So there I was, logging out of my hotmail account, the log-out process automatically redirecting me to the turgid familiarity of the MSN homepage. The site’s front page loaded up, the usual mix of adverts and ephemeral crap, my mouse pointer quickly tracing across the screen to the favourites tab on the toolbar.

A photo of a mummy and ickle baby panda dominated the site, apparently one of many “striking images of the week” or some such saccharine rubbish for the cyber-peasants to gawp at. “Not so much striking as sickening” I thought vaguely, my mind already concerned with other things: plans for the weekend, how to replace the broken tail-light on my car, whether Rwanda or Bosnia had the more media friendly genocide, etc etc. You know, the usual.

Suddenly, bang! Bang! BANG! BANG! BANG! Bloody great bullet holes were appearing in my screen with the sort of outright violence I was not at all accustomed to from MSN. Some heartless Microsoft thug was riddling those cute ickle pandas with machinegun fire! Needless to say I was appalled.

Once the smoke cleared and I recovered my composure suffiently to glance back at the screen, I was amazed and somewhat relieved. No slaughtered endangered species, no poignant artily composed shots of dead baby clinging to mummy and no weeping celebrities asking for your money.

No, it was a cheesy ad campaign for that new cops and robbers movie with Patrick “Batman” Bateman in it. It was one of those newfangled sort-of-but-not-quite-interactive advert gimmick things where various stupid stuff bursts out of the advert box and “interacts” with static web content to try and grab your attention.

What a brilliant use of technology, I thought. Isn’t it great how we use this powerful medium basically to keep a horde of chimps entertained? How wonderful that with all the myriad possibilities and resources of the WWW, the vast majority of users are looking for free porn (yeah that’s right, they don’t even want to support their favourite industry by putting their money into it, the parasites) and idle amusement.

“Oh look, cute pandas” *moves mouse to click for more* “oh shiiiit!!! WTF!!!* Bullet holes!! In my computermachine!!!! Awesome! I HAVE to see that movie dude!”

When I’m not internally debating such weighty matters as Rwanda vs. Bosnia or the delights of car maintenance, I sometimes (rarely if I’m honest) wonder how it must be to exist as an empty vessel, wide open sluggish brain waiting to be filled with whatever commerce has to offer me, like some drab and shapeless entertainment sponge. But then I get cold shivers down my spine and I never had much interest in zoology in any case.

Rwanda for the win by the way, those guys really put some effort into creating newsworthy murder and mayhem.

* I imagine such people actually do articulate each letter, W T F, in its webslang acronym form, and not merely uttering the far better sounding “what the fuck”.

Three thousand Britons recently took time out from their favourite pastime of sodomy and took part in a survey on the countryside, carried out for a major budget hotel company. Apparently more than half of them think the countryside is ‘boring’ and when shown pictures, one in ten couldn’t even identify a sheep while 83% couldn’t name a bluebell. Ironically, 44% didn’t recognise an oak tree, though they probably spend most of their free time at their local The Royal Oak pub, discussing sport and makes of cars.

Professor of Tourism (yes, there really is a Professor of Tourism) at The University of Surrey awkwardly muttered some rubbish about people holidaying abroad more often nowadays and therefore forgetting what their own country might offer in terms of ENTERTAINMENT. And that’s what this boils down to, the need of the modern man to be constantly amused like a spoilt child.

We say: the countryside (where do you draw the line at where the ‘countryside’ begins and ends anyway?) does not exist for your entertainment. It’s not an amusement park for you and your retarded children. It’s not a tourist attraction like Disneyworld. Newsflash to the idiots of the world: outside of your TV, the real world just IS, without reason or meaning or need to justify itself.

What exactly IS this ‘countryside’ that people keep going on about anyway? The dismal remnants of the world not yet paved over? Yes, now we understand things more clearly. These fuckhead Professors of Tourism, these liberal environmentalists, these businessmen, these humanist morons all think this countryside is just a pleasant glorified parkland to play around in. Maybe they even think that we should preserve what’s left of it for the sake of our descendents, but not apparently for its own sake as something worth keeping in itself. No, its only apparent worth is in whether us humans can enjoy it or not. It’s a consumable commodity, apparently in dire need of a PR department. At the root of this is the same supreme arrogance and stupidity that leads the masses to believe that the entire world exists solely for their own selfish benefit and consumption.

If the natural world (as opposed to the grey urban hell of the man-made world) is to survive at all, it should be for the sake of the earth and its constituent parts as a living organism, not so that some glorified chimpanzee can have the freedom to tear around a forest in his shiny 4×4. Know your place in the world, you’re a mere floating particle of insignificance. Take pleasure in life and your surroundings (while you still can), just don’t forget: you’re not a god and your existence depends entirely upon the world of which you’re a single but far from unique component. Conversely however, the world does not need YOU.