STARSITE

Every Blog Has Its Day

2005-07-10T18:47:00.000+01:00

Summary: This site has moved to
www.starsite.me.uk
However this blog will remain for historical reasons and also as a third 'backup' of my blogs. This site was officially abandoned at 6:52pm on the 10th July, 2005.

After two loyal years of service I am bidding a fond farewell to Blogger, who have been my generous hosts since the very inception of Starsite. Predating this blog were many previous websites, most of nominal value, but I can say hand on heart that this one is the one that has given me the most pleasure and is easily the most rewarding. I will take you on a brief history lesson before getting onto the fundamentals of why I have chosen to relocate and how this affects the site.

Starsite began on a whim: it was the start of a very long summer, and I soon realised that besides watching television and going for long runs not much else would fill my day. Those were the days when summers were lazy and workless, where each day would be met with a wide-eyed relish for new opportunities and novel undertakings. Taking the Tete approach to curing boredom, I started experimenting with a new activity each day. After trials with sewing, kayaking and crocodile wrestling I came to the swift conclusion that a long-term engagement would be necessary as the above all involved some sort of financial outlay, and I was adamant that I would not get a job. Looking back, they were the best days of my life, and I know now that I will not reach such a state of perpetual and unending ease until well into my retirement years.

I had resisted the Blogger craze that had worked its way round my social clique for some time, citing reasons of inability to maintain the site as principle excuse, but without the boundary of time I soon realised that I, indeed, could afford to spend a half hour each day updating a journal. The reason, then, to begin blogging came out the precise vice I warn against- blogging out of boredom. But as the posts began to mount in number I soon realised that there were uncountable reasons as to why I'd decided to blog, only that boredom was the trigger.

The inaugural post was a humourful piece about disliking midgets; a subject matter that only came to me as a way of handling my dislike, at the time, for a certain midget. The theme of blogging as catharsim has been prevalent ever since, as recently as the "changing seasons" blog. I am, and have always been, unashamed to pour my personal feelings onto this site (in a watered-down manner: I'm not out to cause personal offence) often using humour as a barrier to getting 'too personal.' The subject matter would routinely shift from serious to humour, as my mood dictated, and the posts were as jumbled and unrelated to each other as I wanted. Afterall I was creating a journal, not a novel, so the posts never stuck to any format. They could be long, short, deep, shallow, pointless or meaningful as to how I felt at the given moment. The great thing about creating your own blog is that I could create my own rules, and mould the site to my liking.

All this had been very well until recently. As any blog ages it matures or develops accordingly along with the writer, and I have found myself writing better and in a more regimented style than the early days, with a more regular blogging frequency and recognisable writing style. One of the reasons to keep a blog was to entertain others, or to allow a portal into my personal life and in a way to help organise my life in a way that only self-reflection can do (writing as reflection). Yet as the site grew, its subject matter became distanced and cluttered, and entirely irretrievable to outsiders seeking to know or read an aspect of my life.

When I had a hit counter installed several months ago that logged web searches it dawned on me how specific people were being. If someone searched for "Loughborough University" they would find a singular post regarding their search term. After which, what were they to do? What would I do if I wanted to find posts about, say, drinking games? The long and short of it is that Blogger archives for date only. And while this was sufficient when the site was small, it has been a severe hindrance since. So I needed a solution to my problem, because I didn't want people coming to my site and seeing ten unrelated posts and then clicking elsewhere because what they wanted to read is hidden amongst reams of other posts in ambiguously-titled archives.

I tried to implement an "all posts" drop-down menu, but I soon learned that Blogger restricts this function to only ten. The reasons for this are beyond me, but I was repeatedly reassured that there was no way to increase the post title printout beyond ten. Very, very annoying. So I stuck with a "recent posts" drop-down menu, which is pretty unhelpful when they are all present on the homepage already, but it was marginally better than nothing.

Furthermore I tend to title my posts as cryptically as possible like a good film maker ("Jaws," "Ocean’s Eleven," "The Ring"- doesn't say much about the film now, does it?), and this works to a degree if you know what to expect. Sorting a website by post titles works if you are reviewing things, but it is not so helpful when you are writing a personal weblog. Titling a post about University "then there was one" does little to help the reader, so I had to find a solution to this conundrum too.

After much searching, to cut a long story short, I found the answer. While I could just buy a domain and code my own website off the back of my own knowledge, I would struggle a lot with the more complex aspects of php like initiating an archive system or coding my own statistics. Being as busy as I am, I do not have the time to recode my own website and learn to program-in complex equations to calculate the number of words the site has as well (something I like to know and Blogger handily tells you in the profile... if it hadn't been frozen for the last 8 months). Eventually, and with much trialling, I found the perfect solution.

It is called Wordpress and bridges the gap between myself and super-knowledgeable geek. What it does is allows you to essentially take control of everything about your website, but gives you the tools to "plugin" parts that are very complicated to code like word-counting algorithms. Being a blog-like interface, Wordpress allows you to manage your site by date (archives), blog titles, blog excerpts, category... you name it. It makes the whole process more dynamic and functional for both the blogger and the reader, and the advantages are too numerous to count especially for larger websites.

The possibilities are endless. I can now password-protect posts if I so choose, I can allow people to upload photos or videos to my site, I can manipulate and print posts in a beautiful array under whatever terms I so desire, I can alter every last part of the site now and finally be free of the disadvantages that working with a program for the masses like 'Bugger' affords. While the basic premise may seem unexciting, maybe even a little tedious, to you, I have decided to look at this site from the viewpoint of someone who's never been before.

The "about me" section is now much more accessible to someone frantically clicking around hyperspace. Within ten seconds people know who I am, what I look like, interesting facts about me and who this site appeals to. The top banner image is a glorious, and beautiful, panoramic taken from the Hubble space telescope of deep space with a giant cosmic cloud obscuring sparking stars representing countless galaxies that we dare dream to imagine. As an artistic image, it is open to interpretation; you can take it as you like, but whatever you take from it you cannot escape its overwhelming beauty. Underneath that (currently, although this is all subject to change) are the archives (self-explanatory), the categories for people interested in certain aspects of the site and some brief statistics to spell out the relative size and worth of the site. There may be more to come in the future, but for the time being this is enough as a bare-bones start. The meaty flesh can be added later, but new features will only be added if they are necessary and add some worth to the site.

I've put a lot of thought and work into this new site, enough, I feel, to do justice to the 200,000 words I have currently written. As an on-going project, I needed to break away from the limitations of Blogger to continue in a way that I could be content with. Incidentally, I chose a ".me.uk" domain above a ".com" because the "me" refers to personal websites (typically blogs, as it so turns out) and "uk" evidently refers to my rough geographical location. And as "starsite" was free, I decided to snap it up at less than the price of a pint for two whole years. Not free, I'll give you that Blogger, but at 2-3 pence a week, close enough.

Other notable changes outwith the whole framework and site navigation changes include an unfortunate culling of Beefy's posts. After less than fifteen posts, I do not feel that his posts add anything really to the site now unlike they did back in those days, where his infrequent blogging was a welcome break from my tireless posting. Announcement posts, on the whole, have joined the cull along with other irrelevant 'news' posts such as Scottish Boozing alterations, Google rankings and so on. If you miss them so much, which I sincerely doubt you do, they are on and will continue to be available to read on the old star-site.blogspot.com account, including all of Beefy's posts. It will be left as a freeze-frame of old, for those who stumble on it and also for historical reasons.

There are still some remnants of Blogger hidden in the posts on this new website, such as the infuriating substitution of "?" for "?," but these will all be ironed out in due course. The comments have all been brought over too as I feel they are all relevant and some posts tweaked somewhat, but on the whole it's a faithful copy of the old site. Embarrassing, untrue, shameful and petty posts all stay, because Starsite has never been about rewriting the past or holding back on strong opinion, although having said that future posts may be locked if the content is deemed too offensive for certain audiences. It saves a lot of ill feeling, as I have found out once too often when someone like me has a long-standing blog and uses it to voice an honest and forthright opinion that is read by the post’s target audience or individual.

I hope I have managed to communicate to you the importance of updating this blog to cope with the new demands being placed on a site so large. With over 200,000 words spread across 220 posts I can't rely on people, or even myself, to carefully trudge through the archives to find articles that are relevant or read-worthy to the reader. Hopefully now the site is a more accessible, dynamic and pleasurable experience for old readers, new readers, and those merely passing by on their mad rush through cyberspace.

A New Starsite

2005-06-28T19:58:00.000+01:00

Close your eyes. Actually don't, read this first and then close them.

Imagine a new starsite, one that embraces a new way to blog. A way so new and innovative that Blogger hasn't yet managed to simplify it enough so the masses can enjoy it. Imagine a system so seemingly easy but horrendously complicated to code: a site that simplifies everything that it is to blog, and turns the entire system on its head.

Imagine a system where all your most hated limitations of Blogger are torn away and you are suddenly handed reign of a powerful mechanism that lets you do what you want, how you want. What would you do with such a power? That is the enviable decision I have been faced with.

Sadly, Blogger and this site's template (which I built with my own two hands) must both be rejected after two years of loyal service. Cast away are the long nights waiting for Blogger to finally update their service, and gone are the annoyances associated with being a Blogger user. I'd love to tell you more but you will soon see, and when you do you will be astonished and want it yourself. Imagine having the framework to create a dynamic, professional website but with minimum effort.

I don't simply want to convert, this site's layout and limitations have been a burden to me for a long time now. I decided that if I was going to do this, I would do it properly. That means recoding the site from the ground up, editing every single blog (for reasons you will learn when the new Starsite is finally unvieled), and learning to work with an entirely more flexible and accommodating interface.

What you will see is a new wave of blog, brought to the present. This site will look completely different and will be far more interactive and proactive than you ever imagined. Starsite will finally break from being yet another blog to a site of distinction. Using my half-decade of internet coding knowledge I will finally construct a website worthy of the content which Starsite is blessed with.

Close your eyes and imagine it. Let your mind soar, as I am.

Pilsner Intellectual

2005-06-23T21:52:00.000+01:00

You know your finances are in a bad state when you find yourself drinking fucking German Pilsner from Lidl.

To be fair though, I did bring this short-lived but no less intense debt upon myself when I signed the copy of the V50 that made the car I recently bought legally mine. So cry me a river.

What you should know is that I'm one of those paranoid money-conscious students who view the zero on his bank statement as a forced admission of failure, and the overdraft as a desperate pity-ridden state of being that only the most hugely inept, disorganised moron finds themselves in. As I view it, if you are given a fat loan or bursary at the start of University and you exceed your needs, finding yourself in abject poverty, you deserve all the fucking Pilsner you can drink (if you can even afford it, such is the gross stupidity of some financially-retarded students).

I mean how hard is it to balance the books at University? You pay rent and perhaps tuition fees (Scottish students don't, which makes their situation even simpler), you budget for food, and you spare some cash for socialisation. That is all. Yet, for some dullards, who strive to find a single brain cell that functions in their cognitively impaired cerebrum, this is all way too much to take in. So they inevitably phone home and the hot tears streak down their poor, dispirited cheeks as they blubber feint murmurs and sob uncontrollably, lips quivering, literally begging for a financial lifesaver from their forgiving elders. Some students simply can't get by without Daddy and Mommy's intervention, and my heart bleeds for them.

No, it burns. It burns an acidic loathing.

My sister is one such student, and we will call her Geraldine, for clarity's sake. Geraldine constantly phones home, playing the "poor-me-I'm-a-student" card that has been her top trump for nigh on four years now. The waterworks come out and she plays the trodden pettle routine, a play so full of self-pity it could well be rescripted as a Shakespearean tragedy and acted with all the authenticity of the late Laurence Olivier. If I pick up the phone on the other line I swear I can hear the sweet harmony of a concert violinist. Eventually, and without a shred of indignity, my compromising parents deposit a nondescript sum of money into her account with verbal pats on the back of "ma pauve Mimi! Bien sur je te donneras l'argent!"*

It's known as the common student bail-out, or the "pity call home." Or for some students, like my older sister, the "impervious greet," where "greet" is that wonderful Scottish slang for crying and impervious refers to the shameless lack of inhibition when playing the waterworks act for the dozenth time in a circannual span. I'm sure she is not the only person to leech off her parents years after her twentieth birthday but I'm sure that, somewhere, someone has created a word for it. When I discover it, I will brand her as such.

It annoys me in several ways because it should be pauve Mimi drinking fucking Pilsner, and not me. Yet while hers is a blundering, transparently avoidable scenario mine is a calculated and meticulously planned operation that has a clear starting and endpoint. While I am in serious debt for the coming two months after this short spell I will be back in the black, thus I have to live like a pauper until financial security. That's forward planning, for the simple-minded students reading this who don't understand the logic of living within your means.

