I recently received the most extraordinary press release, ostensibly sent to me because I’m a games journalist, about the dangers of “Text Neck”. Often when you see something like this it’s a joke, a spoof that eventually links to a game. But this one was entirely serious.

This new phenomenon is caused by “frequent texting or looking down at your mobile device for extended periods of time”. And guess who says this? Why, it’s chiropractors. According to these bastions of medical science, “it is on the rise and is quickly becoming a global epidemic.” That’s honestly their quote.

Ignoring the notion that perhaps people’s propensity to read books for the last few thousand years might have generated similar symptoms, these not-doctors inform us that such activity can cause check soreness and headaches, and even arthritis! If left untreated. Of course. And how?

Why, you could use Topical BioMedics’ Topicin Pain Relief and Healing Cream! And what is Topicin, that this press release fails to mention? It’s a homeopathic remedy, and thus a tube of placebo.

On their website, which hilariously has blocked right-clicking, they state:

“Topricin’s patented homeopathic biomedicine technology is proven effective for arthritis and joint injuries, carpal tunnel and other neuropathies, lower back pain and muscle cramps, night leg cramps and restless leg syndrome.”

And what is their proof that their non-medicine containing medicine is effective, for both arthritis and restless leg syndrome? They don’t see fit to share that anywhere on their website. So I’ve contacted them asking for the relevant studies. I’m going to be most impressed to find out how the different creams are differently formulated to deal with specific types of pain in specific regions. Like your feet. Which have their own form of pain, it seems.

The company’s CEO, Lou Paradise, doesn’t appear to have any medical qualifications at all, but rather boasts many years researching his product. Confusingly, he appears to be convinced by both herbal remedies and homeopathy, which one might think directly contradict one another. However, he is a decorated marine who fought in Vietnam, which clearly adds a lot of credence to his claims.

The company’s COO curiously has the same last name as the CEO, and also doesn’t appear to carry any expertise within the medical field. The incredibly named Aurora Paradise focuses on marketing. Then there’s the Executive Vice President, Stephen Duricko, who, er, doesn’t have any medical qualifications, but did once work for an HMO!

And that’s their declared team. But hey, the people from the stock photos above them sure look cheery!

The rest of the press release explains how chiropractor, Richard Young, DC of South Carolina, likes to use Topricin products in his practice. Which is a perfect fit, since chiropractic treatment is bullshit too. But don’t want to resort to medicine? The press release has some handy tips!

-Raise your mobile device so it is aligned with your eyes when you read and text

-Take frequent breaks every 15 minutes and look straight ahead while tucking the chin back towards the neck every few minutes

-Stretch your hands: squeeze a stress ball and stretch your chest by standing up straight with your arms down at your side

For a long and happy texting life.

I was then offered samples of Topricin if I offered my mailing address. Instead I accidentally replied,

“Hi.

What a load of lies and nonsense.

Please remove me from your mailing list immediately.”

You can read the full press release below:

As electronic devices like smartphones, e-readers and tablets become the devices of choice for the tech crowd, add ‘text neck’ to your new digital dictionary.

Text neck results from frequent texting or looking down at your mobile device for extended periods of time and chiropractors say it is on the rise and is quickly becoming a global epidemic.

The repetitive stress injury caused by flexing of the neck for prolonged periods can result in tightness across the shoulder, cause headaches and neck soreness and can even result in permanent arthritic damage if left untreated.

Richard Young, DC, a chiropractor who practices at Young Chiropractic Clinic in Darlington, SC says the common factor in this type of neck condition is inflammation. The area around the muscle, ligament or nerve is inflamed, which means there is fluid in the tissue trying to aid the healing process.

Pain relief products such as Topical BioMedics’ Topricin Pain Relief and Healing Cream can help provide relief from symptoms of text neck.

Topricin Pain Relief and Healing Cream helps to heal the damage that is causing pain – naturally, with no grease or odor. The soothing cream contains eleven natural ingredients that target pain by stimulating the body’s healing process to reduce inflammation, detoxification and improving circulation to the injured area to relieve the symptoms of lower back, neck and shoulder pain.

Dr. Young uses Topricin as his preferred remedy to treat the symptoms of text neck and tells his patients to first apply Topricin to the affected area to reduce swelling in the muscle and ligament tissues.

Topricin is formulated for maximum absorption so Dr. Young’s patients can apply as much Topricin as they need with no fear of overuse or interferences with other medications.

“My patients find that Topricin immediately provides soothing relief from text neck. The product relaxes their muscle spasms, increases their mobility, reduces pain and helps to prevent scar tissue formation,” says Dr. Young. “Patients benefit greatly from the use of Topricin for text neck because it reduces their healing time and eliminates the necessity for a prolonged treatment plan.”

Here are some tips for preventing text neck:

-Raise your mobile device so it is aligned with your eyes when you read and text

-Take frequent breaks every 15 minutes and look straight ahead while tucking the chin back towards the neck every few minutes

-Stretch your hands: squeeze a stress ball and stretch your chest by standing up straight with your arms down at your side

Topricin is available in a convenient, on-the-go 2-ounce size ($16.95) and is just the right size to store in a purse, briefcase, backpack, first aid kit, glove compartment or sports bag. The product is also available in two larger sizes: 4-ounce jar ($24.95) and 8-ounce bottle ($39.95).

Topricin is available in pharmacies, natural food stores, and other fine retailers nationwide, including Whole Foods, Vitamin Shoppe, Vitamin World, Fred Meyer, Wegmans, and other retail stores throughout the U.S., as well as direct from the Topical BioMedics’ online store.

To learn more about Topricin, go to http://www/topricin.com

I’d be happy to provide you with samples of Topricin for your consideration. Please send me your mailing address and we’ll get the samples right out to you.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions at XXXXXXXXXX.

Many thanks in advance for your consideration.

I’ve been bleating away on Twitter all day, probably to the horror of anyone who doesn’t follow me via RPS or Rum Doings, and making my opinions on SOPA and PIPA well known. Rather than repeating the definitions of these Acts, and why they’re the most dangerous infringements of free speech and a free internet imaginable, you can learn all that from here.

But there’s something I want to comment on specifically, and it doesn’t fit in a tweet. I’ve tried. Lots of times.

This line from Kotaku’s missive on why they haven’t blacked out their site as part of today’s international protest sums part of it up for me:

“It’s no wonder that an outfit like the League of Legends creators at Riot Games read that and worry that a livestream of a great LoL match could be found in violation of SOPA the moment someone starts singing the lyrics of a copyrighted song on it. Is that really the kind of stifling of the Internet the writers of SOPA and PIPA are seeking?”

