Sad.

My nan passed away last night.

The comedy duo of her and my grandad has lost a key component. She was the perfect foil for his ridiculous views.

If there is a Heaven I hope for her sake it doens't have blue cheese.

Don't have many words outside of cliches, but at least she is at peace and she'll be remembered.

Top 10 of 2010

Given that blogs have been scarce in these parts recently, I've decided to continue a theme, albeit a little different from the last time.

So, music of 2010.
Here are my top 10 songs from this year:

10. "Sing" by My Chemical Romance

Love or hate My Chemical Romance (and aside from not knowing who they are, love or hate do appear to be your only options) you can't deny they write catchy songs. I don't even really like "Sing" that much, My Chemical Romance seem to be another example of melodramatic posturing and bright colours triumphing over real musical talent. But it's still a decent song in what has been a year of music hardly filled with good stuff.

9. "Best Friend" by The Drums

On the surface The Drums appear to be everything I am against. Hipster-fueled indie pop, exactly the kind of people who would wear loafers with no socks. Dickheads. But I think this song is really good. I've listened to the rest of the album, and although I haven't given it a chance to grow on me, I doubt it ever will.

8. "Retiring Spies" by The Sleeping

Now, I've tried to include only "singles" in my list of songs but I don't think The Sleeping released a single from their excellent new album The Big Deep, so I've put down my favourite song from the album. Despite having a guitar lick that's hugely similar to 'A Place For My Head' by Linkin Park, I still think this song has an awful lot of merit on its own.

7. "Closer To The Edge" by 30 Seconds To Mars

I saw 30STM live a few backs. Good band, similar to the My Chemical Romance issue of melodramaticism. To me they suffer a little bit from the Foo-Fighters-problem, and by that I mean they write two or three fantastic songs per album, and then fill out the rest with fairly average tracks. Thankfully, Closer To The Edge is in the former category.

6. "Hallucinations" by Angels and Airwaves

Angels and Airwaves get a lot of stick, probably because they aren't as good as Blink 182, and also Tom DeLonge believes (and vocalises that) they are saviors of music. 'LOVE' is a good album no matter what people say about them, and Hallucinations is the probably the best track.

5. "Swim Until You Can't See Land" by Frightened Rabbit

I was introduced to Frightened Rabbit a little late, by Tom, who appears to know my musical taste better than I do. It's difficult to dislike this track, it's friendly and pleasantly musical like a Scottish Mumford & Sons with more talent. Infectiously catchy.

4. "It Must Really Suck To Be Four Year Strong Right Now" by Four Year Strong

Four Year Strong had a few years of mediocrity releasing pop-punk with a rockier edge. New album 'Enemy of the World' is by far their best work and the extravagantly-titled lead single. With the alternative music scene filling up with by-the-numbers pop(-punk) like All Time Low, We The Kings and Boys Like Girls, Four Year Strong are a nice break to the mold.

3. "My Best Theory" by Jimmy Eat World

An example that you don't need to move with trends to be succesful, Jimmy Eat World have effectively played the same music forever. It still seems fresh and new, though, JEW have never stagnated. This is a great song with a raucous main riff and a classic chorus. I wish all bands had Jimmy Eat World's longevity.

2. "You Wouldn't Have To Ask" by Bad Books

Up until the second that I came to write this little text, I had numbers 1 and 2 the other way round. This is a great song, really really great and definitely has the best lyrics of any "single" this year. Bad Books are the supergroup composed of Kevin Devine and Manchester Orchestra, and this is an example of how utterly amazing they could be. Unfortunately their self-titled debut album feels like a split of either Kevin Devine songs or Manchester Orchestra songs + this masterpiece.




1. "Drugwolf" by Crime In Stereo

I don't think anyone I know agrees with me, but this defacto single from Crime In Stereo early year release 'I Was Trying To Describe You To Someone' is the best song of this year. Well, if you like alternative rock music and have a limited capacity for tolerating other people's opinions anyway. Crime In Stereo's album was impressively recorded using only guitars, bass, drums and vocals and yet with the example of Drugwolf, it has a much more musical and epic feel than anything they've done before. The chorus, which I have to admit I disliked upon first listen, soars if you give it a chance and the crescendo at the end is awesome.

Given that this video, the only one on YouTube of the recorded version, has had 3,147 views, it seems likely that my view isn't shared by very many people. So you must listen to it, and agree with me.

Christmas 2010.

Christmas was very nice.
What will follow probably won't be.
Will try to make the best of things while they're good.
Hope everyone had a great Christmas.

Jobs.

OK, so here's the situation:

I currently work full-time as a researcher for World of Books on a temporary basis.
I also do a bit of freelance work as a writer, but that comes and goes as it pleases.

So, I continue my job search.

What I am looking for is something like a press office assistant or PR assistant or marketing assistant.
Ideally, I would be working for a university or a charity, on the logic that its an environment I am more used to than a full-on business

These types of jobs, in a junior capacity, are fairly rare.


But it is what I'd like to be doing, and possibly the most sensible way to put my life skills to any commercial use. Not much of an income to be made in writing satirical blog posts or stalling at chapter two of every novel you try to write.

I digress.

So, anyway, this week, I found one such job.

It is as a "communications officer" at the University of Brighton. The problem is, it is also a temporary position, covering for maternity leave, I believe it said.

Still, it would be a fantastic opportunity if I could get it.

BUT:

...on the day I discover this job, World of Books offers me my current temporary job on a permanent basis.

Now, I really like my job at the moment. It's not remotely well paid, but it is easy, relaxed and, to a certain extent, quite fun.

If my life were in a place in which I wanted to settle down, or at least establish some degree of permanance, this job would be really good (...possibly with a little addition to the paycheck).

However, I now have to ask myself, if I could get a temporary job as a communications officer, do I take it? Do I abandon a permanent, full-time job that I enjoy for the experience and short-term financial benefit of being in a better paid job with better prospects?

I always said to myself I would always rather get experience and give myself the chance to get a good job. But at the same time I do genuinely like this job I have at the moment, and I don't want to leave it, for a few months of a job that I could potentially hate, or not find a future in.

I don't know. Do I go against everything that I used to mock? Am I brave enough to move on from something good for the potential for something better? I don't know.

Dreamthorp

I have long been a fan of the song "I could be with anyone" by Kevin Devine.

Kev Dev is a tremendous lyricist who is excellent at capturing the essence of what it is to grow up in the alternative culture these days, and indeed more general terms. "I could be with anyone" is a very good example of this.
The clue is in the title, and this song is primarily about the idea of how we form relationships and the part that luck and circumstance play in those who we come to love.

I use this introduction as a framing device to a quote that I'd like to show you from an obscure essay by the Scottish poet Alexander Smith from his book of essays Dreamthorp, originally published in 1864. Through my job, in which I have to value some strange old books, some very interesting, some otherwise, I often find myself reading things that I otherwise would never think of doing so. Alexander Smith is a good example of this.

I began reading his essay "On Vagabonds", the final essay of the book, and was impressed by how relevant and interesting the points he makes are.

Permit me to show you two quotes. They are constructed in that beautiful old style of writing that is so much more intrinsically appealing that the stuff you get today.

The first is on the same point that Kevin Devine is making. Obviously Alexander Smith's ideas come across in a fairly dated fashion, but I think that the point underneath is still completely valid.

"Our young men are terribly alike. For these many years back the young gentlemen I have had the fortune to encounter are clever, knowing, selfish, disagreeable; the young ladies are of one pattern like minted sovereigns of the same reign - excellent gold, I have no doubt, but each bearing the same awfully proper image and superscription... Courtship is an absurdity, and a sheer waste of time. If a man could but close his eyes in a ball-room, dash into a bevy of muslin beauties, carry off the fair one that accident gives to his arms, his raid would be as reasonable and as likely to produce happiness as the more ordinary methods of procuring a spouse"

The second quote is a little more vague, and I just think it makes a wonderful point that feels truer today.

 "Ah me! what a world this was to live in two or centuries ago when it was getting itself discovered - when the sunset gave up America, when a steel hand had the spoiling of Mexico and Peru! Then were the "Arabian Nights" common place enchantments a matter of course and romance the most ordinary thing in the world. Then man was courting nature, now he has married her. Every mystery is dissapated."

Decembreativity

So we've had Movember which was a charity event featuring sponsored moustache growing to raise awareness for prostate cancer. (Take note, Facebook, and your weekend of having a different profile picture.)

And now, the Guardian tells me that Decembrow is upon us, in which women stop plucking their eyebrows and sport a unibrow to raise aware for... well, feminism, I guess.

Both are good ideas.

