Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. If you learnt anything in school during your science lessons, surely this simple yet accurate and effective state of affairs was it. Newtons Law of Motion and his 3rd law of Physics. He was a genius. You should listen to what he had to say.  If one object pushes against another, the object receiving said push is not going to take this transfer of energy lying down and it is dam well going to push back. Put simply, its why you don’t fall through a wall when you lean on it. Its not so visible on Earth where we have things like gravity and friction continually fucking up science experiments but if you took this stage show to the moon and fired a cannon then the cannon would go backwards as far as the ball would go forwards. Sadly the moon landers were too busy playing golf and driving moon buggies around the Sea of  Tranquility to do some real, Newton-esque experiments. So you will have to take our word for it.

The Mannar Islands might well have looked something like this; we don't know because they have sunk.

But how does this have anything to do with tropical islands sinking under the turquoise waves of the South Pacific? It doesn’t really, it was just a round about way of saying that if you dig a big fucking hole then something is going to have to fill that hole. This is what has happened in the beautiful, tranquil waters  between India and Sri-Lanka in a very small region of islets that you have probably never heard of. The islands in the Gulf of Mannar Marine National Park are sinking into the Ocean. Islands are sinking into the Ocean! This is not something that happens on a daily basis, so what in the name of all that is scientific, is happening and who is to blame?

Fishermen. That’s who. Maybe. Until 2002 there was an almost complete lack of regulations governing the mining of the precious coral reefs which abound in the Gulf of Mannar, as a result the fishermen did what they did best and mined those coral beds dry. The Gulf of Mannar supports the lives and livelihoods of over 300,000 fishermen and the coral is their highest earner. Being extremely rich in calcium carbonate the coral is an immensely efficient binding material for concretes and is heavily used in the construction business. Some islands sank so you could build some houses. Newtons Law. Kill something, build something.

Some say it is home to the Lost City of Atlantis

The area is home to 21 island and 2 of them have sank beneath the waves. Poomarichan and Villanguchalli are names you will now only find in the history books. As well as the loss of 2 islands (as if that wasn’t enough), there is obviously a whole host of fish and animals that could follow suit, not to mention the coral itself which most people in the area cite as the sole reason the whole region wasn’t completely destroyed during the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004. If the fisherman wont take the blame, then we will take the blame for the sinking Pacific islands of Poomarichan and Villanguchalli.

Oxford animal testing labs are fit to bursting at this time of year. The monkeys are screaming, not howling, and the lab rats are honing up on their crystal maze skills in a vain attempt to beat the impenetrable fortress of makeup testers. The caged animals do sing, but to a different tune to the wild things. As the first spring sun begins to finally melt away the winter gloom, you are as caged as they are, stuck in your office whilst the free birds play in the park. We would like to take the blame for all the people who are not enjoying the current nuclear spring.

Scantily clad harlots and charlottes pass by your office window, chilled beer and wine in hand. You can see them, you can feel them, but you can’t join them. The students head for the canal ways and river banks to talk of revolution or tv; you are doing the spreadsheets. Everywhere you look people are basking in the first rays of spring; your office door is bolted shut and that PowerPoint presentation can’t wait for such trivial matter as sunshine.

The winter has been long, the cold unrelenting. At times the thought of spring sunshine was the only thing that kept you going through the bleak mid-winter, and now, when it finally arrives, you have to do overtime. The big project comes in. Everyone is miraculously taken ill. The takeover bid waltzes in. You have to work and the sunshine will have to wait.

For all the people who have to spend the day cooped up in the office whilst other, more fortunate people, pass the day in the park, in pavement cafes, in beer gardens, on the beach, in the hills, walking in the forest, lying in the garden, swimming in rivers or chatting on street corners, we take the blame.

The outbreak is coming....

There is what appears to be green, congealed spam oozing from your nose. Your lungs are trying to escape from your ribcage in a last ditch attempt to escape the imminent prison fire, only they are trying to abdicate through your throat, causing contractions and convulsions through your entire chest cavity. It hurts. And it burns. Your eyes are bruised from the inflamed sinus infection, exchanging your iris’s for small, neatly sharpened needles that make changing the direction you look a study in pain evasion. An army of army ants pound the inside of your head; rippling pain cascades outwards at every available moment. Your muscles ache, which is strange because the last time you went to the gym it was still cool to actually think going to the gym was trendy. And trendy was a word. Your core temperature is searing yet cold sweat glistens from every pore. You have the flu and nobody believes you. We would like to take the blame for it.