Yes! Yes it is. That is precisely the internet they’re seeking. It seems so outlandish that so many news outlets are phrasing it as if it’s a reductio ad absurdum, throwing their hands up and saying, “This bill’s so crazy it would lead to these wacky outcomes!” as if such a result is a parody of the poorly written nature of the bill.

This is to so frighteningly miss the point as to be all but helping those crafting such bills. By reducing the very intent of terrified industries – they who built their empires around plastic squares and discs that have since been rendered pointless – to a perceived exaggeration, something apparently so laughable as to parody the bills’ intentions, is to ignore the reality of what we are facing.

The terrified industries, built up around an illusion of digital ideas having physical forms, are desperate. Like a dying wild animal, trapped in a corner, they are lashing out with their last strength, and they will do anything, go to any extent, to survive. But it doesn’t matter how many children and grandmothers they sue, how many bands and singers they bankrupt and ring out to dry, how big their lies, nor how outrageous their political influence, the reaction is always the same: “They’ll be banning us from singing in the shower next!”

Yes. They will. They are so desperate for control in a world that is increasingly recognising their irrelevance that they are attempting to shut down and dominate everything they can. To believe that the RIAA, BPI, etc would not charge you for humming as you drive if they could is to idiotically misunderstand the sheer bat-shit lunatic desperation we’re dealing with here. Yes, ha ha, what a silly notion. But to think it any more silly than their attempts to sue the creators of the first mp3 players, or huge efforts to ban the home VCR, is to woefully miss the point. These are the same people who bullied the world into accepting ridiculous crippling region codes on DVDs, and are able to force manufacturers to not allow customers to skip their nonsensical threatening messages at the beginning of every legally purchased film. They are the people asking us to spy on our fellow cinema goers, and turn them in if we see them filming. They are the reason your HDMI cable is capable of stopping you from watching content they decide they don’t want shown.

We’re dealing with archaic industries that were built around the impossibility of that which is now possible. Their time is up, and they know it. But they are so massive, so enormously powerful, that they are going to do everything imaginable to defend their fortunes. And that’s why we have SOPA and PIPA. They know it won’t beat piracy, because it’s immediately obvious to anyone with half a clue that it cannot. But it will give them power over the internet, that all history shows they will abuse to the most ludicrous degree. It will give them terrible control of our internet, which is presently the thing that terrifies them more than anything else: free.

The most insane thing is, they don’t quite know what for. They just know that it’s the means by which their business models are rendered pointless, and they know they currently can’t control it. They’re scared, so they’re doing something. And if you think that’s hyperbole, or plain paranoia, take the example of DRM.

DRM doesn’t work. There’s no argument about that at all. It is code that prevents a game from working properly, but only for those who bought a legitimate copy. Those who have pirated it will have the DRM disabled, and never encounter it. So it’s software that makes games awkward for customers to enjoy. That’s entirely what it does. But it’s on almost every game, from almost every publisher. And what do they do when it is shown not to do anything? They make it even worse for legitimate customers, while of course not affecting pirates in any meaningful way. This is how we end up with Ubisoft’s idiotic “always on” DRM, where legitimate customers must have a permanent internet connection constantly sending signals back and forth to and from Ubisoft, or the game switches itself off. Pirates don’t have to have the internet on to play, and their copies work just fine. People who bought the game have a version so crippled that it’s barely functional. Why is that? What’s the logic behind it? There isn’t one. There can’t be one. It’s so obviously ridiculous that no one even tries to defend it. Instead they scream about unevidenced, and usually entirely fictional, revenues lost to pirates, which is a confusing response to the question, “Why are you doing this when it doesn’t stop piracy?” They’re doing something because they’re scared.

SOPA and PIPA are something because they’re scared. And it’s a really big something. One of the biggest, stupidest somethings ever seen. This is a something so big that people are looking at the Digital Millennium Copyright Act fondly – one of the most heinous corporate-bought acts of all time, and suddenly we’re feeling nostalgic for it, because it at least offered safe harbour as it robbed the planet of its basic rights. From pure fear, and unimaginable amounts of money, SOPA and PIPA have been drafted and put forward by the entertainment industry, because they think it will at least give them a sense of control, a greased pole to grab onto as they continue their tumble into the pit. Whatever they don’t like, whatever alternate business models that might spring up to rival them via it, whatever the next massive surge of sharing is born of, they’ll be able to have it stopped at their demand. Yes, as they crush all innovation, they’ll also crush their own potential future models of income. But don’t forget these are the same bodies that fought with all their might to have the VCR banned – one of their biggest sources of revenue, then and in its many incarnations since.

So Kotaku, and just about everyone else, those outlandish wild fantasy directions you can see the wording of these acts leading toward? They’re not proof that the acts are poorly worded – they’re what the acts are intended to allow. And as you parody this, you make it easier and easier for people to ignore it, and those industry dreams to become our reality.

This is why I have stared in horror and disappointment today, as site after site who had been issuing editorials and declaring their disgust, failed to do something so simple as go dark for one day. “But we’re news outlets, we report the news, not take part in protests,” they all answered, as if their not being able to report the news for one day wasn’t exactly the point. As if failing to serve their readers wasn’t the very purpose of the protest, not a reason to scab their way out of it. The idea was to piss people off, let readers down, fail to be there in a useful form, because that is the future of every one of them if these acts get in. They literally won’t be able to run as they do. They would be gone, and today was supposed to be about showing people what that would look like. But rather than risk the ad revenue, lose readers, or whatever other motivation kept them online, they chose to not be part of the news, but report the news, somewhat missing the irony that it’s their own future they were supposed to be fighting for. They stayed up, and they said, “Aren’t these acts silly! They’d let…” exactly what is going to happen, happen.

It couldn’t be more timely. Two days after I kicked off a bit of a debate about whether it’s appropriate for writers to work for free for professional publications (no, it’s not), Imagine Publishing’s website NowGamer has launched a “competition” to find someone who’ll write for their site, on a regular basis, for no money.

Dressed up as an act of altruistic generosity, the site suggests that this will be an amazing opportunity for a writer to receive exposure on their site. What they don’t point out is how it’s a great way for the site to add regular content without paying for it. Content that will generate them ad revenue, and go toward paying the salaries of their staff. Servants get paid. This is a position below servant.

The title reads:

“Love games? Got a voice? Then you need a blog on NowGamer!”

No you don’t. You really don’t need a blog on a site that is looking to take advantage of someone’s desire for exposure at the expense of their dignity. This refrain that it’s “good for your CV” is such a wretched thing to be said. SO IS A PAID JOB.

There’s no need for me to repeat all the reasons why writing for free is wrong, both for you, and for everyone else in the industry – they’re in the post below.

It’s shocking to me to see a publication being so brazen about what I can only see as exploitation. Perhaps they’ve convinced themselves that they’re doing good in giving someone “exposure”, and have so far avoided thinking about how they would never allow themselves to receive the same treatment.

