Sandra Bland. Photo via Facebook

Sandra Bland had no patience for apathy. In January, the suburban Chicago native started recording videos about police brutality in a series she called Sandy Speaks. The idea was to start a dialogue about current events with her young nephews, but a few months later, she could no longer stand sifting through the usual social media fodder.

"If you're black and not posting about black unification, get the fuck off social media," read a meme-like image Bland posted on April 11. "Right now we don't care about your birthday, your club pics, your dinner plates, your ass shots, twerk videos, model shots, or any other irrelevant ass shit not mentioned."

Now that Bland has been found dead in a Texas jail cell, that urgency seems more than a little eerie.

The tragedy began to unfold on Friday afternoon, when the 28-year-old was pulled over for allegedly not using a turning signal just north of Houston. What should have been a routine encounter with a member of the Texas Department of Public Safety quickly turned violent, and a man recorded the encounter, despite an officer telling him repeatedly to leave. "Thank for recording," Bland yelled as she was led, handcuffed, to a police car. "Thank you. He slammed my head into the ground for a traffic signal."

On VICE News: Unarmed Black Man Was 'Strangled to Death' by Mississippi Cop

Although the video only shows Bland outside of her car, on the ground, and in cuffs, Waller County Sheriff Glenn Smith told the Chicago Tribune that the woman was charged with assault on a public servant. The paper also reports she was put into a "tank" for women by herself.

After reportedly eating breakfast and making a phone call Monday morning, Bland was found dead around 9 AM.

So far, local law enforcement is saying her death was a suicide by hanging. The idea that she would take her own life strikes many as strange: Bland was reportedly in town to interview for a new job at Prairie View A&M University, and was set to start on August 3. Her friends are now publicly challenging the official police narrative and saying that a woman planning for the future doesn't just spontaneously decide to end her life. On Thursday, #WhatHappenedToSandyBland was trending on Twitter, with many people on the social media sites the deceased once championed now coming to her defense.

Texas Rangers are investigating the death, according to a press release from the Waller County Sheriff's Office, which notes that the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, Texas Attorney General, and Waller County District Attorney's Offices have also been notified.

In 2007, Sheriff Smith was suspended from his previous job in Hempstead, Texas, for alleged racism. "He got off way too lightly considering his humiliation and mistreatment of young African-American males," the president of the Waller County Leadership Council said at the time.

After completing an anger management class, things apparently did not improve at the department, as Smith was fired in 2008, but won election as Waller County Sheriff later that year.

Follow Allie Conti on Twitter.

A protester at an anti-Tory protest shortly after the election Photo by Oscar Webb

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This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

Last week's budget may come to be known as the moment when the Conservative party intensified its war on the young. Even the traditionally tepid or government-friendly parts of the media have acknowledged that this cocktail of policies concocted by Gideon ("destroyer" in Hebrew) and his band of mad political scientists are fucking the next generation.

The latest round of the Conservative assault on the young looks like this: tax credits for children beyond the first two are being removed, extending the war on the young to babies. Housing benefits are gone for those under 21, so good luck if you're desperate to flee your parents. Grants for poor university students will be turned into loans, while tuition fees can rise with inflation, taking them over £9,000 [$14,000]—student debt is going to climb even higher. And the shiny new "national living wage" of £7.20 [$11.25] (which isn't actually enough to live on) doesn't apply to under 25s, meaning George Osborne is fine with young people living in poverty for some reason.

Of course, these reforms will disproportionately affect those from low-income backgrounds who are unable to rely on cash from mommy and daddy. The class dynamic of current government policies is undeniable—but the impact of these policies will also be felt by the middle-classes. The Conservatives are diversifying from their traditional poor-bashing in order to shit on a broad spectrum of the young.

In either case, judging by the budget you would think the young had it too easy. The opposite is true. Youth unemployment is at its highest for 20 years, with young people (18 to 24) three times less likely to have a job than the rest of the population. The number of 18- to 24-year-olds out of work is now almost half a million and if you're "lucky" enough to be in work, there's a fair chance you're on a zero-hours contract and earning the minimum wage—or less in some cases.

George Osborne. Photo via Flickr

There are those who say that this is only a temporary purgatory on the journey the heaven that we are all implicitly promised: a stable, well-paid, and challenging job and a spacious house for the family. For some, this may be true, but for the majority—nope, sorry.

According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, only one in five low-paid workers fully escape low pay after ten years and, although the average age of first time property buyers has dropped in the last 12 months, the vast majority of houses for sale are unaffordable even to those earning the UK average income of £26,000 [$40,500] per year. In short, you may be able to scrape together a deposit and take out a mortgage, but the chances are you won't be living anywhere nice—even less so if you want to be in London.

With average earnings still below their pre-crash peak and graduate debt ballooning since the introduction of £9,000 [$14,000] university fees, the prospect of leading a comfortable life is a hope, not an expectation—even for those who can afford a house.

All of this begs the question of why any political party that wasn't bent on Lib Dem style political harakiri would be making things worse. Are they trying to piss people off?

A protest outside Downing Street shortly after the election. Photo by Chris Bethell

The answer has nothing to do with sensibility but everything to do with strategy. It's about who they're trying to not piss off. With an average member age somewhere in the 60s and with the majority of its support concentrated among over 40s, especially among the over 55s, the Conservatives are simply ensuring that they distribute economic advantage—or increasingly under austerity, disadvantage—in such a way that does not put off any blue-rinsed tory grannies.

Of course, being old is no strict guarantee you will be far from where the axe falls. Pensioners are still dying for lack of heat and the poor are still poor, no matter their age. But as the budget illustrates, the young are increasingly forced to carry the biggest burden. Whilst this may make sense for the next election, it could be the Conservative's undoing later down the line.

Across Europe, in Greece and Spain in particular, social movements and political parties are challenging the political status quo. At their heart are young people. The supporters of Syriza and Podemos are aged between 16 and 34, they have no job stability or are simply unemployed. They are often well-educated but have no prospect for employment or property ownership. In short, they have almost no stake in society and, crucially, they have nothing to lose. In the UK we are seeing more and more people who fit that mould.

Historically, the presence of an extensive young, economically, socially, and politically frustrated class, has been a recipe for social fireworks. Admittedly, the economic situation is much worse in countries such as Spain and Greece—where youth unemployment is far higher—and there is no guarantee that exclusion and discontent in the UK will translate into political action.

A guy slam-dunks a brick into a police car. Could Britain see riots break out again? Photo by Henry Langston

To paraphrase academic Guy Standing, rather than radical change we may in fact end up with a "politics of inferno." This is where the state increasingly marginalizes and brutalizes this growing underclass comprised of the young, the poor, migrants, and pensioners whose entitlements are being withdraw. It does so with the tacit support of what remains of the middle-class, whose living standards it seeks to maintain.

We may already be on that road to hell. What we do know for sure is that there are millions of young people facing a bleak future who do not see the UK political system and its parties as an effective means of redressing their grievances. Over half 18- to 24-year-olds did not vote at the last election.

According to the Office for National Statistics' Measuring National Wellbeing Programme (2014), around 42 percent of adults aged 16 to 24 expressed no interest in politics compared to 21 percent of those aged 65 and over. But we can leave the idea that this means young people don't care or don't know about politics to someone else.

Disinterest is not strictly apathy. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that even those young people who expressed no interest in politics had "political" concerns and had even participated in activities that we understand to be political—attending a protest, signing a petition. The fact is, people don't want to engage in a political system that seems to give you a choice of how much worse you want your life to get: Bad or really fucking bad?

Related: VICE Meets Kim Hye-sook

As the Scottish independence referendum illustrated, where genuine political opportunities present themselves and when there is a perceived anti-establishment party with a significant media and organizational presence (the SNP), the participation of young people increases. According to research by the Electoral Commission, 69 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds voted in the referendum and this figure is higher still among 16- to 17-year-olds, 77 percent of whom voted. Revealingly, those that voted for independence tended to be younger and poorer than those that voted against it.

Beyond Scotland, it is not clear how exactly the disenfranchised young will express their grievances over the coming years. It could be in the form of a new party, much like Syriza in Greece or Podemos in Spain. Perhaps the "Green Surge" will continue until Natalie Bennett's gang are a force to be reckoned with. Maybe there'll be a series of social movements or we could see our cities erupt into flames in endless riots. It might be all of these.

Whatever form it takes and however it happens—and we can say with near certainty that if things continue as they are, something will happen—the signs suggest it will be directed against the Conservative Party and likely Labour, too. It may well be carrying with it the seeds of both their destructions.

Syriza may be on the rocks and the European elite will sleep more comfortably for that, but the energy that got them in government is still reverberating around the continent and it won't dissipate quickly. The Conservative war on the young is more than playing with fire, it is prodding a stack of dynamite with a blazing torch. Expect an explosion soon.

Follow Andrew Dolan on Twitter.

All clips and stills courtesy of Drafthouse Films

Joshua Oppenheimer's filmmaking career took off when he created The Act of Killing, one of the most conceptually baffling movies of all time; in it, former heads of Indonesian death squads cheerfully filmed reenactments of the mass murders they themselves committed in the 1960s, with the videos stylized in the manner of their choosing. The harrowing, brilliant, sometimes hallucinatory results plunge the viewer into the headspace of people who have done unforgivable things and gone unpunished for them.

Indonesia's relationship to its past genocides is somewhat unique. The imprisonment and mass murder of suspected communists during the rise of Indonesia's US-backed military dictatorship led by General Suharto was carried out more or less openly. The perpetrators of the killings, a ragtag group of civilians who were hailed as heroes at the time, became local celebrities; the public, including family members of victims, have spent decades terrified that if they challenged the prevailing heroic narrative they too could be machete-ed and tossed into the Snake River.

The film's protagonist, Adi, confronts a killer

Oppenheimer has created a follow-up to The Act of Killing focusing on the family of a victim, rather than a perpetrator. In the more conventional, but no less powerful, The Look of Silence, we're given a more likable protagonist named Adi, the brother of one of the 1 to 3 million victims of the purge. Adi, an eye doctor in his mid 40s, is transfixed by Oppenheimer's footage of the death squads confessing. After watching a reenactment of his brother's death by his killers, he demanded—Oppenheimer insists it was his idea—to be allowed to confront these men. These confrontations become the central thrust of the film. Under the pretense of examining the killers' eyes, he asks them simple questions: "How did it feel?" "Did you cut your victims more than once?" "Why did you cut off the woman's breast?" "How do you do politics surrounded by the families of people you've killed?" "Is that better?" As he literally clarifies their vision by adjusting the lenses in his toolset, they find themselves seeing the past more clearly as well.

They usually react badly to the sudden clarity.

VICE recently sat down with Josh Oppenheimer to talk about these moments of truth, and whether it's his mission to find the world's monsters wherever they are, and in his uniquely empathetic way, find a way to slip his magic mirror in front of their faces and reveal their pasts to themselves for the first time.

Oppenheimer prefers to sit close to whoever he's talking to, and he listens intently, responding not just to the words his interlocutor says, but the emotion they didn't know they were conveying. That ability to connect makes him an incredibly intimate, persuasive conversationalist, and is undoubtedly his secret weapon.

Watch an exclusive clip from the 'The Look of Silence':

VICE: Even though The Look of Silence is a documentary about a genocide, I feel like you wouldn't mind me saying it's not educational. What were you trying to accomplish?
Joshua Oppenheimer: I go very small. I focus on one family and I don't tell you their experience, I immerse you in it. I make Adi you or your brother. I make his parents your parents or your grandparents. His children are your children, and if you don't have children, your nieces and nephews. I make you feel the texture of their bodies, the sounds of the spaces where they are, and the ghosts that are everywhere and looking at everybody all the time.

