Monkey Hotel

A Musical Argument

2011-03-17T13:24:00.000-07:00

Yes yes, it's been a long time since I have posted on here. I've been busy, okay?

To make up for it, here is an email I have just sent to someone.

Some context; a friend of a friend baited me on Facebook recently by talking some guff about music. This argument went round on a fairly superficial level until the other person said something that really got my goat.

"I won't ever study music. That would curb my creativity in the music I make"

Here's my response. I hope that my massive over reaction at least amuses you. Enjoy!

I felt compelled to send you this message as I didn't feel our conversation had reached a sufficient conclusion.

Don't take anything I type in here as being personal, I am a contentious bastard at the best of times and I am not particularly even directing many of these arguments at you, as I don't know enough about your musical background to do so. I hope you appreciate however that I am often confronted by people making statements similar to those you made yesterday, and as a staunch defender of music education I feel obliged to outline my exact objections with what you said.

Ignoring the opening of the discussion, which was really just a bit of facebook banter, I want to jump immediately to your dismissal of studying music on the grounds that it stifles creativity.

I have heard this argument many times, and there is certainly a legitimate argument for this in two respects;

1) The study of art of composition (which is firmly what I am interested in) is something that is indisputably separate to the study of music. This has been the case for a number of years, and although there are certain schools of thought that are entrenched in tradition (See Joseph Schillinger's system of music composition or the serialist movement lead by Arnold Schoenberg ), there are enough other school of thought to provide some credible arguments to this going as far back as the writings of Bach.

2) In order to create music that is successful, worthwhile, interesting or any other flattering adjective you care to imagine, it is not essential that you have a traditional music education.

However, whenever someone has presented such arguments to me (and I must say I've never heard them qualified with either of the bullet-points outlined above) the reasoning behind the presentation has always struck me as being disingenuous.

Again, this isn't aimed at you, but more at other people who have said similar things to me in the past. That, I must stress.

This argument always seems to come from a viewpoint of being open minded, however I cannot see how restricting your input is anything other than being narrow minded. It's actually very dismissive of an enormous world filled with an enormous range of musical ideas, from those laid out by Luigi Russolo in the futurist manifesto to the broad church that is pop music.

Yesterday two words kept coming up in our conversation. One was "influence" and the other was "study".

Now, from what I can make out you were against the idea of things that you might learn from study influencing the music you make.

The first thing I would like to get to the bottom of is that I'm not sure we are understanding the word study to mean the same thing, at least not in a musical context.

As I outlined earlier, studying the art of composition is very different from studying music. A lot of people seem to think that the study of composition means understanding complex harmony and contrapuntal rhythm, how to write a fugue etc.

This isn't really the case, when you study composition it is assumed that you either know that stuff or you don't. It's music theory that you study at GCSE and if you don't know it, well it's really not that important. The study of composition is the full understanding of the piece you are getting your teeth into. Understanding conceptually what the composer is trying to do, understanding what all the rather boring musical language is there for, not what it is doing in itself. Composition is an artform, the musical devices used to achieve the art are merely devices. They are often handy to know, but it doesn't change the fact that it's something you can learn from a book, given the time.

Okay, so at this point you can still argue that learning these intangible, etherial qualities that dance in the vapor, you might still be influenced by things you learn.

My response to this is, at what point do you consider your mind to be pure. You said you use a guitar, a bass and a computer. These are fairly conventional things that are used in music making, so to some extent you are adhering to things that you have learned.

If you are using a guitar and presumably playing notes, you are making use of western tuning. If you are using a computer for anything other than recording then you are almost certainly sticking to quite strict rules outlined by very traditional music theory. Meter, dynamic, etc.

All of these things are therefore influencing you in the same way that someone who has studied the work of Wagner might be influenced by some of his ideas.

The art isn't in the mechanics, it's in the creation, and I firmly believe that by absorbing everything from the traditions of the Javanese Gamelan to the experiments of Karlheinz Stockhausen, you are only adding further sophistication to your pallet.

There is something in what you say about being influenced to the point that you are merely mimicking, but if this is the case then a) someone who does this has NOT understood the fundamental internal dialogue required compose, b) this argument can only hold water if the person holding these opinions is creating something utterly mind blowing that redefines how we think about music.

Imagine how stupid I felt when I noticed the typo in paragraph 5.

Bye

Charity And Me

2011-02-26T11:32:00.000-08:00

A question I often ask myself is a question that troubles my tired brain whilst I fail to drift away into the world of slumber most nights.

I imagine it's a question that many of you ask yourselves too;

Am I an awful person?

Most of us would probably accept that we are more often than not extraordinarily self centred people, who don't really care about anything that doesn't affect us.

Anyone who doesn't accept this is either a liar, thick or too deluded to be in anyway introspective or self critical.

Most people will find ways to justify the awful things they do; "oh, I don't give the homeless money because they'll just spend it on drugs, so I'm actually being kinder to them not giving money" or "I don't give money to charity people in the street because then they take a cut of the money I give".

Or they do good deeds and quickly tell everyone about it on Facebook or Twitter, making the kind act something that is entirely self serving.

Of course this isn't new information to you, you've probably already had these revelations yourself.

Obviously I have a moral crisis quite often. I've spoken about them on this blog before; pretending to be blind so I could keep a seat on a train, pretending to be disabled so I could get one over on a rude woman. Dreadful acts by a dreadful human, I'm sure we can all agree on that.

However, the above are both quite amusing. My new one, I'm not so sure about.

It happened entirely by accident. I didn't even realise I had started doing this, which is a real concern when you discover the level of planning and research that has gone into this particular act of wickedness.

I've started lying to charity workers. I know that a lot of people do this, but not to quite the same extent as I do.

I'm not talking about a mere "sorry, I'm late for a meeting" or "I actually already give to this charity". These lies are obvious and the clip-boarded clever-clogs are well aware that you are just avoiding them. Which is fine, at least they know where they stand.

My lies are designed to make me sound like a good human being, arguably the best human being. Certainly the best human being in this exchange.

Around 6 months ago, when approached by someone trying to get a hold on my cash, I would say "oh, actually your mate up the road has already got me". This makes them think that I have agreed to give them money, and buy saying "got me", they probably think it was down to a hard sell and a bit of intimidation, making them feel thoroughly guilty and ashamed of themselves.

This trick was good for a few months, until one day a man collecting for a children's hospital smelled a rat and starting asking questions I couldn't answer.

Now, most people at this point would feel awful at lying to someone from a charity. Not me, I was furious. How dare he question my charitable generosity? How dare he assume that I was trying to deceive him? I mean, I was and his suspicion was bang on. But still.

In my flustered rage I stormed off to work and spent the best part of an hour researching charities and learning where their head offices were. Why? Read on, but I warn you, it might make you never want to read my blog again.

I was so furious with being found out, that I wanted revenge on all of those poxy do-gooders. My plan was to, when next approached tell the person asking me for money that I worked for their head office, and that I actually didn't appreciate the aggressive manner in which they approached me, and I didn't think it was really in the spirit of the charity. If they had any questions I sure as fuck had the answers now.

A while passed before my next encounter, and it wasn't until sometime last week that I was in a situation to try my new plan.

I did try my lie, but obviously I had forgotten all of the details (although the charity was one I had researched). The boy looked utterly bemused as I started claiming that I worked for the Manchester office, and that the street team does a "fine job". The conversation ended with us both shrugging, and me not giving him any money.

If all men were like me, the world would be an enormous playground for a handful of wealthy, powerful men, leaving the rest of the weaklings to scuttle around in the mess that we make, desperate for scraps.

I'm sure that's not a good thing, but I'm also sure that it's true.

Follow me on twitter @monkeyhotel

Hold That Bus You Toasted C*nt

2011-02-18T00:37:00.000-08:00

You know when you have one of those soul-piercing moments of self realisation, the ones where it suddenly dawns on you that despite your lifelong efforts to be 'one hell of a guy', you've somehow managed to become exactly the sort of person that your former self would hate?

Yes, I talk about this kind of stuff a lot. Look, if it's boring for you to read, imagine how crushing it is to live, yeah?

So anyway, I've decided to buy a scooter and learn how to ride it. I got the idea after watching an old introduction video to the popular channel 4 show Football Italia and seeing its host James Richardson reading Italian papers whilst drinking a coffee sat on the back of a Vespa.

“That’s the life for me”, I thought and ever since that moment I have spent pretty much every spare moment looking at prices for the bike, insurance, road tax, etc etc etc.

This is odd, because I can’t stand people who are into two wheeled vehicles. I put them in the same category of people who get into martial arts in an extremely pathetic and casual way and start to believe that they are part of some underground culture that makes them somehow unique.

Not long ago I saw photos from a friend of a friend’s wedding. The couple happened to be into biking, therefore the whole wedding was themed on people wearing leathers and boots. Fine, do that if you want, but don’t then bang on about how “you did it your own way” and wanted to do something “a bit different”.

Anyway, even though I still absolutely despise these people, I’ve decided that I’m not the sort of person who should use public transport anymore, and I can’t afford a car because I live in London.

When I say I’m not sort of person who should use public transport, this isn’t meant in a snooty, hoity-toity sort of a way. I mean it just brings out the worst in me. If anything I’ve been looking for reasons to not get a scooter, but my awful experiences on public transport leave me with no other option;

Last week I saw an actual racially motivated fight on a bus. It’s one of the most surreal moments you’re ever likely to be involved in. On one hand you need to be sensitive to the issues that caused the attack to happen, but on the other hand you can’t condone violence from the victim of the racial abuse. I dealt with the situation by offering the seething man some water, as though that was the solution the middle east has been begging for, if only the world leaders asked me.

Last weekend I had to get a train into work and found myself having only been awake for an hour on Sunday morning, face to face with those still up from the previous night’s partying. Complete assholes, boasting about the number of pills they had taken and congratulating each other for being so “hardcore”.

And then yesterday the final incident that has led to me booking a bike test – running for a bus that was within my reach I shouted to a woman stood next to the bus, screaming “hold that bus for me”, motioning with all my limbs and probably my head too. She completely ignored my pleas, and the bus pulled away. Upon arrival at the bus stop I continued my run until I was pretty much in her ear and asked quite aggressively “why didn’t you hold that bus? You could clearly see that I was running for it”. She turned around and was clearly some kind of burns victim.

That shouldn’t excuse her, but guess who the other people stood at the bus stop chose to glare at for the next 20 minutes. The burns victim or the out of breath yob?

Dinner For One.

2011-02-12T02:13:00.000-08:00

Hello there. I have to start this post with an apology.

For the first few sentences, this blog will sound like a really odd parody of one of those hideous television advertisements. You know the ones, the ones that encourage you to take pretty much everyone on the planet to court if one afternoon whilst walking in the park you accidentally tripped over a kangaroo and broke your spleen in two.

Three questions;

1)Do you find your self infuriated at restaurants when people suggest that you order two vastly different meals and share them?

2)Does the thought of someone using their knife to cut your pizza in half, take away 50% of your chosen meal and replace it with something you don't want at all?

3)When someone arrogantly assumes that you don't mind them trying a bit of what you have ordered, even just a tiny bit, do you want to throw that person to the floor, claw-hammer out their brains and fuck those brains back into their head?

If you're a vaguely reasonable person then the answer to all of the above questions will have been "yes, yes I fucking hate those selfish wankers. But, oh, there's nothing I can do about it. Society favours 'nice' people who share food and drink cocktails for fun".

This may appear to be true. For some reason we are expected to want to share our food with other people. I don't know why, I mean apparently it's something to do with our evolution. Sitting down with people to eat shows an element of trust that you are not trying to steal each other's food, which ultimately allows for intimacy with in turn is what allows us to have friends. This is a unique trait of humans.

Fine. That doesn't mean that we have to literally share the exact meal we are eating with them though, does it? Isn't it enough to just be sat down at the same table, safe in the knowledge that if we turn our backs the person we are eating with won't use their stake knife to stab us in the neck and take off with our Thai curry?

I think that human evolution has sold us a shit one here. Food has become a symbolic commodity for sharing, and he (or she, don't accuse ME of being a sexy sexist) who shares the most is, at least in their own eyes, the best person.

Those of us who don't want to share, meanwhile, get spoken about behind our backs. The others will say to each other, "well, I mean, he seems okay, but when I asked if I could dip my bread in his gravy he looked at me like I'd asked if I could fuck his shoe whilst he wore it".

To me, sharing food is too personal and I don't like it one bit. Yes, I am happy to eat with another person, cook for another person or even buy them their own food. But once in the territory of sharing food, etiquette kicks in and it's only a matter of time before I start to look like an unreasonable maniac.

Anyway, if you find yourself sympathising with any of above described, why not pay attention to the paragraph beneath?

Hello, and welcome to a new paragraph. Yes, last week I discovered a very easy way to avoid any dinner related upsets. I was out for lunch with someone I used to work with when he suggested we got some food. He kept asking me what I was getting, and had obviously assumed that we were going to get two dishes to share.

I waited for him to order, then out of spite ordered exactly the same thing, drinks and everything. You should have seen the disappointment in his face. Especially when the waiter laughed at us for ordering the same thing.

Follow me on twitter @monkeyhotel or on tumblr

A Walk In The Park, A Wank In The Mark(et)

2011-02-04T10:54:00.001-08:00

I think I may have discovered the exact most awkward situation it is possible to be in.

Yes, I've probably started a few blogs like this in the 2ish years I've been posting, but if you'll allow me to flap my gobby-fingers at your eyes, I've had a lot of experience of embarrassing and awkward situations recently and feel justified in talking about it again at length without feeling a bit of a wang-head.

In recent weeks I have mistaken a young woman for being pregnant, made a very horrible joke about all scousers to a girl whose scouser boyfriend had recently died, witnessed a race-based fight (after which I offered one of the warriors a sip of water to calm down), had my hair washed by a hairdressing assistant who was quite obviously deliberately getting shampoo in my eyes, forgotten my friend's baby's name (I am godparent) and moments after overhearing someone else in a hospital be told that one of their loved one's had died, forgotten to turn my phone on silent before airing this ringtone to the otherwise silent ward. (Click on player below)

Flyingmen by monkeyhotel

Recently I was in a supermarket looking at belts when I suddenly needed the toilet. I went into a cubical, sat down and started to relax into a poo.
I heard someone else come into the toilet room and go into their own cubical. After the familiar sound of trousers falling down (familiar?), the man began to masturbate. Yes, he was definitely masturbating, before you start to question this. Definitely.

I considered coughing to let him know that someone else was in there, but seeing as at the best of times I try very hard to ensure that nobody knows I am pooing, this couldn't happen. I remained silent and very on edge.

Well, I say I remained silent, I did until I couldn't hold the poo in (the poo I had already started, have you ever tried to stop a poo?) and it flopped out, along with a windy parp.
This plop, splash and flatulence was met with a sharp halt in the masturbation, a nervous cough, a murmor... then a recommencing of the wank.

Realising that he was in this for the long haul, I got the hell out of there without finishing my poo. Yes, I did hang around to see who came out of the room. I'm not sure why I did this, his face now haunts my nightmares, as does the fact that he was carrying a cycling magazine...

Follow me on twitter @monkeyhotel

Oh no... oh what were you thinking... NO NO NO

2011-01-29T00:57:00.000-08:00

Ouch. My entire body has coiled up in shame.

You know that cringe, that really hard cringe when you try to fold your body up in such a way your shoulders could meet infront of your face? You know, you feel a shiver at the top of your neck and work its way down your spine until the cringe is over?

I got an email this morning. The email was from my old email account, the one I had as a child. It was telling me that as I hadn't logged in for years, my account was about to be closed forever, unless I signed in immediately, which I did.

Once inside, I found thousands of unread messages from the company that used to host a website I made as a 16 year old chump.

For nostalgia, I visited the website. Oh my sweet lord, I've never felt my skin crawl with embarrassment quite like it did when reading my juvenile attempts at humor, profound thought and satire.

What a little dick-weasel I was back then. What did I think of myself? I made statements about art, politics, the vapidity celebrity culture and religion, all of which are misspelt, entirely nonsensical and stultifyingly ill-informed. If someone said these things to me now, I would dismiss them as a human being and wish ill upon them.

I'm absolutely not going to share a link with you to the site, I will however show you the part of the website that I'm still fairly proud of and find quite funny; the pictures I drew in MS paint. Even as an adult, my dreadful attempts at drawing still try to inform some kind of narrative, but fail to do so. It amuses me greatly that I have in no way matured since the age of 16.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I did back then, and to be honest, still do today.

Quite a simple story here, two boys kill another boy's pet. Then kill him. Kick kick kick.

A common theme in everything I've published online; irrational hatred of people. On the left is a man I knew called Tommy. What a little fatty. On the right you can see him in a ball gown having drugged his dog so she will dance with him. Notice the dog, dreaming of a dead Tommy.

More murder by me. This time it's the turn of Wheatus.

Left: Tommy again - bumming someone and right; if Satan had laser vision.

Thanks.

Mail Fail (sorry)

2011-01-21T03:50:00.000-08:00

How annoying. My email account has been hacked by someone, someone who has sent an email to everyone I’ve ever emailed, or has ever had any contact with my email address.

This is one of the most annoying things that can happen to someone who spends a lot of time online and manages virtually every aspect of their life from a google account.

Concerns about details being stolen, changing passwords for virtually everything, having to send grovelling emails to various professional relations and hearing from people that I haven’t spoken to in years and never wanted to speak to again. Very irritating.

If I were into hacking email accounts and sending emails to everyone in a contact book, I would probably try and pull off some kind of scam that led to my gaining financially.

The person that hacked my email account however opted to send the following message to everyone I know;

“http%3A%2F%2Farqueogestion%2Ecom%2Fm28sx%2Ehtml”

I’ve googled it, it doesn’t mean anything, I imagine it isn’t dangerous to anyone opening it, but it has been sent to virtually everyone I know and various companies I’ve emailed in alphabetical batches of 10.

Pretty annoying, although since discovering this hacking I’ve found something else far more annoying. People have actually responded to this email asking why I’ve sent them this email or what it’s all about.

What do they think? I typed out these seemingly random selection of letters, symbols and numbers, thought “hm, I know who would really appreciate this dynamite chat”, typed in their email address, then thought of 9 other people with names that started with the same letter that would also appreciate this hot info and pressed send?

Have these people never received spam before? Why, when they saw that the email I sent to them had also been sent to people called Tim, Tom, Tony and T-Mobile did these people think “hm, I wonder what this could be, what he’s trying to say, is it some kind of cryptic code? I know, I’ll ask him”.

One person started their email with “LOL, what was that all about mate? Long time, I’m currently...” and then went on for 3000 words about their boring wife, boring house in Surrey and boring child.

Since starting to type this post I have had a further 5 emails from people asking stupid questions. I’ve also had another email telling me that my work doctor is working from home today. How does that work?

Bye

My New Hobby

2011-01-14T01:34:00.000-08:00

I need to stop getting quite so obsessed with things.

A few months ago I had an interview for a job that I really wanted, and subsequently didn't get. Now, after analysis of the interview I can pinpoint exactly where it went wrong and begin to understand how I could have done things differently.

So, despite being disappointed about the job, at least I will have learned a little bit about how to approach interviews and be better prepared for the next one blah blah blah.
This is the kind of logic that a sensible person would apply to this situation.

Instead, I have become completely obsessed with the magazine that interviewed me. I pick it up every week and read it cover to cover looking for any mistakes, and then when I find some, I pencil in corrections before scanning the pages and sending them to both the man that interviewed me and the editor.

Every article that they post online, I am instantly all over on twitter and Facebook, pointing out any flaws I notice and asking why their website is still so shit. I ask them questions like "why is commenting not allowed on your site" and point out exactly where I think they are going wrong with their use of online media.

In the interview me and the (probably very nice) man that interviewed me had a bit of a disagreement over the application of social media, so now whenever I find an article or podcast in which a media expert agrees with what I was saying, I send him an extremely smug email and a link.

And finally, once I am done scanning both the print and online versions for any errors, I open the magazine to the "staff" page and glare at all their names maniacally. Especially at the name of the person who got my job. Then I weep uncontrollably at what a massive failure I am.

This isn't healthy, I know. It's pretty much the behaviour of a psychopath. I don't know where I'm hoping all of this will get me. I am fully aware that all of this isn't going to lead to someone at the magazine saying "actually, you're right. Come and work for us", it's more likely to get a restraining order put on me.

Maybe that's what I'm secretly hoping for, imagine how cool it would be to have a whole magazine place a restraining order on you.

Anyway, I don't think I'm going to stop stalking their web presence anytime soon, as once the weekly sob has finished I actually feel a lot better.

Maybe having an unhealthy obsession with the object of your desire is the best way to get over a rejection, especially if you allow that obsession to manifest itself as bitterness, envy and malice.

Maybe it isn't unhealthy at all, but actually positive to have something you can directly blame for everything you see as being wrong in your life.

Maybe this is my new hobby, and by using my hobby as an outlet for all my insecurities, maybe I'm becoming an altogether more balanced human being.

Maybe.

Follow me on twitter @monkeyhotel

You're Not Even Tired, Stop Pretending To Be So Tired

2011-01-04T09:49:00.000-08:00

Despite my iPhone being the only alarm clock that I own, the 2011 glitch affecting seemingly everyone on earth didn't interfere with my life in the slightest, even though I had to be up at 5:30am for an early shift at work. Instead I stayed awake all night, doing all sorts of damage to my mental and physical health.

Regular readers will know that I suffer from spells of of insomnia.

Not having a hard time getting off to sleep, not light sleeping, not restlessness, not staying up later than I should. Proper insomnia, the sort where despite your entire body going into shutdown, for some reason falling asleep is totally impossible and being awake is soul destroying.

I've had this all my life, it comes and goes in phases but I guess I am kind of used to it now and when I know that it's happening there is little I can do in the moment other than accept my defeat and just hope that the hours drift by with as little boredom as possible.

People often ask me, when this happens why I don't just stick on the television or read a book. It's hard to explain to people that are not insomniacs I guess. It's not like you are wide awake, far from it. Last night there was little more I could do that lay on my bed motionless, but still conscious.

I've only ever known one other person that I would class as being an insomniac and it was quite a nice friendship to have, someone that understood how miserable an existence it can be; being the last person to bed and the first person awake, having hours to fill but being too exhausted to fill them with anything more than breathing, gently sobbing and muttering to yourself "why me" and how "unfair" the situation is.

Everything about it is awful, but the boredom is the final kick to the cranium. I don't think I've ever had a more depressing decision to make than "shall I just give in now and get dressed and out of bed" at 4am, as I'm unable to face another hour of just laying in the darkness.

Anyway, I didn't want to come on here and bemoan the hardships of insomnia, heavens no. What I wanted to bemoan was the sort of unhelpful bollocks that people spew at you the second they learn of your condition. Here is a list of the most irritating and common things I hear from people who for some reason can't just say "oh, that's really crap, sorry to hear that" and get on with their day.

1) "Oh, I often have trouble getting off to sleep too".

This annoying sentence is sometimes followed with "I just can't go to bed early, so I just catch up on weekends and have a lie in". Is that your advice then? Because you going to bed late and having to cope on 4 or 5 hours sleep then having an oafish 10 hours kip on a friday night is practically the fucking same as not being able to sleep. Wankers. And why do they always feel the need to make out as though they have the same problem? Choosing to go to bed at 2am when you have to be up at 6am isn't the same as going to bed at 10pm and slowly chewing through your fist whilst rocking back and forth at 4am.

2) "I put music or the radio on in the background, that helps me get to sleep".

Thanks. I'm an insomniac you moron. As a part of my condition I am a light sleeper. Consequently, I often don't go into deep sleep and the slightest sound will wake me up from the light sleep before rapid eye movement has stopped. Anyway, why do you think I haven't already tried this? Idiot.

3) "Oh, I had a really bad night last night. You look alright, I'm absolutely knackered".

Obviously the person who has had not enough sleep is going to look more rough than the person who hasn't been to bed. What is this fucking one-up-manship? Why? Why say it? It's like walking up to man in a wheelchair who is struggling to get up a ramp right after you've banged your toe and saying "get over yourself, you've got them bloody wheels, I'm hopping around like a right spanner, and I can tell you, it's most inconvenient".

And finally, my least favourite

4) "All you need to do is lie down still and just wait until you drift off".

You would be amazed how many times I've heard these completely useless words said to me. I don't know what they think I'm doing, I mean sleeping is essentially just being motionless. That bit I can do, that bit anyone can do. And what the hell do these people think I've been doing up until now? Balancing on my skull and screaming in French? Running on a treadmill and thinking "well, I seem pretty tired but for some reason I'm not nodding off".

Sorry for the whinge.

Happy new year.

Follow me on twitter @monkeyhotel

Join Me In My Human Swamp

2010-12-27T11:13:00.000-08:00

It turns out I'm prejudice against a minority group.

Yes, despite being a brilliant liberal, understanding and tolerant person, for as long as I can remember I've held one prejudice. I have reserved all of my resentment for one particular group of British society; white trash.

You know the types I mean; unemployed, fat, balding, often seen wearing a track suit and usually with an awful tattoo saying something like "Mum" or "Gavin", these chaps.

However, over the past week or so I've developed an unexpected level of sympathy for these people, because I've been living like them. Well, at least how my silly prejudice brain imagines that they live.
As a result, I have understood how easily one can become immersed in this tawdry, desolate world. I now realise how the chav shepherd rounds up these unfortunates, and consigns them to a life of KFC family buckets and Bingo. Who is this evil shepherd? The ITV morning schedule.

As a trade off for working the week/weekend over Christmas, I had 4 days off before Christmas. The problem with having your holiday the week before everyone else does is pretty obvious, and you find yourself spending large portions of your precious time slumped alone on a sofa with only ITV for company.

The way this affects your brain is really quite bizarre.

Wake up and switch on Daybreak. Brilliant, the first two people you see in the morning are Adrian Chiles and Christine Bleakley - two bastard millionaires. These millionaires then talk to you for around two hours about "normal" things, like snow and doing the school run as though they understand your life and are somehow like you. Those sick bastards.

I think that the show is deliberately lightweight as it assumes that nobody will watch all two hours of it, but if like me you don't have anything else on that day, watching this kind of media vapor puts you in an odd hypnotic trance.

Instead of filling your mind with information for the day ahead, it seems to regress you back into the dream world you've only just emerged from where nothing makes sense. That's understating it. After two full hours I couldn't speak properly or fully comprehend my own thoughts and felt very frustrated. It is how I imagine having a lobotomy and wearing a straight jacket feels.

After Daybreak comes one of the most depressing pieces of television I've ever seen - Lorraine. Lorraine Kelly spends approximately an hour setting you unacheviable tasks that will improve your life; recipes you'll never be able to cook, holidays you won't be able to afford, clothes you're probably to fat to wear .
She seems so happy, and if only you could master everything she teaches in her hour long morning slot, you could have as perfect a life as she.

After each day's episode of Lorraine I found I had made a list of recipes to try, clothes to buy and programmes to watch. So far all 4 of these lists have been clutched in my hand for the remainder of the day, probably representing my last true shots at happiness, before being binned at around 10pm.

So, your mind's been fried and your life is definitely dreadful. Time for Jeremy Kyle.

For years I've struggled to understand why anyone would watch this programme, but having had my world totally shattered by the previous three hours of television, seeing people with worse lives than you who are so desperate they are willing to appear on television is exactly the kind of pickup you'll need.
This is where the scumbag life starts to get really dangerous. You find yourself identifying with the people appearing on the show and taking a genuine interest in their problems because, unlike Christine and Adrian, unlike Lorraine and most importantly unlike Jeremy Kyle, these people could be you.
These are your people on TV, representing your end of the human swamp. And it's at this point you become one of them. You start to understand the odd language they've invented for their mental subculture of scumbags, terms like "sexual contact", which I've never heard said other than on the stage of the Jeremy Kyle show.
Before being taken into their world, I used to long for a life as exciting as Jack Bauer or . Now I'm jealous of the guests on Jeremy Kyle. I've gone from pity to jealously in an hour.

Jeremy Kyle ends and it's only 10:30am. Jeremy signs off the show with a wink and says "have a great day".

So, on with the rest of my day. On day one I managed a walk half a mile down the road, Lorraine list in hand, only to stare through the window of M&S before being overwhelmed with sadness and having to return home. On day two, I couldn't leave the house, other than to buy takeaway food. I had lost, I had lost by day two. Shitting hell.

Today I am back into the office and once again life feels full of possibility. I've broken the cycle and I feel I understand those I once condemned. I still believe them to be shit houses from the darkest depths of hell, but I understand them now, and all it took was for me to live like one for a few days.

And there you have it, if you find yourself hating a group of people for no real reason, why not try living like them? If you don't like the Jews, nip over to Israel. If you don't like heroin addicts, contact you local smack dealer and have a go yourself. If you don't like the gays, slap on a pair of hot-pants and pick up a few mustachioed hunks. You might have one hell of a night.

Follow me on twitter @monkeyhotel

Merry Christmas One And All

2010-12-22T10:33:00.001-08:00

3 days to go until Christmas, and I sincerely hope that all of you are more organised than I am, or are at least in the care of someone organised. I don't have much to say today, not a great deal happens around Christmas, but I wanted to wish you all a happy Christmas without lacing the good will with acidic misanthropy. The best way to avoid this? A festive story of my own idiocy.

Recently I told someone that I am probably the most useful person to have in a household around Christmas time for a number of reasons; 1) I'm fairly easy to cater for 2) I'm fucking hilarious and will happily entertain for hours, and most importantly 3) I can cook an entire roast dinner from start to finnish in 1 hour flat.

Now, although all of the above are true, today I managed to expose my rather poor organistational skills, an incompetence that directly impacted the making of a Christmas dinner.

I was asked to write a shopping list for someone else to take to the shops so that they could buy all of the food necessary for Christmas day, a day when no shops are open. In short, it had to be completely right otherwise hunger would follow.

The list had to be thorough, concise and leave no room for confusion.

Here is my list;

Breakfast - Cereal, an appropriate amount

Lunch - General lunch things; cheese, bread etc...

Dinner - Xmas dinner, you know the score

Extras - Some kind of pudding and snack type foods eg crisps.

Realising what a complete waste of paper and ink this was and what a total waste of space I was for writing it, I kept it as a reminder of my own inadequacies. Someone I work with has since seen the list and written "what kind of a fucking list is this you useless cunt?" beneath it. He has a point.

Anyway, my curry has just arrived, how very festive.

Merry Christmas, you anonymous eyeballs.

Follow me on twitter @monkeyhotel

Lemsip Breakfast

2010-12-17T00:39:00.000-08:00

I'm ill and it's snowing. This wouldn't normally be such bad news, but I have to make my way up to the north of England this weekend so I can attend my brother's wedding. So you can add stress to that list too. I am ill, cold and stressed. And I had to get up at 5am this morning for an early shift at work. Who would be me, eh?

When I'm ill and stressed my general levels of tolerance go down from reasonably tolerant and lip biting to one dreadful joke or catchphrase style expression and I've written you off as a human being.

So, imagine my joy at the conversation I was somehow forced into having this morning with a person on the same bus as me. Normally I would simply put my earphones in and ignore anyone trying to talk to me in public, but my iPhone battery died during the night, leaving me without distraction. Fortunately my insomnia seems to be back, so I didn't need my phone alarm to wake me up at 5am.

Where are we? Oh yes; ill, stressed, cold and tired having not slept, someone decided to have a conversation with me. It started with them asking why I had Lemsip Cold and Flu pills and somehow ended with me justifying never wanting to have children. For any of you interested in this, pay attention to the footnotes of this blog - 2 anecdotes from my childhood, both involving fruit drinks.

Anyway, my will to leave the conversation confirmed something that I had been thinking about for a while now. I think that I give machines more respect that I give humans, and I'm pleased about this.

If a person comes up to me in the street to try and sell me something I will ignore them, but if a flashing sign tries to sell me the same product I will give it 10 seconds to sucker me in. If someone I know tries to give me advice, I will immediately google what they have just suggested to verify. In a supermarket I don't turn my iPod off at the checkout but do at the self service, so I can hear the instructions. Recently I even thanked a coffee machine.

Is this because humans are becoming less important? I mean, they certainly seem to be getting thicker or is it a problem with me? I have always longed to a) live in a world where all humans other than me are obsolete, and maybe this is my way of achieving it, in my own head at least OR b) transform into a machine myself, and maybe this is my first step in reaching out to my new robot friends.

Well, I asked someone I knew what they thought, and their reaction was one of horror; "oh, that's dreadful, you can't ignore people, it's so rude. These are humans, with feelings and emotions, you might be hurting them. Machines will come and go but it takes a human to make them..." I didn't catch the rest of their monologue, I'd switched my iPod back on and logged into twitter.

Anyway, sorry for how little sense this probably makes. I am delirious with ill and drugged up on medicine.

Until next time.