And what they call a “blog” is in fact filed on the site as a “column”. The column is generally the best paid part of any site, since it’s something given to a specific writer that the site or magazine specifically wants to be writing regularly for them. It’s not a feature any staff writer can fill. It’s something peculiar to that writer, with their name at the top, and thus generally they are paid for at a premium. The cheek of wanting someone to fill such a role for them, without paying, is astonishing.

They sell this by saying,

“Having a published blog is a great way of getting a start in videogames journalism, or you may just have a lot to say about games and want a platform for your opinion. Either way, you’ll be writing alongside some of the industry’s best games journalists.”

Yes, and they’ll be being paid. You won’t. What form of “alongside” is that, exactly?

As the excellent Steve Hogarty pointed out on Twitter, if you want a blog you can get one. You don’t need it to be generating money to pay these guys’ wages.

Imagine – this is shameful. Please stop this immediately. If you cannot afford to pay for a new columnist on your site, I suggest not advertising for one. Especially in a way designed to trick young writers into devaluing their (and thus everyone else’s) words and work to zero.

Edit: Astonishingly, one of the NowGamer writers explains that doing this is “not work”, because it’s a blog. That’s why it’s free. Good grief.

A lot of people have responded to the list below by disputing the not working for free clause. I wanted to expand on it a little.

First of all, it’s important to note I wrote “for professionals”. i.e. sites that make money. That’s the crucial point. Writing for sites that don’t make money for free is a good idea. Amateur sites, whether they have ambition to become professional or not, are a great place for writers to cut their teeth. They’re a thing that didn’t exist when I was starting out. In fact, my career began in the gap between the popularity of zines, and the existence of gaming websites. So it’s something I know isn’t necessary for success, but certainly very helpful.

Writing for such sites is a good way to practice your craft, learn the skills of writing, and get noticed. Exposing that work in public is great too, because you’ll get used to feedback. It’s something you can refer to when contacting editors, and it’s also something editors may well be reading themselves.

But it doesn’t need to be an established site. Your own blog is a great place to be writing. The important thing is that you’re writing, getting better, and building up a stock of links you can send to editors. When you email an editor to suggest they give you work, you pick out two or three of your best pieces and you put those links in there. It’s an instant way to prove yourself.

So, to be incredibly clear: there is nothing wrong with writing for free for non-profit making sites. (So long as that site is not making profit for everyone involved.)

BUT, there IS something incredibly wrong with writing for free for sites that do make money. For the reasons I gave in the tips list. And it doesn’t matter how many people tell me it was how they got started, I still absolutely believe it to be wrong.

Certainly people will get started that way – some people get past the exploitation stage. But it is being exploited, and if you’re just starting out, I don’t want that to happen to you. And it’s for the two reasons I gave:

1) You devalue your words. Those words are going to be used to make money for that site/mag, and you’re not getting any of it. That’s deeply insulting to you, and establishes your effort as worthless. Just as soon as you’re in a position to expect money for your efforts, why wouldn’t they ditch you and move on to the next sucker?

2) You’re encouraging a culture that allows this exploitation to take place. You’re as much a part of it as the unscrupulous editors who line their pockets with your work. When you work for free, you ensure the expectation that others must work for free. And further, you devalue the work of everyone else too. If your words are worth nothing, then my words are worth nothing.

Freelancers have a crappy time of it. I received an email last night from someone who hasn’t been paid by any of the outlets he works for for three months, and doesn’t know what to do. It’s normal in this industry for sites and mags to delay payment to freelancers by as much as they can (usually a minimum of two months), and even then they’ll “forget” to pay you, and not be in any hurry to remember. Accounts Payable will say the editor hasn’t clicked the right button, the editor will say Accounts Payable haven’t processed the payment, and neither will be bothered to rush to fix it until you make a real pain of yourself. Future were hideous at this, with barely a month going by where I didn’t have to send repeated emails and make phone calls to get paid properly. Freelancers tend to notice interesting patterns, like how payments for big articles strangely don’t turn up the wrong side of a financial year. These companies literally don’t care, because as a freelancer you’ve barely any rights. If you have a contract, the chances are it will be a list of ways they can screw you, rather than protect you. And most don’t have a contract at all. If you make a fuss, they don’t need to fire you, pay you severance pay, or risk an employment tribunal. They just don’t call you up to offer work the next day/month. And they know you know that, and they know you’re terrified that if you make too much fuss you’re screwed.

That’s the position people getting paid to work are in. So going into that mire and accepting working for free is endorsing every one of those scummy practices, and encouraging publications to continue not paying people to fill their pages, and their wallets. It’s an insult to you, and it’s an insult to me. And I don’t care how much it helps someone fill a portfolio, it’s the wrong way to fill it. So, like I said,

3) Never work for free for professionals. This is a no compromise position. When you’re starting out, that’s when you must insist on being paid, or walk away. Sure, it may open doors, but they’re doors leading to unscrupulous scumbags who prey on the enthusiastic and the poor. And worse, and this is incredibly serious, not only are you cheapening – even devaluing – your own work, but you’re doing the same for anyone else in the industry. If you work, for free, you make words worth nothing, and that’s a disservice to everyone else.

The behaviour of so many who have rioted has been shocking and appalling, and the stories coming out about some of the abysmal crimes committed have been horrendous. But something else that has upset me hugely throughout our week of English riots has been the use of the word “scum”.

Of course it upsets and offends me to see the looting, arson and brutality, and I’m weary with the tedium of those who cannot distinguish between asking questions and whatever it is people think counts as “justifying”. But one of the most concerning things to have come out of these events – to my eyes – has been the language used to describe the perpetrators.

“Scum” is such a vile word. It’s a word with a clear purpose: to dehumanise.

I, like everyone else alive, do not know the motivations and backgrounds of each and every one of the thousands who rioted. It seems likely to me that some did it because they are criminals, others because they are disenfranchised and had no structure that told them not to. Some because the saw opportunity that had never presented itself before, others because they were angry, others still because they’re cruel, selfish people who do not care about the consequences of their actions. There will be some whose backgrounds are so appalling that the veneer of society has never meant anything to them at any point. Others who fancied a widescreen TV and thought it was a chance to get away with it. And every single person who took part, for whatever reason, with whatever motivation, with whatever amount of deliberate malice or idiotic inertia, is a person with a story, a life, a set of experiences that took them to the day they rioted. And the moment they’re called “scum” is the moment they are discarded and dehumanised.

The use of the word scum is usually reserved for the lazy of thinking who like to write off sections of society for whom they have no tolerance. “Dole scum”, “foreign scum”, and so on. It’s a way of separating yourself from them. I am a human, they are scum.

