gaze.

"I'll be alright" he said.

Lara started to leave and then she stopped.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Sam"

"Do you have somewhere to go? You don't look well" Lara said.

"Yeah. I'm waiting for somebody. I had to get out of the flat. I was going crazy at home, waiting" Sam replied.

"Do you have a number for them? Do you want me to help you try and contact them?" Lara asked, confused and concerned.

"No. No. They'll turn up. Sometimes they just make me wait. Feels like forever" Sam said.

Lara didn't understand and she couldn't think of anything else to say or ask.

"Oh, OK. Bye then" she said.

"Bye. And thanks" said Sam.

"Thanks for what?" asked Lara.

"Thanks for asking"

When she got home, Lara could still vividly picture Sam's face. He was pale and sick but he was clearly a good looking young man. She was intrigued and also worried about what was going to happen to him. Was he going to be OK? He hadn't asked her name. She wanted to know what he'd meant; why he couldn't wait at home.

Lara wanted to go back out that evening and see if Sam was still on the bench. What would she say if he was? What would she find out if he wasn't? She resisted the urge to go back to the park.

Next chapter...

This is a story about being in touch with your feminine side...

When I was a pre-pubescent boy, I read a book by Judy Blume about girls getting their period and having their first kiss with a boy. Before you boil over into a fit of inexplicable anger (as women are prone to do because they're completely ruled by their emotions) I'm not actually saying I know what it's like to menstruate, have boobs and to carry a baby inside me for 9 months and deliver it into the world through my vagina.

My education and upbringing was pretty heavy on the whole sex-ed thing. My sister was born when I was 10 years old, and so I clearly remember her birth and my Mum's pregnancy. My teacher at school was pregnant when we were being shown childbirth videos, and the schools in Oxford are actually pretty progressive. We were taught about the reproductive cycle in the first year that I went to middle school, when I was 9 years old.

Of course, I will never have the first-hand experience of having my cervix dilated by the large head of my child, to the point that it tears, and other painful sounding childbirth related stuff. I know that I would get yelled at with hormonal illogical female rage, if I was to suggest that other stuff that's happened to me has been painful. The muscle on the front of my calf was sliced in half, severing 4 tendons. The hospital in Oxford kept me for 3 days to re-stabilise my kidneys - no painkillers - and then sent me back home to London for the operation 2 days later. My whole journey on the train and across the capital was done without crutches or pain relief. My bandages were soaked with blood. I'm sure those 5 days where my calf had a muscle that was sliced in two down to the bone would give me no capacity to imagine having my vagina ripped to bits by a baby though.

I genuinely don't want to insult mothers. You're right, I'll never know what it's like to have a bad back from carrying round all that weight of a baby bulge for 9 months. I'll never know what it's like to have my internal organs being squished by the life growing inside me. I'll never know what it's like to be woken up by my unborn child kicking. I'll never know.

If you think I'm being flippant or sarcastic, I'm sorry, but I'm actually being genuine. I've often given consideration to the things I'll never know.

What man hasn't given consideration to how much fun they might have, if they got to swap bodies with a woman for the day. Of course, we'd like to play with our tits, but we're also fascinated to know what it feels like for a girl. There's a <blush> slightly kinky element. What does it feel like to be penetrated? Are multiple orgasms as good as they sound? Errr... did I just say that? Moving swiftly on.

Yeah, it's pretty shameful to admit this stuff, but I've made it my mission to vicariously experience what I can of the feminine. I don't think I'm one of those men who thinks that they're a woman who got born into a guy's body. I've just made it a goal in life to empathise. Empathise with everybody. Including the opposite sex.

When I was a teenager I read female erotic fiction. I tried to get into the mind of what women want. I tried to learn how to be a generous lover, so that I could please my girlfriends. I put a lot of effort into my 'research' and I have to say, I got a big kick out of it. However, I read an article recently where the author - a woman - was actually offended by how much of an ego boost guys get by knowing they've moved the Earth for their lover. Well, guess what? That's been added to the long list of considerations too.

