101 things not to do... 16 to 20

16. Don't dazzle a crowd with your dancing skills

If you know how to dance, or know anyone who does, please feel free to fuck off.

17. Don't lose your virginity


A kind of fabled teenage experience these days. If 1980s horror movies teach us anything, it's that losing your virginity has a direct correlation with being murdered by a murderer.

OK so I'll admit at some point you'll probably have to. And if your sexual experience is good then it will probably seem like a positive step. But it's not. What is they say about your heroes? Never meet them, because they'll never live up to your expectations. Just develop a decent imagination and you'll be fine.

18. Don't read 'A Clockwork Orange'

Overrated as hell. Try reading a book that can create a sense of being in another world without having to create a new language.

19. Don't read the complete works of William Shakespeare

I'm actually using William Shakespeare as an example here, rather than exactly what I mean. William Shakespeare's works (which I have not read, in fact I've only ever 'done' Shakespeare, and that was a while back, at school). But I feel that quite often, people try to bite off more than they can chew, especially with regard to reading.

I know someone at university who told me that he didn't read very much, but had decided that he wanted to read "all the classics". I asked him where he was going to start and he told me Finnegans Wake by James Joyce. Now, I've tried reading Finnegans Wake a couple of times and I can't get into it (maybe I was just too young or not advanced enough as a reader) but I can tell you that it's a dense, complex and, to my younger mind, borderline unreadable.

All I'm saying is, don't try to run a marathon just after you've taken your first baby steps (in fact, outside of this analogy, don't run a marathon ever, see point 1.)

20. Don't go to a music festival

Usually high on everyone's to-do list is to go to a music festival at least once. But no, don't. By all means go watch a band live. But by no means go and setup a tent around a bunch of other wankers in a tent to listen to a weekend long gig mostly featuring bands you dont like very much.

People talk of music festival as being a 'rite of passage', I would suggest it is more of a 'right cockfest'. The ratio of wankers to cool people is disastrous. It's cold. You queue up in the rain for fucking ages. The toilets are reminiscent of lawless slums in the third world.

So if you're thinking of Reading this year, try reading instead. Just not Shakespeare or A Clockwork Orange. Thanks.

No Splash!, no gash

Let us begin with a fact: I never watch ITV.

I'll illustrate why by suggesting that you notice that Ant and Dec went from presenting ITV television shows for children, to presenting ITV television shows for adults, without any noticable change in style or intellectual output.**

That pretty much sums it up.

Today, however, I did something I never do and I watched ITV. I watched the brand new series Splash, in which Olympic heartthrob diver Tom Daley teaches a crew most motley of celebrities (most of whom have some sort of hatred, lifelong fear or allergy to water) how to dive. They then perform these dives in front of a live studio audience and three judges, with the public at some point getting to vote to display their satisfaction or otherwise with their dives.

The celebrities amounted to the following:

• A woman called Jade, who I'd never heard of, who appeared to have been chosen to go on the show purely on the basis of her young, toned body and her willingness to place it in a highly revealing swimming costume.
• A man called Jake, who I'd never heard of, who appeared to have been chosen to go on the show purely on the basis of his young, toned body and his willingness to place it in a highly revealing swimming costume. Also, he'd nearly died in the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami in Thailand, and so upon seeing a swimming pool, it apparently 'brought back memories' allowing him to shed a humble tear. Presumably in the 8 years since the horrifying natural disaster he had managed to avoid seeing water entirely allowing him to become emotional at this ITV-induced reunion.
• A slightly chubby middle-aged lady named Helen (who I later found out was Helen Lederer...) who was enjoying the sympathy vote on the fact that she was afraid of heights (!), but also fulfill the empathy of other chubby middle-aged ladies all undoutbedly chorusing "Well, she done much betta than what I could do" (yes, ITV viewers, that's exactly, what you sound like) after her attrocious bellyflop. 
• Jenni Falconer, who I had heard of, but only on the basis that she is a half-talent famous-for-being-famous irrelevance. I mean, she started her showbiz 'career' on Blind Date for fuck sake. Interestingly in this show she again played the role, of the not-bad, not-good boring woman.
• Omid Djalili, showing his genuine entertaining skill by similtaneously playing comic relief role and the minority-person role.

The concept was fairly dull; something the crowd appeared to realise in unison during Jade's unimpressive first attempt. After their pre-war-Germany-Hitler-speech level of applause for Tom Daley's dive in his pants, the reality that they faced a number of boring dives by people who can't actually dive appeared to dawn on them.

The three judges were two dull diving experts... and Jo Brand. Now Jo Brand, is a talented and funny laconic comedian. She is NOT a talented diving expert. It turned out that fact didn't actually matter because the judges, instead of judging, were more a three-headed parade of:

"Well, it wasn't great, but diving takes loads of training, so given that, you did really well"

And this is what people like? This is how ITV viewers spend their evening?

Take Me Out was coming on after. A show that appeared to be even worse.

** Please note this joke was plagiarised badly from a Stewart Lee routine.

My new years resolutions...

I've got a fair few resolutions for this year.

I'm not sure if you're supposed to actually tell people what your resolutions are. But frankly I don't really care, I'm going to share with you anyway. Some of these resolutions are big resolutions, some are very small. But I'm going to try to accomplish all of them and make 2013 amazing.

Ok:

1. Learn a language to a reasonable level. Probably Spanish.
2. Reduce fizzy drink intake.
3. Go on at least 2 trips outside the UK. (One to definitely be New York)
4. Buy a new guitar.
5. Read more.
6. Go rockclimbing.