This film, and to an even greater degree The Act of Killing tend not to give the audience much exposition. Is that part of your filmmaking ethos?
Well, it's not an ethos. It's that I don't see myself as a journalist.

What's do you feel is the difference between art and journalism in the context of your films?
If journalism is about providing information, new information, putting it into a context so that people are able to, hopefully, deploy it in a public good, art is not about providing that window onto some new phenomenon that people knew little about. This is actually provoking a confrontation with the self. It's about forcing people—seducing people—to look in the mirror. And the shock is not the shock of the new; it's the shock of the familiar. It's the sense of: Oh, this is me. This is us. This is humanity. This is my country, too. This is the world. And is that really me? Is that really us? And what do we do about that?

But doesn't that exposure do some of the work of aggressive journalism? Like that old George Orwell quote: "Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed; everything else is public relations"?
I'm not saying that there aren't gray areas, and there aren't works that are both somehow. But I am saying that I think there's a cost to exposition, and the cost is that it is distancing. The cost is that there is a voice behind the camera or the point of view—the imaginary person who's putting the text into titles behind those inter-titles, who's addressing the audience, who's explaining and interpreting the visuals, the images and sounds that ought to be and otherwise would be immersive and very, very close. Exposition makes it very hard to have anything other than a window onto a far-off phenomenon that's being somehow interpreted.

Schoolchildren being taught the official story of the purge

When I was watching one of the parts about the death squads telling ridiculous lies to townspeople, I remembered the feeling of being a child, and believing ridiculous lies. Is that what you set out to accomplish?
Oh, that's wonderful. I'm so happy you saw that. That was your moment, in a way. The tile of the film, The Look of Silence, is all about making something invisible—normally invisible like silence—visible. It's a silence born of fear. It's a tense silence of nitroglycerin; it's potentially explosive. But it's also, despite that tension and the restrictions that places on everybody's freedom of action and thought and expression, it's nevertheless a space where Adi's family has found some love and some grace and built a life—albeit lives that had been broken by the silence and fear in which they lived.

Right! It felt like when I was a kid, and someone told me a dead baby deer was just waiting for its mother. Believing it was easier, but eventually, I had to deal with that deer being dead.
The Look of Silence implies this effort to make this invisible thing visible, and, for Indonesians, to make it impossible to ignore the prison of fear that comes with that silence—that that silence characterizes. In that sense, the film, for Indonesians, is like the child in "The Emperor's New Clothes"—The Act of Killing too, in a different sense. There, it was possible for people not to talk about the founding crimes of this regime and the impunity, fear, corruption, and thuggery that's been in play and has defined the regime ever since. Now this film makes it impossible for people not to talk about this other thing that was easier to ignore.

Adi, transfixed by footage of killers confessing

How did you make me identify so closely with Adi?
Every viewer makes her own Adi in her own head because Adi is silent. Adi is a canvas which we can inhabit and call our own.

But that doesn't mean he was generic. I felt particularly close to him when he was watching your footage of the killers confessing. I went through a phase where I watched nothing but Holocaust movies, I think for a similar reason. I had family members who went through it, and some who died.
Yeah, I did too. My father's family narrowly escaped the Holocaust. A lot of the family wasn't so lucky. My stepmother's family, almost all of the family, was wiped out. Her parents escaped. I went through that stage before Schindler's List, but yeah.

Is Adi really an optician?
An optometrist, yes.

I ask because the metaphorical significance is so obvious—about helping people see clearly...
...who are willfully blind. You know, a metaphor in cinema is something you can call out to a viewer with exposition—I think actually Werner [Herzog] does that sometimes very beautifully. It's not crude; it's a difficult thing to do when he does it, and he does it beautifully. I kind of grow metaphors organically, whether it's the fish in The Act of Killing, or Adi's career. I understood midway through shooting The Act of Killing that Adi was now seeking out patients over the age of 60 just so he could ask them their memories of the killings. And I started to see that he must be getting amazing responses, and decided if Adi becomes the main character in the next film, I should film him doing that.

How did Adi become such a good interviewer?
When Adi convinced me—and he really had to convince me to film the perpetrators—to confront the perpetrators with him, I realized that we would have to find a way of getting their guard down. The eye tests were perfect for that because you're disarmed when you're chatting with a doctor or a dentist or a barber, your guard is down. And Adi could prolong the test for as long as necessary until all of the important details that he'd studied in my old footage had come out.

How'd you convince people to talk to the brother of a guy they murdered?
I would bring Adi, and I would say, "Here I am. I'm back after all of these years. I went on to shoot a film with..." and I would drop the names of some of the most powerful names in The Act of Killing so they would realize that they ought not physically attack us or detain us because they might offend their superiors.

For more on Indonesia, check out 'Tobaccoland':

I hope they didn't know what was in The Act of Killing when you said that...
The Act of Killing hadn't screened yet, so they didn't know what kind of film it was, and therefore I was still believed to be close to some of the most powerful men in Indonesia. I would say, "This time I'm not here to ask you to dramatize what you've done. I'm here with a friend who has his own perspective and personal relationship to these events. You may agree. You may disagree. I hope you'll listen to each other, and I want to just film your conversation. Thank you for your time. Adi's an optometrist, he'll test your eyes and if you need glasses, we'll make as many pairs as you should require."

What did Adi want out of these conversations? And did he get it?
I knew we wouldn't get the apology that Adi was hoping for. But I thought if I could do my job well, and film the inevitably recognizably human reactions that anyone could empathize with—not necessarily sympathize with but empathize with—that are inevitable when someone comes in your house and says, "You've killed my brother. Can you take responsibility for this?"

And they wouldn't. But you just wanted to literally see the looks on their faces, right?
Right at the beginning, [one man] says that everybody in the village is afraid of him, and then he starts telling these horrific stories with these terrible details while Adi is very calmly testing his eyes. He would say one awful thing after another that would challenge both of our composures, frankly, and Adi would just slip in another lens and say, "Do you see more clearly or less clearly?" And then he would say "more clearly" and then continue or "less clearly" and then continue on with another awful story. And he would tell the stories in such a way to kind of let the horror of it linger in the air.

That scene definitely stands out. Is that how you got the image for the poster?
I told my cinematographer, "Let's move this camera, which is getting the complementary angle, and make it completely frontal so it's up on his face for this first part of the scene where he's telling his stories, because this is a metaphor for blindness."

These killings were partly the result of US's anticommunist influence. Aren't there CIA guys out there who deserve to have "the look" captured on film? And are you going to track them down?
[With] most of the historical records about what happened in 1965, the US involvement remains classified. All of the CIA documents pertaining to Indonesia from 1964 to 1966 are classified. All of the defense documents are classified. And we're working with senators to hopefully pass a sense of a senate resolution demanding that the US declassify those documents—well, recommending, because that's all they can do in those resolutions is recommend that the US take responsibility.

But there must have been some guys who we know were around back then.
I interviewed this man who worked in the US embassy in Jakarta whose job was to compile lists of thousands of names of public figures—writers, artists, intellectuals, journalists, unionists—and hand them over to the army to kill these people. Tick off their names when you kill them, a death list of thousands of names. And he talked about it as though this was real intelligence work he was doing. And I came to realize that these were public figures, and the army was deployed in every hamlet. They would know who their opponents were. What this really was was incitement. It was an unmistakable signal from one of the world's superpowers: Kill everybody. We want you to go after everybody who might be opposed to this new regime. [This was] reported in The New York Times.

You talked to him too? What'd he say?
I said, "How do you feel about all of this?" Robert—he was in Bethesda, Maryland, a couple of miles from where I grew up—he said, "Oh, I'm really glad this didn't happen in Bethesda."

Wow.
I'm so glad you reacted that way. Not everyone knows why that's so shocking, but I just sat there thinking that's really what this is all about. But the problem is—unlike thugs, who could be killing in their early 20s—these men were in their 30s, even 40s, 50s. They will be in their 90s, late 80s. At the youngest anyone in influence or power—which is what matters when you're talking about national policy—would be in their early 90s, or deceased.

So that's not going to be your next film?
My work on this particular genocide is over. There's plenty of other things to make films about. It's like Werner Herzog said when I first started working with him, "Joshua, your next film should be an Eddie Murphy comedy."

Joshua Oppenheimer's The Look of Silence is in theaters nationwide tomorrow.

Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.

Mugda Stadium, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2010. Lili Begum wakes up at dawn ready for a day's work collecting waste. She lives underneath Mugda Stadium with her family. About 500 people take shelter beneath the stadium. Most of them come from Gaibandha, one of Bangladesh's poorest areas.

This article appears in the Photo Issue 2015

Photos by Shehab Uddin / Magnum Photos

SHEHAB UDDIN

The 15,000 to 20,000 pavement dwellers of Dhaka are among the most vulnerable and neglected people in Bangladesh. They have few means to survive in a political, social, and economic environment that virtually ignores them. Their main concerns are food, clothing, and a place to sleep. They live for the present—no past, no future. They engage in numerous activities to earn a living (working as porters, rickshaw pullers, maids, sex traders, and solid-waste recyclers), with their own particular struggles and joys. They are conscious of their identities as human beings.

Their population over the last decade has increased at the same rate as that of Dhaka in general. Many newcomers arrive after escaping floods that ruin livelihoods in rural areas and that are becoming more frequent with climate change. Others are crippled with debt and are reeled in by the promise of better opportunities. But for the future influx of pavement dwellers, the move will not bring the better life they hope for.

Kawran Bazaar, Dhaka, 2010. Two young boys, Arshadul and Shumon, playing together one evening in Kawran Bazar. Arshadul collects wastepaper from the garbage before selling it. Shumon steals for a living. They are good friends.

Mugda Stadium, 2010. Rezina and her family as they return to Dhaka after a visit to their relatives in Gaibandha. Families often feel they are thrown in the deep end when they first migrate to the city from a rural area. But they have faith that they will be able to stay afloat. The family migrated to the capital in search of work several years ago. Now Khabir pulls goods on a rickshaw van, and Rezina collects garbage to sell to recycling vendors. Their daughter studies at the Amrao Manush daycare center for pavement dwellers, but their son spends his time doing nothing.

Rina getting ready to make her bed for her and her family on a footpath on the main street of Karwan Bazaar. She sells waste vegetables collected from the bazaar, which she sells during the day. 2010, Kawran Bazaar, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

A disabled pavement dweller begging on Mughdha Street, Dhaka. Begging is the main source of income for pavement dwellers who are disabled, very young, or elderly. 2010, Mugda Para, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

A child plays in an underpass in the early morning while it rains outside. He spend the last night in the underpass with his parents, who are still sleeping alongside their neighbors. 2010, Kawran Bazaar, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

A sex worker searches for a place to sleep for the night on the rooftop of Kamalapur Railway Station. Previously, they would sleep on train platforms and waiting rooms. But the authorities no longer allow them to sleep there, with police detaining those who try. The rooftop may also be used as a 'room' for sex workers during business hours. 2010, Kamalapur Railway Station, Dhaka, Bagladesh.

