Although their surrender would not be signed until September 2, it is today that we celebrate Victory Over Japan Day. The Prince of Wales and  David Cameron will join veterans at the Cenotaph in London this afternoon to mark the loss of almost 30,000 UK lives in the Far East.

It’s 2010, and the concept of Victory in todays conflicts is no longer as clear as it was. Today’s wars against Al-Qaeda and the Taleban will not be ended by the signing of a treaty, nor the acceptance of defeat. Todays wars are ideological, rather than territorial. George Bush’s announcement of Victory In Iraq on 2003 was widely ridiculed, with even his administration admitting that the war might not be over “from a legal point of view” Only this month did Barack Obama say he’ll withdraw 90,000  American troops by the end of August and the remaining 50,000  before the end of next year.

I remember thinking that Bush used the word Victory as if the world had remained in 1945. There is no such thing as Victory in war, there is only the sterile completion of objectives, or a forced compromise where adversaries struggle through to the end of negotiations so they can sell their role to their people and claim what they have done is necessary. I understand why, in the course of a war, the term Victory is used in order to build morale, and focus people towards achieving what people believe is right, and true.

But why do we use the word 65 years later, when most of those who fought for that Victory are no longer here? The world rightly celebrated in 1945 and it must have felt fantastic. But V-J Day is no longer a celebration of personal fight, or of the celebration our friend’s and family’s personal sacrifice, loss or toil were finally, after all that time, worth it. In 1945, yes. The war was won through the blood, sweat and tears of the entire country, and its end was a wonderful celebration.

In 2010, no. It is no longer a celebration of military might. It is no longer a celebration of the use of nuclear weapons to bomb an enemy into submission, or the ability to threaten a country’s people with retribution for their continued actions.

V-J day is now a commemoration, and the word Victory is no longer an appropriate way to remember the war. It commemorates the dead, and the sacrifices of those who died for the causes they, and their political masters, believed in. There is a distinct difference between a celebration of Victory over an enemy and the commemoration of our forefathers who lived in a time we hope never to see again. They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old.

The Prime Minister has today said

“We must never forget the sacrifices made and the dedication showed by those who served our country in the Second World War. They fought and suffered around the world in ferocious conditions. They witnessed incomprehensible horrors. They lost their lives – and many were imprisoned. And they did all this for us – to protect the freedoms we all enjoy today. VJ Day, the day the Second World War ended, is a time for this generation to reflect and show its gratitude to our veterans for their bravery, dedication and sacrifice.”

If, seven years after Victory in Iraq seems in bad taste, surely its time to revisit renaming V-J Day. There have been several attempts to do so, all of which have failed. The closest any of us have come is an American resolution in 1990 stating it is not a day to ‘express satisfaction’ at the destruction and death caused by Fat Man and Little Boy.

The Japanese name for the day is apparently usually known  as the “memorial day for the end of the war” but was officially named “the day for mourning of war dead and praying for peace” in 1982. After 65 years, there is no blame – or admittance of blame – in this label. But likewise, after 65 years, there should be no hint of celebration in ours. Yes, we should remember the causes of the war. Yes, we should remember the moral reasons for which it was fought. But remembrance and celebration are two very different things.

As time moves on, we should reflect the fact V-J Day is a time to remember the lessons World War II taught us, as remembrance Day in November does. That’s the point, after all.

There was a girl I used to know when I was growing up who used to be in the top of her class at everything. Smart, witty and everything you’d ever need in a woman. But, my god, did it start to go downhill. I found out that she ended up suffering from a brain tumor. She coped with going temporarily blind, an incestuous relationship, a brief modelling career, and an addiction to drugs, alcohol and spending. Blimey. Puts my rantings at people in the work lifts into perspective…

Lucy Robinson (yes, of Neighbours fame) was played by three different actresses and each one developed the character in a different way. Mainly backwards in some cases, but there’s nothing to say you can’t become a blonde bimbo overnight and change back in time for Newsnight. I’ve certainly known many people do it enough times in Soho on a Saturday night. Sometimes in the middle of the bar. To music.

I’m digressing here.

No matter how close you’ve followed a person, a change of actor – or a change of face – suddenly jars you into rethinking a person’s character. Their relations with other people. The way they look. The way they dress. But soon it becomes almost natural, and you accept them for the person they are – or at least who they’re supposed to be. Lucy’s not the only person to have changed their face without explanation. There have been four Tracey Barlows, two Sam Mitchells, and three Nick Tilsleys (ah, Adam Rickett..). When all of a sudden Pippa walked into Summer Bay as a redhead, cans of Fanta were dropped all over Britain but no one on the beach batted an eyelid.

