Resolution

I’ve only really kept one New Year’s Resolution in my life: to manage to live all the way through 2007. Every other promise to myself I’ve not kept, whether it be to be less fat, be cleverer or just generally be a nicer person.

This year, like always, I’m making another list of New Year’s Resolutions, because I never learn. There is no doubt that I will fail spectacularly in most if not all of them. But as I’ve been taught in school, it’s better to have high targets and miss them than to have no targets at all. Actually they say it’s better to have high targets and achieve them, but we’re trying to be realistic here. Anyway, here are my resolutions.

1. Stop Swearing.
Completely. Not say a single naughty word for the entire year. This is quite frankly not going to happen, but I’ll give it a go anyway. Actually, I have made this resolution before. It lasted until just before 10 am on 2nd January 2010. Maybe my actual target should just be to beat that. There are a good few words that I’m going to miss, but none more so than Thunderc*nt (the asterisk is just to get me into practice).

2. Blog More.
For some reason I stopped doing this. Probably because I only did it as a way of avoiding revision, and as soon as I had time to blog suddenly it didn’t seem to appealing, there are other ways to procrastinate that aren’t pretending to be work. Actually, the last time I blogged happened to be the last day I was single. Coincidence…..? Yes, yes it is.

3. Don’t Lose My Girlfriend.
This is pretty self-explanatory. And I think I’m safe to assume as just as I don’t want to hear about anyone’s personal lives, no one wants to hear about mine. Unless it involves sadness. I’ll update you when it does.

4. Exercise 4 Times A Week/Join A Gym/Get Fit.
I have made this resolution every year since I was 11, making this the 7th year in a row. I have never achieved this, and I have long since given up hoping to get a physique like an Adonis. If anything, I’ve included this for tradition.

5. Pass Exams/Get A Job/Earn Money/Be Happy.
I could basically sum this up as ‘Don’t fail at life’. Again, it’s up to debate as to whether I have achieved this in the past, but once again I’m giving it a go. Which is pretty much what every New Year’s Resolution is, a desperate attempt to convince ourselves that the coming year is going to be better than the last, despite a complete lack of evidence that it will. Well this has all gone a bit sad all of a sudden. Anyway, I’m off to try and get drunk on Champaign even though it’s disgusting.

Happy New Year!

Gangnam Style

First there was Rebecca Black’s Friday. Then there was Call Me Maybe. Somewhere in the middle of that Joseph Kony killed some children. Viral internet videos become part of the collective social consciousness, not least given to the fact that they spread quicker than an STD in a brothel. “Hey have you seen this?” one friend says to the other, and before you know it, everyone has herpes. I think I’m mixing analogies.

Both Black and Jepsen (or Rae Jepsen, I never worked that out) went viral due to being catchy but ultimately awful. People would watch once to see what all the fuss was about, twice to check if what they’d just seen was as bad as they thought, and a third because they had become addicted to it and were getting withdrawal symptoms. No one was watching them due to their quality, music or video. If anyone could combine the catchiness with an awesome song, surely the internet would explode? Enter, Gangnam Style.

Gangnam Style is a song by flamboyant tune-blazer and Korean mega-star Psy. Presumably this stands for “Psychologically damaged due to a lack of love and attention as a child”, or simply “Psycho”. From what I can deduct from the video, when Psy was a child his father promised to get him a wooden rocking horse for Christmas. His father then went away, fighting and dying heroically in the Korean War in the 70s. This left Psy traumatised, and to this day he still runs around pretending to ride that invisible wooden horse he was promised all those years ago. Watch the video again with this in mind and I promise you this tragic back story will become obvious.

Gangnam Style can be accredited to a genre of music I had previously never heard called K.Pop, which stands for Korean Pop. However, my fleeting research into the career of Psy lead be to discovering that he in fact describes himself as a rapper. We can only assume that its genre placing is due to the fact that they didn’t want anyone saying that his music is “Complete and utter K.rap”. 

Proverbs

Let’s start with a joke, just because I thought this was brilliant.

“I’ve bought heroin four days in a row now, I’m starting to think I’m a shopaholic.”

Good, wanted to get that out of my system. It is slightly relevant though. Some people are addicted to drugs, others binge on alcohol. You do get some rarer addictions like anti-depressants and 50 Shades of Grey. However, I am yet to meet anyone who shares my habit. Second hand books.

Put me in a charity shop or a second hand book store and I will not leave quickly. When I am eventually dragged out, I will be the owner of 10 or 15 new (not new) books, most of which I don’t actually want and none of which I will ever read. A recent clear out of my room unearthed books such as:

• A guide of wildlife in woodlands in the spring time. I think I bought this because it looked old.
• An introduction to psychology. Not in itself unusual. In fact, it went really well with the other two copies of it I had.
• An AS Level biology text book. Actually, I probably should’ve read that at some point.

Last weekend I found myself at another second hand book stall at a fete, and obviously I came away with more books. A compilation of Agatha Christie novels that I probably won’t get round to reading before I retire, the life works of Peter Cook (because I’ve heard of him) and a book of poetry that I will never open, because it had a nice cover. However, I did buy one book that I’m actually interested in, called “A Treasury of Essential Proverbs”. I had to buy it, it was essential.

Proverbs are a strange phenomena. They are short phrases, probably not more than 10 words long, that ideally will lead you to living a better life if you abide by them. Some of them seem obvious (Money isn’t everything), some of them have been translated from Chinese (Good medicines tastes bitter) and some of them make no sense at all (The more it changes, the more it remains the same).

Anyway, he’s a select few:

The pen is mightier than the sword
You can see what the writer is getting at, if you’re prepared to be all metaphorical about it. However, I like to think that he make his maker turning up to a medieval duel with a biro.

You can’t put new wine into old barrels
I don’t really understand this one, because it simply isn’t true. Ironically, the only time you would believe this proverbs is when you’re incredibly drunk.

Live and let live
I don’t want to boast, but I abide by this proverb almost every single day. Almost.

A stumble may prevent a fall
Most proverbs deal with overall morality and how to live a better life every day. This one is purely a useful tip about walking, which in reality is much more practical.

All’s well that ends well
I have nothing to say about this. I just thought it was a good one to finish on.

Haircut

Trusting a stranger is never easy. No businessman would expect to do a deal without building some level of rapport with the client, and why would anyone else be willing to throw their faith at someone they have no previous knowledge of. Apart from…

The hairdresser has a surprising amount of trust placed in them when you sit in the chair and have your cape draped over you, preparing yourself to stare at your ever-changing reflection for the next 40-odd minutes. Once you have committed yourself to this compromising position, this man (let’s go with a man for the sake of brevity) has a frightening amount of influence over your appearance, your image, your happiness over the coming weeks and months. In short, they control what you look like. This in turn controls what people think of you when they see you, which is turn controls how much they like you, and determines your entire future relationship with that person. In short, the hairdresser literally holds your life in his hands. Think I’m exaggerating? Take a moment to think about how closely he holds a pair of scissors to various essential arteries and your general face area. 

You may think it vital to give this man precise instructions in order to get your hair as closely to what you want as you hope, i.e. damage limitation. It’s going to be awful, it’s going to look weird, so best to get it to look as not awful and not weird as you can salvage. Your instructions you give him are vital! What do you want done? In an ideal world, you would want to be able to control the exact length and direction of each individual hair, to avoid the disaster of coming looking like you’ve been wrongly processed by a blind farmer during the sheep-sheering season. How would you like it? It’s an important question. Which only goes to emphasise how careless I am with the same answer I give every time. I’d like it shorter please!

Here’s a question. When the barber shows you the back of your head, has there ever been any thought that crosses a person’s mind that isn’t, “Ooo, so that’s what I look like from the back”?