Rijia, an elderly street dweller prepares her dinner for the evening. She cooks only a little amount of rice that she got by begging in the street. She uses scrap material as fuel. The street in which she cooks is littered with garbage, mud, and human waste. 2010, Mugda Stadium, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

A rickshaw driver sleeping in his rickshaw at Kamalapur Railway Station. He uses it as his bed as it is safer for both him and the rickshaw. A lot of male pavement dwellers pull rickshaws for a living. 2010, Kamalapur Railway Station, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Akhbar (right) and Nurbanu. Akhbar has been suffering fever for the past two days. Nurbanu pours cool water on his head to lower his temperature. 2010, Mugda Stadium, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

This person does not have a wife. Nobody who draws graffiti in dirt with their fingers has someone who loves them. Photo via Annie Mole

This article originally appeared on VICE UK

These are mixed times for the Tube. You're thinking: Oh, he means because of the strikes. No, I mean because people keep masturbating on it, and groping women on it, and taking class-A drugs on it, and yet the person who seems to have come off worse thus far this summer is an artist who used one of the free plug sockets to charge his phone.

It feels like it might be time for a Tube etiquette refresher. For example, Rule #1: no wanking. Not even a little bit. I know: Your boss has really been riding you hard, hasn't he? He really wants that spreadsheet, or whatever it is you do. (I assume any job that isn't my own is just the colossal and infinite construction of spreadsheets.) So you have really nailed a tricky VLOOKUP, and you're on the Tube home, and you have forgotten your book, and... would it be so bad to slide one single hand down your trousers and manipulate your genitals in the direction of a lonely orgasm? A stress reliever. A little jolt of ecstasy. Would it be that bad, if you hide behind a Metro? I am here to tell you yes; yes, it definitely would.

See, a lot of people don't know about the non-wanking on the Tube rule. It's one of those unwritten ones, and TfL do not issue pamphlets warning us all not to do it. What else are we doing wrong? How else are we abusing one of the greatest, dirtiest, worst public transport networks on Earth? Let's find out.

Photo via llee_wu

LEARN TO WALK THROUGH A TUBE STATION WITHOUT STOPPING ABRUPTLY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING CONCOURSE, YOU FUCKING PRICK IDIOT

I always wonder, as I clatter into them terrifically from behind, about the psychological profile of these people. These are the slow walkers and the idiots. The people who loiter in shop doorways, not sure whether they want to go in or not. The people who hold doors open for you when you're not close enough to the door and you have to do a little half-run. Where did these people come from? Their spatial awareness is fucked.

The central truth of using the Tube is: You, like the trains, need to move quickly and precisely. Anyone who cannot grasp that fact needs to have their Oyster card violently snapped in front of them and their Tube rights revoked. I'm talking to you, Out-of-Town Theater Nan, loudly and pridefully tutting as you wander blindly into the throng, as if it is somehow the city's fault, a metropolis that must descend humbly to one knee to apologize for being busy. You, Theatre Nan, and those dreadlocked Spanish tourists who saw Stomp and mistook it for a life-choice.

Trending on MUNCHIES: These Fisherman Are Using Twitter To Sell Haddock

EMBRACE FREE NEWSPAPERS; SUCCUMB TO FREE NEWSPAPERS

The Tube lines are London condensed into a hall of mirrors, the city's diet reflected in scream balloons of vomit and McDonald's debris, its chaos reflected in violently patterned seats and a vista of free newspapers as far as the eye can see, free newspapers contorted into such shapes you've never seen, free newspapers rolled into batons, free newspapers flayed on the floor, free newspapers pulled from the staples outwards and crucified upon dusty seats like inky Jesuses, free newspapers kicked around so much they are now just a single shrill headline about the possibility of Robbie Keane joining Fulham. Free newspapers are the prison currency of the Tube. You will fight over free newspapers. You will read the free newspaper's digest of the news you already read on every news app you have on your phone. You will wonder what the point of the free newspaper is. You will flick to the back, where brand new properties near Leyton are advertised at a starting price of $900,000, and you will know with no hope in your heart that you will never be a Leytonite. Welcome to London, where even the litter reminds you you're poor.

Photo via Annie Mole

GIVING YOUR SEAT UP

Listen up pregnant ladies: I got mad respect for you. Your bodies are doing something insane right now. You are literally cooking a baby in your stomach like a pie. You took some jizz and made it human. It is a wild and crazy and beautiful time for you. But I am hungover and I really need to sit here. I need to wear my sunglasses and not move even one atom and yet somehow ingest this Lucozade, or I am going to die.

Because in the seat-giving-up hierarchy, pregnant women win. They always win. And that's fine. But people who are still processing a dangerous amount of alcohol or drugs from the night before need special treatment, too.

Currently, the sitting down hierarchy goes like this: pregnant women > old people who look especially likely to die soon > other old people > people with lots of bags. This is fucked up. What about the hungover, the lazy? What about the people who played football three days ago and their legs still don't feel right? TfL, a petition: Give us a hangover carriage that plays rain noise and "Xtal" and Deacon Blue. Till then: I am not giving up my seat unless you are visibly giving birth.

JOLLY PLATFORM ANNOUNCERS

You know the ones: They say things like, "I hope you all had a lovely day at work." And you are like—some of you, the less cynical, the ones who have lived lives less miserable—you are like, "Oh no, don't be mean about the Jolly Platform Announcers: They brighten my day." No.

Think about it like this: These people are locked underground for eight hours a day. The air they breathe is dusty and hot. Their job is, primarily, to stop you trapping your arms in a robotic door. Their only friends are the dirty blind mice that somehow exist on the Tube line. And these people are happy, on top of that? Think again about those four base facts. Now throw happiness on top of it. The evidence is clear: anyone who can be happy, anyone who can be jolly under those stressful circumstances, is a fucking nailed-on, definite serial killer. Ban Jolly Platform Announcers, before they murder us all.

FALLING ASLEEP

If you're deliberately falling asleep anywhere in public, you're a wanker. If you're falling asleep by accident on the Tube, you will probably get robbed.

Watch VICE's documentary on the London housing shitshow, 'Regeneration Game':

VIRAL VIDEOS

With all of London being a fucking viral video set now, there is a constant buzz in the background, an audible 70 percent chance that everything happening around you is a tightly choreographed routine conceived by medium-profile vloggers or EE. That every old woman you help up some stairs is going to turn around and start singing gospel songs at you as a sign of gratitude, teens in beanie hats rushing in with GoPros, your heartwarming moment of basic human decency a simple ploy engineered by hands unseen for obscure corners of Mom Facebook to click "Like" on.

What do you do when you are caught in a viral video prison on the Tube? Very simple Do and Don't:

DO: Start swinging, with wild abandon, your fists and your legs, until at least one vlogger is mortally wounded
DON'T: Rant about immigration in a way that goes viral and makes you lose your job

You shouldn't need telling the Don't, but if more of us do the Do then maybe we can all get back to real life and out of this Grand Guignol Beadle's About facsimile of it.

DOORS

Have you ever been trapped in a Tube door? You have to think about your life and where it's going, if you have. Doors are up there with utensils and toilets as some of the most basic tools you will ever interact with and you just got your coat trapped in one because a beeping robot shut it on you. Thousands of people with Kindles are mad because your inability to walk through a door like a human has ground a vital part of one of the biggest cities on Earth to a halt. Think about your life and where you're going. You are so bad at doors it is close to being a crime.

EYE CONTACT

The only people who make eye contact on the tube are fugitive war criminals and Australians.

I bet you ca$h money this fucker is jolly. Photo via Annie Mole

FLIRTING

Flirting on the Tube is like flirting with someone while they're on the toilet, or having a knee glued back together by a perfunctory nurse: possible, yes, but essentially you are just bothering someone with your floppy-haired goofiness and Hugh Grant-esque "I–I–actually" shit while they are doing something necessary but also kind of awful. If you're about to flirt with someone on the Tube, just run this quick quiz by yourself: Would I say this to them if they were currently shitting? Just ask, internally, inside-voice: What about if they were having their shoulder popped back into its joint? If the answer is no, probably best to leave it. If you fancy them that much, just submit yourself to the public police database that is the "Rush Hour Crush" section of the Metro.

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AVOID THOSE BLOKES WHO KNOW EXACTLY WHERE TO STAND WHEN THE TRAIN COMES SO THEY CAN STEP IMMEDIATELY ONTO THE TRAIN AND ONTO A WAITING EMPTY SEAT

Sand colored overcoat, pen in the pocket, react-a-lite lenses, a haircut, a pink capillary blush around the nose that suggests a lack of dietary roughage, and standing there, in his piss-stained desert boots, in the exact same spot he always does, and the doors unfold open with a kssh, and he thinks: Is it really worth it? Take a look at that dusty man. He is Future You. Do not get too near to him, lest you become him.

Photo via Annie Mole

LEARN THE FINE ART OF TUBE DRINKING

Oh, you're thinking, but drinking is outlawed on the Tube. Drinking is outlawed on the Tube for the weak and the cowardly. For anyone willing to hold a little tinny in a black plastic bag or drink wine straight from a bottle disguised in a backpack, it's still Party Central, particularly the overground lines. I'm not saying Tube carriages should descend into actual, organized event drinking—I've seen footage from the Circle Line Party in 2008, and it basically looks like every twat you've ever met happening at once, like a massive twat firework display—but if we cannot enjoy the hot thrill of pre-drinking some vodka in an Evian bottle when traveling from Morden to Camden, then what, truly, do we have? Drinking in public is the only thing keeping London from being as shitty as New York.

And that's saying nothing for ye.

VOMITING

It's not that bad, vomiting on the Tube. We've all gone a bit too hard on a school night. And then we find ourselves, clammy in the hot, thick air of the Tube line, gently rolling and lilting in time with the motions of the train carriage, last night's lahmacun getting all mixed up in our guts, the urge to expel overwhelming. So just vomit. Vomit in your bag or your hands, and then slowly look up, palms still outstretched, at the person opposite you, and sweetly smile because: Are we not all humans toiling wearily beneath the yellow sun? Are we not all, at one time or another, vomiting lavishly on the Tube?

All tuckered out. Photo via Annie Mole

JUMPING

There is that curious wording to describe a death on the line that holds a train up, a curious wording telegraphed over the announcements as you idle in a grim dark tunnel: We've got a person on the tracks. That strange, bloodless description, as though someone might just be standing there, on the tracks—alive, vital, just furiously staring down an immovable train—and not immolated and in need of scraping up. Thing is, someone just died. Thing is, nothing you're really rushing to is that important any more. So just sit in your tunnel of purgatory and try not to roll your eyes and say "there's always one." Just sit and read your free paper and try not to be the enraged prick in a suit I once shared a carriage with who kept loudly repeating the word: "Selfish. Selfish, selfish, selfish, selfish."

TRYING TO HAVE A CONVERSATION WITH YOUR MATE, YOUR MATE SWINGING ON THE RAILINGS, YOUR MATE LOUDLY TRYING TO ASK YOU YOUR WEEKEND PLANS OVER THE ROAR OF THE ENGINE AND THE RATTLE OF THE CARRIAGE THROUGH THE TUNNELS—OR, WORSE, WORSE THAN HELL ITSELF, NOT A MATE AT ALL, BUT ONE OF THOSE COLLEAGUES YOU HALF-KNOW, ONE OF THOSE COLLEAGUES YOU—AT BEST—NOD AT IN THE KITCHEN, AND TURNS OUT THEY LIVE IN ACTON TOO, AND SO UH, SO WHAT... WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN WORKING ON LATELY? WHERE IN... WHERE IN ACTON ARE YOU? OH, RIGHT BY THE... YEAH, I KNOW THAT ROAD

No. Do not do this. This is not the place for this. Silence on the Tube, nothing but silence.