To see this habit spreading across all sections, all political parties, all types, is devastating. It’s a label delivered out of fear, out of anger, and I suspect mostly, out of a desire to uncomplicate things. That lot, that group, that collection, they are scum. There, done. Easily sorted.

And yet still I just know that people will interpret my description above as being and attempt to “justify their actions”. I do not know what happened that we as a society got to the point where the simple act of not dehumanising someone becomes so suspicious, a matter of conspiratorial allegiance and acceptance of all actions, but it frightens me. It frightens me most because it’s exactly this separation, this “us and them”, this “humans and scum”, that exacerbates the social establishment that makes rioting acceptable in a minority’s mind.

I in no way think anyone’s act of looting, arson, brutality or spreading of fear is justified. It is unacceptable. These actions should be condemned. There is no ambiguity here.

But I do not believe that these people are to be written off, to be lumped into one amorphous blob of “scum”, and labelled as casteless. I believe that every one of them has potential, can be reformed, snapped out of it, educated, or offered opportunities never before available. Because I believe these things are true of every human being alive.

Without doubt someone’s background does not excuse their actions. Because of course there are hundreds of thousands living in poverty in the UK. (And yes, often it is not a comparable poverty with the worst famines in other nations. But having your leg chopped off by an axe isn’t as bad as having your head severed, yet I still wouldn’t opt to lose my leg. But sometimes, and we don’t like to think about this, it’s poverty that’s damned close.) Hundreds of thousands who don’t drop everything and riot at the first opportunity. As indeed most people don’t fiddle their taxes, lie about their expenses, steal cars, or rape, murder and abuse. Circumstance doesn’t justify actions like those seen in the last few nights. But circumstances do shape people, and some people are shaped differently by them than others. Why? The reasons are multifactorial, elaborately complex and not solved by anyone’s newspaper column or blog post. But those reasons are the reason why the response to such actions, once (or ideally before and during) whatever punishment deemed necessary by society has been given, is to listen to these people. To hear their stories.

Oh, what hand-wringing wishy-washy liberal nonsense. Listen to them?! But they’re scum! What an exceptionally easy position to take. Discard and disregard them, cross them off the human list, because they’re “just scum” and that’s just the way it is. Doesn’t that make things more simple?

And it allows the pattern to repeat.

As a youth worker I’ve been keenly aware of how teenagers, from all walks of life, are so quickly categorised and dismissed. Having worked with those who are so disenfranchised, so detached from any concept of what society is, that they simply cannot understand why they would follow the rules of this thing they don’t take part in, it’s abundantly obvious that each person’s story explains this. Teenagers who aren’t allowed in any schools because their behaviour is impossible to control, but who are too young to work, and thus escape anything we know what to do with – they weren’t born with that in their genes. Of those I’ve worked with, if they have fathers they’re either in prison or they’re physically abusing them. They’re generally “raising” their younger siblings, because if there’s a mother she’s at work or drunk. Their role models, their friends and their adult peers set them the only example they receive as they grow up, and as such they repeat what is learned. They get their drugs from their parents, or often deal them for their parents (children under around 12 can’t be charged with possession, so make useful drug runners). They steal because that is how you get stuff that you want. An understanding of the consequences of that action isn’t within their imagination. It’s rationalised away without troubling their consciousness, let alone consciences.

And these teenagers I’m describing, real people I knew, lived in Bath. Tea shops and cream cakes Bath. Hidden in the estates the locals don’t know the way to, or at least know the routes to avoid, of course. But in the rich, Georgian majesty of Bath.

They are not “scum”. They’re teenagers whose story tells you how they got to where they are. Stories to which no one wants to listen, because it complicates things. You might, God forbid, start to understand.

No, not every rioter came from such a background. Some were educated university students. Others were amoral opportunists. Others still were adult criminals. Many were gang members, taught broken understandings of machismo and respect. Others were lazy, cruel or stupid. And every single one of them is a human with a narrative that weaves back to when they were a baby with the same potential as you.

Yes, be angry. Yes, be horrified. Yes, be ashamed of how our society contains this. Yes, their actions are terrible, unjustified, and almost always to be condemned. But do not so lazily and ignorantly call them “scum”.

Something I’ve always wanted to do is fly in one of those research planes that go through thunderstorms with the deliberate intent of being struck. As I’ve mentioned so very often, I adore thunder, and the idea of being so close to it seems thrilling.

Well, as it turns out it’s just terrifying. Especially when you’re not in a research plane, but a small commercial vessel that’s circling above Brussels for an hour, insanely flying through the storm again and again and again. It’s hard to understand what was happening, especially since the pilot adopted that airline code of not explaining what was going on for enormous stretches of time, while we all stared at each other, not sure how much longer we had to live.

Things kicked as we approached Brussels to land, and the rollercoaster began. About twenty minutes earlier the flight attendant (the, as this was a very small plane) had warned us there was a chance of turbulence, but not said when. The plane lowered, we began our approach (wheels still up), and then dropped, my stomach left at our previous altitude. Now, I love it when that happens in planes, because I’m an idiot. It’s the ultimate ride, that sensation you get from a good coaster but without the tedium of seeing where it ends. I know that it’s just hitting an air pocket, and I know it’s fine, and I enjoy the adrenaline rush. I turned to the guy sat next to me and said, “That was a good one!”

But then it got a bit worse. And I saw the airport pass beneath us, as we continued on.

Eventually the pilot thought to speak. In his garbled, uninterested voice he explained that there was a thunderstorm, so we weren’t going to be able to land until it passed over. It would be a few minutes.

He next spoke to us 45 minutes later. 45 minutes of constant turbulence, terrifying plunges, and utterly mystifying moments when rather than circling the perimeter of the storm, he would suddenly violently steer directly toward it, sending us deep into the purple-black clouds with bolts of lightning cracking either side of us. No, I’ve seen this movie. It doesn’t end well.

Those little plummets are fun, over before you’ve had time to realise why you’re scared. When you’ve got enough time to look around at other people looking around at other people and think, “Oh, this isn’t going to stop, is it?” it’s lasted too long and the fun’s removed. You don’t quite have enough time to spot the fallacy in the thought, but you do have enough time to wonder if this is your last moment alive before that stop you’d forgotten abruptly arrives.

And with no feedback, you’ve simply no idea what’s going on, so your mind is given permission to worry about every imaginable scenario. “He’s not saying anything because he’s crying, hugging his knees in the foetal position on the cockpit floor.” “He’s not saying anything because we don’t have enough fuel to circle any more, and he’s just going to have to land in the storm.” “He’s not saying anything because the airline industry is institutionally contemptuous toward its customers, and it never occurs to them to consider how scared and confused everyone is.”

