50 Shades of Grey - Routine

This is a routine I performed recently at Working Title Comedy at the Big Green Bookshop in Wood Green, North London. It went down rather well, so I thought I'd put it up here for anyone that would be interested.

Bookshops are now becoming known as "Purveyors of FILTH". All because of 50 Shades of Grey. Which everyone's reading. And I mean everyone. There's something slightly odd about a woman in a full burqa reading pornography on the tube.

Even my Mum's reading it. This is my Mum, who writes period Irish romantic fiction, and whose had a few novels published. After her first one, I read it, doing the sonly duty, told her how much I enjoyed it, and then I engaged wind-up mode, and I referenced the (mild) sex scenes she'd written, and I said "Well, obviously, the characters and plot are really good, but I have to ask, what's all this about heaving bosoms and straining erections?

And she says to me “Christopher…watch your language!”

Well, she’s tried to read it, but she ended up giving up. Not because of the sex, but because it’s really badly written. And I mean really badly written. Here’s an example.

"Oh my... He wants me. Christian Grey, Greek God, wants me, and I want him, here....now. In the elevator."

Now, I’m not saying that everyone should be reading Anais Nin, but this is just not good writing. It’s a bit like… wait, there’s more.

"Why won't he kiss me again? I pout at the thought. I don't understand. Honestly, his surname should be Cryptic, not Grey."

That’s not even real human dialogue. That’s fucking Dougal from Father Ted.

“Why won’t he kiss me again, Ted? I don’t understand. Honestly, his surname should be Cryptic, not Grey!”

Look, I’m not one of these people that thinks you should only read erotic poetry. This isn’t for erotic self-exploration in the bath with candles going on, this is for doing the kit-kat shuffle quickly before you go to bed, I get it. But it’s just….it’s….

There’s a girl at work who described it as “It’s really powerfully erotic. She’s created the perfect man.”

What are his perfect qualities? Well….he’s a billionaire and…no, that’s basically it. All his other qualities are loathsome.

Wait, we have more writing from this fucking book.

"This is the only sort of relationship I'm interested in."

"Why?"

He shrugs.

"It's the way I am."

"How did you become this way?"

"Why is anyone the way they are? That's kind of hard to answer. Why do some people like cheese and other people hate it? Do you like cheese? Mrs. Jones - my housekeeper - has left this for supper." He takes some large, white plates from a cupboard and places one in front of me.

In the name of holy Garth Marenghi, what the actual fuck?

There’s this weird thing going throughout where he keeps buying her food. It’s really weird. But she’s fine with it, because it’s always exactly what she wants.

And it’s appealing to people because you’ve got this idea of someone who always knows exactly what you want, even if you don’t know it’s what you want. He goes “I have ordered you food”, and she goes “Oh God, this is my favourite food!” Every. Fucking. Time.

That doesn’t work in real life. Here’s how it goes in real life with my girlfiend.

“Hello, sit. I have ordered you food.”

“Oh. What did you order?”

“Omelette and tea. And some cheese.”

“I hate omelettes.”

“Oh.”

“Why would you do that?”

“I thought it would be sexy.”

“What?”

I thought it would be sexy to… order you omelette.”

"You thought it would be sexy to order me omelette?"

"And cheese. Baby."

I’ve not even got to the sex, by the way. The sex is crap as well, not least because…okay, I can get the cold aloof thing that’s going on. He only refers to her by her full first name or Miss Steele. That’s fine. But the SECOND they start fucking? “Oh baby, yeah baby, I’m going to fuck you now, baby.” Turning into Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing all of a second, while he JACKHAMMERS HIS WAY THROUGH THAT HYMEN.

There are presumably some women in the audience, and I don’t know if any of you have ever been a virgin, but if you were, would you recommend that you treat the girl slowly and tenderly, since it may really fucking hurt, or do you recommend punching your way through that shit like it’s a plank of wood at a karate exhibition?

