The time I saw a UFO

Starry night (source)

It's taken me fifteen years to feel comfortable telling this story. But here we go.

I saw a UFO once.

It still feels like a strange sentence to write down, and I daresay some of you reading it will have had a reaction to me saying it. Please allow me to tell my story before you make any judgements.

It was a long time ago, and I was a different person then. I was at university and me and my then-girlfriend had a long and awkward commute between the university itself (in West Yorkshire) and where we  were living at the time (in North Yorkshire). She'd drive, as I hadn't learned to yet, and I'd sit in the passenger seat during the early hours of the morning as we made our way through dark B-roads (which we sometimes took to avoid traffic jams on the motorway). We'd talk, listen to music and generally try to keep each other entertained and awake. I found the journeys hard going and I was just in the passenger seat - I can't imagine how difficult it must have been for her.

You'd occasionally see odd and interesting things as you drove through the countryside. One time, we pulled over during the daytime, because there were enormous flocks of birds flying and creating an enormous billowing flurrying sheet of movement, and you could see the ripples of the shape they created as they moved together. Walking out into the field to watch, it felt mystical, primal and powerful to see them intersecting in complicated patterns.

This time, though, it was the early hours of the morning at some point in 1999 or early 2000 (I remember the details far more vividly than the generalities). We were driving home on a clear night. While there are fifteen years or thereabouts of memories in the way, I'm fairly confident I can say that I was either as sober as her or at least only marginally less so, and that we weren't particularly more tired than we normally would be on that route.

We saw a light in the sky. It was larger than a star, but very bright. It looked brighter than an aircraft light (which was our first assumption) and very focused. I remember thinking of it as looking like a searchlight from a helicopter, but from much further away and without the beam of light coming down from it.

It moved in very straight lines across our field of vision, and then would turn at acute angles and travel in another straight line, before turning again. Considering how far away the light seemed, it was covering an amazing amount of distance in a short amount of time. I'd say at least twice as fast as watching a passenger plane going across the same distance. We were confused and intrigued, so we pulled over and got out of the car to watch.

Then it was joined by another light, and a third after a while. All three of them would move in straight lines and turn sharp corners. They weren't quite in formation, but they all seemed to have their own vague patterns. They weren't quite drawing triangles in the sky, but if you think of them all doing that, you won't be far off what we were looking at. The three of them moved independently.

After a while of watching (probably about five minutes or so), we got back into the car and continued on our journey.

What happened next was frightening.

After a short while on these quiet roads, we started being followed by a light. It was rectangular, and looked a bit like a motorcycle headlight, if a bit larger. It was at roughly the right height for it as well, so we didn't think too much of it at first. It was just very bright.

As it got closer, it was actually lighting the road ahead of us to the point where we could have turned off the car headlights and safely continued to drive. And this wasn't even with it immediately behind us - it was still a few car's distance behind. But it was following us for a while.

I was looking behind us and watching the light as my girlfriend drove. We'd just seen something strange in the sky, so we were both aware that we were likely just a bit paranoid and weirded out. It was probably just a motorbike with its headlights on full beam.

We were driving a bit below the speed limit, so we weren't going overly quickly, but we certainly weren't crawling either. So I was watching to confirm that it was a motorbike. As we took a fairly sharp corner, I watched the light carefully - at the speed we were going, it would have had to lean into the corner, so the rectangular shape I could see would have to lean in as well.

It didn't. While we lost the light for a moment, as the corner was between us and it, when it came around the corner, that light was steady and at exactly the same angle.

We took another corner, and it stopped following us. The light was gone.

That was the last unusual thing we saw that night. We talked about it for a while and agreed we couldn't explain it. My memory is that we were both a bit frightened by it all.

But it wasn't a defining moment for us. We went back to university and work and got on with our lives. We split up a while later - I was 20 years old and, through a combination of emotional immaturity, selfishness and a lack of understanding, wasn't very good at being a boyfriend, so she quite sensibly ended things.