All you want is, “Hello ladies and gentlemen. Sorry we’re still not on the ground – the storm is still hanging over the airfield, so we’re safest up here for now.” Something that lets you know he’s not disappeared out a window with the only parachute, and assures you that everything is fine and perfectly normal and routine. I don’t care if it isn’t. I don’t care if his instruments are informing him that all the engines are seconds away from exploding. I want to be told everything is fine and perfectly normal and routine. What are we going to do if he’s lying? Puddles of human remains rarely sue.

I’d also like to know his rationale for every so often diverting from his sensible path around the edge of the storm for plunging into the middle of the monstrous cloud we’d all been staring at through the right windows, rattling the plane such that every metal object joins in a choir of clattering madness. Such that when I looked out the window to my left I could see the engine on the wing behind me jiggling around like it wanted to find its own route down. Such that the vast flashes of violet implied that the lightning was striking neither side of us, but directly onto us.

I was pleased that my love of lightning was never overridden. Whenever I saw one of the spectacular jagged bolts ripping through the clouds either side of me my face burst into a smile, occasionally accompanied by admiring gasps. I decided that while I drew a few strange looks from the whiter-faced co-passengers, I was going to maintain this cheery disposition. Early on in our adventure I had taken great solace in seeing the flight attendant nonchalantly filling in some form on a clipboard, a bored look on his face. I didn’t care if he was really writing a note to his loved ones in the hope that it would survive the explosion – his indifference to the events gave me confidence. So I smiled, and let other people see someone smiling.

Of course this eventually dissolved into frustration, as we all started studying the ground in the distance, looking for airport-shaped things, in the hope that this time – this death-dive into the melee – was the one that would take us home, but instead finding that we were apparently just tempting the mighty Thor once more. After something like 45 minutes of not bothering to tell us what was going on, the pilot mumbled something about how we’d be landing in “one five minutes”, which painted confusion on every face I saw, little debates breaking out between those arguing for “15 minutes” and those going for “one lot of five minutes”. I was in the former camp, but his French repeat a couple of minutes later contained “cinq” and not “quinze”, so it seemed the more peculiar choice was right. Fifteen minutes later we landed.

None of this adventure was helped by the knowledge that as soon as I landed my task was to get on a plane. A plane I was now going to miss, unless everything else was equally delayed. So in between considering switching my phone on to call Laura if it got any worse (on the John Scale of danger), wondering if I should leave a note in my iPhone that people could find when picking through the wreckage, and contemplating bursting into the cockpit and demanding answers, I wondered where I would stay in Brussels overnight.

As it turns out things were delayed for my next flight (not that the information boards bothered to display this, just leaving my next flight set for its original time, now in the past, with no further information). The gate was a comic distance away. We had docked at the far end of the A terminal, and my new gate was B92. Signs to Gate B suggested it was a “connection” away, but with no clue as to how far. It turns out they meant “a really long walk away”. I reached the B terminal, pouring with sweat in the humid greenhouse of an airport, double-checked I wanted B92, and looked up to see B1.

Amazingly I reached the gate (located ludicrously in the very bowels of the terminal, down over 890 escalators, past huge long stretches of peculiarly blank corridors – all advertising and commercialism gone by this distant land – all empty, seemingly abandoned years ago; the eventual destination equally empty but for one single lady manning the only open desk) in time. Just in time. And then sat on the plane on the tarmac for a huge length of time with no explanation from anyone, watching other planes taking off directly into the busy storm.

But I lived, which is good.

I’ve been having a lot of fun this week, laughing at the ridiculous behaviour of Harold Camping and his followers as they so fervently predict a Judgement Day for the 21st May 2011. While such end-time predictions come up frequently, this is the first to have really caught the imagination of the internet, leading to all manner of spoof sites, news stories and Twitter attention. The profile of today’s rapture is a lot higher than any of the huge number of others that have been popped in the diary previously. There’s all sorts of excellent ideas around like this, this and this.

Come today – the day it all kicks off according to Mr Camping – I find myself feeling more sadness than anything else. Because for anyone who’s been fooled by this nonsense, tomorrow could be a really crappy day.

There’s no doubt that I feel a sense of glee about checking out Family Radio’s site tomorrow morning, and seeing how they wriggle out of it. But then I remember that there’s actually thousands – perhaps even many more – of people who have been tricked by this, and will have their faiths rocked, if not destroyed, when they don’t get their earthquake. Naive faiths, built up for them by the cruel or the stupid, that focus on the self-centred, narcissistic bastardisation of Christianity that preaches individualism and an eschatology of destruction and death. Whether you believe that the world won’t go tits up today because you believe there is no God in the first place, or because you believe what God said about no one knowing when such changes may occur, I’m going out on a limb and suggesting we can all agree that come tomorrow a lot of these people are going to be shattered.

Is it a good thing? It’s a good thing if there’s someone there to look after them, and the thickly stupid nature of their thinking is broken. They can have a chance to shed such unhelpful thoughts. But the chances are they’ll be left with the same people who conned them in the first place. So it’s a pretty sad thing.

Either way, tomorrow’s going to be interesting. Harold Camping, Family Radio, and eBible Fellowship, aren’t exactly hedging their bets. From their website’s FAQ:

What if May 21 ends and nothing occurs?

The Biblical evidence is too overwhelming and specific to be wrong. Christ’s people can look with great confidence to this date because God promises His “beloved” He will not come upon them as a thief in the night. God in His mercy has revealed the vital information needed to know the day. Judgment Day on May 21, 2011 will occur because the bible declares it. Anyone whom God has not saved will arrive at that day with no hope for salvation. God warns simply the “door will be shut.”

So that’s nice. A very reasonable question they must be asked a lot somehow manages to crowbar in a way of saying, “If you’re asking this, you’ve no hope.” What a phrase for a Christian to use.

“No hope.”

It’s hard to imagine a phrase that more horrendously misses the entire point. But there you go – there’s no doubt whatsoever.

This “overwhelming and specific” evidence is so hilariously nonsensical that it doesn’t even merit taking apart. It sort of takes itself apart as you attempt to follow it, which you can do here. Ah – so when God say “seven days” about something completely unrelated, what he meant was “seven thousand years”, which is today, if you date it forward from a date he made up about an impossible event that’s described in an allegorical poem. Infallible!

The same bonkers application of random verses from all over the Bible, plucked out of context and then glued together, is behind their conviction that despite Jesus unambiguously telling them the precise opposite, they have special permission to know the date for the end of the world. So don’t you go pointing that out to them either. In fact, brilliantly, they claim it was impossible for anyone to discern the doomsday date before 1988, because – er – he says so.

But of course look a little deeper in their “facts” page and you see the true character of these people emerging. What are their signs of the end of the world arriving?

“Jesus warned of several spiritual signs, such as the complete degradation of the Christian church, the devastating moral breakdown of society, the re-establishment of National Israel in 1948, the emergence of the ‘Gay Pride Movement’, and the complete disregard of the Bible in all of society today as direct evidence of His return.”