So am I painting this picture of me as some sort of perfect guy? No. Don't be ridiculous. What I'm saying is that I'm an information gatherer, and I was born as a sensitive little soul who takes in a lot of what people say, how they feel and whatever I can divine from the media I have consumed. I guess I figured out from an early age that I wasn't going to learn everything I needed to know from pornographic magazines and videos.

It's laughable isn't it, to say that I empathise with women, mothers. and it's actually not true, I don't. I try to, but of course I fail on so many levels. You can't possibly know how much you don't know. Dunning-Kruger effect. Blah blah blah!

But, if you can have a tomboy, can you not also have a tamgirl?

I remember when a friend was talking about her hen do. I enthusiastically gushed "OMG! When is it?" without thinking that I would not actually be invited. I just kinda assumed that I would be. It was a strange situation, because she was a "one of the lads" kind of girl, and I'm a "comfortable with my sexuality" type of guy, so the gender exclusion of the event didn't even register with me.

So, why have I taken a wordplay of Mumsnet, turning it into something that's supposed to sound like The Social Network? Well, because I'm jealous. I feel like I'm missing out on something.

My same friend who I mentioned regarding the hen do was at one time (I'm not sure if she still is) an active contributor on the Mumsnet forum. I actually met her on a forum to do with kitesurfing, many years before. We were both active forum contributors. In fact, I think we competed for the top spot, quite often.

Another friend, a wonderful geek girl whom I very much enjoy the pleasure of the company of, is also another active Mom social networker, who I think also frequents the pages of Mumsnet.

The blogosphere is heavily colonised by mommybloggers, looking for some kind of activity to connect with the world in a way that fits with the demands of family life. Family members eagerly devour every last detail of life of the youngest members of the clan, and will scour the pages of every social media source in order to gather any updates and juicy pictures of the cute little kids as they grow up. Blogging about your family life is a natural extension of that.

However, I imagine that having kids can be a fairly bleak and isolating existence at times. Just as being single can leave you left out from all those couples events - who's going to invite sad Dave to dinner on his own? That'd be weird! - so the stressed out mom who's had to spend all day with fractious children is going to be overlooked by friends who don't want their peaceful child-free existence shattered by the arrival of mountains of childrearing equipment and tantrum-prone toddlers disturbing the peace.

Yes, unless you have a good baby circle of other moms who have kids of a similar age, it's kinda hard for anybody to relate to the particular struggles that you're immediately facing, whether that be teething and nappy rash, or the defiant "NO!" phase as the loveable darlings assert their own personalities. Which of your friends understands that they need to remove all the sharp, swallowable and fragile ornaments from the low surfaces? That bowl of potpourri looks terribly decorative on the coffee table, but to a parent of a young child, that's just a choking hazard. The worlds are going to collide.

And so, sleep-deprived moms get isolated, as social lepers because they're no longer footloose and fancy free. Not only must the children travel with mom, but also the changing mat, clean nappies, wet wipes, sterilising equipment, bibs, blankets, toys, teething rings, potties, spare clothes, medicines, high chairs, carrycots, pushchairs and every other bit of parenting paraphernalia to keep the tiny tots clean, comfortable, fed and watered, in the hope that they'll smile and giggle, not cry.

I have no idea if an Internet forum can provide some of the camaraderie that is necessary to make things seem a little less desperate, when Junior just won't go to sleep and he's driving you nuts with that noisy toy that grandma bought for him. I have no idea if getting together online, as moms who've been through it all too - they know all the shit that you're going through - in some way makes getting through the day a little easier.

I know that I miss my time being a top contributor on a forum. I know that I miss those familiar nicknames. I know that I miss the purpose and routine that it gave my life, trying to read absolutely everything, and make comments in the most active threads. I miss those virtual friends, who actually turned out not to be virtual at all. Some of the best friends I have, I made through forums. Some of the best experiences of my life, were when a bunch of us nerdy Internet dwellers met up, in the evening for drinks, for weekend trips away, or for adventures around the world.