But not being a woman I am unable to raise awareness for feminism. So, feeling left out, I have decided to begin Decembreativity in which I raise awareness for creativity by creatively coming up with some more possible month-name-change-to-raise-worthy-cause-awareness ideas.

Let's see:

So, instead of January we'll have Brandnewary - a month in which everyone must listen only to Brand New songs: to raise awareness that Brand New are the best band  in the world

Instead of February, Debruary - in which everyone named Deborah must spell their name Debra: to raise awareness that my mum's name is spelt Debra and not Deborah.

OK, admitedly, these first two have been a little centred around me. Let's try to see the bigger picture.

Instead of March, Starch to raise awareness for starch. Because, you know, we'll all like a bit of starch?

Instead of April, Gaypril, a month of enforced homosexuality, to raise awareness for John Barrowman.

Instead of May, Gay, ... another month of enforced homosexuality... to raise awareness for... err...

OK.
These are all awful.

I declare Decembreativity a failure.

Talk amongst yourselves whilst I think of something else...

Biffy Clyro, and a kareoke singer covering 'Many of Horror'

So some random guy won X-Factor.
His name could be anything, I've only seen it a few times. Mark? Matt? Steve?

I don't have a clue, and I don't care.

I can only assume that the  "x-factor" that the show claims to be looking for can be defined as 'a good looking man who probably wouldn't win a kareoke contest in his local pub'.

Here is a video of his performance, and he is genuinely off-key on a lot of notes here.
He has chosen to cover a Biffy Clyro song.

Now, I'm a big fan of Biffy Clyro. And I this pub singers cover an insulting poor and emotionless piece of shit.
And I am confident you will see a backlash from Biffy Clyro fans, and fans of decent music, that might well produce a repeat of the 'Simon Cowell vs. real music' standoff that we saw last year.

However.

I want a further opinion to be placed into the mix; an opinion that you might not hear very often.

And that opinion is that "Many of Horror" by Biffy Clyro is not a very good Biffy Clyro song. Biffy are a pop-drowned shadow of their former glory.
And the proof can be found in that fact that a talentless shit from the X Factor is able to cover their song and the 12/13 year olds (those both in phsyical and mental years) who enjoy X Factor don't abandon him.

Can you imagine "Glitter and Trauma" being covered on the X Factor? Take a listen and imagine it.



No.

I'm afraid Biffy are nothing more than rocky pop music these days. I am pleased for their success and I still enjoy their songs for what they are.
But I've got to admit that it annoys me when I hear people talk about how fantastic the album 'Only Revolutions' is, when it is by far their weakest release.

The Liberal Democrats, and how they have blown their chance.

For all my posturing and complaining how no-one votes at elections. I ashamed to admit I didn't vote last time round.

I was going to, but then University of Wolverhampton stole all my money, and I couldn't get home to fill out a ballot paper. I know I could have planned it better. I know I could have postal voted. But I was rubbish. I didn't think and I'm a failure.

But anyway, it didn't matter.

I hadn't decided, but I was going to vote Liberal Democrat or Labour.
Tim Loughton, the Tory who has been our MP since our constituency was created in 1997, recieved 23,458 votes (interestingly, this is proof that there are at least 23,458 old/stupid people in my area).

The next closest was James Doyle, the Liberal Democrat, who recieved 12,353 votes.
Now, had I voted, that would have given him a sum of 12,354 votes.
Unfortunately, that is still less than 23,458.

Fairly worryingly Emily Benn from Labour recieved 8,087 votes. So even if we added up all the votes for Labour and Lib Dem, Tim still won. That's a bit sad really.

But the point I'm going to make is actually a different one.
Because I championed Lib Dems during the lead up the election, and I was rooting for them. I probably would have voted Liberal Democrat if I had been here.

And now, I don't think I can ever vote Lib Dem.
Call it youthful naivety if you like, but I think Liberal Democrats had an opportunity at the 2010 election.
Not an opportunity to get into power (although funnily enough they sort of did), I think they had a chance to win a generation of voters to their cause, and they had the chance to proove themselves as different types of politicians. Not liars and cheats and media-spinners. Real people standing up for what their constituants wanted.

See, if you talk to young people about politics the key word tends to be apathy.

Politicians are all the same. They make promises to get your vote, and then make a u-turn when it comes to the decisions. They abuse their expenses. They never give you a straight answer.

The problem is people don't trust politicians. They are too used to people who just want to be in a position of power. 

So along come the Lib Dems, making their promises, and saying they are going to be a "real alternative" and "fair". Amongst young people the Lib Dems were by far the most popular party, becuase they were offering something different to the politics that we knew and hated.

So here was their chance.
They didn't have to get into power. All they had to do was win the respect of a young generation of voters who believed in them. They just had to keep their promises, and stay true to their manifesto, and reward those people who put their faith in them.

The Liberal Democrats could have emerged from these difficult political times as a party who were willing to stand by their word. And it would have been a slow process, but I think a massive proportion of this generation would have believed in the Lib Dems in a way that the Tory vs. Labour current generation just aren't capable of doing.
So then a couple of elections down the road, the Lib Dems would have proved themselves as a real party with real values, and I suspect that is exactly what people are looking for. I think the Liberal Democrats could have been a genuine contender, in two or three elections time.

But what did they do?

They teamed up with the Tories. The party that, on paper, they disagreed with the most.
They broke their election pledge to stop university fees from dramatically rising.
They proved to all the young voters who put their faith in them that you really cannot trust a single word a politician said, and I can promise you that they have thrown away so many potential voters for the future.

This was their chance, and they have seriously blown it.

Now they are hated even more than the Tories. Because at heart we knew what we were getting from the Tories.

It's like you're being bullied at school, and then you see your best friend, who promised to come to your rescue, join in with the bullies. Sure, you hate the bullies but you're gonna hate your friend even more for abandoning you.

So now everyone who likes the current government will vote Conservative, because it's basically their policies. And everyone who doesn't has no choice but to vote Labour.

Lib Dems had a chance to be recognised as a different kind of political party, and had a generation of voters just waiting to get behind them.
Instead I fear they have now lost their support, and cannot be trusted.

I love you/I hate you.

This is going to be another post about basketball.
But don't worry, it leads to personal discovery and transcendent self-deprecation. And that's what we're all looking for really.

See, basketball is a strange one for me.
I love it. Love, genuine love.
But the trouble is I'm much better at thinking/talking about it than I am playing it.

I mean it's not entirely my fault.

When you design a perfect basketball player you don't give them an athletically-limited 5'10'' body with bad eyesight, stubby legs and a generally meek attitude to competition. And if you do, you definitely don't give them the ability to realise this.

Nevertheless, physical limitations can only shoulder so much of the blame. I'm still able-bodied, and I hold the distinction of being neither the shortest, the weakest or the fattest.

If you come and watch me you will notice I don't dribble much (and not because I can't), I make stupid decisions and I pass up easy shots. And I'm afraid that all this comes down to a lack of confidence. Alex, my self-appointed motivational trainer, often tells me that I play better when I play with confidence.

Part of that, I know, is simply a ploy to make me believe a little more into my limited abilities, but it is actually true. I know I play better when things are going my way. But I can't harness that. I can't tell make myself think like things are going good.

I am stuck in reality. And this applies not just to basketball. Most things I do could be improved if I just had a little faith in what I do and what I think and what I say.

I confine myself to mediocrity.

Basketball.
I love it, but it is a microcosm for everything that is wrong with my life.

It is the projection of my lack of confidence ruining something that should be good.

And it is the proof that no matter how much I care about something, that I don't have the strength of character or the bravery to overcome the problems.

Some odd BBC journalism.

I'd like to just quickly draw your attention to this BBC article on Newcastle United's new manager Alan Pardew, and a bizarre editorial choice.

If you've seen a BBC article before, you'll know that they have the article with a picture at the top and then somewhere down in the second half of the page they have a little insert with a comment on the story either from the message board or from a blog by one of their experts.

In this case there is a quote from Phil McNulty who is the BBC's head football writer.
He says : "Pardew's early statements do not speak of a man daunted by the task facing him..."

Yet the very first quote from Alan Pardew in the article reads:

"But it's one of the top five clubs in England. It's a daunting prospect but something I couldn't turn down"

Now.
When a man calls the prospect of a task "daunting", I think it's fair to say he is a man "daunted" by the task.

Phil McNulty is clearly a man baffled by the changing of tense.

The reason I don't have a cartoon as my profile picture.

There is a trend on Facebook at the moment.

What you do, apparently, is replace your current display picture with a picture of a cartoon character from your childhood.

I won't be participating. Not because I'm too pretencious, or because I wish violence against children. No.
Because it's a kind of typical campaign that we are beginning to see.

Facebook User 1: "I am going to combat child abuse!"