Instant Links

The brain is a strange concept. It’s where the entire body is piloted from, nothing happens without the consent and direct instruction from the brain (except the beating of the heart, thanks GCSE Biology!). You might think it inherent that we would have worked hard enough in human history to have an understanding of how the brain works, what with it being all important and everything. Despite the plethora of neuroscientific research throughout human history, we still don’t have that much of an idea of how the brain works in all its capacity.

One thing we do know is that our brain can think quickly by making subconscious links. In other words, we learn to expect a certain image or item etc. when the brain is triggered by a word or sound etc. When we hear the word ‘sky’, most of us think of the colour blue, maybe clouds, or possibly the night sky full of stars if that’s what your brain links the word to. Some people, myself included, think of Sky TV and its logo when I hear the word, which shows that I am a complete sucker to their advertisement campaign. The ultimate advertising victory would be for someone to hear the word ‘sky’ and immediately think ‘plus’ and ‘hd’ after it.

I can’t even begin to pretend that I know enough psychology to dig any deeper into the idea, although I would love to someday. I would love to know how the links are made, why those particular links are made and if certain things can be done to influence which links are made. But then I might end up in marketing so

I’ve got to be careful. One thing everyone can do is explore what links we have made in our own heads. All you have to do is take a word and work out what you think of immediately. You have to take the first thing that comes to your head, it doesn’t work if you think about it too much. Here are some of mine.

BenThis works particularly well with names. For example, if you know 5 James’es (I have no idea what the plural for James is), which is the first one you think of? Is it even someone you know. Both my best friends are called James, but I definitely think of one before the other when I hear the word James. I’ll just let them both think it’s them.

Ben is my name, so you’d think when I hear the word Ben, I’d think of me. This isn’t the case. When I hear the word Ben, the link I make in my head is to a man, mid 30’s, with stubble. I think I’ve made this link somewhere between Ben Fogle and Ben Ainslie. Either way, it’s certainly not me. I only just fit one of those descriptions…

ForceThrough many years of Physics lessons, I know that Force=Mass x Acceleration. However, when I first hear the word ‘force’, I make a different connection, given that I grew up as a Star Wars geek. When I hear ‘force’, my brain triggers the sound bite of Ben (back to that again) Kenobi saying ‘The force will be with you, always', before running away and being killed my Darth Vader.

DavidHere’s a strange one. I know 3 Davids, plus many more celebrity Davids, and one of my favourite songs growing up was Who’s David by Busted. The link that my brain has made is actually to the biblical David, who killed Goliath. Having not grown up in a particularly religious setting, I genuinely can’t explain that one.

YellowSome people probably just make the link of something that is yellow. Others might instantly think of the Coldplay song. Many will think follow ‘yellow’ with ‘car’, the infamous colour of car which allows for Actual Bodily Harm on school buses (I’ve never understood that one). My personal link is to a medicine I used to have as a child which was simply called 'Yellow Medicine’, which left such an impression on me that it is now what I think of when I hear the word ‘yellow’. It is so memorable simply because it was so disgusting. Genuinely the second more vile thing I can remember. Second only to the song Yellow by Coldplay.

Yelling into an uninhabited cave

This week, N-Dubz singer Tulisa has had a twitter spat with Lord Sugar about her right to judge talent, specifically the X Factor. As Tulisa pointed out surprisingly articulately, both parties came from (and I’m quoting an N-Dubz song) “Practically nothing to thousands screaming our name”, or in the case of Sugar, people sitting opposite him trying to impress him and his trusty minions elves Nick and Karen.

Both came from relatively modest backgrounds. Sugar was born into a council flat environment, left school at 16 and sold electrical goods out the back of his van by his own volition. Tulisa also came from a tough background, a violent family and no qualifications when she left school.

They each went on to become successful in their own field. Sugar became a success due to his natural business nous, hard work and ruthlessness, and Tulisa because she knew someone with an auto tune machine (citation needed).

But the point is, neither of them matter. I mean really, if it wasn’t for Wednesday and Saturday night television, we probably wouldn’t have heard of either, or at least they wouldn’t be in the public eye. No decision that either one of them makes will actively have an effect of the way we live our lives, and they way we feel most of the time. The only people who are really affected by these two are the media, who are dependent on being able to report which nightclub in Ibiza Lord Sugar is falling out of, or the next shrewd investment Tulisa is venturing into. Or maybe it’s the other way round, I always get these two confused.

They are both classic cases in point of the typical rags to riches story that many of the lower classes in our society are encourage to aspire to, the ultimate proof of social mobility. Other examples include most footballers. Carlton Cole came from a lower class family in Croydon to rise to the ultimate footballing pinnacle, the number 9 shirt of West Ham United. JK Rowling went from being on benefits to being worth around $1 billion. But none of these people matter to us.

Interestingly, JK Rowling was listed as the 48th most powerful celebrity in 2007. At this point, she was releasing the last book in her Harry Potter series, and millions of people wanted to read it. She was encouraging people to give to charity, something that had been close to her heart even when she wasn’t famous. But she wasn’t changing the world, changing the way we live our lives and changing how we feel. Apart from when she killed off Hedwig, I’m not sure I’ve ever fully recovered emotionally.

The key word in the phrase ‘most powerful celebrity’ is ‘celebrity’. Celebrities are designed to give us an interest in the outside world, give us someone to look up to and give us someone to relate to. They are not designed to change or effect our lives, and hence they are not powerful. The people with power in the world are rarely people we can relate to, mostly people we don’t look up to and almost never someone who has come from a humble background. 10 points if you spotted before this point that this was a moan about politics.

Our government is currently primarily made up of the Conservative Party. These are largely people who come from privately educated backgrounds with their path to power paved by their parents’ contacts book.

David Cameron is the most powerful man in Britain politically speaking, and he is exceptionally clever. However, he did follow his father into Eton before going to Oxford. Only the rich can afford to be part of the Bullingdon Club, and Cameron was one of them. This is where he met the man who is now (terrifyingly) the most powerful man in London, Boris Johnson.

No one is saying that Cameron isn’t clever. But maybe’s he’s the smartest who’s rich enough to hang with the rich, the cleverest to have come out of the upper-middle classes. Perhaps the key question is not should he have power, but would he have power if he didn’t come from such a privileged background? And what about those better suited to power, who can’t afford to go to Eton?

The problem won't be solved right here, right now. This is a problem that can only be solved by an overhaul of the entire system. This is just an irritated blog by an irritated blogger. Perhaps being aware of the problem is the most we can do at the moment, so more people can get involved when the issue comes up next. Yes, getting annoyed that the system we live in can feel like yelling into an uninhabited cave, but there’s a chance, just a tiny chance, that someone will here the echo. Because social mobility is an important factor in the fair society that we want to live in. Otherwise, no one would’ve ever heard of Tulisa. 

Cinematic Procrastination

Oh no. I just blogged all over the internet. Again. Sorry

I haven’t done one of these since early June, which happens to be pretty much the last time I was supposed to be doing any work. For some reason, there seems to be no reason to spend my time doing this unless I have something ‘more important’ that I should be doing, like studying for exams. As soon as I actually have the free time to spend blogging, I find myself doing others things like eating and continuously refreshing the BBC News page in the hope that something has happened in the 4 minutes since I last looked.

