Wanking…Corpses…and Benefits.

Reading the news this morning I learnt that North Korea has put the corpse of their deceased leader Kim Jong-il on public display.

Sources say that he died of a heart attack brought on by the intense stress of having to wear the same clothes every day. And although his body is still a macabre sight, it’s not as if he has been chopped up by a speedboat propeller or been involved in a car wreck or something. For all intents and purposes this insane, paranoid, war-mongering, power-mad little fellow could infact be sleeping. Albeit in an open coffin.

It got me thinking though. Imagine if this happened in the UK. Imagine if David Cameron was on a routine state visit \ photo opportunity to some youth-centre in Reading and, while commending some black youths for spending their time street-dancing instead of street-stabbing, he suddenly buckles at the waist, keels over, and dies. Would the same thing happen to him? Would we put his cadaver on display ceremoniously in Westminster Abbey for all of his adoring country-folk to file past, quietly sobbing, and pay their regards? Or would we go Gadaffi on his dead ass and sling him onto a mattress in the freezer section of a supermarket and charge people a pound to come in and have their picture taken next to his decomposing body?

In reality I don’t think anyone would care. There would be no mass-outpouring of grief, no body lying in state, not even a coffin for people to see. There would just be a quiet funeral for his family and friends while Nick Clegg runs naked through the empty rooms of 10 Downing Street wanking himself into oblivion.

No, when it comes to mourning it would seem that the British public would prefer to channel their grief into eccentric celebrities like Jimmy Savile or Jade Goody as opposed to the people who have actually had a direct hand in their wellbeing (or lack of it).

In the UK we complain that we have it bad, that a double-dip recession will kill us all, that our benefits have only risen by 2.5% instead of the expected 5%, that we have to wait too long to use a health service that is free. But things here are not that bad. If we turn our attention outwards to the world then we can see how fortunate and lucky we are to live where we do. In North Korea there are people starving to death, crime, disease, censorship, state-controlled media, intense and unrelenting propaganda, and all this present under Kim Jong-il and happening while he lived a life of complete luxury.

He simply didn’t care about the people in his country, but despite this he is still being hysterically mourned by thousands of grief-stricken North Koreans.

So perhaps what this actually means is that in death, the amount of respect that the citizens will have for their deceased leader is inversely proportional to the amount of respect that the leader has for the country that they rule. If this is the case….and if David Cameron realises that the way to get respect is to treat people badly, then look out, because things in this country could get an awful lot worse.

 And then maybe we really would have something to complain about.

Merry Christmas and a happy new suicide

I love Christmas, I always have. The songs…the excitement of finding the perfect gift for someone…the hours spent wrapping stuff up…office parties…the chill in the air…even the busy town centre all helps to fill me with childlike joy when the festive season approaches. It’s difficult to say why I like it so much…I suppose it just evokes lots of happy childhood memories or something… but it has always been my favourite time of the year.

Except for this year.

This year things are a bit different. I have still been getting excited, listening to ‘Stop The Cavalry’ constantly, carefully trying to co-ordinate the colour of the bows and ribbons with the wrapping paper for maximum festive effect, but looming in the background there has always been the knowledge that all of this excitement will come to a head on Christmas Eve and on Christmas morning I will awake, stumble out of my bed, and fall into a massive chasm of loneliness.

You see, this year is my first Christmas alone.

From the moment I finish work on Friday 23rd right up until I visit my parents on Wednesday 28th I will be Billy no-mates with no friends, family or acquaintances to see or speak to. Normally I would spend a cosy Christmas by the fire with my girlfriend, but I am recently single so I have no girlfriend. The second option would be to spend it with my parents, but this year they are going away on holiday. And as I don’t have any brothers or sisters, any other family, and only a few close friends, it looks like solitude will be my companion this year.

I’m not trying to get sympathy or anything. And I don’t even find myself looking enviously at people with lots of friends and family. But it definitely is a strange situation to be in and, to be honest, a situation I never thought I’d be in. But it’s not all bad. I have been getting a creepy amount of joy from seeing other people’s reaction when they hear that I will be spending Christmas day by myself. They know that in the traditional spirit of Christmas they should probably invite me round for dinner or something, but you can tell that they don’t want to and that they are silently and desperately searching for another solution that doesn’t involve me violating their home. That said, even if someone did invite me to spend Christmas with them and their family… and even if I thought the offer was 100% genuine…I would still have to politely decline as there is no way I would want to intrude on their day. I would just feel too guilty.

The logical part of my brain is telling me that if it was any other time of the year I wouldn’t be bothered, but my “nostalgia and sentimentality gland” is working overtime at the moment and flooding, against my will, my memory with long forgotten images from previous happy Christmases. My parents have been very thoughtful and sent me a package from Amazon which contains a book and what looks like a DVD so I will have something to unwrap on Xmas morning, and I have been planning my Xmas dinner in advance so that I don’t end up with cheese on toast. I will also make an effort to get up and not mope around and go for an early morning walk. This may sound a bit idealistic, but it’s a plan atleast.

Despite all this though, while you may have the joy of waking up in the arms of a loved one on Christmas morning, the excitement of having lots presents to open, the warm familiarity of family around you, a huge festive feast infront of the Queen’s speech at lunch time….there is still one thing that I will have this Christmas that you won’t. And it is the greatest thing of all, my friend.

I have my cat.