I have it all planned down even to the smallest pennies of loose change I spend on charitable donations, such is the anality of my money-conscious being. During the months of August and September all I need to earn is five hundred pounds, which equates to a mere fourteen days of working. I can surmount that minor sum in just over two weeks, and indeed have done in the past. That leaves between five and six weeks of earnings that are spent on whatever the hell I want, after covering my entire expenses on one summer's working. If you've been keeping up, I can earn upwards of nine-hundred pounds in those five short weeks, without any financial help from my already burdened parents.

It's called hard work. You should try it some time.

You can have it all if you work for it, and I'm starting to realise this. You can have the dream house, the car, the lifestyle and all the associated perks belonging to the umbrella term "being successful." All it takes is a little hard work, but if you're willing to put the hours in, it can all be yours. Regardless of whether you start with nothing or start with an inheritance you can live beyond your means with a little smart planning and acceptance to break your back a little in the process. Some day, you will be able to sit back and look at it all and think "I earned this."

It's the most immensely satisfying feeling in the world. I don't have it all, I don't claim to either, but I'm working towards living a life of honest dignity and living comfortably. I may not have it now, in fact, I don't, but some day I will be able to look back at all this and appreciate the initiative taken to working hard and instilling good practices at an early age. Everyone comes to a point where they realise they must work hard to succeed, but we all come to that understanding in our own way.

For some, achievement is a short-term advancement. They leave school at an early age after exerting themselves on a dominance hierarchy (bullying types), get a low-wage job or apprenticeship, rule the roost in their local town centre, buy a cheap car on credit and never grow up until late into their twenties. Some stay in education beyond their thirties, believing that quality of life is judged by material wealth and knowledge. For some it comes without effort, for others it comes naturally, and others still are given it. Yet however you choose to define success, everyone has their own standards by which they measure themselves by.

I think, personally, that quality of life is they key measure to defining my own personal success. It encompasses holistic and materialistic poles, and more often than not these two factors intertwine inseparably. I value independence, a holistic and non-qualitative measure, but I can achieve this by living away from home (paying rent- materialistic) and transporting myself (formerly trains and bus, but now by car). I value family, and some day I will have my own family to share holistic qualities like love and materialistic qualities like possessions. I value self-perception, which is why I conduct myself in a dignifying and representative manner of who I am. That last point is also, I suspect, a key factor as to why I started this blog; it is why I use a traceable name, and why all my friends know the address. It is also why my parents don't know the website address, because it is not an aspect of my self-perception that I believe they should have access to.

Using my standards of success, and perhaps the wider issue of being (now we're getting deep!), I tend to measure myself against others using similar standards, not realising that everyone lives in their own personal universe that doesn't necessarily correlate to mine. I see my elder sister as being limited in money-management skills, reducing herself to having to play-act a heart-rending victim of the harsh, unforgiving student lifestyle. Yet perhaps she values her skills of manipulation, and if she does, then is it any of my business how her finances are faring? It is a thorny issue, and you can choose whether or not her pitiful pleas are applaudable or deplorable for yourself, but I think that so long as a comparison can be made I reserve the right to feel lesser or higher than the person I compare myself to accordingly. We do not develop equally, so let's not pretend we do. And if you think that you're different because you "don't care what other people think or do" then why don't you just kill yourself right now, you self-denying fool.

Only people who truly believe they are not agents onto this world commit suicide, and you may as well follow suit if you think you are following the ride without a competitive or comparing fibre in your body.

It's been a powerful journey, people, and I'm glad I managed to put across my point in as eloquent a manner as I can muster. I'm pretty sure it's this German ale that's making me so confrontational and honest, but if it is, I guess I'll drink some more. I may look down on people at times, or categorise them unfairly or perhaps even harshly, but if you think you are any different then you are deluding yourself. The difference between you and I is that I can admit to myself that I classify others, and feel humble or saddened accordingly, including the range of emotions between. I feel neutral towards some, seething dislike towards others and open-jawed admiration for others; think not that financial situation is the be-all classification, it just occurred to me as I re-calculated my financial debts like the good overdraft-terrified student that I am.

I'm sure there are lots of aspects you dislike or disagree about my being, which would coincide with thousands of others (perhaps you dislike meat eaters? Or athletes?), in which case I implore you to begin your own blog. Only by writing your feelings down can you truly start to realise the enormity of the complexity of your human psyche and further the path of enlightenment**.

To self-quote (perhaps the most pompous thing anyone can ever do): I drink piss-tasting German Pilsner now, but only so that I may drink champagne in the future.

*Obviously only my mother repeats this well-versed line, which translates as "my poor Geraldine! Of course I will give you the money!"

** Do not misconstrue this is as some fifth-dimensional astral state of mind or some other bollocks theory to transcending another plane. Enlightenment, in this case, refers to intellectual insight, a.k.a getting to know oneself, so please do not confuse with some status-heightening quest for spirituality. We are all becoming enlightened, with every reflective thought we have.

Insane In The Brain

2005-05-31T13:39:00.000+01:00

People who don't get sarcasm

Now I know the internet isn't the easiest medium to detect sarcasm with; in fact, it can be bloody difficult at times. For this reason the sarcasm smiley should always be at your immediate disposal, or if you've left home without it, a healthy sprinkling of italics should be applied liberally to the sarcastic text. Some people simply don't get sarcasm or extreme case formulations due to their hideously gullible nature, and some are just so trusting that they believe what they want to believe.

The internet also has another significant drawback in that it is a breeding ground for crackpot weirdoes to spread their wild propaganda and theories, sometimes traversing the line between the outcasts and socialites. By nature the internet can be as passive as you like it: you can be an anonymous entity jumping between chat rooms or you can choose to furnish your online persona with a picture. Besides this, there really isn't much else to separate you out from anyone else. If you want to break communications with someone, you close the window. And you'll never be able to trace them. Given this level of anonymity, there is no shortage of socially inept people trying to reach out to find the < 0.001% of people who also find The Hitchhiker's Guide interesting, or those who believe that mobile phones are a Government conspiracy to fit us all with tracking devices.

They're mostly harmless people, on the whole, and every now and again one will reach out and grab your hand on the mouse from behind the screen and try to suck you into their world, filling your head with mindless drivel concerning their entirely implausible theories. Just such an event happened to me this morning.

It was perhaps my fault for attempting humour on my msn profile. Under the "interests" section I put "I spend most of my free time in a darkened room listening to babies screaming on loop." It's probably not what you'd expect on someone's profile, but it raised a few chuckles in me none the less (I have a dark sense of humour at times). This comment lay dormant for some time until this morning, when I got a brief email from a girl who read my profile.

If it wasn't for her msn pic I might have mistaken her for a fairly normal person. I've said this time and time again- you just 'know' about people the first time you see them. There is so, so much you can deduce and infer from someone upon first sight, whether someone is a chav or a doctor, you just know by looking at their face. And for the most part this is correct, and I could show you photos of a doctor's face and a chav's face and you would know which is which. Similarly, I can tell a fruitcake from a sumptuous, curvaceous carrot cake, if you follow that analogy. You will also when I decide to show you this picture.

So I clicked the link and braced myself for the worst. She suggested we "chat," which I'm tempted to do just to see what nonsense flows from her mouth. The curiosity is starting to get the better of me, you know. Of all the websites she could have put as her personal homepage, guess which one she chose. Was it the BBC website? Or, perhaps, was it a personal blog? Oh no, let me show you:

Ever wanted to know what actually happened on 9/11? Well, now you can! How typical, a nutter who opines on 9/11 disbelieving the official line (far too much X-files late at night, methinks). So yeah... there's your 9/11 right there. Wacko.

I'm now going to test you on your ability to pick out a nutter from a perfectly sane individual. This will prove beyond all reasonable doubt that we all have the amazing innate power of pigeonholing the insane. For fairness, I have pitted a control person who is of equal attractiveness and clearly not pulling an overtly "sane" pose. It's the fairest I could make it without it being obvious.

Q: Which of the below are completely, and utterly, insane, to the point where they find listening to screaming babies in darkened rooms a mutual and perfectly acceptable past time?

You must choose, regardless of how closely matched they seem

Answer: B.

Changing Seasons

2005-05-27T20:09:00.000+01:00

Posing is not a hobby- it's a way of life

Summer is finally here, so rack me up and toast me brown: it's loungin' time.

Exams in this weather are only an incidental pest, one that goes away with a quick swat of the wrist and a casual dumping of textbooks. It's so easy to forget what's happening in the wider world at times like this. If I was more artistically gifted, I would formalise this feeling as a delightful poem. As I am not, I will attempt to convey it as prose.

Today I sweltered and roasted under the sun's unforgiving rays a million miles away from strife, responsibility and duty. Basking on Lawrence's cozy couch, relocated to the garden, with only the sweet sounds of GnR wafting over from the uninhabited room, I was in paradise. As I bronzed alone in the tranquil garden I perused lecture notes as and when I saw fit, periodically sipping from my ice-chilled bitter lemon. The secluded garden lent itself a cloistered appeal, as if I had somehow found myself a deserted island to call my own with no outside interference, save the peaceful chittering of a swallow nesting utop a fence post. I was free to be my own man, to make my own decisions, to fill my day as I pleased; but despite all this, I moved not once from the couch. The sun's glorious rays held me prisoner to the heat, as I succumbed to its exotic charm and wiled away the hours in front of its warming gaze.

Truly, I was a king among men. In my mind, anyway. All semester I'd never felt this relaxed, self-satisfied or content for any prolonged period of time that didn't involve alcohol. As depressing as that sounds I think I might have hit the nail on the head. There are few people I know here who are spontaneous (they tend to live on campus), and those who are tend to be nighttime acquaintances (none of whom I live with, as it turns out). As a result daytimes tend to be pretty enclosed affairs, where it is nearly impossible to persuade anyone to do something that hasn't been pre-arranged a week in advance. Even trying to get someone to go into town is a laborious Herculean effort, the excuses of which range from the ridiculous to the sublime. Any naive intention of ordering a group takeaway is quashed with thunderous silence, as the meek excuses slowly filter in. As for night times, I don't go even go there anymore. Unless I'm asking Juan to do something, even anything, you name it, it will be dismissed with unabated resilience. "Erm, well, you see, I've got coursework to do" sums up one half of the household while "I'll see if Tom/Jibba/James/Omar are going and then decide" covers the other half.

It gets to the point where you stop asking. So how refreshing it was to do something that I wanted to do with no backlash to follow, no stubborn refusal or reliance to expect. Lying under that wonderfully ablazed sunlight it was all about me, satisfying my humanistic desires with no care or concern for anyone else. It was as relaxed as I've been for a long time, it was like a great letting-go. A massive two-fingers up to shit English weather, a furious wanker sign to exams, and a whole range of expletives to the nay-sayers who, as the name suggests, make saying "no" a life habit in pursuit of wasting away the best years of their lives indoors.

From behind tinted glasses the house stood peacefully in front of me, occupants two. How nice it was to get out of that room, to get away from those four walls and to submerge myself in the beauty of nature. As clouds lazily patrolled the evening sky I found myself sitting in reflection, thinking about how far away I was from the other side of my dual life. When working in the sweaty running shop, on my feet for eight hours a day, I dream about days like this, sitting in the sun listening to music without a care in the world. I imagined what it would be like if Dabby, Tete, Beefy, Tommy and Tom lived here. How would things be different?

It's hard to imagine really. I don't think I could find a more agreeable set of housemates than the ones I have now; if there are disputes, they are negligible. I can study and train without any hassles and the ambience is always, without exception, positive and fun. I think the only real change would be the social life aspect, with the five listed above I think I'd find myself in a tighter-knit clique and going to the cinema, the pub, or wherever as a group more often than with surrogates. We'd probably do more as a group in general, from shopping, to playing drinking games, to going to concerts. Apart from that, I doubt much would be different at all.

I'd still be sitting on that couch under the sun, but perhaps with more people around me, that's all. I'd still be sipping bitter lemon on the rocks in one hand with a book of notes in the other, I'd still be tanning to the same degree and I'd still be chilling out.

Nothing beats living away from home. Nothing. It is an incomparable experience, yet one that has to be put in a jar and left behind during the vacation months as I migrate north to Scotland. Being down here I have no parents to answer to, I have no long hours to work selling shoes (it's as exciting as it sounds), I have no lectures, I have a fantastic training group like I do at home but I have the independence I need so much. There is a different quality of life here that I would not swap for anything, but at times I do miss the way it is back home. Maybe it's just the people up north but the people I've befriended are more spontaneous and susceptible to suggestion. You never know exactly what you could be doing at any given night, and I love that. Even if it's just to chat at the pub, to shoot pool or to go round to someone's house there's more of a willingness to take that tantalising first step out the front door without all the stipulations.

Basking in the sun my mind wandered to Easter, Christmas and the summer before that. There were crazy nights, some outrageous banter, and spontaneity the likes of which haven't been repeated for some time. There was weed smoking at a ned's house at 4am, there were 6am drinking game deciders, there were wheel spins on Balnagask golf course, there were birthdays at the Moorings, there were many gnomes rehoused, there were 6 mile treks from Tarves to Ellon in torrential rain, there were urinations in Shell's food supply cupboard, there were chases from campus police, there were giant penises constructed from Beefy's pebble driveway, and there were mornings where I awoke with a new wardrobe courtesy of the Exodus clientele, along with a slew of memories too evocative to ever be successfully transcribed to ink.

