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.

My computer has lots of viruses...

I was at home and the land line phone rang.

No, gentle readers, I am not referring to an event from 1996, I'm referring to a couple of days ago in the technologically mighty haven-age of 2012. The land line! As I live and breath.

I dusted off the old boy and once I'd remembered that the home phone doesn't have a touch screen and I'd have to press buttons to make it work, I went ahead and pushed some buttons.

"Hello?" I said, slightly nervous, as on the land line, it doesn't tell you who's ringing. It could be any fucker. It could be Queen Elizabeth II. It wasn't (which was both a relief and a disappointment). It was a man. It was:

"Paul, from Windows Technical Support"

"Well, what a treat!" I thought to myself "a personal call from Windows Technical Support, and I haven't even requested any Windows Technical Support"

A cold call. Just in case I was having problems. Briefly, my day had been made. This, of course, made me suddenly vehemently angry. How dare anyone suggested that Apple is better than Microsoft. Do Apple cold call their customers just to make they're OK? I think not.

But then my quick, enquiring wit took hold. And, readers, I presented myself with an inconsistency in the argument (the argument that his name was Paul and that he was from Windows Technical Support).

You see Paul had a thick Indian accent. And by a 'thick Indian accent' I don't mean that he sounded like a mentally-slow Indian. I meant a 'strong Indian accent'. Thinking about it, I could easily have replaced the original 'thick Indian accent' with 'strong Indian accent' when I realised the ambiguity and carried on without this pointless, lengthy interjection. But in maths exams they make you show your working out, don't they. Well, that's just what I'm doing: showing you my linguistic workings.

Despite my suspicions, I continued the call, remembering the potential kindness. Paul told me that:

"Your computer is receiving a numbers of error messages which have been caused by viruses that you have downloaded"

Well now, this is interesting. My computer is fairly well protected with anti-virus software and firewalls. I don't do illegal downloads, or torrent anything, or stream from shady websites. But then again, of course that doesn't mean I don't have a virus... I'm not really that up on the complexities of computer issues.

I did come up with a slight flaw in the argument, however:

"There are 4 computers in my house," I said "which one has the virus?" a bit of an issue, but nothing that Paul couldn't sort out by giving me the make and model.

"That would be the main computer you are using, sir" said Paul. I searched diligently on all four computers, but I couldn't find anywhere the make and model number given as "the main computer". Disappointed that he had merely been referring to a 'main computer' in the most basic sense, I returned to Paul.

"Well," I said "there isn't really a main computer, 3 out of the 4 get used very regularly, so I'm going to need some more information"

"It is the main computer, sir" Paul said "the one that you use most for the internet"

Now, I'm no internet-Jonathan Creek, but I can deduce a thing or two. If Paul had been calling from Windows Technical Support, I feel sure he would have come equipped with facts to prove his and his company's veracity.

Well, that's what I'd do anyway.

Deciding that the nearest computer to my proximity would do for a make-shift 'main computer'. I sat down and following some of Paul's slow and phonetically spelled instructions.

What he wanted me to do, was to open Run, and using Run, run Event Viewer. Usefully, he took his time spelling out the words. This gave me the opportunity to type "Event Viewer" into Google (in the hope of finding out exactly what was going to happen). I'd gotten to around the second 'e' in 'viewer' when Google suggestions helpfully suggested "Event viewer scam" which I clicked on and found a website (much like this blog, except without the psuedo-impressed introdution and land line shtick) informing me that Paul was indeed a scammer from India hoping to take remote control of my computer and download a fraud anti-virus software, leaving my bank account $185 lighter.

Well, I was thoroughly disappointed in Paul. For my own amusement, when Paul showed me the list of "errors caused by the virus" (actually just common issues that a standard computer experiences every day), I feigned dramatic fear and confusion.

I then made him phonetically spell a few more things.

Soon it got down to the dirty business of him trying to defraud me out of money. And I mean, I'm game for a laugh, but Paul's attitude began to annoy me at this point, so I told him I knew who he was and that he was trying to scam me and ended the call.

Dancing in the Gangnam Style

Permit me to prove to you why I need a job.

You've heard, I'm sure, of the Korean pop sensation PSY and his rap/dance hit Gangnam Style. I have made a few observations of which I would like to inform you at length.


Let's start with his name.