Oh, and when she wakes up the next morning, she’s all “There was a mild throbbing, but it was pleasurable remembering”, and not doing what she should be doing which is going “FUCKING OUCH! SOMEONE GET ME SOME GERMALINE. I’VE MADE A TERRIBLE MISTAKE.”

Someone on facebook suggested that maybe I’m just not comfortable with sex that’s not totally vanilla. That maybe I’m scared of experimenting.  Because the book has some fisting and anal. Oh *please*.

I’m a 32 year old man with access to the internet. My sexual tastes have grown so cynical, jaded and downright bizarre that I can’t even masturbate to regular porn anymore. It has to involve a Nun, at least three Brazilian transsexuals, a gas mask and a Shetland pony.

There’s also the fact that this whole idea just doesn’t work in Britain. First of all, if you want to fantasise about a famous businessman, you’re basically on at best, Richard Branson, and at worst, Alan Sugar… “he ground on top of me like a sexy shaved gnome”.

One final thing you may have heard is that the main character in 50 Shades of Grey keeps saying the same stuff. “Oh my. Oh wow.” Stuff like that, but the weirdest one is “Holy hell. Holy crap. Holy God.” She says “Holy something” 157 times in this fucking book.

Now, here’s where I destroy it for you. Every time you read her say “Holy” something, just think of Burt Ward playing Robin in the 1960s Batman with Adam West. Because there are parallels. Anastasia is younger, Christian is a billionaire…he’s training her. They put on costumes and fight crime…oh, like anyone’s read the third book. But maybe that’s what she should have written. 50 Shades of Batman.

And depressingly, if she had written that, this blog post would be saying  “You know, it’s actually pretty good".

50 Shades of Sugar - Chapter One

It's a quarter to two when I arrive at the Amsprop centre, a huge five story office building,  all grey and brick. I am greatly relieved I'm not late as I walk into the glass, steel lobby, past the fleet of taxis outside.

Behind the bland desk, a strict looking woman stares at me, looking unimpressed. She is dressed immaculately and raises an eyebrow at me.

"I'm here to see - "

"Yes, I know." she says, cutting me off. "I suppose you think you're dressed appropriately?" She lowers her eyebrow before raising it again and tutting.

I am beginning to wish I had dressed more appropriately. I have made an effort, though.

"I thought so, yes", I reply.

"Hmm." she snips.

She hands me a security pass. I can't help my smirk. Surely it's obvious I'm just visiting. I don't fit in here at all.

She picks up the phone. "It's Karen, My Lord. She's here." She then nods primly as if there were a camera watching her.

"You'll want the last elevator on the right. Press for the fourth floor."

The elevator whisks me with terminal velocity to the fourth floor. The doors slide open, and I'm in a tiny lobby with two sofas and pictures of cityscapes. There is a white haired man standing there to greet me.

"Hello, I'm Ana", I say.

"Ugh," he says, rolling his eyes dramatically.

"I'm here to see - "

"Yes," he says, shaking his head in a disappointed manner. "He's through there."

I push open the door and stumble through, tripping over my own feet, and falling head first into the office.

Double crap - me and my two left feet. I am on my hands and knees in the office doorway and rough hands are around me helping me to stand. I glance up. Holy cow - he's so short.

"Miss Kavanagh," he extends a stubby-fingered hand to me once I'm upright. "I'm Alan Sugar. Are you all right? Coming in here, falling over. Why don't you sit down. It's why chairs were invented." He gives a little smile and looks around awkwardly, as if he's just made a joke.

He's attractive, very attractive. He's short, dressed in a suit, with grey hair and strange, gnarled features. He looks like a sexy shaved gnome. It takes me a moment to find my voice.

"Um...." In a daze, I place my hand in his and we shake. As our fingers touch, I feel an odd exhilerating shiver run through me.  "Miss Kavanagh is indisposed, so she sent me. I hope you don't mind, Lord Sugar."