On reflection, perhaps I have all the peace and tranquillity down here I need to succeed at University. Lazy summer days these may be, but as far as night times go, they pale in significance to the antics guaranteed this upcoming summer. And if any of the lads tell me they have coursework to do this summer and won't come out I will burn an effigy of them, erect it on their lawn, and file it under "capade." Right now I am recharging my batteries in preparation for a long and eventful summer. As the photo below hopefully conveys, I am looking towards the future out from the frosty landscape of now.

The Seasons- has there ever been a better metaphor for change?

The Poulet Dance

2005-05-23T18:02:00.000+01:00

The bottom two shots show the professional Poulet Dancer, Tete, show
the apprentice, Dabby, just how a real Poulet pecks and squawks

The Poulet Dance is a time honoured tradition held in the highest regard amongst the chicken-headed tribe of outer Bartholl, which only happens during very rare occasions of vodka inebriation. Adopting the role of anthropologist, I was stunned to witness the Poulet Dance in full flow during a particularly lengthy drinking game for the first time at the remote region of Bartholl. It is reputed to be a mating ritual, used to entice a potential mate into the coup, but these reports are as yet unsubstantiated. I intend to visit Amy to discover if the power of the Dance seduced her into the nest in a forthcoming study scheduled this fall.

Lately I've been privaledged enough to gain exclusive access to the Tete's abode in Glasgow to study in stunned awe his ridiculous ways. The Poulet Dance is likened to a lycanthrope's physical changes during a full moon; without provokation, Tete spontaneously rises from his seat and for a full minute, like an epileptic suffers a seizure, he is powerless to resist the Dance. However for the Poulet Dance to commence, it seems necessary for the animal to have consumed copious amounts of alcohol. After which, I bargain with the Tete to coaxe a response:

Star: Okay, if the coin says tails I will take a triple shot, and so will Dabby.
Dabby: What?!
Star: Shut up. And if it says Tetes (heads), then you have to do the Poulet Dance.... for a full minute.
Tete: A full minute?!
Dabby: Hey, we're risking a triple shot here dude, be reasonable.
Tete: [Ponders]
Star: [Shakes shot glass teasingly]
Tete: Okay, fine. Whatever man, you're fucked up.

It's a gamble, to be sure, but I'd gladly chance a triple dose of vileness for even a fleeting view of the magical Poulet Dance. Tete doesn't dish them out for free though, you have to earn the right to view his trance-like Dance.

But believe me, it will be very best minute of your life.

The Quiz

2005-05-22T00:05:00.000+01:00

I have invented a massively cool new game entitled simply "The Quiz."

The Quiz was devised primarily as a drinking game but it can, just like Cleudo and Dominos before it, be altered to not involve drink. Here's the 10 easy steps to Quiz fun:

If you don't already own a copy of msn messenger 7 download it now for free
Click on msn music to open the music download service
Appoint a Quiz Master
The Quiz Master pours five shots out into separate glasses, of any combination of spirits he chooses
All players must be faced away from the screen
The Quiz Master types in the name of any album he chooses and clicks the "30s preview" for five songs to queue them up
The snippets will now play in order, the challenge for the players is to guess the title of the song before their opponent does
The clips last only thirty seconds so if no one guesses the song within the time no one is owed a shot
Count how many each player won and for each song guessed correctly they choose a shot to issue, in order of the games won
Once the shots have been consumed the Quiz Master is changed and the cycle repeated until each player has had one turn as the Master

Like all good drinking games there is a tactical element in the choice of album: if you choose an easy album, like Queen Greatest hits, then your opponents will share the five shots for certain. However if you pick a niche album, like Nelly Furtado, then a player like Dabby could capitalise and make his opponent take all five shots with his insider knowledge. Or you could go for the mixed bag approach and pick Now That's What I Call Music 40 and test out knowledge of their disco classics, the opportunities are limited only by your imagination.

Now to find one person with a knowledge of hip hop and someone who doesn't...

What Is Wrong With Psychology

2005-05-21T00:05:00.000+01:00

I've tried so hard, really I have, to take a mild interest in my coursework but I'm finding myself more and more disinterested in the meagre goings on of the psychologist's world. Physicists have the laws of the universe at their beckoning, playing a substantial role in sending rockets into outer space, something that is immensely fascinating with far-reaching implications both physically and metaphorically. Chemists have the power of the atom under their thumb, with the claim to be being able to blow up our entire planet several times over by applying their elemental discoveries. Engineers have incredible monuments that testify their greatness, from Canary Wharf, to the Golden Gates suspension bridge, to the very first who engineered great monuments such as the pyramids and the Great Wall that still stand to this day. In every science, from biology to anthropology, there is a myriad of great discoveries and inventions that typify the science and make exploring it a humbling experience. Great men have emerged from each of these sciences, great writers and thinkers have emerged, and with them the highest accomplishments known to man.

Even the smallest finding can make all the difference; where would we be without the light bulb for example? Where would we be without the realisation that fossils can be used as fuel? Where, I ask you, would we be without the ability to preseve food? To fly? To cure and heal our bodies? The world is an extraordinary place quantified by an incredible race, the greatest of whom make all the difference and shape our very landscape and climate. Look around you- everything you see is likely to have been discovered, invented and then manufactured by man. Not nature- man. We mould this world to our will, and only humans are capable of changing the world to any significant effect.

So where do psychologists come into this?

The answer? They don't. And here's why:

Psychology is a relatively 'young science,' that is to say it has only been around for the best part of a century and is barely even a science if you get into the fundamentals of it all. The distinction between psychology and philosophy lies solely in the notion that psychology is a testable study (thus making it a science), and conforms to a Newtonian paradigm of experimentation. The trouble is, humans aren't exactly the easiest subject matter to experiment with as no two humans are ever the same. While biologists can get around this little inconvenience (because our innards are pretty much made of the same things, just assorted differently) it is a massively confounding situation for psychologists who desperately want to create a science where laws apply to everyone from every culture but simply can't, because people differ so radically in their thoughts and behaviours. So to start with we have a science that is pretty much screwed from the start, vainly trying to apply accepted scientific measures to unearth phenomena that they know won't apply to the majority of subjects. And this isn't the half of why psychology is such a stunted science.

The only way to make a significant finding is to assume that there will be errors along the way, the confidence interval of which is assumed to be over 95% at the alpha level. What that means is that for a given population, say students, for every twenty experiments you do that are insignificant and are caused purely by chance one will turn up with a significant result. In order to keep the funding coming, psychologists need to discover things. So they mess with the results, they retest, they remove outliers, they screw with the data and omit classes of people and then finally, at the end of all this, they apply a mathematical test they know will shine a favourable light on their results. So from one in twenty being down to pure chance you can lower that figure drastically after all the screwing about and you will soon discover that it is no coincidence that all psychological papers you see have significant results. You don't get funding by reporting insignificant or worthless tests, it just doesn't work that way. Instead of creating a hypothesis and trying to disprove it, they go about searching for any complimentary evidence and for each one they find they throw it in the final results section. The doggedness in pursuing a worthless hypothesis by this manner would astound you, as you flick through the journals and- slap face- all the results compliment the starting hypothesis!

If you've been keeping up you'll duly note that when psychologists test something, it generally works out, and when it doesn't the hypothesis is tweaked and the results transformed so that bingo, it's all significant. The journals might then go on to print it in a year's time; they won't if your experiment doesn't say anything. They make "box models" of theories, which is about the biggest farce I can think of. As soon as any contradictory evidence comes along they append another box to the diagram to take it into account and et voila! the model is unquestionable again. Until more evidence comes up and another box is added, and so on until the next paradigm shift. This method is always self-correcting, so that a box model is always assumed to be truly and indefinitely correct even if it was never right in the first place. Yet despite all of this, it isn't why I think the study of psychology is such a pointless exercise.

I take it none of you have ever actually read a psychology paper? If not, I need to place a prelude to my vituperative tirade so that this can be given in its rightful context. The purpose of a psychological paper is not to further enhance the field of psychology, but rather with the aim for it to be eventually published. Like a car dealer only does a car up enough so that it will run for a couple of thousand miles so it is with psychology; if a paper cannot be published, it is of no use to the department or the people who awarded the grant for the study to be undergone in the first place. The majority of studies are never published, and those that are can wait up to two years before it is finally printed. Those marked "for immediate publication" tend to be published around a year after submission, and the majority that will be published are sent back to be altered at least once but possibly two times as well before being shown in an academic journal. The process is long and marred with red tape, and only a select few actually make it, putting further pressure on the academics to make sure their study levels up and delivers an important finding.

The definition of "an important finding" in psychology is:

An imp.ort.ant find·ing, n.

1. At item that has been discovered that is of merit.

2. In psychology: A pointless fragment of non-information that applies to only a majority of Caucasian participants and has no real-world value.

The studies that are bandied about in lectures as being "all-important!" and having "serious overtones" are, in actual fact, run-of-the-mill phenomena that don't describe anything of productive value. I strain to think of a single finding in psychology that has any serious calibre to change our lives, and even then the only thing that the layman associates with psychology, Freudian psychoanalysis, has been proven to be as effective as having no consultation at all. In fact, chemistry has a better track record of curing mentally ill patients than psychology does. Do you want to know the "fascinating" discoveries that I can confidently masturbate to at night? Did you know that short-term memory may or may not be stored acoustically? Did you know that young infants perhaps have no understanding of object permanence? Or did you know that it is harder to recall words when you repeat "the" between them? Have I just enriched your life?

Of course I haven't. I haven't told you anything of worth, I've just told you shite that doesn't change your life or mine and is of questionable scientific integrity. Imagine having to learn each of those points, and then learn who did the study, and at what date, what the historical context was and how it can be used in further study. This is my life. Welcome to it.

Psychology is, like most university subjects besides Art, multi-faceted. We also get the pleasure of being immersed in the wonderful world of statistics, qualitative analysis and, forgive me if I blow my load recounting this, the role biology plays on the mind of rats! Yes, rats! Rats are the accepted norm for psychological study, despite having a brain size several hundreds of percent smaller than ours, being antisocial (in retrospect, a lot like chavs! Haha!) and without opposable thumbs the psychologists are convinced that these obtuse rodents can represent a real alternative to human testing. Biologically, I am inclined to agree, but putting a rat in a fucking Skinner box does little to teach us of the intricacies of the complex human psyche and unless you're a behaviourist, you are probably agreeing with me right now.

There's a nice module I'm doing entitled "Qualitative Design and Analysis" which is about as close to 'real' psychology as you're likely to get. It's a largely discredited study, again with little real-world application, whereby you analyse how people say things and why. It's interesting but at the end of the day I am compelled to take a step back and think "what's the point of all this?" Sure I know how people are saying things, and why, but what larger good will this do mankind? I'm at a loss to answer that question, as with every other facet of psychology I can think of. As fun as it is actually being allowed to analyse what people say, the only time you get to analyse things in psychology despite the misconceptions, there really isn't much point to it at all.

Furthermore, I get really agitated at the attitude of the department here. I'm assured this isn't just a Loughborough psychology issue but this is prevalent in all psychology courses. If you study psychology you will wince when you read this: CITATION.

Citation is what killed originality. Citation, that loathsome word, is the initiation into the higher ranks of respect in the small, insignificant world of the would-be psychologist. Citation is the process whereby academics are "quoted" (I use the word loosely because I don't want to get into fine details) with studies that back up a statement. You cannot, like a philosopher can, make a statement without quantifying it. You can't say "most people like being happy" without having a rigorous scientific experiment to prove this and seeing as you can't single-handedly prove everything, you need to rely on others to help you. If you write "most people like being happy (Bradford et al., 1977)" then it is acceptable, any other way and it is not. This is just how it is with psychology. The lists of citations on most journals are the benchmark to which the study is judged by; if you can prove you have done your research, by systematically writing down each person's study as mentioned in your experimental write-up, then you are on the path to acceptance in the psychological world. At a rough estimate 90% of a scientific journal is balls-licking of other people's work, with very little scope to pen your own opinions and thoughts. You have to do this or your article will not be published. Is this theme of duty sinking in yet? If you're especially perceptive, you'll have noticed that paradigms must progress from previous opinion.

You cannot, and I repeat cannot, state a radically different opinion. Not ever. You can't cite anything that hasn't been inferred before, so all work is stifled by the perverse need to bring in previous work. There are exceptions, but on the whole you cannot make a marked difference unless you are a very well established and respected psychologist in the field. Psychologists don't just 'burst on the scene' with exciting ideas, they emerge over time and even then, as I've argued, their findings are stale and largely irrelevant to anything of any worth. There is just so much wrong with the way this science is conducted and executed that I am disillusioned to the point of rejecting it completely.