All of the above has been told as consistently and as fairly as I can. Fifteen years of memories cloud things. It's entirely my memory of it as well - while I've said 'we' throughout, it's purely to avoid complicating the story. I don't remember any specifics of the conversations that we had about it at the time, and who said or did what, and we're not in touch any more (and while I hope that she's doing well, I rather doubt either of us is racing to fix that - we've both moved on with our lives), so you'll have to take my word for it all. But it's as clear a memory as I have of it, and the details I've described remain vivid.

So, it was completely unexplained. The bright lights in the sky, moving in a completely unnatural way, and then the floating light following us.

But.

But, but, but.

Unexplained does not mean the same thing as inexplicable.

The reason I haven't spoken publicly about this for fifteen years isn't because I'm embarrassed about it - it's because I didn't understand it. However, now, I think it makes more sense, and can be explained. Which is why I'm more comfortable talking about it.

And it's a fairly simple, mundane explanation, all things considered. But it's still plenty intriguing.

The first thing to point out is that the area we were travelling in wasn't just countryside. We weren't particularly far away from Menwith Hill, an RAF base that also happens to be the area where project ECHELON is located. Here's the wikipedia page, and also, because I'm a fan of coincidences, here's a link to an article written for Esquire back in 2000 by an investigative journalist called Eamonn O'Neill about ECHELON. The coincidence here is that Eamonn, now a professor of investigative journalism, is my uncle.

A good few years later, I told this story to a friend of mine who pointed out that there was a very simple explanation for the floating light behind us (and some of you reading this may have already worked it out).

It was most likely a jeep with a searchlight. That's why it was so bright and, when we took the corner, why it remained steady - because it was travelling on four wheels, and staying steady the same way we were. And why did it vanish suddenly? It just got switched off. It actually sounded obvious once it was pointed out. But because I'd thought of it as 'like a motorcycle headlight' and the most confusing feature was that 'it didn't move like a motorcycle', I had difficulty rethinking it.

So, the story goes from being 'we saw something mysterious and alien and something mysterious and alien followed us' and becomes rather more 'we saw something'.

So, taking the large light near the ground out of the equation, the mystery remains around the three lights moving in straight lines and sharp angles.

I reckon, looking back, what we saw were drones. Early ones, in development ones, or even just a demonstration of how they worked. It's a base that specialises in surveillance, after all.

This, to me, explains everything. The lights weren't quite as high up as we thought they were - they were just very small, so we thought we were looking at something larger, further away. Why were they flying in strange straight lines and sharp angles? Because they're multi-directional and remote controlled. That's how they work.

At which point, I reckon the whole thing becomes a rather more harmless story. Assuming that they were drones, it's not unreasonable to guess that they were either broadcasting night vision or heat signatures or something similar, and we were seen nearby watching them. At which point, they send someone with a jeep to check us out, either to check we're not spies or (more likely) to confirm that 'yep, that was a person and we're interpreting what we're seeing correctly'.

While I love stories about close encounters and aliens, and while I love conspiracy stories, I love actual explanations more.

The dark late night, the strange lights and being followed. It has all the hallmarks of the kind of unexplained story that appeals, but there's plenty of room for explanations.

When we tell a story, we have our own natural bias in it. It's easy to assume that, because we don't know what the motivations are for the other people involved, that they can only be one thing. It's easy to assume that, because we don't understand something, that it must be something sinister or enormous.

Conspiracy theories, whether they're the kind that suggest that the government knows that aliens exist, or the kind that suggest that the illuminati planned 9/11 in order to instigate worldwide war, are attractive because they not only explain that there's a reason for certain events, but they also describe a world where there's a reason that we don't know things. Why aren't we successful? Because there are secrets to being successful that we aren't told. Why aren't we told how the world works? Because the evil forces that manipulate it want to keep it the way that it is. Explanations like this can be a lot more comforting than the idea that we're not successful because we're not good enough or don't work hard enough, or that we don't know how the world works because we're not smart enough or haven't looked carefully enough (or even that there are societal issues involved, which are a whole other area, but still...).