The gender-blind part of me thinks that I should sign up for Mumsnet and join in the discussion and debate, but something tells me that might not go down too well.

There is a considerable hole in my life, without an online community to belong to.

Tags: #friends #socialmedia #sex

This is a story about reproduction...

A flower is the sexual organ of a plant. A bunch of flowers is a bunch of genitals. They're a lot prettier than a man's meat & two veg though, admittedly.

Apparently, sending a picture of your manhood to the object of your affections is an accepted part of the new modern courtship ritual. A friend once told me she thought it was basically the same as "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" except completely unsolicited. I shudder to think what it must be like for girls on Tinder and Snapchat.

I guess I'm almost an ultra-conservative. I actually aspire to have a relatively old-fashioned relationship. I think gender roles are not actually a bad thing. The expectation for women to carry the unborn infant, give birth and be the primary caregiver, whilst also being expected to take the lead in maintaining domestic bliss, and have a career to boot, is too much to ask of somebody. Whore in the bedroom, chef in the kitchen, maid in the home, nanny to the kids and power-dressing bosswoman.

Men like to feel useful, needed, but frankly, once you've ponied up half a teaspoonful of baby batter, in order to impregnate somebody, your job's pretty much done in this society where women do it all. Is it any wonder that it's acceptable for men to be the butt of so many jokes: we're truly the weaker sex.

I feel like I might have offended a couple of my friends who are parents, with my bitter rants at my own parents. There's been plenty of times that I've written about the neurology of parenthood - the endorphins that are released in order to bond parent with child - and it has perhaps seemed like I've been attacking the 'magic' of parenthood by reducing it to its chemical nuts and bolts.

Believe me, I'm a sensation seeker, and just about the only thing left on my bucket list is to know what it's like to become a parent. I'd love to be so reckless and irresponsible as to just take a wild leap into the unknown, on the assumption that everything would be just fine. "You'll find a way" people say, and "there's never a right time".

Yes, that's right, there's never a right time. I've been thinking about population growth, and how much faster the human population has grown than anybody would have ever predicted. 60 years ago, the population was predicted to have grown to 3 billion by the year 2000. In actual fact, the population was over double that.

We now have over 7 billion mouths to feed on planet Earth. Not only that, but we all want to drive our little darlings around in gas-guzzling cars, have a pet doggie, take the whole family away on exotic holidays and fill our homes with cheap goods manufactured in the Far East. Something doesn't add up.

We talk about economic austerity, but the reality is much, much worse. The standard of living that we've all enjoyed, needs to take a massive nosedive, but nobody wants to hear it.

I desperately want to have some kids of my own, and a pet dog, and probably a cat too. I desperately want to return to the jet-set lifestyle I enjoyed a few years ago. I want to buy another car, another speedboat. However, just recycling a few bottles and buying a Toyota Prius is not going to offset the global impact of these selfish choices.

If there's one thing I know about experts, it's that they're usually conservative in their estimates. If the weatherman says to prepare for a gale, you should get ready for a hurricane. If the population experts say that the world population is going to be over 9 billion in 2050, we should assume that it's going to be 12 billion. If climate scientists say that global temperatures are going to increase by 2 degrees centigrade, we should assume they're going to increase by 4 degrees. If tide gauges show that sea levels have risen by a foot, we should expect them to rise another two feet in the coming years.

We have a culture where we're encouraged to think of our little nuclear families as little fortresses. We have double-locked front doors, and fences round our gardens. Our homes are our castles, and we view the world as vicious place, full of paedophiles, rapists, robbers and other things that are "out to get us". We are not only individually selfish - thinking about the immediate gratification of our reproduction and nurturing instincts - but we are collectively selfish, in that we put the needs of our family ahead of the needs of our species.

Yes, you're damn right, I would love to be a dad and to have a best friend in the form of a dog. I'm sure nothing could be more fulfilling than the feeling of adoration from the animals I feed. Many scientific studies have proven that it's nice to feel like the alpha, the leader of the pack, and nothing epitomises that more than the domestication of dogs. Dogs are pack animals, so they are genetically predisposed towards seeking approval of the 'alpha'.