The findings are so insignificant, so worthless and so inconsequential that I struggle to find any non-financial incentive to undertake it as a vocation. To make any impact on psychology would involve playing the game, citing the countless other arbitrary studies, and crossing your fingers hoping that the journals take kindly to your non-conformist ideas (which, of course, they wouldn't). It's a pathetic state of affairs, and I pity the man who attempts to garner a self-fulfilling job in the field of psychology. Look at the greater picture; you're but a small brick in a wall that is founded on bad principles and serves no purpose other than to occupy the time of the builders. The psychologist makes money, of course, but is played for the fool. They are stifled by infrastructure, common objectives, policy and purpose; the psychologist is the eternal citator and must accept his place as being nothing more than the lapdog of the journals. They cannot form their own identity for they must conform. They will do whatever is necessary to be published, by skewing results, populations, or engaging in meaningless material.

For you, the psychologist, I pity. I pity the misguided people who attempt to etch out a living from this most microscopic of endeavours; for them, it is a hollow and pitiful existence. For me, it is a laborious burden, but at least one that I can deshackle after graduation.

Other sciences have great monuments, feats, achievements and prestige attached to them. They have great influence and impact on the world, since the dawn of manhood to the present day. What does psychology have to say for itself? Not a lot. And you can take that from someone who doesn't have any financial, moral or societal obligations.

Star What?

2005-05-16T13:01:00.000+01:00

It's not often you get to hear the other side of the argument against Star Wars, so I find it refreshing that a newspaper as renown as The Guardian has managed to magically sprout balls and do just that. Star Wars is, in my view, mildly entertaining but seriously over-valued and rated considerably higher than it ever should have been. Lord of the Rings, it is not. Despite this, I'm going to see it on thursday with Bran and company, mostly as a social event and not because I simply have to be amongst the first to see it and I won't be dressed in a Storm Trooper outfit with plastic "lightsabre" (ahem). Bran ordered these tickets about a month ago and still blocks his ears and sings "la la la I can't hear you!" when a trailer or news article comes on the television about the much hyped Episode Three; what a dorky little midget he is!

If you fancy a dose of comedy check out the 40 reasons why Star Wars sucks as written by an intelligent qualified journalist, and not some spotty-faced opinionated teen whose grasp of English hasn't developed since primary school and whose principle argument is simply "CUZ I SAID SO."

A quick snippet:

10) The thing Yoda does

The font of all wisdom, the teachers' teacher, is Yoda, a big eared, green skinned, 900-year-old elf. A problem with the English language has he. Plonking platitudes he generally utters. Spot this in case we, an amusing quirk he has been given. Sentences he chops in half! Then back together puts! The way round wrong! "The Force I sense in you," says he. "Teach you more, I can." Later, himself he excels: "Hard to see the Dark Side is." It was impossible to imagine a more irritating character - but Lucas managed it (see 27).

Comedy!

BUSTED!!

2005-05-15T21:06:00.000+01:00

I am a freaking genius!

As a practicing super-sleuth I routinely go on wild goose chases that lead me into the unknown in the hope of unearthing a juicy secret at the end of the search. To do this I gather clues like any self-respecting detective and piece them together like an elaborate jigsaw manufactured by Tomy. I knew that putting a discreet site counter on my page would give me a third eye to watch over the search engine activity like a hawk.

Most of the search results are pointless and don’t reveal much, typed in by idiots who want lewd pictures of naked sisters and suchlike. Yet sometimes, on those rare occasions where something eyebrow-raising does take my notice, it can be the first clue towards a treasure trove of fascinating secrets. Today, I encountered such a result.

Remember Katie, my course mate who barely ever shows up to lectures? Well, today I managed to unearth a delectable find using my amazing powers of clicking links and checking birthdays. Browsing the referral links I managed to uncover this little beauty:

The untrained eye sees a useless list of links: a sleuth sees a complex tapestry of clues

There were many searches above and below it; one for “lecking pussy” (whatever “lecking” means), “things that damages a singers voice” (for those who don’t know but are curious) and “ellon sucks” (is that a question or a statement?). Sifting these out I clicked, purely by chance, the link result derived from the input “lufbra blog.”

To my surprise Starsite came up fifth on the list, which seems relatively well-established and a result that I’m pleased with. However before closing the window a link caught my eye, a link that intrigued me. The accompanying text stated:

”... BLOG STYLE. CALENDAR. PAGE: 1 2 ... I do Psych at Lufbra! I know, everyoneseems to do Psych at the mo! biggrin Start term again on 4th Oct-wehey!”

Were it not for the word “psych” I might have been tempted to just ignore the result and continue with my everyday browsing. The words “psych” and “Lufbra” just begged a quick glance, even if it were only to see someone who’d left the Uni about ten years ago but whose page has somehow stayed in Google ranking limbo, wandering the web like a soul stuck in purgatory. Without further ado, I clicked the link.

Clearly the site was created by a punk-styled vixen called “Brogan” who had created the blog using the suicidegirl mold that resembles Deadjournal if anything. The site clearly caters for the deviant-minded promiscuous girls of Britain who are itching for a medium to express their gothic sexual activities, at least this is the impression of someone who has spent the last five minutes browsing the website. Clicking control-F I searched for “Lufbra” and there, hidden amongst the trawls of comments was the snippet of text that caught Google’s meta robots and indexed the page under the relevant keywords. Intent on checking out the poster’s profile, I continued with feverish anticipation.

What I saw astonished me.

In the top-left hand corner of the page I was amazed, and taken aback in equal measure, to see before my very eyes a very sultry looking Katie pseudonym “Innocence!” Of all the remarkable coincidences this one floored me, as my eyes greedily gorged the textual feast laid out in front of me. As a suicide girl, “Innocence” is implored to open up about risqué material under the suicidegirl anonymity guise; clearly something a gentleman would ignore, but not I. This was Grade A gossip, as I devoured the information and tried to get into the sections marked off-limits to non-members.

What I saw you too can also see, by simply typing this link into your address bar: http://suicidegirls.com/members/Innocence. Isn’t she pretty? There isn’t too much there of embarrassing qualities, but I do know that my good friend Katie lost her virginity at the tender age of 16 and she loves it doggy style. This admittedly doesn’t say much, I mean we all like it doggy and losing your virginity at 16 isn’t something I’m about to contact the national press about. But still, it’s a wonderful find and surely something that a voyeuristic student pal like myself should never be privy to. I might consider becoming a member of the suicidegirl family, if only to see exactly what these no doubt dodgy and slightly erotic pictures of Katie look like :D

I use the word “suicidegirl family,” but if this is the case then surely that makes me no better than the pervert who found his way to Starsite by typing in the highly societally-inappropriate “posed erotically sister.” So maybe I won’t take a peek at the lascivious pictures…

Or then again…

Pool

2005-05-12T22:34:00.000+01:00

Only a montage could do this post justice

It's been a long time coming, but boy has it been worth the wait!

For the first time in my life, at age nineteen, I achieved what most casual pool players can only dream of in the form of the illusive and much-acclaimed 7-ball break. Not only was this a seven-baller, oh no, I managed the equally enviable feat of grannying the fast-improving Juan Carlos Coles in the process, meaning that at each point there was always in the region of eight to sixteen balls on the table at any one point (including the white, smart ass).

All this might seem distinctly unimpressive to you, in fact, you might hum and tap your fingers on the desk as I recount the wonderful tale, branding me an insufferable brag. Needless to say I play for fun, but to turn out such a performance marks out a significant peak in my short pool career that can confidently be compared to being right up there alongside taking my first steps, passing my first exam and leaving home as significant lifetime milestones.

It all happened out of the blue on the now famous "frame three," with the frames level at one-all I knew I needed to pull out all the stops to reassert myself against my would-be conqueror. After a sharp break from Juan, a lazy shot from myself and an equally lazy retalliation from my competitor I grabbed the cue, fires scintillating around the white of my eyes. Amazingly, the proceeding minute would become a blur in my memory with only vague shreds of recollection available to me of the manic minute.

Displaying a characteristic recency effect for the moments just before completing the grandiose deed all I can remember with certainty is the final three shots. Having drained the table of four balls I played a classic backspin to leave me on for the double on ball six into the middle pocket off the opposing cushion. Sparing little time to calculate angles I let my gut instinct dictate the positioning of the shot. By this point the idea of a seven-baller hadn't crossed my mind as I continued with extreme tunnel vision to pot the cardinal shot that would be the keystone to achieving the unforseen feat.

With absolute precision the ball doubled into the middle pocket setting me up perfectly for a divine thunderball into the same pocket from whence the six had fallen. The black was lying at a thirty-degree angle from the white, leaving a standard knock-in into the frame-winning pocket. Seconds before letting go Juan made one last attempt to faze me, asking the non-existent audience "will he pot the seventh?" Before he could finish his question the ball rocketed into the middle and pool folklore had been created.

As far as I know it's a family record, age-wise at least. The next target is to repeat the feat on a traditional English sized table, then do it on all seven continents, and finally to achieve a 147 in snooker. The only difficulty I foresee will be scoring a seven-baller in Antarctica, if only for the logistical difficulties and the fact that locating a table will be a challenge in itself. The rest seem easy enough.

Until then I've been dining out on the story, telling anyone who'll listen to my tales of bravery, accomplishment and my own personal struggles with God. No one seems to have heard from Juan coincidentally, who is reputed to be seeking citizenship in a gulf state to flee the taunts and ridicule of being grannied. If he's reading this then take it easy man, don't do anything crazy. There's nothing you can do when you let someone on the table, except try to psyche them out if you're an intrinsically poor sportsman, even then I'd like to see a verbal faze strong enough to put me off a shot.

It reminds me of the time when I grannied a guy on Yahoo pool. Back then I had a weekend addiction to the game, thinking it rather neat being able to challenge others across the globe at pool and gain the equivalent of experience points in the form of a player rating. Sure there were plenty of people who abused the player rating system, in other words cheaters (or 'lamers' as they're called, the only nerd slang that's actually quite funny and otherwise useable if it were not created by nerds), and you get your fill of jerks intent on ruining any enjoyment you can muster from the social element of the game, as with any online experience whether it be it email, forums, surfing the net or playing online games. What it is with empowered nerds I don't know, some of them just go out of their way to cunt you about while others defend their supposed 'reputations' with aggressive zeal, determined not to allow their hard hours of laborious slog to be tantamount to a tarnished name who no one really respects. In fact, much of the online addiction surrounds the thorny issue of 'respect' which can be attained by being good at the game (i.e. in monetary terms, experience, level or whatever) or known as an active member, the definition of which changes from game to game but almost always involves spending copious amounts of time connected to it.

Sorry, I got a bit sidetracked there. To cut a long story short I quickly grew disillusioned with the game during my short time as a Yahoo pool member when I learned just how people were beating me- they were using a 'hack' software package which basically projected the route the ball would take when hit and where it would end up. I can deal with the outwardly annoying nerds, and I can deal with losing player rating points (which, to be fair, is only there so people have an incentive to play) but I can't deal with people being unfairly advantaged by a piece of software that takes all the fun and guesswork out of the game. So I left the community, never to return.

Real pool is infinitely more fun, rewarding and challenging than its online counterpart, even if it can be a more costly experience. In my opinion you can't beat a spot of bar-room pool with a few lads, a few coins and some beer, it really is the perfect chilled out sport that genuinely anyone can play. How many other sports can you name that you can play in front of a widescreen television in a bar with a pint in between turns? If you can't play already go pick up a cue, it really is as easy as it looks! Easy to learn and difficult to master, that's what makes pool such a great game and you can guarantee that almost anyone you go out with will consider themselves a untapped talent at the sport; even after a few beers, I should add. In fact, especially after a few beers.

Afterall, being good at pool is only ever incidental to the enjoyment garnered from the game.

Then There Was One

2005-05-09T19:10:00.000+01:00

It was only sitting in my Social and Cognitive Development lecture this morning that I realised, sitting next to me, is the very last thread from my small pool of course mates that is stopping the concrete term "loner" from plummeting down on me from a great height.

Everything started off so well this year, there were five of us: Tutmoses, Andy, Katie, Rich and myself. By the process of mathematical induction it is now possible to work out who Tutmoses is, but to be honest, if you're reading this and know vaguely who I 'frequent' with (I use the term loosely, as you will soon find out) you probably worked out who Tutmoses is anyway. If you're scratching your head and wondering why all the ambiguity it refers to the disclaimer, a little-visited portion of my site found at the very bottom-right hand side of the page.

Andy, who is a girl contrary to what the name might suggest, is quite dedicated and to her credit shows up to maybe sixty to seventy percent of lectures. I first met her at our tutorial group, which held all the above five people mentioned and a couple of others, and we pretty much just meshed as a unit. The other was a guy who's name I forget, I kept a passing friendship with him but he came across as too intense; he had an addiction to alcohol, his skin was greasy and covered in boils, and his breath was less than appealing. He reminded me of the Summoner from the Canterbury Tales actually, so he kind of just drifted away from us and over time we gradually stopped exchanging pleasantries.