While I believe that there's probably life out there somewhere, I don't particularly believe in government conspiracies regarding them - to put it simply, I don't actually believe they're competent enough to have kept something like that under wraps.

Actual explanations for things that are simpler and more mundane may be less exciting, but I love them. They say so much more about how we interpret things and about how we try to solve things. I love the idea that we were followed because they wanted to check their new toy was working properly so much. It feels human and real to me, and it satisfies me so much more than anything else.

So, that's my UFO story. Does my explanation make sense? Let me know in the comments.


While I may not believe in conspiracy stories, I do enjoy writing about them. Please check out my new book, Deadlines. It's a crime/conspiracy thriller that's being published in 10 parts by The Pigeonhole at 50p per instalment. It's a little bit Lois Lane, a little bit The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and a little bit Watergate.

Here's what some people are saying about it on the Pigeonhole message board:

"Loved stave 1, the idea and characters are great. I think your analogy of thinking of this like a weekly TV murder mystery is spot on (State of Play springs to mind)." (Graeme Langlands)

"I like this a lot a lot. Nearly knocked a cyclist off his bike wombling about reading it on my way into work, so engrossed was I. Can't wait till next week!" (Sarah Larkin)

"Good start and I'm looking forward to more. I get a Stieg Larsson-esque in London feel from it" (William Paul Boyce)

Deadlines - Sometimes, getting the story can be murder.

DEADLINES - all about my new book

DEADLINES - out on Wednesday!

What is DEADLINES?

DEADLINES is a crime thriller and is my first full-length novel. It will be published in 10 parts over at www.thepigeonhole.com starting on Wednesday 15 October.

What's the story about?

Two reporters at The Sentinel newspaper, Gemma Masterton and David Levy, investigate the suspicious death of a colleague and begin to uncover something large, complicated and dangerous. As events spiral out of control, their lives are put in danger.

How often do the parts come out?

They come out every Wednesday for ten weeks, starting on 14 October. You also get some free bonus material with each stave.

What's a 'stave'?

The sections of the novel are called 'Staves', which is what they were called back when novels were published serially in Victorian times.

What kind of bonus material?

A mixture of things. The Pigeonhole have taken a fun, innovative approach. There are photos, social media tie-ins, essays, music playlists, video interviews and podcasts.

What do other people think about The Pigeonhole?

Well, here's just some of the coverage:

“The app's minimalist design is superb – I haven't enjoyed reading on my phone until now”

“Hurrah for The Pigeonhole”

“Now, after a century of neglect, the art of the cliffhanger is experiencing a revival”

So, how will it work?

If you have an iPhone, there's an app which makes it insanely easy to read both the novel and the bonus material. If you don't, you can read both on their website which is also optimised for mobiles and tablets. You can also download the novel for the Kindle as well. So, basically, if you can read this, you can read DEADLINES.

How much is it?

50p per stave. You pay at the end, and if you decide it's not for you, you can cancel during it and only pay for the parts you've subscribed to.

Why is it being published serially?

Because serial stories are a huge amount of fun. Look at TV - Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Killing, Broadchurch... shows like this are partially fun because they keep you waiting to see what will happen, in a sort of sweet torture, especially after particularly evil cliffhangers. And as the book goes on, there are some very evil cliffhangers.

What if I join in while it's in progress?

Yes. You can buy all the previous staves at any point.

Will it be coming out in print?

It might do eventually. The best way to ensure that it'll come out in print is to support the serialisation. So, if you're interested, please do sign up.

What else does The Pigeonhole offer?

Well, you can get involved in discussions about the book, as there's a discussion area. There are also four other books available, including WISDOM HACKERS (a non-fiction series), SEX STAVES (erotic short stories), GREAT EXPECTATIONS (the Dickens story, which was originally published serially) and REDPOINT (which has already been completed).

How do I subscribe?

Go to www.thepigeonhole.com and sign up to the site for free. Once you've joined (and possibly downloaded the app, if you're so inclined), you can subscribe to DEADLINES. Please note, you will need to subscribe once you've joined.