Ah, the agenda becomes so clear. It’s them Jews and them gays. If there’s any doubt that their doctrine is routed in anything other than hate, dispel it. It always bewilders me that people who make their living digging through the Bible for verses they can pluck out of context to condemn can miss the bit where Jesus was Jewish, and, er, didn’t hate people. But so it goes.

Of course, lovely Mr Camping took his followers through this all once before. In 1994 his maths infallibly proved to him that armageddon was fast approaching, with all the accompanying fuss. But, well, oops. However, he’s got that covered too!

“In 1992 Mr. Camping wrote a book entitled 1994? In that book Mr. Camping highlighted the abundant evidence pointing to 1994 as a probable year of Christ’s return. Given the abundance of information pointing 1994 and the urgency of time, the book 1994? was written. Mr. Camping felt as a teacher, he must share the Biblical information he had found and warn the world.”

Right?

“Important subsequent biblical information was not yet known, so this book was incomplete. Mr. Camping warned there may be something he overlooked therefore the question mark was prominently placed on the title.”

Oh! Oh well that’s fine then. Clearly the Bible wasn’t finished in 1994.

“Mr. Camping wrote on pages 494 and 495 of the book 1994? he believed 2011 was the most probable year of Christ’s second coming. Given the fact 2011 is the 7000 year anniversary of the flood, but he misunderstood Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 24 verse 22 “except those days should be shortened”.”

He wrote that in his book “1994?” did he? But this time it’s “infallible” so no need to worry about a repeat! Why?

“In the nineteen years since 1994? Was written the biblical evidence for 2011 has greatly solidified. Today there is no longer any question, May 21, 2011 is the day in which Jesus Christ will return.”

To be honest, I’m impressed. To exhibit not a glimmer of humility, to maintain such extraordinary arrogance in the face of having been so wildly wrong, can’t be easy. And to give Camping some credit, he did something few do – his second prediction in ’94 was very likely to be outside of his own lifetime. It does seem to be the habit of these soothsayers to somehow always predict the end of the world to happen in their own time on the planet. You rarely here someone screeching in the street that the four horsemen will come trotting in in 2134. That Camping has lived to see his 2011 prediction is pretty impressive, since he’s now 89. Of course, it might be a result of just pure stubbornness.

So, well, if the world starts falling to bits today, boy will I have egg on my face! Just, if we could avoid having any coincidental earthquakes today God, that would be mighty helpful. Thanks.

They’re wrong, by the way. There is hope.

Goodness me, I get back from a peculiar day of splendid time with friends, and the miserable destruction of my car, to find that the internet (well, Twitter) is alight with anger and confusion about Rob Bell. Because he said… well, nothing whatsoever.

Rob Bell is the leader of Mars Hill church in Grand Rapids, Michigan – an enormous church that is often described as being part of the “emerging church” movement, although never uses that description of itself. He has become an enormously popular figure in the modern church, recognised both for his fervent evangelical approach to the Bible combined with a consciousness of the real world and living in reality. His book Velvet Elvis was a phenomenon amongst Christians, breathing exciting ideas and stirring up entertaining controversy. Despite its awful name, it’s a superb book. His NOOMA video series made his name even more widely known. A strangely modest man, he has yet to visibly demonstrate any of the diva attitudes of so-called Christian celebrities, and he has this odd tendency not to to demand everybody’s money for a yacht-based ministry. Seeing him speak last year on his Drop Likes Stars tour, it was odd that it took place in a medium-sized church building, rather than a large theatre or perhaps even arena. Afterward he sat at a small table, saying hello to those who wanted to chat, like a stand-up comic at the end of a gig.

And with all this popularity came the obvious backlashes. Any of his ideas that are either complex, confusing, or perhaps just simply wrong, are hailed as the proof that he’s a false prophet, the devil in disguise. He upsets two sides of the church: the traditionalists who worship their religion rather than their God, and the megachurch-leading televangelists, who fear his popularity combined with his lack of money-grabbing. People are hunting for reasons to shoot him down, to deflate his rise.

What’s so strange about this is the notion that it’s unacceptable for Bell to get something wrong. As if his saying one idea out of place, or musing on one notion, is the evidence needed to demonstrate that he’s leading the blind sheep into the wolves’ cave. As if changing one’s mind is a sign of devilry, rather than a beautiful moment of modest revelation. Meanwhile we don’t hear a peep from these detractors about the latest uber-church leader who was caught with his pants around his ankles, or his hands in the offering basket. It’s tempting to say, when he’s upsetting those people, he’s doing something right.

Getting home to find that he’s trending on Twitter, that people are expressing their horror at his fall, that the bottom has fallen out of the Bell stocks, I was very concerned to find out what he’d done. Someone whose teaching has changed my mind on so many occasions, and challenged me in so many interesting ways – I didn’t want to learn that he’s been caught in some terrible act, or announced that he’s a big fan of devil worship. So what was it that he’s done?

It all points toward this article. A website called The Gospel Coalition has posted a strangely tabloid headline,

“Rob Bell: Universalist?”

as if they are discussing the possibility. But it’s no such thing, the question mark is entirely erroneous. The article goes on to state that Bell is unequivocally a universalist, and they’ve got proof. It’s the blurb from his forthcoming book, “Love Wins: Heaven, Hell, And The Fate Of Every Person Who Ever Lived.”

Fans flock to his Facebook page, his NOOMA videos have been viewed by millions, and his Sunday sermons are attended by 10,000 parishioners—with a downloadable podcast reaching 50,000 more. An electrifying, unconventional pastor whom Time magazine calls “a singular rock star in the church world,” Rob Bell is the most vibrant, central religious leader of the millennial generation. Now, in Love Wins: Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, Bell addresses one of the most controversial issues of faith—the afterlife—arguing that a loving God would never sentence human souls to eternal suffering. With searing insight, Bell puts hell on trial, and his message is decidedly optimistic—eternal life doesn’t start when we die; it starts right now. And ultimately, Love Wins.

It’s certainly tacky publisher writing – boasting about his Facebook page is a little grotesque. But that’s not the point of contention here. Instead it’s one suggesting that a loving God would not send people to hell for all eternity.

It’s not exactly the most contentious point. It’s something most teenage Christians have said, or debated, or struggled with, let alone internationally famous church leaders.

What’s so strange is somehow taking this unattributed statement and leaping to universalism.

Further “proof” comes in the form of a video promoting the book. This one:

Which asks the same questions, except for with pretty pictures. Again, this is enough proof for a planetful of Christians to abandon him as a heathen, declaring their disgust to the internet. Of course this includes the frothing Christian right, as they leap with delight on a reason to condemn this seemingly hateless man to the hell they so want to see everyone else suffering in. But it’s also the Christian left reacting so strongly, dumping their spokesperson instantly, because he dared to, um, do what exactly?