A few weeks ago, I was driving to a BBQ when someone crashed into the back of my car and drove off. I’ve still no idea who he was – the number plate I wrote down was as helpful to the police as a freeview box is to a Tellytubby. But, given my MOT is up this week I’ve had to get it fixed. There’s been a delay, so I popped into the garage today to pick up the courtesy car.

Billy Smart

Poor Billy. It looked like he’d been debagged by the bullies on the first day of Car School. Bits of what will eventually become ‘New Billy’ were lying all over the floor, having been painted and waiting to dry. I wanted to say something like “But the Emporor’s got no clothes on!”

“Hang on a minute.” said the mechanic. “I’ll go get the courtesy car.” It was an older car, but a slightly better model. Glass roof, bigger engine! (This car could time travel. If you get my drift.) But the odd thing about it was the left hand drive.

I’ve never driven left hand drive before. I felt I should be eating a croissant, or doing something continental. It also took a lot of getting used to – like I was in a dodgy mirror universe star trek episode, but one where the enterprise had a dodgy orange and blue trim.

But it forced me to think differently. To act differently. To see the world in a slightly different way. Yes, one where the kerb was alarmingly too close, but more than that. It was a wonderful drive. It recaptured the fun that I’d taken for granted in my old car. It was if Pippa from Home and Away had not only suddenly come into the Summer Bay Kitchen as a redhead, but had taken you all out to the playground to celebrate.

It was a bit battered, and a bit dirty, but you know sometimes the best things in life are just that.

On Monday, I’ll get Billy the Smart Car back. I won’t be able to see through his roof – but then I won’t be able to see through his body panels either, which has to be a plus. He’ll have a new face, and he’ll look better than he ever has before. But more than that, I’ll be proud of him.

Feckwittery was started 2 years ago (four posts in two years, a success then…) as an attempt to recapture childish joy, and I think I got a bit out of that today. I took an established car, and looked at it from a different angle, a different face, a different character. Driving on the other side of the road made me re-evaluate my relationship with my car, the road, and the joy of driving a Smart Car.

Some recasts work, some don’t. As I finish this I seem to be veering towards the conclusion that I was driving around in a new Lucy Robinson today. But that would sound wrong. And slightly dodgy.

I think the closest I can legally come is saying that I’d gotten used to one character for so long that the change of perspective I was given today, in the recast which took something familiar but injected with a new personality and a new face, made me look at the ordinary in an extra-ordinary way.

I need to do that more often.

“erm…. no….” I replied, trying to look like I was actually researching Brecht, or the unbearable lightness of being. But, to be fair, I’m writing this on a pink laptop in East London whilst watching Gok Wan, who is making fat women in polyester sweat on a treadmill. There’s not a lot of intellectualism going spare at the moment. Especially given the amount of Sweet and Sour Sauce I nearly spilled down my top earlier.

Class, defined.

I take some comfort from the fact I read The Times over someone’s shoulder on the Tube earlier, and am drinking tonight’s wine with my pinkie pointing out in a proper Surrey Boy style.

Looking over someone’s shoulder as they read The Times on the train is something of a rarity these days. The explosion in free newspapers for your daily commute has seen most people reading the same opinions, and the news reflected and commented on in the same way in a way that hasn’t really been seen for a while – or, at least, not in a way that’s been quite so obvious. I was quite surprised the other day when I saw for the first time a pile of Metros sitting on a table in my little village rail station. I sit on the train into London every day and see hundreds of people reading the metro – getting their daily fix of morning news from the same reporters, who will influence how those commuters will see the world for that moment in time. Some will argue with what they read, some will nod in agreement. Most will let what they read wash into their subconscious, registering every second word but letting the tone and the unconscious message of the piece seep quietly into caffeine desperate memory. The advent of free evening newspapers means that editors can influence thinking both on your way to work and on the way home as well.

It’s slightly different for the paid media – you pay your money and choose the newspapers which reflect your political theories and beliefs. I’ve often thought it would make a good formal debate – This House Believes that Newspapers Reflect Public Opinion; or This House Believes that Newspapers Influence Public Opinion. I never know which one would win out over the other.

But with the free papers, most people will read the content just for something to do. A captive audience reading out of habit. Accepting what they read, out of habit.

This has nothing to do with pink laptops, by the way. I thought I would mention that.