Andy lives with Katie with a few lads in a house that's a good twenty minute walk to most lectures, as a consequence the effort of making 9am lectures accounts for the majority of Andy's absences. As has been the characteristic trademark of our group (as yet unnamed) she tries hard, does the reading and hands the work in on time but yet still manages to find herself in the lower quadrant of the marking curve. Her housemate Katie, however, defies all accepted University-passing convention.

Ever since semester two of first year Katie has neglected to attend any lectures. I'm not being funny here either- she flatly refuses to attend lectures, regardless of time or importance. Yet when the results are posted in the human sciences department her ID number is always on the list, usually several rungs higher than mine or anyone else in our group. How does she do it? The answer is no one knows, not even Andy when she's probed Katie for the secrets has managed to find any definitive answer. It seems some people are just predisposed to achievement, like my sister Jenny who did virtually no work for her highers but still walked away with AAAAB and a place in Glasgow School of Dentistry. Some people are just like that I guess.

So many a month passes and no sign of Katie, it's been so long since I last caught a glimpse of her that I'm starting to forget what her face looks like. That's a brief summation of Andy and Katie, the important points to take out of that is that half of the time I see neither but yet I save a seat for both in the off chance that they grace me with their presence.

Richard has since left University, after crashing his car and killing the passenger last Christmas. Richard was a great lad, very reliable and attended almost every lecture despite having to travel from Leicester each day where he stays with his parents. Several times he would come to the house and I'd serve him lunch, we'd play fifa and generally just got on well like two friends should. He was a talented pool player and once beat me using his left hand, a feat that still stupefies me when I attempt to recollect the motions of completing such an achievement.

Then, after Christmas, the rumour mill started churning that Richard would attempt his exams. Surely enough he entered the exam hall and a hushed silence befell the converted gym hall, as he sat down to attempt the difficult exams with less than ideal preparation. I invited him back to mine after the first lecture back in semester two and, unprovoked, he told me a little more about the accident. It was a tentative recollection, more of a glossing over really, but little did I know it would be the last time I would see him. I got a photo of him that day, which I still have.

Heartbreakingly, when the list of results were put up I could see his score on some exams in the mid sixties, in the 2/1 band. In semester one he managed the outrageous mark of 80%+ in the Experimental Design and Analysis exam, a mark that is well in excess of a 1/1 grade. Richard was a precociously gifted psychologist, and the day of graduation has almost certainly been robbed of one its most accomplished undergraduates. He has since taken up a job in Leicester, doing what I'm not exactly sure but I heard on the grapevine he's a carpet fitter, and the decision to return to University hangs in the balance but given his reluctance to inform the University of his departure, I don't expect to pass him on the way to any lectures next year.

If you've been keeping count, that only leaves Tutmoses and I. Today it dawned on me, although I'd have probably worked this out earlier if I'd set my mind to it, that we're pretty much just in a friendship of convenience. There is no substance to what we have; she shows up without fail, so do I, we locate near each other and discuss much the same topics each day.

Do you think Andy and Katie will show up?
How's the coursework going?
It's been good weather hasn't it?
Which way to the bathroom?

The script is set in stone whereby we exchange pleasantries, discuss University work, attend to the lecture, and then bid farewell. Quizzing myself during a particularly tedious spell of lecture ten, I asked myself the crude question: where would I be without Tutmoses? The answer, quite plainly, is where I am now but I would be the honorary class loner. Indeed there isn't a class loner, everyone seems socially adept enough to hold even a loose bond of friendship, myself included. For now, at least.

Tutmoses has taken a placement next year which means hello gapyear and goodbye friends. It's a brutal decision to make, it's like sentencing yourself to resitting a year without your mates. In childhood it is the unthinkable, to willingly leave your friends and sit a year with a bunch of people you don't recognise. It's something that has confounded me, how can anyone take a year out and hope to remember even fragments of what they learned two years ago? Maybe I'm being too romantic about this, but it means packing up and leaving your coursemates, your housemates, your present life and placing it in stasis for a year and then returning to finish off what you started. Such a decision bares with it immense implications, but I guess Tutmoses isn't all that hung up on it. She's happy with the decision, she instigated it, and I wish her all the best.

Then, there was one.

Perhaps the people who are on a gap year this year will become my 'new' coursemates next year, who knows. I've concentrated so hard with making housemates, running mates and mates like Juan who don't fall into either category that I've barely noticed my rapily depleting pool of coursemates whittle down to just the one. I'm still holding out for Andy and Katie to be more active in attending lectures, but I'm not about to delude myself, there's more chance of Chinese Democracy seeing a UK release this year than those two gaining a combined 100% attendance record.

I can't say I'll miss Tutmoses' banter, for it's akin to watching Feesh and Goldie watch paint dry together in a bare room, but her companionship even for those brief hours is enough to keep the impending "loner" jeers at bay. There may be a glimmer of hope in that at the busa ball I met a girl on my course in the female cubicles (don't ask), who I got bantering to. If you have any vague knowledge of the people on my course, you'll know her as a close personal friend of The Nerd. I made a mention of The Nerd in conversation, to which she replied "[The Nerd] is a great drinker, he's really cool!" imploring me, I think, to give him a chance before I mislabel him unfairly. He is a nerd, although whether he is a cool nerd or not is yet to be seen.

I might opt for the Norman route, although to be perfectly frank I've labelled the four girls and one guy the Normans purely by virtue of The Nerd having achieved the highschool CompSoc appearence with long ungroomed hair, protrusive glasses and an incomprable knowledge of upcoming lecture topics. She was really cool to talk to and happens to be on the Loughborough athletics team, as a sprinter! Could this be a coming together of fast and slow twitch? I doubt it, I fear The Nerd will see me encroach on his territory and shoo me away, possibly by spraying the surrounding area with Nerd Pheromones like they do in the animal kingdom.

She'll be known as "K" from now on, if I need to reference her. Next year is make or break for me- I either make with the better group, or stick with the Andy/Katie duo and hope for the best. It smacks though of the likes of Jason defecting from the Savages to the Populars, for those who remember it. Sure the Savages had their issues and dysfunctions, and we weren't in danger of becoming extras for the O.C., but dammit I couldn't have asked for a better high-school ambience. If these situations are comparable then I'll be damned if I take the Jason route by dumping my clique without notice, however if they are not, and I'm starting to suspect that these are two very different situations, then progression is good.

Not being a loner is also good. Making meaningful friendships is also very good. Looking at The Nerd's notes is, also, exceedingly good practice. Jumping ship?

Well, when the ship's about to sink, there's nothing dishonourable about jumping free. This isn't a mutiny, nor is it about some progression up a ladder, this is about evaluating worthwhile friendships.

Isn't it always with me?

BUSA Championships And Athlete's Ball

2005-05-05T00:00:00.000+01:00

It was clearly Pi$tol's first time on a bus

Here's my definition of a long weekend: travelling for seven hours up to Scotland to spend four full days at a competition during the peak of exam revision. If my extra-curricular and outside work hardcore rating was ever in any doubt then the naysayers have been convincingly silenced by this most lengthy of adventures above the border.

The trip started in earnest at 10am outside the student Union where the gathered mass of athletes awaited boarding one of the two buses Scotland-bound. I elected to sit with the rather ineptly nicknamed Pi$tol Pete, a man of great character and social networking ability, who was on a mission to blag his way to the championships on a shoestring budget. He turned up wearing a tattered potato sack as overgarment which he pilfered from a nearby farmer's field with crude tears where his arms and legs stuck out from, although I jest, I would not have put it beyond him should the need have arisen or were it laundry day. The banter was fairly steady for the duration of the mammoth trip which would incorporate only two stops as we watched Jumanji followed by Mission Impossible, the latter encapsulating the general feeling of the opposing teams to surmounting the mighty purple army.

When we finally arrived I shared a room with Matt "the violent sleeper" Warley with Pi$tol kipping on the floor using complementary towels for blankets and sanitary towels for pillows. I went for a half hour blast around the derelict Renfrew area, a place clearly designed by a bored city planner who evidently cut-and-pasted many of the identikit residential suburbs, taking in the local scenery of row after row of bland granite buildings along the flat. It was the most tedious and unchanging thirty minute run I've ever endured, akin to running on a treadmill except with a treadmill there's more chance of encountering a radically different locale, the odds of which, if you're following this abstract line of reasoning, is precisely nil. I got back and the Warleyswolde had headed with the main bulk of lads to the aptly named Sprinters Restaurant, while Pi$tol and I headed due North to Nemos fish bar; pretty much your standard chippie. It was here that I would develop a love interest with the pizzas; pizzas of such a high calibre I am almost compelled to pen a Scottish Boozing review right now, but with Desperate Housewives on in the imminent future I fear time will once again pay the decisive blow to any aspirations I have of further contributing to the abandoned website.

Eating the pizza and chips at the Hotel, watching snooker and swilling Maximuscle Viper, would become a thrice-nightly tradition for us two and an enjoyable one at that. The following morning, at exactly 5:02am, Warley would awake us with a blood-curdling scream that made me shout also in turn. The reason for this rude awakening concerned Warley's dream of his sister laying in bed next to him with a monkey's head, I don't know which concerned me more- that his sister had a monkey's head, or that he was dreaming of sleeping next to his sister. Either way it was a flimsy excuse for robbing me of much needed shut-eye, but being a fellow sleeping shouter I sympathise whole-heartedly at his misfortune.

Mere hours later and we were awoke this time by the unsoothing bells of Pi$tol's alarm at the ungodly hour of seven, a tone that almost matches my Siemen's clinically developed personal hell which essentially sounds like DER-DER-DER-DRRRRRRRRRING looping again and again presumably to piss you off in the morning and set you up for a foul-tempered day. As a delightful change I opted for the cooked breakfast, swilling it down with copious amounts of inclusive fruit juice to somehow redeem some of my money in a petty and rather childlike manner. I drank so much I felt bloated for hours afterwards, but I made my point abundantly clear to the staff who stood aghast at my display of astonishing gluttony.

The day itself was good with blazing sunshine and solid performances from the Loughborough team. Returning to the motherland was a good feeling, and I related the whole experience to "playing a home game." Sidetracking many of the finer details, the day was a glorious bask for myself as I didn't have to perform until the next day. We had our team t-shirts custom made with the presumptuous slogan "BUSA Outdoor Champions 2005," envisaging people asking us "so, you got them as a memento of your victory?" with the reply being "nope, we had these printed before we competed." Unashamedly arrogant but being the student competition the BUSA is, banterous in equal measure. We also sported african-violet wristbands not dissimilar to the LIVESTRONG bands except ours stated simply "Loughborough for life" on one side and "thanks for coming" on the other, another cheeky reference to our domineering side.

Day two and when I awoke again at seven I could hear the feint patter of rain hitting the window. Wiping the sleep from my eyes and opening the curtain I could see the hotel grounds awash with water as the rain charged down upon the building. Typical Scotland- you get one day of sunshine and you're punished with monsoon rain for the rest of the week. It would be a cold and miserable day in the stands for sure, although for someone with such an immensely untouchable hardcore rating the cold weather could only be described as mundane and unimaginative at best, unable to faze or displace me.

As the hour of my race loomed closer I did a warm up with Soos and Smart, trying to stay out of the rain as far as possible. There was a bit of a debacle surrounding qualification which was eventually resolved with the outcome being the top two to qualify by right with six fastest losers, spelling a packed 16-man final. Soos and Smart qualified easily by right with Settle producing an outrageous Wild Boar finish only to finish marginally outside of the top two hence not making the final. In my heat we went through in a relatively sedate 2:08 with the pace unfaltering until the final lap when Maclean put the backburners on as I challenged him with 250m to go. As we approached 150m the heavens opened as the strongest rain of the weekend hailed down, I checked back to see my position to see that I could qualify easy and afford to cruise in. The final lap split was a high 58 which could have been a low 57 if it were the final itself, so to run 3:54 off the back of a 2:56 and ease off is extremely encouraging.

In the final itself I could only manage 3:53 as I was still a bit tired from the previous days exploits, the ridiculously large field didn't make running a reasonable racing line any easier. To run a 3:53 at this stage in the season is encouraging though and the performance on the whole was satisfying, getting the elbows out to force my way through. The night before Comedy, Green and I shared a cold then hot ice bath (not at the same time!) in the hotel thanks, in part, to the courteous staff at the bar who clearly have more ice than they can get rid of. In the end we won the competition comfortably and had the photoshoot by the water jump, standard procedure really for an outfit who have won the title twenty-one years running (and throwing).

People level criticism at Loughborough for being cocksure, but to be honest, and to dispel some misconceptions, it's only the sprinters who are arrogant cunts. They do nothing to bolster the team's reputation, jeering "easy!" at each victory and singing football supporter like chants. They're also insufferable to sit near to on the bus for reasons that should be self-evident by this point. Also they run 50 seconds for 400m and have the audacity to call themselves the "fast twitch," something I tend to disagree with and is an embarrassing time for a so-called sprinter to run and a time that several of our middle-distance athletes have bettered in training and competition.