Photo via Duncan

BALANCING

Ohhhh, so you think you're hot shit, don't you? You think you're the King of Standing Up: try it on the Tube. Or just watch others fail: you see them, knees trembling outwards, holding a leather bag between their thighs as they jab their arms desperately towards one or more handrail, and they miss, and the train jolts forward, and they tip headfirst into the crotch of the nearest terrified night cleaner.

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REALIZE THAT THE SHAPE OF THE TUBE IN NO WAY CORRELATES TO THE SHAPE OF LONDON

The Tube map is an Impressionist vision of London. The Tube map is Picasso drawing women made of triangles. The Tube map is an aesthetically elegant lie, all of the 20th century's most significant art movements leading you astray at once. Learn its mischievous crevices. Walk from Leicester Square to Covent Garden.

NAILING IT

Finally though, one day, you will figure out the Tube—you will shoot through shortcuts inherent in the labyrinth beneath Kings Cross station, you will scoop onto the Central line and then off again because you know it travels faster, you will stride heroically up the fourth-longest escalator in western Europe—your body at one now, with the Tube, its connections are your connections, its announcements proclamations on your soul—and you will emerge, blinking into the light, magnificent, huge, powerful, and a man in a cap and a tabard will offer you a copy of a magazine that's just called Sport, and you will lean close to him and whisper: no. Take a swig from your discreet train beer and lavishly vomit it on some static tourists, buddy. You just won the fucking Tube.

Follow Joel on Twitter.

Some hanging phallic objects, though not the ones in Portland, Oregon. Photo by Flickr user D. C. Atty

Earlier this week, we learned that someone in Portland, Oregon, has been hanging hundreds of dildos from the city's power lines. On Thursday, VICE heard from the person responsible for the phallic prank, who says it's part of a much larger sex-toy offensive and that she plans to continue tying together the rubber penises and tossing them around town.

"We're nowhere near done," said the 20-something dildo-distribution artist, a recent college graduate and retail worker who asked not to be named in part out of concern that police might not appreciate the prank—and in part because she doesn't want her name to be forever linked to sex toys on the internet.

Two leading online rumors—that a sex toy store was responsible for tossing their discarded dildos around town, and that a documentary filmmaker did it as part of a publicity stunt—are both false, according to the dildo mischief maker.

"It had to be done. I have no idea why, but it had to," she told VICE. "Dick-tossing is an exercise in happiness. It was just a fun, hilarious thing to do."

She claims she and a group of friends came into possession of more than 10,000 rejected dildos and other sex toys from a commercial manufacturer that was unable to sell them thanks to a design flaw.

If you have a bunch of sex toys lying around, what better use could they serve than decorating the city? "I'm still laughing about this," she said.

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The dildo campaign apparently started with white and orange toys because they were the easiest to toss. The alleged prankster also showed us a photo of bright purple toys, which have not yet appeared on the Portland power lines. Butt plugs may also appear at some point—once her group figures out a few logistical snags.

"The dicks are easy: Grab the heads and throw the center of the string at the light. The plugs don't weigh enough for accuracy and it has to be quick. I'm not sure what'll be done with the all the butt plugs," she said.

City officials in Portland are still grappling with how to handle the situation. Asked if law enforcement had opened up an investigation into the dildo plague—perhaps as littering or a type of high-flying graffiti—Portland Police Spokesman Pete Simpson said he didn't know how cops would even begin to investigate, and referred us to the city's Office of Neighborhood Involvement.

"Certainly, people with young kids and others may feel like, 'I don't want to look up and see this hanging over our house,' but this is not our jurisdiction," said Amalia Alarcon de Morris, bureau director of the Office of Neighborhood Involvement. That agency is also passing the buck—to the local power company.

The future of sex toys involves 3D-printed dildos. Read more on Motherboard.

At Portland General Electric, spokesman Steve Corson told us rubber dongs don't pose much of a threat on their own, as they can't conduct electricity. Mylar balloons, which can carry power between two lines, are apparently more dangerous—though he added that too much weight on a power line, including the burden from hanging sex toys, could theoretically cause problems. Corson warned locals not to try to remove the dildos themselves, and noted that many of the phallic objects spotted around town are on non-electricity-carrying lines that share the utility's power poles.

Meanwhile, Sid Need, sales associate at the lady-targeted sex-toy boutique SheBop, is warning patrons not to make use of the dildos, even if they fall to Earth.

"These particular toys contain phthalates, which is not something we would sell in our store," Need, who could see at least three dangling dongs from the front door of his workplace, told VICE.

All joking aside, the woman who claims to be behind the prank said her motives weren't entirely juvenile. "I think people should be more comfortable talking about sex and sex organs," she said. "A lot of people own sex toys. This shouldn't be an embarrassing thing to see in public."

Follow Courtney Sherwood on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

There's a sketch in Limmy's Show where our intrepid narrator tells a friend about the unfortunate circumstances in which his dad has passed on. Not only does his father have a surprise AIDS diagnosis to contend with, but they've had to amputate his arms and legs, so that his family couldn't even hold his hand before he met his demise. All the while, his mate's ringtone keeps playing, and so this horrifying account of loss is sound-tracked by intermittent blasts of "The Holiday Rap." It's a trope that, during my time with Brian "Limmy" Limond—father, cycling enthusiast, techno fan, comedian—is a constant: He can talk about genuinely horrifying stuff, fictional or otherwise, yet it'll be consistently hilarious. In normal circumstances, a man shouldn't be able to tell you about a dream of stuffing an old man into a tree and setting him ablaze through stifled laughter. Certainly not in a pub in Glasgow. But that's Brian, or maybe Limmy—it's hard to tell the difference.

Whether it's from the TV— Limmy's Show ran for three series and a Christmas special, while more recently he's had much-lauded guest spots on Charlie Brooker's Newswipe—or from his active, often controversial Twitter use, you'll have heard of Limmy by now. The former web developer has reached beyond his initial success in Scotland, where he's sold out stand-up shows and won our version of the BAFTAs.

He's also inarguably the best person from the UK on Vine, where some strange characters come to life through him, whether through DIY or finding discarded bottles of Frosty Jack's by a dual carriageway.

Now he's got a book out. Daft Wee Stories is a project borne from the bizarre thoughts that have filled blog posts, started surreal arguments on the internet and fueled plenty of his sketch show. This seemed like a reasonable enough excuse to spend two and a half hours in Limmy's company, during which time he waxed lyrical about music, drugs, Scottish independence, depression, comedy and, well, anything that came to his mind.

VICE: Hi Limmy. Tell me about your new book.
Limmy: Well, I was writing daft wee stories on my site, Limmy.com, my blog and that... I did it on Facebook, to begin with, and on Twitter, these daft wee bedtime stories. A publisher saw it and got in touch with my agent, and that was it. It's just full of daft wee stories, about 70 wee stories; 70,000 words at about 1,000 per story, so it only takes about five to ten minutes to read each. They're wee horror stories, generally funny, it's nothing like, deep and meaningful. Some of them are just about fucking seven words long.

You mean like "My mate Rennie shags his granda"?
Aye, that's the wee-est one.

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Well, they seemed to get more graphic as time went on, the Rennie ones.
Aye, I like that, and I mean it's horrible and everything. I think there was the odd person who'd say, "Now, hang on a minute, I don't see what's so funny about this incestuous and, I take it, non-consensual relationship between this guy Rennie, this nutter, and his granda." And there's torture involved, like, "My mate Rennie poured boiling water all over his Granda's face," and that.

Now, why are you laughing, and why am I laughing about that, when if you read it in the paper you'd be like "fucking hell"? I mean, if that happened right in front of you, you'd be fucking horrified, but there's something about horror stories, where it's funny to hear these terrible, terrible, for me anyway... horrific fucking things happening. It's good, it's... got this cracking feeling to it, where it's safe, it's fiction.

Looking back on the sketch show—you appeared and wrote in every sketch, did the music, directed, edited, all this stuff—was that exhausting or did it make all worthwhile, knowing it was fully your project?
Aye, it makes all worthwhile, for me... my type of personality doesn't really like working that much with other people, unless I'm told "just do this, and fuck off," that's alright, but actually working with somebody, when you've got ideas and they've got ideas and you're trying to bring them all together, I think that's dead fucking hard for me. I have to do the music and direct it and write it, I couldn't let anyone else write it, I couldn't have a fourth series and say, "Well, I'll let other people write some of it, come up with ideas for what Dee Dee might do, even if it's shite." People say Limmy's Show is kind of hit or miss, but I'd rather that than having something generally likable. I'd rather say like, "Well, I do all of it" and they say "That's fucking shite," as long as I think it's alright to begin with.

It's unusual, I'd assume, for comedy shows to be commissioned on the basis of one person doing everything.
When you've got an idea in your head of how something will look when you write it, you tell everyone what to do and it's really stimulating, it's fucking exciting. When I used to work on websites and a client would come in and ask for changes, I'd just tune out, like, "I don't fucking care any more, I want it to be exactly that way I want to do it," which is childish... but it's all worked out alright.

You could describe what you do as "alternative comedy," if that's even a term any more.
I thought alternative meant "it's no for the people who like that stuff" or "we're going to slag that stuff off" or... I mean, maybe I'm alternative in that my stuff's not mainstream, doesn't want to be mainstream, could never be mainstream. It isn't just for any cunt. That's why it's a surprise if there's some old woman, about 70 maybe, like last week, who was all, "I love that one, the 'Margaret, put it in yer mouth' sketch, the fucking stripper one!" I was going back over that sketch, and I thought,[older Limmy fans] weren't always this age, they weren't always old women not really up to stuff.

I suppose [Limmy's work] isn't for every cunt, it's no mainstream. I don't know what "alternative" really means, though.

You've generally shied away from mainstream channels of promotion for your comedy. Would you ever do the panel show circuit? I get the feeling you wouldn't be into it at all.
I was asked before to go out on 8 out of 10 Cats, and I've been asked to go on Question Time, I said to no to that. I don't see myself coming across well on that sort of thing. Even Have I Got News For You, which I used to watch all the time, I'd be like that: "Fuck man, I can't fucking pretend to be interested in all this." I'm not slagging off Paul Merton or anything, I like him, but just some things your head isn't fucking right for, sitting there laughing, no matter what is getting said, you have to go like that [disingenuous laugh]. You have to laugh and smile along in case the camera's on you and your face is tripping you up. People at home will be like, "Why's he not laughing at anyone's jokes, like his are so fucking good?"

You campaigned strongly for independence. Was it hard to be enthused about comedy after we bottled it?
I don't know, maybe it's a Scottish thing, but after [the result], I just went "ah well." It's just like the World Cup or something, you think, "Maybe Scotland can go quite far here," and then boom! We're knocked out, like, "Well, what did we fucking expect?"

I don't know if it's working with computers or something but you just get used to things failing. You get used to working really hard on something and then losing it. Or maybe it's just being Scottish, thinking maybe something'll go well, and then it doesn't. Like, when you start planning on going out somewhere, and it starts pissing with rain. I just thought, Oh, you stupid fucking cunts, and I don't mean all No voters, because some have got their emotional reasons, where they feel Scottish as part of being British. Imagine if there was a referendum to split North Scotland and South Scotland, if people didn't feel represented by the Central Belt, I'd vote No, to see if we could stick together and make it work better—that's no different to how some people feel about the UK.