"And you are?"  His voice is gravelly, and he emphasises words in an odd manner, but it's difficult to tell from his eyebrows, which are bunched together like a seductive scrotum.

"Anastasia Steele. I'm studying with Kate, um...Katherine...um...Miss Kavanagh at Royal Holloway."

"I see," he says simply. I think I see the ghost of a smile in his expression, but it could be acid reflux.

I look at the room while I get ready for the interview. It is one enormous table, set up in front of huge frosted sliding doors for no reason. I set up the mini-disc recorder, and inexplicably slice off one of my fingers. I hope he doesn't notice the blood spurting out of the bloody stump. Damn my clumsiness. I'd blush, except for the blood-loss.

"Sorry," I stutter. "I'm not used to this."

"It's a shame. I had plans for that finger."

He's teasing me? I hope. I blink at him, unsure what to say, and I think he takes pity on me. "No, I don't mind."

He takes a seat. It's a large throne with a booster seat. He hops up onto it in a lithe, athletic manner that belies his aged appearance.

He sits there like a hotter version of Yoda. I cannot help but feel a little shaky just looking at him.

"So, to what do you owe your success?"

"Well, I grew up in a rough area, a part of London where you didn't have your fancy mini-discs, or lifts, or cars, or... or paths."

"I see."

He juts his neck out to emphasise when he talks, like an erotic turtle. "And you know, I've just been around for long enough. You buy, you sell. It's simple."

“You sound like a control freak.” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them.

“Oh, I exercise control in all things, Miss Steele,” he says. “Like when I owned Tottenham Hotspurs. I flogged my way through seven managers, but they would have had it easier if they’d believed that Les Ferdinand would play better with nipple clamps.”

“Do you feel that you have immense power?”

“I employ dozens of people, Miss Steele. That gives me a certain amount of responsibility. Besides, immense power is acquired by assuring yourself in your secret, masturbatory, reveries that you were born to control things.”

I cannot help but think about that image. It’s like a sexy walnut lying on a bed playing with itself.

“I’m sorry, but I really should go,” I say. “I have a long drive back to Enfield.”

“No,” he says gesturing towards a bed that I noticed in the corner. “I think you’ll stay. We have some very good benefits here, and – “ he says, beginning to unbutton his shirt, revealing the wrinkled, leathery skin underneath “ – I can be a very….generous and attentive teacher.”

I can’t help myself. His sexy stony  eyes look into my soul and locate my inner goddess.

“You mean….”

“Yes,” he says, licking his lips like a lecherous lizard. “You’re fucked.”

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Century: 2009 - Review and background

People who have been around me in conversation know that there is one unavoidable truth.

At some point in the conversation, I will talk about Alan Moore. More than likely, I will do so at length. Boring, interminable, overly-detailed length.  So it was really only a matter of time before I did so in a blog post. I'm actually surprised it took this long. But then, today, I read the conclusion to League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century. So there's quite a bit to talk about.

Feel free to skip to the review if you wish. But the background to this book, and the controversy around it, is interesting in itself.

Background:

The timing couldn't actually be better for this to come out, since Moore is currently in the middle of a lot of conversation amongst comic book fans, with the launch of DC Comics' Before Watchmen. This is a prequel series to Watchmen, Moore's best known work.

It's also a project that Moore doesn't want to happen, for reasons that I will attempt to briefly summarise.

When Watchmen came out, it was seen as something of a progressive move for creators' rights in comics. Since the majority of major comic characters and stories were created under "work for hire", the properties were owned by the companies rather than the creators. This led to a lot of bad feeling when one of the creators of Superman had serious financial difficulties, having never really had a fair share of the amount of money made from the property. By the eighties, there were attempts to fix this situation and make it more fair.

As such, it was agreed that Watchmen would be more creator-friendly, and that Moore and Dave Gibbons (the artist) would gain the rights to the series when it went out of print.