So that pretty much sums up the BUSA in as condensed a fashion as I can muster given that we were gone for four days. Last night was the Summer Ball, used in part to celebrate our success and also a fantastic excuse to get pissed.

Comedy came round early as we nailed a half bottle of Jack Daniels, that cool spirit that tastes like fermented piss but makes you look hard as nails. We sat in the garden on Monseiur's relocated couch in the sun dressed in suits with the barbeque smouldering in the background. When we got to JC's most of the guys were there, each at their own unique level of inebriation. Worst of the lot had to be Grandad, who managed the breathtaking feat of throwing up before the hour of seven o'clock and even before embarking the bus to the hotel. Truly an outstanding performance, he would later drink drive by pulling Drives... mmm, vomit flavoured kisses! Comedy was looking worse for wear as he sipped Stu's Stella/Vodka hybrid, but to be honest everyone was fairly on their way before we even go to the hotel.

When we arrived we watched the football mainly as Liverpool took Chelsea back to school with a controversial 4th minute goal. The meal was essentially a single sausage wrapped in beef with a miniscule token vegetable portion beside it. The dessert wasn't much better but by this point it was all about the mission to get drunk, so eating less kind of helped this target in a roundabout way. That night Tommy would beat up the toilet tissue dispenser, Ivemy would disgrace himself by getting smashed and lying outside the hotel like a homeless bum, and he would also throw up in the girl's toilet, and there was a comedy food fight culminating in Gandy pouring Grandad's pint over his head. I would later argue the case for the slow twitch to Ashleigh Swain, who is deluded by the notion that they can actually beat us over their principle distance on the bus home. When we got back at 2am we hit the Union for a bit and then stumbled off for a kebab, capping off a large night that saw pretty much everyone get thoroughly mauled.

If I had any photos I'd print it below, but as it turns out I don't. However what I do have is a photo of our unrefined home-made barbeque made out of an old shopping trolley, some ingenuity, cling film and sticky back plastic. I knew the tiresome after-schooling of Blue Peter would some day serve an ulterior purpose other than allowing me to oggle Katie Hill's fantastic rack for a boxer-bursting half hour.

The barbeque was both portable and multi-purpose

My Day Pass To Heaven

2005-04-28T22:23:00.000+01:00

It's been a busy week again, needless to say. But you knew that already.

I finally received my three orders from tshirthell about two weeks after placing them, such is the discrepancy between ordering and receiving items from overseas. Expecting them to be delivered to my door, I was duly informed by the courier that I would have to walk down to the post office to claim my goods as there was an import fee to pay. So no, that means I can't just pay her at the door and then grab hold of my tshirts, that would be too easy. I have to wait for her to walk back down to the office after doing the rounds, walk there myself, and then pay an absurd ?9.27 levy on top of the postage fee I had already dished out. Had the tshirts not been so super-sweet my blood pressure would be reaching alarming levels this week.

This first tshirt has a, rather outdated now thanks to the hypergay transatlantic delay, pope-embroidered motif on the front with the spiritual leader pulling the "Rock On!" hand gesture with the tagline "Only The Good Die Young." I heartily expect some new design to incorporate Ratzinger as a Nazi mowing down Jews with an AK47, such is the level of depravity at the Worse Than Hell section, but I think the motif I chose was tasteful and, umm, current. Maybe. The second is slightly more vague and less in-your-face with the subtle slogan "Bad Samaritan" beneath a halo with devils horns to re-emphasise the point. It's kind of a cheeky tshirt, which I like but is bound to instil a lot of ill-feeling in the more secular of my camaraderie. The third is pretty self-explanatory, saying "I Won't Remember Any Of This" in swirly white writing, more a pre-emptive "forgive me" rather than anything else. It's also a little apologetic and should save me valuable time the next morning when I indubitably have to send the "it wasn't me it was the drink" texts I invariable have to send so as those of a more sober inclination know that I'm insincerely sorry for pulling their skirt/throwing up on them/punching them/all of the above.

Keeping with the religious theme, I recently attended a tolerance fair under the guise of "International Day" at the Union, frequented by an unnerving number of Asian people. Walking casually by the stalls, pretending to care, a Sheik or someone of a similar appearance thrust a palm-sized book entitled "Discover Islam- Your Birth Right!" into my hand. Now I'm not going to say his beliefs are stupid, because Allah forbid they are, but you can't seriously expect a Caucasian Brit like myself who wasn't beaten into believing the Qur'an from an impressionable age to suddenly realise his "birth right" and shriek "sweet Jesus, I'M A MUSLIM!" The potential for lawsuits is unfathomable. Flicking the pages, I noticed an abundance of "p.b.u.h" after each name, later finding out that Muslims have to say "Peave Be Upon Him" after each utterance of any Muslim religious figure. They also have to pray five times a day and wash their hands and feet at the same time, for some reason, I dunno, why not just have a shower?

The religion clearly wasn't for me, for a start I like pork and pre-marital sex way too much and my day tends to be busy enough without all the absurd generational rituals. How they manage Ramadan I have no idea, imagine sleeping in after a large night out in the summer- you couldn't drink water until dawn the next morning! That would teach me the vice of drunkenness in a manner I cannot imagine otherwise, trying to appease Allah with my stringent self-denial of common H2O.

In my spare time I was checking out some pro-religion websites, the best of which pretty much outlined all the passages that say homosexuals will be judged and sent to hell on Judgment day and they are on the same level as thieves and prostitutes. Even the fucking Pope is a hard-line anti-gay! One of my friends, who I will call Pickles for reasons of anonymity, refuses to believe that women should be allowed to be Priests. Pickles is great comedy, he manages to deny evolution, pre-human creation, dinosaurs, unoppressed women, astronomy, in fact, any facet of science that updates what humans believed nearly two-thousand years ago. He shakes his head, saddened that we won't meet in God's glorious heaven, as I suffer an eternity burning for my worldly sins. Some people have all the luck.

Swiftly changing subject, there's a cunt in some of my lectures I just have to tell you about. I call him "Permagrin," because he walks about with the biggest grin this side of Nick Marr, looking like the cat that got the cream. He's always wisecracking with his cunt pals and generally doing his best to maintain his laid back boyish profile, wearing three-quarter length shorts and a polo-neck tshirt with long brown ruffled bed-hair. What a cock. I bet he listens to fucking Morrissey, the White Stripes, Kasabian and any other Indie/Rock band typical of the chilled-out college wideboy stereotype that I have sorely attempted to distance myself from for longer than I remember. He's adorably self-styled with cheeky boy looks and imminent bumfluff pushing through his babyface, toying and joking with the lads about his crazy nights out, oftentimes liasing with the hotties in my class with his loud mouth style and devil-may-care attitude. What a wanker, I hate scruffy Indie cunts like Permagrin who get all the chicks because of their laissez-faire attitude to work and who wear three-quarter length shorts along with suitably grungy tshirts.

So that's Permagrin for you- a surefire cunt if ever you saw one but not quite established enough to grace the hallowed Cunt Of The Month award pages. Elsewhere I've been fairly busy trying to get my ass into shape for the upcoming BUSA championships this week up in sunny Glasgow by generally training harder than I probably ever have before. It will be a long journey, rest assured, but this time I will be travelling up to Scotland with a double-decker bus full of banter without the worry of engaging any fat slags or power-hungry ticket vendors. There is a niggle in my left hamstring but two ice baths and lashings of deep heat will hopefully keep it at bay so that I can progress through to the finals on monday (UPDATE- I went to the toilet after applying deep heat only to use the same hand as I used to apply the lotion. It stings like an STD does, erm, I imagine).

I've been busy panicking mainly because I never managed to get any work done for Uni over Easter, so I've been playing a lot of catch up. It's not interesting and to be fair I'm bored writing about it already. Tutmoses, who you'll remember is a pain in the ass to sit next to in lectures, was winding me up again this morning by sighing ceaselessly and scribbling prose about how bored she was all hour long, disrupting my learning to no end. To her credit, the lecturer was harping on about sleep patterns for a full hour, the last thing I needed at nine in the morning. I could see everyone around me slowly dozing off, drooling over their jotters, being lulled to sleep by the monotone yawnfest telling us all how great sleep is albeit on a psychophysiological level but I pretty much decided to hear what I wanted to hear about my favourite subject, sleep.

Writing about sleep is making me kind of tired, so I'm gonna hit the sack so that I don't feel like complete shite like I did this morning. There are more tales to be told, just at a more convenient time. As for my quest for eternal salvation, I really should unroll a prayer mat, clean my hands and feet, hail the one deity and reclaim my birth right.

I'll take my chances and just go to bed.

There, Their

2005-04-21T22:25:00.000+01:00

I'm sure I've ranted fervently about this before but for the sake of clarity and reassurance I'm going to reiterate a point I feel quite strongly about. If you can't spell "their" or aren't sure when it should be used then you should not be at University. No exceptions.

As part of a group coursework I recieved a file where we would each copy and paste our portion of a discourse analysis. I was aghast to read, in the first paragraph no less, this horrendous error:

"you would like to garentee that..."

This wasn't written in ink, it was printed in a Word file and sent via email as an attachment. A Word file, I presume, that was transcribed into binary from the related presses on an accompanying keyboard using the customary Microsoft Word for Windows application that has, as one of its many features, a spell checker. A spell checker no less that actively underlines in wavy red each misspelt word along with suggestions as to how to rectify the error.

But avast mortal reader, this conspicuous clue was merely brushed aside like so many similar mistakes in a display of complete and utter ineptness the likes of which I feint to repeat in public. There are excuses; being discourse analysis, it might have been pronounced garr-ent-ee or maybe she was slightly rushed and failled to notice the glaring red underscores beneath these disgraceful errors. But none of these excuses prepared me for the next grievous infringement on the good name of Literate University Students:

"that people lost there jobs (1.5) hhh °you know°"

There?! There jobs?! After thirteen years of tutoring and a successful application to further education it pains me to read this, as I winced through parted fingers at the pageful of glaring mistakes. The frequency of moronic misspellings made me moan incredulously as I bewailled the standard of literacy in our Universities to a rather disinterested Monseiur.

I sifted through the document and made the necessary changes, thinking back to my stunningly awful 52% effort in a previous essay. Unless there is a very acute marking curve I have to take that 52% as a sub-fifty effort as other entrants no doubt titled theirs (sorry- theres) "Sikeology" with thick red Crayola and drawings of boobies surrounding the periphery, still managing a score with distinction in the mid seventies. If there is a balance of justice in this Universe, it is heavily tipped against me.

Speaking of things that are wrong with the Universe, I had the displeasure last week of travelling in a train carriage (I never get any breaks with the public transport industry) next to a group of eight fat slags out on a Hen party.

The largest of the slags needed a panoramic
lens to fit her torso in its entirety.

As they boarded the carriage brash and full of cheer I had a sneaking suspicion they would park their enlarged anuses in near proximity. With Mystic Meg-like accuracy in forseeing ambiguous future events, they settled themselves but a mere arms length from I.

Cracking open the Beezers and fags I could tell that getting even a fleeting moment of serenity would be a tall order as the slags passed the alcohol-laced fruit juice and upped the speech tempo to verging on a hundred decibels. The slags were, as all loud and obnoxious slags are, grating and extremely frustrating to try to block out selectively. At a pitch that I thought only dogs could hear, the Queen Slag- anointed by virtue of her birth coinciding to forty-five years ago, wearing a tiarra- screeched:

"FITS AT IN YER CAGE?!?!"

Thinking I could shrug off her ear-stinging advances, she somehow manages to further irritate me with repeated questioning not disimilar to Al-Qa'ida interrogation techniques and twice as annoying as sitting in a room playing endless white noise. Realising her persistence can only be stopped by answering her question, I mutter "a hedgehog."

"A HEDGEHOG?! GIE US A LOOK!!"

Sighing, I explained that I wasn't going to take him out while her and her friends continued to smoke. This seemed to quash the problem of her trying to engage me in conversation but it did nothing to dent her unabashed and inconsiderate screeching in synch with her overweight chums. All the while I stabbed the back of the seat in front of me with my pen, hoping to disseminate the rage flowing through my veins in a purgative manner.

The journey dragged for eight and a half long hours, but a timely stop to change trains allowed me to leave behind the gaggle of infuriating bitches to drink and eat themselves into an early grave.

Of late I've been pondering buying myself a new mobile phone. Having earned what most financial analysists would describe as a "shitload" of cash, I feel it time to dig into those pockets and replace my faithful old Seimens. I've set myself a cap though, being the conservative that I am, being that I won't buy a phone until they come equipped with a 3 megapixel camera. This might sound unreasonable, but I firmly believe that 3 megapixels is future proof for two years to come, so I'm going to have to ration my money until then.