How do you feel about it?

Nervous and excited. Getting reactions as it goes through is both something I'm looking forward to and something I'm terrified of. But I think the Pigeonhole is doing something that's so much fun, I'm incredibly excited and honoured to be part of their launch lineup. So, please, do get involved.

SUBSCRIBE TO DEADLINES NOW

Stories are important

Stories are important.

When we're learning to process thoughts and words in the first place, we learn through stories. When we're learning right and wrong, we learn through stories.

They form us and they inform us.

And when we're children, as any parent knows, we cling to our stories and we want to hear them again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and...

When we grow up, we start to create our own stories. We cast ourselves as the main characters and we craft our own story as we live our life. We sometimes spend a long time trying to work out who that character is. But we keep on with the stories anyway.

Sometimes, we tell stories about other people. Sometimes, we realise we're part of someone else's story. Sometimes we realise there are more stories than we can count.

And in the meantime, we tell each other stories. We speak them. We write them.

Funny stories. Sad stories. Personal stories. Scary stories. Bad stories. Good stories. Exciting stories. Beautiful stories.

We go and watch stories. We buy books so we can read stories. And we use technology to find new stories. We read stories in new ways. We listen to stories and we want our stories to be listened to.

We learn about each other through stories. We learn about the world with stories.

We start off making sense of life with stories and we end up making sense of our lives with stories.

Why I love horror

It's strange being a horror fan. Well, at least, a lot of other people seem to think so. It's one of the genres that some will just flat-out avoid.

"I'm a horror fan."
"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realise. Is it serious?"

Personally, I find horror to be a comforting genre, which is admittedly somewhat counter to the intention of most horror films and movies. A good, scary movie (or even a crap, scary movie) can be what a mug of hot chocolate and a blanket can be for a lot of other people.

I think my introduction to horror was probably the Usborne 'World of the Unknown' series, with the 'All About Ghosts" book. It was beautifully illustrated with images that still stick in my mind (a quick google image search for it brings multiple memories flooding to the surface).

If you read this as a kid, let the memories start flooding back...

I was also a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes from a young age, and my favourite was obviously The Hound of the Baskervilles. There was a richness to Conan Doyle's stories that was always comforting. They were scary, with their tales of poisoners, snakes, dancing men and murder, but there was also the basic notion that there was someone interested in justice at the end of it.

I read a story once where Peter Cushing described meeting a priest who was a huge fan of his work. He queried the appropriateness of horror as a priest's hobby, but the priest pointed out that 'good always wins'. And whether it's a dishevelled lieutenant, a borderline-sociopathic victorian or a SOMETHING ELSE, there's almost always something good to counteract the evil in horror stories (although they don't win as often as the priest made out). For me, horror stands as a natural housemate for crime - they tread on each other's toes, but they support each other well.

My parents took a fairly liberal and sensible approach to my evident interest in horror. They started me off on the classics. While I was far too young to watch modern horror movies, I could work my way up as I got older. So, along with Sherlock Holmes, I fell in love with Dracula, Frankenstein and Jekyll & Hyde. And I began to watch Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff films whenever I could, to go along with my Basil Rathbone adoration (an adoration that stays, by the way. It made my day when I visited the rather beautiful Odeon in Muswell Hill and found their small exhibition celebrating their opening night, which Basil Rathbone attended).

When I got a little older, I was allowed to start watching Hammer and Amicus films - again, the Sherlock Holmes connection made the link easier, with Peter Cushing's version of Hound of the Baskervilles. These were generally slightly gorier and slightly sexier, with lurid technicolour and lashings of bright red blood.

By the time I was deemed to be old enough to watch Nightmare on Elm Street, that was pretty much it - I could judge for myself what I was willing to watch or not. My tastes never particularly went to the gory, anyway. It's not something I Have an issue with, but it's not much of a selling point for me either - give me suspense any day.

So, what do I like about horror? What is it about it that makes me more likely to watch it?