Two anecdotes from my childhood;

1) Around the age of 6 I made up that if you mixed orange squash with blackcurrant squash it was cough medicine. Around the age of 7 I came down with what turned out to be bronchitis. My mum gave me squash. When I informed her (remember, I'm 7) that this wouldn't cure me she got angry and said "well, I've given you your cough medicine"

2) Another squash related story. My Dad once came home from work to find me drinking orange squash with an ice cube in. He sighed, shouted "you don't half treat yourself" and immediately turned on his heels and left the house, not to be seen again for 3 days.

Follow me on twitter @monkeyhotel

So Here It Is Merry Christmas

2010-12-15T15:37:00.000-08:00

Last night was my work Christmas party. Last year the Christmas party was an event unlike anything else I had ever experienced. I mean, I'd been to company Christmas parties before, I have been to some pretty swanky events before, but this was a level of luxury and excess that I didn't ever imagine I would be a part of until that moment.

12 months ago I found it all a little bit overwhelming, in a good way and had a pretty incredible time. Cocktails on tap, celebrities standing next to me, never having to queue for anything and a seemingly endless supply of fine foods being placed on my lap. I remember saying to someone at the time "as soon as I leave here I'm going to have to deal with the unbearable reality that this isn't my day to day life. Everything after this will be a let down".

In many respects everything after that point has been a let down. I'm not blaming it on the party or anything like that. It probably has more to do with my own bleak perspectives, ridiculously high ambitions and fundamental personality flaws. A few days after the extravaganza I said to a friend of mine that it was a danger to your own mental health to "go above deck" (Titanic reference).

This isn't anything to do with class by the way, I'm not suggesting for a second that someone from a working class background shouldn't dream of being a very successful multi-millionaire and eat caviar everyday, not at all. What I'm saying is you need to understand your current status at all times and never punch above your own weight.

This year's party was one of the greatest let downs of my adult life. Not because of the event itself, which was actually a grander affair than the year previous. Similar recipe; lots of glamor, lots of high quality drinks, food and entertainment, even a couple of live snakes to play with. The let down came from my own lack of enjoyment, compared to the other people's jubilation at the spread before them.

When someone asked me why I wasn't having fun, I replied "why are you having fun?" He responded "free drinks, free food, what's wrong with that?" Well, nothing is wrong with that from a personal economics perspective, but it's still just your own boring, miserable life dropped into a venue where you are treated like a King for a few hours and then tossed aside like a used tampon. And every second you are in "that" world, nothing is actually changing in your real world. No no no, this simply won't do. Not for me, anyway.

Sorry this has all seemed a bit downbeat and depressing, but fear not, for amidst tangible misery of the vacuous vapor is the secret to some kind of compromise, and hopefully contentment. All you need to do is surround yourself with things that are beneath your own current social status.
Friends, restaurants you choose to eat in, books you read. Make sure everything is just below your own standards in every possible respect.
This should blow up your own pathetic ego, eventually leaving you blind to the glaring truths of the "others", and eventually you will probably be able to ignore them. Happiness attained!

For the record, it was very nice of the company to put this party on and I am sure that I'm the only person who felt like this, making me very ungrateful.

Anyway, that's enough from me. I'm still hungover. It feels like someone has put a pillow in my brain and a log fire in my stomach.

Merry Christmas.

Follow me on twitter @monkeyhotel

Too Many Friends? How To Streamline That Phone Book And Sort The Men From The Boys

2010-12-10T14:15:00.000-08:00

As another year comes to an end I've come to realise that the past 12 months have seen me lose contact with even more people I once held dear.

Since accepting that I'm an awful human being who will never be legitimately happy or satisfied with anything I may achieve or conquer, an absence of people who care about me isn't a problem that upsets me too much anymore.

I have now reached a point where I will find myself in social situations in which I am seeing someone I may not have seen for sometime, and I think to myself "this might be the last time I ever see *insert name*, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. I'll take this opportunity to put this friendship to bed".

Cutting off ties to your past is usually a positive thing, and getting rid of the baggage that holds you back is something that I strongly advise you consider, whilst you sit on your computer wondering why despite having so many facebook friends you are so lonely.

Now obviously you can't cut everyone off, not even I could do that, and I'm practically half machine. Obviously there will be people that stand out as cut-offs and others that you have to keep. The trouble arises with those people you used to be close to. Maybe only for a couple of weeks, maybe for longer, but you haven't seen in a while and meeting up with them would almost certainly be extremely awkward. What do you do with these bozos?

Well, here's a suggestion; look at your phonebook/facebook friends/email contacts and pick someone you used to be close to but haven't seen in a while. Not someone you hate, not someone you love, but someone who you think may be cluttering up your life.

Get in contact with them and invite them out for a lovely dinner. Before going to this dinner, get a picture of your own face and turn it into a mask that can be easily put on and removed. Wrap it up in some nice wrapping paper. At the end of the dinner offer this gift to the friend. As they look confused, but laugh as they remember what a quirky wag you were, tell the friend that it would mean a lot to them if they would "consider wearing it the next time they had sex".

Now, I've actually done this. It sounds ridiculous, but I have really done this.
I hadn't seen an old friend who had become a boring arse since meeting his new girlfriend. As a direct result of his being unfathomably dull, I hadn't seen him in a while, but was generally aware of how his life was going through his very irritating facebook status updates and lengthily emails from his girlfriend about utter bollocks.

I was convinced that although they would take it as a joke, they would almost certainly be offended and politely cut off all ties with me over the next 12 months. I was wrong. They found it hilarious and didn't stop talking about it for the rest of the night. It was a great moment, as my old friend really came out of himself and reminded me why we were friends in the first place. Then his girlfriend, who I assumed to be a boring bitch until this moment realised that it was actually freaking me out a bit the more they talked about it, so to her eternal credit, went mental on it for the rest of the night.

That night, they actually shagged with my masks on. Really, they did. I've seen enough proof to know that they're not bluffing. Yes, it freaks me out a little bit and yes, they definitely hit me on the break (to use a football metaphor), but I now know for sure that these people are freaky and interesting enough to be worth keeping in my life.

So there you have it. If you think you might need to slim down your friend list try doing exactly as I did. I just suggested that a young, female friend of mine did this to some of her friends she was unsure about before gliding off to America forever. She saw sense and is going to give it a try. So should you.

If they laugh, keep them. If they don't, drop those humourless wankers. Drop them where they stand and don't look back.

Follow me on twitter @monkeyhotel

Dreams can come true

2010-12-06T00:44:00.000-08:00

Some time ago I lambasted exactly the sort of boring bum-burbler I'm about to expose myself as being.

Regular readers of my pointless thoughts may recall my recent complaint at those imbecilic boobs who think the rest of us are interested in their tangibly boring and completely unexceptional dreams. What major cunts they and anyone else who thinks we care about their subconscious must be, what unforgivable wank prisms, what stuck-up, self obsessed fuck-puddles etc etc

With the above addressed, here's a dream I had the other night, and I'll tell you what - it's a real cracker. Whap on your nearest corset, as I'm certain your sides will be split when I'm finished with you.

In the dream I was for some reason moving back into my old house in Brighton on my own. So concerned was I by living alone at the heightened risk of being burgled, I decided I would need a thief deterrent. I got 4, one for each floor of the flat. Three of them were non-venomous constrictor snakes. The fourth was an alarm system I invented. Yes, invented.

The bottom floor of my old house was a sort of underground kitchen/living room. It was in this room that I placed my most valuable possesions; laptop, Wii, Playstation, Studio equipment, television etc. This room would need extra special care if I were to protect these valuables from theives.

In my dream, I determined proper burglar alarms too expensive, so designed my own. And, even if I say so myself, I think it's a product that should be marketed. The idea; a series of projectors that when triggered send the image of a ghost onto a series of mirrors. The video below explains how this can be achieved.

Now, I'll conceed that the snakes are a bit ridiculous, although it would be hilarious to get home from work and find my loyal, trained serpents with their bodies coiled around the intruder, leaving me to do as I please with the no-good nick (read into that what you will...)

But imagine the face of someone who has managed to escape the slithery scales of my snakes, only to be confronted with a ghost. I suppose whilst they are stunned one of the snakes could have another pounce.

I hope that most of you agree this system would be well worth having in your house despite the cost, and even if it may not prevent your posessions from being pinched, it would be pretty handy for getting rid of boring dinner guests.

Now, what is that email for Dragon's Den?

Follow me on twitter @monkeyhotel

It's Snow Laughing Matter

2010-11-30T03:11:00.000-08:00

Today I write to you as part of an appeal, hoping that I can enlist some of you into helping with a campaign I am trying to get moving in the next couple of weeks.

I think it's about time that the taboo surrounding adult nappies (diapers, for my American readers) is put to rest, once and for all.

This morning I was on a bus to work when I realised that I needed the toilet extremely desperately. I've never experienced bladder pain quite like it before now. So bad was the pain, that I had to get off the bus long before my stop and find a filthy corner of South East London in which I could relieve myself (I most certainly did not have a wank, you perverts)

Whilst pissing into the snow that is choosing to spread itself across my city, I created an icy, pissy, puddle of piddle that slithered down the pavement. A yellow trail of shame that lead back to me. This humiliation I could cope with. What I couldn't cope with however was the elderly gent who slipped over near it. Although I'm sure that my piss had nothing to do with his falling, a lot of other people seemed to find me a convenient scapegoat to blame for his tumble.

With shouting cockneys in tow, I legged it across Tower Bridge and slipped into my office where I was safe once more from the world.

I blame all of the above misfortune on our society and it's "rules" that make people ashamed to urinate and defecate in public. Were I wearing a nappy, I could have just gone on the bus and no one would have slipped over.

What is wrong with us as a species that we allow this sort of problem to exist in 2010? Animals would absolutely not allow themselves to be burdened like this, and before you say "but that's what makes us better than Animals, controlling our primal instincts and needs" that isn't the point I'm getting at. Animals DO hold it in when they are inside a house.

My point is that with our knowledge of technology, we should be able to make a device that allows to empty our inner filth pockets at any given moment.

I've had a few ideas myself for such an invention; a back pack with a bottle inside connected to a tube that you piss in. That seems easy enough. I'm not talking about everyone having a catheter, I mean something that can be slipped on and off with ease.
Shitting will be harder, but that's where I hope you all will try to help.

This is an issue that must be dealt with NOW. North Korea - aint got nothing on this, Cablegate - aint got nothing on this, Coalition Cuts - aint got nothing on this.

Follow me on twitter @monkeyhotel

The Day That Changed My Life...

2010-11-22T08:31:00.001-08:00

Today I finally realised that I am an indefensible dick-head.

There are many, many isolated incidents, most of them on display in this very blog that would confirm this to any normal human being.

Although I've always been acutely aware of my being a dick-head, today three massive sirens went off in my mind as my behaviour crossed the boundary of misanthropic genius and into selfish ass-holery.

Ready? Okay, here we go;

1) I lied to a (presumably) single mother in order to keep my seat on a bus. The woman (generic, ugly, rude, white-trash, south London bitch) who I hadn't actually noticed up to this point, walked over to me and pulled out my earphones. She then said "yeah, that's nice of you, letting a mother stand isn't it?"

Well, I mean what was I to do? Here's what. I said "actually I can't stand, I have only recently fully recovered from a serious spinal injury." This is partly true, I have arthritis in my back and was having a particularly bad day of it. Not content with how bad I'd made her feel, I went on to tell her that this happened whilst I was serving in the Police force.

It didn't. I lied. Yes, I'm a shit human being.

2) Once I'd humiliated the aggressive, ugly c*nt through sheer lies, I instantly forgot about it, didn't feel any guilt and started thinking about how much I was looking forward to doing the ironing when I got home as I had 3 hours of podcasts to listen to.

What kind of wanker looks forward to ironing? I mean seriously, what kind of privileged dick am I that I have the time in my life to iron AND not consider it a massive burden?

3) As I got home a good friend of mine started chatting to me online. She was bored so I quick as a flash suggested she read a chapter of a book I am trying to write. I mean the arrogance of it is bad enough, but the friend then pointed out to me how very "white" it was of me to be writing a book. I then realised that I'd started about 5 books and got nowhere near finishing any of them.

I should be put down.

Follow me on twitter @monkeyhotel

Fun Time Party Guy

2010-11-18T13:54:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow will be the first time in roughly two years that I will have to spend a substantial amount of time with people that I'm meeting for the first time ever in an entirely social setting.

It's my brother's stag weekend, which involves both a trip to a strange city in the north and "male bonding", whatever the fuck that is supposed to mean, with people who could be practically anyone. I'm also presumably supposed to have fun with these people, which could prove problematic.

I don't like events where I'm expected to have fun. Generally speaking other people's idea of fun irritates me, as it's more often than not completely moronic and I've simply too much dignity to join in whatever "bonkers capers" they've concocted and contrived for the evenings entertainment.

I am really quite concerned about the weekend. I don't want to actually offend or be rude to anyone, but the combination of new people who I probably won't like, a city I'm not familiar with, pressure to be having fun and lots of noise that I'm not in control of will almost certainly bring out my sociopath tendencies.

As soon as I meet a new person I instantly find reasons to not like them. I start evaluating them, I ask them questions that if they can't answer both correctly AND immediately I write them off as a human. I appreciate that this makes me a dreadful person, but I can't help it, believe me, I've tried and I can't.

As I mentioned in the first paragraph, it has been two years since I attended a social event such as this. That event was my oldest friend's stag, and things happened during the stag party that forced me to lock myself away from the rest of the human race. I managed not only to alienate myself from a group of about 25 men, but also caused irreparable damage to the relationship I had with this old friend.

I won't bore you with all the details, but here are the two highlights; I arrived at the meeting pub very stoned. I sensed how awkward everything was so starting cracking jokes, each more risque than the last, until someone, presumably trying to shut me up, asked how I knew the groom. I thumbed towards his Dad and said "well, his old man used to molest me when I was a kid, but I got over it, not like these whinging kids today eh? Political correctness gone mad" ... Imagine saying all of that only to get one laugh... from yourself...

After creating a fairly dreadful atmosphere, I proceeded to get very drunk, and, to cut a long story short, I took a shit on a park bench. I was trying to make a point to all of the other guests that nothing in life really mattered, and if they'd all stop being so boring for five minutes they wouldn't be so easily offended. Oh yes, I was the best man, by the way.

Now I hope you understand why this weekend is a bit of a concern to me. You might be thinking "well, all you have to do is not accuse someone of a terrible crime or defecate in public and you're already better off than the last time". If that's what you're thinking, try this one for size; That was me trying to join in the fun. The alternative was sitting in a corner and being incredibly moody and rude to literally everyone and having nothing to do with any of them. It's one or the other, that's just how I operate.

You never know, I might be surprised and all of the guests might be excellent gents who want to sit down quietly for the evening and get to bed at a reasonable time. Maybe I should stop expecting the worst of people, I've got no reason to assume that these people will be mindless fuck-wits who laugh at moronic guff.
I mean, it's not like they want us all to dress up as cunts in banana costumes, like the ones you can see at the top of this blog. What's that, they do? Fucking hell.

Follow me on twitter @monkeyhotel

Old Man Me

2010-11-16T11:43:00.000-08:00

I am currently undergoing a bit of a transformation. I'm throwing away a lot of clothes, changing my diet and buying things that 2 years ago I wouldn't have considered owning.

None of these lifestyle changes are things that I'm particularly happy about, they are however essential if I'm to carry on living with any degree of self respect.

Several months ago I saw the gentleman pictured

above on a tube. Look at him, what an absurd fool. 35 at the youngest, possibly in his forties, baseball shirt, those stupid jeans and a bum-bag. A total disaster of a human.

The image of this man obviously stuck in my brain. Soon after seeing him I was in a London club. After using the toilet I had a big yawn, you know, one of the ones that involve a big stretch. As I did this I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and my god did I hate what I saw. Baggy jeans and a hooded top on a yawny, wrinkly old man. Urgh, disgusting.

That day I decided it was essential I never became one of these tragic wankers that desperately tries clinging to their youth, and the only way to ensure that this didn't happen was to start weening out anything remotely young and trendy from my life sooner rather than later.

I'm slowly replacing all of my expensive, fashionable jeans with a range of black leg wear, all of which I am buying from Tesco for a maximum price of £12.

I am moving away from shirts and t-shirts that are anything other than completely plain. Stripes are still allowed on jumpers.

And that's it. That's it for the rest of my life. Do you have any idea how depressing it is to wake up everyday and know that for the rest of my life my outdoor dress will be dictated by the rules in the above paragraph? "Stripes are allowed on jumpers", that's all I have to live for now. Fucking hell.

It's not just my dress sense either that is changing. I honestly believe that I am forcing myself older in every manner possible. I'm sitting up straight instead of slouching, I'm no longer drinking fizzy drinks, and I most recently bought an enormous umbrella both for keeping myself dry and as a weapon to defend myself from London's youth, only to be angry that it hasn't since rained. I'm also thinking about buying a coffee machine.

What a thoroughly miserable existence for a thoroughly miserable cunt. I know people my age who like the idea of behaving like old men. I fucking hate it. I hate that I can't just ignore these rules I've made for myself and enjoy what little time I have left of what many would consider to be my youth. But, these are the rules and if self respect is to be maintained then the rules must stick.

Anyway, fortunately I've found the perfect range of clothing for men who want to look in no way exceptional and do everything but stand out, this picture is taken from the Fred Perry website;

And that's all I have to say today. I'm sorry it wasn't that funny.

Until next time.

Follow me on twitter @monkeyhotel

The Trouble With Bikes...

2010-11-03T09:38:00.000-07:00

Hello you demanding bastards, would you like to hear a story? You would? Oh good, then sit your little bottoms down and lap up my words with your eyeballs.

I am telling you this story in the hope that you'll (1) find it funny and (2) be able to in some way empathise with the predicament I was in.

Recently my days off work have all been weekdays on account of working 4 weekends back to back. On my days off I quite like to go shopping. I very rarely actually buy anything on these trips, but when you consider that my days off are weekdays when everyone else I know is at work, getting out of the house becomes very important for your psychological welfare. I have spent entire days off at home alone in the past, before going back to work for a load of weekend shifts and let me tell you, leading such an isolated existence can make your brain do some extremely unusual things.

Walking through my home patch of south London towards a bus stop, I noticed a bike shop that I'd never given any attention to before. On the sign outside the shop it had the Oakley sunglasses logo. Being a bit of a sucker for a pair of sunglasses, I popped in. The shop didn't sell sunglasses, instead they were advertising Oakley biking products. As I don't own a bike and live in London, where you need to be suicidal or a cunt to ride one, I had no reason to be in this dreadful place a second longer, so made a move toward the exit. At that point the shop assistant (or whatever he was) started talking to me.

I think that this tall, intimidating man believed me to be either some kind of common thief, or a shit-bag who was drunk and filthy, which I can't imagine is the sort of cliental a bicycle shop would want. He probably had good reason to think this; since completely giving up on life roughly 2 weeks ago I've started leaving the house in some rather peculiar clothing ensembles. The picture above is a layout of today's outfit (yes, I took the picture naked). Should you wish to replicate this look; A chequered flappy-ear hat, a big woolly fleece avec hood, a 1985 Arsenal home shirt, tartan-esque chequered PJ trousers and a pair of vulgar size 13 trainers.

I felt ashamed of how I looked, so made up some story about how I was looking for a present for a friend of mine who is "really into bikes". I think this convinced the now visibly angry bike enthusiast that I was on the rob, so he stalked me around the shop quizzing about this "friend" of mine, questions about whether it was a birthday or Christmas present, what kind of bike they had, where they lived, what their name was. Eventually I snapped and picked up a helmet, the black one you can see in the picture below. The assistant, stunned that I may actually be about to buy something went behind his counter and said "£40". This unreasonable sum stunned me, so I picked up the much smaller and cheaper child helmet, also pictured below. Now I was rumbled, he knew there was no "friend". "How old is your friend sir?", he asked, "oh, not very", I replied. He continued "but you said they rode a bike to work". Rather than try to keep up my lie, I just said something like "yes, yes, this will do".

What a stupid situation to be in. He knew I didn't really want anything and I was only buying something to keep face, as I didn't want anyone to think I was just some scumbag with nothing better to do. I handed over my card, wincing at the thought of wasting £25 on a girl's bike helmet.
Now, I think at this moment that the shop assistant may have taken pity on me and finally realised that I wasn't a criminal or a drunk, I was only dressed like one. He said "oh, don't you have a credit card? We can only take credit cards". He told me there was a cash machine across the road. Obviously, at this point I had the sense to take my escape route and never return to the shop.

I don't know what else to type. That is pretty much all I have to say today.

I hope you enjoyed it.

Follow me on twitter @monkeyhotel

Hand Job

2010-11-01T08:53:00.001-07:00

Today I woke up in quite a good mood, despite having another late shift at work ahead of me after a dreadful weekend of not leaving work until near enough midnight 3 days running.

On my way to work I decided that a walk through the phenomenally swanky docks my office lives in would in some way calm me down and mentally prepare me for my shift ahead. I like the docks, although they are stupidly posh and full of bell-ends, it's a pretty nice to work in a rare place of calm in central London.

As I walked through I noticed some market stalls. This is quite common in the docks. I usually ignore things like this but as I was in such a good mood I thought I would go and see what was on offer. I wish I hadn't bothered.

Arts and crafts style markets always trigger something off in me. I'm not against them as such, I just find that a lot of the people who sell things at them demonstrate the worst trait any human can possess; snobbery and massive greed hidden behind a false veil of liberalism. Now, obviously I'm not against people who make things and try to sell those things, that's fine and often these things are very good. What I am against however is people who claim that because something is hand made it is automatically better than something that is mass produced. (Yes, I realise how many times I've just said thing, get over it)

To back up this point, I've fashioned a cup out of stuff I've found at my desk, which you can see a picture of at the top of this post. There is only one of these in the world, it's totally unique and original and I'll be happy to sell it to the highest bidder (guide price £15). Now, it's obviously shit and probably wouldn't even hold water, which is why I am drinking out of the mass produced plastic cup, pictured to the left.

Example number two; here is a picture of a hand made jigsaw puzzle;

Guess how much it costs? Go on, have a guess. $477. Seriously, FOUR HUNDRED AND SEVENTY SEVEN DOLLARS!

The company Stave Puzzles justify the price with these hollow words; "How can a wood jigsaw puzzle cost five hundred dollars or more? When you see or touch a Stave puzzle, you'll know why. Each wood jigsaw puzzle is meticulously hand-cut, one piece at a time, by a skilled crafter. No computers, no high-tech. One saw, one cutter — that's it"

So, your choices; one puzzle, hand made with no computers. Or you could buy something that does involve computers, like a PlayStation, or an XBOX, in fact, for that price you could buy both. Idiots.

Now, I'm sure that some of you are thinking "stop being such a massive cunt. Sure, hand made things are more expensive because no two items will ever be the same, wouldn't you rather have something that's a one off?" The answer to this question is no, not if it's overpriced and objectively shit. As an example, a woman on the market (who later went on to tell me she was a communist, I mean really, are actual human adults communists?) tried to sell me a wallet made entirely of tea towel material. It was already falling apart, had no compartments inside. It was just three bits of shitty tea towel sewn together that would have struggled to hold anything. How much did she deem it acceptable to charge for this useless bulge of fabric? £25, yes, £25, because it's hand made, apparently. I told the woman that had she told me the "wallet" had been made by someone with serious learning difficulties not only would I be impressed, I would also feel more inclined to buy it. She looked offended. Good. That was the intention.

Follow me on twitter @monkeyhotel

Halloween

2010-10-30T02:05:00.000-07:00

It's the most wonderful time of the year, if you happen to be an enormous fucking prick with absolute shit for brains who lives such a dismal and pathetic life that something as simple minded as putting on a shit costume and wearing it somewhere other than your own house makes you happy. God, people who enjoy Halloween really are the lowest of the low. What a barrel of tossers, a barrel that I'd like to roll down a staircase that leads to hell. Only they'd probably like that, they'd probably think that Satan was the king of Halloween and ask where he got his menacing costume from. Well, if that's the case then I'll roll them down a staircase that leads to a pit I'm planning on digging and filling with my own shit.

The facebook statuses are already rolling in; "going out as a naughty witch tonite, cant wait! Lol". What the fuck is a naughty witch? I mean, I assume there is an oh so hilarious sexual connotation there, but surely it would be more shocking if a witch was nice, friendly and law abiding? Another status I've seen read "going out like a goth tonight" with an accompanying picture of the outfit. I normally think goths are morons, but this does raise an important question; what do they do on halloween? That must be seriously annoying, having a load of part timers nicking your look for one night of the year, a bit like how alcoholics must feel on new years eve, fucking part timers.

Anyway, I covered halloween last year in a blog post, so I don't want to repeat myself. If you don't want to be part of the cunt brigade tonight, here are some things you may wish to do instead of dressing up like a twat and behaving like a knob;

1) Start your own company. Lock yourself in a room with a piece of paper in front of you and brain storm. Time will fly by and you will probably forget what is going on this year. It also means that you can legitimately say to any trick or treaters "excuse me, I'm really very busy".

2) Try inventing a new sport. Nothing is less in the spirit of halloween than good wholesome sport. Similar idea to above.

3) Take to the streets in a Santa outfit and everywhere you go keep screaming "HO HO HO" as loud as possible.

4) Take to the streets in an Easter bunny costume with plenty of chocolate eggs, eat them all yourself and then throw up onto someone wearing a stupid halloween costume.

5) Take to the streets dressed as a Policeman. There will almost certainly be some "hilarious" customer dressed as some kind of famous murderer. Arrest them on suspicion of being that murderer. Should they resist arrest, beat the fuck out of them.

Follow me on twitter; @monkeyhotel

Well, that lasted long didn't it?

2010-10-20T11:30:00.000-07:00

Yes yes, here I am again, with my tail between my legs begging for your forgiveness. I promise you now, it was never an attention seeking cry out for help. Can we please never speak of it again?

Those of you that bother to keep up with my on goings will know that I had a minor freak out a few weeks ago, and decided it would be for the best if I didn't post anymore in the rather optimistic hope that my existence would become somehow easier to tolerate, were I not documenting every negative thought I ever have for the world to read.

Well, that turned out to be an enormous fucking crock of pissy wank juice. For the first 7 days everything was thunderously shit, then a little ray of sunshine appeared from the massive anus in the sky, only to be quickly brushed aside for the downpour of smelly, runny shit that covered itself all over my ridiculous life once again.

Someone, in some kind of attempt to make me feel better said "oh don't worry mate, you're just going through a quarter life crisis". Okay, two things; 1) when did that even start being a thing? A quarter life crisis, have you ever heard of such an occurrence before? And 2) I'm 25, if I'm having a quarter life crisis then we're working on the assumption that I'll live to 100, which I almost certainly fucking won't. Great, fantastic news, I'm actually closer to death than my made up crisis and by definition, I thought I was. For fucks sake.

Anyway, you might be wondering what dragged me back to the blogging world. More likely you couldn't give less of a fuck, although should that be the case then please, get the Piers Morgan (best insult I could think of) off my blog page. Thank you.

I had a job interview yesterday. It was for something I really wanted, I won't bore you with the details, but it was basically an online writing job where my main responsibilities would be "being funny" and "knowing about online media". Well, as you all know, I am basically the best person in the world at both of those things with literally no exceptions.

The interview didn't go particularly well. God, the universe, however you want to think about it decided to make everything as difficult as possible for me that day. From the torrential rain that it was essential I walked through, to the bus that splashed water all over me, the awful woman that started shouting at me moments before I went inside for no good reason whatsoever - everything was going wrong.

Immediately after the interview I called a friend of mine to try and calm down. He has just had a child, and rather than talk to me about my interview he opted to bang on about the "amazing" pram he has just bought. He said, "mate, honestly, it's the coolest thing I've ever owned. The car seat clips in, swivels round and then locks into place. It's so cool".
"Oh good", I said through gritted teeth and a face covered in rain. What was he expecting me to say? I have an xbox 360, a ps3, a wii and an HD telly in my living room. I also have an iPhone 4. At what point was he expecting me to be impressed by his fucking pram? "Oh WOW!!! You mean it clips in AND out? Fuck me, cancel the Christmas present Santa". What a cunt.

Where else could I come to talk about these things? Where is the only place I can write freely about my calamitous, cluster-fuck of a life where most people seem to agree with me. This blog. Oh shit. You're pretty much all I've got.

So expect more regular misanthropic warbling from my brain over the coming months . Good day to you.

Bitterness, devour me.

2010-10-06T13:36:00.000-07:00

How often do you hear good news that you could honestly describe as your own good news? I'm not talking about "a company has made a minor mistake and overcharged you, have some money back. You're slightly richer than you were 10 seconds ago" or "cocktails are actually 2 for 1 until 10pm sir". I mean real good news that actually means something, news that makes you tingle from top to bottom, life affirming news that makes you realise beyond all doubt that everything is going to be okay. Right, now consider how often you hear about other people's good news?

If you're anything like me, you'll hear about other people's good news far more often than you're ever likely to hear your own. Actually, if you're anything like me you will sometimes hear what sounds like good news, but then moments later you will either discover a massive downside to this news or someone else will ruin it for you.

Whenever I hear someone else has good news I am usually bitter and miserable that something nice hasn't happened to me, rather than happy for whoever has benefited from the news. Everyday that passes in which I don't receive some kind of brilliant, life affirming news, I become more and more bitter and detached from humanity. Every time someone else has good news I resent them, I resent their news and I am jealous of their happiness. If I hear that someone else has in some way become a happier and better person, I want to run away into a forest, dig a hole in the ground, move all my belongings into it and never leave. I've always been like this and never understood why, until today. Today I finally worked out why I am such an awful person.

I am uncontrollably optimistic. Even if I've had an appalling day, I get in bed and start day dreaming about how one day it will all be better. The next day I spring out of bed and make busy work for myself, busy work that I genuinely believe will improve my life via some kind of convoluted, complicated karmic retribution. Perpetual optimism is truly burdensome. It means that your life is constantly letting you down, it turns you bitter and makes you angry. Believing that you are a person of any worth or value to the human race will make you the worst kind of asshole in a way that no one else seems to understand.

It is for this reason that I write today's post with every intention of it being the final thing I post on this blog, or at least the last thing I write for a while. The reason I started writing these blogs was that I enjoyed writing about anything that was on my mind very openly. As it became more popular I enjoyed receiving tweets and emails from those of you that had read whatever garbage I'd produced that day.

I liked doing these blogs because they made me feel as though people were interested in whatever had fallen out of my brain on a certain day. I now realise that they have made me unbearable, even to myself!
It's not just this blog by the way. I am going to entirely stop doing anything I enjoy. Maybe if I stop enjoying anything or trying to improve my own life, I will be able to enjoy other people's success. That's the hope anyway. If bitterness can eat away at me, maybe it will eat away the asshole.

Goodbye, for now at least.

Egg

2010-10-01T08:27:00.000-07:00

I have injured myself quite badly. I am struggling to walk without wincing, getting in and out of bed is seriously painful, I had to run for a bus yesterday which was absolutely fucking agonising in itself, before having to stand on a bus with zero suspension with a maniac as a driver. Excruciating.

I'm not exaggerating at all, I really am in a great deal of pain, a degree of pain that could possibly prevent other people from going to work, but for me that's simply not an option. I have to hide my pain away so nobody knows about it, and I'll tell for why; you know when you've injured yourself quite badly but the manner in which you picked up your injury is so embarrassing you would rather suffer in silence? If you let on to any discomfort some asshole would be sure to ask what was wrong at which point you have the options of lying so as to hide your shame which makes you die a little inside and lose any self-respect you were still clinging onto or even worse say "I don't want to talk about it" which never makes you sound like anything other than a serial killer. You know when that happens? That has happened.

I’ve recently been eating more eggs than is probably sensible for a person to consume. I think I had about 15 in a week. This left me egg bound (unable to shit). If you’ve ever been heavily constipated you’ll know how frustrating this can be. Even when you need a poo so badly it hurts, you’re bowels are too tightly locked to allow the bomb to drop. After two days of major frustration I opted to sit on my throne and push as hard as I could until victory was achieved. In doing so I pulled a muscle in my lower back, a muscle that it turns out is used for practically all movement and is used a huge amount in defecation. Even now my shituation (ah ha!) has returned to normal, the simple joy of plopping out a poo has been taken from me and won’t return until this muscle stops hurting.

I wish that this was the most ridiculous injury that I've sustained in my absurd life. Unfortunately I've a history of being a complete cluster fuck and this is merely the most recent battle I have lost in a relentless and highly physical war I am waging against food.

My first attack came back when I was a shit vegetarian and still ate fish, in fact it was this ordeal finally convinced me to give it up. Whilst working my way through a crab, the sharp claw of the dead crab managed to get its revenge on the entire human race by slicing open not only the fleshy web between my thumb and fingers, but also my top lip. I still have a scar from the stitches.

The second incident was equally embarrassing and unfortunately more people found out about it. I was washing up a colander when a loose and hardened noodle decided it wanted to live under my thumb nail. I thought it would come out on its own and went out for the evening. After a couple of hours it had swollen and was hammering out so much puss that I had to go to hospital and undergo surgery, as the noodle had caused an infection that if left might have led to a need for my thumb to be amputated. My housemates of the time delighted in telling the tale to literally everyone we knew, which made my life very difficult as I was placed on a course of very strong pain-killers and antibiotics for 3 weeks.