I wondered what you made of Mhairi Black, the fact that she's been elected at 20 years old and the tweets the press have dug up from when she was 15.
It's so good to see a normal person in there. I was tweeting about this, the right-wing papers saying, "Look at this, look at the language she was using," and you think, what were these elected Tories up to when they were 15? Nothing Mhairi Black said or did was bad anyway, she said that maths is shite, and ones about her waking up to pizza and cans. It only shows you that—and I'm not saying that all the people of Paisley are like that—but I'd rather be represented by someone who's had a similar childhood to me, with the same sort of attitudes, and now wants to help folk, than some Tory, or some career politician, who're just in it for the money, the power, or whatever. I thought it was cracking, I always thought hearing her speak that she was like me, just a normal upbringing and seeing those tweets, it was funny to see that that's what it's like now. She was young, on Twitter.

Compare Mhairi Black to George Osborne, who changed his name from Gideon when was about 12, to sound more Prime Ministerial.
Oh, for fuck's sake.

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So yeah, it is much better to be represented by normal people.
See when I was growing up, it was Thatcher, and Michael Hesseltine, and all them. And the way they all spoke, and acted—arrogant, never explained, never apologized, just this attitude of, "We're your rulers, this is how it's going to be. It's going to be tough but we know what we're fucking doing." And you just get in your head, like brainwashing, that the people who speak like that, and look like that, they're the people in charge. But when you see people with a similar sort of background to you, the Scottish Government especially, you think that we can be in charge of things, run things, ban things, change things for the better. And we've always had our own NHS, our own education, yet you get it into your head that we're shite, we can't run a fucking thing, because of these plummy-voiced posh cunts who'll run it for you, because that's what they do. They were born to do that for you; they went to the right schools, colleges, universities, you're just a fucking nae-cunt.

So it's good to see people that had similar upbringings to yourself coming up, and doing it, because it inspires other people to do that. The referendum was brilliant for all that.

So aye, talking about Twitter, you've got trolling down to an art form. What have your favorite moments been?
I quite liked the Louise Mensch thing, that was quite good. That, and me saying I'd like to stick a samurai sword up Prince William's arse and yank it towards me like a door that won't fucking open... I mean, I like that, I like the picture of that, and not to get all wanky about it, but that's like... writing, in a way, that's just like horror writing.

See the fact [Mensch] wrote that big blog on it, and made a big deal about it, saying the BBC should sack [me], all that... not long after that, Jeremy Clarkson says that people who go on strike should be taken out and shot in front of their families. She didn't say one thing about that. Even though that happens, that happens in real fucking life, people get shot and all sorts of things for acting against governments, but I'm not going to act all high and mighty about that. Jeremy Clarkson meant it as a joke. I defend that sort of thing. But the fact she didn't say anything about that because he's a fucking Tory. And then later on, whether or not he called that producer he hit Irish, as in, "You fucking Irish..." whatever, he assaulted him, and she was pure defending him.

So it's alright for a BBC guy, and remember she wanted me booted out of the BBC for writing some tweets—when I didn't even work for the BBC—he assaults this person, and the guy's meant to just take it? She's saying, "He can defend himself," is that what it comes down to? He could have fucking hit him, but he'd be losing his job, because he's not Jeremy Clarkson, but Louise Mensch is defending Clarkson because he's right wing. Here's her wanting me to get sacked because I said something about her precious fucking Thatcher, her precious fucking Royal Family, but [Clarkson] hooks a normal fucking cunt doing his fucking job and she wants him back... it's hypocritical. So that was a good drama, that, especially seeing how she contradicts herself later.

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Do you feel like trolling's changed? It seems to be a buzzword that's become an umbrella term for abuse.
Trolling used to be fun. Now it seems to be if you call somebody a name, like a "prick," that's trolling! No, that's just calling somebody a prick! Doesn't make it good, doesn't make it nice, but I like words to actually mean something. Imagine we were out there [Limmy points to a fairly unassuming man across the street]. If someone calls us a wank, or a prick, you wouldn't come home and say, "Aw, I got trolled today."

I think trolling is a sort of art form, a bit of a craft [laughs]. It's not about saying "oh, I hope they fucking die," or say something racist, something terrible like that, I mean something subtle. It's almost like arson; from one match, you can set a whole school on fire. Not that I'd set a school on fire, but OK: You could get a whole field, of just dried grass—one match and the whole thing would go up. What thing can you say, putting a wee bit of effort in, to get all that stuff up? That's what trolling is to me, it's not just calling Alan Sugar a prick.

You've been pretty open about taking anti-depressants. I wanted to ask about Citalropram and anti-depressants in general; from my own experience, on Fluoxetine and others, I find it harder to write, to be inspired generally. Did taking anti-depressants change you day-to-day, or how you went about your work?
I wrote my Christmas special on Citalropram, and the only difference was that I kept falling asleep at my laptop. It can make you sleepy, if you're sitting at home, or lying down, you just want to sleep. If I wanted to write something angry, Citalropram would take some of that anger away, but it wouldn't flat-line me. Most of the Vines—not "the Plasterer," but the Frosty Jack's ones, all the ones round then—they were while I was on Citalropram. For people who don't know about that stuff, it might sound like I was "on" something, like I was eccied. I just felt the same, but in a good mood. It never affected my creativity in any way. I was told it would, but I think that's more Fluoxetine and Prozac and that, that has a sort of flat-lining effect, but on Citalropram I was happy.

Sometimes I'd not want to make something, be creative in some way, because I'd be scared or worried about people thinking it was shite. You'd be frozen, thinking "I don't know if that's good enough," and just not do anything. But with Citalropram I wasn't bothered about negative things, before if I wanted to get in touch with someone, maybe to go for a drink, maybe someone you've not seen in a while, you'll think they're going to say no, and that'd hurt. But Citalropram would prevent me from having these negative thoughts, feeling that way.

I don't know if it's a coincidence, whether Vine felt great and new, and I enjoyed it, or it was the Citalropram that made me feel that way, but it never affected me negatively, other than making me fall asleep.

It's kind of unusual for someone to deal with depression so publicly. Was being open and relaying your experiences for people cathartic in a way? Did it help relieve internal pressures, saying to people "well if you feel this way too, you should go see the doctor about it"?
I've always been the kind of person that's honest, and talks about their feelings. I've nothing to fucking lose—I'm not the kind of person that's got a lot of pride in that sort of way, in the way I project myself. I mean, I have some pride, I'm not going to walk about in clothes that smell of shite—I care. But I've never had an image to maintain of someone who's in control; I like to talk about my feelings.

It's kind of like The Smiths, in a way, like Morrissey. It helps to hear someone talk about how they feel, when it isn't all positive. I like to ask, "How do you feel about this? Do you feel the same way?" I know it helps folk; it helps me and all, just to rabbit on.

When I first started taking the pills, I was a wee bit shy about it, because I thought, I don't want cunts to think my personality's changed. I didn't want any weird treatment. Saying you're cracking up, you're thinking of topping yourself, apparently that's alright, but see when you're talking about doing something about it, and you're taking these pills that affect your mood... when you're without them, and your mood's shite, and you're getting pissed off, people are alright with that, seemingly. I had this feeling of "I'm doing better now, I'm taking these pills," it's almost sad, like you've gave in, had a fucking lobotomy or something. I didn't want people to think I was different, like if I go on my webcam and I'm a wee bit happier, I didn't want people to think, "Well it's not him we're getting, it's those pills."

I thought, I need to say it. It's that wee feeling of I'm not sure if I should tell folk, and being afraid, that's what made me do it, because fear, being scared of something, feels like weakness in a way. If you're scared of telling people something, it's almost like you're being blackmailed by yourself, you're hiding something.

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Quick one, now: Thump said it's possible that you're the best bedroom producer in the UK.
[Laughs] I thought they were taking the piss, and then it sort of looked like they weren't.

No, no, totally serious.
The music that I make—I've got myself a wee keyboard, with the buttons and all that—see when I actually make stuff that sounds good, to me anyway, I get a bit pissed off, because it just sounds like any old fucking crap. When I was young, I wanted to get into that. Me and my mates bought a tone module and this wee sequencer, an Atari ST, Cubase, and all that. It just sounded fucking crap. Now I've just got this one keyboard and I can do it all on the computer, and that's a wee dream come true, in a way, but initially when I was doing it, I just wanted to put a twist on it, put Rocky III over the top of it or some shite like that.

I like having a laugh, writing versions of the Smiths. That and "In the End," it went down really fucking well. I looked it up, and I know it, so I worked away and did that wee funny voice, even though it's a fucking emo sort of thing, "Oh, it doesn't matter, I had a cry." I put it over the music and I liked how it sounded. I showed it to my girlfriend and she said "that could be good if you didn't ruin it with that fucking singing," but it's a laugh! And that's what I do it for! Seemingly, some folk genuinely like it, although there'll be people asking, "what the fuck is this?" but aye. It's fun.

Check out Limmy's music by clicking here

Final question, and I sort of dread asking this: What's your sound of the summer, Limmy?
Sound of the summer? Well... what day is it? Is it quarter to one yet? [It was ten to one]That'll be it tweeted then. I have it set automatically so it'll send at quarter to one on a Friday. I don't sit there, tweeting it myself. I used to, but I set it up so it's tweeted every week, just so if I go out and I get hit by a bus, I'll still be tweeting it.

But aye, there's a new one by Daft Punk, called "Get Lucky." Give it a listen if you get the chance. Sound of the summer.

Cheers, Limmy.

Follow Euan L Davidoson on Twitter.

Daft Wee Stories is out on July 30. You can buy it here. Follow Limmy on Twitter, too, in case you somehow don't already.

It's time, once again, to marvel at some idiots who don't know how to handle the world:

Cry-Baby #1: Amber Henson

Screencap via Google Maps

The incident: A woman tried to use the Wi-Fi at a Taco Bell but it wasn't working.

The appropriate response: Scream. Cry. Go elsewhere.

The actual response: She allegedly pulled a knife on some people and threatened to stab them.

Forty-eight-year-old Amber Henson (pictured above) was reportedly dining at a Taco Bell in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, earlier this week.

According to an unnamed manager at the Taco Bell, Amber became angry when she attempted to use the Wi-Fi and discovered it wasn't working.

This anger reportedly intensified when she attempted to get a drink from the restaurant's soda fountain, but found a group of teens in the way. "The boys were kind of in the way of the drink fountain and she had to squeeze through them to get her drink," local police chief Nate King said in an interview with Fox 23.

Amber allegedly dumped a cup of water on the teens before being asked to leave the restaurant.

She then reportedly waited for the teens in the parking lot. "When they left, she confronted them when they were at their trucks and pulled a knife out and said, 'If you want some of me, come on,'" the police chief said.

She was, according to the Tahlequah Daily Press, "about three feet from one of the boys with her knife blade pointed at the boy's chest."

She then reportedly fled the scene, and the teens called the tops.

Amber was arrested later that day after police put out a call for information on their Facebook page. She was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon on a minor, and looks unreasonably happy about the whole affair in her mug shot.

Cry-Baby #2: Two unnamed community support officers in London

A train at Camden Road Station. Photo via Wikimedia Commons

The incident: A man charged his phone on a train.

The appropriate response: Nothing.

The actual response: He was arrested.

Last week, 45-year-old artist Robin Lee was on a train in London.