Facebook User 2: "How? By donating money to a reputable children's charity? By volunteering as a care worker? By going out into the street and handing out flyers to raise awareness to the plight of children?"

Facebook User 1: "No. By changing my profile picture to that of a cartoon"

It's funny how willing people are do things for campaigns when it is free and they only have to click a few buttons.
Call me cynical but I bet if you said "change your profile picture to a cartoon and donate £5 to NSPCC" suddenly no one would notice the campaign.

No, instead what you get to do is appease your conscience by putting a different picture up for a few days, so that you can imagine in your head that you have somehow done something decent for abused children.

Enjoy that warm feeling of making a difference that I am sure you all get.

Question Time

Watched Question Time, and have two points to make.

So, England lost their bid to win the 2018 World Cup.
They didn't lose by a narrow margin. They got eliminated in the first round of voting after they received just 2 votes, one of whom was English.

And suddenly it's the BBC's fault for running the Panorama show a couple of nights before.

Panorama said that FIFA's selection process is corrupt and some of the people have accepted bribes to vote for a certain country to win.

Then the winning country turns out to be Russia, undoutbedly the most politically corrupt of the countries who were bidding.

So what do we do?
Blame FIFA for being corrupt? No. Let's blame the BBC for pointing out they are corrupt.

The BBC couldn't win.
They were right, and yet they have been blamed for being right. We weren't going to win anyway. We got two votes!

It wouldn't have made a difference if Panorama had aired a 3 hour special showing their journalists going around molesting the selection board's children.
We had already lost before Panorama had anything to do about it. 

Of course you could argue that Panorama didn't know that we had already lost, so had the vote been very close they could have swung it against England's favour.
But imagine if that was the case...

Russia beat England by one vote to win the World Cup 2018. And two days later the BBC brings out "new evidence" to show that FIFA is corrupt.

No one would take it seriously. It would just look like England were bad losers trying to save face. If anything it would probably have exhonerated FIFA from corruption.

The BBC couldn't win, no matter what they did it would have been wrong.

Congratulations to Russia, by the way, I wasn't actually displeased to see Russia win. They've never hosted a World Cup before.

The second point I wanted to make comes from a statement made by Nadine Dorries, the Conservative MP on the programme.

It was just a very good indicator of general Tory attitude towards life, and exactly why they are completely the wrong people to be running the country.

She said on the issue of increased tuition fee:
"maybe students will think a little bit more about the tyoe of course they go on, one that will pay them well at the end... and get them a better education"

That's right Nadine. Let's have everyone make every decision based on what financial benefit they will get from it. Just like the Tories do.

Books.

Started my new job today.
It's good, and it's nice to know I'm getting paid for going into work.

Two intriguiging books stick in my mind:
The Diabetic ABC War-Time Supplement by R.D Lawrence, which gives a recipe for cream cheese that calls for placing milk at 70 degrees for 30 hours, and then straining through a muslin for 5 hours.

The second was a book that didn't have a title. The front page was just a shade of royal blue with a small swastika in the corner. Scary stuff, I decided it wouldn't be best to put it in the reject bin.

A Christian atheist?

This might not be the kind of words you would expect to read on the blog of an atheist, so brace yourself:

I like Christianity. I like it very much. In a sense, I feel I am mildly Christian.

Don't get me wrong, I also hate Christianity, and in many ways, I cannot stand religion. So let's clear a few things up.
I certainly do not believe in God, but contrary to what an irrelevant, ancient book suggests, I doubt that really matters.  

See, at the heart of Christianity, and indeed most of the mainstream religions, there is a message that I could not agree with more strongly.
It is a message that preaches kindness, generosity, loyalty and compassion.

I think that's excellent. I hate the way the world has become a selfish, money obsessed cesspit with a disgusting mainstream culture of greed and narcissism.
I think we should all make an effort to be kind, and selfless and generous.
At the moment, if you try to be always kind and selfless and generous, it will get you nowhere, because people find it far too easy to take advantage of you. So instead we all have to descend into the same level of cynicism, and we all have to look out for ourselves, and ourselves only.

So, morally and ethically, I fundamentally agree with the message of Christianity. Help people. Be kind. Be generous.

But what I don't understand, is why these concepts have to be tied into the idea of a God.
The Bible and the teachings of Christianity often offer wise advice, strong moral stories and the uplifting idea that humans doing good to each other can only be a good thing.

Why does there need to be a power-hungry Santa Claus figure at the top of the pyramid who demands that the most important thing that you do in your life is believe in him?

Why would it matter if you believe in him or not?
Say you live a kind, selfless life but you don't ever believe in God, you don't go to church and you don't pray. You don't do those kind selfless things because you want to improve your chances of getting into Heaven for eternal bliss. You just do them because it's the right thing to do, and you feel good when you do good.

Why would it matter if you're wrong at the end. You die, and God pops up and says "yeah, I do exist, you were wrong not to believe in me".
It wouldn't change the fact that you lived a good, kind, selfless life.
If anything it makes it more noble.

Christians who believe in God (and it works for most religions) can justify their good deeds because they are getting something out of it.
I'm not expecting to get anything out of being nice to people.

I don't believe in God. But I think that if he does exist he would rather I do good things and not believe in him, than do bad things and completely believe in him.

Strictly Come Dancing, and why it can't/won't last.

The following is a boring rant with lots of unsubstantiated reactionary guesswork and pathetic self-indulgent opinions on culture.

I hate Strictly Come Dancing. But I don't hate the people who watch it.
It's entertainment. It's made to be entertainment. I'm sad to say that for a long time, I was a bit delusional about hating it.

I think I'm just so used to liking things that, in general, most people don't like that I begin to associate things that I don't like with stupidity.
And that's not to say I think I'm more intelligent than people who watch Strictly, I'm not saying that at all. (I'll do a blog about intelligence later). But in general, I tend to find that counter-culture tends to attract a more intelligent level of person than the mainstream.
But my new thinking points me in the direction that perhaps there is just a lot more people counting as "mainstream" and so it has a wider range of intelligence.

As an example, I can use comedians.
My favourite comedian is Stewart Lee.
My favourite comedian is not Lee Evans.
Using a basic straw poll of my life I can tell you that I know more people who like Lee Evans than I know who like Stewart Lee.
I can also tell you that everyone I know who likes Stewart Lee, I would count as intelligent. And of all the people who like Lee Evans, I know some who are very intelligent, and some who are very stupid, and most variations in the middle.

Now, these days, Stewart Lee might be becoming a bit more mainstream. But he definitely has limited appeal. Lee Evans definitely counts as mainstream. I'm not having a go at him. I don't mind Lee Evans.

But anyway, so the point is, lots of people like Strictly Come Dancing and X-Factor and all that other stuff that I think is rubbish. Lots of people who are much more intelligent than I am.
But I realised I am factoring intelligence far too much into the debate. It is just entertainment, that's all. It doesn't have to have intellectual properties. It doesn't need to make you think.

That's the first point I wanted to make: an acceptance that I was wrong, as usual.

The second point, however, is that Strictly Come Dancing has a limited life span.
Now, I suppose this is obvious. Nothing last forever, especially in fickle TV land.
But it hits home this series with the success of Ann Widdecombe, who is clearly the least skilled dancer, and the least attractive person on the show. And that is the reason she has been successful.

It is a glorified freak-show.
"What shall we do tonight for entertainment?"
"Let's laugh at the fat ugly woman making a fool of herself on TV again"

If you want proof, the exact same thing happened in the last series with John Sargeant. He quit the show for exactly the reason that he had a real chance of winning. Winning on the basis that he was the least talented and people just wanted to laugh at him a bit more.

So the problem arises as what's next for Strictly?

How do you top the entertainment factor of Ann Widdecombe?
We've had a fat, ugly man. Now a fat, ugly woman. What's next?
The American version has already used Heather Mills... she was the next logical step (forgive the pun).
Stephen Hawking perhaps? And then what? The rotting corpse of Michael Jackson? Hitler's skeleton?

It can't last. And it won't.

'Where' and 'were', and the embarrasing way I remember the difference.

This is a song called "Where do you go" by No Mercy.

I don't know anything about it.
And I don't want to know anything.
It's shit.

In finding this video, I listened to about the first 20 seconds of the song. And that is the first time I have heard it in years, maybe even a decade.

Despite this fact, it has played a very prominent role in my life.

That's because, to this day (and it doesn't happen often at all any more, but it did occasionally, probably up until I had finished college) if I couldn't remember whether 'where' was spelt 'where' or 'were'. I would silently repeat the opening words of the song, which are simply: "where do you go?" and from that I would know the difference.

I don't know why.
I just always remembered that "where do you go" was spelt like that, and so I can always remember whether it is 'where' or 'were'.