Filling 6 weeks always does end up as some sort of challenge, especially without a holiday this year. This has lead to me film-binging throughout the entire summer, which may partly go to explaining why I am so unfit. But I have seen some great films, and some bad ones. This summer alone I have seen:

• The Godfather
• Something’s Gotta Give
• Donnie Darko
• Shawshank Redemption
• LOTR-The fellowship of the ring, extended edition
• My Summer of Love
• The Dark Knight Rises
• Taken
• The Social Network
• The Matrix
• Ted
• The Amazing Spiderman
• Tim Burton’s Batman
• The Bourne Identity
• The Bourne Supremacy
• The Bourne Ultimatum
• The Big Lebowski
• Virgin Territory
• Scarface
• Rain Man
• Mission Impossible 1,2,3 and 4

Looking back, I probably could’ve been more productive. Given that you can add to this list a whole series of The West Wing, all of The Newsroom and Veep, Wallander (all hail Kenneth Branagh), Line of Duty and all the terrible films I’ve seen but were so unmemorable that I’ve forgotten them already.

However, my parents have started pestering me to start work for school this year. Hence I’m finding time to blog. And for all 3 of my dedicated fans, I promise that I will blog more in the near future. I also promise that they will be less self-indulgent and more interesting than this was. Sorry.

Music Taste

As everyone who knows me knows, and everyone else will know once they’ve finished this sentence, I am quite a musical person. Music is pretty much my dominant pastime and one of the only thing that I am undeniably good at. I am deniable good at other things, but undeniably good at this. Hmmm.

Unlike sport, astrophysics or whatever else people pass their time with, music is something that nearly everyone is interested in, in the sense that they listen to it, and they have an opinion on it. Everyone knows what they think of as ‘good’ and ‘bad’ music, and even what’s ‘cool’ and ‘whatever the opposite of cool is, possible uncool’. It’s as easy to judge someone instantly on the knowledge that said person likes Lostprophets and My Chemical Romance as it is to judge someone on the fact that they’re wearing black jeans and a t-shirt with real blood smeared over it. In reality, these two tend to coincide anyway. It is also safe to assume that this person thinks that Nickelback are a disgrace to the human race.

One thing that I’ve found noticeable is people trying to show me how cool they are with knowledge of bands that no one has heard of, which makes them indie. I’ve learnt that it is normally advisable to nod along and look impressed when someone declares that they are listening to the ‘Midnight Foxes’ or the ‘Lightning Bolt Brigade’, who they only know as they saw that in a tiny tent at a festival, but I wouldn’t have heard of them because they don’t advertise on the internet, because that’s too mainstream.
n.b. These are only guesses at indie band names, but for all I know, they may well be real bands. I just haven’t heard of them, because I’m too mainstream
n.b.b. It is also advisable to note that these people are always wearing red chinos. This will help you to avoid these people in the street.

Being a musical person myself, at least to the point of being a multi-instrumentalist, people tend to assume that I like small bands, and hate mainstream music. This often leads to people openly laughing in my face as they scroll through my iPod and find Now CD after Now CD, occasionally punctuated by Elton John’s greatest hits and Songs from the Musicals. My music taste is a complete mish-mash of stuff, to the point that it is indefinable by genre by itself. In general, I just like music that is catchy or well put together, and myself favourite music tends to be both. For example, all of the Beatles ever.

It would be almost impossible to make a list of my favourite songs, as they change all the time. It’s also worth mentioning that some of my favourite artists haven’t done any of my favourite songs, like Jason Mraz, and some of my favourite songs are by artists who I otherwise don’t like, or are 1 hit wonders. But he’s a go at my top however many it is favourite songs, in no particular order:

• Time to say Goodbye
  Classical song, half of it’s in Latin, amazing tune, what’s not to love?
• Somewhere (from West Side Story)
  Just an amazing tune with lyrics that mean something, rather than all the modern ‘Get on the floor, something about the beat’ rubbish. Yes, I’m looking at everything that Pitbull has ever done
• Hello, Goodbye
  It’s not the best some the Beatles have done, but it’s certainly my favourite, if only because it’s amazing to sing along too. And contrary to the previous point, the lyrics mean absolutely nothing. But it’s a beautiful nothing
• No Woman, No Cry
  Possible the only song that I could listen to on loop for the rest of my life, and it would never get annoying
• Concrete Angel
  Partly because of the heart breaking music video, but this song is possibly the most emotive 4 minutes of anyone’s life
• One Song, Glory
  From the musical Rent. It’s so good, and I have no idea what it’s about
• Faure’s Pavane
  The original’s not a song, but there is an equally wonderful choral version. This is what people who write off classical are missing.
• Jupiter from the Planets
  Again, not a song, but there are lots of songs that have taken the tune, especially hymns. Also, makes the list because it’s my favourite piece of music of all time. But then again, you probably haven’t heard of it, because it’s too mainstream for you

Call Me Maybe

Call Me Maybe has been a massive hit, it it’ll clearly be a one hit wonder for Carly Rae Jepson. That said, it’ll make her a lot of money, so she’ll still be singing it when she’s 50, which will probably drive her insane (it’s so catchy!). The words might be changed slightly….

Hey I just met you,

And this is crazy,

But I really like you. I haven’t felt this way about anyone for so long and I think that we are destined to be together. My therapist says that I have unresolved emotional issues which emanated from my husband leaving me, and culminating with losing the custody of my children. I don’t even drink anymore, I’ve been on the wagon for almost a month now, and I haven’t had one of my ‘fits’ since last year. I wasn’t even allowed to keep my dog as the RSPCA deemed it to be too risky for his wellbeing, particularly as I kept forgetting to feed him. I don’t even know how I’m supposed to look after him when I can’t look after myself. That’s why I really need someone to help me make it through, and I want it to be you. I need it to be you. Please come round as soon as possible, or I’m not sure I’ll make it through the night. I live in Mission, British Columbia on 8536 Cade Bar, and my number is (604) 820-0840,

So call me maybe?

Wasting Time

Last year, after my exams, I had 10 weeks of holiday. While that seemed like a godsend at the time, after about 7 weeks, I started to get bored and short of stuff to do. This year, it’s taken me 3 days before I got bored, running out of things to do. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and some serious procrastination is called for.

Procrastination is no doubt a talent, and a talent must be practiced. The 10,000 hours rule dictates that you should practice a skill for 10,000 hours before you are as good as you can be. Procrastination is harder than it looks (although if you are watching someone procrastinate, you should really think about getting on with some of your own), and it’s hard to think of things to do to fill your time with. Over the last two days, I’ve probably done around 10 hours of pretty much nothing, so at this rate it’ll take me between 3 and 4 years to perfect the art, assuming that I can find 5 hours a day of time that I can happily waste. Here are a few things that I’ve done over the past few days.

1. Counting freckles

The past few days have suddenly decided that they want to be sunny, so I’ve spent a lot of them outside, as I’m sure a lot of people have. A week ago, I didn’t have any freckles at all, whereas my current count has rocketed due to sun’s belated appearance. The sudden rise has been the result of my week’s procrastination in the sun, where I have been trying to find the happy medium between being so pale that I’m reflective, and skin cancer. For those of you who don’t get freckles, you can also spend time staring at your face in the mirror, but instead you can spend the time admiring your beautifully tanned complexion. In principle, I hate you.

2.  Watching ‘the other presenter’

TV features as a large part of my procrastination routine. It’s hard to believe that with 900 channels to chose from (minus sky movies, we’re not made of money), that at least one would have something worth watching on. It is of course important to remember that only half of these channels have their own output, and the other half are just showing what their partner channel was showing an hour ago, just in case you missed something that you didn’t want to watch. The other problem is that currently, there are only 3 episodes of Diagnosis Murder on a day. Couple that with the fact that I’ve seen all of them before, (it’s occasionally bearable when you remember who the murderer is, but not when you can practically remember the script) and suddenly that option doesn’t seem appealing either. I have discovered a new way of watching TV though. When programs have more than one presenter, only of them is speaking at a time. The entertainment comes in not listening to the speaker, but watching the other presenter. While the other speaks, they just sit there and stare at you, or even nod along in agreement to the other one. This is well worth trying yourself as if I just describe to you how good it is, it looks like I’m having a break down. Early today I spend quite a lengthy period just watching the newsreader who wasn’t talking. The first time that it even occurred to me that I should get on with something else was when I started hearing news stories that I’d heard before go round the loop again.