PSY - dancing enthusiastically to Gangnam Style.

 It seems strange to me that PSY's name is pronounced "si" like  our words pysche, psuedo etc. Assuming that the Korean language does not share the silent P given to us by the Greeks, it's odd that such a quintesstially Korean artist should take his name from an English linguistic trait.

Anyway.

I'm sure that you have heard of Gangnam Style and if you have not I strongly recommend checking it out. It's halfway to a billion views on YouTube, and if you have seen it I'm sure that youalready have your own opinion about it.

And I'm sure you'd imagine that I'd hate it.

Well, you're wrong. I like it very much. I like that it is quite clearly mocking the culture of attempting to look cool. I like that it's not only not taking itself too seriously, but that it's mocking the kind of people who are obsessed with image and looking cool.

Take as a equivalent that I strongly dislike: LMFAO's 'Party Rock Anthem', ostensibly a humorous video that doesn't take itself too seriously. BUT WAIT, notice how important looking cool is in this video and how seriously the dancers are actually taking themselves.

PSY's video appears, to my eyes, to be mocking the kind of people who take themselves very seriously and are obsessed with style and image.

Feel free to disagree with me.

I also found a rather darkly humorous news story in The Guardian in which two Thai gangs manage to pull themselves away from the noble exploits of crime and racketeering for a plunge into the always confrontational: dancing.

I especially like the use of the word "escalates" in the title of the story. To me the word 'escalates' seems to suggest a sort of natural progression (like an escalator), it feels here as if The Guardian is suggesting a fifty-odd bullet shootout is the obvious logical step after an aggressive Gangnam Style dance-off.

It is my own personal opinion that Gangnam Style had nothing to do with the shootout, and that the cause was in fact the ridiculous length and unnecessarily unpronouncability of Thai names. As a couple of examples let's take two members of the current Thailand national football team, striker Napat Thamrongsupakorn and goalkeeper Sinthaweechai Hathairattanakool.

Paradorn was briefly no.9 in the world.

It's almost as they've chosen names to be deliberately obtuse, as if learning their names should be a lifelong challenge within itself. They should take a hint from the Koreans, of whom the names, Kim, Lee and Park account for more than 40% of family names (Park Jae-sang, the person I'm supposed to be talking about, being a ready-made example). 

Bizarre naming traditions also appear to be very popular in Thailand (and not Taiwan, which an erstwhile friend once adamantly claimed was the country of origin of Thai food... I mean, seriously, THAI). The Srichaphan brothers, all of whom were professional tennis players, had the given names: Paradorn, Naratorn and Tanakorn. 

Seriously? Who came up with that...

But anyway, I digress.

I like PSY. I like Gangnam Style. 

And if it comes on and I'm out then I'm going to be dancing to it.

The G Word

What the fuck does this fucking t-shirt even mean?

Hold up now, because the shit is about to hit the proverbial fan. I haven't gone on a proper rant in a while.

And that means I have been recharging. Recharging in preparation for this.

Because this, ladies and gentlemen, is my magnum opus, my eureka moment, my je ne sais fucking quoi.

See, what I did, is I grew up and I went to school. And, get this, I was clever! I liked reading, if you'll believe it. I sat in class and I listened because learning was interesting, and I did my homework because I wasn't a brainless cunt.

But when you're a kid, wearing glasses and actually liking to things entering my brain which weren't just the cacophonous wails of the latest X-Factor fame-slut, that makes you something. It makes you unpopular, it makes you bullied, it makes you the G word.

It makes you a GEEK.

Now, that was fine. I didn't mind being a geek. My friends were geeks. We huddled together in the popularity storm, hiding in our anoraks. But it was OK. We were in it together and it was OK.

From left to right: Cunt, Cunt, Cunt, Cunt, Cunt, Cunt, Cunt, Cunt, Cunt.

But then I grew up. Became an adult. And I was horrified to find about something known as geek fashion, or geek-chic.

To your left you will notice some cunts pretending that they are geeks, sporting the geek-chic.

They can fuck off.

They can fuck right off.

They do not know the pain I suffered, we all (we geeks) suffered. Wearing stupid glasses and sitting attentively in lessons and not going for a smoke being the bike sheds. We suffer for what we are.

They have done none of the suffering. They are cool people who have hijacked what geeks look like to make themselves look cooler.