A brief update.

In recent times this blog has become far too cheery. I am not living up to my mantra of lengthy rants on how awful everything is.

Well, it is awful.

Bloody Tories. No job. No money. Fear of failure. Likelihood of failure. Haven't written anything creatively (apart from guides to countries I haven't been to) in ages. Lingering doubt. Agitation at human stupidity. Bungee-jump confidence levels. Deteriorating basketball ability, despite extra practice. Not being able to remember whether 'practice' or 'practise' would be correct in the preceding sentence. The X-Factor. Christmas coming up (combined with aforementioned lack of money). Constant, self-inflicted nausea. Transcendental self doubt. Writers block. Song-writers block. Desperation to go on holiday. The complexity of human interaction.

But aside from that, things are actually pretty good.

Alas, all good things must come to an end.

It's the last day my work experience.
I was supposed to be working until Friday but my little excursion to Leicester has forced it to come to an abrupt end.

Thank you! *very low bow* Thank you very much.

Oh gosh, so many people to thank. OK first off I'd like to thank DG, the Jamaican soft drink producer. Your Old Jamaica Ginger Beer (other ginger beers are available) has kept me hydrated and motivated during the long afternoons.

I'd like to thank the guy who sits on the front desk who looks up at me every morning and half says "hello" but doesn't quite. 

I'd like to thank Dave the dog, for barking at people he doesn't know and attempting to be intimidating despite being the size of a hamster.

Singing in Leicester.

On Thursday I will travel approximately 165 miles to play an acoustic guitar and display my limited abilities as a singer in front of a number of University of Leicester geology students who I do not know.

This may seem an extremely foolish thing to do.

I'm not doing it on my own though. Joe is going to be the main singer. He is a geology student at the University of Leicester, so you see there is some sanity hidden within my opening statement.

I don't think I'm nervous... but then I am posting a pointless blog about it, and that usually suggests I'm nervous. I haven't played music live for at least three years, and I didn't used to enjoy it very much then.

I'm a bit more confident within myself now though, so hopefully it will go well.

I'll let you know.

Bikes, and how they are more important than people.

People who ride a bike must feel pretty good about themselves.

They are saving the environment by avoiding travelling in a horrible car, polluting the Earth. And they are staying in shape too, getting rid of the visual pollution of unsightly flab.

A form of athletic altruism, you might even say?

So, riding a bike is, in theory, a very good thing.

Okay, so, it's a horrible day out there, so I was already in a bad mood. So you'll forgive me if the following rant about cyclists is grossly unfair.

But, you see, there is a situation when riding a bike can be extremely selfish. The situation I am referring to is when someone takes a bike on a train.

Because to take a bike on the train you have to have made an assumption. And the assumption is that everyone else isn't going to bring a bike. Because I promise you, if we did, there wouldn't be enough room.

A bike takes up the standing space of two people, and yet a cyclist doesn't have to pay extra. Selfishly, they have assumed that it is more important for their journey to have a cycle, than it is for the potential of two other people to stand comfortably.

Therefore, I propose that from today (why waste time?) it be necessary to buy a Bike Ticket for the train in addition to the standard ticket you buy. It could maybe cost half the price of a normal ticket (and here, I think you'll agree, I'm being very generous) and any cyclist found not to have one would receive an immediate on-the-spot fine of: execution.

I have spoken.

Mr Happy sold his soul to Specsavers.

"You should've gone to Specsavers, mate"
They might say. I imagine them having a strong London accent despite never having lived outside of a middle class neighbourhood of West Sussex.

Now, I hate Specsavers.
Their fabled slogan is so catchy that it became a perfect tool for bullies. I didn't wear glasses in school, but I even in my time as an adult I'm sure I've had someone come out with the dashing wit of being able to repeat a line they have heard in an advert.

Funnily enough I have never been to Specsavers. All my recent glasses/contact lens excursions have been in Vision Express. Perhaps subconsciously because Specsavers created a slogan to bully me... but more likely because Vision Express is easier to get to from my house.

Now, I'm not usually impressed by pieces of advertising.
In general, having been a media studies student since a-levels, I find myself analysing them rather than enjoying(?) them for what they are.

So this was an advertisement for Specsavers.

The detail for the story is vital.
Okay, so in my lunchtime routine of walking to the shops I have to walk down a fairly busy road with lots of side roads leading off from it. Cleverly, the advertisers have realised that lots of people walk down this road and so there are a number of billboards on the walls of the final buildings of the side roads.

So as you walk up the road, every side road you see a new billboard and advertisement. If you follow me.

Here is an example of what I mean.

So as you can see the billboard is on your left as you walk up the road, as I do on my way back from lunch.

As you walk towards this particular billboard obviously your view is partially obstructed by the houses in the road. So the first thing that you see is on the right off the advert.

And you read the words:

"Mr Happy should've gone to Specsavers"

And then as you walk a few metres closer, the other half of the billboard becomes visible and it's an image of Mr Happy with a big frowny face and some broken glasses.

I liked it.

Capital cities, and learning them.

I recently embarked upon a quest... a personal goal, perhaps, of learning every capital city in the world.

I realise it is stupid.

It serves no purpose. I wont gain employment by knowing that Nicosia is the capital of Cyprus. And it has the added problem that inevitably, the one time someone asks a capital-city based question, it will either be one of the ones I don't know OR one of the easy ones that I mix up.
A good example of the latter is Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta. I know one is Malaysia and one is Indonesia, but I always forget which. (Without looking it up I think Jakarta is Indonesia, but I am prepared to be wrong).

Even a genius thinks it's a bad idea. Einstein said (and I paraphrase) that you should never learn something that you can easily look up.

Of course, Einstein lived before the internet, so I don't think the point is relevant any more.

I currently know most of the European capitals apart from the tiny ones like Moldova and Albania. I know most of South America. And most of Asia.

But one of the biggest problems, I tend to find, are the Caribbean countries.

The problem is that most countries have capitals of really banal, English names that are extremely similar and boring.

Let's see:
Anguilla - The Valley
Antigua and Barbuda - Saint John's
Barbados - Bridgetown
British Virgin Islands - Road Town
Cayman Islands - George Town
Grenada - St. George's
Guyana - Georgetown
Jamaica - Kingston
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines - Kingstown

That's gonna take some learning.

For anyone who knows Joe Keating.

I was trying to find out what series American Dad! had got up to when I stumbled across the American Dad! wikia.

I decided to read the page on Roger the Alien. I scrolled down to the personality section and read through.
Only after did it occur to me that if you change nothing but the name "Roger" to "Joe", and a couple family names, it an EXACT biography of Joe Keating.

Take a look:

Joe is seen as the 'Adam Sandler' of the family, that is, a comedic clown. His sexuality isn't known but he is either gay or at least bisexual. He longs to be a celebrity and have others adore him. To shut out the total misery of his ordinary life, and to cope with being locked inside a house all day, Joe turns to alcohol.

Joe's flamboyant and dramatic nature is enhanced by his alcohol dependency. This nature often clashes with the conventional attitudes and demeanor of the other Keating's.

Joe has a weak nature and will change sides in an argument almost immediately if he feels threatened. His desires are often superficial. Instead of taking responsibility Joe will often deny making mistakes.

He does not consider other's feelings before acting and will often take before asking. Joe is fragile in nature and longs for connection with people, but his forthright nature often prevents this from happening. Joe's species are biologically incapable of being nice.

Joe's species has also been known to excrete gold and jewels. However, neither Joe, nor any of his species, or the Keating family have realized that his waste is considered valuable on Earth. This is probably beneficial as everyone who has discovered Joe's gold has had met a horrible ending.

Joe's political beliefs are unknown. One time when Tom was making a rant about the merits of socialism, Joe told him to shut up, although this is not known whether or not he wished for him to be quiet or he disagreed with his stance.

Joe Keating?

Toilet Etiquette 2: The Toilet Strikes Back.

Interestingly, or perhaps worryingly, the most popular individual page on my blog (discounting the hundreds of views of the picture Richard Dawkins transmogrifying into Emma Watson that I stole) is the one about male toilet etiquette.

Therefore I have decided, in order to propel my writing to new levels of popularity, to pen the difficult second story.

Sequels are worse (apart from the Godfather Part II and The Dark Knight), we have had this drilled into us with horror films. And this will be no exception.
I used up the good material early. Now you're just getting the dregs.

There are two toilets in my house.

There's the little draughty downstairs one that used to house this pink metal monstrosity that, during the winter, was the coldest fucking thing in the world.
I'm not exaggerating.
Fortunately it was renovated a few years back and is now good.

Then there is the upstairs one in the bathroom. Old faithful.

Both doors have a lock.
And neither of those locks work.