3. Writing this

Useless and pointless as this is, at least it takes up time. So far this has taken 20 odd minutes to write, and it would probably take longer if I actually thought about what I was writing, or read through it afterwards instead of submitting it as soon as my internal monologue falls asleep, or at least starts daydreaming. Obviously writing my blog doesn’t account for any of you, but you might want to do something related. Like reading my blog. Admittedly if you’re this far into it, it’s probably too late to turn back.

4. Desperately trying to up your Twitter following

The number of followers you have is purely egotistical. There is barely any point in having thousands of followers, as no one in the world can say anything worth knowing in 140 characters. Then again, there’s no point not having thousands of followers, at least it boosts your pathetic and needy self-esteem. Which is why I want as many followers as possible, so follow me at @i_am_called_ben

There are two reasons why you should do this. Firstly, I follow back, so your tiny boost to my ego will be returned with a tiny boost to yours, even though we both know that in the real world, it means nothing. Secondly, I will feel loved. If you don’t have twitter, you should get it. It’s really good for procrastination. Arguably better than watching people on the news who aren’t speaking.

The Perfect Man

Warning: This post is even more self-absorbed than normal.

So they’ve discovered what makes up the perfect man. I have no idea who ‘they’ are, but I think they just asked some women. These dreadful lists seem to find their way onto the MSN website and sadly, so do I.

It’s a list of 30 characteristics that make up the perfect man. Now, I have never claimed to be the perfect man, but I’m pretty sure everyone thinks I’m close. So let’s seem how I measure up.

1. Is 6 feet tall.
No word of a lie, I’m 1cm less than 6 ft. Which is suppose not 6ft. No one will love me if I’m 5’ 11 and a half.

2. Muscly, toned and athletic.
The brilliant thing about the internet is that you can’t see me. So let’s go with yes…

3. Brown eyes.
No. But I do have eyes, which is half way there.

4. Non-smokers.
Finally. Actually, I do smoke when I’m on fire. So I suppose I don’t even qualify for that.

5. Good dress sense.
No comment. But I do have t-shirts with different Star Wars logos for each day of the week.

6. Short dark hair
Yes, I definitely do.

7. Earns at least £48,000 a year
No, I definitely don’t.

8. Only says ‘I love you’ when
Yeah that’s true. I don’t know why I even bother, my cats can’t understand me.

(I’m joking. My cats are the only ones who understand me. Understand who I really am. They are the only ones I can trust and tell all my problems to.)

There’s a whole list of these, and I don’t qualify for many. Turns out I’m not perfect after all, who’d have thought.

These lists are clearly pointless as people have different tastes. There must be someone who likes every look, or it would die out through evolution. Although that doesn’t explain the continued existence of gingers.

That was a joke.

Haha

Pennies With Purpose

So what do you do in your spare time? It’s a question that’s asked in interviews, put on CVs and is integral to a Take Me Out participation form. What people chose to do in their spare time is very personal, and makes up a lot of who we are as people. To give an obvious example, I blog. Some say it’s pointless, self-absorbed and narcissistic, others say it’s pointless, but mildly amusing and quite often a good excuse to put off revision (what do you think I’m supposed to be doing now?). Either way, it’s universally agreed that it’s pointless.

Today I met someone, a family friend once-removed or something, who had a very different hobby. She and a few friends had set up a charity, and she will spend her free time fundraising for it. They are aiming to raise 6 million pennies, one for each of the Jewish victims of the holocaust. Here it would probably be wise to mention:

a) That she is Jewish. But then she is a family friend, and all my family’s friends are Jewish, we have a strict quota system

b) 6 million pennies in £60,000. The vast majority of people reading this will have either not bothered to work that out, or worked it out wrong like I originally did

Apart from highlighting how pointless my hobby of writing occasional slightly humorous 500 word rambles is, this project blew me away. Entirely metaphorically.
It’s not my place to preach how appalling the holocaust was, or how the many of the effects still haven’t been rectified half a century later and much more needs to be done, but you may notice that I’m doing it anyway. The money raised is split between 6 holocaust related charities, each helping a different area of society, some Jewish, some entirely unrelated to Judaism. This is a cause that I really firmly believe in. Being directly related to holocaust victims, I honestly would love to do what I can to do good and make the world a better place. Unfortunately what I can do is sit at my laptop and type out rubbish, which is not going to really make much of a difference in the wider world. Which is where you come in.

I am fully aware that the vast majority of readers are my age and either don’t have disposable money, don’t have debit card or don’t have a heart. Either way, I doubt many people reading this will directly donate, although it would be awesome if you did. But don’t let that be a reason for you not to get others to donate. Show your parents, get them to give a fiver and tell their friends. Or get them to give 60 grand and get the whole thing done quickly. But a fiver would be wonderful.

More information is on their website, which I’ll like at the bottom. And unlike the KONY 2012 campaign, the people who run this charity will make sure that every penny will go to the cause.
While charity seems like effort, please make the effort. It’s not everyday that you make an actual difference to make people’s lives better. If nothing else, it will make you feel better. Promise!
http://www.pennieswithpurpose.co.uk/
http://www.justgiving.com/Pennies-With-Purpose

The weirdo on the bus

Somehow, I’ve found myself in the situation where I am the only Sixth Former on my school bus. For 25 minutes at a time, twice a day, I am completely surrounded by small people who irritate me. Or the year 11s, big people who irritate me.

There are obvious disadvantages to this situation. The obvious one is that I have no one to talk to (if there were any other year 12s on the bus, I would probably not talk to them. But it’s nice to know I have the option). I am a big fan of conversation, as it facilitates two of my favourite things; finding out new stuff and complaining about stuff. In an ideal world, I find out stuff which I can then complain about. I can do neither on my own, and it’s nice to at least have the illusion that someone’s listening.

The other disadvantage to being on my own is that it plays into one of my pet hates, overhearing stupid conversations. You’d think that a bus full of people who’d passed the 11+ would lead to some intellectual conversations, discussing the elusive Higgs Bosom particle and pondering the new French president’s left-wing economic stance. The reality could hardly be further away. In the last week I have heard:

“Can you see gravity?”

“I wonder if Twilight is more famous than the Bible yet”

“Your mum’s so fat that you have two dads”
(This one in particular blows my mind)

It’s been pretty much a year now, so I’ve got used to it, and there is a flip side. Being the only year 12 on the bus means that there’s no one there to judge me, or at least no one whose opinion matters to me. For 50 minutes a day, I can just do what I like and be weird. I can rap along to Jason Mraz and hum when it gets to the chorus and no one cares. I can daydream and stare out the window and no one cares. And I reckon that everybody needs time where no one judges them. Everybody needs time to be a weirdo. And every bus needs a weirdo.

A life changing moment

It’s not every day that your entire existence and purpose in life is called into question. It’s not even every day. At most, it’s once a fortnight, and even that can be called a busy couple of weeks.

Before this point, I’d pretty much set my life plan out. Psychology at university, become a journalist, marry a surgeon, become editor of the Guardian, retire onto an island. Not Ireland, a proper one. I was so sure that this was the path that my life would take (minus the surgeon part, I would be just as happy to marry a Hollywood actress or one or more of the Saturdays), that I took all the precautions to achieve this. All my A level choices and all my work experience is geared towards that path. No flexibility to accommodate any potentially life changing epiphanies that might arise.