And finally the worst of so far began so innocently. I was having lunch with a lecturer who I admired a great deal for his brilliance and insight. It was the first time he had asked me to spend any social time with him. I was so excited and nervous I put a whole mouthful of very hot soup in my mouth without checking. Whilst the soup burnt the roof of my mouth and the metal spoon burnt my tongue I had two options; take the pain or spit out like a mental. I took the pain. I struggled with talking, eating and drinking for around a week. During this week I had a job interview at a pub for bar work. The first thing that bar manager did was offer me a drink. I chose a coke, a fizzy drink that fizzed away like a million little daggers on my raw tongue. I obviously had less respect for the bar manager than my lecturer, as I happily spluttered my drink all over the table, picked up my belongings and walked out of the interview. I assume I didn’t get the job.

Vegetables

2010-09-29T05:00:00.000-07:00

I am a vegetarian. As a vegetarian I try to favour the specialist vegetarian restaurant over the normal restaurant that has the odd meat free option. I do this because I’m a vegetarian absolutely as a result of ethical reasoning; I categorically believe that killing something for the purpose of eating it when you have the choice not to (choice is the important thing here) is fucking insane and horribly cruel. I’m not here to convince you by the way, that’s just how I’ve chosen to start this blog.

Anyway, as I was saying I like to eat at the specialist vegetarian restaurants for a number of reasons but I almost always regret doing so for two reasons; 1) The owners and staff are usually self-righteous, hippy pricks hiding behind their pseudo liberal values whilst over charging for very average organic food and 2) for the same reason you can never get a normal drink, the options are always ‘organic carrot juice’ or ‘non-alcoholic nettle wine’, ghastly.

Yesterday I was eating at the much gushed over World Food Café in London’s Covent Garden where I found myself facing this problem for what seemed like the millionth time in my life. I walked to the counter to order some overpriced food when I asked the woman serving behind the counter if they sold any kind of cola drink. She looked me up and down with the same level of contempt that you would afford a child murderer before telling me “oh no, we don’t sell that sort of thing here”. Extremely pissed off, I ordered a still water for £1.60.

The food was terrible, bland and overpriced and the actual room we dined in was pretty shoddy. I spent most of the meal wondering why I decided against going to O’Neils and getting the veggie bangers and mash which would have been both cheaper and more enjoyable. I also wondered why so many people have told me that this place was so brilliant. I honestly believe that the only reason people pretend to like these places is because it makes them feel superior. These sorts of restaurants have a ‘shabby chic’ feel to them and feel as though they are outside of the mainstream, ergo the sort of person that dines here is also outside of the mainstream. The owners and staff look like cool liberal types with dreadlocks and stretch piercings. Fine, that’s honestly fine, I am all for independent shops, restaurants and what have you. I like the attitude that accompanies it and it does often offer character that you can’t get elsewhere. What I object to is these supposedly liberal and cool people being such massive, snobbish pricks and selling shit food at a jacked up price which they justify by putting the “organic” before.

You can be as liberal and cool as you want. You can have leaflets promoting proportional representation in your café too. You can sip your organic tonic water and talk to your equally deluded friends about how much better these independent places are and how much more enlightened a person you are for eating there with a copy of the guardian tucked under your arm. Fine, but if you are happy to charge £1.60 for what I’m pretty sure was tap water then you’re at best a capitalist and at worst a Nazi.

I am liberal, I support liberal and progressive politics. I am a vegetarian for totally ethical reasons, but these sorts of cunts described above are the kind of fuck-wits who give my sort a bad name.

Good day to you.

Oh Dear

2010-09-20T14:13:00.000-07:00

Crying is something that always manages to take me by complete surprise. I'm almost always totally shocked by what has the power to move me to tears. Last week my Gran was moved into a new nursing home, conceding that she would never go back to her house in North London, the house that is the only tangible/desirable memory remaining from my childhood. I didn't even come close to crying. I was sad, don't get me wrong, but at no point did my throat tighten or my eyes well up. I've heard news of people I was at some point close to dying and not even been sad, I've thought "oh, that's a shame" and got on with my day.

This weekend just gone has been one of the most distressing ordeals I've ever faced in my 25 years as a human chap. I'm not just saying that for dramatic effect. For the first time in years, nearly a decade I wept like a child. I lay on my bed screaming through the tears until my throat hurt. I was pounding my pillow with clenched fists and kicking the floor so hard my toe bruised. After a while I was too exhausted to carry on the punching and kicking, so I just lay on my bed still crying so uncontrollably hard I couldn't breathe properly. As I said before, this was real, unstoppable misery. I couldn't control it in anyway.

What do you think caused this overwhelming outburst of raw emotion? My laptop charger broke. I went to the Apple store to replace the charger (£50). The second charger broke. I went back to the Apple store to get a third charger. This also broke. We tested and tested and nothing seemed to be wrong with anything, not my laptop, not the plug socket. I had no idea what was wrong and without being able to diagnose I had no idea how long this would go on for.

You know when you feel completely defeated and cheated, as if you've had something stolen? There is quite literally nothing you can do to change your situation, and that as a fact is just too hard to swallow? That's exactly how I felt. It wasn't the loss of money, it wasn't that I might have to spend further money on repairs or indeed a new laptop. It was that no amount of money or anything else would be certain to improve my situation. What if in some odd twist of logic the fault was with the laptop? Would I have to spend £1,000 on a new machine? Even if I did, how could I be sure that further chargers wouldn't break? How could I be sure that I wasn't going to have to do that 2 hour round trip to the Apple store every day for the rest of my fucking life?

And that's what made me cry; my control freak's - ego. The desperate feeling of knowing that something was really out of my hands, and that I have no control whatsoever. I'm fucked if there's a god and an afterlife, I'll never stop weeping at my own insignificance...

Since this desperation I have almost discovered the source of the problem and (fingers crossed) sorted it. I am still feeling mildly traumatised, especially as it now seems as though the problem might not have been anything to do with the charger at all and I've just wasted £50. It's all still a bit of a mystery.

Anyway, all this thinking about what makes me cry made me start trying to remember the first time I really remember crying properly purely because of emotion. I was 9 and away with my school at a camp. It was 1995 and Arsenal were playing Real Zaregoza in the cup winners' cup final. We lost the final in the last minute of extra time after that bastard Nayim scored one of the most remarkable goals I've ever seen.
As the reality sunk in that we had lost and I was surrounded not by loving Arsenal fans who understood my pain, but little shits who didn't give a fuck, I started to cry. I started to stamp my feet and weep and scream and throw chairs around. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that I couldn't do anything about it. I couldn't do anything about Tony Adams, David Seaman, Ray Parlour or Ian Wright crying. These people were my heroes and they were distraught, how was I supposed to feel? My headmaster tried to calm me down my telling me "don't worry it's only football". I swung for him and connected. I was in a lot of trouble and I felt guilty about it for years after the event. I felt guilty about it until a few years ago discovered that he was removed from teaching for being an actual paedophile.

English And Things

2010-09-17T03:33:00.000-07:00

People are often surprised when they learn that something I hate more than stupidity or ignorance is pedantry.

It's something that has always wound me up and it remains to this day the single worst characteristic someone can demonstrate. I very often make quick judgments of people that I hardly know and decide I don't like them. Of course these people turn out to be a lovely bunch and I turn out to be an undeniable tosser. When it comes to pedantry however, my assumption that the person exhibiting this personality flaw is a classless bully and should probably have been aborted at 4 months and fed to wolves, almost always ends up being entirely correct.

My own command of the English language isn't particularly strong. I am quite good at dressing up a sentence and know my way around a thesaurus, but when it comes down to it I'm pretty basic. I used to be dreadful, it wasn't until my second and third years at university when I was fortunate enough to have within my group of close friends two or three people who were rather advanced word-mechanics, and they kindly helped me in this area.

So why do I hate pedants? Well, firstly all these people really ever want to do is upset and belittle people that they deem to be less intelligent than they are. They are usually exactly the sort of loser who has never really achieved anything with their life, work a job that they hate but have a better than average understand of grammar and spelling than others. This is all they cling onto as their inferiority complex justifies their tutting and mocking of someone's less than perfect use of an apostrophe.
Some of the greatest writers in history consistently broke rules; Wilde, Shakespeare, Orwell and Anthony Burgess to name a few, all played with the English language like putty and created a unique dialect within their own work. Of course, creative use of English and the joy of writing is lost on these people who have frankly become obsolete in the age of spell check.

The internet is a perfect place to see this type of assholery in action. Forum threads, Facebook status updates, comment boards - all places where you will see the self proclaimed guardians of the Queen's English judging other human's - not for their opinions. Their opinions are ignored, because what people say doesn't matter right? No, what matters is if they can spell properly. I wonder how good Nelson Mandela or Winston Churchill's written English was.

So, I think we can all agree that pedantry is completely futile and those who indulge in it are insecure heathens with delusions of grandeur.

This leads me onto the actual point of this blog; there is one thing that I hate more than pedantry. I can't stand people who correct someone else on their use of English in exactly the same snobbish manner that the pedants do, only they are wrong. They are trying to be clever and undermine someone, the only possible reason anyone would ever correct another person, but they are wrong. I hate this not only because it means that people actually think being such a massive cock-hammer is a good thing, but also because it makes me a hypocrite. When someone makes such an error in that smug "don't you mean..." way, I love wiping that smile off of their face. It's like standing up for the bullied kid.

The most common one I find people get wrong is using "I" or "me" in the sense of "Jack and I" or "Jack and me". If you don't know this rule, it's quite simple; if you were only talking about yourself which pronoun would you use? "Steve is making a table for me" - "Steve is making a table for Jack and me" or "I am making a table" - "Jack and I are making a table". It really is that simple. I don't know in what universe this situation is set, where people are knocking up so many tables.

For some mental reason people who think they are brilliantly clever always assume that "and I" is always correct because it sounds polite. I had a friend whose girlfriend used to always correct him on this. One day I snapped and told her she was wrong. She tried to argue with me so I came back with an article on it, at which point she rather than back down said "well, it's right because it's more polite". He (being a downtrodden man, fortunately they split up last year) agreed with her. What a bitch.

Well, that's all I have to say for today. Sorry it wasn't very funny, I just had to get it off my chest.

Oh, and there are some spelling mistakes and typos in this blog. Good.

Until next time.

I am NOT disabled

2010-09-10T04:41:00.000-07:00

That's a good name for a blog, isn't it?

You may or may not know (I appreciate that some of you don't live in London) but that enormous cock-hammer Bob Crow has tried to grind London to a standstill again, in the hope that his already very overpaid union members will have an even more cushy lifestyle. Over a 3 day period, we suffered a tube strike.

Those of you that don't live and work in London might not fully understand just how much of a pain in the already-infected vagina this makes getting around London. I don't even use the tube on a day-to-day basis, which made me (probably) 17 times more angry than most people, as I had to squeeze onto my normally empty, normally 20 minute bus to work.

Whilst stood on my bus, rammed with people who don't know how to get around London without the tube, it occurred to me that there is some serious prejudice going on with priority of seats. Of course I understand and agree that the elderly and disabled absolutely have first refusal on any bus seat, that's fine. What I can't tolerate is parents and their children assuming that I should give up a seat for them. "Oh, it's so tiring having this child, oh, I'm so tired from being a parent I really need to sit down on this bus". What difference could 20 minutes of sitting possibly make? If you want my respect, go and snap your leg in half or something.

The above thought took place after I had been aggressively smiled at my a parent with her two children, you know the sort of aggressive smile, one that says "yeah, excuse me, I've actually got two children to get to school here. Now give me that fucking seat you childless prick". It did occur to be that I could have limped off or said quite loudly "this time last year I broke my spine, you selfish bitch", but I've been down a similar road once before.

Around 15 months ago I was on the London underground having just finished a night shift. I was wearing sunglasses in order to keep out as much daylight as possible. In my hazy, tired state, I for some reason shut my eyes and started playing that game many of you might have played when you were a child; you know when all the lights are off in your house and you think "this is what life is like for blind people". I was clattering around the tube carriage like a right old blindy when a woman grabbed my arm and said "here, you can have this seat". To my horror (I opened my eyes briefly) I saw that she was a pregnant woman. Well, what could I do? I couldn't exactly say "no, you're alright, thanks but I was only pretending to be blind". No, I sat down with a heavy heart and a looming sense of guilt and allowed a heavily pregnant woman to stand.

I have a feeling I've blogged that story before, but I don't apologise for repeating myself. What do you want for a free blog? New content every single fucking week? You ungrateful cunts.

Until next time.

When I'm Angry I Piss Blood

2010-09-01T04:47:00.000-07:00

You may remember that a few weeks ago I wrote a little blog about how much I went to the toilet, which resulted in me fashioning a chamber pot of sorts.

Well, if you don't remember, I go to the toilet a lot. Quite a lot. Like, more than a normal person by some distance. I think in a 24 hour period I probably go for between 20 and 30 wee trips and 5-10 poo trips. It was recently pointed out to me that I should probably go and see a doctor about this as it was highly abnormal. This led to a rather odd couple of weeks in my life that I'd like to share with you all.

Being a massive hypochondriac, the first thing I did was pull my iPhone out and go on a web doctor before deciding I had some sort of cancer. I then wept for a few days, wrote up my will (that bit is completely true) and started planning a "I'm going to be dead soon party" to which I would invite everyone I ever knew so they could come and pay their final respects to me. I don't know what this says about me, but I had images in my head of a massive venue full of people delirious with misery, unable to stand for their tears with massive shrines to me all over the walls. Whilst the masses wept, I was sat in what can only be described as a throne with sunglasses on watching the misery unfold whilst people queued to come and say their tearful goodbyes.

After around 2 weeks of this kind of thinking I worked out where my nearest surgery was, and registered. I was told I would have to wait 2 weeks for an appointment, so convinced I had less than 2 weeks to live I went had an emergency appointment at a local walk in centre. I don't know if you've ever been to one of these places but FUCKING HELL you get some interesting lunatics with intriguing symptoms that they're very happy to talk openly about from the local community at these places, especially if you live in South London.

I had a urine sample taken where blood was found, amongst other things. It all got a little bit less funny after this for about a week, with the doctors and lab thinking something might be seriously wrong. Although I should have been more concerned, I couldn't help but think how my irrational panics and fantasies of my death party 2 weeks prior to this were now all completely justified. In this 7-10 day period I had to give 5 different samples of my urine to doctors so that they could monitor what was going on every day and send various bits off to a lab. Again, I should have been more concerned that an ever growing team of doctors dealing with me had no idea what was going on inside me, but I couldn't stop laughing at the fact that I was 1) pissing blood and 2) legitimately walking around with carrier bags full of my own piss. It was a superb feeling, walking into work or a supermarket and dumping a bag of piss on a table.

When the results came back and nothing was wrong with me I was relieved, of course. It did leave me a little baffled though at how blood ended up in my urine. My doctor called me in for a chat after the results and had a theory.
She (knowing that I have a previous problem with a slightly short fuse and after hours of talking about my toilet habits - when I go, what times of day, how I urinate etc) thinks that I go to the toilet when I'm getting angry to isolate myself from the situation that is winding me up. I then urinate angrily even when I don't need to go; I take the anger out of my bladder and piss so hard I cause it to bleed.

When I get angry, I piss blood. How about that?

Good day to you.

My Stupid Life

2010-08-26T04:38:00.000-07:00

Do you ever feel as though your brain is just slipping out of the side of your head to attempt some kind of moon landing mission, leaving you isolated and completely alone on a planet full of people with brains firmly inside their bonces? That's exactly how I feel at the moment.

There was once a time when I felt that my finger was firmly on the pulse and I was surrounded by morons. I used to think that I was amongst the few, keeping my head above water whilst all else drowned in the oceans of monotony. Looking back on it, I think that probably was the case at the time. Just two years ago the world still felt an exciting place, I was always doing things in some attempt to become the massive success that I believed I deserved to be. These days tapping out a blog once a day is excruciatingly difficult, it does beg the question - how the fuck did I ever manage to write an entire series worth of scripts for a sit com?

My life since leaving university has become less exciting in many respects. I went from being constantly surrounded by interesting and exciting people to being surrounded by something rather different. Even the people I knew back then are less exciting. I think that the difference is having a job. It's unavoidable, once you get a job things start to change, you become content and start to worry about different things.
I recently spent two days with my old housemate, a man who has avoided getting a job since leaving university, and he's the only person I know who has managed to maintain a sense of perspective. Most people tell me that if I'm so bored I should get a new job. A month ago I thought that this might be the answer until I started actually looking for jobs. They all seem so boring. I used to sit around fantasising about some kind of dream job that would make everything better and would have everything I wanted incorporated within it to keep me satisfied. Now when I think about these jobs I enjoy them for the first two minutes of my day dream. I imagine the sorts of people I would work with, make up back stories for them and imagine what work parties would be like. Then I start to resent them. I start resenting the people I've made up and imagine sitting in my imaginary office looking for a new job. If even my professional fantasies are now unbearable, what am I to do? I suppose the answer is to embrace my current situation and allow it to eat me alive.

Maybe if I just go with the monotony I won't find it so intolerable and one day I'll find worrying about where I eat and what I wear and who I'm friends with. Maybe in 5 years I'll be happy to go on a holiday with my friends and stay in a cottage in some boring village in the middle of nowhere. I'll be able to dissapear into that world

On that note, I just had a 15 minute conversation with my housemate about what umbrella I should buy. Fucking hell, I'm going to go and water-board myself as a punishment for being such an insufferable bore. A water-bore. God, I'm a cunt.

Good day to you.

I Have A Dream

2010-08-18T04:46:00.000-07:00

Whilst on the way home from my nan's house yesterday my iPhone ran out of battery. This caused me some distress. Not only was I half way through a very interesting podcast about filthy Joe Cole's obvious red card at the weekend, but also because it meant I had to listen to the moronic drivel being spouted by the bores infront of me on a bus.

If there's one thing I never want to hear about from someone I don't know, it's their dreams. I don't particularly want to hear about the dreams of people I do know, although it is immediately more interesting if you know a bit about the circumstances surrounding the dream. Still, it's one of the most dull conversations you're every likely to have with someone. People who tell you about their dreams always seem to be desperate to show you how interesting they are and always seem to think that their dreams represent something other than total fucking monotony.

Well, as I'm sure you will have worked out by now, the idiots in front of me thought that this was a completely acceptable conversion to have in a public place and that they shouldn't feel ashamed of themselves for being such utter fuck-wits.

The fuck-wits in question were a man and woman in their mid to late twenties. The man obviously fancied the woman and was hoping that in revealing how sensitive he was she would let him touch her thigh or something equally pathetic. Here is how he told the dream paraphrased heavily to make him look more stupid;

"I was in a field and their were all of these *things* looking over me and crying, their tears were dripping on my face. I stood up and they started following me, they weren't scary. They followed me into work but you were the only other person that could see them and you told me that they were protecting me and that we both had to run away before something bad happened. We moved into a house when my Dad came in tried to talk to us but I couldn't hear any words coming out of his mouth. The crying *things* disappeared and then I couldn't stop crying. You were just holding me. It was an amazing dream. I woke up covered in tears, I love it when you have *creative* and *inspiring* dreams like that"

This man seemed the obsessive type and I reckon he stalks the girl he was talking to, he was definitely the desperate and stalky type. Throughout the story he was moving closer to her and she was looking around quite awkward. I have no respect for her though, she could have told him to shut the fuck up and do one. Instead she said that his dream was "really interesting" and "maybe it would be a good idea for a film". Oh, he's a film writer now is he? Jesus fucking Christ...

If you're the sort of person who tells others about your dreams; of course dreams seem bizarre to us you imbecile, they happen outside the realm of possibility, have no respect for time (the bastards) and consist largely of things in our subconscious. Of course, when you're awake it is impossible to fully rationalise a dream making the past 8 hours of your slumbering life seem rather unusual. This doesn't make you any different or more special than any other of the 6 billion humans completely identical to you.

As a final thought on how totally boring and transparent most dreams are, here is my dream from last night as I remember it; I was back in school taking my GCSE's, it dawned on me I couldn't remember any French, I thought "hold on a minute, I've got a sodding 1st class honours degree and a Masters degree. I don't need GCSE French". I walked out of the school to a party where Arsene Wenger was stood alone at the bar, I thought "oh, I've always wanted to talk to him, now's my chance". I went over to talk to him, he could only speak French, I couldn't speak French.

How dull was that?

My Day Off

2010-08-12T04:39:00.000-07:00

Today I have a day off.

I had hoped that my day would be spent writing some music reviews in the morning, going for a walk into town to do some shopping in the afternoon (and maybe checking out the new Apple store in Covent Garden), then doing some work/writing a blog in the late afternoon/early evening before cooking a nice dinner. I had hoped to do all these things, but when I woke up this morning I discovered a) it was raining and b) I was ill, so I instead put on some tracksuit bottoms, made a massive bowl of coco-pops and started drinking.

I'm now too drunk to write anything, even a proper blog so I'm going to do something I've wanted to do for a long time; a picture blog. What's the point in having an iPhone 4 if you don't share your pictures with people? That's what I want to know.

First up, here's a picture I took atop the Acropolis in Athens. About 400 tourists were ignoring the ancient monument behind us to look at this dog and cat squaring up. It went on for about 20 minutes, the tour guides were bemused/annoyed.

This curious man was dragging his curious suitcase through a shopping centre in Camberwell, I have no idea why.

Two tech pictures; what the hell does Oldie Horn think she's doing with that iPhone? And this old man seems confused as to what the internet is, I do want his hat though.

This man (it was a man) Gabby really has his fingers in a number of money pies. I had a misguided hair cut. The shop on the right frightens me.

And finally in poo news; on the left is a poo I found in a girls toilet in East London. Any girl with a ring that big, there is a career in porn for you. On the right is a mouldy poo I saw in Richmond Park. I've never seen a mouldy one before.

Good day to you all.

He'd do anything for you

2010-08-08T15:38:00.000-07:00

Hello there you blog reading freaks, how the HELL are you?

Last week I attacked an expression quite unfairly for a personal reason. Today I'm attacking another one, but completely fairly and for a reason that I hope all of you will sympathise with.

You know when you're in a conversation with someone who is talking fairly negatively about someone else? They might be a mutual friend or the spouse of a mutual friend or just someone you know of. It's quite a common situation to be in I imagine, due to the nature of how bitchy our pathetic human race is. Well, I hate it when this happens;

Friend: Yeah, I mean he's just become completely different since getting with her. She's totally changed him, he's like a different person.

Me: Oh really, how do you mean?

Friend: Well, he's just not interested in what any of his friends are doing, and I think she doesn't like us that much, that's why I think we hardly see him anymore. I mean don't get me wrong, he's a great guy and he'd do anything for you if you were stuck.

He'd do anything for you? Anything? Why is that deemed such a good measure of someone's personality? And what possible desperate situation do these people find themselves in all of the time? In my entire life I think I've had to ask for about 5 favours, and all of those were either rejected or given reluctantly, which I completely understood at the time of asking and certainly didn't think bad of the people I was asking.

It's just such a nothing statement, I can't understand why anyone would say something so ludicrous about someone they were supposedly trying to be nice about. On what grounds do they base this statement on? And why is it considered such a bad thing to be able to say no? I say no all the time, to charity, to my friends, to my family. They don't actually mind and as a result I have a lot more free time.

Next time you hear someone say such a ridiculous thing, here's what I think you should do; get the phone number of this alleged reincarnation of the Messiah, hi-jack a bus full of primary school children, sedate the children, seal off all of the cracks in the bus making it airtight, nick a fire engine, pop the hose into the bus and start filling it with water. Then, drive to the person's house at 4am, call them and say "hi *insert name*, I understand you're a real fucking charitable type so here's the score; I need to park something up in your back garden for a few hours, so I'll just let myself in, cheers.", then hang up. After he/she has called the police and you've been rightly arrested, carted off to the station and given your right to one phone call, ring the person who said "he'd do anything for you" and ask them why they are such a liar.

Goodbye.

So, What Makes You Tic(k)?

2010-08-04T13:20:00.000-07:00

A very short and slightly angry post today.

As a result of my writing for a number of websites over the past couple of years and keeping this rather hilarious blog, I've developed a small but relatively hardcore and dedicated following (although rather annoyingly, least of all for this blog; my favourite online presence). This recently lead to a website that I won't name and shame asking me to do a "bloggers interview." This was emailed to me in the form of ten or so questions that I had to answer. So far so good, I mean a little embarrasing considering what a low-profile nothing I am, but still - so far so good.

One of the questions annoyed me a little bit. They asked me "What makes you tic?" Not tick, tic, as in a nervous tic.

Now, I completely appreciate that this was more than likely a simple typo, and my figurative 'beef' is not with this particularly poxy website who apparently don't know how to spell-check an email. My 'beef' is that this expression is allowed to exist at all.

I have a nervous tic. Not a bad one and to be completely honest, it is a pretty hilarious one. It looks a little bit like the picture atop this blog. Once, during my studies I had to perform a piece of music for an assignment. At the end of my performance the panel of lecturers gave me feedback in front of my whole cohort. All of the tutors bar one understood that I had a nervous tic, she gave me my feedback thusly; the performance was great, but it was completely spoiled by those stupid faces you were pulling. Everyone in the room looked a bit shocked, leaving me alone on a stage having to explain the situation to her. Awkward and bless her she was mortified. Anyway.

The word tic(k) in the expression "what makes you tic(k)" is completely ambiguous, and the two most obvious conclusions one arrives at is that the individual in question is either "tic(k)ing" along rhythmically as an old, efficient grandfather clock might. That or something inspires the individual to have a spontaneous reaction to have an outburst of energy, such as a nervous tic. Let's be honest, it's more likely to be the latter. What kind of a strange, avant-garde world would we live in if a moment of inspiration lead to someone rhythmically ticking along?

This may seem very minor and petty to someone reading this, but imagine the word tic(k) was replaced by another common ailment, or a word sounding identical to it. "Tell me, what makes you spasm" or "what makes you defaecate into your adult nappy." Terribly insensitive.

Please, think about this before using the expression again.

Another year, another nervous breakdown

2010-07-30T12:46:00.000-07:00

It probably won't come as a surprise to any regular readers that I don't like my birthday. I don't particularly like other people's birthdays either. I resent having to buy presents for anyone, I generally think that they probably don't deserve them and it's extremely arrogant of them to assume that I know/care enough care about them to get something they would want.
There's a guy I know who always throws birthday parties with a theme, themes like "everyone do a performance" or "everyone make a music video." Jesus, how much time do you think people have? I hate it when people assume you will be happy to shit your precious life away like that just to make them happy for 5 minutes of theirs.
I have another 'friend' who always has fancy dress parties but with an oh so brilliant twist; you have to make your own hilarious (and usually themed) costume. Oh just fuck off you dick. Needless to say I never get involved in any of these things, regardless of who has invited me, and impolitely reject my invite. Very impolitely.

Anyway, I can basically ignore other people's birthdays (including my own family) so that's fine, it's my own that causes problems. Having to ignore my own (and ever dwindling list of) friends is becoming easier as time goes on, it's the distant family who send me £5 that are causing me trouble now. It's a nice thought, if they are still capable of thought (some of them are well into their 80's or early 90's), but I'm an adult with a job. The money usually comes via cheque too, which means going to a bank and looking embarrassed whilst paying in a pitiful amount of money. One year I tried to not bother paying it in, which resulted in a great uncle making a worried phone call to my cousin at 12:22am, concerned that someone else had stolen the cheque or something.

Then there's the appearing grateful for all the useless tat from people you never see. I don't have much room in my life, and I will be keeping at that way basically forever.
Awkward phone calls from people you've deliberately not seen in ages, awkward phone calls from relatives you have nothing in common with, people asking you if you're having a party, the office small talk about 'birthdays', people you hardly know asking if you "got anything nice", people you do know well pestering you out of a sense of duty, rather than a genuine desire to wish you well. All of these things, I can do without.

Having said all of the above, without question the thing I hate most about a birthday is when you say something like "oh god, I feel like I'm getting old" and someone older than you replies "oh shut up, imagine how I feel." What, am I supposed to forever not get upset about my gradual decline towards the grave, just because you happen to be a little bit older than me? Even when I turn 50, am I supposed to think, "oh, well at least I'm not as old as *insert cunt's name here*, oh I'm so fucking lucky, what an old ASSHOLE they are and I'm not", well, am I? Am I supposed to think that, you selfish fuck-weasel?

Even on my birthday, the one day of the year that you have wished in your own words that I'm "happy" on, I'm not allowed to feel how I actually feel, I'm supposed to feel sorry for you.

Well, fuck you world. In celebration of my dodging death for another year, I'm going to lock myself away and be as unhappy as possible. I win.

(Tuesday, by the way)

Chamber (so) what?

2010-07-28T16:46:00.001-07:00

The other day I was in my bedroom when a visiting friend of mine pointed at crumpled bit of toilet roll on the floor, and the roll itself on my bedside table. He said "oh fucking hell, clear up your wank tissues mate."

They weren't wank tissues. I nearly corrected him, but after a split second's pondering, I thought it better I hid their true identity and purpose.

Imagine this scene; it's 7am and you've just woken up needing a wee. You don't need to be awake for at least another 2 hours, but you can't sleep for needing to empty you bladder so badly. You go to use the toilet but discover that your housemate is having a shower.
Once I'm awake for any reason whatsoever I have around 10 minutes (maximum) to fall back asleep, otherwise that's me up for the day. I often wake up needing a wee and am confronted with the above scenario. This is why I use a chamber pot.

Yes, I admit it, I use a chamber pot. The tissues were not for cleaning up my wanky mess, rather for mopping up any urine that needs attending to after a midnight/early morning relief piss. And I'm rather proud of it, before you naysayers try and make me out to be the strange one. You idiots spend your lives queuing around in pain whilst I piddle my life away, care free. Then I go back to bed and snooze my bonce off.

It's not disgusting either, here's what I do; I take an empty Robinson's squash bottle. I rinse it out. I wake up needing a wee. I unscrew the bottle top, whip out my 'man servant', pop it in the bottle and piss until my heart's content. Or my bladder's empty, whichever comes first. Then, in the morning I empty out the bottle into the toilet, give it a rinse and repeat the next night.

I got the idea off of my old housemate at university. We used to all think he was disgusting, but I secretly decided he was actually a genius.

Think about it for a second and seriously - can you honestly say that it's really that disgusting? Can you honestly say that the mildly disgusting aspects of it are not eclipsed by the advantages? If you give it enough thought, say next time you need a wee in the middle of the night or whilst someone else is using the toilet, I'm sure before long you will all be copying this fantastic idea.

Maybe I should begin patenting the design for a screw top chamber pot. If you would all just grow up, then I'd be a fucking millionaire.

Well, that's enough for today. Next week; my new pooping jar, with a sliding lid to keep your fecal matter ripe until morning (based on those Chinese takeaway boxes).

Adios.

Self loathing narcissist

2010-07-21T00:33:00.000-07:00

Recently I did something that I think perfectly demonstrates both the subtle, underlying self loathing and the Narcissism that still boils just under the surface of my skin whilst dominating the very core of being.

It was the day before I was to go on holiday to Greece and I was in the canteen at work getting some breakfast with a friend. My breakfast consisted of; beans, tomatoes, fried mushrooms, two fried eggs, toast, 4 hash browns, a toffee muffin and several pints of coffee.

Whilst in the queue to pay my friend commented; "that's one of the least healthy breakfasts I've ever seen in my life." I replied "yes, but I'm going to be in Greece so I'll make up for it. They only eat healthy food, olives, salad and yoghurt... actually, have I just got a very 'Sainsbury's world food aisle' impression of Greece?"

As soon as I'd made the joke and it had received the chuckle it absolutely deserved my brain instantly screamed "damn, nowhere near enough people heard that, you idiot."

Of course I'm aware that it wasn't a particularly hilarious joke, it wasn't even really a joke, more a quip but it was entirely off the cuff and a rather quick witted analysis of the situation, which I then massaged into a comedy corner. I was angry that not enough people had seen how terribly clever I could be or how easily I could turn quite a drab conversation into something so whimsical. There was only one way to solve this; recount the tale to literally everyone I know.

This was a story that needed to be told with extreme care. It would be very easy for someone to see straight through the anecdote and see it for what it is - a rather pathetic boast about how brilliantly witty I can be. It also makes me sound like someone who completely dominates a conversation (which is completely true) as I provided all of the content myself without interjection from any other party. How did I combat this? Here is roughly how I retold the story (now to over 15 people);

Someone (always be ambiguous when telling an anecdote) said something that made me rather chuckle the other day and I thought it would also have made you laugh (engage your audience). I was getting a very unhealthy breakfast and the person I was with commented on it, I said "well, I'll make up for it in Greece, they only eat healthy stuff; olives, yoghurt, salad", to which he replied "yes, that's a very 'Sainsburys world food aisle' impression you have of Greece"

What the hell was I thinking? Why have I credited him with the joke? This must be the self loathing part of my personality torturing myself. All that this anecdote does is make the person I was with seem quite the card for being so fabulously waggish off the cuff that I felt the need to tell people about his supremacy, whilst making me look an idiotic boob. I've gifted this man (who in reality was no more than an onlooker to my brilliance) my joke.

