From Neil Beynon [via Twitter] I discover that not even The Guardian - supposedly the final bastion of vaguely idiocy-free journalism in the UK - is gleefully running a “scientist says internet addiction is a disease!” article, complete with a “how to spot whether you’re hooked on the intartubes!!” checklist.

Good grief. Is there any aspect of human behaviour that isn’t a disease these days?

Look, I’m not demeaning the sometimes serious illnesses that can result from certain mental imbalances. Nor would I try to claim that there aren’t people who have serious addictions to many things, the internet being one of them - addictions which can indeed cause serious impairment to their lives.

My issue is this.

ADDICTION IS NOT A DISEASE. ADDICTION IS ADDICTION. ADDICTION IS A FUNCTION OF HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY.

I REPEAT - ADDICTION IS NOT A DISEASE. YOU CANNOT CATCH AN ADDICTION FROM SITTING NEXT TO ANOTHER ADDICT ON THE TUBE. UNTIL WE STOP TREATING ADDICTION AS A DISEASE AND START VIEWING IT AS AN UNDERSTANDABLE REACTION OF AN EASILY DISTRACTED PRIMATE BRAIN THAT EVOLVED TO RESPOND TO NOVELTY AND STRONG STIMULI, WE WILL SLOWLY DROWN IN “ILL” PEOPLE UNTIL THERE ARE NO “WELL” PEOPLE LEFT.

IF YOU WANT TO HELP PEOPLE WITH ADDICTIONS, THEN START BY FINDING OUT WHAT MOTIVATES THEM TO ABSORB THEMSELVES IN THEIR SUBSTANCE OR BEHAVIOUR OF CHOICE TO THE DETRIMENT OF THEIR DAY-TO-DAY LIVES. BECAUSE THE EVIDENCE SEEMS TO DICTATE PRETTY CLEARLY THAT SLAPPING THE STIGMA OF A DISEASE ON THEM AND TELLING THEM IT’S ALL THE FAULT OF THOSE NASTY GENES ISN’T DOING ANY BLOODY GOOD AT ALL, IS IT?

PEOPLE DEVELOP ADDICTIONS BECAUSE MODERN LIFE IS HOLLOW. STOP BEING HOMEOPATHIC - TRY TREATING THE ACTUAL DISEASE INSTEAD OF THE BLOODY SYMPTOMS.

Sometimes the rampant technophobia and litigatory idiocy our culture is saturated in really gets right up my nose.

The Guardian should be bloody ashamed of themselves for running sensationalist shit like this, blatantly shilling for a money-grabbing organisation that can see brass in the muck of people’s misery.

Rant over.

[ Don't take it personally, Neil - you just tripped one of my switches there.

And anyone who'd like to know what gives me the right to make sweeping statements about the effectiveness of addiction programs is welcome to email me privately, so I can explain to them - among other things - how my father died. ]

Everyone thinks they have a novel in them. This storytelling urge apparently runs all the way into the Ministry of Defence, who’ve decided to rewrite a certain rather gory tale with no forseeable ending that’s set in the Middle East. After all, the truth - when unpalatable - is best covered up. Especially when the children might hear it.

Perhaps some children, encouraged by their parents or just simply contrarian by nature, will refute this fictionalisation of a massive financially-motivated war crime by any other name. At which point they will doubtless have their DNA sampled for a database that is just waiting to be hacked open like a decades-old pomegranate, under suspicion of having the potential to become a life-long offender - which, once stigmatised as such, they are most certainly more likely to become.

Sneaky little free-thinking scum-bags - they will be easily spotted, as they’ll be the ones who refuse to swear allegiance to a puppet monarchy.

[ The next person who tells me I should be more proud to be British is going to receive all the swearing that I just redacted from this post before publishing it, and then some.

The next person to blame the ills of the country on im'grunts or tur'rists will spend the next two days in casualty having my boot surgically removed from their arse. ]

For my money, the sign of a really good writer is that they can write about absolutely anything, yet still retain a clarity and poetry of voice - not to mention keeping you entertained enough to read on.

Which is why I was incredibly impressed by this high-precision rant from Erik Davis (who wrote a popular science book that I’d recommend to anyone, Techgnosis), in which he bemoans windchimes:

“I love wind, the gusts that make moaning music from the pines in the mountains, or the zephyrs that blow in from the Pacific over my toy city, thrusting fog and briny mists eastward towards the bay, and tunneling up my street on their climb toward Twin Peaks. I am also down with the music of metal, the resilient blast of archangelic trumps and gluttonous tubas, not to mention the shimmering arpeggios of vibes and hammered dulcimers and the clarion call of the carillon. And I am fascinated by randomness and chance, from I Ching coin tosses to the Situationist derive to the music or paramusic of John Cage. And I love, very much, every single song that Brian Wilson wrote for Smile. All this is true, and yet the fact remains:

I f*cking hate wind chimes.”

Seriously, go read the whole thing. That, to me, is great writing. If I’m wrong, then may I never become a successful writer. Selah.