Watchmen was enough of a hit that it has never been out of print. So the rights have never reverted to Moore and Gibbons. Moore feels strongly that, while this was legal, it went against the spirit of the agreement. It wasn't helped when DC classed some of the merchandise for Watchmen as 'promotional material', meaning that Moore and Gibbons didn't receive money for it.

This, along with the varying quality of movies based on Moore's work, has led to a lot of bad feelings and Moore now refuses to work with DC at all.

He's also been very critical of DC's decision to launch Before Watchmen, which obviously does not have his blessing or cooperation.

Some fans feel that Moore is being irrational or petty. Others feel that DC are being disrespectful. But the main arguments are usually over Moore's comments about DC's lack of originality. Because a lot of Moore's work involves other people's characters, some perceive this as hypocritical. Especially since some of his stories tend to be rather sexually explicit, which has got some people's backs up with regards to classic characters aimed at children (specifically in Lost Girls, but also some of the later instalments of the League stories).

Personally, I feel there's a difference between what Moore is doing (a fictional world inhabited by literary characters, using them to tell a story that is separate to their own narratives) and what DC are doing (an official prequel to Watchmen, presented as part of the same narrative). The League is not presented as a sequel to Dracula, or indeed as an official part of the Harry Potter universe.

I like DC a lot, and have massively enjoyed their recent relaunch of their main titles, but I have no interest in Before Watchmen. Not because I find the idea offensive or disrespectful (I'm with Rick Blaine, in that I have sympathy with the fox while understanding the point of view of the hound), but just that I feel the Watchmen story was told completely enough that it doesn't feel like there's anything new to say about any of that universe that interests me.

But Century: 2009 interests me a lot.

I loved the first two volumes of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Silly, dark and strange, it's a beautifully effective story. The follow-up, Black Dossier, was something of a mixed bag, which makes a lot more sense when you bear in mind that it was intended to be a primarily prose-based scrapbook of sorts, and the comic book elements were added in later as a framing device.

Century, which is published in three parts, tells the continuing story of the characters over a hundred years. It's been the least interesting part of the series for me, as it felt rather inconsistent. So that brings us up to today.

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - Century: 2009 review

As much as Century: 2009 is the last part of the Century trilogy, it's actually the final part of the story that began with Black Dossier,  which is absolutely necessary reading for this one in order to understand the Blazing World elements of the story. To a certain extent, this means that Century and Black Dossier effectively comprise the third full volume of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

For the first time, this feels complete in a way that none of the other parts had so far. I'd been worried about a law of diminishing returns, but what Century: 2009 actually does is to provide context for a lot of what had gone before. As a result, not only is this a strong story in its own right, but it actually makes the previous instalments much more satisfactory in and of themselves.

What felt like dangling plot points at times, or needless tangents, are often explained and completed here in a smooth way. It also provides an overall point to the story that was missing before, which in turn ramps up the satirical elements of the story in completely unexpected ways. Also brave ones, with Harry Potter being a particular target for a kicking - although to be fair, this appears to be more about the growing influence of franchises than Rowling's work specifically.

It's not a perfect piece of work, and it's still not up to the levels of the first two volumes of the League. It gets a little bit uneven with the pacing occasionally, and on a first read-through it feels like Moore started writing it without a specific ending in mind, but this may require some further re-reading. As a result, it feels like the resolution of the story probably would have happened in mostly the same way whether or not the main characters had done anything.

But it's audacious, it's big, bold and feels rather different to what's gone before. Some aspects (Michael Moorcock's time traveller, for example) may feel like handy narrative devices were it not for the fact that they actually feel mostly earned through the first two volumes. And all three of the main characters are handled fantastically, with where they all end up making complete sense.

At times, I was unsure about Moore's decision to continue using Mina and Allan from the first two volumes, but this final volume made me feel much, much more comfortable with that decision.