I think it's partially that there's something safe about them. They allow you the thrills of being scared, but in a controlled environment. That can be really quite comforting - the sensation of allowing yourself to be in that position. It's a small endorphin boost that can be quite reassuring.

Also, as I've grown older, I've found something fascinating in the way that horror features women. I think there's a general perception that women in horror tend to only be victims, there only to show their breasts and get torn up. And in bad films, yes, that's often the case. But it tends to be quite the opposite in the better films. Because they're based around what scares the central character, and based around their vulnerabilities, there tends to be at least one fully-formed, fairly three-dimensional woman front-and-centre, who has the majority of the screen-time, in roles that aren't exploitative. And as time has gone on, that trend has usually increased if anything.

But mainly, I think I love horror because it's an immensely human thing. A primal thing. It's all about an entirely basic reaction, and it's exploring what scares us in interesting ways. It's also about what scares us on a cultural level - the horror of the '20s and '30s is totally different to that of the '40s and '50s. Even horror of the last few years has been very different to what came before. And then there's the opportunity to look at the history of other cultures and seeing what scared them.

I find horror, and our reactions to being scared, generally fascinating. I also find our reactions to horror itself interesting, especially taking into account the way it seems to make us so edgy, especially in the western world. Look at the attempts to ban horror comics in the 1950s or the video nasties controversy in the '80s. It's interesting how heavy-handed the reactions can get (especially considering how small-time and poor some of the films were - or how good some of the genuine classics were).

And that's another point in there - there's a point in regards to freedom that I like with horror. When we can react in that kind of way. They're stories that people want to tell - whether they're good, bad, terrible or great. They're easy to try to do, but difficult to do well.

When they're done well, there's an artistry to it that takes your breath away with more than just gasps. They confound your expectations and their own tropes. They take the things that you're comfortable with and scare you with them, or they take the things we all feel uncomfortable about and use them to scare us in ways we weren't expecting. They push boundaries and tell us things about ourselves that we didn't know.

I'm not saying that these are things that other genres can't do, but I find that horror explores these things in a way that I find works for me. It's something that, at best, challenges me, making me look at important concepts in a different way.

No, horror isn't for everyone. Some people are going to look at the parts that I love and see only a naked emperor. Some aren't going to be able to get past some of the worse aspects of the genre, and I can understand that. And some are going to find it impossible not to sympathise with the characters that can be cruelly killed off.

But for those that love it, there's a lot more to it than the gory bits.

Writing and Earning

Earlier today, a news story did the rounds, talking about how authors are earning less and less. It makes the point that the average author income per year is now around £11,000 with a picture of Will Self looking sad. Or, rather, a picture of Will Self.

It's a depressing article, but I feel there is more to the story. And, for new authors (or aspiring authors), I think there are positive points to take away from it. In fact, I think that for new authors, there's never been a more exciting time to get into writing.

The publishing game is changing. This isn't news - everyone knows this. But it's worth considering just some of the ways in which it's changing. It's at a crossroads at the moment, as customers have more content at their fingertips than ever before and, as a result, seem to value content less than ever before. Younger people, especially, appear to expect that all content (whether it be writing, music or TV and films) should be free, or at least come as part of a minimal monthly fee.

But where did this come from? Think about how customers now buy books. Time was, your main places to buy books were bookshops, either new or second-hand, the latter of which didn't really make the publishing company or the author any money.

This meant, for the most part, customers were restricted to buying what was available in the bookshop at the time. As a result, just getting on the shelves gave you a chance of selling copies at a far higher rate than your competitors who were not on the shelves.

Now, however, with so many books ordered online, the amount of choice has increased enormously. You're now competing with everything that's in print, as they're all as easy to buy as each other. This is better news for readers than it is for writers. In fact, at this point, the game is set in the favour of non-new books. Theyre cheaper, after all, and they're not as untested. There are more reviews and the writers are likely to be more well-known.

