What is life? Many people have different answers to this. For some life is a spiritual pursuit- a task for getting closer to one’s inner being or creator. Other people think that life is an event that must be experienced to its very end, having as much fun as they can. Other people think like this, I pay little attention to them for I know what life is. The important question is what is the meaning of life.
Life is a game of musical chairs, with an infinite number of players and an almost infinite number of chairs. Somewhere in the party room of existence the chairs are laid neatly in a row, while the DJ with his flashing light display waits patiently to start the music to which we all must run around to. This is for certain. The area of doubt about life comes when considering how best to play the game and what are the rules. That is the question, how do you win life’s game of musical chairs? There are as many answers as there are combinations of chess moves, and everyone in the world would upon asking give you a slightly different answer, each certain that their method of play is correct and infallible.
A hedonist or egotist would tell you that musical chairs is a simple game, just run, jostle and push your fellow players out of the way. Anything to make sure you are the last man sitting. A religious person would say that it is best to try and win a seat when the music stops and then donate it to somebody more needy and less able bodied, safe in the knowledge that their kindness would win them favour with their God. An even more charitable person would deliberately stall to let someone else have the last remaining chair.
Philosophers and anthropologists wouldn’t play the game at all. They would stand by the buffet table and observe closely what was going on. They would stand with those with low self esteem who wouldn’t see the point of playing the stupid game anyway. The capitalists would not waste their time on running around the chairs for victory. Once they had secured their first seat they would sell it to the player that didn’t get one and use the money to buy their own chair. Communists would change the rules of the game so as to guarantee that everyone gets a seat when the music stops. Socialists would make it easier for the slower and older people to get a chair, and so make the game fairer. And autocrats would simply kill anyone that took the seats before them.
But what about atheists and cynics, how or why would they play the game at all when they have come to the conclusion that when the music stops, the winners and losers are condemned to the same fate anyway? The only prize for the winner is momentary fame and glory.
And what of the old and experienced, that after a life time of playing the game are sure they know how the game works, and know that the sad truth is no matter how long you play the game, how ever many circuits you complete around the awaiting chairs, the music never stops. The DJ just stares at you through his blue tinted sunglasses with his finger over the ‘pause’ button for all eternity. And life is just spent in preparation of what to do if it was to ever stop. And although you may be certain that you would pounce on the nearest chair faster and smoother than anyone else. You never really get to find out.

I was at a party the other day, and I was unfairly deemed to have cheated at a game of musical chairs, I’m just still bitter about it.
Marcus + Kris

...“Fucking bureaucracy” I remember thinking at the time. All it ever does is hinder, it never helps, still at least the problems with the house had been solved, so it looked like I would be able to enjoy my summer after all.
About a week or so later I was driving back to Milton Keynes for a few days rest at home. When I parked up outside the house my mum saw the damage to the front of the car.
“Ouch, that looks nasty” she said.
“Thanks.”
“You know you can’t drive around without a number plate.”
“It’s Ok I stuck it to…” as I looked round at the front of my car I saw that my number plate wasn’t there, it must have fallen off somewhere between High Wycombe and Milton Keynes. I very, very seldom swear in front of my mum.
“Bollocks!” I cried out loud.
“Relax, get a new one tomorrow at Halfords. Do you have all the documents with you?”
“Yeah its all in the glove box.”
So early the next day I drove to Halfords, careful not to cross the path of any police cars. Once there I approached the number plate department. A tall, bearded man in no suit greeted me.
“Hello sir, how can I help.”
“I was wondering if it would be possible to have a number plate made.”
“Certainly sir, do you have any proof of ownership on you?”
“Yes” I said and passed him the thick, grey ring binder stuffed full of documentations (the previous owner of the car was very anal and kept every bit of paperwork to do with it.)
After flicking through it he looked up at me. “I’m sorry, you don’t have the necessary papers here.” He couldn’t be serious, I had about thirty pieces of official documents with my name and the registration of the car on. I looked at him blankly.
“I’m afraid you need your D5 document, once you have it bring it along and I’ll make it all up for you.” And with that he disappeared out the back, leaving me standing in a motor shop ready to scream.