Kevin O'Neill's artwork is as great as it always has been on this series, and there are some beautiful artistic moments throughout (Prospero, who exists in a third dimension, breaking through the panels at one point is a particularly nice device). And his ability with caricature is astonishing. There aren't many artists that could so convincingly represent Michael Gambon at a single panel at a distance in such a way that you recognise him immediately. This means that the old League game of spotting references is as much fun as ever.

Overall, the work Moore has done on League since the original two volumes isn't as accessible as his earlier work, but it is hugely rewarding. It's funny, dark and sad all at the same time. It's also the most outrageous part yet.

Who would have thought that someone could tell a story entirely filled with other people's characters, and yet have it be such an original piece of work?

Prometheus - My Thoughts

Prometheus is the first film in a long time that I've actually been willing to see in 3D. Between the landscapes in Alien and Blade Runner, I could see the appeal in seeing Ridley Scott working in 3D. In fact, as disinclined as I am towards retro-fitting 3D into movies, I would be very up for a 3D Blade Runner, just for those cityscapes.

Scott has been very clear that he does not regard this as a prequel to Alien, and rather an extension of the same world. Whether this is the case or not, it's reflective of a rather muddled thinking that permeates the entire film.

As an example, Guy Pearce plays an elderly character, with heavy makeup in order to make him look realistically old. Unfortunately, this is difficult to convince with. I suspect that even if Guy Pearce was an unknown, it would come as a revelation to precisely nobody that he wasn't the age he was playing. It appears that the main reason to cast a much younger actor is for the viral promotion in which a young Pearce addresses an audience at a futuristic TED conference.

Now, that's not to say that Pearce isn't good in the role. He's as good as he always is, as is just about everyone in it. There's a whole load of really good actors working really hard. And the direction is good throughout. The music is great, and other than the opening disintegration, the special effects are lovely throughout.

A lot of it does work, but it has problems. The dialogue is clunky at times, with people volunteering information for no particular reason. One character's infertility is introduced awkwardly, as is another character's motivation. On top of that, the supposedly unfeeling android repeatedly displaying obvious emotions (and not in such a way that suggests that he is just designed to pretend) means that the question of his humanity is a rather strange one. And the big questions ("What does it mean to be human?" "Why are we here?") are not so much subtly asked as repeatedly asked out loud.

Also, there are plot points that happen in such a way that they appear to be purely to allow the plot points to happen.The rest of this paragraph will have some plot spoilers, but I'll try to keep them vague. A remarkably handy hologram effect turns up occasionally to advance the plot, even interacting with surroundings to the point of switching on a star map. A medical bay appears to be gender-specific for no reason other than to add tension (I can think of a reason it's there, involving the revelation of another character, but not why it's gender-specific in the first place). A character reveals a secret plan which appears to have been secret for...absolutely no reason.

It's a frustrating movie in a lot of ways, but that's not to say that it's bad. It isn't. It's quite good, and that actually makes it more frustrating. I watched "Double Headed Shark Attack" the other day, which was absolute dross, so I didn't care about the ludicrous plot.

This movie, I liked a lot of, and so the frustrating elements were more frustrating. It doesn't hang together like it should, and it doesn't get me to care about the characters as much as it should. But it does mostly work, and I did care about the characters to an extent. It made me care enough about the movie that the issues with it annoyed me more than they would with a lesser movie.

It isn't as good as Alien. Or Blade Runner. But it is interesting, and there are a lot of good people doing very good work.

Oh, and Fassbender is great, but you didn't need me to tell you that.

Anonymous

The actress accepted the award. Newspaper editors glared at the screen. Not only had she won the award yet again, but it meant that the front page would be wasted on an actress in her late sixties, rather than the cleavagy young thing that had also been nominated.

She was gracious, noting that she felt that she was very lucky. After the award ceremony, she made only perfunctory appearances at the after-parties. They were important for networking, but were for the publicity-conscious, which she no longer needed to be. Ten, twenty, thirty years ago, maybe. But no more. 

Instead, she went home.

She received multiple phone calls, and had many messages, but the only one she cared about was the one that told her that she had to be killed.