Arggh! I can be such an asshole to myself.

Oh, by the way, the picture atop this post was for some reason on the second page of a google image search for "self loathing narcissist"

That is all. Goodbye.

Friends reunited by my smelly body

2010-07-19T05:27:00.000-07:00

I'm not usually a particularly friendly person, especially when it comes to strangers. I generally don't bother talking to anyone unless I think I will directly gain something for doing so.

Last week something happened that has discouraged me from ever attempting spontaneous social interaction again.

On the day in question I seemed to have some sort of death wish; I was moving house and going to something that was most certainly not a christening 100 miles out of London, all in the same day. The plan for the day was this - wake up, pack all of my things into a van in Lambeth, get on train, attend (not) christening, don't get drunk, get train back to London, drive van full of all my possessions to my new house, collapse from exhaustion.

Well, I had managed everything fairly well to the point that I was getting on the train back to London so I could continue moving house.

On the train I noticed that two girls I went to school with (and had not seen in nearly 10 years) were in the same carriage as me. My initial thought was "go over, actually don't just sit behind them and eavesdrop". I started to do this but realised that would be a little bit strange if I started behaving like a spy, especially if they then recognised me, so I just went over and said hi. From this moment on everything that could possibly go wrong in this scenario, did.

After saying hello and getting past the point acknowledging of who everyone was (they didn't remember me, the bloody bitches!) I sat down near them to have something of a conversation. As soon as my buttocks hit the seat we entered the longest and loudest tunnel I've ever been in on any train. It was so fantastically awkward. Both of them staring at me then staring at each other, I've never felt so out of place in my entire life.
Once out of the tunnel we had a fairly boring conversation about our lives. I actually got on with these two and they are both extremely nice, however, there is only so long you can speak to someone you didn't bother keeping in touch with before completely running out of things to say. This is when the silence begins, the silence that implies "ok, we've covered in brief enough of the last 8 years, now we are officially out of things to say."

After about 3 minutes of the awkward silence I noticed that I had a pretty nasty smell about me. I saw this as an ideal opportunity to break the silence; "I don't always smell, I'm moving house and my deodorant is in a van in Lambeth along with all my other possessions. I don't usually dress like this either, all my nice clothes are in the van." What an odd thing to say.
It occurred to me soon afterwards that this would be the lasting impression they had of me as it was basically the last thing I said before we all got off of the train and said our goodbyes. If they bump into anyone else from school and they ask "have you seen anyone recently" they will say that they saw me, and that I said some strange things about my bodily-odor and the way I dressed (I was in a vintage Argentina football shirt, heavily creased formal trousers and flip-flops).

That may have been the last thing I said to them, but it certainly wasn't the last thing they heard me say.

After saying our goodbyes at King's Cross we then walked in the same direction for about 5 minutes before boarding exactly the same fucking bus. By now it was horribly awkward, they had stopped talking even to one another and seemed angry at my very presence. The bus had to go through Soho which was celebrating gay pride. I (in a rush to get home so I could move house) started very vocally spouting off about "bloody gay pride, why the fuck are they in my fucking way". I then had to explain to a very obviously gay man standing next to me that I wasn't a homophobe loud enough that the girls would be able to hear.

So, that's me. 8 years on I am a stinking, boring homophobe who dresses like a lunatic with very little to say for myself.

A very un-funny blog

2010-07-16T01:42:00.000-07:00

Good morning,

I was going to treat you all to a blog about something very funny that happened to me a couple of weeks ago, but I've just watched last night's question time and felt the need to respond to something that annoyed me a little.

The second question featured on the show was about the Facebook 'tribute' page for Raoul Moat (for my American readers, Raoul Moat was an ex-con who shot three people in the North of England last week before killing himself after days on the run).

The question raised was "do you think that it's appropriate for facebook to allow a page like this", or something like that. The responses from the panel bemused and worried me. They talked around the issue of whether people should feel sympathy for Raoul Moat, they discussed the up-rise in anger amongst British males towards the police and the government, they debated the rather Grey area of internet censorship and they even bothered with "do people have a right to pay tribute to this man."
Even more worryingly, almost everyone on the panel started by saying something along the lines of "well, I'm certainly no expert on facebook or the internet" - oh really? Well, can you explain to me why the hell you feel qualified to answer this question then?

Of course, the page was in the worst possible taste and a tribute to this man is entirely inappropriate. That goes without saying.
Clearly the page was not a real tribute to Raoul Moat. Clearly the page had one very specific purpose; to offend people and get people talking about this facebook page. It was a joke, it was a joke in very poor taste I should say, but all the same it was clearly a joke. Anyone familiar with online culture would have spotted this a mile off. The wording of the page, the name of the group - very obviously a joke.

The creators of the page must be delighted with themselves for offending this many people and having complete fools like the Prime Minister come out and give his completely uninformed opinion on the issue.

Of course, everyone should have just ignored the page and not talked about it. Perhaps question time should have got someone familiar with online culture on the panel too, rather than the cretinous Luddites that spouted off their moronic, out of touch dribble last night.

So, on to the bit that worried me; the discussion about regulation of online content.

How worrying is it that the Prime Minister and other public figures who don't really know what they are talking about can say that they think something should not be on the web, and within 24 hours it's gone? Please try to forget about the content of this page before forming an opinion.
Please try to understand the sorts of people who made the group and how insignificant they are, before complaining, kicking your feet and trying to ensure that new media is as strictly regulated in England as it is in China (over-reaction, I know).

The internet is a wonderful thing that can untie the gag of a super-injunction and engage people with real issues in a far more inclusive way than any traditional media has been able to before.

That is all.

(Will post a less serious blog tomorrow)

Pleb-nology

2010-07-14T03:05:00.000-07:00

This week I have been on my first holiday since the release of the iPad and the iPhone4 (Athens, for anyone remotely interested).

Whilst I probably should have been observing my surroundings and attempting to enjoy myself, I found myself looking with great interest at the sorts of people that own these latest bits of personal, portable technology and take them on their holiday, myself included.

Unsurprisingly a lot of people had the iPad and some had the new iPhone4 (loads had an iPhone of some description). Something, however, was wrong; the people who had iPads were not standard nerds like I imagined, no, they were cool people, cool people with suntans. The people who crowded around my iPhone4 had trendy haircuts and designer suits. One of the men by the pool in my hotel was showing me his iPad (without knowing how the most basic of functions worked I might add) and his girlfriend said "oh, you're such a nerd". Oh, how my blood did boil...

It used to be that we real nerds would gather around each others laptops/audio-interface/akai-MPC and discuss specifications, functionality and more. Now it seems as though when a new toy comes out, the sorts of people who rush to get it are executive, business types who like the idea of having them. They will never try to take them apart to see what the processor looks like. Idiots.

This sadly hasn't been my first experience of the pseudo point-dexter.

Recently I was talking to someone about getting a new laptop (not for myself). Whilst they had no idea what Ubuntu was, they attempted to keep track of a conversation about the possibility of getting a cheap net-book and installing this OS. They kept interjecting with utterly pointless catchphrases about how much they loved computers. Now, this was quite an un-exceptional person who I believe was pretending to be a nerd in an attempt to cover up the fact that they have no personality. I think that more and more people are doing this these days. This 'geek chic' is patronising, demoralising and I want it to stop.

If you think you might be one of these fashion geeks, I've arranged a quick quiz for you.

1) Did you first know Pokemon as;

a) A television show
b) A video game
c) A card game

2) When you first imagined what your life would be like if you owned an iPad, did you imagine yourself having it;

a) On a beach in the sun replying to facebook messages from your "friends"
b) On your sofa in your living room reading the news
c) Sat next to you not being used after realising that your laptop is more practical for the multi-task chat, gaming, streaming etc that you do for fun in your blackened out, lonely bedroom

3) When someone starts talking about Transformers do you think of;

a) Megan Fox playing the part of generic attractive woman
b) Autobots and Decepticons
c) a device that transfers electrical energy from one circuit to another through inductively coupled conductors

4) To you does Role Play Game mean;

a) A sexy adventure
b) A murder mystery evening
c) Months spent at a computer desk ignoring your family, friends, career and health

5) What do the words 'social networking' mean to you;

a) Going to a party/event/conference
b) Using facebook to talk to your friends and keep in touch with people
c) Spending at least 5 hours a day on internet forums and responding a your latest 'reply' ahead of deciding what to have for dinner

If your answers were mainly A - you are a normal person who has absolutely no business talking to people like me. Get on with your life.

If your answers were mainly B - you seem to be pretending to be a nerd. Get off the fence you asshole and stop pretending.

If your answers were mainly C - you appear to be a regular point-dexter. You probably need to stop reading this blog now and get back to your WOW forum.

Oh. Please.

2010-07-06T09:12:00.000-07:00

I'm a man who often finds myself in the minority when it comes to areas of 'common thought', especially amongst my friends.

A quick insight into what most of my friends are like - I honestly like the x-factor and big brother whilst they presumably (if we're to take what they say remotely seriously, which I don't) only watch art house film and couldn't possibly watch something as shallow as an entertainment show. Of course I do like more highbrow things, just not all the time and I'm certainly not ashamed of liking things that are (with the greatest of respect) lesser in depth.

As I was saying, I often find myself isolated by my friends for the things that I like and the things that I don't. I'm not about to start listing all of the things that I like and dislike, don't worry.

Well, as some of you may know I've been very slowly moving house over the past couple of months, and in moving I have been reminded of probably my most significant pet hate; clutter. I'm not talking about a normal dislike for clutter, I'm sure most people don't like their houses filled with tatt they never use only to gather dust. No, what I'm talking about is literally anything that get's in the way of my most basic functions and pleasures being as easy and stress free as possible. Ideally I would like to be able to carry everything I own in one or two bags, which is entirely possible. I'm not a sentimental man and will happily throw away a book in favour of having a digital copy on a hard drive, same with music and video collections. Last time I moved house I threw away a book given to me by a much beloved and dead relative, because I had downloaded an ebook version of it.

Whilst moving house I was getting annoyed at the amount of stuff I had, not much by normal standards I suppose but more than I want to have. One thing I didn't have and one thing you might find it strange that I didn't have was pictures. I don't have pictures. I don't have posters, I don't have artwork, I don't have photos, I don't have anything like that hanging on any of my walls or propped up on any of my tables. People who know me find this a little bit strange and often comment on it, "your room is so weird, put some pictures up or something" and people who don't know me well say "have you not got around to putting your pictures up yet?"

Why is it assumed that people want to have pictures up? Why is it assumed that all people own pictures? I am not a particularly sentimental person and I find that having a digital copy of all the pictures I own on a computer, mobile phone or somewhere on the internet entirely sufficient and practical. In fact, I only ever look at pictures when sat at a computer and furthermore, only ever want to look at pictures when sat at a computer.
I find having pictures on the wall very taxing on the brain and always have, even as a child. It makes me feel as though I can't relax, which is exactly what I go into my room to do. That or work, which again, I need a clear mind and a clear space for. If I walk into a room and stuff is everywhere I get instantly stressed out and frustrated. This also applies to the walls. My ideal living scenario is me, in a bedsit, with a sofa looking at a TV screen for video games, a bed and a desk with my laptop on to work at. No art on the walls, no pictures anywhere, just plain, white walls and a closed blind.

So, this is all fine, everyone's different in certain areas and we all just get on with it, yes? No, every time this comes up in a conversation (more often than you would think) or someone sees how I live, I instantly get told that I "can't live like this" and that I need to make the place more "homely". Then I get given bits of furniture that people assume I must want because I don't have any, or even worse I get given pictures. The worst example of this was when someone who I then considered to be a good friend gave me a collage as a birthday present at a birthday party they had organised without my consent. And yes, that is exactly why I don't consider this person a friend any longer, have deleted their number/contact detail in my phone and not spoken to them in at least 2 years.

I suppose it's the arrogance of the people who assume that if I'm not enjoying something in the same way that they do, I must be doing it wrong. And it's not just on this issue, when ever I am in the minority this always seems to happen. "why don't you want to come on a holiday with us to the boring countryside" a friend of mine will say, I'll reply "because I'll be bored, I don't like going on walks and having picnics and you will all talk about things I don't care about", to which they'll respond "you'll have a good time I promise, the countryside is great, you must just be doing the wrong things". And there we have it, I'm wrong. I can't possibly have a better idea of what I enjoy than someone else. I'm always bloody wrong.

I need to end this blog quickly as a friend has just arrived to see my new flat. The first thing they said after walking into the living room was "oh, this will be lovely, once you've got a few pictures up". They did this wanting to piss me off. It's worked. Sigh.

Ra-ra-ra, we're going to smash the oiks!!!

2010-06-29T03:41:00.000-07:00

So, England are out of the world cup. Despite my earlier posting about the tournament, I am pretty upset about it. Such a dreadful performance from this "golden generation" of players does make you wonder what dross we will have to tolerate for the next 8 years or so, especially with all this press speculation regarding "good old 'Arry Redknapp" taking charge.

Anyway, I was tweeting and facebook-ing and forum-ing before, during and after the match (although I should have probably been working, I was AT work after all). Once it became pretty clear that all hope was gone I tweeted something along the lines of "oh well, at least I can concentrate properly on Big Brother now". I got a mixed response to this from people laughing, agreeing or telling me to "fuck off up my own cunt".
The majority response across all social media platforms, however seemed to be along the lines of "at least we can still watch Wimbledon/Cricket/Forumula 1". As a fan of sport I quite agree, and I think this is a positive reaction to the disappointment machine that is the England team from the real sports fans. Then there were the rugby fans; "why not watch a real mans game? These overpaid nancy-boys prancing around more worried about their hair than the game, they should give rugby a try".

I hate rugby. Actually, that's an understatement. I loathe rugby in the same way that others might loathe a political movement or art house film. I hate everything about rugby at basically every level of the game and everything even remotely to do with it.
I hate that there are 15 players, bearing in mind the sorts of upper class twits that were probably responsible for inventing this stupid game, I wouldn't be at all surprised if this was decided only so that a team couldn't be libeled (read up on your libel law if you don't get that). That's the world rugby belongs to, a world populated by people who take legal convenience over any form of actual excitement.

As far as I can tell rugby is essentially a pointless fight pretending to be a game. The ball is irrelevant, it may as well be a sack of potatoes. It's just a marker indicating where the main fight should take place, then once they've stopped having that fight one of the fighters tries to run past another fighter. Then they have another fight.

Of course I realise that the above paragraph is probably not true, but you would be amazed how often I've heard rugby fans say similarly stupid things about cricket or football. This brings me to the main reason I hate this awful game so much; the fans. Rugby fans are amongst the most obnoxious pricks you're ever likely to find having a Sunday roast in an expensive chain pub before drinking a pint of bitter and turning up the collars on their non-specific, tucked in, cotton trader rugby-style shirts. What total assholes.
I don't mean people who casually dip in by the way, I mean the proper "rugger fans, corr, rugger, off to Twickers to watch the rugger, JERUSALEM!!!", those cunts.

In my experience rugby fans are the snootiest sports fans on the planet who posses a frankly mental sense of entitlement and superiority. They generally believe that they are somehow better than football fans and assume that all football fans are oiks, probably uneducated and poor. It's very patronising and small minded.
I was once in a pub to watch a sunday afternoon kick off between Arsenal and United with my old housemate, who is a United fan.
Upon our arrival we found that the pub was packed with cunts in rugby shirts. They were watching a game that was finishing as we walked in. Fortunately this pub played the football (unfortunately Arsenal lost) and quickly switched over after full time to another rugby match.
That all sounds fine, yeah? Well it fucking wasn't, the stuck up dickheads tutted all the way through the football match, mocking the players, the fans and singing very unfunny parody football songs. Every time I went to the bar I got some snooty abuse for ordering a cider and a comment about wearing a football shirt.
So, who were the 'problem' crowd in that situation?

I suppose my real problem is this class thing. I don't think that real posh people are as ludicrously snooty as this. I know some real posh people and they are lovely and polite. It's the middle classes who don't go the rugby games, probably because they can't afford it but are desperate to appear superior to others. It's the same middle classes that laugh at 'Chav' jokes and make fun of people who go to Ibiza.
Basically, it's the middle classes who are not themselves that rich or successful, but want so desperately to feel important that they find any excuse to mock, undermine and look down on people with less money than them. Then they and their idiot friends stand on their pathetic, elevated platform and pat one another on the back for not liking larger, not watching big brother, not reading tabloids and getting a good rate on their mortgage. What a boring group of unwashed, bell-ends.

The reason I dislike these people so much is simple; I am from that background. I'm undeniably middle class. I was born into a well off family, my dad had a PhD and a BMW, my mum didn't need to work. I went to performing arts college and have a masters degree. Now I work in the media. I'm not ashamed of this, but I am ashamed of people like me. People who wish so badly that they were upper class and went to public school.

I'm basically the same as them, only when I put on my football shirt I behave like a sports fan, but when they put on their rugby shirt, they behave like a rude monarch.

iPhone pain

2010-06-25T04:21:00.000-07:00

How many of you got the iPhone 4 yesterday? Ok, those of you that didn't how jealous of me are you?

I hope the answer to that question is extremely, because only your jealousy can relieve me of the pain I'm currently suffering. I knew it was all too good to be true, far too good to be fucking true.

I arrived on Oxford street at 8:30am. All the of the o2 stores had massive, endless queues. I was expecting to queue. Standing in a line full of social rejects and paying far more money than the product is worth is the price we pay for wanting Steve Job's latest mind control device. The queues were a little longer than I expected at the first o2 store, so I made my way to the second. At this point I was thinking "well, if the queues are that long everywhere I suppose I could fuck it off and do it next week". Of course, if I did this there would be a similar situation to the previous iPhone launch, the Wii launch, a situation where I temporarily lost my mind to an obsession.

Anyway, on my way to the second o2 store I noticed a very quiet looking carphone warehouse. I walked inside to discover a queue with probably only 15 people in it. I asked if this was for the new iPhone and the store manager told me "yes". I had to pinch myself, this sort of thing doesn't happen to me very often. The queue was extremely short and in actual fact the longest part of the process was waiting on hold to o2 so I could pay off my existing contract.

So far so good. So far so very fucking extremely good. My queue time was about half of what I expected. Next came the second surprise. As I was paying off my contract and paying for the handset (a total of £240) I heard someone ask the man serving me "are you doing trade in today". They were. I asked if I could trade in my old iPhone 3gs. I could, and for £220. This was all getting silly, I had just upgraded to the hottest bit of kit on the planet for £20. Honestly, I am the kind of guy that if making a drink will accidentally flood the kitchen, fortune doesn't favour me often. I was ecstatic.

All of that seems such a long time ago. I am one of the unfortunate few who is yet to be connected by o2. 25 hours and counting, still no idea what's going on, if anything's wrong. The website is confusing, you can't contact customer services due to the volume of calls. Besides, I don't even have a fucking phone to call them on. Earlier on today I found myself in the utterly ridiculous situation of having to use a public phone box that was roasting hot and eating my change whilst having a £500 smart-phone sat in my pocket, completely useless.

The whole thing has taken me on a roller coaster ride of emotions. The peak of my rage lead to the above image, where I got so angry I stabbed a glass I was drinking juice from with a kitchen knife and snapped the knife. Now I'm just every ten minutes or so hopefully checking my phone only to be let down further, uncontrollably weeping until I'm ready to check again. Repeat process.

Oh, and if you think that any of the above is in anyway funny, well good for you. Just remember, always keep in the back of your mind; if I'm willing to stab a glass, what else am I willing to do? Yeah that's right, that's a fucking threat so laugh it up, 'reader', god you make me SICK with your phone reception and your ability to make calls and send text messages with your shitty little blackberry or whatever stupid device it is you have. ARRGGGGHHH!!!

My my my, what a lovely penis you have

2010-06-19T02:03:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I did something very embarrassing for the second time in my life. By that I don't mean for the second time in my life I did something that has caused me to feel thoroughly ashamed of myself, I do that basically all the time. I mean I have now made this same error twice. I may have even mentioned it on this blog before, and if I have and for some reason this bothers you, please accept my sincere apologies for boring you, you ungrateful shit-shower.

So, there I was, doing a lovely poo (why do these things ALWAYS happen around a toilet), I wiped my bottom, flushed the toilet, washed my hands, so far so good. As I'm walking out of the gentleman's lavatory complex I see a person walking towards me. I hold the door for them. They are quite clearly a woman. We have a slightly awkward back and forth where I try to apologies but am too damn embarrassed to get any words out of my dry throat, whilst she simply says "oh, I'm not going that way" and marches off pretty damn quick. And who could blame her?

Jesus, what must she have thought? There is so much that I could have been implying. "You look like you need a shit", or "you look like shit, need a touch up in the mirror", or perhaps "you're a manly sort of man, maybe you need to do a wee out of your man's penis in this bathroom" or worst of all "you are so effeminate I cannot correctly identify your gender, and you also look like you need to poo". Maybe she took it as a sexual advance, which although it wasn't, if she thought it was I'm a little bit worried at how I'm perceived. I mean I've never met her before, so do I just look like the sort of person who finishes a poo, leaves the toilet, claps my eyes on literally any woman and thinks "don't mind if I jolly well do"?

Her response has worried me a bit too. "Oh, I'm not going that way". You could take that to mean so many different things, dependent on what she understood my door holding to mean. What worried me more was that she then went into the woman's toilet after going to a vending machine (after freaking her out a bit I thought I may as well completely terrify her so spied on her for a bit, although I don't think she noticed).
Had I just bullied her into going for a wee? Was she just going to use the vending machine but I put the thought in her head and now she needed to piss? Is that how it works? Or did she just go in there to escape from my spying?

Maybe I'm worrying about it too much, I don't know.

The funniest mental image of this whole incident only really occurred to me now whilst telling someone I know about it. They asked me if I had my vuvuzela on me at the time, which I did. I've been taking one with me everywhere I go recently (I now have two).

On that note I want to end the blog on a point about the vuvuzela. They are brilliant and anyone that thinks otherwise is an idiot. Sure, for football matches they are fun and I have every intention to take mine to the Emirates next year, but they're good for so much more. Here are some of the places I've had a toot this week; on the tube, on a bus, on the toilet, in the canteen, in the street (a woman with a buggy was in my way and being very slow) and whilst requesting a coffee (toot and point). I also very nearly used it as a pretend telescope whilst spying on a woman entering a toilet.

The above picture features my two - on the right my normal, everyday vuvuzela and on the left, my fold away "travel" vuvuzela.

Get yourself one and join in the fun.

Good bye.

Bad-vertising

2010-06-17T05:13:00.000-07:00

Today I'm going to have a little whinge about attitudes.

Earlier on this week I went for lunch with a couple of friends. Well, I say a couple of friends, one of these people was a friend, the other was someone I don't really like, I find very irritating, I think is stupid and I'm about to bitch about for 500 words or so.

Anyway the friend was talking about their current on-going job search. He studied an arty/new-media subject (rather like most of my friends) and currently works cutting up video files at some kind of studio. The job is fine, but now he wants more money and he mentioned that if he went and did the same thing for an advertising company, his salary would go up considerably whilst there would be better chances of progressing in his career, and what have you.

All of this seems perfectly reasonable to me, maybe even mind-numbingly dull and entirely normal for a lunchtime conversation. Why then, did the other person at our table react as though our mutual friend had just told us he was thinking of becoming a Scientologist or a member of Combat-18? The dickhead in question went on for around 10 minutes about how much he hated "the sorts of people in advertising" and how they were all sleazy, power hungry, evil, greedy, bastards who were "part of the problem with modern society" and represented everything that is wrong with the world. Harsh.

I don't work in advertising and I don't think I ever will, although if my life had taken that turn I almost certainly wouldn't have a problem with it. The world of advertising (it would seem) is a friend to people who studied creative subjects. As an industry it requires people to make things which means that all sorts of new-media types are required for a number of tasks, audio engineers, camera men, directors, producers, I could go on.

I understand the stereotype that he was attacking, and I understand why he was attacking it. Board room types who have a meeting where they talk about audience reactions weighed against brand identity and that kind of rubbish. People who bring in a focus group of students to ask them what "being British" means to them, that sort of rubbish. Utter cunts. To use a real world example, observe this advert I snapped the earlier on in the week.

Now, for those of you who don't read music - most of that notation makes no sense at all. I assume that this advert was born in a board room by men in suits who said things like "a guitar, yeah, that's what young and cool people want to buy", another replied "yeah, you know what we could do? We could use musical notation to replace letters (sketches an idea on his notepad), something like this?", "that's a great idea, shall we get someone to check it and make sure we don't look like complete idiots by getting the notation, the most important and striking part of this whole advert wrong?", "No". Well, That fictional conversation made me angry.

Anyway, although I agree that this stereotype deserves to be attacked, it's an image that I've just made up in my own brain. Assholes exist in all sorts of business models, how they manifest themselves in each depends on what that business does. In advertising it's the above, where I work (in a newsroom) I'm surrounded by petulant little tantrum prone babies with massive egos. Most of us are just people getting on with our jobs, but when I tell other people where I work I get a similar reaction to the advertising explosion described above.

It's ridiculous that if someone works somewhere and you have a pre-conceived idea of what that place is like, to then assume that they and everyone who they work with behave in such a manner. You have made up that stereotype.

Yes, there are idiots everywhere but to assume that everyone in advertising is an idiot you would have to accept that the people responsible for this little gem are no better than our fools from the insurance/music fiasco discussed above.

Anyway, that's enough for today. As a final point, the person who had the massive outburst that prompted this blog works for a fairly massive financial service as a 'personal banker'. Pah!

Come on Eng-ger-land (etc)

2010-06-11T05:25:00.000-07:00

*DISCLAIMER; THIS BLOG WAS WRITTEN AT 5AM HAVING HAD VERY LITTLE SLEEP*

The world cup starts today. I'm sure that most of you already know this, I mean it's virtually fucking impossible to miss the garish and obnoxious reminders plastered basically everywhere. I wouldn't be at all surprised if some white-trash-dole-scum kidnapped a bus load of pensioners only to wrap them up in a St. George's flag before hanging them off a bridge above the M25 under the bizarre act of national pride.

Before I start, don't worry, this isn't one of those "I'm not a football fan so why should I care about the world cup, just because it's my country" posts, nor is it a "oh, it's only football, is it really that important?" post. I always get really irritated by people who say things like "there's more to life than football you know", as though I don't have a fucking sense of perspective. What's important to you is always relative to your own situation and what you enjoy. People who prefer football to spending a few hours awkwardly sat in a pub with friends they secretly resent are most certainly not shallow, they just enjoy and care about football more than some faceless prick.

I'm a pretty committed Arsenal fan, football takes a priority place ahead of a fair few things in my life. I regularly miss parties my friends throw or going to see their gigs because there is an Arsenal match on. Every season I go through the highs and lows, the euphoria and agony, the ecstasy and heartbreak that being a football fan entails.

Despite being a big football fan, every 4 (or 2) years I find myself feeling completely alienated from the three most prominent groups that these tournaments cause to surface; people who get massively swept up in the hysteria of it all, people who don't really watch football but take an interest because it's England and the people who aggressively don't care.
I care about football and genuinely would like to see England lift the World cup, but it wouldn't bring a tear to my eye and make me proud of the entire nation and of our great history. It most certainly would not be a victory for all the people of the country, it would be a victory for those who played and the backroom staff. It would be a joy to the rest of us. A joy, not a triumph.

It's mostly the first group that get on my nerves, the people who crowbar in these ridiculous levels of national pride that have nothing to do with anything and in any normal circumstances would be considered a nationalist or possibly even racist for their statements.

I find the 'patriotism' aspect of it so bloody stupid, absurd, offensive and embarrassing that I'm compelled to resist it's draw. I am a big fan of England as a country, I just don't see what being patriotic has to do with supporting a sports team. You wouldn't find it in any other professional practice, if an English scientist was on the verge of finding a cure for cancer, you wouldn't find a load of shaven headed, flag waving yobs screaming "come on my son" (or whatever it is those brutes say) outside the laboratory. What about if an English actor had picked up a major role in a new film, we don't all go to the premier and sing the national anthem. So why does sport get this special treatment?

Getting back to the ridiculous levels of patriotism we have rammed down our necks on these occasions. The emotive language that we always hear people using really gets to me. Adverts talking about England being "the land of Shakespeare" or showing images of Churchill. Pundits banging on about players "doing it for queen and country". The worst thing I've seen so far is a pub in London with a banner up saying "let's do it for St. George". Ah, of course, St. George, the ROMAN soldier who famously came out on top after a spat with a dragon and probably never set foot in England, if indeed he even existed, so, yeah, good old St. George. And what exactly does the banner mean by "let's do it", what exactly can we do to help the team win?

I really do hope we have a good tournament and I will be proud of the team if they win, but I won't see it as a national victory as many will suggest. I'm not being a killjoy either by the way, I do like that it brings people together and the atmosphere in Trafalgar square or wherever you are for a big match is superb. I'm not trying to suggest that it isn't important either - it will be important to some people and not to others, it's totally up to you to decide the value you place on it.
My complaint is with the people who think that to support the national team we all have to start talking like Ray Winstone and behaving like the types of people that might inhabit Albert Square, and if we don't we should be made to feel like some sort of queen-hating terrorist, hell bent on destroying this nation and it's Christian values.

Musical c*nts

2010-06-09T09:59:00.000-07:00

How often do you talk to someone that is "in a band"? If it's often then you will either sympathise with what I'm about to say, or you're very possibly part of the problem. If it's not that often then please, bear with me and try to understand my pain.

If you meet someone who wants to be a writer, but does this on the side and works in an office the rest of the week, they would probably tell you that they work in an office but write on the side, and hope that one day this will become their main source of income. They almost certainly won't swagger up to you chewing gum and tell you that they are a writer, nor will they tell you just how promising things are looking for them and how many "big people" have expressed interest in their work.

If you meet someone in a similar position who's in a band they will almost always inform you that they are a musician and try to avoid telling you what they actually do for a living, if indeed they do anything. They will then probably do a bit of name dropping, telling you how many record labels and other bands they are friends with before giving you a list of live dates. They will expect you to be very impressed with their various trumped up delusions of grandeur and assume that you think they are some kind of brilliant artist who is so very in touch with their emotions. They sure as fuck are impressed with themselves so, why wouldn't you be?

Where the fuck do they get off behaving like this? Any twat can be in a band, I've been in a few and they've all failed.

I think the problem is that in the past 10 years the perception of people who are in bands has changed. Being a dirty rocker, although always a cliched image certainly used to be a lot less mainstream than it appears to be now. So many people I meet and speak to use being in a band as a substitute for not having a remotely interesting personality or any thoughts on anything outside of their own pathetic little lives. Music is an easy thing to do to an average level and 'musicians' are almost always insufferable bores. I suppose it's fine that these people do music as hobby. It's just ridiculous that seemingly every single person who can strum a chord is convinced that not only will they be the next (insert popular recording artist name here) but that they actually deserve this success on fucking merit.

I think I can best sum up all of the abhorrent things in common between everyone who has ever been in a band with this excerpt from a real conversation I had recently with a man in a pub. He was spouting such bollocks, I felt compelled to pull out my phone and record him. I've had to tidy it up a little bit, but this seriously isn't too far from the truth of what he actually said.

"Yeah, I had a part time job for a while, but I'd rather be doing music full-time and not getting paid, yeah its bloody horrible at times, not knowing if you can afford to eat...but you end up doing stuff all the time and end up in interesting places meeting real characters. I'm putting a lot of faith into the band at the moment, our guitarist owns his own label and I've got a meeting with someone from Lily Allen's new label on Thursday. My guitarist doesn't want me to go though, he doesn't want us to be associated with her. Not sure whether I should go or not, I know he wont be happy, he wants us to do everything ourselves. Apparently we can get in the studio with Peter Dehavilland and play some gigs with some pretty big acts, so at the moment just concentrating on getting loads of rehearsals together. I don't want to betray his trust, we're meant to be tight as a band. I'll have to talk to my singer about it"

Well, I hope that my above diatribe has helped convince you to harbor as irrational a hatred of these sorts of smug pricks as I do. As a final piece of propaganda against these "ooh, I'm in a band, I'm so fucking special" sorts of bell-ends, observe the picture atop this post.

Oh look at him, look at the complete toss bag, look at how he stares into the camera looking so fucking brooding. Oooh you're so mysterious, a blue light, blue like the colour of your soul no doubt, blue like the deepest oceans, oceans of pain that exist behind those eyes and behind that FUCKING hair cut - what a massive, massive cunt. ARGGHH, what kind of TWAT actually poses for a photo like that? Imagine the conversation that he and the photographer had before that photo was taken; "Yeah, so I think it's best if I pretend to sing into a microphone whilst looking kinda sad in a dark room with a blue light behind me, I'm a pretty deep guy, you know, I've got a lot of issues that I think would best be represented by a single blue light and a pout". I hope he gets water-boarded with cat semen, prick.