However, dogs and babies are polluting. Disposable nappies are convenient, but make up a huge component of landfill. It's said that if an alien race were to come to Earth in a couple of hundred years time, when we've all died, they'll assume that we were a civilisation of incontinent midgets, because the mountains of nappies will still not have biodegraded.

I certainly wouldn't want to raise a kid without modern parenting aids. I certainly don't hanker for the days where we all died prematurely of preventable diseases and of starvation when the crops failed. However, where is the responsibility?

Dog ownership is the very pinnacle of irresponsibility. These are predatory carnivores. The meat we need to keep them means that huge swathes of arable land is used to grow animal feed, in order to keep our pets fed. Nobody can argue that keeping these animals as pets is a good use of finite resources. Having a dog is more polluting than having a car.

City living is responsible living: where we are entertained by culture rather than wiping up snot and vomit and spawning more mouths to feed. Where we are able to move around using mass transit systems that only work where there are economies of scale. Where we are able to be fed in massive refectories. We can have vast variety of food with relatively little wastage, because the population is so dense. Where the distances we have to travel are far less, because we build upwards, not outwards.

Yes, I feel unfulfilled, not having a nurturing outlet. I'd love to have some kids, a dog, a house in the country. However, it's irresponsible.

Just doing what your parents did, what other people do... that's sheep-like behaviour. Saying "well they did it too" is no defence, when you know you're acting recklessly, irresponsibly. We have birth control, we have planned parenthood, we know the problems we face as a species, as a planet. Do you want your kids and grandkids to starve to death on an infertile, polluted and inhospitable Earth?

Tags: #politics #climate

This is a story about conformity...

I can tell you a lot about the pressure to fit in or fuck off. I can tell you a lot about conforming. I can tell you a lot about bullying, and other mechanisms of coercion, to get people to fall in line and all march to the same beat.

At school, I wanted to keep a low profile. I wanted less attention from the bullies. This required astute observation and imitation of what was considered 'normal'. You needed to be wearing the right clothes and sneakers, you needed to act a certain way, appear to think certain things and talk in a certain manner. Any deviation from the norm was harshly punished.

I didn't receive a lot of sympathy for the daily misery that I endured, due to having the wrong sort of trousers or shoes, or something so obvious as a reason to bully a kid, such as a bike that didn't conform to gender stereotypes. Kids are excellent at spotting differences, and turning these into the basis for social exclusion, teasing and bullying.

This isn't going to be one of those tear-jerking "oh what a miserable life I had" type rants. Instead, I'm going to tell you what I learned, being pushed to the margins, the fringes.

Most people are blindly unquestioning of the rules of life, the structure of society and the expectations placed upon them. Most people are unaware of their inbuilt tendency to play along with unwritten rules. What is it that stops you talking too loudly? What is it that causes you to walk, when it'd be quicker to run? Why is it that you're stressed and unhappy in an unfulfilling job that barely pays the bills? Why is it that you bottle up all those emotions, when you really want to scream and yell and raise hell?

I'm not very tolerant at the moment. I'm not very good a putting up and shutting up. I made the decision in 2008 to cut away from the mainstream, and actually put some of the talk into action. I had become extremely cynical about what I was doing at the time, and it was clear that simply changing jobs wasn't going to be an extreme enough change. I needed to forge my own path. It was conformity that I was sick of.

We'd all like to be our own boss, right? Well, there are a huge amount of downsides, and you're probably right to stay in your cushy salaried job, but for me there wasn't really a choice: I had reached the limit of my patience, and there was a sickness in my soul from too many years of repressing frustrations.

You do ruin yourself, having had a taste of freedom. It's hard to get the genie back in the bottle. Once you know what you can achieve, when you take away the millstone of the organisations and institutions that sap your energy and discourage innovation, it's very hard to re-enter the corporate or academic world, which is the backbone for modern society.

