What does it mean to be complete?

WARNING: If you’re not interested in extended (and rather self-indulgent) video game metaphors I’d close this page right about now.

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I’ve played a whole lot of video games over the years and I’ve probably only completed a handful of them. And even then I probably just finished the story mode. Never went out and got all the collectables; 100% completion.

I think my story mode has stalled slightly. The writing is cliché at best. Self-absorbed narcissistic and thoroughly unlovable main character develops a crush on a possible love interest but I can only assume I don’t have the correct quest item to resolve that quest-line.

And what on earth is this work side quest? If it didn’t provide in game currency it would be completely pointless. I mean there’s not a whole lot of worth attached to anything I’m involved in at the moment. Perhaps if I’d put more points into strength or intelligence I’d have a different career path because frankly putting all my stats into memory hasn’t worked out like I hoped. I just lie awake at night thinking about all the things I’ve done while simultaneously running through every TV show, film and book I’ve ever read looking for something in them to boost my self-worth.

I understand why I need the friends perk activated but I’m a little concerned I don’t meet all the criteria for it to work on my character. For example I seem to know and be friendly with a whole bunch of other players but when met with a difficult situation or complicated emotion rather than sharing it with a friend and overcoming it together it seems to just get stored in my inventory and accessed at random later.

24 levels in and I’ve barely touched the surface of the game world. Maybe some of the things I’m looking for aren’t in the UK server. Shame the US server has got new moderators. It’s going to be a bugger getting to the EU server soon too I’d better make use of that while I still can.

Fundamentally though I think I need to remind myself this isn’t a single player game it’s a MMORPG and other players are having their own issues with the game; their own bugs to report and their own problems with the clunky levelling system.

One day my story mode will be complete but there’s still a few achievements I’d like to get before I uninstall this game.

– G

I had some Brexit thoughts then typed them

Nigel Farage is a loathsome toad of a man, in my opinion. The good thing about opinions is much like arseholes everyone has one and coincidentally my opinion of Farage is that he’s also an arsehole so not only was that a useful figure of speech it was an illustrative one too. My intention here isn’t to list the ways I think Farage is a terrible human being though lord knows I could; I’ll leave the personal skewering to the satirists and that man down the pub who has something to say about everything and everyone (most of which isn’t particularly nice). My intention is to get my thoughts about the Brexit out there, not that they’ll do any good alone, not that I think I can do any good; whether Britain – though she may be divided – made the right call to leave the European Union is not for me to say, I have to wait until I’m 60 and we probably have another referendum asking if we can come back in (“please Europe, we’re sorry for everything”).

Now in the interests of being open I voted remain and would again despite knowing the result; my gut feeling was better the devil you know and I did not believe the claims being made by the leave campaign. It would seem, with the last few weeks passing by in a daze, that the heads of the leave campaign didn’t believe them either. Boris, did he jump or was he pushed; Farage, quitting now the job is done. The job as I see it has not even begun. Cameron ran away quite sensibly in my opinion, he wanted to remain, the country wanted out, he gets to be principled and dignified by saying he couldn’t be the man to lead us out of Europe as that’s not what he wanted. I don’t care how many pigs the man may or may not have shagged, he managed the political equivalent of flipping the bird while shuffling out of the room doing the helicopter dick. By leaving without flicking the switch on ol’ Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, give it a read if you’ve got a few spare years, he has given the responsibility of whatever shit-show comes next (and it will be a shit-show no matter if we eventually recover) to his successor.

But who will that successor be? Barring an even more farcical turn of events we will still have a Tory government and I believe we still would were a general election called tomorrow, especially with the Labour divide currently attempting to upstage the Tories from stage left. This leaves the Tory leadership as the big question with arguably two main candidates in the frame. Theresa May, the safe pair of hands? The woman to keep us on track? Iron Lady 2: Electric Boogaloo? Well it is certainly possible but she faces the same issue as Cameron having supported remain from the beginning she couldn’t possibly have her heart in it no matter how much she craves the position of leader and PM. This leaves us with Michael Gove which for reasons that should be obvious fills me with mortal dread. Gove managed to pull such a disgusting power play against his supposed friend or at least ally Boris Johnson that Boris chose not to stand for the leadership of the Conservatives as it was assumed he would.

Gove is not human. This isn’t a moral call I’ve made, I’m not calling into question his decision making here though I most certainly could. I simply mean he is an alien attempting to be human; it’s like watching the cockroach from Men in Black in his ‘Eggar’ suit. Honestly watch this gif of him attempting to clap and tell me you want him to lead this country anywhere. He couldn’t lead a horse to water and most certainly couldn’t make him drink. He can’t even drink properly himself the thundering cock-womble. I believed the leave campaign to be flawed but a lot of people didn’t. And those people turned out in droves to vote for a cause, supposedly supported by these prominent figures who have since deserted them. Gove tentatively suggested £100 million extra could be found to fund the NHS by 2020, not the £350m tag flaunted by the leave campaign that an incalculable number will have been swayed by.

To leave has meant leaving the immediate care of this country in the hands of a cold, calculating elite who have replaced the seemingly distant EU representatives that such a huge number of people in this country were vehemently against. It’s not my place to say any of this as I know a lot of what I’ve said will anger people which absolutely isn’t my intention and if you’ve made it this far without frothing at the mouth I’m proud of you because ultimately two diametrically opposed halves of this country are going to have to work at this very hard for the foreseeable future. When Farage stepped down, UKIPs only MP Douglas Carswell stated that the winning candidate for the leadership of UKIP needed to “steer UKIP away from the temptation of becoming an angry, nativist party.” He could very well have been talking about the country as a whole. I hope with every fibre of my being that this multicultural, welcoming and at times beautiful island is not pulled apart by this decision because now more than ever we need to work together.

Babby’s First Blog

Well people I hope you’re sick and tired of reading interesting opinions on the internet because lord knows you’re not gonna get any from reading this blog.

What I can promise you are inaccessible references, angry but usually backed up rants and a near constant sense of existential dread dripping off every keystroke.

I’ll be adding stuff pretty sporadically unless it becomes obvious people are actually reading this in which case I’ll instantly sell out and monetise the ever-loving shit out of this. Man’s gotta eat.