Oohh, calm down you fucking fucks.

2010-06-03T04:48:00.000-07:00

Good morning. I have been on the receiving end of quite a bit of anger recently. The white trash who occupy the bottom floors of my flat block have accused me and my flatmate of throwing things down to hit them whilst they play on mopeds, argue about child support and drink their lives away. We haven't been but I sort of wish we had now, cunts. Just to qualify my use of the term 'white trash', above is a picture detailing how they opted to spend a recent hot, early summer afternoon. Yes, that is a sleeveless bomber/puffer jacket. Scum.

This is tolerable as I'm moving soon, which isn't so tolerable. Where do estate agents get off thinking that they are massive kings amongst us pathetic men? They always act as though they are doing you a massive favour, "look, I can work late and take you to see this place but I'll let you in on a secret, this place is going to go quick so you'll need to make an offer quick". If someone is going to take all my money I'd prefer it that I am at least allowed to feel like a customer or something, not some kind of fucking charity case. Then, when you decide you don't like a place they get angry with you. Sorry, how is that allowed to happen? What possible right do they have to get angry with me?

The third source of anger has been coming to me via twitter. Some of you may or may not know/care that I write a weekly music review for a popular music blog. This week I reviewed an album that I didn't particularly like, but I didn't tear apart in my review. This resulted in a couple of people calling me extremely rude things. Apparently I am some kind of pussy for generally being positive in my reviews and never really going for the jugular or getting angry with whatever I was reviewing.

I am an angry person, I suppose. I get wound up by very silly things that are just a part of everyday life. I have been known to smash all sorts of technology. I'm on my second Nintendo DS, I've had to replace a few wii remotes, when I had recurring problems with my old mobile phone I terminated my contract with several swear words to a member of call center staff before drop-kicking my phone into the Thames and, most recently I've taken to punching myself in the face when a self scan machine doesn't work at the supermarket.
As ridiculous as this probably sounds I'm a relentless optimist. This is really the source of my anger. I am sure that humanity is basically full of OK-ish people, if it wasn't we would all just walk around biting each others flesh off and shitting on the corpse left behind. I'm convinced that everyone will eventually be fine. Like I say, I am relentlessly optimistic about the world, the problem is that this world constantly fails to live up to my ludicrously high expectations of what I deem to be satisfactory.

Anyway, as much as I might bang my fist and stamp and shout about the world, I would never use this anger as a vehicle for criticism of someone's work. Anger is an easy way to generate a lot of material and get a cheap laugh whilst you're at it. So many 'critics' fall into this trap. The most annoying thing about this is they often get a following (probably from idiots) as a result of this ridiculous style of pseudo-criticism.
It's very easy to write something like "if this music were anymore shit I'd have to consider buying a bidet to clean my ears with" or "this band are so middle of the road I zoned out for a moment and thought I'd wandered onto the 'Arc de Triomphe', or onto an episode of Top Gear", but just saying this isn't criticising - it's just being rude. Seldom will you find these 'critics' actually give you a reason for their vicious attacks and if they do it's usually a massive pile of bollocks.

Well, this kind of hatred is not a way I wish to review and I'm certainly not about to adopt this style. There are people who do it well I should say, Yahtzee Croshaw probably being the best example; funny, highly critical but totally honest.

Of course there is some music that I hate, of course there are albums that I detest with such a passion that I'd rather spend my afternoon in a fish tank full of Noel Edmond's diarrhea, Bruce Forsyth's semen and Piers Morgan's piss with a snorkel on, than have to listen to. I don't see the point in saying this as part of a review though. It adds literally nothing to any kind of debate and is in almost all instances a cheap, easy replacement for having an opinion worthy of voicing. In conversation it's fine, in blogs like this it's fine, but in real criticism that you expect people to take seriously it's totally not cool.

Anger is a currency with an attractive exchange rate and offers you a lot when you had very little to start with. You probably wouldn't want the bulk of your assets to be tied up in something so worthless though. I'm not sure that analogy works, but fuck it.

Good bye.

iHate

2010-05-29T00:51:00.000-07:00

Twitter is annoying me at the moment. It would seem that I'm the only person in the UK who hasn't got an iPad (exaggeration), despite their being launched only 24 hours ago. All day yesterday it was "my new iPad" this and "is anyone else having this loading bug, lol" that. If you do have an iPad and have been boasting about it then look at the above picture, that's what I think of you.

I first played with an iPad about 2 months ago followed by a 40 minute session a month ago. I think they are great, I totally get them and think everyone who has criticised (mostly without even having touched one) is a fucking moron. I don't want one though. I've told myself from the moment that they were announced I would wait until the second or third generation before getting one. I have a MacBook which is perfectly fine (yet I'm staring at with the same level of contempt one might an animal rapist for it not being an iPad and being so very not touchscreen) and an iPhone 3GS. I can't really justify getting an iPad, not yet at least. Not only can I not justify getting one, it wouldn't particularly fulfill my requirements as a portable net device.

So why am I annoyed? It's this bloody feeling left out of something. The same thing happened when the Wii was first launched in the UK. In fact it happened long before the UK launch, after they went on sale in America I would spend entire evenings, nights and early mornings watching Wii after Wii sell for hundreds of pounds on ebay. I think I was deliberately tormenting myself, watching videos of other people playing the then new LoZ Twilight Princess and feeling sick. I told myself I didn't really want one, I was very poor, I had a degree to finish and I could get one after graduating, but I just couldn't handle not being a part of that exclusive techie club. The UK launch was the straw that broke my arthritic Camel-back; people I knew started getting them, and that I simply could not handle. Launch day was a Friday, I had one on the Tuesday. From the Saturday onwards I woke up at 7am every morning to call everywhere that might possibly have had a delivery that were not already allotted to some sensible wanker with a pre-order. I allowed for a 30 mile radius.

Well, the iPad was launched yesterday and people I know already have them. They began to appear at my work ages ago but now real people are getting them, I wonder how long I'll last. My boss emailed me from his yesterday and seeing that little "sent from my iPad" signature made my stomach feel hollow and put a lump in the back of my throat. It took me about two days to snap with the Wii and that was without the constant reminders that I'm an inferior member of the digital revolution from everyone on twitter.

I managed to hold out with the iPhone and waited until the 3GS, although I think I'm still recovering from the distress caused by going into every mobile phone shop I walked past everyday for around 2 years and fizzing with rage. Seriously, I used to take home those o2 price plan cards that were shaped like the iPhone and stare at them for hours. Man, I've suffered.

Much like when I gave up smoking, I'm finding that distractions are the best way to forget about the massive elephant stamping around your mind, and I'll share with you what is helping me get through this morning - I get sent all sorts of music to review (or not) each week. This guy sent me a link to his website last week - you'll almost certainly want to click here and see his website after this taster video. He described himself in an email to me as "The greatest singer in the world". I think his website says it somewhere also.

Goodbye.

Here comes the burn

2010-05-22T05:03:00.000-07:00

Oh good, the sun's out.

Isn't it just brilliant? The sun is out, the air is hot and the streets and parks are filled with idiots laying around drinking and eating. I hope they all get fucking sun stroke and severe dehydration. Those of you that have been reading my blog for a while will be aware that hot weather and I are not friends. I don't much like very cold weather but I'd rather be too cold than too hot. It makes me frustrated, uncomfortable and sweaty.

Liking hot weather is so boring, so mind numbingly dull. What on earth is fun about sitting around and doing nothing in the heat, where the hell is the mental stimulation? Oh, that's right, If I'm truly to enjoy this weather then I'm supposed to drink myself into a state where my brain hardly functions, then I might find the moronic dribbling of the 'summer crowd' bearable.
I think summer brings out the absolute worst in people, and it does so by the very aspects of it that they think makes it so twatting wonderful. The worst thing about it is that people become about a million times more lazy. Going out for drinks after work, having barbecues, having picnics, spending time on the beach, sitting in parks, going to festivals Jesus fucking Christ when do these arseholes get anything of any merit done?

I think what I really don't like about this time of year is whilst everyone seems to really enjoy it I find it a far too bleak, real, monotonous and as a result it reminds me that every second I'm breathing, I'm edging closer towards the inevitability of death. That is a bleak enough thought at the best of times but when you're thinking it whilst sat in a garden/park/beer garden doing absolutely nothing with your life you realise what an enormous waste of flesh and organs you really are.

It also reminds me that most people are content with such total mediocrity. I suppose that's a good thing for them, but to me it's good the same way that it's a good thing if a spiritual medium brings you comfort after someone you were close to has died. Deluded fools.

I don't like being so down on humanity but if they keep serving me constant reminders that they are so dull and so lacking in imagination that they would probably be happy spending an afternoon buying garden furniture what am I supposed to do?

I'm not against people going out and doing things by the way, I'm against people going out and doing nothing. If the weather's nice why not go and watch a Cricket match or play some sport or go to theme park, do something stimulating rather than simply occupy a different space for some amount of time.
I think I can explain my thoughts well with a video game analogy;
Why would anyone get a UFC game over a WWE game? If the point of video gaming is escapism then why not go the whole way and do something actually fantastic, honestly it's like buying a virtual reality kit to go and get your car repaired or change an elderly relative's nappy - ridiculous. It's the same with people who have a barbecue and drinks (good I hate the term 'drinks') in the park - why go outside in this weather you apparently love so much only to facilitate basic functions that are required to keep you alive? Have some fucking imagination.

Anyway, that's enough. If you have any objections to my complaints about hot weather or if you think I'm being miserable, first of all fuck the fuck off you boring cunt. Secondly, if you like the sun so much may I suggest you move much closer to it? If you don't like that idea then might I suggest you replicate what it might be like by building a massive fire and standing close to it at all times and if you still think I'm being miserable then simply ignore me, but don't expect me to like the same things as you, you fucking seasonal Nazi.

Goodbye.

Well, I seem to have nothing else to say...

2010-05-20T07:44:00.000-07:00

Short and pointless blog today.

Two things have seriously yanked my bell-end then rammed a massive spike through it (not literally) over the last two days. Both involved music.

1)

Yesterday I spent the afternoon at my old University, returning to see a concert. It was an honestly a brilliant show that I won't bang on about in this blog, mainly because (being a massive attention whore) I have already reviewed the E.P this week and can't handle being nice about the same person in a seven day period. If you do want to read MY review of this artist, MY review written by ME then click here, for those of you who don't care, let's carry on.

I studied classical music. I like all kinds of music and will happily review anything with an open mind in an objective manner. I like to think that with regard to the types of live performances I attend I've enjoyed a pretty broad intake of social culture and subsequently understood the common areas of protocol when attending such events. Obviously there is a an enormous gulf between what is considered acceptable when enjoying a Dub-step DJ set in a night club or catching some Gregorian Chant in a Cathedral. I'm pretty sure most people would be able to work out that it's OK to take a phone call in one whereas a whispered word to your neighbor will be correctly tutted at during the other. Despite these vastly different examples, one thing you would expect at both is that the audience would never laugh at or deliberately try to disrespect the performer. It's probably fair to say that most sensible people would understand this, although it's actually totally unfair to say this as yesterday I discovered that many people are far too fucking idiotic to sit still and quiet for 50 cunting minutes. This was a fairly conventional music performance (by comparison to things that my old university puts on) and people were laughing and texting throughout. These weren't just idiots off the street either, these were music students, people who had made the conscious decision to go and further their study in music, though apparently they are still so completely small minded and trapped in their uncreative black-hole of a brain that they reject anything that even slightly challenges them. This depressed me as when I was a student it would be the minority that were like this who we would correctly mock for being thick, whereas yesterday, although it was still the minority they didn't seem at all ashamed of their ignorance.
I really think that when it comes to art you should be a complete fucking fascist and if someone dares to undermine an artist during a live performance then off to the fucking docks, seriously.

2)
I came across a link to a video earlier on this morning. I have included the video to help you understand my rage. The video is also pretty funny, please watch it, you'll almost certainly find yourself laughing throughout.

Hilarious, and after viewing one must ask some questions; This man openly admits to several crimes - possession of illegal substances, selling illegal substances, possession of illegal weapons and murder to name just a few. He also keeps talking about food. I'm not sure if this is some other code word for a drug but I've never heard of it so presumably he is running some kind of market stall too. Why has he not been arrested? I mean this is as good as an open confession. Oh, maybe he doesn't do any of these things and is trying to look cool, maybe. I also found that he seems too nervous to look at the camera extremely funny, considering he's such a 'g'. His little brother is fairly amusing also, I wonder if that's real money?

Ok, so the video is funny and absolutely should be mocked. It is also fairly destructive.
I like Hip-Hop. I think Hip-Hop has more in common with what I would consider to be 'proper music' by which I mean serious, academic and for want of a better expression 'classical' music than any other kind of pop music. By pop music I am including all things from chart music to metal (and I suppose Hip-Hop too). I very often have to find myself defending Hip-Hop as a music style to ignorant idiots whose opinions I shouldn't care about anyway when you consider I'm far more educated on this subject than most (again, if this sounds arrogant - would you argue biology with a biology graduate?). One of the common criticisms of Hip-Hop is that it's shallow, you know, gun crime, selling drugs, general boasting about how hard they are for being such a rebel. Now, I think that this isn't common at all and if an MC ever produces work on these topics, usually it's being dealt with in a mature fashion and to mistake it for being shallow is simply not understanding it. When some idiot comes along and lives up to all the stereotypes it undermines the real work being done by talented people. I'm not knocking him for trying, I mean I don't think he's a great MC and his lyrics are very shallow but if all of what he says is real then fair enough - gritty music that deals with difficult subject matters is important, I'm just not convinced by anything that he's saying which means that he is simply pretending to be something completely vile which just completely plays into the hands of all the 'haters' out there.

Anyway, I'm done. I will blog again this weekend probably. Bye

P.S to those of you who read this regularly, yesterday I was supposed to be sorting out the ongoing saga of moving house and booked a day off for this purpose but my complete ass of an estate agent wouldn't answer his phone. Grrr

Life wasting

2010-05-12T05:41:00.000-07:00

Recently I've found myself being unusually busy. Busy with work, busy within my personal life, busy with trying to get my boiler fixed - a process that requires such complex negotiation that I'm convinced I could have got Nick Clegg and David Cameron the other way round had I been in the negotiation teams - and busy trying to move house (something I don't even really want to do) at some point over the next two months. I've basically over committed myself to things that I'm not really that sure I want to do (especially work wise).
Well, with all these things to do I have had to squeeze my leisure time down to about an hour a day. This means simultaneously getting out of the way everything 'leisure' you might care to mention; catching up on essential television (24, Doctor Who etc), video game fixes, talking to my sister in Germany via iChat, catching up with what is going on in the world around me, everything.

I know too many of my blogs have said this recently but people who embrace modern technology and new media are just superior. I am good at multi-tasking. I can take in a lot of information from different sources at once. I get really annoyed when people (lazy, twatting Luddites) dismiss modern ways and make out as though they are superior for concentrating on one thing. I like multi-tasking in my free time, it feels like I am getting more fun out of that free time than I should be allowed and for a brief window of time I am beating god at my own life, albeit on a technicality.
As I said, I have been doing all these things - chatting to friends and my Sister, watching telly and playing video games at once. As great as this is, compromise must be made. This usually means that I have to play video games where having the sound on isn't essential; Plat-formers, beat 'em ups, sports games or just games that you've played before. For those of you interested I have been re-playing the superb Mario Galaxy and taking Barnet to the Champions League final in FIFA management mode.

Today I find myself in the position where I'm no longer a busy bee, rather a lazy sloth. This wasn't by choice, I'm waiting for a boiler repair man to turn up which has tied in with my having a day off work. With little else to do, I switched on my Playstation 3 and returned to my ongoing quest for premier league promotion as the manager of Barnet F.C avec sound. After about 20 minutes I reached the conclusion that if you have time to play FIFA with the sound on you are almost certainly wasting your life. Martin Tyler and Andy Gray banging on inanely; "this snow is really snowing now", "you need two people to complete a pass, and he was the only one thinking that", "get stuck in lad", "the rain is really getting in the eyes of the players now". Why is Martin Tyler so fucking obsessed with the weather? There is an astonishing bit of dialogue where Andy Gray stumbles though a sentence about Arsene Wenger "erm, he came to Arsenal and er, really, erm changed the way, the mentality of the club erm...". Sorry, this was presumably recorded in a studio with a fucking producer, who in the name of arse-wank decided THAT was fine to include in the game, was it really the best take? Jesus.

Here's a list of other things that if you ever find yourself doing you are definitely wasting your life and are almost certainly a complete waste of space;

1) Discussing Eastenders with other idiots

2) Critcising anyone in the media or public eye's 'morality'. They are richer than you because they are more talented than you, get over it

3) Installing Norton anti-virus

4) Watching Lost

5) Contemplating going to IKEA without vomiting at the thought

6) Thinking about 'Holiday destinations' for more than 20 minutes at a time

7) Listening to Metallica for anything other than comedy purposes

8) Going to the dry cleaners

9) Claiming that you have "better things to do" than watch television/be on the internet

10) Reading anything written by Dan Brown without laughing

Farewell

General Erection

2010-05-04T11:45:00.000-07:00

Here are some silly pictures. They are not that funny, nor are the good. They are certainly not accurate.

Here was my first attempt.

Notice that I have cleverly put Nick on the left, Gordon in the middle and Cameron on the right. Of course if you flip the perspective this means fuck all, so whatever really. Also, regard the funny jokes they are saying! Satire, I believe we've met!

Here are some more pictures

Those keen eyed reader will have noticed that David Cameron has a top hat, monocle and bow tie - you know, he's posh? Hello satire!

And the final/ shittest attempt of all.

Oh, what a funny picture. Ha ha ha. Look at the funny jokes I put about their names!

Oh, just fuck off an leave me alone. I'll do some better blogs next week...

"Grumble, mumble mumble mumble, politics...grumgle"

2010-05-04T11:00:00.000-07:00

**WARNING - THIS BLOG IS GOING TO BE A BIT PREACHY AND EXPOSE ME AS BOTH AN ENORMOUS PENIS BRAIN AND AN UNEDUCATED, UNINFORMED OAF . FOR THOSE OF YOU NOT INTERESTED IN THE CONTENT OF THIS BLOG, PLEASE SKIP AND LOOK AT THE MORE RECENT POST**

I started writing this blog on Saturday (01/05/2010). To my massive annoyance I picked up the media guardian yesterday and discovered a piece on a similar topic - they beat me to it, those poo eating fuck-tards. Anyway, I wanted to include a link to the article but after 10 minutes of searching the guardian website I couldn't find the article (yes, I actually paid for a paper copy of the guardian) If you're interested it was by Charles Arthur and was headlined "We need your Twote" - google it, or something.

-----------------------------------------

Before I start, yes, I know I've said this more times than strictly necessary - I love new media. It kicks the shit out of old media. Old media is run by mental, power mad megalomaniacs who are terrified of the world changing. New media grows and evolves with social and political changes, encouraging people to have a broad intake of different information which they can share with others. Where new media invites real people and all their delicious diversity, old media sits inside its pathetic little bubble regarding its audience with nothing but contempt, whilst simultaneously expecting them to treat its world view and opinion as one might commandments from a racist Deity.

This little observation/outburst has been brought on by the various ways in which the election trail has been covered over the past 3 weeks (ish). On the actual day that the election was announced (April 6th) all sorts of journalists and editors were interviewed. One question that kept coming up was "will this be the 'internet election' as it's been dubbed?". Most journalist's answer to this was "no". Probably the most senior journalist (that I've heard talking about it at least) to give this answer was the Mirror's Kevin Maguire, who stated that it would be the TV election because of the live debates. For the record I like Kevin, I like how he questions politicians and think he is an incredibly sharp and intelligent man, his answer to this question did however irritate me somewhat. It stank of old media being terrified of new media and (without sounding too much like woolly, right on, liberal prick) the power of real people sharing information freely compared to the power of the media elite. Ok, so he is a newspaper journo but he said it would be an election decided by television. Well, that still means that the power lies in the hands of television executives and editors - old media. I fucking hate the smug pricks that control old media and try so very hard to distance themselves from new media.

I often bang on about how much I love the internet and new media in a deliberately obnoxious manner, but I think I can make a fairly decent and real argument as to why old media should adapt and grow up or be left to die a painful death.

One of the main arguments that has been made in favor of the live leadership debates that I've heard has been "it's helped people engage with politics and politicians again". This is probably true, although I can't help but feel that they have reconnected people with politics and news media in entirely the wrong way - with a completely closed door policy. The audience not allowed to respond, the people asking the questions now allowed to follow up their initial questions, even the debate moderators were not allowed to ask questions or probe the three men supposed to be competing for our approval.

After the first debate a lot of people in the media started talking with enormous surprise about the 'overwhelming' response on twitter and other social media sites. At the time of the last general election I was 19 and in my first year of university. At that point I already had 7 (ish) years of experience with using online social media under my belt. I had also become interested in politics for the first time. I found that these two interests of mine worked pretty well hand in hand and soon found myself talking to thousands of other people about politics. I was sent links to articles that I may have found interesting. This was before I was aware of myspace, before facebook was available in the United Kingdom and before the egg of twitter had even been conceived. On the night of the 2005 election I stayed up all night talking to people on internet forums about the election (and various other things).
In the years following I found myself signing up to Bebo, MySpace, Facebook and Twitter and the same thing occurred to me every time I signed up to every one of these massively popular social networking sites - next time a big news event happens that people want to talk to each other about, like a general fucking election or something then this area of the media might be an ever so slightly important and effective way to communicate information.

The televisions debates are in principle a great idea and a great way to get people interacting with politics via modern media, but the way they were carried was simply a progression of the old media information fascism I was talking about. The information was held by the few and transmitted to the many with absolutely no attempt of it being offered for the many to interact with it.
Worse than this the major media outlets providing commentary on the debates held 'live discussions' for their readers to talk about what they were seeing. Again, great idea but implemented in entirely the wrong way. What people want isn't each others opinions but each others information to share, as they could over Twitter or a similar site. As a result these live debates were largely full of opinionated fools making obvious and boring statements about whatever newspaper website they happened to be on encouraged them to talk about.

The worst possible outcome from this new exciting style of news coverage is if the majority of people still form their opinions from a single source of old media and then join the online world only to bark pointless soundbites that contribute exactly shit all to any kind of debate, as described above. Then the smug wankers who think that new media is pointless get something to fuel their obsolete and ultimately shit argument.
Actually, this brings me to another point - the only time old media ever seems to want anything to do with new media is when it backs up or confirms its own thoughts. If you open up pretty much any newspaper (this is mostly aimed at tabloids) you will find at the bottom of some articles a "comment" from someone who is part of their online community agreeing with the general tone of the article. Of course no one questions the process of this; i.e the comment cannot have been written as a direct response to that article as that particular article is the current edition of the paper, therefore the comment must be from another related story which in turn means the that comment has been and picked and taken out of context to fill the brief of that particular paper and, hey-presto - "oh look, we're not racist, we're not filling our pages with line after line of completely inane and biased fucking hate speech because 'real people' agree with us, we're just saying what 'real people' want to say but are too scared to, WE ARE THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE!!!", etc...
Apologies for that slight digression.

In four or five years time I hope that the media powerhouses will have finally grown up, realised that the world has moved on and began to embrace online community culture. I think there is still a place for traditional media and news reporting, it just needs to acknowledge that it occupies the same space as a hell of a lot of other media, and exists in a new arena where information is becoming more free and easily to access than ever before.

As I finish this Lily Allen has just tweeted "who are we voting for then?", I bet this generates more traffic than any newspaper or news website live debate. Ha, take that old media!

Now, enough of elections, I am going to upload a blog about erections.

Thank you.

Scare cut (that'll get you thinking)

2010-04-27T03:43:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I tried to get a hair cut. I say I tried - I didn't try very hard. To be more accurate I went to a hairdressers (for the record, I always use this hair dresser and like them a great deal), stood outside for a while gauging how busy it was, had an epiphany, shook with rage for about 3 minutes and then went home.

Hair serves two practical purposes as far as I can work out; 1) It stops the bonce from getting cold and 2) stops baldy head sweat from dripping all over you (I might be wrong on this). Having your hair cut seems to serve only one purpose; stopping your hair from getting so long you trip over it or it gets in the way of everything.

Presumably the primitive chaps we descend from just used to hack away at their hair when it became so long it was an annoyance, wait for it to grow back and repeat process. Obviously as we evolved into a more intelligent species and became concerned with how we looked and fashion, hair styles began to appear. These hairstyles have since evolved into a way of making a statement about your personality. A professional business man is unlikely to have a flamboyant hairstyle of varying lengths, whilst a gent with long, un-brushed locks of varying colours is unlikely to be a member of the Conservative party.
By the way, I have done exactly no research at all on this and if I'm wrong on anything then please, don't let me know. I simply don't care.

I understand why it's 'important' to have a hair cut and look nice for polite and modern society, but I don't get why it costs so much, they are basically getting your hair for free. Actually worse than that. You're paying someone to take your hair. It's a commodity, well my hair is at least - not just any old shit.

As I stood in front of that hairdressers considering what else I could be doing with the £15 it costs them to remove my growth, I began to consider the possibility that the very existence of a hairdressing industry is some kind of major conspiracy that we blindly allow to exist. Think about it. The vast majority of people have short hair, if we accept that anything under shoulder length is 'short hair'. And where does this leave us? Needing to buy things, that's where. Hats, scarves and sweat bands. Then there's the upkeep - styling products, shampoo, conditioner, straighteners, curlers, hair bands, brushes.

Why do we allow this to control us? Because we all think that it will hinder our social and professional life if we don't comply to these rules? Today I was talking to a friend of mine who has a job interview coming up. I was about to suggest getting a hair cut to him before my new found sense of anarchism kicked in.
If you turned up to a party with a hair scarf or hair hat that you had fashioned yourself most people would think you a mental case. Why? I've spoken to people about this since my revelation and they all said "wouldn't it be a bit itchy?". No! Hair is lovely and soft, think about how your hair feels after a nice wash (yes, I know I am contradicting my above statement about shampoo and conditioner). Conspirator bias has made you think hair is itchy, meaning you have to go and buy wool or something.

So it would save us all money and probably be more affective to live by my new anti hair cut regime, but I had another concern in this rare moment of clarity - what are they doing with all this hair? Hair doesn't contain DNA so it can't be a government method of control, unless they on odd occasions track who is going to what salon and have the hairdresser 'accidentally' rip out a follicle. Hair can also be used to make some rather convincing disguises. You could mix up all the different hair types to make a wig so bizarre that the person wearing it would be totally unidentifiable.

Well, I hope this has made you all think... if it hasn't then I'm so sorry I've wasted your time once again. If this is the case then I hope that the picture atop this blog will cheer you up, it's a real advert I found on my internet travels (from a TV streaming site coincidentally. I do watch porn but this didn't come from such an occasion).

Bye

Potty Humor

2010-04-22T08:56:00.000-07:00

Here is a blog I did on Tuesday and had forgotten about, probably out of shame. It's been sat lonely in google docs for two days. Please, show it the love I never did.

First things first - you may notice I have changed the way this page looks. Yes, I'm aware that it looks awkward and the picture doesn't quite fit the top bit properly, but I happen to think that makes it funnier? Is that ok with you, you cyber fascist wank tissues? (Rule 1 of maintaining your readership - don't call them wank tissues).

Regular readers of this blog will know that for some reason, in my 24 years I have had more distressing things happen to me inside the confines of a toilet than I've had enjoyable experiences whilst on a holiday.

Today I had by far the worst thing that has ever happened to me in a toilet happen. Bearing in mind I have been locked in a toilet for 5 hours covered in my own piss/blood before and have also seen a disabled man wanking into a urinal whilst his mum shouted at him, I am saying that this is the worst toilet mishap I am yet to encounter.

I have this pair of boxer shorts that are quite large. They're not really even boxer shorts, more pajama shorts that are too big to wear under trousers. Well, when I am low on pants I wear these under my trousers. I am wearing them today. When I go to the toilet I (as you may already know) like to use a cubical, even when doing a stand up wee. When I stand up wee I also have another habit of unzipping my fly but not unbuttoning the pants/shorts. Instead I pull my willy underneath the bottom of the shorts and sort of snake it out through the front of the trousers whilst holding up bottom of the shorts, like a willy curtain. Anyway, today I was doing this when disaster struck - the shorts slipped from my grip. This caused the whole operating to go wrong. My jet of urine shot off to underneath the dividing wall between the cubicles. As my wee powered under the door I realised that there was someone in the next cubical, and when I looked down my biggest fear was confirmed; I had hit both his shoe and the trousers he had pulled down to presumably do some poo. He bellowed "argh, what are you, a fucking animal?", I mumbled something in response that he probably couldn't here. Time slowed down as I began to acknowledge that this was really happening and I understood there were two options; 1) He was having a poo, I had at least 10 seconds to bolt for the door, I just had to hope no one else was in the room who might see me or 2) Ride this out until I think I can slip out later without being noticed. I went for option 1, thankfully no one else was about.
To give you an idea of how much piss there was, I crept back into the toilet minutes later to take a couple of pictures for you.

In taking these pictures for you I nearly suffered a second embarrassment - whilst snapping my puddle of piddle the main door opened and a confused looking man literally caught the naughty puppy sat next to the wet stain he had just created. The lesson here: never return to the scene of a crime.
Fortunately the person who saw me taking the picture was someone who worked at my desk and I knew well. I asked if he fancied a coffee break and told him the whole story.

My day should have been made better by the news that we now have a free (and fairly good) coffee machine at work. A workmate and I were in the kitchen trying out the various delights this new contraption has to offer when a woman walked in. As she walked in my friend said "urgh, that one's fucking disgusting". She asked "which one" (the machine is kind of a big deal and a bit of a talking point). We told her and I went on to say "we're trying out all the different drinks". The face she pulled in response to this was so full of contempt that a bystander may have thought I'd just told her I pleasure myself to pictures of her dead mother, or pissed all over another man's foot. The look said "oh, you poor fool. You've never even used a coffee machine before, what an uncultured barbarian".

I am shit.

Band aid(s)

2010-04-16T04:15:00.000-07:00

Good morning you beautiful bastards, I wish I could touch you all on the skin...

This will only be a short blog that will mainly consist of little bits of text pasted from the internet. I wanted to do a longer blog but didn't really have time. I have been getting in from work after midnight every night this week and living off pot noodles and cider, so before you decide you hate me and you'll never read this blog again, please, bear (pictured above) that in mind.

Today I'm in the mood for a good laugh/moan (mostly laugh) about something that's both got on my wick and tickled my funny bone for quite some time. It's something I've written about before (but not on this blog). It's actually got me into trouble and threatened with real violence before, so I'm going to go about it slightly differently today.

When I first moved to Brighton I was asked by someone I was working with if I would write music reviews for his event promotion website. I thought this would be fun and figured that it was better than sitting around starring at my own knob all day so agreed. He gave me the password for the blog section of his website, meaning I could directly upload without my work being checked - oh dear. He clearly mistook me for someone who would write generally positive things and not resort to lowest common denominator in order to get a cheap laugh, whilst I mistook his website for something that wasn't a complete waste of cyber space designed for the express purpose of blowing smoke up the bottoms of bands he happened to be friends with.

He told various friends of his to email me their myspace pages or websites so I could write positive things about them for whatever reason. Instead I chose to (in most cases) deconstruct the pretentious drivel they had written about themselves, usually in third person on their myspace page, things like (no real band names used in this blog - I don't want to upset anyone again) "District 7 blend a harmonious texture with a sturdy edge - it will keep you upright whilst it melts you away". This was usually ok, I mean it did upset people because they obviously thought not only they were a musical answer to the trouble in the middle east, but they might just be the next Wilde, but I did go on to review their actual music after this. After two or three weeks of doing this I got sent a link to a band's myspace page and discovered something that has since been a hobby of mine, should I have a few minutes spare.
Sometimes, to give themselves some kind of credibility a musician will have a review of themselves on their website. In the case of professional musicians this is usually a review from a magazine or newspaper. For a well known unsigned act it might be from a small website (such as I was writing for). In the case of this particular band, they had obviously written the review themselves. The give away was that in final paragraph they had switched from speaking about themselves in third person to first. My entire review was mocking this review before really coating off their dreadful music. The chap running the website promptly asked me stop writing for him and the band tried to bash down my front door...

So, here are 3 'reviews' for you all to have a nice laugh at. The original, the one that got me in so much trouble is the last one. I have changed all the band names and names of performers but left in some of the real details, should you wish to find the guilty parties in question. The text is exactly as it appears on their websites (except for name changes), including all spelling errors (final review - independant rather than independent. Titter, titter, titter). After each 'review' I have written a short analysis and hi-lights.

Enjoy.