Society can't handle the free thinker, the nonconformist. The way the systems and the processes are set up, the way our preconceptions and prejudices are programmed... if you don't fit the mould people are going to find you very hard to handle.

Trying to explain gaps in your CV or periods where you ran your own business, will boggle the mind of the drones who need to try and shoehorn you into their neat little boxes. How are you supposed to get a reference when you were your own boss? How do you describe your job title and employment dates, when you're not actually an employee... you cut away from that system and you went in your own direction.

Do you have performance objectives, and reviews with your boss? What would you do if your boss blocked your promotion aspirations? Would you just wait for your turn, to be promoted to the next rung on the ladder?

This is important: it's not a ladder. The ladder is a lie. It's a pyramid, and there is less space on the next step up, than there is on the step below. What do we know about pyramid schemes? Well, it's pretty clear that it's sweet for the person at the top of the pyramid, and we'd all love to be there. But what's less clear is the simple mathematical trick that means that you're never going to reach the top of the pyramid by conventional means: exponential growth.

By the time that 3 or 4 layers of management have been employed, between you and the guy at the top, the number of people vying for even the next step up has exponentially grown to the point where you have tens of thousands of people, hundreds of thousands even (I've worked for companies with a quarter of a million employees) and they're all hoping to get promoted. It's a con.

Society and the companies you work for stand to gain far more from you, than you will gain yourself, by you behaving yourself at school, doing your exams like a good little robot child, and then getting yourself into a job, where you will slave away until the end of your days, never quite reaching the aspirational targets that are just out of reach. Don't you feel a little cheated?

You can look at the big picture, and the greater good, and say that sure, we can't all just do what we want. There have to be rules, and we have to do things we don't like doing. However, have you stopped to think whether you're perpetuating human misery? The best you can hope for with your children is that they won't be very bright or very emotionally attuned, so that they won't be troubled with deeply philosophical questions about "why are we here?". If your kids can avoid questioning authority, and just neatly conform to the world around them, then happy days... they'll probably clone themselves and the whole motherfucking cycle continues.

However, the more you give them the freedom to think and explore their own identities, the more you give them the capability to differentiate themselves, to have independent thoughts and resist indoctrination... well, they might end up having a difficult time. Our society is so highly leveraged, geared up, pressured, that there's no time to stop and consider the alternatives. Nobody has the time or the inclination to say "hey, is there a better way?".

Fit in or fuck off. Fit in or fuck off are the only choices that you have, unless you're going to be an eccentric outcast.

Tags: #career #mentalhealth

This is a story about the shoe being on the other foot...

There's a Madonna song called "What it Feels Like for a Girl" which talks about men secretly wondering what it's like, being a girl. Here are my raw, candid, thoughts and experiences.

Men can be domestic abuse victims too. I've had to go to work with black eyes and a broken nose and make up some story to try and cover up for my partner's aggression and violence. I've had to lie to friends and family members about my battered & bruised face.

You know that as a man you can't hit back, because then you're the bad guy. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't. You can't turn the other cheek forever though.

When it comes to dating, men have got it fairly hard. I'd much rather that loads of women just chatted me up... gave me complements and massaged my ego, and then I just picked the best of the bunch. Yes, that'd definitely be better than being one of the horde of horny guys fighting over the passive females.

Yes, being passive is nice. I've been to gay clubs, and it's super nice being eyed up and having people ask you for you phone number. It's nice to feel wanted. It's nice to know where you stand. It's nice to have choice, to have options and just pick the person who you're most attracted to. Sadly, I'm not attracted to men.

Being objectified, mentally undressed, groped and otherwise felt up, ass slapping and pinching... I'm sure that can be draining. I'm sure it's often unwelcome. I'm sure it's pretty horrible, as a girl just trying to travel on public transport. However, I'll admit that personally, when those things have happened to me, I've enjoyed it to some extent. I guess that could be novelty though.