She cried at first, but she knew what it meant.

She had a stiff drink and then made a phone call. It was the early hours of the morning, but it didn't matter. She knew they'd answer.

They did, and they knew it was her calling.

"Does it really need to be so soon?"

The woman on the other side of the phone was pleasant and professional. "I'm afraid so. The time has come."

“You’re sure?”

“There’s no need to be scared,” she was told. “It won’t take long. Come in on Thursday. That way, we’ll announce it on Saturday morning and get maximum exposure in the weekend papers.”

She said good bye and put the phone down. “I know it won’t take long”, she said to herself, wishing that she’d said that to the woman on the phone.

She looked in the mirror while she removed her makeup. Not just the first layer, the eye liner and the makeup, but the rest. The latex, the putty, everything. It took hours to put on every morning, but always came off so quickly.

Taking off the tinted contact lenses last, she looked at her own eyes. Removed of the dullness of the contacts, they shone brighter than they had on screen for years.

On Thursday, she sat waiting in the clinic. The nurse came out to her. A young (yes, young, of course he was young, she thought to herself) man.  They introduced each other, then he said, almost predictably:

“I’m a big fan.”

She smiled. “Thank you. That means a lot.”

“Look, before this happens, could I get you to sign something for me?” He was, bless him, awkward.

“Of course.”

He pulled a DVD out of his jacket pocket. “It’s not for eBay or anything. It’s a transfer of one of your first movies.”

She looked at it. “I didn’t even know any copies existed.”

“They’re not allowed to.” He said. “You’re too recognisable in it.”

“I’m too recognisable in all of them,” she said. “Do you have any idea how much trouble I got in when they found out that I’d lied about not being in films before?”

“I know. As I said, fan. I had no idea you were one of us until you came back in the seventies.”

“So how did you get a copy of it?”

“I was a projectionist in the twenties. I kept the original. You were amazing in it.”

She couldn’t help it. She started to cry.

“I’ve never…” she said, gulping for air, “I’ve never done this before.”

“Really?” He asked. “I thought you had back in – “

“No,” she said. “The theatre… God, that was easy.  It wasn’t until photography turned up that the problems started. Stupid bloody invention.”

He hesitated, and then asked “Is it true that you always wore sunglasses for photos?”

She laughed, although the tears continued. “Yes. Worked great for about a decade.”

“It’s just going to be simple surgery. You’ll be unconscious, and we’ll break and reset some bones. It’ll hurt for a while, but it’s so much more effective than plastic surgery.”

“I know. I just… I wish there was another way.”

“You’re in the wrong business for that,” he said. “If you want to continue, you need to change your looks. The arts aren’t like other industries. You’re too public.”

“And it’s not like I can be anonymous.”

“Not with what you do. Writer, street artist… you can do those and be anonymous. You know that big guy in Britain, does the graffiti? Nobody sees that and thinks of the stuff he did during the renaissance. You can get away with that with art. Not the screen though.”

“I know. It’s just…I’ve really liked being her.” She dabbed her eyes, which had finally stopped crying.

“You’ll still be you.” He said.

“No, I won’t.” She said.

“Why not?”

“It won’t be my face any more. It’ll be a stranger in the mirror.”

“Then you’ll get to be someone else. Someone new.”

“They want me to have a boob job, you know that?”

“Why?”

“Because I’ll get to be the young actress now, and they don’t want my body recognised. It won’t even be my body any more. I refused to do it while I was… me. Now, though, they’re insisting, or I won’t be allowed to go back to it.”

“There’s a plus point though. Next time you do this, you get them taken out again. You get to do that.”

She laughed. “How fucking efficient.”

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get it over with.”

“Wait,” she said, looking in the mirror as she stood up. “Just let me say goodbye.”

Months later, she stood in front of the mirror in her new bedroom. She undressed and looked at her body first. She still didn’t like the new breasts. But she did like the tattoo. She’d never dared have one before.