When we were kids, we got told what to think every day when we were at school. This is Peter. This is Jane. This is Pat the Dog. (New Word: Pat) I started this blog a few posts ago by stating that I was a geeky sort of kid and it’s true, I was. Instead of playing football when we stopped learning, I let my imagination run wild. I ran around the playground imaging I had a hidden base in the trees, and the leaves were my space ships. My favourite lesson was creative writing where I got to show the teachers that there was more to me than floppy hair (RIP) and a penchant for Parsley Sauce. But whereas today we get our sense of Morality from what we read in the newspapers, and that Morality is different depending on which paper you read, back when I was a kid I got my morals from TV.

Yep, TV – and you know the type I’m on about. Whereas today certain papers will tell you in no uncertain terms some things are WRONG (in capital letters), back in the day, just to excuse the fact you’d just watched half an hour of violence in cartoon form and to prevent you thinking that waving sharp knives above your head was actually a good idea, Orko from He-Man used to pop up with a 30 second moral message.

“Skeletor used a big sword today. He’s EVIL! Look – he’s got no skin on his face!!! So don’t copy him with a knife, kiddywinks – it isn’t going to be pleasant.”

(The fact that He-Man used an exact copy of the same sword is beside the point, but with many of the messages given to us today, there’s always a hint of hypocrisy with these things. )

The advent of Feckwittery has meant me re-evaluating my moral compass. More often than not (and seriously more often than not on the tube) I’ve found myself mentally wanting to push people down the escalators, or pouring scorn on the people who write to me at work. I never used to be like this. I’m never going to be a Daily Mail “Damn Them All” kind of guy, but there gets to a point where I end up thinking about stuff in my mind and then immediately mentally admonishing myself!

I’d never admit to being influenced by the views and opinions of newspapers, but I bet I secretly am. And I’ll still get the free newspapers when I can.

But part of me harks back to the simpler times of simple morals. The Grown Up Orko in my head quietly whispering to me – and me alone – what is right and what is wrong. And me having the courage and the social confidence to make up my own mind and ignore him when I want to.

Because, secretly, this pink laptop is rather cool and no one will convince me otherwise. I secretly admire Gok Wan, even though that last costume thing was hideous, and the sense of freedom and adventure that we had as children has to be kept alive somehow.

There was nothing to do apart from stare at the pasty white old man sitting opposite me and stare into the future.

It got me thinking. Do you think there’s a slippery slope to this Feckwittery lark? Take for example, the last couple of Seasons of Battlestar Galactica. All of a sudden, a switch goes off in your head. BAM – you’re a Cylon. You spend the next few months crying into your jam jar of whiskey. From time to time you’ll try and stick a gun in your mouth but for some unknown reason you’ll miss, and your face will end up looking like a schoolboy’s sadly graised knee. Then, one day, through no fault of your own, you have a sudden urge to shoot your commanding officer twice in the stomach, or throw a woman with PMT out of an airlock.

Actually, I can see definate links here….

But seriously – one day a switch goes off in your head alerting you to the existence of Feckwittery in the world. The man on the train buying a ticket off the guard when you’ve put your book down, ready to wave your gold card camply in the air. The old lady in front of you who gets a re-scan on the lifetime’s supply of Sainsbury’s ‘fast track’ shopping because she tried to subtract a jar of Branston Pickle from her basket.

The next day, if you’re a man, and are fed up drinking whiskey from jam jars, you wake up with a sudden urge to buy beige socks. Women, I expect, have the same kind of thing, but end up rinsing their hair blue. It’s what the cool kids down the bingo hall are doing, you know.

And so I sat on this train coming home and stared into the future. He looked happy enough. I do need more socks – black ones just don’t go with cheap supermarket shorts and white trainers.

And he had more hair than me, so he can’t have been doing that badly.

Today’s Featured Feckwittery

Today’s evidence of Feckwittery in the world:

• “Do you seriously think that, in an office of roughly 2,000 people, a 4 slice Morphy Richards toaster is an appropriate piece of kitchen equipment for your staff restaurant? Do You?????“

I often get Oompa Lumpas mixed up with Munchkins – which is not, to be fair, something I worry about a lot. It’s hardly something which strikes me, lightening style, in the middle of a meeting where I’m more used to interspersing conversation with obscure three letter acronyms. “We need to deliver more DPDs in the LDF but we have to ensure the RSS has gone through the EiP, ensuring it’s compliant with all the PPGs and PPSs, whilst agreeing policies with the RDAs, RAs ensuring they’re properly actioned by the LPAs and the munchkins, sorry, Oompa Lumpas who work for them.”

I digress – but only slightly. The definition of Maguffin seems to have changed over the years in quite a fundamental way. Alfred Hitchcock and Francois Truffaut both originally described it as a plot device in a film – central and common to most plots, but not that important. It was something to drive a story forward, such as a necklace in a heist movie.

