Inventing necessities

I need an I-phone.

I need a 42 inch HD ready flat screen telly. I need two hundred channels of crap. I need high speed internet access. I need to see the latest blockbuster. I need faster ready meals, to drink cider with ice in it, to worship celebrities, get antibiotics for that deadly virus, holiday abroad, holiday at home, lose weight, gain weight, to be buff, be more masculine, be more feminine, to have 32 blades on my razor, to express myself and to suffer in silence. I need to go out, to get drunk, drink nothing but water, to ignore modern medicine, have a tattoo, have at least three hundred Facebook "friends" and get my eyes lasered.

I need to respect the stupidest of ideas for fear of upsetting someone. I need to be right, left, liberal, extreme, gay, straight, inclusive to some, racist against others, insular and extrovert. I need to love fat women, but vilify fat people. I need to be patriotic, to hate my country. I need to listen to that single, but not that album, to read that magazine but not that book, to hate that regime but not that country, to hate that leader but not that party. I need to know what's important.

I need to be told.

Programmable microwave - need.
Fridge that tells me it's out of milk - need.
Nightscope - need.
Playstation and Wii - need.
MP3 - need.
Robot vacuum cleaner - need.
Robot lawn mower - need.
Robot - need.

I need to be self-sufficient, to be a productive member of society, to argue, to toe the line. I need a small-holding, a city job, anti-depressants, white teeth, plastic surgery, no plastic surgery, herbal "medicine", counselling, to be breastfed, to complain about breastfeeding in a restaurant and to call an ambulance for a cough I've had for the last week. I need to be famous, infamous, overly nostalgic, to dread the future, to lock 'em up and throw away the key, to complain, to never offer a solution, to distrust scientists and call them "boffins", a man-bag, a red-top, a glossy, gym membership, a mountain bike, a racing bike, retribution rather than rehabilitation. I need caffeine-free, fizzy pro-biotics and gel that makes my hair harder than a tiger with a flick-knife. Yet malleable.

I need to earn twice the average wage like everybody else.

I need a four-wheel drive, 500 horsepower, hybrid diesel that drives like a petrol with in-car DVD, sat-nav, self-stopping and parking sensors. I need a bigger drive to park it on. I need to win arguments by shouting, to phone my vote in, to see my doctor immediately, to be loved even if I'm not lovable, to have three credit cards, to spend what I don't have and blame someone else.

I need Umi:


Or so I'm told.

Of course, what I really need, more than anything, is air, closely followed by water and then, occasionally, food.

I also need to make up my own mind.