In the meantime I've been browsing monthly contract deals as a rough guide but have been a little affronted at the shite these companies come out with. One booms "Up to 500 free texts!" whilst others brag about giving away free phones.

These phones are not free and no one believes they are so why don't they just cut the crap? You don't get a ?200 phone for nothing, if you did you wouldn't have to sign a yearly contract (known as "line rental") or pay an absurd ?25 a month for the privaledge of renting a line. Whatever that means. It'll be pay as you go for me, I think I can live without 1000 'free' minutes that I'll likely never dent or even approach filling that quota for a year let alone one calendar month.

Finally, before I go, just news of a prank six months in the making that has recently come to fruition. When the poll officials came round to our house to confirm tenancy, I couldn't resist the temptation to change a few housemates' names. Mark would have been "Mark Hamed Shaheen Bin Laden Taylor," if he hadn't bust me in the process of changing Jibba's name, Tom would have become "Doctor Thomas Payne" (that probably went right over your head) and James would become the illustrious "Earl James Atkinson IX". It is simple things that please me, but the gleeful opening of Jibba's poll card reading "Jonathan Hartley-Worchester" (missing an 'h', curiously enough) had me in stitches for reasons I am not entirely sure of yet.

What a dorky double-barreled name! Subtle humour, I'm sure you'll agree, and a largely pointless exercise in messing with the polling system.

I could so be a punk rocker right now.

The Gravel Pit

2005-04-15T22:09:00.000+01:00

"The scene was like a locale from Resident Evil; dank and derelict, with an abhorrent stench and spatterings of pigeon faeces the floor over, the place unnerved me to my very brink of sanity as I attempted to clear the pit of ingrained droppings with only the distant cooings and eerie noises of the forgotten nook for company."

I have visited hell.

Unto every generation man has been defined by his willingness to venture jobs that weaker men and women would not dare face; from manning Spitfires in the world wars, to working as a miner, to braving trenches or cleaning sewers in Victorian London before that, there has been and always will be a subclass of men who undertake perilous or unthinkable work in the line of duty. For centuries men were forced into hard labour as slaves, but even in our enlightened times there is always someone, somewhere, who has to do the jobs we feint to imagine. These men go home reeking to high heaven, often grossly underpaid and valued, but yet engage in their work with the same level of reliance and effort as their white-collar counterparts.

Last week it was I who would have to suffer, for a couple of days, the same depravity and squalor in vocation as some of history's most unfortunate. I was to clear out the Gravel Pit; a place so crudely indecent it ranks up there with shitholes like the Little Chef.

For decades there has lain a cavity behind the shop where the fire exist is supposed to exist but until now has been a dusty and junk filled hole, utterly impossible to negotiate in any significant period of time. It is a festering hole of disgusting depravity, with generations worth of accumulated dusk, cobwebs and bird remains. Few people have ever ventured out back for fear of the secrets the pit holds and what entering its sacred hold will do to their fragile minds, the smell usually being a stringent and early warning that all is not well in that pit.

It came as no surprise that I would be elected to don the Marigolds and boiler suit to tackle the pit, given that I have one of the highest hardcore ratings of the entire shopfloor. Using an advanced formula, I finally cracked the code mid-Easter as to what makes a worker hardcore. There are two basic parameters: longevity of hardcore and recent measures of hardcore, as demonstrated by the formula below:

So for that week I emerged with the highest rating with a percentage in the late seventies- far in excess of the nearest competitor, the Manager duly noted. Suffice to say there was only one man for the job, and with tempered acceptance, I stretched the waterproof gloves on and prepared myself for the very worst.

As the stiff door finally gave way to hard shoulder-thrusts, I burst onto the landing utop the stairwell. Before me was a misty haze of the dust settling from the doorlight behind me, and the fetor of decayed boxes melded with pigeon feces, urine and bodily remains. The place, as the photographic evidence above testifies, was an insufferable hellhole.

To begin with, I scraped the floor of dust and bird remains for hours using a shovel and brush I found lying at the bottom. It was a laborious and extremely torturous task, made less pleasant by the offputting and continual coos and flapping of ruffled birds who wouldn't let me do my job in peace. I sympathised with my rehoused spectators as I scooped up nests and dead bodies, uncovering unhatched eggs and dreadful things I never want to mention in the process. The smell- oh, the smell!- was something that I can't convey by word, it is just something that you will have to trust me on. It was foul like a thousand farts; worse, even. In my face for hours on end. If I had ovaries, I would be seeking professional help for the trauma suffered down that pit.

There was so much scattered debris I managed to fill over a dozen black bags with dirt, feathers, syringes, pigeon carcasses, used condoms, and crisp wrappers. There were assorted planks of wood, crates, boxes, stands and tubes, most of which were no doubt unceremoniously dumped by adjacent restaurant Les Amis in an effort to quickly and cheaply dispose of their unwanted junk. It was an operation removing these, I can assure you, but I managed it in the end.

Finally, after countless hours of scooping up age-old remains from an untouched pigeon colony, the floor was clear. Standing proudly, still able to hear the flutterings of birds barely visible, there was only one job left and that was to wash the whole place down with the power washer.

The power washer turned out to be an extremely efficient method of removing the cobwebs and ingrained dirt found around the site by blasting away the places I couldn't reach or face removing. It was a satisfying end to a repellent task that had me doing a job even the cast of a Life Of Grime would have reservations about doing. It was backbreaking, odious and repugnant work all rolled up into one monstrously execrable weeks labour that has either scarred or made a man of me. Only time, or even a shrink, will tell depending on the larger effect this project has taken out of me.

I have only provided surface details of what really happened. What goes on in the pit, as they say, stays in the pit.

Judgement

2005-04-08T20:16:00.000+01:00

My dad and I have a very curious bond. As a person he is about the most negative I have ever met, constantly trying to belittle, undermine and chip away at any thread of self-like I have or claim to have. Sometimes the jibes are rather petty, always coinciding loosely with something in topic but usually exerted solely to grate at me and usually masked as a comedic comment but quite obviously not. It's rubbed onto me and people pick up on it, the negativity, and sometimes I am taken aback at how inappropriate my unintentionally unkind comments are.

Yet, for all his negativity, I've managed to keep it in check and ignore his obnoxious comments. However abrading he is there is a marginal degree to how you can block it out, at least consciously there is. In Loughborough, though, I had an experience that made me think differently to all this.

Everyone knows that I rarely dream, and when I do they're pretty inconsequential and meaningless affairs with a face value of zero and no latent content to really try to decipher. But one night, for whatever reason, I awoke with a jolt and my arms shooting out as if to grab something. I dreamt that night that for some reason I had just had enough of his constant aggravations and during one of our spats I just went to grab him. The feeling was so intense that it woke me and my pulse rate jumped ludicrously high and I felt pumped for a moment, like the situation had been real and not mere fantasy. I don't want to grab him, evidently, but the dream was so lucid and vivid that it caused such a strong physical reaction like I'd never experienced before.

Most of his non-subtle comments regard things that could be categorised as achievement-centred. Whether it's driving (I once failed my test, don't you know), academia, sport, personality or anything that can be vaguely measured his opinion is precisely zilch. He doesn't know the URL to this website because I value his opinion so little and on some level I've never allowed him to know the real me because he'd find a way to hit me on a level that would actually hurt. He does the same to me too, and I've never really felt like I know who he is either, other than the parental figure of old. As I mentioned in a previous blog, what I know of father is solely from what he has told me- I have never met any of his friends from before the time he was 50, never seen any school reports, never met his father and he doesn't have any siblings. The only person who can remotely claim to know him was my late grandmother, but I was too young to be privy to any information of real value. Thus, all I know is what little he has told me, and being so distant to him this is tantamount to very little indeed.

During a rather special drinking session with Jenny I found out that dear old father Wales accumulated 6 points on his driving licence the previous week. It might sound a little rudimentary to you, but without Jenny's honesty I would never find these things out. His self-image is one of near perfection in that it is almost impossible to pick fault with him in an argument because he doesn't let on what he doesn't want me to know. As a parent though he knows my every flaw and uses it to his distinct advantage, and I see this in myself. As far as faults go, I am very guarded and tell very few people exactly what it is that makes me who I am and where my faults lie. On some level, I'm not sure if I've even admitted them to myself yet.

Coming back home fills me with mixed emotions, a sentence I have stolen from a previous blog because it sums up the situation perfectly. Being at home means attempting to be civil and responsive to someone who has all the weapons against my imbalanced psyche and deploys them routinely for what gain I still haven't worked out. For the most part I have futile material of which to reply, I just grin and bear it or if it gets on my nerves I'll come out with "you would say that, wouldn't you?" It's not hard-hitting or particularly witty but you soon learn that the best coping strategy when dealing with someone like my father is refusal to acknowledge him. You can't ever give them the satisfaction of knowing they have the upper hand.

Tonight, as a recent example, during the Newcastle/Sporting UEFA clash he stops me from taking a beer from the fridge and delivers a rant that in summation says "my sources say you can't handle a beer, you're the weakest drinker of all your friends." I didn't really know how to deal with that one to be quite honest. His 'sources' sound like a weak alibi to support an argument based on his opinion, of where I'm not sure he got it from because all my drinking is done in a pub, friend's house or my house when he is not present. More to the point I wanted to know what he expected to gain from saying this.

Was his point that I don't drink enough to keep up with my friends? Or was it another one of his half-baked stabs aimed at making me feel low? Whatever his intention was it pissed the hell out of me, chiefly because he was making a pointless and detrimental accusation that he had evidently fabricated from thin air. I know that whatever I do he will have a low opinion of it but to come out with this fruitless argument kind of summed up more who I am than anyone else ever could. I saw a lot of me in that statement, and if anyone had been in the loop with the whole Kayleigh incident they'll probably understand the startling similarities between my father and I inherent in that proclamation.

He does it all so cleverly. There are countless undercurrents running underneath that statement, you really have to think about it before you can hope to understand his rationale. It was akin to saying that I'm a failure even as far as alcohol tolerance is concerned, something that I've never exercised in front of him beyond a tea-time glass of wine. It wasn't just a stab at me, but there were implications that I can't even keep up with my friends and that I'm the laughing stock who gets drunk after two half-measures and tends to vomit before 10pm. He was questioning my masculinity, and a bigger man would have stepped back and said "fair dues, think what you want." Of all the digs over the years, that one pissed me off the most.

I'm not especially proud of my drinking habits but it annoys me when people think they know me because I'm athletic. I get pigeon-holed into the boxed classed "lightweight" and while that means nothing to foreigners up here in Scotland it's about the most personal insult you can ever give someone. As if he'd slapped me in the face, I needed to retaliate. I wasn't going to let this one lie.

Forgetting myself, I challenged him to a drinking game. "Just you and me" I said, looking him in the eye. "Then we'll see who can and who can't handle their drink."

In some circles this would all be terribly pathetic and a little distressing, but if he's such a big man then he can have the courage of his convictions and put his assertions on the line. It won't be the first time I've been in this situation but this time will be the sweetest. My only concern is that he declines when he realises I'm being serious, but in that case I'll rightly tell him to shut the fuck up in future. I know him well enough to know that his pride won't allow him to concede a challenge like this so the only matter now is for me to arrange a suitable venue and date. No gimmicks, just lager-shot-lager-shot every few minutes until someone submits, either in the pub or at home.

For the first time I finally have the necessary weapon to better him. Sport, academia and achievements all rely on challenging the ghosts of the past, the trump card my father always plays, but now he has twinged on something that we can both compete at and I won't let this drop.

If he has anything to say for himself, it will be judged not on his words but for once the reality of his convictions and not the biased fabrications he purports to believe.

Morna's Plimsol Slippers

2005-04-04T14:37:00.000+01:00

Even during her adolescent years the kids in Tarves feared Morna's plimsol slippers

There is a point in everyone's life when they unwittingly gaze into the mirror and realise for the first time "my god, I look just like my dad/mum!" Whether it's the onset of male pattern baldness, the way you dress or even the advent of parenthood, there inevitably lies a fixed point in time when everyone is taken aback at the startling resemblance in some manner of themselves to their parents as they know or remember them.

For young Morna that day was the fourth of April 2005, a day that arrived worryingly early for the teenager. On that day Morna not only looked, sounded and acted like her mother but for all intents and purposes was her mother. If that makes any sense.

Dressed in a reserved and respectable skirt, blouse and floral top, Morna looked like she had raided her mother's wardrobe and stole her pearl necklaces in the process also. With square-cut glasses and the jangle of house keys in her pocket she looked exactly like her mother did that memorable day when she took our class for English, a day of such hilarity that it has etched itself as a flashbulb memory that will likely never leave me. Wearing trademark plimsol slippers, Morna had clearly taken a leaf out of her authoritarian mother's book by selecting the sturdy footwear used not only as an aide to walking but for bringing unruly or disobedient children back into line. Collectively, Morna had nailled the Mother Laing look to an uncanny degree and well-practiced stern don't-talk-back-to-me-young-lady face that means business.