Bell doesn’t say anything about what he believes hell to be in the video. He makes no statement at any point that he believes everyone will go to heaven. He doesn’t make any absolute statements at all. So what on Earth is going on?

Because there’s a completely different understanding of everything Bell says in that video, and all that is implied in the book blurb, and it’s an interpretation that is far more Biblical than any of the fire-and-brimstone theology that seemingly most Christians in the world have invented for themselves.

I’ve not read anything of Bell’s book, and nor indeed has anyone else who’s commenting on this matter. Because it has not been published yet. I have no idea what it may say. It may well say that Jesus was an orange for all I know. But I’m more interested in basing my thoughts on what he has said, rather than what a website has decided he might have said.

I’m not interested in having the debate over heaven and hell on my blog. It’s always about people’s fear, anger or disgust, rather than a discussion of the possible theology, and so I’m not going to over-incite it by getting into too much detail about what I believe is another possibility for what Bell might be arguing. But briefly, on the extremely few occasions the Bible talks about hell, it tends to use words like “use up”, “destroy”, and so on. Not exactly words that imply eternal torture. And these references tend to be in a particular context, that’s eagerly ignored by the torture fans. An incinerator near the city, where the fire burned eternally, but that which entered it was gone. Not a nice image, certainly. But a figurative one, seemingly one describing the notion that individuals would die forever while eternity continued beyond them. Those who choose to be with God are, those who choose not will die. It’s not a conclusive argument – the Bible seemingly contradicts itself quite heavily with regards to hell. It’s a matter for continued debate, discussion, and thinking. I imagine it’s a debate Bell intends to fuel with his new book.

My point is, that’s an equally valid understanding of the words Bell uses in that video, and the description about the book. It’s one that many won’t like, some because they seem to gain some sadistic pleasure from the notion that those not as great as them will receive an eternal punishment (I suspect those who enjoy the thought so much have never given much consideration to what eternity is), and others because they believe it denies the perfect nature of God (a peculiar perfection that requires he have infinite hate for those who failed to interpret the really bloody obscure clues and massively obfuscated texts he left behind). As Bell seems to imply, neither understanding seems to have room for the God of love that is preached in the next breath. But that’s my take on the subject, and good grief, I don’t want a discussion about it in the comments section on a blog.

Calling him a universalist on the basis of these couple of crumbs is laughable, and watching literally thousands of people tweeting it every few minutes is a sad sight. He may well be a universalist. It seems enormously unlikely given his oeuvre, and statements such as this, which would just about entirely contradict every accusation being thrown. He may well be an eternal-torture denier. It seems slightly more likely. The point would be: maybe wait until the flipping book?

PS. This notion that “eternity begins now” is one of the most important concepts Christians need to grapple with. It changes everything.

PPS.

Today the Daily Mail has a sad story in which the ex-wife of Christian Voice front man, Stephen Green, explains how he mentally and physically abused his family for many years.

Stephen Green came to fame when the BBC announced they would air Stewart Lee’s Jerry Springer: The Opera. Considered by Green to be blasphemous (and by Christians who can think to be satirical), he vociferously campaigned against the broadcast, and then against the stage show itself, and succeeded in bankrupting the previously successful production. But his real victory was a strong media presence, his name being put at the top of most media outlets’ contact books for matters of Christian controversy. Despite it being abundantly clear that he was an extremist, and despite his organisation repeatedly having been demonstrated to be pretty much just Stephen Green in a mobile home, everyone from the BBC to the tabloid press would seek a quote from him if they wanted to spin a story as conflicting with an imagined version of Christian values. He was guaranteed to deliver, saying something printably outrageous. His ludicrous views would be countered by those affected by the story, and in the publication’s mind some manner of editorial balance had been achieved.

But most interesting is the Mail’s relationship with the man. Their latest story describes Green as a “monster”, a “fundamentalist.” The article goes on to note,

“Stephen was immersed in Christian Voice, which allowed him the autonomy and freedom to express his increasingly bizarre views unchallenged. As its founder and director, he was answerable to no one.”

And just who was it who was letting Green’s views go unchallenged?

Well, take for example this article about student stunt marriages that appeared in a newspaper just fifteen days ago:

“The students’ wedding was condemned by Stephen Green, national director of Christian Voice, an organisation that represents Christians.”

The story then goes on to quote Green at length, without editorial comment. And which paper is it who let this extremist monster go unchallenged? That would be the Daily Mail.

Two weeks ago he was a man who “represents Christians”. The same paper that today explains that his views were already becoming extreme and unrepresentative in 1992. But their relationship goes back much further.

On the 31st December 2010, the same paper sought council from Mr Green regarding a berserk take on a government site that helps divorcing couples make it easier to manage their finances.

“‘If you draw up a list of things that are important when weighing up whether or not to get divorced, you wouldn’t start with the financial consequences – you would start with your children.’ Stephen Green, of the pressure group Christian Voice, said: ‘I am worried that schemes like this reinforce the idea that divorce is just a natural progression from marriage.”

Says the divorced father of four, who is alleged to have beaten his children with brooms.

“It suggests that divorce is socially acceptable and that’s worrying because financial calculations don’t take into account the emotional cost to children and parents.”

Roll back to the 11th December, and a brilliant daft headline claims that “Stores airbrush Christ out of Christmas cards“. Stores, doing no such thing, instead don’t stock enough Christian-themed cards to sate the Mail’s fevered love of pictures of the baby Jesus. So to whom do they turn for a balanced comment on the matter? Surely not a man who has been known to be an extremist, fundamentalist for at least eighteen years?

“Stephen Green, of Christian Voice, said: ‘The situation is caused by managers subscribing to political correctness and the idea that in some way Christian cards are offensive to other religions. This is simply not true.’”

On the 26th November 2010 a rather inspired primary school had the idea to stage a wedding between two of their pupils, as part of an English comprehension exercise. This disgusted the Daily Mail, who – with impressive imagination – managed to make it a sexual matter. The story, quite brilliantly, maintains throughout that the children were officially married, which is a bold angle. So thank goodness there was someone on hand to go completely unchallenged with his views on the emotional instability of others.

“Religious groups have also expressed their fury at the idea. Stephen Green, from Christian Voice, said: ‘It seems like a really peculiar idea. There is this question about how the idea of being “married” plays in a five and six-year-old’s mind. Marriage is for grown ups and this is a worrying idea to have this wedding for kids in these days when we seem to have the increasing sexualisation of our children. I’m not sure why a teacher is encouraging children to handle these kind of emotions. You have to start thinking what is going on in that teacher’s mind? This is going far beyond teaching children to read and write. There is some sub-text here, and I would question the emotional state of the teachers concerned.’”

