Hit the Road, Jack.

Ever get the feeling that you just want to get the f*ck out of here? Me too. There’s nothing quite like entering a third lockdown and a fourth month of not seeing anyone who doesn’t share your DNA to make you want to piss off and hit the open road. But sadly, it’s not that simple. You’ve got that pesky job weighing you down. Well, hopefully you still do – if not, this doesn’t actually really apply to you, so congrats, I guess. But if you’re still WFH, you likely spend an inordinate amount of time tethered to your desk by a metaphorical lasso of responsibility. But what if you were able to shake off that lasso like the belligerent bronco that you are and take your desk with you on the open road? Perhaps now you can, thanks to the Nissan ‘NV350 caravan office pod’. It comes fully kitted-out with a smartphone-controlled retractable workspace, a Herman Miller office chair, and even a roof balcony for those ‘5 minute’ breaks you keep having every hour. Perfect for the executive who wants to return to the wild, but still wants to grease the wheels of the great capitalist machine. So pucker up, because it’s time to kiss that family goodbye and go wherever the road takes you.

Ups and Downs.

A seesaw is a good metaphor for life. No matter how low you feel, you’ll always come back up to a better place. And then swiftly come plummeting back down to the very bottom again and possibly fall off. I said it was a good metaphor for life, not a metaphor for a good life. It is, however, a donkey’s favourite thing to do at a playground. Oh, my bad, that’s actually a hee-haw. Shit jokes aside, obviously seesaws are great and have brought unbridled joy to children across the world for millennia (roughly). But it was a seesaw at a particularly poignant playground that was crowned the 2020 champion of the Beazley Designs of the Year Award this week. That was of course the ‘Teeter-Totter Wall’, which is located on the great big metal border between Texas and Mexico. The seesaws – or as they call them in Mexico, los seesaws – were installed along the wall to allow children from each side to come together and play with one another, thus illustrating a common humanity and bringing the two divided communities together as neighbours. Well, for 20 minutes. Then all seesaws were swiftly removed and all children were politely advised to piss off away from the wall. But that was long enough to snap some iconic photos that can continue to remind us of how human beings can transcend dividing forces… for at least 15 minutes.

First Time for Everything.

Everyone likes to be first (despite the fallacious playground knowledge that it is actually the worst), so everyone should love this. The New Science Museum’s ‘Never Been Seen’ site reveals to each user a previously unseen item from their vast archive. I had a go myself, but I have to say I was left a bit disappointed at first. This will sound like a shitty joke, and I swear I’m not scraping the bottom of the barrel, but I was lucky enough to be the very first person to lay eyes upon… an enema set from 1828-1860. Nah I’m not having that – you can shove that right up your… actually I suppose that’s the point, isn’t it? Next up, I got a late 19^th Century ‘Hypodermic syringe with phials of drugs’ (cocaine and morphine, if you were wondering). Fortunately, on my last attempt I managed to avoid anything designed to go inside the human body. In mildly more wholesome fashion, I was shown a rather dashing British Railways Ticket Collector jacket. Blimey; an enema set, cocaine, and a ticket collector uniform – add in some overpriced sandwiches and you’ve got one helluva Network Rail Christmas party. So, if you, like me, have a particular penchant for being the very first person to plant your ocular flag in random tat on the internet, give it a go yourself here.

Cruise Control.

Tom Cruise buys a fleet of robots to spy on his staff. That sentence should sound ludicrous – so why do I feel like it makes more sense than anything I’ve ever said? Seriously, when I first saw this story, I actually just carried on scrolling and thought ‘yeah, course he did’. Upon reflection, though, it occurred to me that it probably is at least somewhat noteworthy. This proceeds from his legendary blow up a few weeks ago when he saw a couple members of staff sharing houmous and proceeded to go, in technical terms, f*cking mental. I know what you’re thinking, who shares houmous in a global pandemic? I guess some people are just terribly reckless. I’m still sceptical about that whole episode, to be honest. Who, when screaming in a tirade of fury, has perfect diction and manages to deliver a rousing monologue that could have been plucked straight out of Henry V, on behalf of all the people losing their jobs and homes? Impossible. Ah, now I get it. But to avoid a repeat of houmous-gate, Tom has splashed out on some COVID-19 surveillance robots, which have been described as “the Terminator only not as violent”. For now. Just wait till it sees the freaks in the corner huddled round the taramasalata.

The Iceman Cometh.

Ordinarily, if you stumble across a hairy, naked man in your local park, it’s likely going to be a matter for the police. But that wasn’t the case for the park-goers in Minneapolis last week, who were shocked and delighted by the unexpected arrival of Zug Zug the Neanderthal. Monolith’s have been all the rage of late, to the point where they’ve even become a bit hacky, so it wasn’t clear how anyone could break the monolithic monotony. Turns out the answer was right in front of us: whack a caveman in it. Unlike the other, more mysterious monoliths, this one was swiftly claimed by artist Zach Schumack, who hoped that it would have a positive effect on the community and get people out in nature. Zach did, however, deny that he was influenced in any way by the metal monoliths that have been popping up over the last few months. Yeah, right – just like my old bouffant haircut wasn’t influenced by Frankie Cocozza, but just happened to emerge at exactly the same time as the height of his X Factor fame. But regardless of origins: superb haircut, even better monolith, happy days.

realsh*t: Inauguration Special.

America is divided, that much is clear. But how are the Next Gen feeling about their future? Does a new President give new hope for newfound unity? Or do divisions run deeper than that? Can Americans be optimistic? Can anyone…?

Just hours away from an inauguration that will mark the end of an intense 4 years, we asked the SELFHOOD Collective for their thoughts on events past, present and future, and where they think (and hope) their nation is headed.

Real People, Real Time… Realsh*t.