I many terrible habits, anyone who went to my old school will testify as to how long I spent with my finger up my nose until the age of 8. One of these which I still suffer from is that I have a tendency to look at someone doing something and think “It’s good……I could do that! Probably better.”

The only reason I ended up watching this film was because I had money left over on an iTunes voucher and it was on special offer. Either this was fate, or no one was buying it at full price. I like to think it was both. I had been looking for an action, romcom or murder mystery film (lolwut?!), but the title attracted me to this.

Bowling for Columbine. What’s not to like? I know what bowling is (a game where you try to knock down pins by rolling a ball at them). I know what Columbine was (a tragic high school massacre in which 12 students and 1 teacher was murdered). I’m sure that everyone, knowing this information, would certainly want to watch it.

I honestly don’t know what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t a documentary. I thought documentaries are either videos of penguins with Morgan Freeman and David Attenborough talking over them, or programs on Channel 5 in which incredibly fat people talk about being incredibly fat. This was something else.

A film by someone called Michael Moore, who is basically a left-wing whinger like me, Bowling for Columbine was a powerfully moving film about the weapon crisis in America, and the public’s attitude towards it. Through its masterful imagery and penetrating investigative journalism, the film is both informative as to the problem, and persuasive, making the watcher want to take action. It is wonderful in many ways, not only entertainment, but entertainment with a message. Entertainment that can change the world and make it a better, safer place. I watched this and thought “This is utterly amazing…………I could do that!”

Watching it was possibly a life changing moment, because it completely changed what I want to do as a career. Admittedly, this may not last long (I used to want to be a spaceman), but at the moment it seems to be where I want to go. If anyone hasn’t seen any Michael Moore films, I would recommend this, and also Fahrenheit 911 and Sicko. He is brilliant. If anyone has never seen any documentaries, then what are doing? Seriously, drop everything and go and watch March of the Penguins. It’s a video of penguins, with Morgan Freeman narrating! And not a single high school massacre in sight, what’s not to love?

This one experience has completely changed what I want to do with my life, I want to be a film maker. I want to make films that inspire people and change people. But I still want to marry a Saturday. Preferably Una or Frankie.

I have a dream

I had a dream last night.

I know, a terrible opener for both a blog entry, and any conversation ever. If anyone ever starts a conversation with me telling me about their dreams, I immediately join in with the spirit of the conversation. By daydreaming. Don’t worry, the ending’s even worse.

Bare with me, I had a dream last night. Since getting a new (and unbelievable comfy) mattress, I’ve been sleeping much deeper, and getting some REM in. Not the band, although anyone who knows their stuff about REM, or like me, has looked at their wikipedia page, will know that REM comes from rapid eye movement, which is what you do when you dream. So in this case, I was dreaming, rather than listening to REM. Although I can recommend that too.

Since I found out about the concept, I’ve been desperate to be able to lucid dream. This is where once you’ve recognised that you’re in a dream, you can control the events, rather than just going along with it. Apparently there’s a technique to it, so I’ve put it on my list of things to learn to do, along with drive a car and make people think I’m normal.

When I dream, though, I am absolutely sold to it. I have no idea that each 20 minute period (most dreams only last 15-20 minutes), aren’t reality, for their duration anyway. Sometimes, when I wake up, I am genuinely surprised that I’m not a dragon, and have never have been. And let’s be honest, a little disappointed.

What dreams have a habit of doing is portraying the world in a way that I, subconsciously, want it to be. A few days ago, I had a dream where I was going out with a girl, and she was perfect. Not conventionally beautiful, but in my rapidly moving eyes, she was perfect. She was blonde which surprised me, as my usual preference is brunette, but everything seemed right so it didn’t matter. What struck me most was her perfect personality. Everything she did and said was exactly how I would’ve wanted her to do and say, and she exactly shared my sense of humour and interests. I’d found the one.

Here’s a fact that I found interesting, when you dream, everyone you see in your dream is a face that you’ve seen before in real life. Your brain lacks the power to invent faces, so everyone you see is someone your brain has stored, be them a local news reporter, a lollipop lady or the Pope. Remembering this, I realised that my perfect woman must actually exist, so I took to Google. Not too much looking revealed her to be actress Rachel McAdams, off of out of Mean Girls and Sherlock Holmes. What my brain had done was essentially taken Rachel McAdams’ face, and given her my personality. Shame, our children were beautiful.

I am fully aware that this entire post has been entirely self-indulgent and not particularly entertaining. So true to form, and as promised, it was have a rubbish ending, the ending you’re never supposed to use. Brace yourself……

….and then I woke up.

The Holy Apartheid Lesbian Hunger Games and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

Despite the fact that the mantra ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’ has been drilled into everyone since birth, we still do. Frankly, it’s a stupid phrase, saying that to judge a book, we have to read it in its entirety, meaning that to know what the best books are, we have to have read all of them. That would take loads of books, as there are 129,864,880 books in the world (well at least according to http://www.fastcompany.com/1678254/how-many-books-are-there-in-the-world, and I don’t know why I bothered finding out when I could’ve just made one up. Like you could prove me wrong). Why not just decide what the best books are as the ones with the prettiest pictures on the front?

I have noticed a similar pattern happening with the hits on this blog, with the most hits being on the posts with the most interesting titles. The top 3 have been;

1. KONY 2012. 156 views. It was topical, back when everybody cared. Come to think of it, that went pretty quickly.
2. I am an idiot. 127 views. Presumably because people already had suspicions that I am an idiot, and wanted it confirming.
3. Sexual Bucket List. 123 views. Because you are all perverts.

In my opinions the best posts, ‘Stereotypicality’ (69 veiws) and ‘I have been warned’ (71 veiws) haven’t had nearly as many views simply because the titles haven’t been eye-catching.

Therefore, for this post, I have gone the opposite way, and gone all out for the title that will attract the most people, and then just blogged about what’s ended up on the page after I’ve mindlessly typed for a while. As far as I’m aware, the quality of the piece will bear no effect on the popularity, and given that my ego now almost entirely rests on the number of hits this blog gets, I thought I’d go for it.

I have sorry if I’ve left you out of the title. As far as I’m aware, I’ve increased my demographic to include

Lesbian-pretty much all boys

Hunger Games-topical

Deathly Hallows-most girls

Holy-the Pope

Apartheid-if that doesn’t grab Nelson Mandela’s attention, I don’t know what will.

Stereotypicality

In the culture we’re in, there are very definite stereo social norms (too much comms is bad for you). A lot of things are just expected from us, like boys have short hair, and girls having long hair, unless they are a, ah-hum, oh never mind. Anyway, point is, everyone tends to fit to a certain mould. There are then little facts that set each of us apart from the norm. These makes us interesting, and unique.

Let’s start with the norm, the stereotype.
Btw these aren’t bases on real people. So don’t cry.

His name is Will. Or James, something along those lines. He goes to school, drifts through lessons, but does his homework. He got a couple of As and mostly Bs at GCSE (I’m a grammar boy, my standards are high), and 2 Cs in chemistry and Drama. On the week days he plays Call of Duty and plays football on saturday mornings. Probably at left back. He isn’t really very good, but he’s been going since he was 9, so he gets the occasional game out of pity. He has scored 3 own goals this season. He’s not very interesting at all, and frankly he couldn’t hold a conversation if it had handles (some of the jokes are purely for my benefit).