On the 13th of the same month, the delightful Quentin Letts was horrified that Bill Bailey had pointed out that the Pope has done little to address the widespread abuse of children in the Catholic church. Fortunately he could turn to a man whose ex-wife claims is experienced in abusing children for a witty comment.

“Stephen Green of the pressure group Christian Voice said yesterday: ‘I feel an act of Christian witness at Wyndhams coming on. Any excuse for evangelical outreach!’”

Back on the 20th August 2010, a story headlined, Gay vicar, 65, to ‘marry’ Nigerian male model half his age (ignoring the bit where he’s no longer a vicar, but hey-ho), detailed how the former vicar plans to marry his partner, 25 year old Nigerian, Bobby. For such a story, who better for the Mail to approach for a comment than a man who has also disobeyed the strict rules of his fundamentalist religion by divorcing and remarrying, indeed to an African 25 years his junior!

“However, the service will not be a blessing, which is forbidden by the Anglican hierarchy for homosexual couples. But Stephen Green, director of campaign group Christian Voice, yesterday described Mr Coward’s marriage ‘an abomination before God’. Mr Green added: ‘Mr Coward is just an emotionally disturbed man trying to inflict his predilections on the rest of the Church. I fail to recognise him as a Christian because he doesn’t keep the commandments of Lord Jesus.’”

He appears again on the 23rd June, to point out how atheists should all be forced to pray and go to church.

“But Christian Voice director Stephen Green said he was appalled to hear of the ban. He added: ‘This is just another example of Christian traditions and values being eroded.’”

In August 2009 the Mail needed expert comment on a scientific matter, regarding “The monkeys that prove babies can be born to THREE parents… and may be the key to halting genetic illness“. Well, you’d want a man who ran a company putting roofs on houses then.

“Stephen Green, director of pressure group Christian Voice, said he had concerns that scientists were going ‘too far, too fast’ and ‘playing God’… When the child finds out they have two mummies, how will they feel?

Oh, and by the way, January 2009 saw the Mail utterly outraged that the Advertising Standards Agency had prevented a Christian advert from presenting complete lies about the cervical cancer vaccine. The completely unscientific claims from a Christian organisation suggested that the HPV vaccine caused infertility. But not directly! Because teenagers were receiving this measure to prevent one of the most deadly, and yet most easily prevented forms of cancer, they’d rush off to have lots of sex and thus contract STIs that then lead to infertility.

“It is simple common sense to realise that with the HPV vaccine, girls will think they are covered against everything, especially if they are on the pill as well, so promiscuity will rise and there will be even more gonorrhoea and chlamydia cases and even more infertility.”

So which Christian organisation was it the Mail allowed to dominate the story, without seeking any expert opinion to balance or challenge the detailed views? Why, it was Christian Voice!

That’s just the last two years. The paper has been seeking comment from Green on every matter they can think of ever since his prominence in 2005. But today it’s all entirely forgotten.

City Link, the UK parcel delivery company, is abysmal. It’s predictably abysmal. A typical conversation with friends:

“My parcel’s not arrived.”

“City Link?”

“Yeah.”

Everyone knows they’re hideous. Everyone you ask has a City Link horror story. Searching the internet and you’ll find so many tales. Many people I know, including me, have been unambiguously lied to by City Link. “We put a card through your door when there was no response,” they say, when they’ve been nowhere near the house and certainly not put through a card.

And yet so many major companies still use them despite there being so many far better, far more reliable companies offering the same service. Including, terribly, Amazon.

Whenever I see delivery information emails coming through with “City Link” named, I sigh and give up any expectations of a delivery date. When things do arrive on time from them I’m so surprised their drivers get a bit scared. So it was with such a happy heart that I learned my Christmas present from my parents was to be delivered by these bastions of the postal service. Delivery date: 24th December. Just on time for the happy day.

It’s now the 30th, and I’ve received nothing. Those contemptible incompetents have ensured I’ve not had my new video camera for the entire Christmas holiday period. And best of all, when I track the order I see this stunning page:

So either their plans include developing time travel, or they’re intending to deliver it to me in another 359 days.

It seems the package disappeared mysteriously in the early hours of Christmas Eve morning, on its way to the delivery depot. After that, NOTHING MORE WAS HEARD:

Calling them to find out what’s happened to the parcel is even more fun! They have two numbers available. One for General Enquiries, one for Complaints. I picked the latter, and was told by a recorded message that they’re having very heavy volumes of calls, and then hung up on. I tried the former, and was told I’d be placed in a queue, and then hung up on. Presumably when you run a company offering an experience as shoddy as City Link you get a high volume of complaints.

After managing to get through an hour later I learned something interesting. You know those messages that incessantly interrupt hold music, assuring you of the importance of your call? They’re better than nothing at all. It surprises me to realise it. Clearly they need only happen once every two minutes, rather than every thirteen seconds, beginning with a click that sounds like the phone finally being picked up. But they do need to happen at all. After fifteen minutes on hold listening to a piece of music that loops every 34 seconds (I timed it), and within itself loops every three seconds, I wondered if I might be dead. Just hypnotically repeating, never interrupted, never telling you what position you might be in a queue.

But I eventually got through to a despondent sounding man. I asked when I might get the delivery, and he traced it to the depot floor in Bristol, where it’s been sat since the 24th December.

“They’re trying to get it out onto various routes, if they can fit it into a van.”

So when will it arrive?

“I can’t say. We’ve got a massive backlog of parcels.”

But it was due on the 24th. It arrived in Bristol on the 24th. Why didn’t it go out on the 24th?

“We were already backed up by then. We had so many parcels for Christmas.”

You weren’t expecting Christmas?

“We had a huge number of parcels.”

I’m going to buy you a calendar with Christmas circled, so you can expect all the presents next year.

“We were expecting more parcels. But we got so many parcels from Amazon, and they wouldn’t stop sending them to us, even after we told them we couldn’t deliver.”

So when will I get my parcel?

“Well, we came back on the 29th, so…”

You haven’t been delivering until the 29th?!

“It was Bank Holidays.”

But you’re a delivery company! But when will I get my parcel?

“Well, it’s the 31st tomorrow. Then we’re back on the 4th January.”

You’re not delivering until the FOURTH?!

“It’s the weekend, and then a Bank Holiday. But our drivers are working so much overtime. Sometimes they’re here until 8pm.”

So when will I get my parcel? A ballpark figure?

“Maybe on the 5th, but I can’t guarantee that.”

You’re an awful company, obviously. But do you agree that this is especially dire?

“We are very backed up and doing our best to clear it…”

Goodbye.

Enquiries about a refund were fobbed off onto Amazon. The company is a useless mess. Everyone, every business, needs to stop using them. They’re atrocious. And I have no Christmas present.