London Overground trains have electrical outlets in their carriages. Though the outlets are intended to be used by cleaners, there are no signs on or near them saying their use by the public is prohibited. During his journey, Robin plugged his phone into one to charge it. "I just sat down and plugged my phone in because there were no signs saying not to," he told the Daily Mail.

Robin says that as the train was pulling into Camden Road Station, he was approached by two community support officers. (This is a thing they have in the UK that's kind of like a watered-down version of the actual police. They wear police-ish uniforms and patrol the streets, but don't have the power to arrest people or interview suspects.)

According to Robin, one of the officers told him that he was committing a crime, and would be arrested for it.

"I went to get off at Camden Road and there were four policemen. I don't know if they were waiting or there anyway," Robin said. "The community support officer called over to them and said: 'You need to arrest him, he's been stealing electricity.'"

Robin says that he was then surrounded by the policemen, who placed him in handcuffs, before loading him into the back of a van to be taken to a nearby police station on a charge of abstracting electricity.

According to the Mail, when he got to the police station, he was "de-arrested" for the charge of electricity abstraction, then arrested again, this time for inappropriate behavior.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the British Transport Police said that Robin was given the inappropriate behavior charge as a result of "becoming aggressive" during his initial arrest for stealing electricity, which Robin denies.

"The whole thing is pathetic and ridiculous. They shouldn't have plugs on trains and expect you not to use them, or they should cover the plugs or something," said Robin.

He added: "The electricity on those trains is self-generated. It's a dynamo. Therefore, it's completely self-sufficient. It's not as if I'm nicking it. The whole thing is ludicrous."

Who here is the bigger cry-baby? Let us know in this poll down here, if you wouldn't mind:

Previously: A woman who called 911 over shitty Chinese food vs. a guy who freaked out because he thought a Minions toy was saying "fuck"

Winner: The Chinese food lady!!!

Follow Jamie Lee Curtis Taete on Twitter.

Neither the father, nor author. Photo via Wikicommons Media

Even though I live pretty close to my dad, years can pass without us seeing each other. We talk on the phone sometimes, but only about superficial things: He asks me how college is going and I try really hard to come up with questions so I can seem interested in his life. We don't really have much to talk about because he knows practically nothing about me. He doesn't know my friends, doesn't know what I'm into, and doesn't have any clue about what I do with my time. He split up with my mom when I was just a baby and the only thing he's ever contributed to my life is sorrow.

As a kid, I'd sometimes get jealous when I saw how my friends' fathers would take care of them and teach them things. Thankfully that was a passing phase and I quickly realized that being blessed with a mother—who was equipped with enough love to match that of two parents—was far more valuable than having around an additional person, who only saw me as the result of a fleeting relationship.

People tend to throw you a few weird looks and the obligatory, "Oh you poor thing," when they hear that you grew up without a dad. What's up with that? My father never took care of me, so why would I miss him? You can't miss something you never had in the first place. It's as simple as that.

Related: Watch our documentary 'The Real True Detective'

What drives me mad is when people try to link my personality traits to my growing up without a father. The fact that I was raised by a single mother didn't turn me into some little monster who hates herself and needs to compensate for her daddy issues by sleeping around. Sure, I hook up with stupid guys sometimes, but that has nothing to do with my father. People who grew up with a loving father can be sluts, too. I'd never use my upbringing as an excuse to act stupidly. I'm not some traumatized, antisocial weirdo.

I've always believed that you should be direct with people who you like and the people that like you. Anything else is bad for the soul of at least one of the participating parties. That rule isn't just relevant for friends or relationships, but also for relatives, and just as much for parents. Some people are just assholes. If you dismiss assholes in other areas of your life, why not dismiss them from your family, too?

They say you can't choose your family but my father didn't seem to agree. For 20 years he thought that he could decide whether he had to take care of his kid. Now I'm deciding whether or not I want to have him in my life. People can whine about that being resentful if they want but that's where I'm at, after all these years of wasted chances.

Sometimes my dad says that he thinks of me a lot and that he loves me. I'd never be able to bring myself to say anything of the sort to the man. Yes, I'm aware that I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for his genetic material and the shitty relationship that he had with my mother. So, thanks for that Dad.

Overall, I'm mostly just grateful for one thing though: Now I know that you can have a happy childhood and turn out just fine outside the traditional family model.

Photo via Flickr user Cannabis Culture

Watch: Kings of Cannabis

Times have been good for stoners in Washington, DC, ever since weed was legalized there in February. Now, five months later, those who love pot enough to grow it in their own homes have a chance to see how their strains stack up to the rest of the weed in the District, Washington Post reports.

The 2015 DC State Fair has decided to add a "Best Bud" competition to their list of contests this year, where homegrown weed will be judged for everything that makes weed great—except, sadly, how fucked up it gets you, since it's still illegal to smoke in public.

The marijuana will be judged on four points, according to the fair's entry form:

1. Appearance: Is it well manicured? Does it have Trichomes (sparkling crystals)?
2. Odor: What does it smell like? Does it have a sweet, spicy, or murky smell?
3. Touch: Is it sticky? Does the stem snap or bend?
4. Your Story: Did you grow your plant organically? Did you use artificial light, natural light, or a combination? Was the plant grown hydroponically or in soil?

DC residents who want to participate just have to bring a jar filled with a gram or two of their finest nugs to a panel of judges, who will peruse the strains and then pin a blue ribbon on DC's own King of Cannabis. The judging process will begin at, hilariously, 4:20 PM. We get it, DC State Fair. Good one.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper once appeared on his favorite TV show, Murdoch Mysteries. Handout via CBC

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is a man who does not reveal much about himself. Very rarely do we get a glimpse behind the planned photo ops and mind-numbing lack of charisma to see if there's a human being underneath all the strict talking points. Unlike other politicians, Harper does not slip up or goof around. He controls his message and image and very rarely gives Canadians any info to chew on other than policy. His appeal is meant to be professional, not personal—I think he'd rather us think of him as abstract tax-reform generator than as a person.

One of the few personal things he's revealed about himself is that his favorite show is CBC's crusty mystery series Murdoch Mysteries. He watches it regularly with his daughter, which is a pretty cute image for a man who resembles clay. I am a firm believer that our artistic and cultural choices reveal who exactly we are and what we value. With that in mind, I decided to give the show a try in hopes of finding out more about who our prime minister is and where he's taking us.

I had never seen the show before, nor did I want to. Every image or ad I saw from it had that familiar stank of embarrassing Canadian television. The fact that it's Stephen Harper's favorite show also certainly wasn't working in its favor. But I love my country and have a strong desire to understand the psychopath in charge, so I cranked up the old Netflix and dove right in.

Murdoch Mysteries, as the name implies, is an old-fashioned whodunnit. Taking place in Toronto at the turn of the 20th century, each episode follows smartest-guy-in-the-room Detective William Murdoch as he attempts to solve history-inflected mysteries with his smarts and anachronistic gadgets. Rounding out the cast are his clownish sidekick, Crabtree; his gruff superior, Brackenreid; and two female medical examiners, Julia Ogden and Emily Grace.

I jumped around the series, watching whichever episodes both caught my eye and seemed like they'd appeal to old knob-nose Harper himself.

Confession time: About halfway through my second episode, after chuckling again at a bumbling Crabtree, I had a troubling thought: Oh my god, do I like this show? After finishing the third, it was confirmed. Goddammit, I'm into this show! Crabtree is hilarious, and Murdoch is like a nice Sherlock Holmes. It's a charming show, and I'm only slightly embarrassed to admit it. Watching it is like realizing your grandparents have actually been interesting people this whole time.

I am a history guy, can't get enough. Whenever I see a historical plaque on a building or in a park, I have to read it then tell my friends about it: "Hey, guys, don't you think it's cool that there used to be a bread factory here? Hello? Guys?" Murdoch Mysteries is the television equivalent of these signs, a quaint, painless way to absorb old Toronto trivia. References abound to old Toronto landmarks that are no longer with us, like McMaster University, which was founded on Bloor Street before moving to Hamilton, and a Cabbagetown filled with factories and industry. While the show would fail many an accuracy test, it's still a blast for a nerd like me to watch the detectives hang out with Emma Goldman and discuss who was responsible for the Haymarket massacre.

Harper is always looking over your shoulder. Handout via CBC/City

Harper is a fellow history geek. No wonder this show grabbed his interest. This is, after all, the man whose government spent one futile summer and millions of futile dollars attempting to get us to care about the War of 1812. They spent years and millions finding a lost ship in the Arctic, and when they did, hyped it like they'd found a pre-Room for Improvement Drake mixtape in the Arctic. This government hasn't missed a chance to ignore historical milestones and figures associated with the Liberals while attempting to create milestones and idols out of Conservative events and figures.

Harper understands the power of history. If you can control the way people think they got here, it's easier to control where they're going (shout out to George Orwell). These moves are tactical. They are meant to reduce the influence of his hated Liberals, to change our view of ourselves from peacekeepers to cold warriors, to let Russia know we'll be the ones solving Arctic mysteries, thank you very much. But I also think there is an aspect of the personal in his obsession with history. Harper is a history nerd, he takes joy from it. Just look at the nerdy excitement on his face below, like he's a ten-year-old being visited by Robert Downey, Jr. dressed as Iron Man. The guy wrote a book in his spare time about the roots of professional hockey in Canada, which inspired an episode of Murdoch. (It was pretty good; I learned a ton about the Stanley Cup.) This is a man who loves the past, who is potentially more comfortable in it than in the present.

This is how Harper wants you to remember him. Photo Courtesy Government of Canada

Stephen Harper did a cameo on the show in episode seven of the fourth season. He appears as an extra and is awful—calling his acting "wooden" would be an insult to any tree that's appeared on film. There's backstage footage, though, where he is happy and alive in a way I had never seen. There is genuine glee in his eyes, as opposed to the usual moldy doom. Certainly, he was excited to be on the set of his fave show with his daughter, but perhaps he's so excited because for a moment he gets to exist in the Canada of 1899. This is a Canada where he would be happy, especially as portrayed in the show. This is a Canada that is still firmly and proudly part of the British empire. A character in the show is praised for going off to the Boer war and fighting for the Queen. We saw ourselves as part of that noble family of the Commonwealth, and England's goals were our own, the Union Jack still our flag. Canada was on the front lines of the civilizing force for the world, and Harper would love for the country to resume that stance.

This is a simpler Canada. It's orderly, with strong rule. People obey and listen to their superiors. The word "sir" is said about 50 times an episode, literally. It's crazy, but every utterance must send a shiver of pleasure down Harper's spine: If only I can make more people call me sir, he thinks.

This is a white Canada. There were barely any people of color in any of the episodes I watched. Multiculturalism is a long way off. There are no Muslims in this Canada. (There is one Persian, but he is Zoroastrian.) In this Canada, there is nary a hijab or niqab to be seen anywhere, never mind during a citizenship ceremony. A white man commits a murder to cover up his terrible secret: He's married to and has fathered two children with an Indigenous woman.

The show does not criticize this moral order. There are no episodes devoted to the people who are crushed beneath its weight, nary a mention of residential schools. Not that I'm expecting a gritty reevaluation of the racist structures of this country—this is television comfort-food, after all. The comforting aspect is a judgment, though. The nostalgia the show traffics in, while not explicitly condoning inequality, does leave the audience with a feeling of, "Weren't these days so nice." The show reflects the values Harper espouses, this idea that the main story of our country is economic progress, stability, and normalcy (whiteness). If you fall outside the comforting narrative, then you are worth ignoring or, worse, a threat.