Her name is Sophie. Or Hannah. She enjoys school, especially being around her circle of friends. She doesn’t know that all her ‘friends’ hate her and hang around with her through pity. She does have issue with her weight. She thinks she’s fat, and she is a little bit, but not as fat as she thinks she is. She has had two boyfriends. The first was called Dan, and he was 3 years older than her. She dumped him when she realised that he was only with her for her size 34C boobs, he didn’t even know her surname. The other was Josh, a shy boy her age who’d asked her out in an hilarious mix up, and hadn’t had the heart to tell her that he didn’t really want to go out with her in their entire 5 month relationship. They never even held hands.

Ok, so I have kinda gone to town on the old stereotypes, but you get the point. Here are my facts which make me, me.

• I have more musical instruments than I do fingers (this is a comment on my abnormal number of instruments, rather than my abnormal number of fingers)
• I have played guitar since I was 4, over 75% of my life. That figure will only rise
• I have my own blog. Obviously, but do you?
• I have very little sense of embarrassment. This is coming from someone who thought vlogs were a good idea. And plans to do more.
• I dropped maths, the only subject I was actually good at, for A level. This isn’t really an interesting fact, it’s just a stupid decision.
• None of my family have ever heard me swear. It went from being scared of them hearing me, to it just being a point of interest as to how long I could keep it up. They swear at me all the time. My dad calls me some very horrible things.

If everyone in the world were like me

I read somewhere that everyone is the protagonist in their own life, which I really like. Reminds you that even if people are doing something wrong or annoying, they are not doing it to annoy you, just trying to improve their life somehow. On giving my not-particularly-renowned relationship advice this afternoon (I don’t seem to get better the more I give), I found this person presented with the conundrum of having been effectively asked out by two different boys at the same time, giving an annoying but yet pleasant problem of who to disappoint. Both were described to me, the first lovely, kind, probably quite naive at potentially a rubbish boyfriend, but through lack of practice rather than anything else. Fair to say, I would probably get on with him quite well, we are very similar. The second, from the limited information I have, bit of a player, bit of a tool, not exactly the kind of person I’d get on with. Which made me think, if I were another person, would I get on with myself? And what would the world be like if everyone were like me?

If you’ve gathered one thing from this blog, I’m a big fan of list;

• There would be no more small talk. It is one of my pet hates. I don’t have a problem with it in principle, in fact I am happy to admit that the only reason I don’t like it is because I’m rubbish at it. A phatic conversation (small talk) is bad enough with one of me involved, so with both sides being as accomplished as I am at small talk, most conversations would go like this

“Hi”
”Hey, you alright?”
”Yeah I’m good actually, what about you?”
”I’m pretty good too, thanks”
”…………………”
”Well, see you around anyway”

• Parties would be the most civilised places on Earth. I am a really polite drunk, losing my inhibitions doesn’t cause me to want to do things with people I wouldn’t normally, but it does help me display that gratitude that I had previously been too shy to do. Mainly aimed at the parents whose house the party’s in. Anyone who knows me knows that I am a mum-charming machine.
• There would be days when nothing is said. Some days, I’m just not in the mood for people. I’ll just stay in and read a book, or just think about thinking until I’m too tired to think. People tend to assume that something terrible has happened to me to shut me up for such long periods of time, but I am often at my most happy when I’m in these moods. But what if the whole world had one of these moods at the same time? Well among other things, nothing would get done.
• No one would ever win any sport. I’m not particularly unfit, and I’ve got good hand eye coordination. The only obvious reason that I am particularly bad at sport is that I don’t tend to bother. I don’t really get much from winning, so I don’t tend to try. Imagine a 100m Olympic final where no one really wanted to win that much, it would probably take at least 20 seconds, or they’ll just agree to sell the medals and use the money they earn to share out unholy amounts of candyfloss.
• There would be no more arguments, because I would be right about everything. I mean I already am, but I wouldn’t have to persuade people I am.

I have been warned

When universities research their applicants, they take many precautions. Obviously, they’ll check to see if I’ve got a criminal record, and check to see if I’m off that register that naughty men go on when they forgo their responsibilities as a scout leader. I have also been warned that, in this modern day and age, they Google their applicants. Which in my case will lead them to reading this. Just in case this does happen in the future…

HELLO UNIVERSITY PEOPLE!
Please let me go to your university. I promise I’ll be good, and I swear that my inevitably disappointing A Levels are only a minor glitch in my otherwise prosperous career.

This is assuming, of course, that they have got the right Ben Baruch. We’re not as scarce as you might expect.

Other Ben Baruchs include

1) Ben Baruch

The author of the “Shabbot 6000” cartoon strip. With such hilarious jokes as:

“I went to a gay Jewish wedding. One of the grooms ended up with a broken foot. There was some confusion over who would be breaking the wine glass!”

I know, comedy gold. If you don’t understand it, you probably aren’t Jewish enough.

2) Meir Ben Baruch

Lived 1215 to 1293. Unsurprisingly, also Jewish.

He was a major author of the tosafot on Rashi’s commentary on the Talmud. I don’t know what that means.

3) Ben Baruch

Polish singer whose only available recordings are from 1949-1950. Specialised in traditional Jewish songs. Who’d’ve guessed?

The name Ben Baruch hasn’t exactly produced many great people, given that the fourth Ben Baruch I found was me. Interestingly, there are hundreds of Ben Baruchs on facebook. Some are boys, some are girls, some live in America, some live in Israel. In fact, the only strong pattern that can be seen is the sheer number of Ben Baruchs wearing Jew-hats in their profile pictures. And I use the phrase Jew-hat reluctantly, knowing that no one would’ve known what I was talking about if I gave its proper name. Because you are not Jewish enough, we’ve established this. 

KONY 2012

Oh dear. Serious alert.

This blog is supposed to be light hearted, fun, and just a bit of practice writing. And I don’t get annoyed very easily. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t get annoyed at the KONY 2012 campaign, I got annoyed at the reaction to it.

The backlash by supposedly rational people has been extraordinary. This is a campaign about bringing to justice someone who abuses thousands of children, but apparently it’s not important because AIDS exists. And people are dying from malnourishment. So what does it matter if one little girl is sold into the sex trade, or one little boy is shot in war when he should be at school? We need to get our priorities right, don’t we?

This is the viewpoint of a staggering amount of people (ok, apart from the graphic descriptions I’ve put in to make them sound stupid). We should not be looking for Kony, because there are other, admittedly bigger problems in the world. Malnutrition claims the life of (warning: badly researched statistic) 6 million children every year, that is what we should be worried about. Anyone who thinks this is sensible and has  a sense of perspective. They have also massively missed the point.

Before today, or whenever this Kony thing started, everyone knew about malnutrition. Of course people are starving in Africa, that’s how it’s been all our lives. No one had heard of Joseph Kony. He is an atrocious man, no one is denying that, perhaps aside from him and his 60 wives and 42 children. He is also a problem that can be solved with one, well directed bullet. World hunger is not. Anyone who says that America’s priorities are misguided has probably not put a second thought into it.

I don’t like to sit on the fence, but I do love to shoot both arguments down. What good is it for a middle class 16 year old from England to watch a video about a terrible man, given that I have no idea where he is, or how to find him. And I’m certainly not going to help bring him to justice. Sometimes, raising awareness is futile. Raising awareness for AIDS is important, for I may someday catch it myself, raising awareness of world hunger is important because next time I want to buy a book, I will go to the Oxfam book shop, rather than Waterstones, knowing that at least some of the money from my Dilbert book will go to helping solve world hunger. I have nothing to do with Kony and knowing about it isn’t going to help.

So everybody who is saying that this campaign is pointless because there is still hunger in the world, do something to help solve it. Since 2006 I’ve ‘adopted’ a Gambian boy, although I had to leave him there because he was too heavy to go in my luggage. But I still pay for his food and schooling. Nothing will be helped by moaning about someone else’s charitable causes. And nothing will be helped by watching the Kony video either, although at least it has stirred up some interesting debate.