I hope that sends chills down your spine. If you have ever been in my house, and felt safe and secure knowing that the toilet has a lock: you were wrong.

Whilst this is inconvenient, it has established one thing very clearly in our household:
If the toilet door is completely closed, that means it is occupied.

Unfortunately, at other people's houses this rule is not always in place.
I mean, as a rule, generally people close the door completely if they are using the toilet. But sometimes they also completely close the door once they come out, making it impossible to know if someone is in the toilet or not.

Many times I have approached a closed toilet door in an unfamiliar house and had to silently wait outside for the tell-tale splashing noise to tell me whether it's not safe.

I hate knocking on the door and someone calls:
"Just a minute"
Hate it.

So up next is Toilet Etiquette 3: The Prequel, in which David completes potty training. It's a cracker.

Wow, Kings of Leon supporting Attack! Attack! at Brighton Audio... no? Oh.

Now.
I get annoyed when people listen to a song and at the end they say:
"It just sounds like..." and then pick an arbitrary song that mildly sounds the same.

That annoys me because everything has been done before. Everyone is re-using the same sounds. Fundamentally because that is what we have become conditioned to like.

I illustrate my point with a video I have probably posted before:


But last night I went to a gig and I became the very thing that annoys me.

Headlining the gig was Welsh band Attack! Attack! famous for their (and I use the term extremely loosely) "hit" 'Not Afraid'.
We'll get to them in a minute.

I was there to see Verses. The band with my close compadre Joe on the lead guitar.

But the first band was City Stereo.
I quite liked them. They aren't really my style. But they had a song called 'Lothario'. As I listened, I thought to myself "this sounds like 'Use Somebody' by Kings of Leon".
When I got home and listened to it, I changed my mind.
It is a complete rip-off of it.
Not so much the verse. But the chorus manages to similtaneously plaguerise both the verse AND the chorus of 'Use Somebody'.

Take a listen:



I don't think it's a bad song. Just a rip-off. I don't know if the two things are mutually exclusive.

Verses were awesome as usual. Highly recommended. But I guess if you read this blog, the chances are you have already heard of Verses and made up your own mind.
Nevertheless, their songs are good, and much more interesting than Attack! Attack! or City Stereo's and don't rip anyone off.

Attack! Attack!'s set was anticlimactic. Their performance was energetic, but the singer was a bit average, and so were the songs, really.

The other support band Freeze The Atlantic were good too.

Practice, and how you can't do it.

Here's something a lot of people get wrong. Including me.

Practice and practise.

Practice is a noun.
"I've got basketball practice in the evening"

Practise is a verb.
"I'm going to practise basketball this evening"

Kinda silly really.

Chavs, and Jobseekers Allowance

I don't see classic "Chavs" around very much anymore.
They appear to be extinct in Brighton. They have blended in with the trendys and hipsters making them much more difficult to spot and complain about with your middle class friends.

However, today was different. Today proved that Chavs are still around, and are going strong.

I found this out today because today I went to Worthing.

I have fond memories of the Guildborne Centre. Don't get me wrong, I know it's a shithole, but I went there occasionally as a child and we'd go in a shop that was there and it sold Star Wars figures and wrestling merchandise and all manner of sci-fi nerdy stuff that I love/loved.

I parked in the carpark, and despite getting lost upon exiting and going completely the wrong way, I eventually found my way to the "Job Centre Plus". The inside of the building appears to have been designed with a completely incongruity in mind between it and its "customers". The man did refer to me as a "customer".

It's quite a nice environment, lots of bright coloured furniture, as if somehow that is supposed to make up for the fact that it is an extremely depressing place to be.

I sat in the waiting area of "Section A" and the woman gave me a form.
"Now," she said "this form gets printed off with your details. Could you just check through to make sure you didn't make any mistakes on your application"
...
Mistakes? It's a form about who I am. How fucking stupid do I look?
I have the skills to interpret words, remember the correct answer and write them down. I wouldn't get something like whether I'm married or not wrong.
I briefly considered crossing out the "Male" in the gender section and writing "Female", and see how they dealt with that.
But in the end I didn't. As it turned out, ironically, I didn't have the balls.

When they called me to "Section B" I felt like an agent in a secret branch of the intelligence services, but it turned out to be a very similiar seating area.

I was called over to a desk but a middle aged man. His nametag read Dave, and immediately endeared me to him. Unfortunately, he was also wearing a Christ-on-the-cross pendant around his neck, which frosted over any warmth that having-the-same-name had generated between us.
He was a semi-hyperactive type with a habit of elongating words in a Ned Flanders-esque fashion. But we got through the fairly tedious process of him explaining stuff that I could have guessed.

"Now, I'm going to put down 9 to 5 as the hours you would most like to work," he said "you don't want to be working all the hours God sends"
I merely smiled and refrained from telling him that God didn't exist. I have a history of arguing with the religous, but I tend to only argue with those shouting at me that I'm going to Hell on the street. He seemed like an amiable chap.

I agreed to do a number of things per week in order to try to find a job. Most things that I do daily they asked me to do once a week.

So I now have wait for a couple of weeks, and they might start giving me some money, until I find a job.

Carrot sticks, and why they are pointless.

McDonald's launched an idea a while back. The logic was thus:

Children are getting seriously obese. Aside from the obvious benefit of the reduction in paedophilia, this could only be a bad thing. After all, children are the future. And if mainstream society has established anything it is that fat people are wrong.
The future is wrong.

But what's this? Out of the darkness, a pearly white horse gallops forward with a heroic figure on its back. He wears gallant robes of yellow with fashionably striped red and white arms. His face is an alabaster wash and his hair a powerful shock of red.
It's Ronald McDonald.
He proclaims:
"For no extra cost, you can now swap the high calorie fries for low calorie carrot stick in children's Happy Meals"

McDonald's has saved the future. Hurray.

But wait.
There is a problem here isn't there.

I don't think children are getting fat because they occasionally have a packet of McDonald's fries. I mean, it's not good for them, I'm not saying that, but logic suggests that anything is fine in moderation. I know lots of people who ate McDonald's occasionally and are thin as anything.

I'm certainly not slim, but I can promise you I wouldn't be rail thin if you swapped out all the McDonald's fries I've eaten for carrot sticks.

The problem isn't occasional consumption of fries.

So, if there is a problem with McDonald's it must be that children are eating them too often.
If this is the case then carrot sticks are not going to help.
If your parent believes that a balanced nutritional dinner is a greasy burger, a large sugary drink and a packet of some carrot sticks, you're a bit fucked.

In fact, possibly the carrot sticks are making things worse.
Because now the parents see a possible nutritional benefit to McDonald's where there was none before.

Carrots are a vegetable, they'd reason, combine that with the lettuce and tomato ketchup in the burger, and you've had three of your five-a-day.

At least with the fries there could be absolutely no question that McDonald's was bad for you. Carrot sticks seems to give the parents an excuse to bring their kids to McDonald's for the health reasons.

Waiting, and how I always had to do it.

Have a little patience...

Now, whatever your opinion about Take That, I must admit I like the sentiment.
Patience is something I value very highly in people.
If I was rich businessman and owned a company where talented young people came to me looking for a job, I would be enigmatic and eccentric, and if people were impatient they wouldn't get the job.

There are a few things I place in the category with patience that I value.

Being on time is one. I hate it when people are late.
I really try hard to be there with plenty of time, and if I am going to be late I tell people.

Selflessness. That's a good one.

But back to patience.

As another example of pure conjecture, I think that people with last names starting with a letter late in the alphabet are more naturally patient.

My last name is Wells. Many other people have last names with late letters:
In this respect, I am not alone.

That means everytime a register was called at school, or indeed anything where you have to wait in alphabetical order, the late-letter people are alay waiting until the end.
And it happens every time, so they become naturally more patient.

Yep.

Rich cultural history.

You would not believe how many travel guides I read which contain some reference to a "rich heritage" or "rich cultural history". Every guide to anywhere features these words... and they tell you nothing!

Everywhere and everything has a rich cultural history.

I can tell you that this blog has a rich cultural history.
So does the office I'm sitting in.

"Rich cultural history" doesn't mean anything. It's just a phrase with no tangable quality that can be copy-and-pasted into any document about somewhere to make it seem interesting.

Thought of the day.

I've just eaten some "cola bottle" sweets.

Whenever I eat cola bottle sweets I always do exactly the same thing.

I bite off the brown bit to enjoy the cola flavour.
Then I eat the clear bit to enjoy the (I presume) glass flavour.

St Vincent and the Grenadines.

St Vincent and the Grenadines sounds like it should be a 70's mixolydian funk band famous for their summer hit "I Love The Sunshine". I imagine St Vincent as being tall and very slim, with slick dance moves and innumerable ladies constantly girating around his hips.