The threats on many of these shows are straight out of Joe Oliver's nightmares. There are radicals and anarchists protesting for a fair wage with bombs. Bombs are also used by the New Agrarians, environmentalists opposed to progress. There is a sinister secret society of female academics that engages in bizarre rituals and murder most foul, which is what I imagine Harper thinks happens at the end of any Women's Studies seminar. The show paints these movements with the same brush the Conservatives do. They are either dangerous radicals, committed to destroying a Canadian way of life, or they are useless intellectuals, blathering hot air instead of getting a job and contributing. This is how Harper treats arguments from the left: They are either dangerous or childish and laughable.

The main characters of the show are not the capitalists or elites that would most object to these radicals. The Toronto cultured elites are often portrayed as obnoxious, judgmental bores and obstacles. The main characters are outsiders: Crabtree is lower class, while Murdoch is a Roman Catholic. Harper must relate to this as that's the way he has always presented himself—as an outsider, as someone who was never accepted by the entrenched powers in Ottawa. Just because his policies often help Bay Street and the elites, I'm not sure Harper is doing it to be part of the club. He, like deceased finance minister Jim Flaherty, sees himself as serving the average man. Harper is not part of a club or following any lead. He must see himself like Murdoch, a man who is smarter than everyone in the room and is ahead of his time.

Watching the show has changed my opinion of Stephen Harper. Before, I basically thought Harper was full of shit. I thought he was a cynical liar, a drone man forged in a tank in a Koch Brothers laboratory, programmed to remove any obstacle to cheap labour and selling natural resources. I thought he despised Canada, thinking we were lazy socialists and that he took power here more out of spite and hatred than anything else. This is not what he is, though. I was wrong. For one thing, if you don't like Canada, there is no way you would like this show. This show is as Canadian as watching the Guess Who learn how to curl.

That's the scariest thing I walk away with after this viewing montage: that Harper isn't the liar that I thought he was. Much like Murdoch, he isn't working for anybody (The Elites, The Americans) other than his own sense of right and wrong. The pursuits of Harper's government are not meant to turn us into America lite, they are meant to turn back the clock. To take Canada back to what Harper sees as our golden (gilded) age. When Canada was a mostly white, Protestant place with faith in the Queen, the Empire, and the market. The scariest thing about Harper is that he is far too human, and everything he's done to this country was not out of hate but love, because sometimes we hurt the ones we love the most.

Now I'm going to go watch six more episodes—just to make sure that I'm right.

Follow Jordan Foisy on Twitter or check out his new podcast at iTunes or brothersdepaul.com.

You, arguing with Graham Linehan on Twitter via

Avast, me hearties! Pick up that QWERTY-cutlass and assume the fightin' stance, cause you're about to get into an argument on the internet. Prepare your body for a beating, sailor, because this could end very badly for you.

It's funny when someone tells you they love the internet because of the increased allowance of communication for people the world over. I can "have a conversation" with a woman I've never met—in New Zealand! Wow, so cool! But I can also "have a conversation" with some fucking jerk off seven miles from me who thinks Parks & Recreation is better than Only Fools and Horses.

The rules of the flame war are always changing. The spats of today aren't at all similar to those our forefathers fought before modems; a changed arena requires a different tact. You can't approach a fight on Twitter like you would one on the street, though ultimately it pays to be a total prick in both situations.

But that shouldn't be too hard should it, prick face? Let's begin:

CHAT ROOMS

You, being told you're a n00b via

People don't really go on chat rooms these days. The only time you really see them are on the side of livestreams, both legal and illegal. The legal ones are on things like gaming site Twitch. Adenoidal Americans doing speed runs ofZelda or whatever, and these don't usually breed a lot of animosity as everyone's just posting ASCII cat faces to each other and referencing impenetrable game memes ad infinitum. This is about as close as you'll get to a "safe space" anywhere online.

So that leaves the illegal streams, and, let's face it, most of those are reserved for sports. Boxing matches, football, whatever Americans watch in their spare time—we all want to consume it, but we'll be God damned if we're going to pay for it. Cue a madcap, multi-tab search on all websites in existence for a stream that chops more erratically than a nervous chef. Once you get to it you can relax and watch the game... Or can you?

No you can't, cuz some dilweed is spamming messages about how shit Alex Song is, or talking about "registas" or other things that don't really exist. They're a real eyesore too, these stream chats, as they allow you to choose the color and font of your messages, which is invariably a big serif font in lime green. The reason no one gives a shit about chat rooms any more is that they've been around so long that people have become accustomed to their wiles. No one's impressed by them, and with one click you can hide the whole thing. This means that, luckily, you don't have to engage these types, unless you want a reason to justify your Nurofen addiction, so just zoom into to sporty part until the stream dies and you plunge an ashtray through the screen.

FORUMS & MESSAGE BOARDS

A forum moderator about to bash your modem into bits via

This is where a lot of veterans of cyber beefing cut their teeth. Before micro blogging allowed everyone to act like a piece of shit at a moment's notice, forums were the biggest hornets' nests on the web.

Whatever you're interested in—music, comedy, body building, anime, Nazism, hot sauce, architecture—there's a forum full of anoraks waiting to discuss it with you. The more tame the subject, the less likely it is that personally hurtful zings will be pinged your way. I used to frequent the forum of the urban music magazine RWD, mostly as a lurker. Before it was rendered obsolete by a poor redesign that upset the user base, RWD forummers were party to some incredible incidents: real-life exposures, the posting of nudes and addresses, the continuation, repercussions and serialization of IRL beefs, members hitting on other member's girlfriends, all expressed in the coliseum of the forum's "Whatever" room, away from its much less volatile "Sports" and "Music" rooms.

Trending on Noisey: Hip Hop in the Holy Land

People on forums can and will become your friends. It's a bit like being in a prison that you voluntarily go to every day, having to make pally with a bunch of people you're stuck there with. But other times it's more like prison in a way that some weirdo will find your IP address and e-stab you by posting your address in a thread entitled "I'm coming 4 u RedRibbon32." Tread carefully.

XBOX LIVE

Your head, being held aloft by some kid called 'Cody' or something, after losing a game of Team Deathmatch via

If you're a white person and you've never been called the N-word in your life and you want to see how it feels, head on over to Xbox Live. Historically, giving a voice to the voiceless has been considered a good thing, but in the case of Xbox Live, giving a voice to children with Xbox Live was a terrible, terrible idea.

Watch our new documentary about a guy who can stay submerged in ice for 53 minutes without his core body temperature changing: ICEMAN

Let's face it, arguing with children is the hardest thing to do, because they just don't give a fuck. They don't give a fuck about you, how you feel, what your opinions are, how you formed them, or what degree from what shit Uni you went to. All they care about is calling you a "fag." If Xbox Live children were around during the war they would have been fast tracked to the SS. There is no arguing with these kids, so your best bet is to troll them in whatever game they're playing, do stuff they don't like and make them rage out and cry.

FACEBOOK COMMENTS

Your uncle Roy, wondering out loud why 'no one speaks the lingo' via

This is where it can get a little weird. Now it's not random Belgians with obscure handles you're calling a twat, it's your aunt's friends, your girlfriend's dad, your best mate's girlfriend. Sometimes the link is tenuous enough that you needn't worry about the repercussions of slating someone with your full government name on show, but be careful: you never know when they might wander into your local B@1. Anyone who's spent any time on WorldStarHipHip will know that Facey-B comments can be serious business. Hair dragged around, sucker punches thrown—Facebook is just real enough for your actual life to be implicated in it. If you see someone post a photo of St. Paul's Cathedral with the caption "The Muslims want to turn this into a mega-mosque" in red writing, don't bother trying to set them straight: they were born and will die idiots. It's better for everyone to just unfriend people like this, until they are left loudly broadcasting their own mental failings to an audience of three people who are also massive racist cunts.

ARTICLE COMMENTS

Some losers about to trebuchet your office because you don't fully understand the Mad Men finale via

Article comment threads are rat kings of frustration, the biggest pseuds corner in existence. Right now on the internet, hundreds of angry looking middle-aged men with holiday bucket-hat-and-sunglasses avatars are locked in an exchange of treatises on why there shouldn't be a third runway at Heathrow. Not only is this type of beef the most frustrating, it's also the most boring. It's the online fight equivalent of being stuck in a pub with a trekkie and a Star Wars fan arguing about which is better. We all know commenters are the worst people alive, a tiny, annoying voice that demands to be heard. Clock up enough posts and the delusion of grandeur sweeps over them like they're the head of OFCOM and whatever article they're posting under is Honky Sausages. Yes, I'm talking about you, reader! Tell me why you're mad below and I will completely ignore you.

TWITTER

You, about to be beheaded for tweeting that Beyoncé didn't "slay" at the VMAs via

Here she is. The mother load. The life ruiner. Twitter is some dangerous shit, guys. This is the place where it can all end for you. You'd better hope all your jokes and shit are clean from any vaguely problematic content or you could be hauled out in front of the million man jury and condemned to death by deactivation. It may not have the same real-life implications as say, having your router smashed by an angry forummer or an irate uncle on FB, but it can be just as personally devastating.

Imagine: 10,000 people with Pokémon profile pictures calling you a cunt and wishing you dead. You can't even begin to fathom the negative energy. If you get into a small, individual one-on-one beef then you have a chance of getting out alive, maybe even winning. But if you start beefing the wrong person, if you step on Napoleon's shoes, then you'd better prepare for the Grande Armée to find out your real name, home address, every time you've said something untoward since you were 15 and use it to get you arrested. Twitter users are the gigabyte Gestapo, the not-so-secret police that will hound you for your comment crimes if you're unlucky enough to be stupid and crass. Avoid Twitter beefs like the plague.

§

The internet isn't what it used to be. Once upon a time, everyone understood that the internet was about finding strangers. Everything was left online, but it's all too real now. Tweets make it to the news, screenshots of Facebook threads are posted on fucking Reuters, there's no escape. Your best bet is to fight the old-fashioned way; with a bottle in one hand, a bit of pipe in the other, and a waterfall of expletives gushing out of your mouth outside a cab rank.

Ah, the good old days.

Follow Joe on Twitter.

Andre tells comedian Arthur Simeon about the time he got high at a party for the first time and magically transformed into The Chip Fairy. He also talks about how his condition—Morquio Syndrome—and being in a motorized scooter affect his social life.

A poster on a wall in Olympia, Washington. Phot via Flickr

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

Last week, it was reported (with something of a snigger) that student unions in the US are handing out sexual consent kits—complete with a sex contract, a pen for signing, a condom, and mint—to help ensure both parties were definitely up for it. Commentators lamented that it was the end of times. The end of spontaneous fun.

For most people, the thought of signing a piece of paper to say you're ready and willing to shag is decidedly un-hot. It sounds like a mood killer up there with the struggling-to-put-the-condom-on-properly moment. The British students I spoke to didn't seem too keen. "I wouldn't want to stop halfway through a blowie to pop a Murray mint and sign that I'm happy to have anal," said Central St. Martins student Chris Cowan, 27.

Then there are the technical problems with this fix. "What about withdrawing consent partway through?" said Bristol University's Georgie Joy, 19. "What do you do with the form, do you have a folder? Are there provisions for multi-person sex? Are there different ones for kinky sex?"

In fairness to the sex-contract people, the paper forms were never meant to be anything more than a talking point—a way to start a conversation around consent. Their appearance coincides with a new piece of legislation passed in New York State that requires college students to obtain consent at every stage of a sexual encounter. Nobody realistically expects anyone to stop whatever it is they're doing so they can scrabble around for a biro with their pants round their ankles.