When it became acceptable to complain about the slightest discomfort, the merest inkling of a minute change in the operational system of your core, the way winter illness was viewed changed. Such is the propensity of people to moan, whinge, whimper and complain about ‘the flu’ they have, when all they really are suffering from is a lack of sleep and, at best, a mid-winter cold, has diluted the real flu virus to the boy who cried wolf. Nobody believes you when you have it, nobody cares when you have it and nobody really even knows what it is anymore.

A killer is what it is. The cold you are most probably suffering from, and the continued whining about it that we are suffering from, is a discomfort. The flu kills between 20 and 40 thousand people annually in the US alone and half a million world wide. Are you sure you have it? Its side effects are monstrous in their debilitation – bacterial pneumonia, dehydration, and worsening of chronic medical conditions, such as congestive heart failure, asthma, or diabetes – are all just the tip of the death dredging ice-berg. You have a cough.

So who is at fault? The real flu, not the cold often referred to as man flu which is just the softening of the male psyche, is a respiratory illness instigated by the evil influenza virus – not by chickens, pigs, cows, birds – which, having infiltrated your respiratory tract, goes on a self-replicating rampage, exponentially quadrupling itself. The virus rapes and murders your cells, one by one, each time it does so, releasing the angry hordes in more numerous battalions. Your body reacts by trying to turn itself inside out. See above.

We are here to take the blame on two fronts. For the times when you have the Flu and the times when you have to put up with the continued moaning of your friends, work colleagues and family members who insist they are dying from it when all they have is a cold.

Our ethos is simple, we are here to take the blame. Apparently we live in a blame culture; and in a blame culture there needs to be someone who you can turn to when there is nobody else who will shoulder your blame. Whatever the reason, whatever the occasion, we are there for you. From the simple and the transparent – be it stubbing your toe or spilling your tea; waking up late for work or missing the bus – to the arduous, perplexing, intricate and convoluted – your dog died; you hate your boss; the IOC decided to oust you from your abode and build an Olympic sized Ice-rink in your back garden and erect an athletes village in your once pristine street-market turning a once thriving local community into a dull and bland advert for a hotch-potch amalgamation of too much glass, no class and student residents. We are there. Blame us.

Politics, science, philosophy, food, revolution, environment, education, celebrity, television, crime, animals, history, love, money, relationships, family, sport, technology, travel, war, weather, health, business, birthdays, parties, celebrations, drugs, employment, nature………….and breathe…………..cybercrime, nuclear energy, credit cards, pornography, computer games, graffitti, hollywood. Kitchen sink. There is blame.

If you have anything you want us to take the blame for. Tell us. Let us know. Post a link. Send a letter. And we will publish an apology, allowing you to sleep soundly, safe in the knowledge that the blame rests with us. Go on, don’t be shy.

Personally, we like the rain, so this apology comes with a certain amount of resistance. But then all the best apologies do. If they were easy everybody would be doing it, which, if you read our philosophy, you will see they are not. Of course being bathed in sunshine is fabulous - although the amount of people who you meet who constantly tell the world “oh, I just cant live without sunshine. I need it for my very existence. I am such a sunny person. When it rains, I just fall apart” is annoying. They think the Sun was invented for them. we usually tell them they live in England and that they should probably go and see a doctor – but there is something about rain. But you out there seem to hate the rain, and so all apologies for this most persistent of showers.

We are sorry that you got wet on your way to work this morning. We are sorry that you spent all that time making your hair look good, only for the rain to wash it all away. For all the times you went on holiday, only for it to rain whilst England bathed in record breaking temperatures. For rain at Wimbledon and The FA Cup. For rain on your birthday and rain on bank holidays and trips to the beach and the park and the theme park. We are sorry for all the rain that dampened your spirits and ruined your cigarettes. The rain that flooded your house, washed away your garden and drowned your cat. We take the blame for the rain. We are sorry.