A kind of ruthless charisma, he'd have too, like, you wouldn't really like him if you met him in person, probably due to his enormous ego, but you couldn't help being drawn into his mysterious and aggressive personality, and he'd always make you laugh.

Like many musicians, drugs would have ended an otherwise promising career, and three years after the release of their phonomenally successful self-titled second album, St Vincent was arrested on drug trafficking charges in Chicago.

That krooked smile he had on his face as the police drugged him away, he knew he was guilty. It took three officers to drag him away; he was slim, yes, but deceptively powerful. He'd get off on a misdemeanor charge, but only four days after his release he'd be found dead from a gunshot wound to the head.
The report said that evidence to whether it was self-inflicted or not remained inconclusive. He is survived by his wife Elizabeth and their son George.

In reality, of course, St Vincent and the Grenadines is a country not a funk band. But I think this makes a much more interesting story than the country guide I'm going to write for the next couple of hours.

Justin Bieber.

I'll admit now, that I know very little of the works of Justin Bieber.
If you are reading this blog post in the hope of establishing something of a better understanding of the innerworkings of Bieber's lyrical qualities, or perhaps hoping to find a piece of yet unrevealed information, you will go away bitterly dissappointed.

I know two things about Justin Bieber. Just two.

1) He is universally loved.

2) He is universally hated.

Now, take a quick look again.

These points appear to contradict each other. But it's an optical illusion. He is an optical illusion.

He is a 16-year-old boy with the appearance of a confident-within-her-sexuality 17-year-old lesbian.
Yet somehow he has managed to convince the massive majority of pubescent female Americans that he is the most attractive thing on Earth.

So, logically we're looking at a future in which all males are going to have to look like females. Or we are going to see a whole generation of in vitro babies.

Groups, and how I can't talk in them.

I'm not very good at meeting people for the first time.
I'm not so bad one on one. If everytime I met someone new we were immediately forced to sit together in a room for perhaps half an hour, I'm sure I could do a good job of making them like me.

Over the years I've built up a strong repetoire of comic observations, mainly about myself, that do very nicely for first meeting someone.
I have standard phrases I always use. They usually make people laugh. Not properly, just mildly.

I can't tell you them. I mean, you could rent them from me for a reasonable fee, but I can't give away good material on a free-to-access blog (perhaps I could implement a Rupert Murdoch-esque pay wall...)

Those phrases don't really work in a group environment.
For a start the chances are that some of the people have heard them before. And if there is one thing I know about comedy, it's that hearing it again is merely an awkward experience. You are forced to politely laugh at something that you are not finding remotely funny, but are aware you found it funny before.

I don't know what to do in groups. I stay quiet. And the problem with staying quiet is that you have then type-cast yourself as "the quiet one". And you can't really escape it. I can't really say to the group:
"If you all individually give me a chance to talk to you one-to-one I firmly believe we'll become close friends, or perhaps lovers *winking to the ladies*"

I have neither the confidence, nor the wish to be labeled a wierdo.

Nurses, and why we don't make 'em like we used to.

We don't train enough nurses in the UK.
This is clear because we have to bring in a large number of foreign nurses to keep up with demand.

I don't want this to get bogged down into a debate about immigration, because that's not the point I'm trying to make.

Clearly, however, we currently need immigrant nurses in the UK, because otherwise we would not have enough nurses. Why aren't we training enough?

This is purely speculation, but I wonder to what extent sexism has played a part in it. And possibly not sexism in the way you expect.

I used to play this riddle with people at uni (and you've probably heard it before but I'll post it anyway). Also, I should note that this is not integral to the story.

Here we go:

A man and his son are involved in a car accident and are rushed to hospital in separate ambulances.
The son arrives at the hospital first.
The doctor takes one look at him and exclaims:
"This boy is my son"
How is this possible?


People go for the obvious things first. I usually have to re-say the riddle several times, by which time they have usually tried: step-dad, two gay parents, and some elaborate story in which the original father was a grandfather or something stupid.

It's none of these.
And it's actually quite funny to see the look on the more feminist-y girl's faces when they don't get that simply the doctor is his mother.

A female doctor. The greatest riddle on Earth.

Anyway.
The point is the sexist cliche.
Men are doctors. Women are nurses.

I wonder how heavily that plays on girl's minds when they think about their future career paths. Do they subconsciously reject the possibility of being a nurse and conforming to gender stereotypes?

Basketball, and how I came to love it.

I was introduced to basketball by a person who could be considered my first best friend. I mean, I recall having frineds before him, but I don't remember their names. His name was Daniel and I went to primary school with him and he was a fan of basketball. I remember watching Space Jam round his house.

I remember liking basketball and being jealous that he liked it too, so I pretended I didn't like it. I remember a particular incident in which we were taken to McDonalds (other fast-food brands are available) and got Happy Meals. The toy in the Happy Meals were these little plastic figures of monsters playing sports.
The basketball one was a vampire. His name was Slam Drac. (I had hoped to find a picture of him, but the internet appears to have forgotten about him). I definitely remember he existed.

So we got our Happy Meals and opened up the package.
I got some werewolf doing something rubbish like cricket or something.
He got Slam Drac.
And I was jealous.

I tried to think of a witty putdown, but this is the best my year 2 brain could muster:

"I think they should have called him Slam Drunk...because he looks drunk"

He didn't look drunk.

It didn't even make sense.

So after that (not specifically because of that incident) I became obsessed with basketball.

I used to watch NBA games on the TV and played a little game.

I would listen out for a name I didn't know and then I write the name down and draw a picture of what they might look like. I don't know why I did that, but I learnt a lot of players names that way.

In year 4, Daniel and I went to different schools. Well, more technically I moved school. My mum and his remained friends/business-friends so I saw Daniel irregularly.

The first time was perhaps a year or so after I'd moved, and I tried to have a conversation with him about basketball and all the players I knew.
At this point my knowledge dwarfed his.

The student had become the master.

Success, and how I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

I think it's for the best that my life never amounts to what someone could call a "success".

I function as a semi-tolerable member of human society because I am knocked back fairly regularly. If I get proved right about things I am likely to become smug and pathetic.

I mean, for example, I know I'm pedantic a lot of the time.
I've done my best to cut back on being pedantic directly to people's faces and correct them about things. Fundamentally I'd like to be one of those people who is just really nice about things.
But I don't think I am.

I can't help wanting to be right. I am obsessed with being right.
I am terrified of being wrong. And I get angry when I'm definitely wrong.
I take the anger out on myself, mainly, I promise.

I use the example to illistrate what it would be like if I was proved right any time often.

I can imagine why successful musicians develop such egos.

I mean. I write a lot of songs, and I like them. Sometimes I think to myself "that's a good song, if I heard this song I'd like it". Yeah I know that's pathetic, but it's just how it is.
It doesn't last long. I look back at some songs I've written and can't imagine why I even bother to play guitar.

But.

If I was to become succesful, it was just show me that I was right all along.
And the thing was, I always knew it. I knew how amazing I was before anyone did.
And you better believe I'd rub that in.

So, yeah, for the benefit of my relationships with my friends and other people I care about I hope I never do anything impressive. I hope my life is filled by minor successes always reduced by larger failings.
I don't want to become something worse.

Can't even think of a title.

Haven't written a lot recently.
Fundamentally that's because something that I can't really wrtie about is taking up most of my thoughts.
It's fairly predictable, I'm afraid.
I can't talk about it properlly, I just don't do that.
I can't concentrate on other things.

To read this will only take you a moment... mwahahahaha.

The English language is full of units of measurement that fundamentally mean about the same thing, but nevertheless, cannot be specifically defined.

Many
Several
A lot
A few
Loads
Numerous
Some

Dictionary.com humourlessly defines several as being "more than two, but fewer than many". It then goes on to define "many" as "a large number".

Also: a "moment".
A moment is the most stupidly non-specific amount of time.

"I'll be with you in just a moment" probably means between 10 seconds and 10 minutes.

"A moment in history" could last hours, maybe days.

We have the word "minute": a nicely prescribed 60-seconds. Easy.

But no.
The English language has corrupted minute, so now it can mean anything. Someone says "I'll be with you in a minute" and they take, I don't know, perhaps 88 seconds to be with you.

They meant a "moment".
And then we're just back to where we started.

See, this is just another example of our language conspiring against us to make things more difficult for us.

English hates you.

See, even simple phrases can become funny with a little hard work.

I went into Subway on Monday and was quite shocked by the words I used to answer the question of what I wanted.
"A six-inch Italian"

That's just the first of a number of cock-based humour I will be implementing into this blog.