INDEPENDENT REVIEW OF SHITTY THURSDAY FROM RECENT GIG AT THE FUNCTION ROOMS:
Shitty Thursday
This is the band that wanted to play in the dark. There are whoops and cheers from the crowd as dark silhouettes gather on the Function Rooms live bands stage. Only the drummer is back-lit from a solitary spotlight no-one can turn off. All faces are dark; all instruments are stripped of their personas; this almost seems like their kind of gig.
They begin with major chord punk chant choruses, well constructed songs and rock-steady music. The outline of white tight fitting t-shirts pauses between songs and the bassist fills the gap between first and second track. These guys have style. Their style varies from hard punk shouts to melodic punk-rock, even a balladic Nirvana-like middle eight which builds up to a chaotic but conclusive ending.
Every band has their anthem, and it’s “Eight Ball Pool” which you can listen to on their Myspace (well mastered and recorded). The honesty, integrity and reflection in this song makes hairs stand on end and heads nod. They got status by playing in the dark, but hey ho – the sun is always shining through.

Highlights - "Hey ho - the sun is always shining through". Not only does it make fuck all sense, if it did it contradicts the rest of the review. The switch early on in what they mean by "style" is very funny.

Fully Loaded Review of 'SHITBOX'
Shitbox
"With a voice that echoes Chris Cornell, singer Clive Cuntbags has that classic weathered tone which is essential to cut through these guitar heavy grunge tracks. Shitbox most impressed me with the track ‘On the Ride’, a number that loses none of the bands power due to an in your face vocal with the guitar lending the track a slight bluesy feel. This is what sets Shitbox apart from other bands trying to pedal the raw rock formula- they’ve managed to keep a ballsy, raw sound whilst still showcasing their musical repertoire. Yes it’s loud and in your face - but these guys know their music and it shows. The band are truly refreshing in a market over-saturated with identical guitar bands wanting to be ‘the next Libertines’."

Highlights - What I like about this is that the band obviously have a chip on their shoulder about Indie music becoming popular again. I hate the expression "know their music".

REVIEW FROM AN INDEPENDANT WEBSITE
FarGash
After their sell-out headline performance at Storm in Leicester Square, where the band pulled in over 60 people on their opening night, FarGash are continuing to tour London venues and bring their own fusionincludes of heavy rock, grunge, indie and rap back to England's capital.
The band Joey Joe Hoe (ex-Switch and Reason vocalist), Deano Pricktease (ex-Switch drummer), Mark Dong (ex-Reason guitarist), Jim Wankfatrick and Rick Snick, and will be gigging in a venue near you very soon !
Our mission is to prove that originality in music is not dead.
The most important thing to us is our fans, so thanks to all that have seen us, and to those that are planning to.
SO TAKE CARE OF EACH OTHER, BECAUSE LIFE'S TOO F*CKING SHORT !

Highlights - obviously the third to first person switch is amazing. The final line about life being too short is amazing. I really like that they chose to star out the word fuck - social responsibility. I'm just totally confused by who the hell they thought might write this drivel and who uploaded it to their myspace page.

Help the aged

2010-04-10T16:11:00.000-07:00

This blog has taken me hours to write. I have just re-read it and realised what a complete mess of idiocy it is. I should probably tell you beforehand that I am covering night shifts at work this weekend and as a result have had 5 hours sleep in 2 days. This appears to have broken my brain, if this blog is anything to go by. Enjoy.

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Do you know what really pisses me off? Middle aged/old people complaining about "the youth of today". Whenever I hear someone banging on about how brilliant their own childhood was and how "isn't it a shame that kids today have computers and mp3 players" I just want to rip out their tongue and turn it into a cunting time machine. Then I could send them packing back to 1990 or whenever the fuck it was that they thought life was so shitting marvelous.

It isn't just old people that do this either. I've heard people in their twenties say things like "I just think it's such a shame, spending all their time on facebook and playing computer games. It's not like when I was a kid". Oh fuck off, I was young less than 15 years ago and I remember it was fucking dull. There was wank all to do and any access to modern technology lead to a direct improvement in the quality of my life.
I know I've said similar things to this before but people who make out as though they are above the latest 'craze' drive me mental. I had to have dinner with this appalling group of middle class fuck-wits over Christmas who basically sneered at me for saying that I use twitter and went on to congratulate one another for how 'not sucked into the whole internet thing' they aren't. They then used the same tired old argument of "I've just got better things to do". Oh those smug pricks. Like what? Are they finishing work, going off for a violin lesson, rehearsing Hamlet with their amateur dramatics group before adding a few chapters to their latest novel? Or are they sat on the sofa drinking wine, watching shit TV and gloating about how better than everyone they are (I really don't like these people).

Anyway, I am going to put forward a case that quite a lot of people might not agree with (Oooh, I'm so fucking controversial); aren't old people getting shitter? When I think back to my grandparents I remember forward thinking people who were excited by the modern world. They were traditional for sure, but they were excited by the modern world. When they didn't understand something they asked questions and showed genuine interest. My Granddad was the first person I knew to have Sky Digital, he liked using player cam whilst watching football.

The old people of today though are boring, arrogant, racist, stubborn Luddites. They arrogantly claim to know all about modern advances in technology but choose not to use them. My Dad is an excellent example of this. After my sister had been in Germany for about 6 months he said to me "I don't speak to your sister really anymore, but this happens when people move abroad". I told him he should get Skype and began explaining what it was, however he interrupted me and arrogantly stated "I know all that but, you know...". What he meant when he said "you know" was "I don't know anything about what you have just said but rather than take advice from some jumped up young person".

This outburst against the old was provoked by something I saw on the train today. The picture at the top of this blog is of an old, confused looking man. Moments before this picture was taken he was holding a mobile phone out in front of stupid face, prodding at it trying to send a text message. He was getting more and more frustrated as the message wouldn't send. His grandchild (roughly 10) was trying to tell him that the message wouldn't send because he was on a tube and had no signal. Rather than listen to the words of his grandson, the ridiculous fool said "Peter, please, I'm trying to sort this out", ignored him and worked himself up into a terrible state. Hopefully he had a heart attack after this.

Where do these new old people get off being such smug pricks? I think the worst group at the moment are the people aged between 55-70. They may have only recently retired so have a loose understanding of how computers and email work and because of this think they're Marty McFly or Captain Spaceman from the Future. That arrogance combined with their old fashioned values and having "worked hard for themselves" makes them honestly believe that they're basically perfect human beings. They understand the modern world better than their parents did but they've also had a harder life than any of us young whipper-snappers could ever imagine.

Old people are holding us back. I don't think we should kill them, heavens no. I do think that we should show them less respect though. Old people are like sticks in the mud. They refuse to take advice from anyone and as a result us young, forward thinking people have to sort out their mess. I think a system needs to be introduced where as a person gets older their opinion becomes less important. This would stop young people from respecting the opinions of their elders and not begin emulating them in their mid twenties. The group of people I spoke about earlier who I had to have dinner with are a perfect example. Maybe these people wouldn't have said such stupid, inane rubbish about modern life if their perception of older people were different.

I propose we stop pandering to the old. Let them stew in their own shit and not know how to turn on the central heating. If we all knew that was what awaited us unless we pulled our finger out and got with the times, maybe the world would be a slightly more tolerable place.

Hit the road Jack (ha ha, what a wag I am!!!)

2010-04-08T04:27:00.000-07:00

This is a blog about 24. If you have not seen episode 16 of season 8 then stop reading now. If you don't like 24, blogs or me then may I suggest another website?

I said a few months ago that as we approached the half way point of this season I would blog my thoughts on how the season is going and various theories on how I think the series might end. We now know that this shall be the final season of 24 which (as far as I am concerned) means that they will HAVE to kill off Jack. There is simply no other way that the show can end.
The season suffered a bit of a boring dip until Dana (Jenny) showed us how much of a mental case she is and went from being one of the most boring characters to ever appear on television to a delicious psychopath capable of serious menace. This was actually a very clever piece of script writing. She seemed such a bland and predictable character, almost as though the script writers were trying too hard to give her depth with a 'mysterious and misguided past' and having her murder some boring parole officer. Now that we know she was involved with terrorists, all of these seemingly dull aspects of her personality and back-story make for one splendidly evil psycho-whore whose motives are extremely unclear.

At the end of episode 16 we saw the president of the IRK Omar Hassan had been murdered by people from his own country. The implications of this are that America cannot complete an extremely important peace agreement. This puts president Taylor in a pretty difficult situation as she won't know who the retaliation should be aimed at. The series itself is now in a pretty odd place as the nuclear weapon Jack and CTU had been chasing all series is now secured and the person CTU were out to protect (Hassan) is dead. Literally anything can happen over the next 8 hours. The next bit of story line will have to somehow lead us towards the grand finale. I have 3 ideas as to how the final 8 hours will play out;

1) War - I wouldn't be entirely surprised if the series ends with such a massive open book and so many possibilities for film/video game ideas. With Hassan gone the IRK may force Taylor's hand and lead America into a massive war. 24 very rarely tries to give a happy ending to any series and I think it would make a fairly bold (and extremely un-American) statement if despite all Jack's efforts he still ultimately couldn't prevent war.

2) Ridiculous 'happy' ending - If they do this I will snap every disc of every box set I own and never encourage anyone to watch 24 ever again. I certainly don't want Kim to still be knocking around at the end of this series. She's a fucking liability. Having said that I don't want her to get kidnapped either. What she needs is a precise strike to her, her stupid husband and her dickhead daughter and someone to text Jack something along the lines of "those pests have been dealt with", then he can breathe a sigh of relief and get back to work. The worst possible ending would be Jack saving the day before swanning off to live with Kim and Renee. If I were in charge Renee would be allowed to live, but only on the condition that she fucking smiles a bit (she's got Jack, what more does she want?) and stops dressing like Lara Croft. I'm such a hate filled man...

and finally (and I think the most likely)...

3) The series ends with a major crisis being avoided at the cost of Jack - Think how many loose ends there still are. Think how many people could still emerge from the cracks and call for Jack's head. I think Dana might be involved in this. My dream ending is that Dana is in really deep cover and all this time her new identity, working for CTU, working with terrorists was so she could either deliver Jack to someone or she had a score to settle with Jack herself. It would be superb if she was related to someone who died as a part of operation nightfall, perhaps the daughter of one of Jack's team (all of whom were killed in the operation).

Well, there's some fucking interesting options if you're me. I have other ideas too I just can't be fucked to blog them. I am going to do another blog for people who don't care about 24 now.

Wank holiday shit-day (I'm such a rebel, fuck the system)

2010-04-02T09:24:00.000-07:00

Is there anything more drab than a bank holiday weekend? Today I woke up in Luton (a nice part of Luton - yes it does exist), spent 3 hours in traffic getting back to south London, had lunch, needed a poo, seen a group of "whacky" twats wearing nun constumes and been on a train to Brighton with said twats.

I am on that train at the moment tapping out a blog via iPhone. Any spelling errors/general shitness can be blamed on that. as wonderful as the. iPhone is I have limited editorial control of this blog.

Anyway, as you read above I have had a splendid, relaxing day so far. I think the only way I could have been less relaxed would be if someone started drilling directly into a tendon whilst Noel Edmonds read any Dan Brown book to me.

I know that this is a common English complaint but why the fuck do we bother to try and have a nice time? It's never going to happen. Why? Because all English people quite openly hate having to spend time around large groups of other people.
The ones that don't are idiots who honestly beleieve that a bank holiday consisting of getting on a national express coach to a Coastal town, staying in an over priced hotel with their anus hemorrhage mated who say things like "love it", drinking cheap alcohol, going to boring night clubs, wearing fancy dress, possibly having sex with someone as drunk, deluded, pathetic and vulgar as themselves and being sick on a bouncer will be anywhere near as fun, memorable and full of hilarity as when the friends (apart from pheobe) came to London to see Ross get married.

Why can't we just stop having bank holidays and all agree to go on holiday at different timed of the year? That way we don't tread each others toes.

I think (total conjecture) that more domestic violence happens as a result of bank holdiays than any football match or media influence. Think about it. Couples spending the day together in ikea or taking that trip to the packed zoo with the kids. Stuck in traffic only to be rained on. Or they sit in a miserable south London pub all day getting hammered, irritable and Reading the daily mail. Then back home to beat ten shades of shit out of each other.

Anyway, have a nice bank holiday weekend. I am nearly in Brighton now. Yes I know, I'm going to the coast... I'm an idiot.

Before I go, why do we have this stupid etiquette in England of you can't use a toilet in a bar or somethig unless you buy a drink? That's just total fascism.

Bye.

Security 'tard

2010-03-27T13:46:00.000-07:00

I’ve just had one of the most surreal, confusing and terrifying conversations of my life. I will reveal the identity of gentleman I had it with later on in the post. I wanted to take a picture of him but you’ll soon understand the level of trouble that could have led to so instead I have drawn a (really shit and inaccurate) caricature of this berserk chap for our collective amusement. Before you start tweeting at me by the way, yes, I am completely aware of the fact that I’m worse at drawing than Stephen Hawkins is at walking.

Ok, here is (sort of) how the conversation went -

I am walking towards the front door of our building at work. He leaps out at me from behind the desk and looms with that mental grin right into my face:

Lunatic:
Have you ever been to Moscow?

Me:
No, I haven’t.

Lunatic:
Oh, I see. One of those? (Winks)

Me:
(Nervous laughter) Erm…

Lunatic:
Where was the last place you went?

Me:
Uh, Frankfurt…

Lunatic:
Oh yeah? (Aggressive) What did you think of the airport?

Me:
It was ok, I can’t really remember it.

Lunatic:
They don’t like you taking pictures in airports you know? When I was in Moscow they kept telling me to stop. I carried on. Then they came up and grabbed me. They threw me out, but I got all the pictures I needed. HA HA HA HA HA.
See you later pal. (Pats me on back).

I left the building a little bit terrified. When I came back from across the road he was sat at his computer looking at the internet dating site ‘plentyoffish’. He totally ignored me this time as he was sort of breathing heavily and looked immersed in what he was doing.
My drawing really doesn’t do him justice. He sort of looks like a cross between Jimmy Hill and Bruce Forsyth but has been locked in a cupboard since the age of 10 after being abused. Seriously disturbing.

The man described above is believe it or not a fucking security guard. He is sometimes one of only 10 security guards on duty for a site that employs close to 4000 people. He is currently the only security guard in my specific building.

This isn’t the only terrifying conversation he has said a bit too close to my face. He once told me that he liked going on flights because all the time he was on the plane he imagined that at any moment he could be a hero and stop a terrorist attack. He told me he enjoyed this more than the holiday itself. After giving me that chilling insight into his mind he went “well, enough daydreaming, back to work” and slapped me on the back again.
How the shitting hell did he get a job as a security guard?

I’ve known some mental security guards in my time.
There was one at my university that used to use expressions like “let’s roll” before waddling off to his ridiculous fiat panda.
He once performed a “random bag check” on me before I entered the library. After the check he banged his fist on the table and said “gotta keep you boys safe”. The most bizarre thing he ever did was after some time off (presumably on holiday) he decided to sport a rather fetching NYPD cap.

He was obviously deluded but just a bit pathetic, but our moustachioed friend is something entirely different, he clearly needs some serious help.
How on earth did he get this job? What was the interview like? Did he stride into the room, sit down on a chair and say to the chief security man (I don’t know how they operate), “have you ever been on a bus? I sniff the seats to see if I can detect a bomb”.
Perfect, you're just the man for the job! When can you start?

I have two hours left. There are two people in this building. One of them is me. The other is him. Oh shit.

A very shit and boring blog - enjoy

2010-03-25T14:13:00.000-07:00

This blog is going to be of basically no interest to anyone who doesn’t care about wrestling. Actually, I will have a quick whinge about Apple earphones first, just to keep you on your toes.

Apple is probably the greatest technology company in the world. I base this statement on nothing other than my own bias. I love Apple products, I love Steve Jobs, and I even love those smug noises they make whilst you operate them. The only technology company that has given me more joy is probably Nintendo.

Why the fuck have Apple never managed to make good earphones? They make the best laptops, desktops, operating systems, smart-phones, mp3 players. They have been making the market leading mp3 player for the last ten years (I have no idea how long the iPod has been out) so why in the name of Satan’s cold vagina have they not managed to make good earphones. They are uncomfortable, they have WAY too much bass, the rubber bit perishes after about a week of use and eventually they just stop working altogether. It’s infuriating! They are like £20 too. Anyway.

Last week I was waxing lyrical about how much I love the Internet. This week I want to bang on sycophantically about something that is far harder to justify my love for, although I really don’t believe it should be.
Wrestling has to be the most entertaining thing in the world. It might be the greatest thing in the world. It really is better than sport. A couple of years ago I was round a mates house watching England play the USA in a football match and after about half an hour with the score at 0-0, I said “if this was wrestling by now someone would have been thrown through a table and had something broken over their head”. Once you eliminate the competitive element sport becomes way more exciting.
I don’t watch it anymore really. Not because I am too grown up or anything, I just genuinely don’t have the time. I try to catch Wrestlemania every year and grab a hold of the story lines going into it.

The main event this year seems to be a no holds barred match between former superstar Bret Hart and WWE chairman Vince McMahon. If you don’t watch wrestling, just read and digest this ok? 13 years ago Vince screwed Hart out of the title by telling the referee to ring the bell even though Bret hadn’t submitted. If you want to know more about this google ‘the montreal screwjob’.
13 years down the line Bret (former superstar, loved by everyone) is going head to head against his tormentor Vince (the comedy villain, boss of company and billionaire). Vince agreed to the match because he thought Bret had a broken leg. Another wrestler Steve Austin made Vince sign a contract agreeing to the terms of the match before Bret informed Vince that he didn’t have a broken leg.

We can laugh at it for being ridiculous but if we’re honest, most people would LOVE real sport to be more like wrestling. When rumors began circulating that John Terry had slept with Wayne Bridges ex-girlfriend the tabloids went mental. They went mental because no matter how much everyone said “it’s got nothing to do with football”, we wanted to hear about it. We wanted to hear Wayne Bridge call Terry a prick and we wanted to hear Terry defend himself. How fabulous would it have been if before the Chelsea vs Man City showdown Wayne Bridge came out with a microphone accompanied by fireworks and started trash talking Terry? Then, the lights could have gone down as Terry descended into the arena. They could argue, say a few catch phrases and then challenge one another to a pay-per-view grudge match. If you can say you honestly wouldn’t have preferred that, you’re basically a fucking liar.
What other sport wouldn’t be enhanced by it’s other competitors joining the commentators and bickering during the event?

Wouldn’t it be utterly splendid if there were cameras in the locker rooms for other sports? I can’t think of anything better than the England cricket team being filmed before a test match and sorting out their personal issues with their wives right before taking the field.

People always hark on about how things (TV, comics, magazines, whatever) are never as good as when they were a kid. Well, we all know that’s not true, it’s just different to our memories, but I must confess, when I watch it now it doesn’t grab me quite the same as back in the ‘Attitude’ days. I was however utterly delighted to see it’s still completely ludicrous - here are the recent hi-lights for me;

There is a new Russian Wrestler Vladimir “The Moscow Mauler” Kozlov who is a communist. To be honest I can’t do it justice with my mortal words, so I have included a link to his entrance video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsPWgmKAcUo

They also have an Irish wrestler called Sheamus “The Celtic Warrior”. Sheamus is a Catholic with ginger hair and pale skin.
Splendid.

Net love

2010-03-17T04:44:00.000-07:00

Here's a statement I'm sure quite a lot of people disagree with; The internet is literally the greatest thing to have ever been invented. It's probably the greatest thing that ever will be invented. Anyone who thinks otherwise is an idiot and might as well piss off and live in a cave. They may as well stop reading this blog as they need to finish fashioning their hunting weapons from their stones before sundown, so as they can catch an antelope for their supper. They should probably stop worrying about their jobs and start worrying about dinosaurs eating their children or something... you get the fucking idea, I think they live in the past.

The internet is great, it has made the world smaller, information available at a click and pornography available to all, no matter what their sexual preference - straight, gay, bestiality, legend of zelda fetish... all tastes are catered for in internet land.

I think I'm going to defend some of the common criticisms I hear of the internet -

1) "The internet has caused our media to dumb down" - No it hasn't you fucking idiot (yes, I'm aware that I am saying this to myself). How on earth can the 'internet' possibly be responsible for the content that people put on it. That's exactly the same as those annoying middle aged, middle class, right wing women who say "oh god, can you believe what that Katie Price/Peaches Geldof/Paris Hilton has been up to? I don't know why people bother putting them in those tabloid newspapers/magazines/television shows/home made porn websites, I'm certainly not interested".
There is a lot of quality content on the internet, just learn to use a fucking computer and google before you criticise, you utter horse vagina.

2) "I don't trust the internet, my bank/phone company/car insurance company/sex toy provider is always telling me their systems are down when I call them. All this modern technology (tsssk), things were better the old fashioned way". No they weren't. Things took fucking forever the 'old fashioned way'. The old fashioned way of banking meant I had to go to a bank, stand in a queue with cunts for hours only to be eventually served by people who vaguely resembled humans and were terrifyingly in charge of my money. I much prefer the online method.

3) "I'm not interested in that facebook/twitter/friends reunited/seeing my house on google street view/adultfriendfinder.com I don't want everyone knowing my details". Anyone who complains about their privacy online, seriously, how much do you think people fucking care about your pathetic existence? If you think this I would basically prefer you to be dead, but I wouldn't bother trawling the internet for hours looking for your personal details so I could commit the murder myself. You'll probably die in the next cold winter anyway when you can't work out how to use that "new, fancy digital boiler".

That's as many as I can be bothered to do for now.

The Internet has the power to excite, educate, stimulate, arouse, entertain and satisfy. It also has the power to expose and promote some of maddest thing you've never dreamt could have existed.

This week I have discovered the fine sport of chess-boxing. If you don't already know what chess-boxing is google it. I don't like boxing. I don't like chess either. Put the two together and fuck me; you've got an entertaining spectactle.
The first high profile fight to be hosted in the UK took place in London last weekend. Sadly I was working and could not attend. I strongly suggest you all get into it, here is an article to get you started - http://tinyurl.com/ycaku3v.

That's all I can be fucked to type for now.

Bye

System Failure

2010-03-11T13:03:00.000-08:00

Often in these blogs I come across as an angry man. I don't think I am an angry man. Possibly cynical, definitely skeptical and certainly irritable but not actually angry. I fly off the handle into minor tantrums over stupid little things like losing my keys, "where the fuck have I put my cunting keys, I can't do anything until I find them. I can't sleep, I can't eat, I can't leave the fucking house" and continue to stamp around like a moody elephant until they are found, at which point it's back to total calm. Ok, calm might be the wrong word, just sort of bloated, apathetic, submissive barely breathing semi - consciousness.

Anyway, most things that make me momentarily angry, from being out of milk to the lucid realisation that we probably live in a godless universe and I have basically wasted my entire life are pretty swiftly resolved and forgotten about moments later. However, this evening a fire was awoken within me. Pure, passionate, beautiful, unhinged and painful rage surged through my body and darted out of my eyes, nostrils and throat as the television screen told me my playstation save file had been "corrupted".

I am a fairly big gamer, as anyone who knows me will be aware. In my flat we have all 3 home consoles plus a nintendo DS. I really prefer video games to films, television, reading, radio, magazines. Anything.

This week has been a splendid week for obsessive gamers. Onlive has finally announced the date it will go live online (although at present this is in America only) which has caused a great deal of speculation and online chatter about how successful the service will be. Sony have shown us how the Playstation move works and even as we speak I am getting tweeted new information about Fable 3. All of this is very exciting, however the best part of this whole week for me has been playing Heavy Rain.

I am sure you all know about this game already, but in short; it's a game that is almost entirely based on decision making. You are trying to solve a crime and discover who the serial killer in the game is before he murders again. You do this from the perspective of 4 different characters, all with fantastically fascinating and complex back stories.

The game is more like interacting with a film. My housemate and I have been playing a few different files as it was said before the game came out that if you made different decisions throughout your game the ultimate outcome would be different. Anyway, my week has been largely dominated by playing this absolute masterwork. It confirms my belief that video games are far more valuable to society than films or television. The voice acting is superb, the cinematography is beautiful and the scenes are at times breathtakingly moving. It makes you think as well. You cannot play the game without thinking and keeping your wits about you. You have to make moral choices that go far beyond 'that is a man on a screen that I am controlling, stab stab, shoot shoot, rape rape'. Like with a good film, you feel for the characters, you understand them, you get inside their heads. Even the ones you hate.

This evening was supposed to be last night of the first run through. I was about to fire up the save file and march forward to victory when the following message appeared on my screen - "save file corrupt". Is that it? Save file corrupt? Is there nothing I can do about this? It's just so final, so terminal. All those hours wasted. A single tear rolled down my cheek as I gasped for breath. I tried to tell myself it wasn't true. I turned off the console, turned it back on. The same message again. I sank to my knees, flopped to the floor only to rise moment later screaming "Damn you. Damn you world".

I despise technology breaking like this. Breaking to a point that you cannot retrieve. It's just so unfair. It's like when my iPod became corrupted. So many hours spent making playlists. All gone. And there is nothing we can do about it, because we live in the human world, whilst they live in the robot world of files and data. They don't understand death threats or tears.

That's literally all I had to say in this blog. Sorry if I've let you down. If it makes you feel any better go on google maps, they have added street view to all of the U.K now. I am looking at bits of vandalism I did several years ago. Good, it's mainly still there.

OOhh that's so random, that's so fucking random

2010-03-02T08:38:00.000-08:00

I've spent about an hour today looking at a fan page on facebook. It is for people who wish to become a fan of "random laughter when you remember something". The (hugely offensive) picture atop this blog is from the group. I hate the word random, "oh that's so random, oh random random random, that's so funny". No it's not. It's just things, things that aren't that funny. Here, let me help you;

Random–adjective
1.
proceeding, made, or occurring without definite aim, reason, or pattern: the random selection of numbers.
2.
Statistics. of or characterising a process of selection in which each item of a set has an equal probability of being chosen.

Random is not - laughing at someone sending a 'whacky' text to their mates nan along the lines of "oh, my lovely hammock. What a jolly time have I upon you. Huzzah huzzah huzzah madam". That's just moronic gibberish I made up, it's not random.

Ok, there are more definitions of random but I didn't want to fill this blog with rubbish from the online dictionary. Where was I? Ah, I remember - that bastard facebook page.

Yes, I was looking at this page to feel better about myself. The page is full of idiots saying things like "I did this the other day on a train, lolz" or "I did this in a lecture and all my friends thought I was mad, I suppose I am a bit mad, lolz". That's another pet hate, when people tell you they are mad (I know this has been covered to death). My stock response is "yeah, schizophrenia? Bi-polar? Or are you just a twat who thinks they're funny?"

Anyway, as much as I hate these sorts of groups, I am so very pleased they exist because they remind me that there are people living in this world who are a bigger waste of space than me.

Sat on the next desk to me at work is a young man who has just started making a film, some rubbish about boring politics. He is obviously very talented and getting his first major break at something he actually wants to do; his own film. I hate him for this. Why did I pick such an obscure 'dream'? There comes a time in your life where you realise exactly what it is you want to do with your life. This probably happens around the final year you are at university. I don't mean a career choice or anything like that, I mean something far more simple and easily identifiable like "I want to be famous" or "I want to work with children" or "I want academic success" or "I want to be a rebel", something like that. As soon as you have decided that you start planning a route to your goal. That is your first mistake. I decided around the age of 20-2, that I wanted to be an academic. I wanted to dedicate my life to studying 'art music' and being some ponce of a composer who sat around a university department musing on complex concepts and representing my conclusions via sonic art (in your heads you have permission to slap me for being a pseudo-intellectual tit). I would have happily done this had the opportunity been there for me, I would have happily done this for considerably less money than I am earning now. Of course as a younger man I dreamed of other things, but this is the only goal I have ever had that has remained stuck in my brain as being credible and desirable.

Today I also had a really quick chat with a former lecturer of mine. He was and I suppose still is a man I have an enormous amount of respect for. He asked me what I was doing for work. I told him. He asked what had happened with my phd application. I told him (it never happened). He said "oh". I knew what he meant. "Oh". "Oh, you are a massive failure". "Oh, all of the things you want in your life I have, you have basically not made the grade, cut the mustard, come up to scratch, you pathetic shit bag. Here, have some pity", that's what he meant.

For all the bravado, for all the cocky arrogance, a five minute chat with this boffin is enough to reduce me to tears and realise that my life has consisted of little more than one crushing disappointment after another.

Well anyway, I am going to have a great big sulk whilst listening to Flickerstick - my designated 'sulking' band. They were the winners of that VH1 reality show Bands on the run. I am aware that they are shit but they remind me of a happier time when I was 16 and me and my older brother used to sit in our undecorated living room on dining table chairs watching it late at night, and I still believed I might have some kind of worthwhile existence ahead of me instead of this bleak mediocrity I am forced to tolerate, day in day out.
In fact they now have more significance as I used to listen to them when I was 19 after my brother had moved back up North. He got me a live album to remind me of that one happy summer I once had, which I lost within weeks of starting university and to this day pretend I still have. Yes, I am a terrible human being, but at least I am desperately miserable and dissatisfied so you've got that on on me, ok?

Whackberry

2010-02-22T08:07:00.000-08:00

Why on earth does literally everyone love Blackberry so much all of a sudden? There was a time not so long ago the Blackberry worked as a very effective badge for a very particular breed of di*khead. You know the sort; wears a suit, works in ‘business’, goes for ‘working lunches’, swaggers about town acting like a bigger tosser than Piers Morgan and Noel Edmonds combined and is completely oblivious to the reality of when the sun’s core finally explodes everything they have worked so hard for will be wiped from all existence.

In the past if you saw someone holding a Blackberry you could basically assume of them the above. Sadly, this is no longer the case. There is a new type of Blackberry user. The same basic traits still apply, the delusions of grandeur, the ‘leaving your phone out on the table whilst you eat’ sort of twattery that ensures everyone can see your di*khead badge.

Since the worlds most boring mobile device had a rebrand, young, cool people who drink smoothies, go to the gym for fun and eat at world food restaurants have joined the worlds largest moron club. I say young, cool people, what I actually mean is people who think they are cool. People who have watched way too much American television and think they live in New York when really they live in Enfield. People who think of themselves as socialites when their Friday nights are far more ‘Faces nightclub’ in Essex than the groucho club. People who think they are young, trendy professionals who actually work in such a boring admin job that if they didn’t have their Blackberry to escape from reality they would probably leap under the nearest bus. Still, they insist on signing off their emails with that pompous “sent from my Blackberry” as though they’re the next Alan sodding Sugar.

My other issue is with these new Blackberry users is that they must be completely stupid. In the past people were given Blackberrys by their work. Now these young idiots have made a conscious decision to get one of these handsets. There is only one Blackberry I would consider owning (the Storm 2). The rest are low on features, horrible to use and have an incredibly unfriendly operating system. Most smart phones now sync to the Microsoft exchange server so that’s no longer an advantage. Also most smart phones are now 3g. The Blackberry I harbour the most resentment for is the curve8520. How the hell is that monstrosity so popular? No 3g and a terrible physical keypad – what is this, 1642?

I would like to finish off with a reference to the picture at the top of this post. This is a picture I sneakily took of a man getting off the tube. He was orange with fake tan, wearing the most awful pink and white shirt and reading a book called “business and finance for otherwise intelligent people not currently working in the industry”. The book was also pink. He had a Blackberry.

Beware the company you keep.

Sacré bleu!

2010-02-10T04:55:00.000-08:00

Hm, been a while since I have done one of these. Not sure why really, I have been doing literally shit all with my life for the last couple of weeks and in my last posting I spoke about nothing more than going to the toilet.

I'm ill. Thought I would let you all know, I've got a bloody cold. I hate being ill (because most people love it). I hate being ill because I hate it when other people are ill. I know people who the second they feel the slightest bit off take about 10 years off work and book a funeral for themselves. Ok, I'm exaggerating but it still annoys me. I am actually quite good when ill, I mope about feeling sorry for myself but generally get on with my life. It does make me hate humanity a little bit more than usual though, because I know it was one of you fucks that has made me ill. I reckon it was someone on the tube which brings me nicely to a point I have wanted to make for some time now. Do you ever think/say/agree with the following;

"English people are so rude, they stand on the tube/bus/train/escalator and never say anything to each other. You don't get that in other countries, everyone is more polite and friendly".

If you agree with that then you can pretty much just fuck off and drown in a bucket of your own piss you boring piece of cunting shit. Why should everyone be so fucking friendly? I mean does it really make life any more tolerable? Of course not. Sitting in complete isolation on the tube or on a bus is one of the few pleasures I still have left in my pathetic, miserable life. I fizz with rage inside when someone invites themselves on one of my short commutes. So, if I can't even tolerate someone who I might consider to be a friend jabbering away in my ear why in the name of scrotum would I want to talk to a complete stranger? What fucking life changing wisdom are they going to bestow upon me on the short ride from Lambeth North to Tower Hill? In my experience whenever I speak to a stranger they end up being;

(1) A complete fucking moron with boring views on everything and a total waste of bio mass - the number of times fucking fools have tried to impart some kind of life changing message to me is ridiculous. I think it has happened to me more times than anyone else and I have no idea why. People trying to give you some kind of life lesson, so infuriating. The most recent example of this was on a train from Brighton to London. This utter dick came and sat next to me and started asking me where I was going and what I was doing and telling me I looked stressed. He was telling me about how he had just got back from living in Thailand for a year and it had changed the way he thought, really cleared up things for him. I was actually quite rude to him, I told him he was a middle class cliche. Then I called him a prick. Then a cunt. Then asked him to fuck off an let me get on with my book.