Then she stood closer to the mirror, and looked closely at her face. She ran her fingers across her face, feeling her way around while she looked.

She didn’t know the face. Not yet. She was still working on it, but she could finally hold her own gaze without crying.

“Hello,” she said. “Hello, you. Hello, me.”

The worst joke ever.

For me, the weirdest thing about the Rebekah Brooks saga has been that I used to work with one of her family.
I used to temp, which sucked. One of the worst things was the fact that I never had my own login. in this one place, it had the kind of login that was your first initial followed by these first five letters of your surname. So I would have been cbrosn.

But I had to use someone else's. Specifically, abrook. It prompted a kind of existential crisis. Because I'm not abrook.

So I had mixed feelings before I asked who abrook was. "oh, that's Adam Brooks. He's on holiday. He's Rebekah Brooks' son."

Yeah. at this point, ambivalence slipped over to hate.

And when he came back from holiday, he introduced himself and put out his hand.

And I snubbed him. I said hello, but I didn't return the handshake. And I didn't feel good about that. And I was, to be honest, a bit of an arse.

After a few days, he came up to me, and he wanted to go for coffee. He wanted to talk about my problems with him. And we talked, and he turned out to be a nice guy.

And it taught me a very valuable lesson.

Don't judge abrook by his mother.

Short Story - The Happy Pills

Note - I've noticed an increased number of people finding this story by searching for 'pills to make you happy' or similar. This is a work of fiction, and not what you're looking for. If you are feeling particularly vulnerable, I strongly recommend you speak to The Samaritans (UK) or the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (US). I hope this isn't taken as patronising, and I hope that you find whatever works best for you.

I bought my first packet of the Happy Pills two days after they became legal. I'd have bought them on the day itself, but they'd sold out everywhere. And walking down the street, you couldn't really tell. People were still working, were still rushing, but there was a slight change. Barely noticeable at first, but the closer you looked...the more you noticed that there was a bounce in more peoples steps. There were slightly more smiles on faces, slightly more animated conversation. The mood was almost infectious. 

The Happy Pills fired synapses in your brain that, normally, needed stimuli in order to fire up hard enough to push your mood. The kind of stimuli that would be caused by those few hours spent in the park, basking in the good weather with no pressures at all. The kind of stimuli that would be caused by totally unexpected, really good sex. No, you didn't feel like you'd been doing those things - but you got the same kind of good mood that I can only describe by relating it to euphoria.

It wasn't euphoria though. Euphoria tends to lead to you losing some element of control. It doesn't always, but it can do. The Happy Pills didn't. They had absolutely no negative side-effects whatsoever. They just put you in as good a mood as you could possibly be in. That was it.   

At the time, Karen and I were having problems. We'd been married for eight years, and it's fair to say that the passion had long, long since died. Sex had been non-existant for the three years prior, and it hadn't been much present after we became parents anyway. And while Karen and I were best friends as well as lovers, eight years of cabin fever were beginning to cause their problems. There was still love in our marriage, but it had been a long time since we were in love. We'd tried things to get the romance back into our lives, but it just wasn't happening.

And then the Happy Pills came out. We talked about it, about trying them. We thought they might help. And so, two days after the pills came out, we tried them. Both of us. And then we waited.

It wasn't something that happened immediately. It wasn't that noticeable, because it was subtle. We were sat talking, and after a few hours, we realised we were laughing more than we had done in a long time. It didn't seem artificial either. It was just like we'd remembered things that we liked about each other. It didn't sort everything, not immediately, but it was fun.

We took the pills daily. That weekend, we went out and just walked around Hyde Park for a few hours. It was the site of one of our first dates, and we hadn't done something like that for a long time. Just enjoyed each others company for the first time in years. The park was packed, but there was no hassle. Everyone was in a good mood.

The longer you took the pills, the more you noticed the change, and - conversely - the less it mattered. The pills had a way of just clarifying everything. It was like realising that, for the last however many years of your life, you'd been suffering from a constant migraine that finally lifted.