On a funnier note, I saw Stewart Lee at the Brighton Dome.
He was great. But I suppose I was expecting him to be.
His Russell Howard material was epic.

The Christmas Number One.

As we head towards the winter, I brace myself for the inevitable spate of Facebook groups with the idea: "Lets get "blah" to number Christmas 1 and beat the XFactor".

The X-Factor was already beaten. There's no need to imitate it. Let's do something more interesting.

A picture.

This is an image taken on Nicki's iPhone in the restaurant on Thursday night.

Using another "app" which takes a psuedo picture booth photo.

Image One: Nicki and me in standard photo pose

Image Two: We change the pose. Nicki does a better job. My hand remains in an identical position.

Image Three: The waiter arrives with hotplates, and we can only laugh in embarrasment.

Image Four: I reveal my subconcious Nazi sympathies with a fleeting Hitler moustache. I have no memory this occuring.

One Thursday night, and a revelation.

The level of wit didn't extend much beyond a scrawled "insert penis here" followed by an arrow pointing to the vagina/anus/mouth of the victim. "I Love Cock" made several appearances, not to mention the ubiquitous "I'm gay".

This is why giving drunk people in a club an unlimited supply of Crayola pens is not a good idea.

Permit me to furnish you with the context.

20:04 - Thursday night

Nicki was late. It wasn't unexpected. I was in my nervous state I'm always in when people are late. Once it goes past two or three minutes I become extremely anxious and usually I'm not able to relax or think about anything other than the minutes leaking further and further from the time.

She turned up not long after. It's kind of like when I used to wait for a bus on a rainy winter morning, and it didn't turn up, and I'd be really angry. And as the time passed my rage become stronger to the point where I would think:
"I'm gonna have a go at the bus driver, he's so late".
But then when the bus turned up, I was so pleased to see it, I forgot all about being angry.
Not that I was angry with Nicki, just anxious, I think.
Will and I got in, and we started the epic journey to Joe's at 20:09.

20:10

We arrived at Joe's.
A brief exchange of pleasantries followed a discussion of the plan.
Curry, we could all agree, was going to be the ultimate highlight. However, there was certainly an air of reluctance to commit to going out afterwards.
Joe was saving money for the Verses tour starting soon. I had work in the morning. Will was going elsewhere. Nicki really wanted to go out to, what she described as some sort of club/bingo hyrbid which Mary was photographing and had put us on the guestlist.
At that point I was fairly convinced I wouldn't be going out.
I would consider it, but ultimately, I was fairly sure I was going to pansy out.

20:23

Joe drove, and we parked in George Street. Complaints were made about the cold weather, but it definitely wasn't cold. However, for the purposes of dramaticism, we will pretend Hove was sub-arctic that evening.

With the illumination of a large Tesco substituting poorly for the Aurora Borealis, we battled against the gusty winds until we reached the blissful relief of the Hove Tandoori curry house.

20:31

We were seated. The restaurant was smaller than I remembered it, but perhaps that was just becuase it was utterly packed. Infuriatingly small serving spoons did not detract from the quality of the chutneys or the raita. I had manly beer, whilst Will and Joe pansied out with coke. Nicki had a non-gender specific cider.
Nicki was particularly displeased with the lack of a ladies-first attitude when giving out the menu and drinks. Perhaps Indians are just more enlightened in terms of gender equality than we?
Nicki "signed herself in" to the restaurant on her new iPhone, giving any stalkers she may have, an easy time.

20:56 (I estimate)

Our main courses arrive.
Joe had a lamb dish that he had been raving about for the last millenia. Will disappointed me, as usual, by ordering vegetarian. Nicki had a Mermaid Korma (christened due to the gigantic, fantasty-size of the king prawns she had ordered). I had a Muglai Chicken.
Delicious, I must say. I tried a little of all their three, and they were really, really nice.
Using an "app" the aforementioned iPhone, we attempted to find out what music was playing in the background. Unfortunately "Generic Indian Restaurant Song" was not listed on the database.

21:25

I defeated my curry with ease, but the others didn't fair so well. Joe disappointed me the most with his failings.
Usually, once your done eating in an Indian restaurant, your waiter will remove your dishes and then immediately furnish you with a plastic package which, when opened, reveals a volcanic-hot mini-towel to "freshen" yourself.

The Hove Tandoori does things a little differently.

A small porcelain plate was placed in front of us, with what looked to me like 4 big white Refresher sweets (apparently they looked like marshmallows to Nicki). However, when boiling water was poured onto them, they sprang into life, erecting to their full height. With tongs and assurances that they were "very hot", our water placed one each in our hands.

It was those lava towels! NO PLASTIC PACKAGING.

I was highly impressed, let me tell you.

21:45

We paid and left the restaurant.
It was at this point that Joe admitted he would go out as long as we didn't stay out more than an hour or so.
This worked to my advantage, as I didn't want to let Mary's guestlist kindness down, but had no intention of going out for a whole night.
So we drove to Brighton's Churchill Square carpark, and Will ventured to the PavTav.

22:03

Walking to the seafront means go past Oceana. And going past Oceana means you have to go past people queueing to get into Oceana.
The queue itself feels like Groundhog Day. Everyone looks/smells/acts exactly the same. Male teenagers drenched in Lynx's newest flavour, wearing an Abercrombie and Fitch shirt and one of those studded-leather "Jesus Loves You" belts speaking with a semi-London accent. I don't think they could aggrovate me more if they tried.

We made it down to the seafront and made our best guess as to where Digital was. It wasn't far.
There was some initial confusion, as the guestlist-woman (I am unsure if there is a specific word to describe her, I don't think "bouncer" is correct. Maybe I'm being think?) was unable to locate our place on the guestlist.

An exasperated Mary was forced to come out and sort thing out, but we made it in eventually.

22:14

When we got inside we were immediately provided with a Crayola pen (mine was orange, I still have it) and a little bingo sheet thing.

People were using their Crayola pens in the manner I told of earlier.

22:44

After Killing In The Name played (which was the musical highlight of the night) a man took to the stage in a formal shirt and tie, and began a humorous skit about health and safety. The costume would have been much more realisitc had he not been wearing the cliched geek glasses, which have become fashionable amongst even those who have never heard of binary.

A little while into the skit, the host (as he shall he now be known) announced that tonight was "not about health and safety" because "we don't give a fuck about health and safety" and that tonight was about underground bingo. He was very charasamtic, and funny, and I think the concept of the night is very good. I would have really enjoyed it a couple of years ago.

The premise of the night was that inbetween dancing and drinking, the music would occasionally stop and bingo would be played until someone won. The prizes ranged from a soft toy panda to a HD video camera.

I didn't win anything. Even if I had I don't think I would have pushed my way through the crowd and claimed my prize.

23:32

We walked back to the car. We discussed how old we felt, and blamed the teenagers in the club for making us feel old. Near the carpark, Nicki said the immortal words:
"Are they having sex?"
I looked over to the alley where she was pointing. There were a set of stairs. A man was thrusting, and a pair of bare legs extended over his hips.

They were definitely having sex.

We didn't want to stare, so we carried on walking. When we pulled out of the carpark we tried to get a picture on the iPhone. I don't know how good the picture is, if it ever goes up on Facebook or something I'll add it.

Friday morning

It was sometime Friday morning I realise that I really have no interest left in the going-to-clubs thing. PavTav is fine, and if people want to do something it's not like I'm going to say no, but it just doesn't hold any interest for me. Not anymore.
It's not like it was that night's fault. The night seemed pretty good, and it's not like all the people were dicks or anything.
Just in terms of going out on the town, I'm not really interested in anything more exotic than seeing my friends and drinking to some music I at least remotely like.
Maybe that makes me boring.
But I don't mind.
I'll be boring.

Plurali, and why that is definitely wrong.

So what did I learn today? This:

Graffiti is plural.
Who knew?
I didn't.
One piece is a graffito.
Graffito comes from the Italian meaning "little scratch" or "scribble". It doesn't quite translate that way anymore, but it did.

The same is true of spaghetti. A single strand is a spaghetto. My mum told me that. I'm sure there are other examples of Italian words tricking me with their rare -o singular and common -i plural, but I can't think of any.

Here's another thing about plurals.

So in English, our standard way of making plurals is by adding an "s", or at least a variation that ends in "s".

Word becomes words.
Baby becomes babies.
Box becomes boxes.

However, I'm sure you were already aware, being skilled users of the English language, that we have some plurals that don't end in "s".

Woman becomes women.
Foot becomes feet.
Mouse becomes mice.

There are many examples.

Some people use octopi as the plural for octopus, but this is incorrect. Octopuses is correct. The -i ending tends to be Latin words, fungus becoming fungi, for example. But octopus is a Greek word, not Latin, so it has never been correct to say octopi.