There’s a second definition, however. One where your Maguffin is the driving force in your movie, the device everyone wants, and the thing people would kill for.

On Friday, my Maguffin was a pair of chocolate shoes. And I would have mown down a bingo hall of pensioners without mercy for them.

There’s a little known bylaw in Brighton which requires all visitors to the city to gaze in awe at the Temple of Choccywoccydoodah. Normally I’d be quietly asked to close my mouth and exit the store in as dignified manner as possible. But not on Friday, I was on a mission. My colleague Katie was leaving my team. She liked shoes. She liked chocolate. There was only one possible present.

A pair of Stiletto Healed Chocolate Shoes. Perfect.

There were rumours of a shop in London. Well, online rumours. Ok, the website. Somewhere on the Edgeware Road. I hopped on a bus, Google Map clasped in my hand, my Flexitime running out by the second. I passed Marble Arch. I passed electronic shops. I passed food stores which sold things I’d never seen before. I passed shops which displayed cut down products on neon cardboard cut into stars. Chocolate art this was not. Finally, after wandering for some time around the back of half a dozen wheelie bins I found it. It had started to rain. I was happy. Feckwittery had played no part in my day so far. Things were going well.

I was Indiana Jones when he sees the incan idol in Raiders. I was Gordon Ramsey after presenting my ‘simplified menu’. The Shoe was in reach. The Maguffin was mine. But something was wrong.

There was a sign in the window.

My friends, if you had any doubt of the evidence of Feckwittery in the world ten words would confirm it for you. “Choccywoccydoodah will be leaving these premises on June 15th”

That would be last week then.

It was still raining.

I phoned up the number on the small sign in the window.

“Hi, I’m standing outside what used to be your shop in London.”

“Ah, right. Yes, we’re not there any more.”

“No kidding. Your website…”

“Yes, we’re going to get that updated….”

“Riiiiight. It says you’re in Liberty.”

“Selfridges. We’re in Selfridges now.”

“Even your chocolate shoes? I’m in desperate need of chocolate shoes.” This has to be one of the gayest things I have ever said.

“Especially our chocolate shoes. They’ve had a delivery this morning.” Hurrah! I’d clawed my way back from the brink of Feckwittery and hopPed on a bus to Selfridges. I knew when I was there because it was one of those buses which told you. I entered the Food Hall. The smells of cake, sushi and olive oil strangely mixed together in a way you wouldn’t think would work. But this was Selfridges. Everything worked.

And there, on a table, was a mountain of chocolate cake and edible artistry the like I had never seen. It was magic. Or it would have been, had the table not been shoeless. Where were my Oompa Loompas? Where were the Munchkins, who, it is said, even have a reputation for keeping shoes, albeit under crushed houses? I asked the woman by the fairy cakes.

“Shoes, No dear, no shoes. Mind you we’ve had a lot of people asking for them.”

“I wonder why?”

This was it then. My search for my own personal Maguffin had ended in failure. The woman would get gift vouchers from M&S and that was it. She’d be happy. We’d ply her with drink. She’d have to be happy. I’d ply myself with drink. It’d keep me happy at least.

But hey, what was this. In the corner. By the truffles and the Jelly Belly things. The label said it was given out at the premiere of the Sex and The City movie. Perfect. It was red. It was pointy. It was (almost) a work of art. It was a chocolate high heel. And it was mine. For a while at least.

On the way out of the shop, shoe in hand, I noticed the choccywoccy shoes hidden behind a pillar. But they were tiny. Not the proper ones. Not the ones in my head. Not the ones from The Temple in Brighton.

Later that evening I handed over a silver wrapped parcel, whilst sitting on deck of a boat which had been converted into a bar. Not the ideal environment for high heels. But did they work? Was my Quest, which Frodo-like had taken me across London and back?

I think so, yes.

CAMERA OBSCURA

Now, on the right of this blog you’ll see a link to my friend Sean’s blog. He’s a freelance photographer – brilliant chap and I must see more of him. His blog gives tips and tricks on how to take good photos. You can tell I don’t see much of him any more. As you can see from this post I went the whole day without realising my camera was set on ‘cool’ mode. Sorry ’bout that. Must do Better.

TODAY’S FEATURED FECKWITTERY

Apart from all the above, you mean? Today’s evidence of Feckwittery in the world:

• “I don’t care if you go to a posh school, wear nice grey blazers and have an ‘Annual Service’ at Westminster Abbey. Get out of my way. You don’t own the pavement. And I am not a tourist!”

Not quite the opening line I thought would constitute the first words to my first real attempt at a blog, but there you go. It’s hardly entering into the Blogosphere with a Blaze of Glory is it? Hardly The WordPress Fonz.