Within two years of the pill being launched in public, they were selling on a similar level as bread. Everybody bought them. And there were new kids turning eighteen every day, so it was an evergreen product too. A product base that was only growing.

It wasn't just Britain either. The Happy Pills were worldwide. And it was making a difference. It took a while for the wars to finish, but they did. Suddenly, religious and cultural differences stopped mattering. It was difficult to find the emotion necessary to kill someone when everyone was in a good mood.

Crime was down too. Not actually zero, but certainly at the lowest it had ever been. Perhaps it was because poverty wasn't as big an issue any more. People were happy, and didn't feel quite as much of a need to prove themselves through money any more. As a result, there were record amounts being given to charity. Although the pills made you happy, the happiness meant that people were more productive. People either found the joy that made them want the jobs they were in in the first place, or they felt more confident bout themselves, and went after the jobs they actually wanted. And rejections were a lot easier to deal with when you felt good.

And the sex. Oh God, the sex. It was amazing. And every time was good. Karen and I were back like we were in our first year of dating, rediscovering everything about each other. It was fun, it was happy.

Last year my mother died. She was in her late sixties, and she had died in surgery, in an attempt to remove a benign tumour. An infection led to her contracting an illness, and the illness killed her. The funeral was a beautiful affair, full of joy and love, as we all remembered everything that had been good about her as a person, and how much she enriched our lives. The only tears that day were tears of laughter. She would have loved it. We grieved. Of course we grieved, but it wasn't as important as remembering how wonderful her life had been.

The world had become a wonderful place. And not artificially either - the mood may have been caused by the pills, and maintained by them, but it wasn't just them. Once you were up and running, the pills just helped you keep to a certain level. The real highs were natural, and the real lows just didn't happen any more.

It was a utopia. A real utopia, right here on earth.

And then it ended.

We didn't realise that the synapses in the brain would wear out. We didn't realise that, one day, they would just stop working. It wasn't one day, all over the world or anything like that, but rather a little over six years after you started taking them.

Nobody realised for a while. The suicides of the original scientists, and the chairman of Abblexcon were puzzling, but nobody understood. They didn't tell us.

As a result, it took time for it to spread, and for people to realise what was happening. But all of a sudden, there were two classes in the world. There were those that were happy, and those that weren't. Those who had been poor in the past were still happy, since they were generally the last to start taking the pills. Those that were the first - those internet buyers - were the first large group to be affected.

There were murders. Lots of murders. There's nothing worse than watching other people constantly being happy when you're not. And there were a lot of suicides. The death toll, as it stands, is in the millions.

There are riots on the streets. Unhappiness and depression, and anger towards those that still were happy. Watching it happen was horrible, and we empathised, but we didn't understand what it felt like any more.

Until it happened to us. You remember how I told you that it felt like a migraine had suddenly been lifted? Imagine getting the migraine back, and realising that it was never, ever going to stop again.

Imagine spending the best six years of your life, and realising that the rest of your life is going to be spent living with the memory of all the good feelings, all the happiness, and realising that it's denied to you forever. Because you used a pill to burn out the part of your brain that makes you happy.

You can't understand, David. I don't expect you to understand, and I hope to God that you never understand. I need you to keep the next sentence in mind for the rest of your life. Never take them, no matter how good you're told they are. Because I love you, son, and I never want you to feel like I feel right now.

Your mother killed herself two hours ago. We had an argument and we fought. It's all my fault, and I love her, and I miss her, and I miss feeling like we used to feel, and I miss being who I was when I was with her, and I miss how much I loved her, and I miss how much she loved me. I miss my mother. I miss my wife. I will miss you so much.

My body will be upstairs, David. Don't look. Call the authorities, they have enough practice in dealing with it. Just know that it didn't hurt. And it's the only thing that can stop me feeling like this. From knowing how much I've lost.

You will never fully know how much I love you.

Your father.