(2) a pathetic, desperate for attention prick.These are usually people who think they are a real "character". They spend their entire life trying to make other people laugh.

(3) A fucking lunatic. Not so long ago I was on a bus to Clapham and there was a man with a bike trying desperately to start a conversation with someone. After trying to get the attention of several different people his gaze fell upon me. I, foolishly said out of fear, pity and other things "you ok?". It was at this point I noticed on the back of his bike was a sort of shrine to Adolf Hitler (this is absolutely true) and other bits of Nazi memorabilia. I then noticed he was wearing an all black jump suit covered in functioning, flashing fairly lights. He got right up in my face and uttered only the following words - "shit round here, ins't it?". Oh good.

I have found a few ways of avoiding situations like this in the future. The first seems like a pretty robust technique - listening to music and pretending you can't hear them. I don't even listen to music on my iPod anymore, I like to put on audio books so I can hear what people around me are saying and then pretend not to hear them. I actually prefer this as it means I'm actually choosing to ignore them out of contempt for their idiocy rather than simply being oblivious to them. Secret, silent, gorgeous resentment.

The other method is pretending to be French. The other day I was walking around London on my own and some northerners came up to me and asked "excuse me, can you tell us t' way t' Trafalgar Square?". I sort of shrugged and did my best Arsene Wenger impression and carried on walking. This backfired a little bit as the brutes went on to hurl racist abuse at me, calling me a "garlic muncher", asking where I kept my snails and singing alternative lyrics to the French national anthem. "Sacré bleu!" I thought to myself as I scuttled away as fast as my paws would carry me.

Anyway, my point is that literally all people are bastards. Horrible rude bastards and I don't want to talk to them. All they do is drip mental at you or make you ill.

Right, I am off to have more lempsip max.

Bye.

Toilet trouble

2010-01-26T13:12:00.000-08:00

I'm feeling a bit hard done by after a recent visit to the toilet (leave it). I just think I was a victim of various rules surrounding toilet etiquette, if such a thing exists.

At my place of work when you walk into the toilet room you find yourself facing the side of the cubicles. Even closer to you are a couple of urinals (picture to the right of your screen). Something that has just occurred to me - urinal cake is stupid name. Urinal cake. Urine cake. A cake of urine. How positively disgusting.

Anyway, I don't like using urinals for a very simple reason. Whenever I use one I always and I really mean always, every sodding time, I get piss on myself. Not just splash back, great big puddles of piddle. I must have the technique totally wrong or something, I always seem to put myself back in my trousers before I have really finished. Maybe stretching round the fly causes a blockage that all of a sudden leaks when you straighten the old chap back out. I don't know.
I will always avoid using a urinal. This often leads to men thinking that I'm embarrassed about my penis. I am, but that's an entirely different matter. Nothing to do with size , more the colour of it and the shape and a scar, it's quite a long story that you probably don't want to hear.

So anyway, as I said, you can see the side of the cubicles as you walk in. Today I noticed that the doors to both cubicles were open, however I could clearly hear that someone was on one of the toilets, but I couldn't tell which one. This put me in a bit of an awkward situation. Do I walk up to the cubicles and just guess which one is free or do I ask? I opted to do neither and wait.

At this point a confident, tall, handsome, urine waterfall of a man strode purposefully into the bathroom, undid his fly and began his almighty yellow stream. He then, whilst pissing so loud I could hear it, turned his head towards me and pointed at the urinal next to him as though I hadn't seen it. I politely said "oh, no thanks, I'm waiting for a cubical". His response - "oh, need a shit do you?"...
How is that ok to ask? Why am I being made to feel self conscious? I didn't need a shit, but instead of getting into a confrontation with a man who could use piss as weapon just smiled.

Moments after this the man from the cubical left to wash his hands, which he did thoroughly, like freakishly so. This convinced my already panicked brain to believe that he was wanking with the door open and was simply waiting for some poor unfortunate to catch him. What a fucking disgusting pervert.

I quickly had my own piss and left the cubical to find the urinal king was now washing his hands. He looked at me with complete contempt and said "that was a quick shit", his facial expression let me know that he knew I was embarrassed about using a urinal. He probably thinks it's because of my 'size'. By this point there were more confident men in the toilet. They all laughed at what he said.
At this point I just wanted to get the hell out so turned on the tap to wash my hands, but as a result of 'cubical wankers' super-wash the tap was boiling hot, which caused me to yelp like a tiny beagle. More laughter from those cockey, swaggering pissing machines.

All of the above is true and I feel really hard done by and ashamed. I don't get how any of it happened. What happened to just being quiet in the toilet?

I am off to lick my wounds, by which I mean watch the new 24 (episode 5 season 8) and generally get over excited about the iSlate (which will hopefully be announced tomorrow).

Toodles.

A very frustrated week day

2010-01-21T13:05:00.000-08:00

I am apparently very irritable today. I think this could be for quite a few reasons.

I have just had to do loads of housework. Is there anything more futile in the world than fucking housework? Ludicrous, pointless way to spend your time. Unfortunately, if there is the slightest bit of clutter or dirt in my flat I start to literally freak out and behave like a total lunatic, shouting to myself, shouting out the window, going out and buying things I don't need (I honest to god around 9 months ago brought the very laptop I type this on because my room was a bit dusty).
As a result, I must clean. Cleany clean clean until it's all gone. Otherwise the brain goes wrong. Make the dirt go away, away to only come back again.
Honestly, it sometimes feels like you've started a fight with an enormous mountain of cotton wool. You don't even get the satisfaction of seeing your bones shatter and your hands covered in blood that you would from fighting a brick wall. You never make a dent in it and it never makes a dent in you. Well, physically at least. Just a frustrating, tiring, never ending chasm of self inflicted pain. I am still talking about housework, by the way.
I think what makes it worse is my compulsion to do it, and my flatmates flat out refusal to have it dictate his life. This isn't a complaint about him by the way. I am jealous. He can just lay on the sofa watching stuff on bbc iplayer, drinking, eating, writhing around in his own filth. The lucky, filthy bastard. I would love to do that. Instead, mop mop, scrub scrub, shower shower. ARRRGGHHH!!!

The second reason I am very irritable (possibly) is because this is my last week of night shifts ever. I am unsure as to whether I actually want to stop doing night shifts or if other people have made me think that I want to stop doing them.

I am also panicking about the state of my life, like "oh shit, nothing is going how I planned it would". This leads to me making list upon list of things to do for the next year. I then immediately start each of these projects and within an hour have had a tantrum that they seem to be going nowhere and throw the list against the wall.

Another thing, when did everyone become so bloody confident all of a sudden? It's ridiculous. I am jealous, angry and frankly scared by it. Everyone just strides around telling everyone else about their problems and their sex lives and everything else. Most of these people have absolutely no business being confident. They, like me and pretty much 99.9% of the rest of this absurd planet's population never do anything out of the ordinary or exciting but for some reason march around pretending that they do. When did this become an acceptable way to behave? I'm furious about it. I always seem to hear people saying things like "I'm the sort of person who likes to give other people advice, great at listening but can never sort myself out". Oh boo hoo, fuck off and drown somewhere, preferably in your own fucking tears. It's obviously such a massive problem that you think the only place you talk about it is in public in front of loads of people you've never met. You cunt. I have literally no idea who that was aimed at. Whoever it was though, they have rattled my cage and THEN some. Everyone just seems so confident these days, strutting around telling anyone who will listen about themselves. Grrr.

I am just a ball of anger today. Maybe I should go and get a new laptop.

Enough, this (blog of mine) must stop now!

Goodbye

24 season 8 - my wish list

2010-01-18T09:11:00.000-08:00

***WARNING THIS BLOG IS ABOUT 24 - SEASON 8. IF YOU ARE YET TO WATCH EPISODES 1 & 2 THIS MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS. ALSO IF YOU DON'T LIKE 24, OR ME, OR MY WRITING YOU MAY FIND YOURSELF BEING BORED STIFF. IF THE ABOVE APPLIES TO YOU I HAVE PROVIDED A LINK TO PORNOGRAPHY, PLEASE ENJOY***

http://www.aztecnologia.it/www.zakke.com/download/jokes/Pics/XXX%20funny%20Simpsons%20Porn%20-%20Lisa%20Whore.jpg

Ok, so I've just finished the first 2 episodes of 24 - season 8.

So far so good, some nice new characters who look like they might develop really well as the series goes on. I particularly like Dana Walsh (or Jenny), I think as the plot unfolds she might prove to be a delicious little neurotic nutcase.

Anyway, what I thought I would do was the following; a 24 season 8 wish list. I'm sorry it's a bit boring but I'm pretty excited about this new season. Very few things in life make me happy, 24 is one of them.
The idea of the wish list is quite simple - things I would like to happen as the series unfolds.
I might do another around episode 12.

So without further ado, here we go, my 24 wish list, yaaaaayyyy:

1) Kim either (a) gets wasted before making it to the airport (b) flies to LA and stays there forever never to bother Jack ever again or (c) turns out to be a terrorist and blows up her plane with her and her family on it. All she ever does is fuck everything up. EVERYTHING, for me, you Jack, America etc etc etc. Please please PLEASE just kill her off. And her annoying shit of a child.

2) Tony. The return of the big T.A. I think that this season Tony should probably be killed off but he and Jack have unfinished business.

3) This new head of field ops seems a little bit of a flake. I would like to see Jack show him the ropes, he seems nice but he has to either man up or die up. Maybe if his bird fancied Jack that would sort him out.

4) I know she is coming back in the next episode so I would absolutely love to see Jack 'crank one up' Renee Walker. Well, maybe not just rag her but you know, get all emotionally attached to her. He needs a new woman and she is his type. Failing sex, just seeing them working together again will be pretty exciting.

5) Wayne palmer to turn up. I am worried about him. He's been in a Coma for ages.

6) Charles Logan to come back as a good character rather than a bad one. I genuinely felt sorry for him in season 6 and I think that flipping him to be a good character could add a lot OR as a comic book bad guy. Maybe he could kidnap Renee or be part of some enormous conspiracy. I know he is coming back but not sure how late in the series.

7) I really don't want Jack to spend too long at CTU. They always bring too much 'good old days' stuff into 24 and I kinda like this new set up of a swish building and a new hard ass boss.

And finally...

8) Meredith I want to remain a good character. We all know that Jack usually has more than one love interest on the go in each series so maybe that could be her role.

I am going to post this as a link on twitter. I might try to get #24 - season 8 wish list trending. Please join in. I normally don't care what other people think about anything but as "it's the most wonderful time of the year", please join in the twittering fun. Woo hoo! Jack's back!

Happy old year

2010-01-05T13:04:00.000-08:00

Happy new year, you blogging freaks.

If you want to know my thought on 'new years resolutions' carry on reading, if you don't, may I suggest clicking on this link (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ZgDNTAo6e3Y/Rx41nisKMlI/AAAAAAAABFo/mmIHRQ1yWk8/s400/peeved+french+cat.JPG) and a happy new year to you.

I can finally breath a sigh of relief, December is over. This is without question my favorite week of the year, everyone is finally back to work and the world can go back to normal. It is the longest possible period of time before I have to pretend to have fun or like something I secretly hate. As much as I always say "this year I won't do it, I won't do anything I don't want to or spend time with anyone I don't like", it's apparently unavoidable. This year I did better than usual. I managed to avoid spending any time with my family and nearly managed to avoid seeing any people I am forced to be friends with. Still I massively resent having to pretend to do things I don't like. Going to dinner with people you secretly don't like but have to smile around. I actually found myself sat at a dinner table with a group of snobbish twats who I have to pretend to like whilst they snootily sneered at people who blog or use twitter. When I announced that I am a keen blogger and micro-blogger I got the usual patronising response of "well, I'm sure it's fun if you have time for that kind of thing". Dicks. I hope they actually read this, as one of my new years resolutions is to become the sociopath I have always dreamed of being.

I used to say I don't make new years resolutions, but I think secretly everyone does, even if they do it unconsciously.

I think that the winter break gives people enough time to reflect on the state of their awful lives that they begin to resent the relentless tick of their heart beat and wish for nothing more than it to stop, thus allowing them to escape this monotony. With no boring 9-5 job to distract them from the emptiness of their miserable, pathetic and futile existence they begin to frantically search for any small joy they can hold on to and start pretending that they would be happy to see a 'white Christmas' or even more ridiculous pay a visit to a church. Christmas day itself comes and they awkwardly see family for probably the only time in 12 months and make empty promises to make more of an effort to stay in touch with one another. All of these delusions combined give them a new sense of hope that if they can just make one or two small, insignificant changes to their lives they might lead to larger, significant improvements that actually make them happy and the pain of having to continue to live more bearable. New years eve acts as a very convenient marker and as big ben chimes 12 times, we all begin to transform our lives. Again. Every fucking year.

Despite my cynicism, I am actually all for this idea and feel that now is an appropriate time to make my list of new years resolutions known to you.

1) Become the sociopath I have always dreamed of being.

I have come to realise that it is pretty unhealthy for me to persist in harbouring all of my silent aggression. I dislike most of the people I meet so I might aswell offend them, then I won't have to speak to them. Ok, I know that in practice this probably won't happen so I have a back up plan. When you are a writer people always buy you 'nice' notepads to do work in. I have not used a notepad in years, what the fuck is this 1954? Anyway, to stop them from going to waste I am going to start carrying one around with me and everytime something I don't like happens I am going to write it down in my 'list of hatred'. This will probably mainly consist of things people do that irritate me. My hope is that at some point someone on the 'list of hatred' will pick up the notebook out of curiosity and be so offended by what appears under their 'profile of disgust' that they never speak to me again. It also leaves me with the brilliant defense of "well, they shouldn't be looking at my things". Perfect. Since starting my little list I have spent at least half an hour a day looking at it and laughing manically, then spending the rest of the day seething in silent rage.

2) Live like a housebound, terminally ill pensioner.

Last year I got laughed at by my friends when I told them I was going to buy an over bed table. (for those of you unsure as to what this is - http://www.medimart.com/Medical%20Mart%20Retail%20Website/Other%20pics/homecarebeds/20H001.jpg).
The ridicule actually stopped me from getting one. I have regretted this decision ever since. On the 2nd of January I got a pair of pyjamas which I have basically not stopped wearing since purchase. Even at work. The table is on the way.

3) Make less time for family and friends.

If a group of people can eat into your life and try their best to ruin it by making you have 'fun' it's these guys. As someone who doesn't like confrontation I tend to just reluctantly meet up with my friends and secretly resent them. I still don't like confrontation so rather than tell them when I don't want to see them, I will just improve the lies and pretend I am busy more often.

and finally...

4) Lose weight.

I know, it's a common one, but I want to get down to below 11 stone again.

Happy new year.

Fuck you I won't do what you tell me, unless what you tell me happens to be go out and buy a RATM song.

2009-12-21T10:11:00.000-08:00

Blogging community, how do you do?

It's been a while since I have done one of these, I have been on what I suppose were my early Christmas holidays for the last couple of weeks. I have been to Germany and been to see friends and ended up more stressed and wound up than if I'd have just been at work in that time.

Obviously quite a lot has happened in 2 weeks, and if I were to comply with the usual pathetically low standards of what I consider to be acceptable content for my blogs, it would be literally an hour or 2 before I could get back to playing Street Fighter 2 Turbo (downloaded last night for wii virtual console).

Fortunately (in some respects) one event alone has caught my attention more than any other of the last 14 days, or perhaps 12 months; the outcome of this years x-factor.

Most years the x-factor is a fairly inoffensive, jolly, emotional and positive series. I get genuinely annoyed when people sneer, mock and criticse the ability or even more annoying the integrity of the contestants .
Some of the worst ones I have heard over the years have been;

"they don't even write their own songs" - Coldplay and RazorLight write their own songs and they're shit.

"They're just doing what Simon tells them too" - Yes, like you probably do with your boss in whatever call center/admin department you happen to work in.

"They're just untalented people desperate to be famous" - Can you REALLY begrudge anyone of wanting to fulfill an ambition that they consider to be credible?

I like the x-factor. I like the contestants and I like the idea behind the show. It's entertaining and I think that every now and again someone or a group of people genuinely talented are put on television and given (for want of a better expression) their "15 minutes". This year, however the show's outcome has left me feeling at best a little bit empty and at worst sickened by the entire human race.

From the moment John and Edward were voted off I lost interest in who actually won the show. Not that I dislike any of the people in the show, I just wasn't interested anymore. The final three were possibly the three most boring human beings to have ever graced our screens. I found Stacey more and more annoying each week that she stayed (although as soon as she was voted off I instantly found her charming again), whilst Olly and Joe conjured up about as much excitement as a lecture on different chalk types might. Again, this is not an attack on them, I just found them a bit dull.
I was furious that this year two genuine sparks of excitement - 'Jedward' and the girl band 'Miss Frank' seemed to be voted off because they didn't fit the voters mold. I don't for a second think this was Simon or any other judges fault, it is the viewing public who cannot stand to see anything other a preconceived idea of what a competition winning pop star should be. I genuinely believe that Miss Frank had a wonderful spark and chemistry and a great deal of potential whilst John and Edward were fantastic entertainers. Sure they were annoying but that's fine.
I think this has upset more than it probably should have but for a very good reason. I used to believe that the vast majority of British people preferred something unusual and that didn't fit the mould. I used to think that as a nation we championed underdogs, we cheered the bizarre and would any day prefer to see something curious rather than something conventional. I was cured of this delusion as the fabulously bizarre were brushed aside in favor of the 3 drones, the heroes of the dullards.

Of course this was an over reaction to the result of a prime time television competition and probably what happened was most people found little Joe too adorable to vote against, but somewhere there were groups of people who wanted to rebel against this atrocity. Unfortunately what happened was smug, idiot twittering pricks launched the most embarrassing viral campaign of all time; 'Make Rage Against the Machine Christmas number 1".

For the past week my inbox, facebook home page and twitter feed has been flooded with idiotic dribbling of morons who think that they are in some way rebelling against a system of some sort by making the excruciatingly dull popular music outfit RATM Christmas number one.
I used to like RATM when I was 13 as all angst ridden idiots did, but I still sort of saw them for what they were. In the past week, actual adults have said things to me like "yeah, but RATM actually stand for something man, they mean something, not like this Simon Cowell ass licking shit", ADULTS, REAL HUMAN ADULTS!!!

One of my pet hates is people who are into glorified pop music getting really up themselves when talking about really dull pop bands and sneering at something they consider to be less valid, and this campaign has pretty much been the worst example of it ever. Over the past week I have heard people talking about RATM in the same way one might a Bach Fugue or a Chopin Mazurka. It's just total insanity.

I really don't want to get snobbish here about music. I used to like RATM I still actually have some on my iTunes but I see the transparency that apparently other people can't. They are no more than a brand, like any other pop band. I mean come on, they are called 'Rage Against The Machine' for fucks sake. The name alone conjures images of a 15 year old sat wearing only black in a bedroom, looking at a picture of George W Bush then of Justin Timberlake and screaming "Nooo, I won't be a part of it". The song actually contains the lyrics "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me". Pathetic.

This really isn't criticism of RATM, it really isn't. What I am angry about is the attitude of people who run these campaigns, people who claim to be making some kind of point, some kind of protest against 'the machine'. I don't even care that the two competing songs are owned by the same record label, that is smallest part of the hypocrisy. What is making me so unbelievably furious is the snobbery of those thinking they are making some kind of stand against the idea of x-factor culture when really they are simply voting for something else of only equal merit to the very thing they are protesting against, and even more hilariously going out as part of a campaign to en mass to buy a song that contains the lyrics "fuck you I won't do what you tell me".

And breath...

Anyway, I really hope you all have a lovely Christmas. I will be working Christmas day which I am actually quite pleased about having decided I literally like no humans anymore. I will be spending Christmas day with my Wii, which I have had some magical moments with recently. It's almost three years ago to the day since I got it and whenever I switch it on I get that magical feeling again. I actually shed a tear at the sounds of Wii sports earlier.

Have a nice time you fucking fools.

Christmas shopping - the new fun easy way.

2009-12-03T04:23:00.000-08:00

Over the past 12 months it has slowly dawned upon me that I am incompatible with the rest of society. I used to think this was because I was in some way superior, however going to university soon knocked some sense into me. Then I started thinking that it was something wrong with me, although as I have aged I have become more certain of my initial conclusions when pondering the rest of the human race.
It comes down to what you enjoy and I have come to realise that I simply don't enjoy the same things as the vast majority of people and when I make this known to people I am treated in one of two ways; 1: like I am just trying to be difficult, and making it up (if I ever hear anyone utter the words to me "you love it really", ever again I swear I will smash my own head into a wall over and over again until I'm dead) or 2: simply ignored. I think I prefer option 2. I would rather be ignored and left to myself than being made to feel as though I have to join in with other peoples idea of fun. I suppose I should explain what I am banging on about, shouldn't I?

Yesterday I went Christmas shopping. I have never really been Christmas shopping before. Christmas shopping for me usually involves me going to an hmv on around the 20th of December and buying about £100 worth of DVD box sets for people. Before doing this I decide exactly who I am buying for and send a mass tweet or facebook status update along the lines of "Here is who I am buying Christmas presents for (insert names), if you are not on this list don't get me a present unless you wish to be disappointed. Thanks". Although I have done this again this year, I decided to take a bit more time actually buying the presents, and as a result spent a couple of hours on Oxford Street yesterday.

Before I start this I want to make something clear. Anyone who thinks I am being a 'Scrooge' is an idiot. What a boring thing to say about someone. It isn't funny to call someone that, it's incredibly boring. If you have ever said that to anyone else who doesn't like Christmas you too are an idiot and anyone who has been onside with you is also an idiot. How fucking dare you undermine someone for not liking something that is frankly horrible. If you enjoy Christmas then good for you, I am not trying to stop you from liking it, but in turn you have absolutely no right to flaunt your joviality in the face of anyone who doesn't want it. How would you feel if I went to the funeral of someone you cared about and jangled their body in front of you because I happened to enjoy it? That might seem an extreme comparison, but my point is just because you enjoy something, that doesn't mean it might not upset other people so do not be so arrogant and insensitive as to try and force them to be a part of your misled frivolity. Certainly do not undermine or dismiss the way they feel about it, you selfish selfish wankers.

Right, as I was saying. I went shopping for presents on Oxford Street. It's impossible not to become absorbed by the Christmas sensation when you are there. Decorations everywhere, almost everything in every shop is a gift idea for someone. I utterly detested every second of it. I didn't understand why I should have to spend my money on these items for other people. I don't get any pleasure from imagining what they will think or how they will react when they get it. I find it very hard to think about what someone else would like, so what I do is buy things that I know I like and hope for the best. This in turn just makes me jealous of the people I am buying the presents for. It's like I am spending my money on stuff for people that I want but can't afford to get it for myself because I have spent all my money on those selfish bastards. Walking around the shops I saw 'gift ideas', these disappointed me further. Pointless bits of novelty tat that had clearly been rushed out so idiots could buy them for their idiot friends. I also saw things that I knew other people would get me. People who hardly know me thinking "oh he'll find that funny". The strangest gift idea I saw was a massive posh bin. Who the fuck wants a posh bin? What kind of idiot cares about what kind of bin they have? I was thinking about buying it for myself so I could throw the useless old shit that other people will inevitably get for me into it. At least then I might get some sort of ironic joy out of the festive period.

I think that the above is true for most people but they are unwilling to accept it so I have designed a new version of Christmas for everyone. I understand the need for a winter holiday, I'm really not suggesting we cancel the whole thing. I think there is something I could potentially enjoy about Christmas. I don't usually go shopping so all the things I described above as things I just wanted for myself I wouldn't normally be bothered by and probably wouldn't bother buying for myself. I think if everyone just gave each other a set amount of money that they had to spend on presents for themselves we could all just go out and buy ourselves the things we wanted. Then don't meet up on Christmas day and play with the new toys. Can you honestly say you wouldn't prefer that?

Right, I have drifted so far from my initial point I should probably stop there.

Ohh, baby baby.

2009-11-25T08:53:00.001-08:00

Right, I seriously fucking hope my sister chooses not to read my blog this week.
That's actually a good way to open this blog, it has just occurred to me. I'm so bloody clever sometimes without even realising it. That feeling of guilt for something you feel or think and the desire to express it. That fear you have that despite your best efforts to explain yourself, people will almost automatically brand you as something that they (selfishly) find disgusting. Just for the record I am not accusing my sister of this, it's probably best I just start, isn't it?

Hm, so I have to go to germany in just under two weeks to for the very first time meet my nephew. Of course I want to meet him and I want to see my sister and everything, but so many people have asked me if I am excited. Excited? No, not really, I mean what's this baby going to do? Greet me in a top hat, pour me a cocktail and invite me to his lion taming performance? No. He'll probably just sit there making noises, sleeping and being fed. I know it's all too common a complaint from people who don't 'like' babies. I don't dislike babies, I am just not enamored by their every fucking motion, noise or bodily fluid. The thing I don't understand is why people expect you to be, and they do. People expect you to swoon at pictures of their child's latest baby-grow or gasp in amazement at how their child can smile.

I am now at that age where more of my friends have or are having children, and they are not looked upon as irresponsible drains on society for doing so. This means that I apparently have to be ridiculously positive about children, specifically their children and if I am really unlucky have to go and meet them, although I generally avoid this. The mothers of the children annoy me. They say things to you like "the baby is looking forward to meeting you". Grrr. They also start to treat people who haven't had children with the same levels of contempt as they might a shop lifter. If you dare to suggest that you have any hardships in your life you get shouted down as though you don't know the meaning of the word hardship. They literally think of themselves as the Madonna and think everyone else in the fucking world cares about their little shit as much as they do.

The only thing worse than mothers is pregnant women. Oh god I wish they would just fuck off. A friend of mine who is pregnant recently said to me "yeah, I'm starting my leave next month, although I'm fully aware that I'll just be getting ready for the hardest job in world". You chose to have a child. No sympathy. I don't like the way that people who have children or are pregnant are really fucking condescending too. A friend of mine was recently telling me about her sister in law who has become completely unbearable since falling pregnant. She barks unreasonable demands at various members of family who she expects to do all kinds of insane tasks from doing her shopping for her to paying her rent. And the worst thing is people fucking indulge her because she's pregnant. I utterly despise the idea that people who CHOOSE to have children ASSUME that having said child, something which we have been biologically designed to do as humans elevates them to be some kind of fucking higher being and the rest of us mortals simply don't understand what it's like to feel so cunting enlightened. Going back to what my friend said earlier about her own pregnancy "the hardest job in the world". I think most mothers and pregnant women do think that there is no cause more noble than having a child, and that way of thinking actually sickens and terrifies me.

I never want to have children. I have been sure of this from a very young age. I don't think that people should have children just because it's the normal thing to do. You should only have children if you really want to and can afford it. Actually, whilst we're here, one of my more extreme opinions; you should have to pass an I.Q test too. Yes, that's right. An I.Q test, thick people should not be allowed children. I think it's appalling that so many couples have children, it makes society nicer to them, gives them more money and confirms in their deluded minds that having a child makes them a more valid human being.
When I tell people I don't ever want children I get one of two responses, "oh, you say that now but when you're older you'll change your mind". Ok, I find children and adults with children basically intolerable now and always have. Furthermore it seems the older I get the more I dislike these parents and their repulsive offspring. I have a poor to bad relationship with my own parents so I am unlikely to feel 'maternal' at any point and I genuinely don't believe I have felt this absurd emotion people call 'unconditional love' at any point in my life. I don't think any of this will change the further I drift closer to death so, no, I don't think I will all of a sudden decide I want children.
The other response is, "oh, but you'd make a good dad". Sorry, what are you basing this on? I am selfish, I don't like mess, I like a lot of time to myself, I have very little interest in anything that doesn't involve me and I have an extremely short temper.

I was trying to make a point and I think now is a good time to come back to it.
If you voice any views like the above to the baby loving brigade you instantly get branded a child hater. If you suggest for one minute that there are things in life you care more about than children you are deemed to be some maniac who should be left alone or locked up for wanting to kill babies. I don't hate babies, I really don't. I mean I don't like them either, I nothing them, I nothing them because at age zero they are basically nothing. It isn't their fault, I'm not having a dig at babies but what is there to like or dislike about them?

I think I'll end there.

A rainy weekend

2009-11-14T06:01:00.000-08:00

Greetings, anonymous humans who happen to have the following; functioning eyes, understanding of English and a computer/internet capable device. Welcome to a 'bloooooooog'.

Right, last week I got a bit of a whipping via twitter for complaining too much. My initial reaction to this was "fuck off, you massive cunts". I sort of see their point though, one of my pet hates is people who use the internet to vent their mundane annoyances with the world in a "what's the world come to" sort of tone, and I appreciate that last weeks post came very close to this. I do think I usually manage to keep it personal enough to not be a Daily Mail style whine about society but last week I at least stepped on that dangerous line, and for that I apologise.

I also had a lot of my friends contacting me saying that the blogs of late have only been representative of a small part of my personality. Those of you that have spent any amount of time with me will know I’m something of a wag (wag; a person given to droll, roguish, or mischievous humor; wit. NOT wag;, wife/girlfriend of footballer),frightfully fun to spend time with. When I’m not laying motionless on my bed in my pants watching videos of people bursting spots on youtube, or insisting on total silence whilst I play video games, I’m really something of a conversationalist. I think I should let this slip into my blogs.

It's raining today, it's raining and it's windy and apparently everyone in the world thinks this is some kind of fucking tragedy. I love the rain, it's amazing, heavy bastard rain falling down all over us. There is in fact only one thing that can make rain even better; gale force wind. Maybe it's the narcissist in me but I love nothing more than walking face first into a load of windy rain and thinking, "yeah god, you idiot...is this the best you can do?". Maybe it's something to do with almost every other human being who I probably hate being forced inside their homes, a place where I wish they would spend entirely more time.
I have more fun whenever it rains than I've ever had in hot weather. So what if you get a bit wet and cold? You can just go inside and sit by a radiator which is equally enjoyable. Whack on the television/games console/radio, turn off the lights and relax. In fact, rain is pretty much the only weather that I will open my curtains or blinds for. It's visually stimulating unlike boring sunshine or drastically over rated snow. Rain and wind, that's the weather for me, maybe a bit of a thunderstorm too although I think they upset dogs a bit too much and pretentious fuck wits usually wank all over twitter and facebook about how "the mighty roar tears a hole through my soul and makes me realise how insignificant I am", or something similar.
Maybe I'd be alright in a Tsunami, just a little one. I mean it would probably wipe out all the people on the bottom floor of my flat - good. By the way, the second the rain stopped they came straight out of their flats to smoke and drink and generally waste the Lambeth oxygen.

One last thought in this unstructured ramble. As I said above, when I am amongst friends I can be fun to spend time with. I was reminded of this when a friend of mine said to me "you're fun to spend time with" and another friend said "I agree". What are they getting from me? I'll tell you; free entertainment and what am I getting in return? Well, no financial benefits. This got me thinking, what would the world be like if we did actually have to pay for the entertainment provided by our friends, like we do with our television, internet providers, dvd, video games and so on? Don't suggest this to your friends by the way...

Right, I am off to help my housemate clean the flat for a party I'm not attending. I'm 13 again.
Bye!

Are you a person? Then be afraid, the worlds going to shit and it's probably your fault...oh and watch the news...you cunt.

2009-11-06T06:14:00.000-08:00

Hello blog readers, you modern bastards.

I'm going to stop apologising every time I write a blog that contains little more than my complaints. This is going to be probably the most hypocritical piece of drivel I have ever posted so brace yourself.

This morning I was awoken at 5.30am by the fat cunt who lives on the bottom floor of my flat block having some kind of argument with his equally fat and useless drain on society mate. I really really don't want to come across as someone who hates people on benefits or anything like that, there was a period where I myself was on the dole and I understand the reasons that many people are on the dole blah blah blah, money is by no stretch of the imagination the worst thing you can rob from society... anyway.

The reasons I dislike this man are numerous; he is violent, he trains his (gorgeous and more importantly innocent) dog to attack, he confirms to me that our species has peaked and it's only a matter of time before the rest of us are either replaced by or turn into anus discharges like him. He also has Sky plus. I hate him for this. His idiot son who for some reason seems to like me keeps inviting me around to watch the football. Obviously I politely decline, I mean, what the fuck would I talk to these people about "Hi, what do you do, I mean when you're not hanging outside this complex we both live in drinking, shouting and fighting, what do you get up...you know, other than that?". What could I say to his kids, "oh, you're 16, when I was your age I had just started at my art college". If a Lion could talk, we could not understand it. Still, you might get eaten which would make the social situation a bit less awkward, a bit of death. Maybe I should go and watch the football and take a Lion with me. That would show them. Or I can just get my own Sky plus and feel superior to them all, again. I'm such a cunt.