But it’s done now. I’ll settle for being an online Richie Cunningham.

I was a geeky sort of kid. The kind of kid that would pray for rain at junior school so he wouldn’t have to play football, or run around the games pitch to determine who would be striker, and who would be in goal. And I was crap at saving goals too. It’s hard to even look interested in catching a ball when you’re scared it’ll knock your glasses off and make you cry. It kinda happened a lot.

Anyway, to a chubby football-phobic 10 year old, the world seemed huge. Indeed, at one time I believed the blocks of flats I could see from my bedroom window were America. The world was full of imagination, bright ideas, creative writing and at least one Barbie colouring-in book bought by my grandmother who didn’t seem to understand the way young boys’ minds worked.

Or maybe she did – it would explain a lot, come to think about it.

To a chubby football-phobic 10 year old, imagination and the dream of a world somehow greater than Mrs Minton’s science class suggested, led to summers of secret bases, of cartoons depicting good vs evil being played out in my back garden, of adventure hiding in the secrets of every undiscovered corner of my house. I had my own personal soundtrack, the danger music which played in my head whenever I imagined myself doing the things so colourfully depicted in the comics my mother faithfully bought me every Saturday morning. The combined epic scores of Star Wars, Superman, ET and Indiana Jones (all of which seemed to sound the same to Little Me) grew in volume and scale as I tackled whatever villain my mind had cooked up that day.

I was thrilled, therefore, that one year on the way to a family holiday in Lowestoft, my mother bought me one of those movie soundtack tapes to play on my little Walkman. At last I could really play those songs in my head as the Suffolk fields raced by. But it wasn’t quite the London Philharmonic I had expected, more someone who had left a cheap Casio Keyboard on demo as the batteries ran down. You know the kind of soundtrack tie-in I’m talking about. The kind you buy in Woolworths where you imagine the conductor is winking at you over his frilled satin shirt as Star Wars reaches levels of jazz no one could have conceived possible. But amongst what purported to be John Williams’ finest, was a little track called Logan’s Run.

I only have distant memories of Logan’s Run. But I know of it’s place in Sci-Fi History. Logan’s Run started off as a novel by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson. Published in 1967, it depicts a possible future where, to keep the population in line and balance with the resources they need to survive, the people are killed when they reach the age of 21. I bet they never had the debate over sex education in schools. Nine years later, the book was adapted into a film starring Michael York and Jenny Agutter. The film ended up taking something of an artistic licence to many parts of the book, with one of the main differences being the compulsory culling of the population at 30, instead of 21.

I turned 30 in March this year. Part of me keeps looking round expecting the alarms to go off and for armies of Bebo subscribers to storm through my front door and cart me off to some kind of thirtysomething Grandpa Simpson retirement castle with Duran Duran on the stereo and Supergran on repeat in the corner. I’ve started to worry already. I have four types of gravy granules in my food cupboard, because it would be wrong to have Beef Bisto with Pork. My blood starts to boil if you’re on public transport with cheap tinny earphones turned up to loud, and god help you if you’re 14 with a mobile phone. More worryingly, I woke up the other day excited because it was ‘Observer Food Monthly Sunday’.

It’s like a timer switch went off on my birthday. The Logan Crystal in my palm turned black and at Thirty years old I discovered all the secret bases had people in them who annoyed me. The type of people who jammed their hands in the lift door at work whilst they were closing, and then pressed the button for the first floor. The type of person who, when the train guard makes you put down your paper and get out your ticket, causes him to stop two rows in front of you, and buy a saver return to Aldershot for a week on tuesday while you stare on in rage.

I think the glasses came off and the innocent chubby 10 year old, instead of being killed to save the world’s resources 20 years later, suddenly realised that the world around him was full of what he came to term (in pleasant company) Feckwittery. Feckwittery is the state of the world, whose common sense seems sometimes to have left you behind; the state of the world which makes you want to beat people around the head with the wrapped up newspaper. You know the type of thing I mean.

And not only is Feckwittery to be feared, but the realisation the world is full of it is also to be feared. Especially if you’re a liberal, supposedly easy going Guardian reader like me.

And so, I suppose this Blog is not only an occasional rant at the Feckwittery of the world, but also an attempt to regain the imagination and the youthful excitement of that football hating ten year old, who’s greatest trauma was the 18-month hiatus of Doctor Who. The one who found adventure in every corner, and who went through life with danger music in his head. I’m too young to be a Grumpy Old Man. 30 is not an age to be culled. It’s an age to rediscover what keeps me young in the first place.

Because, by god, there’s only so much Richie Cunningham I can take. I want to be the Fonz again.