There are better videos to watch on youtube, some that will at least do some good. Like make you happy, make you laugh. Here’s one. It’s simply entitled “Fat People Falling Over”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNupRTfpM9s

Duh, duh duh, duh duh

My googling skills aren’t the greatest, but I can normally find something when I want it. I ran into a problem when i wanted to know the name of the music they use for arty stuff. You know? That one off of SMart? I could maybe sing it to you? Okay well you know the one.

I have met so many people who’ve wanted to know what it is, and no one who knew what it was. It really became one of those things that annoyed when i thought about it, and lots of music has done that. Other songs that have done that have been A Thousand Miles (you know, with that piano bit) Eye of the Tiger (you know, with that guitar bit), and then this, with the glockenspiel bit. Over the years I’ve probably spent hours looking for it, and never found it. It has caused all sorts of minor irritations.

Anyway, the only reason I’m going on about it is because I’ve just found out what it is. It's called

Left Bank Two by The Noveltones

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcCHRW8G9yY

This is all I have to say.

Oh, and you’re welcome!

Americans are excellent

Americans are excellent. And the word excellent is not used enough these days. I digress.

I spent the last week skiing in America, which was lovely, possibly aside from the mountains of salt that I must have consumed over the week. There were many noticeable differences in the culture between here and the US, such as the multitude of ‘in your face’ adverts, particularly on TV. I must’ve seen an advert for a DVD called Lots and lots of Jets and Planes about 40 times. Yes, it’s just lots of footage of jets and planes. What more could you want?

One difference the struck me, however, was the average American’s ease at conversation. Several times, when a group of us skiing got in a gondola and a single American got in, within minutes the conversation was flowing. If this was England, no doubt the air would just be filled with an awkward silence that any British person is far too familiar with, but in the US of A, nothing can bring down their talkative optimism. They never shy away from a compliment, even if it is always “Hey, that’s awesome!” or “Hey, that’s cool!"

From my experience, every American is just like a socially confident seal, waiting to dive into the vast ocean of conversation. I, however, tend to more resemble a key characteristic of the socially awkward penguin. And as those of you who know me well will know, I am not a penguin.

A good song title

I like country music song titles. I also like lists. Here’s combination of the two.

1. Get Your Tongue Outta My Mouth Cause I'm Kissing You Goodbye!
2. I Don't Know whether To Kill Myself or Go Bowling
3. If I Can't Be Number One In Your Life,Then Number Two On You
4. I Sold A Car To A Guy Who Stole My Girl, But It Don't Run - So we're even
5. Mamma Get A Hammer (There's A Fly On Papa's Head)
6. If The Phone Don't Ring, You'll Know It's Me
7. She's Actin' Single and I'm Drinkin' Doubles
8. How Can I Miss You If You Won't Go Away?
9. I Keep Forgettin' I Forgot About You
10. I Liked You Better Before I Knew You So Well
11. I Still Miss You, Baby, But My Aim's Getting' Better
12. I Wouldn't Take Her To A Dog Fight,Cause I'm Afraid She'd Win
13. I'll Marry You Tomorrow, But Let's Honeymoon Tonight
14. I'm So Miserable Without You; It's like Having You Here
15. I've Got Tears In My Ears From Lyin'On My Back And Cryin' Over You
16. If I Had Shot You When I Wanted To, I'd Be Out By Now
17. My Head Hurts, My Feet Stink, And I Don't Love You
18. My Wife Ran Off With My Best Friend, And I Sure Do Miss Him
19. Please Bypass This Heart
20. She Got The Ring And I Got The Finger
21. You Done Tore Out My Heart And Stomped That Sucker Flat
22. You're The Reason Our Kids Are So Ugly
23. Her Teeth Was Stained, But Her Heart Was Pure
24. She's Lookin' Better After Every Beer
25. I Haven't Gone To Bed With Ugly Women, But I've Sure Woke Up With a Few

These are all genuine. And directly copied off http://humour.200ok.com.au/25cw_songs.html
Talk about lazy writing!

A few of my favourite things

This is a facebook note that I made a while back, which made me smile. As the French say.......here it is (in my experience they are all more keen to speak English than I am to speak French).

Thinking about my favourite things makes me happy, and I've never tried to list them before. I'll probably think of more but here are a few to get started...

• Wrapping up warm in loads of layers and going out of a cold day
• Getting lost in a film/book to the point where I genuinely think it's impossible to stop
• Having a conversation one-to-one and really getting to know someone i didn't know before
• Going back to sleep when the alarm goes off
• Listening to brilliant stand-up/story telling and never wanting it to end
• Hearing a really good song for the first time in ages and getting good memories
• Writing stupid songs which no one will ever hear
• The buzz of anticipation of people's feedback when you've made something brilliant

I'll keep adding to the list. I would recommend everyone made their own, it's therapeutic

Then I don’t need a jacket

Unashamedly for the second time this week, I’m going to point you in the direction of youtube, because it is quite simply funnier and more interesting than I can ever hope to be. Even if most of it is just videos of cats playing pianos. But it’s a cat……..playing a piano!

This absolute delight of a clip is only 10 seconds long, and will provoke different reactions from different people. Some people who seen it have just leaked a smile, or even stared at it straight faced, whereas someone people have, like me, literally cried with laughter. So if you watch it and you don’t find it funny, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re wrong. It just means you’re dead inside.

One more thing, it’s definitely funnier the second time. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QLSRMoKKS0&feature=related

The Fairy Remanence

We had to write a children's story for English. This is what I came up with in 25 minutes, I haven't even proof read it, so it's probably full of mistakes. It's awful.

Once there was a distant, far away land, where the fairies lived. They were a mighty civilisation, all working together in harmony. They helped each other to be strong, and were respected in all other realms. Everybody else loved them. The dwarfs loved them. The gnomes loved them. Even the trolls loved them, and they weren’t known to be the loving kind!

Fairytown was under a large forest. Each fairyhouse was built out of a mystical material which could only be manufactured by fairies. It was pink and fluffy, and smelt sweet like sugar. The fairies called this Candy Floss. Each fairy house was built out of candy floss. Each fairy car was built out of candy floss. It was very popular with the fairies, as it smelled so yummy!

There was however, one problem with building everything from candy floss. If it were ever to get wet, it would all dissolve and waste away. This made rain a very serious problem. Nobody knew this better than Tufney who, as everyone knew, was driving her car one afternoon when it started to rain. Before she knew it, there was no longer a car to be driven. Poor little Tufney has to fly all the way home!

The rain has never been an issue, because the fairies made very sure that they built fairytown under a forest. This gave them shelter, shielding them from any rain that fell. One day there was a big storm, and the winds came. The winds swept all the trees away, and fairytown was no longer sheltered. All the houses melted away, as did everything else. The fairies were very sad when they realised they would have to build fairytown again. They came to the decision build the new fairytown in a desert, so there would be no rain anymore. Hurray!

Many years later, a small girl was out for a walk. She stumbled across where fairytown used to be, but she had no way of telling, apart from one little reminder. Under the stump of what used to be a willow tree, she saw something small and pink. She did not know what it was, but it smelled sugary and it made her happy. She went running back to her mother to show her, and her mother worked out the recipe, so the girl could eat as much as she wanted. And that’s how candy floss came to be!

Movies…

Films are brilliant. Wells some of them are. The thought that you can introduce an audience to a group of characters, then tell an epic story with them in less than two hours in baffling. Unless it’s the extended Lord of the Rings. Then it’s more like 18 hours.