I did have one guy being really forceful with me, right in front of his boyfriend. It did become annoying after a while. I also felt sorry for his boyfriend. Mostly, it made me feel pressured into doing something I didn't want to do (which I didn't do... that time) but it still inflated my fragile ego a bit. There is security, self-confidence, to be found in feeling sexually attractive.

Girls are expected to maintain an immaculate home, be a supernanny to the children, masterchef in the kitchen, powerdressing businesswoman and a whore in the bedroom. Sure there used to be a high expectation placed on women. However, men are modernising too. If you picked a knuckle-dragging caveman, more fool you: you can't really complain, can you?

Actually, I'm extremely neat and tidy and clean. I can cook a 7 course dinner and wash up as I go along. I can't imagine doing it while trying to round up children, of course, but I've always seen child rearing as a teamwork exercise. I've certainly always dreamt of working part-time when I have kids, so I can play an active role in their upbringing.

When it comes to bedroom antics, I've written before about my dislike of blow jobs. One of the big reasons is that it's hardly mutual gratification. Sure, women can derive satisfaction from knowing that they have pleased their partner, but it's still hardly the most pleasant of acts, is it? With a bit of practice, sex can be a thoroughly satisfying affair for both guy & girl.

I'm sure there are still neandertal men out there who haven't taken the time to practice their skills. They can't be bothered to satisfy their partner, because frankly, they're getting what they want. Again, it's down to choice: why did you pick such a selfish partner who doesn't get you off?

I'm a thoroughly modern man. In touch with my feelings and able to express myself and generally communicate very effectively. I don't really believe in traditional gender roles, and I have strong views about men's responsibility for contraception, household chores and childcare. However, that's not really gotten me anywhere so far.

I guess the battle of the sexes still rages, and the nice guys still finish last. Women believe that equal rights will be their salvation, but they still pick totally chauvinistic pigs as partners. They are still choosing DNA material donors based on animal instincts, despite the argument that women are equal.

Sadly, equality will never be achieved when we are breeding lazy, selfish, ignorant and sexist boys. You picked the man, and I'll show you the boy.

So, it's kind of up to you, ladies. Stop dating d1ckheads. Stop rewarding selfish chauvinists with the sex and easy life that they don't deserve, and then maybe we'll have a better world.

The alternative, which is to date kind and caring soft modern men, but then beat them up and abuse them... that's not really working.

As a metrosexual man, life was very hard at school. It's not that I wasn't fancied at school, but it would have been popularity suicide for a girl to date an outcast. The occasional tryst with a girl from another school, was all I had to keep me going through those years of puberty and early teens, along with the occasional secret note that was given to me saying "would you like to date... when we leave school?".

So, I skipped any childhood sweethearts. Getting girlfriends in later life when you're a bit of a late starter is very strange. I was cynical and mature enough not to declare undying love for anybody. I held off using the "L" word until the age of about 26. That's not to say that I didn't have crazy feelings for any girls though. I was just aware that it was probably lust and loneliness conspiring against me.

When things start getting serious, that's when you get seriously screwed. Because I always open my heart, take the chance... I laid myself wide open to be destroyed by a spiteful ex. I've actually managed to come out of it without being horribly twisted. I still insist on wearing my heart on my sleeve and acting with some common decency, and taking some risks.

So, on International Men's Day, I urge guys to remain honest & open, and keep on the trajectory of modernising themselves. I know that many women view men who talk about their feelings as "soft mummies boys" and potentially not good partner material. Well, if you don't like equality then that view is probably correct.

Personally, I'm still dreaming of being a house husband some of the time. I'd like to discuss my feelings openly and without fear of ridicule, with my partner. Partnership is about equality, mutual respect. That's what I want to see on this day, and every day going forward.

That is all.

I got custody of Frankie the cat, but my ex thought she should have it all, even though he was the reason why I kept myself alive when I was starving myself to death (May 2008)

Tags: #divorce #frankie

This is a story about the value of time...