It's a fucking war out there, man. I'm serious. People get beaten up for looking like a geek (haven't you ever seen the opening scene to any coming-of-age teen comedy ever?).

Weezer - categorised as "geek rock" apparently purely on the basis that Rivers Cuomo wears glasses.

[As a side note here, I always felt that movies are a bit mean to jock characters... I mean, they are always, always portrayed as mindless bullies while the geeks are the nice, sensitive caring ones {of course, we are, so I suppose it's justified} but I just wonder whether jocks watch those kinds of films and are rooting for the geeks, or whether they want them to fail?].

These people stealing the geek image - they've probably never even seen Star Wars, or spent a lunchtime at chess club, or ever genuinely been for an eye test (their pathetic over sized glasses probably not even having real lenses).

Well I implore you, fellow geeks. We cannot let them get away with this.

It's OK for me to call myself a geek. And it's OK for me to call me friends geeks. If you are a geek, you can use the word. But this is OUR WORD. They have no right using the G word.

We are geeks.

Some songs you should be listening to

Because my taste in music is so excellent, I've received literally two demands for insight into my current musical taste. As such I've decided I'm going to post 10 songs that have been my favourites this year.

10. Amsterdam - Guster


 

I heard about this song through a live video of Taking Back Sunday. In it, Adam Lazarra errroneously uses the word band name "Guster" when he means "gusto". He and John have a laugh about it and then they reference this song. So I checked it out, and I really like it. Good story that one.

9. I Am What I Is - Wheatus




Wheatus are a hugely underrated band to me. You remember Teenage Dirtbag and A Little Respect but that's about it. They're still going and I think that they have one of the most distinctive sounds in pop-rock music. This song deserves to have more than 300 odd views on YouTube.

8. Love Always, Leviathan - Icarus The Owl



And now for something a bit different. Icarus The Owl are quite a progressive band with lots of odd time signatures and timing changes. The album is a bit of a challenge to listen to but there are moments of brilliance - like this one. 

7. The Company Dime - The Get Up Kids



The Get Up Kids is always lauded as an originator in the emo genre, so I thought it was time I gave them a chance, to see what all the fuss was about. Something To Write Home About is a very good album, and this is my favourite song from it.

6. Island - The Starting Line



I'm a sucker for a good chorus, and I think this is one of the best on my list.

5. Tangerine - Mansions



Obscure band that I found (as I often do find bands) because Mike Sapone had produced their EP. If Sapone sees something in them, there's a good chance I will too. Mansions are like a poppier Crime In Stereo.

4. Head First In The River - Envy On The Coast



Now we're getting to the business end of proceedings. Envy On The Coast tread along the Icarus The Owl path of doing this a little bit differently, with time signatures and what not. But this is just a really good song.

3. Wired Song - Elyjah



Can't even remember how I found this obscure German band but this song has remained one of my absolute favourites throughout the year. I have no idea what he's singing about, but I'm a fan.
 
2. Ghost Of York - As Tall As Lions



As Tall As Lions are a Long Island band, which automatically makes them better. They've got a couple of good albums, so I wasn't sure which one to put up a preview for on here. For future reference you should also check out "Break Blossom".

1. Alive With The Glory Of Love - Say Anything



Anyone who has talked to me recently will have noticed I am enamoured with Say Anything. They are a band that I wish I had been into when I was a kid. Listening to it is a strange experience. Even though the songs aren't familiar with my teenage years I still feel a lot of nostalgia for those years when I listen. Say Anything are about as emo as they come, and moments of undisputed cheesiness, but their album Is A Real Boy is a genuine masterpiece in the genre. My favourite on the album is 'Belt' but this one is a decent introduction - a love/sex song about the holocaust.

Honourable Mention:

Hotfoot - Sainthood Reps
They See Only Shadows - Gates
Blame - Right Away, Great Captain
The In-Between - Underwater Tiger
Donald Domesky - Prawn
Crawl - Two Tongues
Trippin' The Life Fantastic - Weatherbox
Fire's Highway - Japandroids
Til It's Done To Death - John Nolan
Cover The Roots Lower The Stems - Moving Mountains
Earthquake - Hit The Lights
Gates - The Menzingers
American Hearts - Piebald
Paper Thin Hymn - Anberlin
Firebreather - Daytrader