When you add the kindle sales, the choice becomes even more extensive. Books can be bought instantly, without many of the overheads involved in printing books. This adds a major extra factor, which is the number of free books that you can easily pick up, whether they're intentionally free, on offer or simply out of copyright. Everything written before the last hundred years is eligible to be downloaded for free, ranging from the works of Shakespeare to the stories of Sherlock Holmes.

So your book now has to compete with all the books ever written. Many of the greatest and most famous of which are free. You're in the biggest bookshop ever created. Along with everyone else. Ever.

That's the bad news.

The good news is that the places where customers buy books are now easier to get into than they ever have been. Whether it's working with one of the many new publishers out there or whether it's putting your own work out there via direct publishing, it's easier to actually sell copies of your books to more people than at any point in history.

This doesn't mean that it comes without work. You can be in the shop, but you're still going to have to convince people to look at your book instead of other people's.

Up until now, this has generally been the role of the publishers or the booksellers. And, obviously, most of this still is - Amazon is, after all, a selling machine and the major publishers didn't get where they are now just purely through being there for a long time. Publishers offer a level of awareness-raising that makes many book deals worth striving for. They're the experts after all. And there are plenty of good publishers who are experimenting with new ideas.

However, what has changed is that there are more opportunities to market yourself. Social media, paid online advertising, blog tours, submitting articles... whatever you can think of, really. If you're good and prepared to work for it, this may be a better time than there has ever been to get a foothold.

Meanwhile, publishers are having to do more to justify the budgets that they spend on books, which means authors have to keep justifying investment in them, right from the start. This is why Val McDermid has talked about how she would be a failure if she started out today (although I think that she's so likable, I doubt it, personally... it just may have taken her longer).

Money is still being spent on books. It's just being spent in more places than ever before, so it's being spread out over more authors. And everyone's trying to work out what this means for the industry as a whole.

Writers are going to have to be more diverse from here on out. Part writer, part publicist and very possibly part publisher. There's room for more diversification and room for more experimentation. The chances of making a career solely as a writer may be more difficult, but the chances of making writing fiction part of your career?

Write. Have confidence in yourself. Adapt and change and be part of the future of where writing is going. Write lots and do what you can to get out there and network and publicise yourself and develop fan bases and learn everything you can about how publishing works and who does it well and how they do it well.

The writing game isn't over. The rules have just changed, that's all. And they're still being written. Because they're always being written and rewritten.

So what's stopping you rewriting them?

Iain Duncan Smith and the Scrounger Narrative

Iain Duncan Smith responding to Salma Yaqoob

I do, fairly regularly, get annoyed at things that happen on Question Time. That's kind of what it's for. It's an hour of cathartic irritation at politicians who do everything they can to avoid questions. And that's fine. I tend to see mine and many people's roles on twitter as being those standing at the sides throwing rotten fruit and mocking ties.

But the anger I felt at Iain Duncan Smith on Thursday was something different.

During the show, he'd been having a shockingly easy time of it. Despite the relative rarity of having a secretary of state on Question Time, either no questions were asked that were about his direct work or none were selected.

However, Salma Yaqeeb, the head of the Birmingham Stop the War Coalition, made things a little bit more difficult - albeit after being repeatedly shouted over and interrupted by the male panelists in an uncomfortable display that made me disappointed in both Chris Bryant and Ian Hislop.

She immediately became a twitter darling when she said to Iain Duncan Smith:

"I’m sitting next to Iain Duncan Smith who labels poor people as scroungers when you claim £39 for a breakfast, like you can’t afford your own breakfast, and you live on your wife’s estate and have taken a million pounds of taxpayers’ money, that’s what I call scrounging."

To which Duncan Smith replied, with an air of offended sensibilities and personal outrage:

"What a load of old nonsense. I have never, ever labelled them as scroungers at all."

I actually believe that he doesn't use the term. He's taken George Osborne to task about it and has also talked about how his party have got the language wrong. So, yes. I totally believe he has never called them scroungers.

But that's not the point. The point is that he has labelled them scroungers, repeatedly and intentionally. The point is that he has created, established and maintained the narrative of people on benefits being scroungers.