The advantage that films have over TV is that because they are short, something meaningful has to be happening practically all of the time. Recently I watched the film 6 episodes of series one of 24. In this 6 hours, not very much happens. More precisely, 4 things happen. And none of them are particularly good.

What baffles me more is that a company can spend millions on a film, get the best actors in the world, have massive crews full of creative advisors and the like, and still come up with what can only be described as a pile. For further research, watch Valentine’s Day or New Year’s Eve.

However, the greatest films are those which are so bad, they’re good. Case in point, here is 19 seconds of The Room, possibly the best 19 seconds in cinematic history.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S9Ew3TIeVQ

Writer’s block

For English, we’ve been given the task of writing a children’s story. It’s particularly hard to write for children, because they are stupid, and haven’t heard of most of my favourite words (such as assassin and nemesis, among others). Also, apparently it has to be appropriate for that audience, which rules out all those fun genocide ideas I had.

All the other ideas seem to revolve around the retelling of stories that already exist. The retelling of the Lion King but with tigers, the Tiger King (I am too hilarious), Hansel and Gretel with the twist that they are evil and the witch is good, and a retelling of Schindler’s List but with ducks. Trust me, it would’ve worked.

I still don’t know what to do. Point is, like everyone who’s tried to write a significant amount of anything, I’ve run out of ideas. That don’t involve ducks anyway. Which is the same problem I’m having writing this blog, so I thought that instead of getting stuck with writer’s block, I’d write about it.

I know, so self-aware and post-modern. It’s the kind of thing that a clever person would write. But worse.

Nothing to say...

One of the disadvantages of writing a blog every day is that often you have nothing to say.

However, I noticed today that lots of people got their hair cut over the weekend.

Today was a good day...

Self improvement

There are many things you can do on the internet. These range from utterly pointless and time wasting (for example what you’re doing now), to downright disgusting. Let’s not pretend it doesn’t happen. But somewhere in the middle of that, there are the best websites. Self help sites.

The thought that you can carry out everything in life by following instructions is gold to me. I hate having to think for myself. If only there were websites that give you step-by-step directions on how to do everything. Oh, hello wikihow.com and ehow.com

What is there not to love? These sites tell you how to do almost everything, from how to blow-dry your hair to how to install a fire alarm. I’ve spent hours on these sites and found some obscure,  weird and just plain stupid guides. Here are a few high/lowlights:


How to make people think you’re immortal
Tips include dressing up in old fashioned clothing to make people think you’re from the Victorian era, and becoming an expert in Classical music.


How to date a Mormon girl
With such gems as don’t expect sex before marriage, don’t ask her out on Sundays, and simply ‘dress nicely’.


How to eat chocolate seductively
I mean, step 3 is “Unwrap the chocolate bar or box with a gleam in your eye and a sense of purpose”?!


How to look like a villain
Simply because the last step is “Pick someone to hate”. Bit extreme.


How to get a D and turn it into a B
Something about improving your grade in class. And there was me thinking all you had to do is draw the little line in the middle.


How to read a book
Step 1: ‘Find a book’


How to make fingerless gloves
Turns out you just get normal gloves and cut the fingers off. Who knew?


How to sneak your cat into work
At no point in the article does it mention why anyone would want to do this ever.

Yeah of course I’ll sing, what are we doing?

 

Given that house music is the only house even that I have even the slightest chance of contributing anything to, as ever I wanted to do whatever I can. My house, Lee, has no one that can sing, so I said that I’ll do it, whatever we were doing. Which brings us to our lesson of the day:

Don’t agree to something before you know what you’re agreeing to!

Now, before this month, I had never heard an ABBA song all the way through. I had no intention to. To be honest, when I asked the question, “So what are we doing?”, not only was ABBA the last thing that I was expecting, it was probably the last thing I wanted.

You may be thinking, but which ABBA song? They have so many classic hits! Well you lucky people, it’s not just one song, but a medley of their greatest hits. Greatest, here, being used in a completely ironic way.

I hate to admit this, but having gotten to know the ABBA hits, I have actually started to like them. They aren’t that bad, hardly Lennon/McCartney, but they’re quite good. And Does your Mother Know is a class song, mainly as it’s used in Johnny English.

Now I’m used to them, I’m not actually averse to singing them for house music. There are definitely worse things to be doing (They were threatening to do the Pokémon theme at one point), and it’ll be a laugh.

I am, however, slightly apprehensive about standing up in front a room of 400 people, most of whom know me, and singing

“Gimme gimme gimme a man after midnight!”

Feedback

Inevitably, the general public (i.e. some people at school), feel the need to both have an opinion or this, and feel the need to tell me what it is. It's mostly been good, but some has been bad, leading me to finding out the definition of the word 'lethargic'. If you get why that's funny, then you'll also get why it's insulting.

Obviously, everyone has an opinion on everything, it's just how brains work, but the problem is when people assume that their opinion actually matters to anyone other than themselves. I've been told many times that the world does not revolve around me, but from where my eyes are, it kind of looks like it does. And the same for everyone else. This leads to people mistaking their opinion for fact. For example, when I first heard dubstep, I thought it all sounded the same. Actually, this isn't a good example, because it does.

Point is, if you read this, and you don't like it, that is fine. Sorry to break it to anyone who didn't notice, but this isn't actually very good. It's not engaging, it is self-obsessed (after all, it is about my favourite subject, me), and it's not particularly well written. It's just practice, and no one is making you read it. So next time you're thinking of telling me you read my blog and didn't like it, just keep your opinion to yourself. And then punch yourself in the face.

However, if you do think that this is good, I am flattered. Just be happy to live in the knowledge that you're wrong.

I am an idiot

I am currently in the position where I have a whole essay to do, on the evening before it's due in, and not for the first time in my life. In fact, not even for the first time this week.

This has reminded me of how much i hate myslef at times, annoyed by my, let's face it, many person flaws. Such as always writing "myslef" instead of "myself" when I'm typing quickly. The list is probably endless, but I'll give it a go:

• being ridiculously awkward in any group situation of more than about 3 people. I still don't know why
• constantly saying things too loudly when the person who it's about is close enough to listen
• having absolutely no motivation to get good at any sports or get fit. After all, it is effort.
• not wanting to put any effort into anything 
• starting a massive packet of Doritos, with the intention to only have a few, or share them. Neither happens, ever
• when I'm listening to music through headphones in public places, humming along without realising, and then being asked to be quiet by a stranger. This has actually happened. Twice

It doesn't take long to realise that there is not enough to time for all this self-loathing. And I should really get on with this English essay.

If you're reading this and you can think of anything that you particularly hate about me, the comment's box is ready and waiting.

A good place to start

 Lots of people have told me that if I want to be a journalist (which I do), I should start a blog. It's a way of getting stuff published without anybody having to like me or my writing, which is tragically quite helpful. This is nothing like the 'vlogs', as they are at least trying to entertain people (the next person who asks me 'Was that meant to be funny?'....), this is purely to write, and write a lot. And before someone asks, there will probably be more. Soon.

 The first problem that is encountered is the slight drawback that I have nothing to say. I have a terrible habit of valuing others' opinions over my own, which leads me to losing most argument. Either that or I'm wrong practically all of the time, which is possible.

 As the only people who will read this, and there may not be many, will be people who already know me, there is little-to-no point in telling you anything about myself. Even then, I would probably not be putting up any particularly private facts about myself, baring in mind that this is available to anyone who can see my public self, rather than my private self. If you don't get that reference, you really need to brush up on your Rogers' Concentric Circle model. Alternatively, you could not take Comms for A level like I did. Shut up, it's actually quite fun.

 There is literally no point in writing any more, as I still don't have anything to say, but this seems like a good place to start.