I should have been at work today. Instead, I was trying to entertain and amuse my fellow patients in hospital. We put on our own rendition of There's a Hole in My Bucket. I must stress that this was a team effort. I co-wrote the script, helped make costumes and props and played the part of Liza. Everything is cool when you are part of a team. Everything is better when we stick together.

I might be a drama queen, but you don't have to attend the performance

We even tried to work in some plot lines for Black History Month but this was somewhat of an afterthought. We definitely challenged gender sterotypes though. Homophobes might also be somewhat disbelieving when I say that I'm mostly heterosexual, but I was able to have make-up applied to my face, wear an apron and play the part of a LAY-DEE, OOH!

Yes, this is a satirical critique of today's society (October 2015)

Tags: #NHS #mentalhealth #depression #suicide #LGBT #gender #leadership

This is a story of two different investment strategies...

The guy on the left is Junior Banker, William Marshall. The guy on the right is Senior Analyst/Programmer Banker, Nick Grant. We are both professionals in Global Banking, economists, and philanthropists, who have read law and practice accountancy.

We have followed very different strategies for the banks that we have worked for. William is 'old money' and has practiced the buy and hold strategy of passive investment in the world's biggest companies. Nick is 'new money' and has practiced active investment in startups and disruptive companies.

I would say, that as we are well into the 21st century, and we have seen many cycles of boom and bust, that we have enough economic data to make a bold pronouncement: passive investment has failed.

Having large amounts of capital locked away in pension funds, where the fund managers are old and lazy, is not a good strategy for anything. In the 1980s it lead to asset-stripping of profitable enterprises that had employed a lot of people and were generating wealth. This made the Mayfair Set very rich, but left Britain with huge numbers of people laid off, and factories closed and sold off for the land and asset value. In the 1990s and beyond, it has led to boardroom excesses that frankly disgust me.

Male-domination of the boardroom, and eye-watering salaries, bonusses and golden parachutes that are paid to our company executives. This is a situation that must change immediately.

Both William and I share a common belief that we need to see more women in the professions, and we need to smash the glass ceiling that woman have been held beneath for far too long. Both of us have supported our partners to the fullest possible extent to allow them to be the Wonderwomen that they are.

William's wife is a Rocket Scientist, working on Europe's most important Space Missions. My ex-wife quickly became an amazing software developer, outclassing me in every company that we have ever worked for, including Research Machines and JPMorgan. I supported us delaying starting a family and her retraining to become a Teacher. With incredible speed, she rose through the ranks to become Head of the Chemistry Department at one of the best State-funded Grammar Schools in the United Kingdom. The admiration she has of staff and pupils, and the exam results that she has helped achieve are amazing.

Our boardrooms, our corporate culture, are starved of women, and a non-macho feminism in the thinking of the way that we build businesses. We are not being diverse enough in selecting the best minds in industry. We are still sexist in our thinking and our hiring. Myself and some colleagues had to fight tooth-and-nail to retain one of the most brilliant women that I have ever worked with, on the most important project in the biggest bank in Europe. That's not right.

Law, accountancy, medicine, journalism and IT are all lacking in women, while teaching, childcare, events, hospitality and catering are lacking in men. Meanwhile, strong independent intelligent women are being short-changed in their careers and sidelined into roles that they are totally underused and undervalued in.

Myopic business leaders are also short-changing our young people too. By investing in old dying people, rather than energetic young people, the pyramid of society has been stood on its head. Retirement is not a right, it's a priviledge. You only get to retire if you have left the world a better place than you found it. Sorrry, buster... you don't get to spend your hoarded cash until you fix the environment and create some damn jobs.

It's time to do the right thing.

We do need to respect our elders, but that should be strictly in a non-executive capacity. Should these people receive huge remuneration for such positions? Absolutely not. Only those who have already managed to build enough wealth, and can therefore afford to not have to keep working, are entitled to sit on the boards of companies.

The most enterprising and hard working individuals are implementing and executing large-scale changes to our economy, creating jobs, creating wealth and inspiring the next generation. The value of sitting in a chair and criticising everything is precicely zero.

Tags: #banking #career #gender