Here are just some of the headlines you'll find when you google search 'Iain Duncan Smith Scroungers'. If he was so upset about labelling people 'scroungers', don't you think he'd have had something to say about these headlines?

Benefits system is broken! UK's top scroungers on £300-a-week more than the average family

February 24, 2014

Mr Duncan Smith said: “Benefits were out of control and people were rightly outraged at some households receiving far more in benefits than the ordinary hard-working family.

“We have fixed this broken system by introducing a fair limit to make sure the system works for taxpayers who fund it. Our reforms ensure claiming benefits is no longer a more attractive option than being in work.” 

Workshy told scrounging no longer an option in new benefits crackdown

December 28 2013

Duncan Smith said: “The decision to claim benefits should no longer be considered a lifestyle choice.

“This will make it clear that looking for work requires as much effort and commitment as a full-time job.”

Disabled people once again branded as scroungers

15 May 2012

Dicussing a Telegraph interview, in which Iain Duncan Smith says that the number of claimants has risen by 30 percent in recent years “rising well ahead of any other gauge you might make about illness, sickness, disability”. Losing a limb should not automatically entitle people to a pay-out, he suggests.

2015 starts now: Tories get tough on scroungers and immigrants

18 February 2013

Speaking on the Marr Show, Duncan Smith said: "My view of life is simple – we make sure our door is shut to those who want to come and claim benefits and is open to those who want to come and contribute and work and make this economy good and strong."

Government declares war on Benefits Street's scroungers

January 23 2014

He added: "Our real success has been to reframe the argument (emphasis mine) – challenging a narrative beloved of the left … which focuses so exclusively on how much is being spent on welfare that it risks overlooking the real question: it is not about how much goes into the benefit system, but what difference it makes to people at the other end."

4,000 jobless singletons raking in benefits worth more than £23,000 to be hit by lower benefits cap for people living alone

12 August 2013

‘For those eyeballing benefits as a one-way ticket to easy street, I have a wake-up call for you: those days are over,’ he writes.

2015 starts now: Tories get tough on scroungers and immigrants

Monday 18 February 2013

Speaking on the Marr Show, Duncan Smith said: "My view of life is simple – we make sure our door is shut to those who want to come and claim benefits and is open to those who want to come and contribute and work and make this economy good and strong."


There are plenty more.

Iain Duncan Smith doesn't want to be called out for labelling people scroungers. But he has pushed the narrative time and time and time and time and time and time again.

The idea that our government would intentionally create this narrative and then try to distance itself from it makes me angry.

The idea that Iain Duncan Smith has pushed a narrative about scroungers when so many of them are people that need our help makes me angry.

The idea that he categorises human beings as job seekers who aren't pulling their weight enough or people with mental or physical issues preventing them from working as fraudsters in a country where these benefits can make the difference between life and death makes me angry.

The idea that Iain Duncan Smith can do all of this again and again and again and again over years, but get upset and offended because he avoids using a specific word, the idea that he would try to abdicate responsibility for his own clear and repeated actions, the idea that he would try to turn it into a narrative about words instead... that just disgusts me.

Remembering Rik Mayall

I'm expecting this to get lost. It's the one thing that's making me feel like I'm not jumping on a bandwagon or trying to make this all about me. I'm expecting the outpouring of emotion and memories about Rik Mayall to be so enormous that this is just going to be one of the flow.

I'm 34 and I'm not quite sure how that's happened. It seems to have happened incredibly quickly, because somehow, Rik Mayall was a big part of my life a long time ago. It seems and feels like it was still fairly recent, because his death brings so many vivid memories flooding forward that it feels like I've only just experienced them. But I mention my age because it puts me squarely in a generation that grew up with Rik Mayall.

The first thing that I remember him from was The Young Ones - specifically, The Young Ones singing 'Living Doll' with Cliff Richard. It was anarchic and it was silly and it was a little bit rude (at least, the bits that I understood) and I was absolutely blown away by it. I immediately became a huge fan of The Young Ones, whenever I was able to see it.

