Oo that's nice!

It's been so long since my last bloody blog post it's a whole new year. 

Firstly before pressing on with the real matters here's a little update as to why.

I blogged about gut feelings way back in April and hey, it turns out my gut was right. So in September things went kinda belly up however, I have learnt a bucket load and I mainly learned the importance of being nice. 

This right here is the main point. Told you it was a little update. 

Nice is a word that often gets scoffed at. Being described as nice or having nice as a personal quality isn't always deemed to be a good thing and is quite frequently said with a sneer of sarcasm and derision. 

In primary school a teacher told my class to try not to use nice as a describing word - that whole year any creative piece of writing sounds like it's written by a little pompous twerp with a ludicrous and grandiose vision on the world. She would have loved that sentence.

Is being nice really a bad thing though? Nice, the place, looks pretty fantastic. Nice biscuits are alright, bit of a marmite biscuit if I'm honest.

To me, being nice is a huge, huge deal. Nice guys finish last is just bollocks. Well, okay, maybe they will finish last but they will finish with a bunch of people urging them on, without a bad word being said about them and will leave this world with a lifetime filled with love and support and happy memories. 

Did I ever mention for a little time I was an agent's assistant? I was, it was pretty damned awesome. 

Anyway, when telling people who they could work with, a writer, for example, we would happily describe all their past achievements - who they'd worked for: 'yes they wrote for them too, small world eh?', yet the added sentence 'and you know what? they're a really lovely, genuine nice guy' often sealed the deal.

People don't want to work with or for assholes. We've all done those summer jobs that aren't great pay and always seem to have the boss from hell. 

People don't want to be friends with nasty people: 'Hey this is my friend, he's a great guitarist, complete dickhead though.'

I'd be thrilled to be described by anyone as a nice person. If that was someone's lasting impression of me then I have done something right in this world. 

It's really easy to not give a damn, comment not compliment, not smile on the bus etc and somedays it's harder than others to find something nice to say about someone and even more so yourself. Give it a try though. It's 2014, still new into the year so why not try and find something nice to say about yourself and then a friend?

Nice might be overused sometimes. It may not be said with much esteem. I like trying being nice, it's a fucking excellent quality to possess and true nice people seem to be becoming fewer and far between.

After all, when have you heard someone say 'let's have a simply superb, wonderfully blended cup of tea?'

Phraseology Pains

Recently, I've noticed a few terms and phrases sneaking into language used by those on my tellybox or wireless and now I've noticed I can't stop.

The incriminating phrases are:

'organic process'
&
'special relationship'

The latter is mainly used to describe our fine country's relationship with the land of the free, our MPs and their senators. Is it not a little creepy? Potentially innuendo filled if said in a certain tone? When did this become the top term for a professional, political relationship between two countries anyway?

It's been battered around even more so lately with the death of Maggie Thatcher and her 'special relationship' with Reagan.

It makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up but that may well be due to the often accompanying sickening picture of two slimy politicians sidling up next to one another with stretched smiles and menace in their eyes (Thatcher's & Reagan's photographs together are particularly sinister in a wax work kind of way, see below)

photo from theweek.com

The phrase 'organic process' seems to rarely be about growing vegetables or something of a similar ilk when I hear it in interviews. The main culprits are musicians so it may go a little something like this:

Interviewer: 'so how did it come about collaborating with Mr. Big Shot Indie-Producer when you're better known for your hardcore grime street lyrics?'

Interviewee: 'well, we just got a phone call and from then on it was  real organic process, from the writing to producing the song'

I'm aware that they're trying to say that it wasn't a forced collaboration between record companies in a bid to make more of money (but I'm sure this frequently happens too), it's been used way too much recently. It's a go-to term for creative types to announce that they are still in touch with their roots and the symbolism of all these words is quite evocative, I must confess.

Yet, it makes me feel a little bit uncomfortable. It sounds somewhat forced and makes me question how organic it was. That is probably the cynic in side me.

When trying to find an apt picture this came up so I'm sticking with it:

photo from a Canadian research paper, sorry guys

There will be more that for unjustified reasons rile me up and perhaps over time I'll admit defeat, accept the convention and state that the special relationship occurred through an organic process...