Anyway, I was irritated by this rude awakening, and this has seemingly set the mood for my whole day. On the way to work this morning I got massively fucked off by ITV's new poster campaign on the underground. I have only seen two of the posters but they are both essentially just whinges about society. One of them has a picture of graduates throwing their mortarboards into the air. The image is accompanied by some statistic about how many unemployed graduates there are in the country. I'm not really sure who they are having a go at here, the government, employers, universities, the students (bloody wankers, "ooohh, I want to be so fucking educated to better my life", you make me SICK!!!), it's a mystery. The second poster I saw had a picture of young people looking like they were having fun (the arseholes, how fucking dare they) with another jolly statistic, something like "misuse of alcohol costs the NHS 700 billion pounds a second, so fuck off you young bastards". That isn't verbatim, they did use the word "misuse" though. How the fuck do you misuse alcohol? It's a substance with basically one use; bludgeoning out of ones brain the misery brought on by this childish necessity to exist that most humans seem to be so obsessed with. Maybe they mean pouring it over a fuse box, or in to a super-soaker and firing it up a woman attempting to impregnate her, as part of some bizarre experiment. Both of these examples could lead to a need for medical attention.

I just don't understand what these posters are for. They are just general whinges designed to grab your attention and make you feel angry about something or someone non specific. They may as well say "Are you a person? Then be afraid, the worlds going to shit and it's probably your fault...oh and watch the news...you cunt".

The final thing that hacked me off a bit was a pregnant woman. Oooh, you can't have a go at pregnant people. Yes you fucking can. This obviously pregnant woman was wearing a badge with the transport for London logo on saying "baby on board". This really pissed me off. Who was that aimed at? It's not like everyone generally goes around head butting and kicking each other. It angers me that she thinks she deserves more respect for being pregnant than she would otherwise. Of course she should get a seat blah blah blah but the arrogance of just putting on a badge saying "I'm pregnant, you fucks had better back off" and expecting people to take note of it. What a bitch.

Right, after calling a pregnant woman a bitch, I think it's time to wrap this one up.

Until next time.

Well, here we bloody are.

2009-10-30T18:18:00.000-07:00

Well it's here, it's bloody well here. Stupid shitting Halloween, the cunts playground.

I am fortunately working tonight and tomorrow and subsequently don't have to be involved with too much of the 'festivities' of this complete waste of time that arrives at the end of October. I did see some total arsewipe on the tube on the way into work tonight. He was obviously a fucking city boy twat who had put about 3 seconds of effort into his Dracula costume. He looked as though he had left work, taken off his tie and put on a cape and some rubbish makeup. I don't know if that offends me more to be honest, at least if you're going to put on an absurd costume put some effort into it you pile of cocks. He stumbled onto the tube at Embankment, still talking on his Blackberry and looked suprised when his reception inevitably died. Moron. He then engaged me in conversation. He opened by saying "poor effort", I ignored him. He then started telling me how he had "messed everything up" and started crying, then dropped his Blackberry which cracked the screen. Oh, isn't Halloween just such a fucking laugh, isn't it just a joy, pathetic idiots crying on tubes as a result of drinking too much whilst looking like complete tits.
Television has decided to celebrate this absurd festival by broadcasting some of the most terrifying things likely to hit your screens. The hilights; BBC2 are running the frankly overrated Halloween's 1 & 2, whilst Living are giving air time yet more supernatural bollocks with Most Haunted:Live at Halloween. If you don't know about Most Haunted then google it, and if you can't be arsed to do that here's the run down - lots of ego maniacs who pretend they can talk to dead people stand around doing absoloutely nothing other than whipping up tension amongst impressionable idiots then someone records it and calls it television. No doubt this special Halloween edition will contain even more sensationalist filler to enhance the idea that something is actually happening. ITV will be broadcasting the most terrifying spectical of all the networks, Piers Morgan's Life Stories. I have no more to say about that.
If you are staying in then please if you haven't already seen it, actually even if you have seen it watch the re-run of last years utterly fantastic Dead Set on E4. I usually hate zombie films, however this is just far too engaging and entertaining for the entire 3 hours (ish) to not completely love.
Anyway, enough of that.

Just a quick little observation today. I'll try to do a bigger blog next week.

Last weekend I had the pleasure of going to a cocktail bar in the city during the ironically named 'happy hour'. For the hour and a half I was in there I can't envisage how it could have been possible for me to be less happy. I really hate moaning on about how something makes me feel isolated and how I can't connect with the rest of society, I know that probably seems like a lie based on my previous blogs, but it's true.
What really bothered me was, were the other people there having a good time? I can't see how this could be possible. This isn't a "oh god I'm a lone soilder in the world and no one understands me" complaint, I really can't see how anyone could have been having a good time. In my experience people 'go out' for one of three reasons; 1) To get a large group of their friends together in a convenient meeting place that is large enough to contain them all in relative comfort. 2) To pick up a partner, be they casual or not and 3) To get so out of their skull they forget how futile and mundane life really is.
Well option 1 is basically out of the question, it's usually too noisy to hear anything other than your own thoughts. Then you have to have a fight to get to the bar and buy a drink. Once you have done that you are being constantly told off for standing in the wrong part of the bar area, smoking area or getting in the way of the dance floor. And when did people start trying to hard sell you shots? How annoying is that? Option 2 provided me with quite a lot of ammusment. I watched a mate of mine trying to chat up a girl, but again the venue was so loud he basically had to stand about an inch from her and bellow things such as "SO WHAT DO YOU DO THEN?", "I'M A STUDENT", "OH, COOL, WHAT DO YOU STUDY?", "PHYLSOPHY". He realised that this probably wasn't the time to engage in a theological discussion and shouted "I LIKE YOUR HAIR" at the poor girl. This went on for about 15 minutes, then the girl left and he, no doubt was left with his hand and the internet again. Option 3 is probably the most realistic explanation for why the 200 or so people bothered to venture outside of their designated cages and get in each others way for a few hours. I genuinely don't have a problem with people drinking to escape their life for a few hours, but why not just do it at home on your own? It's not like you can actually talk to the people you came out with anyway, and on the rare occasions that you can you're probably too hammered to utter anything of any signifigance. People would argue that it's 'depressing' to stay in and drink alone but does changing the location really make forgetting that you're simply waiting round to die any different? Ah, fuck it.

Graduates designing business, or something

2009-10-20T10:00:00.000-07:00

Hi everybody. Welcome to a weblog.

Today I had planned to write about the various hobbies I have had throughout my life, being a footballer, a cricket player a musician and make some uninteresting point about how people give up on their dreams. I planned on doing this but something happened to me today that has made me so furious I nearly threw up on a Dalmatian (that might not be true).

I went for a spot of lunch and shopping with a good friend of mine in Camden today. We went to University together and have remained good friends ever since. He is a very lovely, genuinely creative and interesting person who I have always enjoyed spending time with. He is very optimistic most of the time, at least that's always how I remember him. This hasn't particularly changed, he is still chirpy and great fun to be around.
Since graduating he has found it difficult to find a job relevant to his degree. I realise this is common for graduates these days, I mean, I'm nowhere near bloody classical music.

Anyway, to cut a long story short we ended up going to an event, the 'London Graduate Fair' inside a horrible building called the 'Business Design Centre'. This event was pretty much the single most pointless thing I have ever seen or been to. The only thing I can really see that anyone got out of it was a free copy of a popular newspaper. Just a complete waste of time. I was immediately enraged by the name of the place, the 'Business Design Centre', I mean what in the name of arse-hemorrhages does that even mean? Fucking Business Design, "Hi, I'm here to design a business", "well, you've come to the right place", what in the name of shit can this place be? A business isn't like a kitchen or a bathroom or even a t-shirt.

I get the impression I was asked to accompany him to this event as something of a buffer, you see when we were inside I noticed that he was less confident than usual, and being inside the 'Business Designing Emporium' gave me all the information I required as to why. What an awful event it was, full of aspiring yuppies fresh out of university, CV in hand, hopeful and wide eyed. There were enormous queues for each and every stand and at the end of these queues some of the most useless information you're ever likely to receive in your life, let me take you through a few some of the wisdom we heard. One media company told him "yeah, I mean we don't really run any graduate schemes or anything like that, and to be honest we're looking for people with a couple of years experience". Yeah, brilliant, almost ALL of the people in this room are recent graduates, so where are they supposed to have got this experience from? She went on to say "but, you can sign up to our mailing list if you like to keep up with what we're doing". Oh thanks. I'm not saying they should have a scheme or employ inexperienced people, but maybe not have a stall at a graduate event.
Then there was a production company that was offering courses that would give you real life work experience. The course didn't look that bad, but then what course do you ever see advertised that doesn't sound fantastic? The application forms came out, thrust under our noses already part filled in by the vulture telling us about the course. My friend looked almost intimidated into signing up on the spot (which I had seen a few people int he queue ahead of us already do) until I asked one simple question, "how much is the course?", "£5000". Yeah, fuck off mate, £5000 for a ten week course? I mean seriously, how disgusting is that? Turning up at a graduate event and trying to sell a course to people who have just finished a degree, which has probably landed them in more than enough debt for someone who's career is yet to start. I was appalled to see there were more of these wankers, trying to sell courses to people desperate for a job, some of them from esteemed universities, awful.
The worst ones were the independent companies telling graduates that without the experience they wouldn't be considered for a job in their company. We stood in a queue and watched a man tell about ten different people exactly why they wouldn't be considered suitable until one man said that he actually did have experience. The response to this was "well, we don't actually have any jobs right now anyway". Again, why are you here? Presumably to boast about how good you are and make other people feel awful about themselves. We left the queue before it was our turn.
The most useless stand of all was a company that dealt with 'outsourcing public sector' work (narrow field, I know). The woman here basically told us to go to their website. Thanks.

There were also a few people giving presentations. Successful men and women wearing suits, holding blackberry's and generally giving generic, cliched, shit advice. "Self promotion, success is all about self promotion". "Send your CV out to as many different people as possible, and make yours stand out". "Try to get as much experience in as many different things, employers love a varied candidate". How, how and how? How is that advice? What are we supposed to take from that? It wasn't like everyone there had a notepad with bullet points "don't promote yourself, make your CV as dull as possible and be inexperienced" written down. The best one of these speakers said on the topic of getting into journalism "yeah, sometimes it's not what you know, it's who you know". More fantastic advice, shall we all just go out and make friends with chief editors then? Maybe instead of studying our various degrees we should have studied espionage, so we could stalk and infiltrate the lives of commissioning editors, bank managers and producers. One of these self congratulating cunts actually ended their speech by saying "so, graduates, I encourage you to go out there and begin designing your future career in business starting from today (clenched fist). Give 'em hell". What a cunt. I mean, he must have actually sat down and written that frankly shit ending having had the following thought process; "well, I'll be in a room with graduates in the business design centre at a graduate careers fair. That's it, that'll knock 'em dead".

I think what angered me most was that the entire day promoted the idea of graduates turning into these business designing bullshit pushers. As we left the building my friend, my creative, lovely interesting friend, who after three hours of this arse-dribble looked like something of a shell of a man was handed a business card by some cunt of an investment banker. I hope our friendship doesn't end as a result.

Halloween

2009-10-13T16:53:00.000-07:00

Hi internet, try to keep your pants on, it's only bloody me. Blogging away like a little blog boy, as I jolly well might.
So far this week my life has consisted of, well, quite a lot I guess, sleeping, being at work, writing this blog, being fucking livid that various things I've ordered off play.com haven't arrived. The list is probably endless, if it includes literally everything I've done so far this week.

I've also been very irritable for the last couple of weeks so almost everything on this fictional list has resulted in a childish, foot stomping tantrum. I actually got so angry about having to sleep when I had things to do that I threw a mug of coffee over my tiled bathroom wall (how organised and practical are my tantrums?), and got into bed muttering something about devising a system that allows me to work whilst sleeping, and if I can increase my brain capacity or something…I don't know the full details of how this is going to work. I was very tired.

So, many many things have been hacking me right off this week.
To name a few; being made to do things, people complaining about seasonal adjustment disorder (oh just shut up and go away, if slightly cold weather is too much for you to cope with then please, just go and kill yourself, such a BORING thing to complain about 'oh the weather's upsetting me' FUCK OFF), premature Christmas decorations and eating entirely too much potato. A slight digression. Why can you only buy either; 1) not enough potatoes or 2) a massive sack that’s clearly too big for one person? I’ve eaten about 8 baked potatoes in the last 3 days and still have around 12 to go. Utter insanity.

As annoying as everything mentioned above is, one thing has been upsetting me far more than any of these – the constant, obnoxious reminders that the fucking, shitting, cunting, arsing, wanker of a ‘festival’ Halloween is just around the corner. I hate Halloween probably more than anything else in the world. I really mean that, it’s like everything I abhor comes together at the end of October to form an annual nervous breakdown.

The first thing I hate about it is the excitement people have as it draws nearer, this happens with all forms of organised fun. People become excited about their mundane, awful and pathetic lives being punctured momentarily by something that is exciting and fun. They start creating plans that basically involve them meeting with their equally pathetic friends at a venue full of similarly repugnant shits and behaving like massive arseholes under the pretence that they are having 'fun'.

Often the plans will involve people dressing up. I actually despise fancy dress. There are very few things as depressing and bleak as seeing desperate, lonely people looking frankly absurd in some stupid costume. For some reason fancy dress makes people more transparent. You can see clearly past the social bravado and stare deep into the despair and tragedy that they may not even know dwells within them, and may in fact only be exposed to them whilst in a ridiculous costume.

I also hate things that look ugly or out of place and I’m talking really really small things here like people getting food on their face and stickers/badges. It actually makes me want to throw up a bit when I see someone wearing a sticker, I’m not joking it really really bothers me. Consider this; now think of someone dressing up as a zombie or a witch. Ok?
Actually, whilst we’re on that one, I hate it that around Halloween time food places put fake spiders webs and other disgusting things all around their shops. WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY???!!! Why do people want to celebrate the idea of something being disgusting, or ugly? It’s beyond me.

Then there are the shitty films, tv programmes, magazines blah blah blah.
Most of these also insist on making the world as ugly as possible for one day.
I had an advert for the new Saw film emailed to me the other day. How many more films can they string out quite a wank idea for? I hate that crap media with very little imagination becomes more credible when it’s horror.

Anyway, I am working the night of Halloween so I don’t have to get involved in any of this utter shit.

When I sat down to write this I had every intention of writing something upbeat about how funny I find the social dynamic of the characters in the Mushroom Kingdom, and ponder as to why, despite the fact he constantly tries to kidnap the princess, Bowser keeps getting invited to various Kart races/golf tournaments/football matches… I was going to do that but then I remembered Halloween. See? See what you all did?

Right, I’d better do some work.

I hope you all have an awful Halloween. I will probably blog before then but if not I really really hope you have a dreadful time, which if you’re the sort of idiot who likes Halloween you’d probably prefer to having a nice time anyway.

Bye.

Blah blah, yap yap ARGGH

2009-10-06T06:19:00.000-07:00

Good morning/afternoon/evening internet chaps. I suppose it could really be any of these, that's the beauty of the internet. I have put a spotify playlist at the bottom of this blog, and it would please me endlessly if you listened to it whilst reading.

Today, I'll be banging on un-interestingly about something that's been firmly on my mind for the past week, and reached something of a peak today. I am putting a warning in now; this blog will contain disgusting nostalgia, sickening sycophancy and boring adoration of things from my childhood. If you don't like the sound of this, I suggest you don't bother reading any further.

Every now and then something punctures the boredom and mundanity of your adult existence that reminds you of a time when you were probably actually happy and trouble free, a time when the smallest things could give you genuine pleasure. Childhood.

Today I wanted to go food shopping. I like going food shopping, I put some audiobooks on my iPod and take a fairly pleasant stroll to Kennington, potter around the supermarket before getting a cab home and feasting like a prince for the rest of the day. Unfortunately, the weather put me off, so I instead went to the local Iceland (Lower Marsh Street by Waterloo station for anyone interested). I couldn't believe how much I loved this place. It was incredible, the shops surrounding the Iceland were fantastic too. I ended up going on something of a 'spree', returning home with a new rucksack (which I fucking LOVE), dinner for the next 4 days, cider and an order for a new wallet.

Now, as much as I enjoyed this (and I really did), it says something about the state of my life when a trip to a fairly average, low cost supermarket chain brings me so much genuine excitement. However, this wasn't the first time a supermarket has provided me such joy. I remember my eighth birthday I was told by my grandparents (with whom I was spending the summer) that I could do anything I wanted, go anywhere I pleased. Suggestions offered to me by my siblings were Lords Cricket Ground, the cinema, the zoo etc.
All of these were snubbed in favour of a new ASDA that had recently opened in Southgate, and that my mother was too much a snob to take me too (I still resent her for this). ASDA was everything I hoped it would be and more, my last truly happy birthday.
(I think there is a sort of, desperately beautiful undertone to that anecdote; set your standards low as possible and you will almost certainly be happy).

Something else that has reminded me of my childhood over these past few days is, well, me. I have been stomping around my flat in a very childish strop ever since Thursday, when I finally caved and ordered some new video games after telling myself I desperately needed to sort my life out before having any fun.

One's arrived (no more heroes) one hasn't (Mad World) and one isn't out until next month (Super Mario Bros Wii).
Having to wait for a game to arrive is very frustrating and almost always leads to the afore mentioned childish strop, but I maintain that it is an integral part of being a true gamer.

Anyone who has known me a while will know how literally insane I went at the time the Wii was launched along with Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess back in December '06. I didn't pre-order one despite being desperate to play the new Zelda (I had spent the past 2 years checking the internet almost daily for updates/screenshots of this very game), so didn't have one for the first 4 days after launch. In those 4 days my mental health deteriorated at roughly the same rate as a prisoner in a sensory deprivation chamber, I imagine. I spent about 10 hours a day watching Wii's go on ebay that I was too poor to bid for whilst crying and drinking. I woke up at 7am every day to call every shop I could think of. On the Tuesday after launch, 4 excruciating days after the intial release I discovered that ASDA, Hatfield had 3 Wii's delivered that morning. I ran downstairs half dressed, ordered my housemate out of bed to drive me to ASDA immediately, despite the fact he was eating breakfast. This cereal actually ended up being thrown out of a window. We arrived at ASDA, I got out of the car before he even had time to park and ran inside like the demented puppy I was. Half an hour later I turned on my very own Wii and life was bearable again.
This stands as one of the most special memories I have, I remember clutching onto my Wii and copy of Twilight Princess nearly crying with joy. I can't help but wonder, however, if this was more special because of my having to hold on for those 4 traumatic days.

I am as excited about playing the new Super Mario Bros game as I was about Twilight Princess, but there seems to be something fairly hollow in pre-ordering. Just knowing it will arrive on that day is still exciting but I can't help but doesn't feel quite the same as waiting until release day, counting down the days, working out how you can get out of whatever duties you have that day and making your way to a shop in order to beat everyone to it. Maybe it is more fun to wait...having said this, if that fucking game arrives a day late, my god I will write such an angry blog about it.

On the topic of childish irrationality and nostalgia, I will end on a story I told a friend of mine the other day.
When I was about 10 I got for Christmas the Arsenal home shirt. A person at school who was most certainly not a friend of mine got the whole strip. I wanted the whole strip but due to my 'unusual body shape' (I have the physique of a fucking penguin), I had to make do with the shirt alone.
Fuck me, I was jealous at the time and have clearly never really gotten over it. For the past 14 years of my life I have been tortured by a recurring dream of the following narrative;

I'm at Highbury (always Highbury, never the Emirates for some reason) and it's some kind of cup final (again, why at Highbury?) It's 1-1 and oh no!!! A player (which player changes from dream to dream) is injured. Arsene Wenger looks around the stadium, desperate for someone to come on as a substitute and then, his eyes fall upon me. I get called to the touch line and just as he is about to give me my orders he says (French accent) "hold on, you only 'ave zee shirt, you cannot play". As I stand there, vulnerable and alone, that WANKER (whose name I cannot say) runs past me in his full home kit, onto the pitch, scores the winner before being paraded around the stadium as a hero, whilst I kneel at the touch line, tears streaming down my cheeks and screaming to hell my own name.
I had this very dream just 2 months ago.

There you go, three very unrelated things all in one blog.

Bye.

(Spotify link)
MONKEY_HOTELZ: http://open.spotify.com/user/monkeyhotel/playlist/3X9xlXJT4b8ZcqhpMubo6l

I think I need a new hobby.

2009-09-29T08:45:00.000-07:00

Good afternoon and welcome to another in my series of Blogs. What the fuck was that? Anyway, hi.

I've just finished watching Gordon Brown's speech at the Labour conference. I'm not massively interested in politics which is I suppose why the only two things that have stuck in my mind from the whole thing are that Gordon Brown when talking looks like a sort of depressed, old, haggard latex puppet. It's seriously strange, the top part of his face doesn't move. He looks like a 'project' someone was working on at art college for their 'special effects' course, but they hadn't yet been shown how to use the equipment properly.
Also, what was that bizarre music chosen for after the speech? M People? Seeing lots of boring looking politicians clapping along to a song that wasn't even cool in the early 90's, whilst Gordon sort of postured evangelically was pretty funny, but still. After all this excitement and Gordon's lap of honor the crowd was treated to a blast of James' 'Sit Down'. Odd. Again, not even cool in the 90's.
For the record the speech may or may not have been good, I know shit all about politics, only interested in aesthetics, me.

Yesterday I spent entirely too much time on Facebook and Twitter. I came across two things that depressed the shit out of me which I suppose is my own fault for spending that much time on the internet but I would like to share them with you. They are both sort of funny I suppose.

One of my Facebook friends is dead. Literally. Stopped living. There is no other way to say that, so, there you go. Yesterday it was what would have been her birthday.
Now I find it pretty strange that someone hasn't removed her Facebook profile full stop, but what I find even more strange is that people still write on her wall. It is very odd and this isn't a criticism of her, for the record she was a very nice girl from what I knew of her, I wouldn't say I was close to her in anyway but she was very nice.
What I didn't like though was people filling her wall with things like "heaven has another angel" and "I still think of you everyday". I know for a fact that some of these people had not spoken to her since we left school, so it just seems a bit condescending and false for people to write these kinds of things. The worst one was easily (I am paraphrasing all of these by the way) "I can't believe how long it's been since we last spoke, I still remember how full of life and what a great, bubbly person you were. Hope you're having a great birthday party, wherever you are". Now that person I distinctly remember not being friends with her at school. Does it make them feel morally better about themselves to write these things? I don't know, maybe I am overly sensitive about this. All I know is it's not a way I would like to be eulogised.
Anyway, having seen all this I was in a bit of a flap about whether to delete her as a friend, although I shouldn't have been I suppose I should just delete her if I feel like this. Just actually clicking the button 'remove friend' is much much harder when that person is dead.

My Facebook adventure then led me to another profile that depressed the hell out of me. Another person I am not really good friends with who whenever I see or read anything about him makes me think almost instantly about egg sandwiches and working men's clubs. His world just seems a bit drab and grey.
He is literally the ugliest person I have ever seen but, up until recently he seemed to think he was some kind of ladies man. His profile used to say things like how he loved going to the party islands to meet all the women. Now he has a fairly unattractive girlfriend, his profile is dominated with uninteresting information about her. His main activities are 'being in love with her', his main interest is 'spending time with her', his favourite music is 'anything that reminds him of her' oh literally just fuck off and die, actually actually please go and drink some fucking poison together. That would at least make your 'favourite activities and interests' interesting to read.
This isn't particularly a criticism of him either, I am just irate that so many people are so satisfied to have so VERY VERY little to say about themselves. I am mocking up a fake version of his profile which I will link in the coming weeks. Then you will be able to mock this.

It is very depressing that this is what people want the rest of the world to see, them writing messages to dead people about how 'brave they are', as if their deeply profound words make them some kind of 21st century Florence fucking Nightingale. I think what bothers me isn't what these people are putting onto the internet and as a result into our world, it's their own reasoning for it and using something like their own boring relationship or the sad death of someone they scarcely knew as a vehicle for their own bizarre little agenda.

I suppose what's more depressing is that I have time to read all of this crap. I mean I am a busy man. Well, maybe I'm not as busy as I think I am.

Next time on 'MY CRAAAAAZZZZZYYYYY BLOG' - WHY I'M SICK TO THE BACK OF MY CUNT WITH 'DARK COMEDY'S'.

Until next time (Roll credits)

Getting older...yuck!!!

2009-09-19T18:08:00.000-07:00

Hello hello hello, another blog and another chance for you, the internet dweller to get what can only be described as a boring, poor and pointless insight into my rather shit and boring life/mind. I do hope you enjoy!

Two very quick things before I start.

One. I am doing a little experiment. Most people who read this are heavy internet users and have come here through twitter or something. Without sounding too much like a chain mail/text/tweet, I would appreciate it greatly if each of you sent this link to one other person. More if you want but at least one. I offer you no eternal happiness as those bastard text messages do, nor can I promise you "good luck for a whole week" or anything equally as wretch worthy, I'm just fairly interested in how much difference it makes. Blame it on my preposterous ego or something.

Two. I have been getting a lot of feedback via twitter that accuses me of being pessimistic or overly negative so here today, in this very blog I am going to list five of my very favorite things. (This may or may not amuse you but I was planning on doing ten at first, I couldn't think of then things I liked). This list can be found at the end of the blog.

I have been getting quite angry and depressed recently as it is slowly dawning on me that I am becoming something I never really wanted to become. I am turning into the sort of person I used to look and laugh at through a veil of jealousy, bitterness and self loathing, amongst other things. I used to look at them with resentful eyes, my only comfort being that I suspected they were secretly dying a little inside. I now for, better or worse (I genuinely don't know which) know that I was right.

I am of course talking about people who have jobs and lives and exist in this fabulous little vacuum we call modern, mainstream society. I am not making any massive point about society here, I probably don't know enough about it to do so and anyway, I'm not really interested in how it affects anyone other than myself, so, as always this will be spoken entirely from my perspective. I stand by my labelling it a vacuum, by the way. A vacuum for talent, creativity, hope, happiness, sadness, ambition, love, hate, sanity and everything in between.

Less than a year ago, all that mattered to me was writing. Ever since I can remember really, going back to when I was a child all that has mattered to me is being a success. I have been obsessed with it for years. I was never bothered about going travelling or going to parties or anything that my peer groups were interested in with regard to their leisure time. I have always been interested in doing everything that I could to become as good as possible at whatever my main pursuit of the time was. I won’t bore you with all the things I have tried to do with my life.
Something though, has changed, without me really knowing it in the last 4 months or so. I have all of a sudden gone from working like a maniac day and night on my own projects to just doing my job and tiny bits of writing on the side. My spare time these days seems to consist of doing such tedious things as being with friends and ‘relaxing’, although I am doing precisely the opposite of relaxing, I’m usually looking at myself and screaming “you idiot, you’re wasting your life”. I usually shut up after about an hour.

People who know me well may say that this is a welcome change for someone who was something of a recluse and deeply cynical, but I’m not so sure and this is really my point. There is certainly a large divide between the type of person I was before and the type of person I am now.

Over the past few years I have spent most of my time living in fairly nasty accommodation and on a small budget. I lived in a house that didn’t have a proper roof or any central heating. I then lived in a house that was far too big for me and spent all of my time in one tiny corner (I remember one day I put my duvet cover up so I could be isolated in a corner with my computer). The next house was a bungalow on a timber yard. Finally the house before my current flat was falling apart and had human shit up the wall (where a pipe had burst). All of these places were an awful rip off and took most of my very small budget.
Living in this way sounds horrific on the surface, but is in reality very liberating. I found that living under these conditions allowed me to dream and gave me something to work toward. Never having any money meant that by not going out you automatically felt better about yourself. Then, once in that mindset you can start looking for a way out of your situation, in my case this led to me writing comedy sketches, scripts all sorts of things. Although non of these things lead to me being a success, I was still doing them, the ‘dream’, without sounding too much like a clichéd twat, was still alive.

Things have changed. I am not necessarily happier, nor am I sure, if I am less happy. I spend most of my life working and I like my job. It might not be what I initially wanted to do with my life, but how often does it work out exactly as you want? I then go and do ‘social’ things that ‘normal’ people do. All this time I can feel something eating away at me, but the shouting is getting quieter and the dream is dying. I’m still laughing at the sort of person I have become through that same veil of self loathing etc, but I’m not sure why. Here seems a perfectly silly and nonsensical place to end this blog.

Well there we are, 1,300 words and I have managed to make precisely nothing of a point.
If you have managed to read this far the list of things I like is below.

List of things I like:

1) Apple computers, laptops, phones, mp3 players, you name it. I am an Apple fan. I am not a terrible biased one who thinks everyone should use Apple, I am pleased there is competition but I am yet to use anything that does what I need better than my Apple friends (Macbook, iMac, iPod classic 120, iPhone 3G S).

2) Nintendo. Nintendo games are probably more responsible for how I have turned out as an adult than my parents, any friend or family member. I got a SNES (with street fighter 2 turbo) when I was about 9 and from that moment onwards my life would never be the same. This topic will get it's own blog one day.

3) Morrissey. If I started talking now and finished when time ended I don't think I would be able to explain exactly how much I love Morrissey, nor why.

4) Test Cricket. I love other sports, I adore football, 9 ball pool, ice hockey. Cricket has lodged itself a special place in my brain and heart though. I think it taught me to be patient or something like that.

5) Probably the biggest turning point in my life was getting home access to the internet in my teens. I adore the internet more than I can explain. I was a fairly shy reserved boy not interested in learning, not really interested in anything. The internet taught me to socialise, it re-ignited my love for learning, it gave me access to the finest entertainment. Maybe this should get it's own blog too.

(How fucking boring was that?)

Welcome, welcome

2009-09-13T14:15:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody. Here I am, talking at you via the internet.
A very short one today as I have done nothing on this blog for a while so feel I should update it, have very little to talk about (so why the hell am I blogging at all??) and have had a friend with me for the last week who needs pretty much constant attention.
I will try to do a proper one in the week if any of you still care, but in the mean time please excuse my pointless ramble.

First thing. I recently had the pleasure of spending a few days in Venice. This meant I also had the displeasure of spending time on an aeroplane. I won't bore you (again) with my list of reasons for not enjoying this mode of travel, but the main reason is my fellow passengers. This flight was no different, I was sat next to what can only be described as one of the most irritating men I have ever encountered. From the moment we sat down on to the moment we landed he loudly boasted about how much alcohol he was going to consume on his holiday, then looked around after each individual boast to see if anyone was impressed. He started with "how long are we delayed now? 40 minutes? Oh, that's only a couple bottles of wine" and ended with "something to drink in the Jacuzzi tonight" when he and his equally annoying wife purchased a bottle of champagne from the cabin crew. Very, very annoying. Did he want congratulating for mastering the rather tricky business of swallowing fluids, or did he want someone to go "oh you like drinking? I like drinking too, lets be mates". Who knows?

Second thing. I had to go to Luton (not actual Luton, a little farm place outside of Luton) for a party yesterday.
This was fine, lots of good friends, a BBQ, music etc etc etc. I had what should have been a nice time and probably most people would describe as a nice time, but I couldn't help but get a bit annoyed by a few small things.

Why did we have to sit outside just because the weather was nice? There were perfectly comfortable chairs inside, so why was I sat on the cunting grass, covering my expensive jeans in grass stains and getting back ache?

Why did people insist on playing music too loud? I was with good friends for most of the night, people with whom I don't find conversation tiresome. So why sit with music on all day AND night. So loud you can't hear what a friend is saying? Madness.

Dancing. Oh sweet lord dancing. I despise dancing more than I can possibly describe. I find it in no way liberating, I find it awkward, I find it COMPLETELY THE OPPOSITE of erotic and I find watching other people dance embarrassing. At around 10pm the rest of the people in the garden decided it was dance o'clock, (everyone at this party knew each other so I have no idea what this 'dancing' was supposed to achieve). I went and sat in the corner on my iPhone and played on msn/facebook/twitter for half an hour or so. I wanted to do this for longer, however I was interrupted by one of my friends asking me why I wasn't getting involved. I told them that I was not interested in dancing and that in 7 hours, you can pretty much exhaust all the possible options of things you can do in a back garden. They sensed I wasn't having fun so suggested "have a few more drinks".

In summary, if you want to throw a party;

-Get a group of your friends together
-Make them all less comfortable than they would typically be
-Play music so loud they can't hear each other talk
-Force them to self consciously flaunt their bodies rhythmically at one another
-Fuel them with so much alcohol they can just about tolerate each others company

Parties are fucking stupid.

Ok, enough typey talk, I am off to sit on the south bank to drink cider and watch the fireworks by the London eye. Once again, my blog shows me to be a great big fucking hippocrite "oh fucking cider, bloody alcohol, wheeey". Toodles.