The law isn't a criminal one, but violating it could result in criminal charges. It will be universities themselves which carry out investigations and students will face disciplinary action, even if the case goes no further. As with cases in the criminal courts, proving affirmative consent is tricky and there have been complaints of mishandling from both accusers and accused. However, something needed to be done to help prevent a growing number of sexual assaults on campuses.

Sexual offenses on college campuses are rife in the US. In 2012, 5,000 allegations were reported to the Department of Education and cases like that of Emma Sulkowicz, who carried her mattress around in protest at Columbia University's handling of her alleged rapist, have kept the issue in the spotlight.

But we've got a problem in the UK, too. A 2013 report by the Ministry of Justice suggested that female students are at higher risk of sexual violence than the general female population. A study by the National Union of Students (NUS) claimed that one in seven female students had experienced some form of serious physical or sexual assault.

Universities UK told me that unis aren't being complacent and that a range of policies and procedures are in place. In terms of talking about consent specifically, student unions are leading way. The University of Exeter Students' Guild launched a sexual harassment campaign this year, now shared nationally as a model of best practice. Every student starting at Bristol will, as of this year, be asked to attend a compulsory consent workshop. Likewise, Oxford recently launched a consent workshop for students, offering the chance to discuss consent for various sexual scenarios.

WATCH: VICE meets Oscar Maroni, the Brazilian publisher of Hustler and Penthouse:

"The National Union of Students has been supporting student unions to introduce consent workshops through our 'I Heart Consent campaign,' creating educational spaces for students to discuss consent and boundaries," NUS Women's Officer, Susuana Amoah told me.

These conversations are needed. Consent is a slippery concept; more complicated than cartoons about cups of tea would suggest. Feminists have been talking about it for 50 years. We've moved from "no means no," to "yes means yes," and beyond, to examine the power relations involved in sex, the reasons someone might feel coerced into a reluctant "yes" and the viewing of sex as a two-way negotiation.

Most students I spoke to had concerns over California-style consent legislation. Some were worried about lack of spontaneity. "Very little of what I've done in my life which has been truly fun or exciting was planned," said one.

Others suggested the focus on affirmative consent could put too much onus on the person who's possibly being coerced. "It could mean a larger responsibility on people to 'speak the fuck up,'" said Naomi Weston, 19, of King's College London.

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But is the new legislation in the US really so radically different from what we have in the UK? Not entirely, says Dr. Tanya Palmer, Lecturer in Law at the University of Sussex.

"English criminal law already has an affirmative consent standard, and has done for quite some time," Palmer tells me.

"People often assume it means explicit, verbal consent to every sexual act. But affirmative consent need not mandate verbal consent. All affirmative consent requires is a positive choice to engage in sexual activity and some expression of that choice."

Most of us aren't up to date with every clause of the Sexual Offenses Act, however. Things need to change at the level of lived experience. In terms of normalizing the idea of enthusiastic consent—"Yes, I'm up for anal!"; "Yes, you can come on my tits!"—US-style legislation in universities is a possible way forward.

What's different about the new US legislation is that it creates a framework for dealing with allegations of broken consent. Palmer says she would love to see similar adopted in Britain.

"In the same way a teacher who hits a kid might be charged with assault and prosecuted in a criminal court, they'd also face some disciplinary action at school," she says. "There might not be enough evidence for a criminal conviction, but there is enough evidence for them to be suspended or fired from their job."

Not everyone is so sure this would be a good thing.

"It opens another potential minefield for interpretation," said Mike Massen of Cohen Cramer Solicitors. "A correct and appropriate interpretation of the current laws relating to consent, with a full understanding by the jury, should be sufficient for the guilty to be convicted and the innocent acquitted."

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Students I spoke to had mixed reactions at the suggestion of these quasi-judicial investigations being carried out by their university.

"Universities and student societies are not well-equipped to investigate serious criminal allegations," said Nick Cowen, 30, a student at King's College London. "They should restrict their role to providing sexual health and relationship advice and advising victims of assault on how to engage with qualified authorities, such as the police."

What everyone agrees on is that attitudes need to change. Eden Tanner, co-chair of the Oxford University Student Union's It Happens Here Campaign, says that no "consent kit" will ever keep women safe.

"The only way to do that is to believe and respect survivors, create a culture where sexual violence isn't normalized, and hold perpetrators to account," she says.

Sex isn't in some special sphere of life that means we should expect it to be free from mishap. We all make mistakes and do things we regret. There will never be a law that enshrines every possible complexity of a fuck. With or without US-style consent legislation for universities, what will change things is the growing understanding that you should be sure, absolutely sure, the person you're getting it on with really wants to be there. That shouldn't be an unattainable goal.

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Image provided by Rowena Allen

Rowena Allen is familiar with firsts. She established Victoria's first rural support group for same-sex-attracted young people, and was part of Victoria's first LGBTI Ministerial Advisory Committee. Now she's Victoria's first gender and sexuality commissioner. In fact, she's the nation's first.

The creation of the role was an election promise from the Labour government last year. And credit where it's due, they chose pretty well. Rowena has been championing LGBT rights for more than 20 years—and has a place on the Victorian Government Honour Roll for Women. She's been working hard at this for a while, but never in such a visible position. We asked her what she's going to change, and how she's going to do it.

VICE: So the most visible of any LGBT issue in Australia is the gay-marriage debate. Are you going to make that your priority?
Rowena Allen: There are a lot of people out there working on it, and obviously I'm 100 percent behind gay marriage. But working as commissioner, I want to remind the community it's not the only issue. People might be forgetting the issues that affect trans and gender-diverse peoples' daily lives, like bathrooms. I'm here to remind people of that.

I think that's an interesting point. There are more immediate things that could make spaces safer. Are you having any discourse around things like gendering and public bathrooms?
Yes! Absolutely. For me personally that's really important; that would be so great to address. I'm very interested in working with local governments to see gender-neutral toilets installed across Victoria. I mean, that's especially important for the trans and gender-diverse community. I've got other interviews later so thanks for reminding me of that.

What's the very first thing you want to do as commissioner?
Once I get around the full media circle—which has been really exciting—I want to make sure we take the commission's work to into rural areas. I've had a lot of universities contact me, really keen to work with me. I want to go where I'm invited. I'm definitely a carrot, not a stick person.

On Monday I'm meeting with the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. As I start to head out there and raise the issues we'll see more complaints raised with the Commission as people become more aware of the issues. So it's really important for me to have a good relationship with them. I've received calls from all sides of government wishing me well which is great. If you want to make sweeping social change you have to get everyone involved.

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Could you be a bit more specific about what you mean when you say raising "the issues"?
I'm keen to work with schools on implementing the Safer School Policy, again, especially in rural areas where it might be a little harder. It might be easier for the chair of the school board or the principal to implement the policy if they can stand next to commissioner in the school paper. I want to help people who are a bit nervous about getting it wrong. There's a lot of goodwill out there, but people are nervous that they'll offend. Historically, we are a group of people who are easily upset. But I don't want people to be afraid of getting it wrong.

Another issue is trans employment. Lots of people, once they begin transitioning in the workforce, don't keep their employment. Workplaces aren't very understanding, and a change as simple as employers holding afternoon or morning teas to celebrate the transition could be the encouragement that trans employees need to stay in the job. I think right now employers don't know what to do, so instead of trying something and getting it wrong, they do nothing.

A woman wears an ankle monitor at the beach. Photo via Wikimedia Commons

This story was originally published by the Marshall Project.

I cannot sleep. There is a device on my leg.

It requires that I wake up an hour early so I can plug it into a charger and stand next to the outlet, like a cell phone charging up for the day. Not the day, actually, but 12 hours. After that, the device runs out of juice. Wherever I am, I have to find an outlet to plug myself into. If I don't, I'm likely to be thrown back onto Rikers Island.

The device is my ankle bracelet, which I've now been wearing for 63 days. I wear it afraid that someone at work will notice the bulge. When I go to school, I worry my friends will spot it and leave me. I push it up into my jeans, hoping they won't see. But the higher up I push it, the more it starts to hurt; most days, my feet go numb. I try wearing bell-bottoms.

At the age of 22, I landed in prison. Though I had grown up around violence, it was my first time in trouble. I'd taken the law into my own hands during an altercation, because where I come from, we don't dial 911 for help—we see how badly police officers treat people like us.

When I came home, I wasn't the same "I," and "home" wasn't home anymore. For the rest of my life, I would have to live with a mistake I made at 22. I would never belong to myself again; parole dictates everything that I do.

I'd been on parole for three years. I work full time at a law firm, attend college, and I am close to attaining my bachelor's degree. For three years, I never violated any rules, which included not leaving the five boroughs and returning home before 9 PM every night.

I don't have the luxury of the "college experience," of going to concerts or hanging out with friends after class. And I learned from experience not to discuss my past with my classmates, at least not until they get to know me. People become fearful when they hear I was in jail.

Then I had a run-in with the police again and was charged with a DWI. I spent 30 days in Rikers and came frightfully close to losing everything I'd spent three years working for: my college semester and GPA, my job, my post-prison healing. I woke up in cold sweats at night, traumatized by the experience of being caged again. And even though I am pleading not guilty and my case is still pending, my parole officer called me up after I left Rikers and asked me to come in to speak with his supervisor.

Details weren't discussed. They never are; a call is made, a PO appointment is scheduled.

The day of the meeting, I was in a panic. Entering that building—the office of parole—is guaranteed. Leaving it is not.

I was greeted by metal detectors and a throng of fellow parolees, mostly black and Hispanic, many in work uniforms, all waiting up to six hours to be seen. When my PO finally saw me, he explained right off that an electronic-monitoring device would be placed on my leg for a year to enforce my curfew, though it would come off sooner if I was "compliant."

"But I have already been compliant, for years," I said. As I had many times, I explained to my PO that I was in school, have a full-time job, and maintain good behavior. "Am I a flight risk? Or a frequent violator?"

The more I spoke, the more hostile he became.

Later on the bus, looking down and seeing the bulge on my leg, I cried.

This is what summer under surveillance looks like: I can no longer wear shorts. I cannot visit a beach without enduring public humiliation. I asked my parole officer whether I could attend a Yankee game for my birthday, but he turned me down, because it may have lasted past curfew. I usually spend Independence Day with my family in Long Island, but this year, I couldn't dare ask my PO for permission to leave the borough.

I have been alternating three pairs of pants for almost three months now—the only pants that can accommodate the device. When I'm with my coworkers, I stand out as the only person wearing jeans; dress slacks are too much of a risk, because when I sit down, pants like those hike up. At home, unexpected visitors have me scrambling to put on pants.

Throughout the day, the device becomes heavier and more painful, causing me to bleed. I push it down on my ankle to let my blood circulate—but then the pain becomes unbearable, and I can't plant my feet without crying out.

The device has me strapped, too, to a mistake I made at the age of 22. The device is, both literally and metaphorically, my greatest source of pain.

But every day I rise, stand by the socket, and charge my ankle to go to work.

So as not to violate the terms of his parole, the author asked that he be identified by his initials. M. M. is a full-time student and employee at a law firm in New York City. He has been on parole for more than three years on multiple charges stemming from an altercation when he was 22 and his subsequent re-arrest for driving while intoxicated.

This story was originally published by the Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization that covers the US criminal justice system. Sign up for their newsletter, or follow the Marshall Project on Facebook or Twitter.