Driving back to High Wycombe with my cardboard makeshift number plate I had all but lost my faith in human intelligence. Filing, litigation and paperwork have all been instigated to prevent human error, but bureaucracy has slowed everything down and made everything worse, now everything is governed by forms, questionnaires and ‘tick here boxes,’ all forms of human intervention is being weeded out. Bureaucracy is the antithesis to common sense; whereas a human can use their judgement to get things done, bureaucrats seem determined to reduce anything and everything to numbers and statistics, to de-humanise the whole process of living. In all aspects of life we have to fill in paperwork that no one ever reads: getting a bank account, applying for a job, getting insurance, buying a car, selling a car, even getting an e-mail address requires an e-form to fill out. Just make sure you don’t pick the same username as someone else.
The tragic thing is that the whole system is flawed. Karl Marx once said that capitalism holds within it the seeds of its own destruction, the same is true of bureaucracy. The whole thing exists to eliminate corruption and forgery, but the more paperwork there is the more open to mistakes and illegality there is; for a piece of paper is much easier to forge than a human is to fool.

As you can imagine, I was feeling pretty disillusioned with everything ‘official’ at this time. So you could probably guess at the panic I felt when, four days before my trip to Ireland I discovered that my passport was out of date. This couldn’t be happening, this couldn’t be happening, but it was, it was written down in bold black letters; my passport expired three whole weeks ago. What was I going to do, it was far too late to get a new one. I made the decision not to tell my dad and Wax as I knew they would over react. Instead I kept my mouth shut and prayed that the airline would have an attack of common sense and let me through.
As we arrived at Luton airport I felt strangely happy that I’d kept my out of date passport secret from my brother as for the whole day he was nervous and tetchy and knowing that my passport wasn’t valid would have sent him into a blind panic.
Queuing up at the check in desk I kept telling myself that the lady at the front probably wouldn’t even notice the passport: no, she would just check to make sure the names matched up and give them back to us. Well of course she didn’t. In fact it was the first thing she noticed when checking our luggage.
“Excuse me sir, your passport is out of date.”
“Is it?” I said feigning surprise rather well I thought. Wax turned to me with a daggers.
“Do you have any other form of identification on you sir?”
“Yeah, I’ve got my drivers license.” I quickly pulled it out of my wallet. She checked it and gave it back to me.
“Thank you sir.” That was it, she let us through. I couldn’t help but smiling as we entered the departure lounge.
“I can’t believe you” my dad said shaking his head. “How long did you know that it was out of date?”
“A few days.”
“I cant believe you.”

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Kris & Marcus

What the hell has happened? I feel like an actor that has had his script changed thirty seconds before a performance; it wasn't meant to go like this. Me, you were supposed to end up with me! You're like someone trying to construct a chest of drawers without consulting the assembly manual: you've gone all wrong, you were meant to be with me so I could make you happy, and I would have done too, I must have done, otherwise everything else between us doesn't make any sense at all. You can't possibly be happy with him, he's not there when you need him, you've told me yourself, and you know for a fact that I am there whenever you need me; which is never as you don't realise that you've got your characters mixed up.
I feel like Wally trapped in the middle of his picture desperately waving trying to get your attention while you think that a Viking wearing a red and white striped jumper is me.
I would have sold my soul for you, and I still would, just say the word and I'll prepare a receipt for the devil.

What is it with you girls? Why would you rather be in a rubbish relationship than be happy? Is it some in built belief that you have to punish yourselves by going out with losers?
'All the world's a stage' how can that be? What kind of play has the good guy ending up sad and lonely while all the other lesser characters find the happiness they desire? It's not a play I'd pay money to watch.

Fucked, that’s what it is, it's all fucked. And even when you admit defeat you can't leave the game because you'll always get well meaning people saying 'you'll find happiness in the end,' really, will I? that's good, but in the meantime I have to be constantly reminded all my waking hours how lonely and pathetic I am.
Just someone to tell me I'm doing ok, it's not too much to ask is it?

If I was to look for a recurring theme in all the bad things that I have ever done and had done to me, I would discover that it has all happened in the same place, in almost exactly the same place in fact. it's quite funny how I never noticed it before. But now I know where this place is I want to be as far away from it as possible, which is of course impossible.

I want off this planet.

It never goes, does it. It just lingers and goes stale until you find someone else to pass it onto. It's like a wave of electrical current, you need someone to make a circuit with otherwise you just become a ball of static energy.
But it never goes, this feeling.