Looking back, I've no idea what my parents were playing at, letting me watch The Young Ones at that age. But I'm exceptionally glad that they did. Well, I'm not actually that surprised that they did. I was of the age where so many of the jokes went over my head that all I really had was the sheer silliness and the characters.
We forget, I think, that we were accepting of so much stuff going over our heads as children. It's like growing up and realising just how much of Grease was actually about sex, because you were young enough to just not know what 'flogging your log' was. There was so much stuff flying over our heads that you mainly asked about the things that you needed to understand for plot reasons. Danny's going home to flog his log... I think I associated that a bit with log rolling or something else boring that he'd rather do than hang around with the others.

 But with Rik Mayall, there wasn't that need. He was just funny - naturally and consistently. He had an incredible energy, a dangerous and manic quality that meant you couldn't help but watch him. The next thing I saw him in was Blackadder as Lord Flashheart. A character that's onscreen in total over two episodes for about 15 minutes and yet is one of the most immediately recognisable and quotable characters ever written in comedy. When I realised that Flash and Rick were played by the same actor, I just fell in love.

It helped that Mayall had a beautifully childlike quality about him, which made him a natural for story-telling, which he seemed to enjoy just as much as anyone listening when he gleefully played around with inevitably disgusting details. It felt a little bit like he was recognising and encouraging something in the children that adored him, which made it all feel a bit naughty and yet freeing.

It was this quality that likely saw the creation of Drop Dead Fred - a movie that doesn't quite work, but through no fault of the full-on performance by Mayall that's made it a favourite of lots of people in their early-to-mid-thirties. He just threw himself about the screen like a cross between Miranda Richardson's Queenie and a Looney Tunes character. A film that was a little grown up for a kid's audience but a bit too childish for an adult audience, I can't help but wonder how it could have worked with someone like Sarah Silverman opposite Rik, able to tap into the little girl that would have been just as manic as Mayall.

As much as I loved the work that he did in the UK (especially Bottom and the New Statesman), I always felt a little like he was underestimated as a talent. The at-times-stunning Rik Mayall Presents - a short series of one-off stories, usually showing a more serious side to his phenomenal acting ability - displayed him at his peak. Dark, sympathetic or just pathetic... he was an amazingly versatile actor. Kevin Turvey, Rick, Richard Richard, Drop Dead Fred and Alan B'Stard. While you never forgot that you were watching Rik Mayall, all you'd need is a second of any of them to recognise them instantly. Most comedians never get to create one iconic character. Mayall created numerous. There may have been some DNA in common between them, but you'd never mistake one for the other.

Bottom was, of course, magnificent - the live shows were riotously funny at times, and showed off how much fun he seemed to be having sometimes. Sadly, that fun wasn't always there. Mayall could, by some accounts, be awkward and arsey at times, especially following the quad bike accident that almost (and technically did) kill him. Suffering from long-term effects of the accident, it appears that his frustration occasionally made him difficult to work with.

He worked less after he recovered from the accident, but there were still flashes of the brilliance that had been there before. I'd always hoped that he'd have a late autumn in his career, ideally moving towards more straight acting. He was incredibly charismatic and the intensity that he carried as a performer always put me in mind of Jack Nicholson. I'm not intending to exaggerate when I say that I absolutely believe he could have been that good.

If I feel sad now, it's because for all his talent and for all his achievements, it still never feels like Rik Mayall got the opportunities on a worldwide basis that seemed due. I always thought it would happen one day. I always wanted his talent to get more recognition. I wish I'd kept up with more of his work in recent years, because he's a performer I always enjoyed watching.

As it is, though, I don't feel that sad. I feel lucky and many of us should. I got to grow up watching Rik Mayall, that dangerous jester that appeared to terrify adults while sharing a wink with the children. He let us in on the joke and the jokes were fantastic. Rik Mayall is one of the greatest performers ever to have been on television. It is obviously sad that he has died, but it was a privilege to be alive when he was.