My favourite plural (yes, I have a favourite plural) is: passersby.

It's the only word I can think of (and feel free to shatter my dreams by finding other examples) where an "s" is used to indicate plural, but that "s" isn't found at the end of the word.
I am aware of hyphenated examples such as "days-off" or "sisters-in-law", but I can't think of a single word like passerby which is changed in this way.

Noise, and how lots of people are wrong.

Few things annoy me more than Strictly Come Dancing.

But one of those things is when people, invariably stupid or old people, describe the music I listen to as "noise".
"It's just noise".
It's another example of a cliche that is true. I experience it most times distant family members ask me what kind of music I like.

I can give a specific example that happened last Christmas. You remember, when Rage Against The Machine defeated some X-Factor rubbish to be the Christmas no.1.

As a little side point, can I add: a number of newspapers picked up on the fact that when the campaign started to get Killing In The Name to the top-spot, RATM where on Sony, the same record label as Joe McElderry (I had to look up his name, as I really did not have the slightest clue).

The newspapers said that it was just a cynical campaign that would make no difference because the same people would make the profit out of it eventually. Some even suggested that the whole campaign was orchestrated, or at least supported by Sony.
But they were completely missing the point. People didn't buy that single to shun the major labels, or strike back at the corporate money making.
We bought it to show we supported real music, not commercialised crap. I didn't/don't even like RATM that much.
But I like it infinitely more than I like Joe McElderry.
We'll come back to this in a minute.

So anyway.

It was Christmas time. Christmas, of course, is a fantastic example of when I always find myself agreeing with stupid/disgusting world-views purely out of politeness (note, I have semi-plagiarised this thought from Stewart Lee).

This Christmas RATM was no.1.
This topic of conversation hadn't been brought up.
So I considered it my duty.

These paraphrased replies basically give you an idea:

"What a load of rubbish"
"Just a lot of screaming and swearing"
"It's not real music"
"It's just noise"

No.

There's a lot of music I don't like, but I still respect, because it is good for what it is. It's artistic. There's good types of all music. Or at least most.

To me, noise is something that has no artistic talent. It's just a regurgitated pop song no with no discernable unique or interesting elements.
Joe McElderry's attempt at Christmas no.1 was a cover of a Hannah Montana song.
That is noise.

The Gay Side, and how it definitely existed.

Trying to explain "the gay side" to people who didn't go to Manor Hall Middle School is something of a challenge.

Walk into the boys toilets and there are a series of cubicles first, followed by two long, steel urinals, one on the right hand side, and one on the left.
Everyone went to the right hand side.
This is because the left hand side was "the gay side".

Even if there was a queue, everybody patiently waited.
Those poor kids who were not aware of "the gay side" on their first visit, would be mocked insessantly.
"Look," said the chorus from the right side "he's on the gay side!"
Those kids learned quick. We all did.

No-one questioned "the gay side". No-one, no matter how badly they needed the toilet, questioned the ludicrousness of this unwritten rule.

Perhaps the rule was true. I mean, I never used the gay side, and have remained straight. Although I don't think the gay side ever implied that it was exclusively for homosexuals, or indeed made someone a homosexual.

It was just "the gay side", and it was avoided.

Creative solutions.

Broken blinds and unexpected October sunshine has lead to improvisation in the office. A surfboard stands proudly on the windowsil protecting us (rather ineffectively) from the sun's rays.

Of, my worst enemy.

I think it's Ben Goldacre who said something to the effect of: you should never judge people on things that they have said, you should only judge them on things they have written. We all say silly things sometimes in the "heat of the moment", things that don't reflect what we actually think most of the time.

You can blog in the "heat of the moment" too, and update your Twitter, and your Facebook status. So maybe I'm being unfair to people when I criticise their use of language on such mediums. But this is a blog, of course. And as I said a second ago, if people are not be judged on the content of blogs, then you are not allowed to judge me for judging someone, because either way we are just as bad as each other.

Moving on to the point.

I have another thing that annoys me.

And it's "of" again.
Bored of.

You can't be bored of something. You can be bored with something, and you can be bored by something.
Take another example at I just makes you sound stupid.

"I am bored by your grammar pedanticism" becomes "I am impressed by your grammar pedanticism"

"I am bored with your grammar pedanticism" becomes "I am impressed with your grammar pedanticism"

"I am bored of your grammar pedanticism" becomes "I am impressed of your grammar pedanticism"

It is never "bored of".

Professor Richard Dawkins, and how he is Hermione.

I knew there was a reason I found Emma Watson attractive.

Exploding heads, and how they don't actually happen.

Okay, so here's something else that annoys me: the use of the word "literally". I don't mind it when it's used for comic effect, in the sense that the person is aware of the stupidity of using "literally", when it becomes a parody of itself.

"Literally" means taken in the literal sense. In other words, you are saying something which is not hyperbolic or any other figure of speech.
It seriously annoys me when people say something like "I literally can't understand why people like this kind of music".
You literally can't understand? Merely the concept of  understanding is beyond your comprehension? No.

You don't tend to hear "literally" used an awful lot in speech or even written, but when you do it is almost universally used incorrectly just as a way of emphasising something. I was reading an article quite recently which featured the line "It literally blew my mind".
No. It figuratively blew your mind.

Stop saying literally. Be interesting.

I forgot.

And I keep forgetting to put this up.
I like it.

Things, a few of them.

I have my first piece of writing published on an actual professional website.
Shameless self promotion is very much my thing, but I'll resist this time and instead urge you to venture over to Adventure Sports Holidays to satisfy your adventure sports holiday needs.

I would also say that you should all listen to Jimmy Eat World's new album Invented. Really really good.
Also, check out The Sleeping's album The Big Deep and Bad Books, Kevin Devine's project with Manchester Orchestra.

Finally a quick note that given my academic and blogging hero The Plashing Vole now follows my blog (albeit, I'm sure purely as a gesture of polite reciprocation becuase I follow him) you may notice an immediate and steep decline the the quality of the blogs in an attempt not to plagiarise anything he said in lectures.

Trains, and where you must not sit.

So, now that I have work to go to every morning I have to ride the train. I get the same train everyday, it leaves Southwick at 9:37 and arrives at Hove at 9:44. Some of the people who get on at Southwick I see virtually every morning. It hasn't got to that stage yet where I could say "morning" and they'd recognise me though. They fairly often have papers or magazines to read. I invariably leave my issue of Kerrang at home and only have them to look at.

I get on my train, which is always the same level of fairly-busy. Now, here is an observation about English people. It's something that has been made many times before, but the point is that it's not just a cliché: it genuinely happens. We really do not like invading personal space.

As we noted weeks back with the male toilets, the train also appears to have this unwritten social rule about where you are allowed to sit down.

Arranged into rows of two seats on each side, there is also a couple of "table" seats in each carriage.
The table seats are the most highly prised commodity, even if you don't need a table remotely, you go and sit there if it's free.

If a table isn't free, then a free set of two is your best bet. If they are taken (and by taken I mean one person is sitting in the window seat: that constitutes both seats being taken) then you must sit on a table but at the furthest possible point away from the person who has already occupied the table. If they're facing forwards sitting on the window seat, you must sit facing backwards in the aisle seat.

After that it's better to stand than to encroach people's personal space.
No-one will complain or even give you a funny look if you sit down in the adjacent seat.
But inside you are dead to them. Dead.

David Wells, for we are many.

David Wells isn't me. He's a "digital marketing strategist, blogger, podcaster and psuedodesigner". He's also got a lot more followers than me on Twitter.

Motivated, I'm sure, by the fact that we share the same first and last name, he kindly "tweeted" my blog. And whilst my meagre 16 followers does not compare to his muscular 2,000 odd, I feel I should return the favour. Here is a link to his website where he is a highly skilled digital marketing strategist.

There are a few David Wells' hanging around who've done much more impressive things than me. Wikipedia confirms that this David Wells is the most famous. He was a highly succesful pitcher who played for a variety of teams. In 1998 David Wells become only the 15th pitcher in MLB history to throw a perfect game.
He is impressive, and he flies the flag for good David Wells' all over the world.

Just like this one. He was an economist, but I don't know much about him. He was a close friend of 20th United States President James Garfield, though, who opposed slavery. Good man.

But this David Wells. He's let us down. He bismirches the good name of David Wells. He is a peddler of astrology bullshit. I have no respect for him.

Psychics, and their multiple skills.

Sorry, lots of blogs today. Inspiration strikes and all that.

If you watch as much Dave as I do then you'll have seen this clip a few times. And seriously whichever researcher who found this for Would I Lie To You is a genuis. Just thought I'd post it up because I remembered it and it made me laugh.