It was like the Disney film "Freaky Friday" and I had to probe her for any tell-tale signs that Morna was trapped in her mother's body and vice versa. Her story seemed to check out although she feigned surprise when I pointed out the numerous reasons why she is her own mother or at least a very convincing replica. Had her mother found the elixir of life and used her youthful visage to play a cruel trick on her daughter by masquerading as her?

All through the evening Morna was coy and reserved, a strategy well used by people pretending to be other people.

"So, Morna, how was your weekend?"

"*Giggles* Erm, it was interesting..."

That was the general theme for the evening anyway. I sat there staring at her imagining some quasi-Smirnoff advert flashing after each staid and unrevealing statement of Morna in some weird kinky latex outfix lashing five kneeling men and spraying them with silly string. She'd then add "just your usual weekend" and images of her straddling Mr Universe wearing a pig mask grunting to the camera with the slogan "As Clear As Your Conscience" filling the screen. She was trying to be all mysterious leaving the finer details to the imagination but I'm still convinced it was her mother all along playing a safe strategy. She's probably laughing to herself right now at us mugs for buying it all, sipping at more of the age-reducting potion and plotting where next to take her new body.

It's hard to tell exactly what has changed and what hasn't but from the exterior it looked like a concentrated attempt to mirror her mother, even going so far as thumbing her slipper and warning me to "not make me take off my slipper" when I made a passing remark about Radiohead being the lamest band ever. She looked much like the photo above with the stern don't-push-me face that clearly was in no mood for a smartass reply, so I piped down to avoid her having to brandish her famous slippers.

Before she left though I uttered the word "damn" and she nearly flipped out, grabbing her left slipper and striding towards me. She said she was only kidding but for a brief moment there I was convinced that I would suffer the same fate as many a child has in Tarves when they crossed the path of a Laing family member. For that short moment, I saw a vision of Morna's future that I cannot help but feel so certain she will, some day, become.

Googlewhack?

2005-04-01T18:50:00.000+01:00

Unfortunately not :( If you type "egotristic", a word I made up instead of typing egotistical, into Google then the only result displayed is from this site. This does not make it a Googlewhack because a Googlewhack must be a two-word query and both words must be listed in the Oxford dictionary.

So close...

Easter Thoughts

2005-03-31T20:35:00.000+01:00

The following thoughts and accounts are unrelated and do not follow in any logical order. They were written in the spare half hours I have been able to snatch here and there although each could have been a full blog in their own right.

Cheating. A subject everyone can opine on but is never really given the fair coverage it so rightly deserves. We are taught from an early age that cheating is wrong and those who don't play by the rules are morally corrupt, the appropritate emotions to be displayed in the event of losing out to a cheater being scorn, dislike and even hatred. Thus, cheating invariably comes at a price- whether it is a price worth paying generally depends on the cheater's (for want of a better word) perceptions and resolution of the issue.

But yet, I can't help but wonder if cheating is ever really cheating, if you follow me. If someone can think so abstractly as to achieve a goal by expending less effort then surely their cunningness should be applauded rather than shunned so forcefully? Cheating tends to fall back, usually, onto an issue of trust which is cheating's more favourable cousin inso far as cheating is a breach of trust or the result of a poor moral fabric. Anecdotally, the whole issue of cheating circles around both parties' perceptions of morality so it is possible that the inferenence of cheating is nothing more than accusing someone of thinking differently or holding different values to yourself.

Take the child who sneaks in a page of notes into an exam when expressely warned not to. Is he a cheater? Of course he is, but our opinion of his actions might change if we knew that the exam involved mindless rote learning of quotations and the child had a distinct memory defecit disorder. Although still cheating his situation is sympathisable, which may suggest that in some circumstances it is necessary to level the playing field when the rules are unjustly skewed towards the more advantaged.

I am beginning to realise that however infuriating the act of cheating is there is, in some circumstances, a begrudging admiration for those who manage to think so far outside of the box as to make a situation advantageous to themselves. However intensely we dislike it, valour and honour can be the handicap against someone of less moral standing and sometimes the risk of being the subject of scorn doesn't outweigh the benefits. If someone challenged you to a duel at dawn and after eight paces you felt a bullet in your back, who would win? The opposition may not be the quickest to react, but by this swift and coy act of deception they emerge the unlikely victor by using the situation to their advantage.

Some people are born naturally strong (like Cheesy, who is mass despite never having seen a gym) and others are naturally intelligent. Some manage dextrous tasks with ease while others struggle with even the most simple point-to-point activities. If someone has the skill of abstract thought to work around a puzzle more cleverly than his opponent, then why should it cause such intense ill-feeling? Why the stigma?

Cheating is a word losers use to describe a victor who won by playing outside of the rules. In some scenarios cheating just defeats the point of the activity, like grabbing a football and throwing it into the net. There's just no point. But if you can work round the system, like Maradonna's "Hand Of God," then the rewards can be very sweet indeed. In that anecdote I'm pretty sure the acrimony of the English press and supporters made the deed even more satisfying, insofar as Maradonna outsmarted the linesman and referee by twisting the rules to his own purposes.

Cheating has a bad press due its peace-disturbing properties, but sometimes you have to take your hat off and admit it when you've been outfoxed by someone who dared to think in a plane unimagined.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Lauren asked me on a recent night out which of the two I'd prefer to "shag" (her crass usage of language, not mine): Leanne with Tete's head or Tete's head with Leanne's body. Naturally I was appauled by the question but after much deliberation decided that even though Tete's miniature head would put me off the deed considerably it would have to beat taking his grainy cock in my ass. Thinking about it still makes me a little uncomfortable and that takes some getting used to especially from a woman so apparently sophisticated as Miss Caiton.

The Anti-Tom was also out in action last night, acting like some kid with ADHD who had just been given a mouthful of prescription medecins. He repeated his bad form the following night, leaving for bed at the stroke of ten o'clock. That guy has changed, I swear. If ever proof was needed that you are what you eat then sugar-junkie Tom, who has substituted carbs for less carbs (a diet with immediate results unsurprisingly), is the very incarnation of the phrase. Now slimmer than a Vietnamese "sucky suck five dorrar... ten dorrar!" prostitute, Tom has become everything he once hated. Fuck, he was even wearing a cardigan on saturday as well and I swear I saw a trainspotter log book in his top pocket. Physically he looks fantastic and I got to admit, I prefer the new Tom. Not nearly as loud as before and a fraction as vulgar, dare I say that the New Tom is so much more preferable, to me, that it makes me see him in an entirely different light. Truly in all my time in England I couldn't have imagined such a wonderful advancement of his being and personalitly. Congratulations Tom, keep up the good work.

Malcs, Dabby and I stumbled back to Malc's house around four in the morning and met a poor chap who claimed to have been in a scuffle with neds. He invited us round to his house to smoke some weed and as we were thoroughly maulled we decided to go. In the end we stayed for about half an hour before crashing at Malc's house as he called in "sick" for his postal round which he was due to be at in twenty minutes. I on the other hand endured eight and a half hours work in the Running Shop with a stinking hangover and invented a new came, which I called "stocks."

Fiona and I became very profient at stocks; a game where the objective is to flick one of your three size cubes onto another so as to eliminate it from the game. The victor is the person who manages to eliminate all their opponent's size cubes, it is that simple. Either it is an addictive game of Tetris proportions or we were truly and horribly bored and hungover. I think we were still a little drunk, so our giddy enjoyment of the banal game was less a celebration of its genius but more a semi-stoned and partially drunk exercise on how easily entertained mind-altered people can be.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~It's back to the track season and this time I've gotten off to a flyer. Brushed aside are the arduous long-drawn sessions of a seemingly never-ending winter as the mileage is practically sliced in half and replaced with fast speedwork on the track. I love speed work, it makes all those gruelling miles in winter seem worth it as you're pounding out rhythmic lap after lap of super-charged pace. The feeling of belting round the oval synthetic surface at breakneck speeds and blowing away the cobwebs of winter is something I cherish and keeps me motivated to continue with the sport I love so much. Stretching out down the straights off the bend and blazing out repetitions that last less than thirty seconds is so far removed from the monotonous winter work that it feels like I'm finally doing something I'm good at. No more struggling round lap after lap hopelessly far behind the endurance boys, when it comes to speed work I'm not embarassed or afraid to admit that I feel in my element and ready to mix it with anyone who joins me for a session.

Back in Aberdeen I've slowly graduated from the struggling teen to the lion of the pack. As I've progressed the rest of my group, for various reasons, have stuck in a rut for years now. It's no bother to them, they win the local events and derive their satisfaction from winning the Spring Proms or the Castles series whereas I train to race track and run the occasional cross country and enjoy it even though I haven't won one for many years. Everything is geared towards the track for me and as soon as the spikes go on I feel a buzz in my feet that I can't compare to any other time in the year.

Richard Wainword once described my training in Aberdeen as being like "a machine." Metronomic timing and brutal progression in effort tend to leave remarkably similar splits for each effort with a free-for-all last effort culminating in the fastest split of the lot. Tonight I ran out 12x400m in 61s with a 2min recovery which, while not exactly jaw-dropping by Loughborough standards, is pretty nippy compared to the rest of the track runners up north in windy Aberdeen. I felt like I was motoring and while I enjoy sessions like these it's those clinical 200-300m sessions of pure flat-out blasts that I really feel I excel and have done since I was an U17 when I ran 27s for the last 200m to take the Scottish 3000m title in 8:56. You can shove your 25min tempo run up your arse, I won't even be able to see the leading bunch at the start of the first downslope, but give me 8x300m with a 2 1/2min recovery and the only thing you'll be seeing is sparks flying from my spikes onto your face and the flutter of my double-red banded vest in the distance. At least that's how it feels, as I thrash out violent and unfaltering sprints under the dim light of the Chris Anderson stadium.

Surely it will take a few races before I am race fit again but the way I'm feeling right now I'm ready to have a go this summer of finally breaking that 3:50 for the 1500m I ran so long ago. Up here I'm out on my own from the rest of the group giving 100% as I always do during my hard track sessions and I'm cruising through the sessions with flair and bags in reserve. A lot of this is also due to my father who is a professional masseur and a very good one at that too. The massage sessions hurt almost as much as the track sessions and the spinal manipulation ensures that I stay injury free, a point of note, if I may diverge quickly, is that I've never been injured. There are some belly-achers in Loughborough complaining of shin splints which is a condition I had but thanks to routine massage sessions (deep tissue stripping mainly) the problem was kept in check and left eventually. More athletes should book themselves in for a massage, it pays for itself in the long run. The ice baths I have weekly with Comedy help massively too, so if you're a little on the skint side it comes with my hearty recommendations as the next best alternative.

So I'm back at the track doing what I love and I feel fitter than ever. Crunching those 200s and 300s at unrelenting pace is very hard work but it fuels the only weapon I have in my armoury, my last lap sprint, so naturally I work at it at hard as I can. It's great being here and being the front runner because when I go back down I can look forward to being the leader of the chasing group as usual and watching the big dogs from my privileged position at the back. Up here though being headed in sessions is a distant memory and I'm loving every minute at the track with my old friends, even if it is exhausting and mentally draining. If I didn't, I would be a runner no longer for without enjoying the summer speed sessions I really don't have much to say for myself as an athlete.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The universe is a vast and extraordinary place, far surpassing anything I could ever write or hope to summarise. The thought of its unbelievable expanse fills me with wonderment and excitement, especially when you consider the sheer magnitude and orderliness of everything. Atomic studies are so brain-frazzlingly incredible that it makes you think just how many particles there must be in the universe when a single grain of salt contains 18000000000000000000 atoms, which themselves are made up of incalculable amounts of subparticles.

Gazing at the stars is a marvellous past time, one which I have never spent any significant time doing. The cosmos is an awe-inspiring arrangement and the sheer magnitude of the known universe is simply incredible. In fact the correct term to use is "astronomical", but no singular word could ever sum up what it is that makes space so incredible. Check out these astonishing photos on the space website for a brief but highly engaging account of some of hubble's best photographs of space to date. Click on the photos for larger sized images that will blow you away, even if you feign in public to have no interest whatsoever in what happens outside of the OC or the antics of that hateable crazy frog (that makes you a superficial popular or runaway chav).~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The Easter camp went well enough, in fact it was pretty routine as far as camps go. The great thing about the Sports camp is that it never truly feels like you are doing work as such, it's not like being stuck in the Running Shop where you're constantly gazing at the clock working out how many dreary hours are left to go. The variety in the job and working with a group of children makes it an altogether more enjoyable and rewarding experience than peddling shoes all day for a commission-less fee.

The kids come in all shapes and sizes, actually stop that, it sounds like I'm back in "Running Shop" mode. Having done a brief course in developmental psychology it is quite interesting to have kids ranging from 5 to 14 years old, all under your care. I'm not going to sit on my armchair and psychoanalyse them and fall into the trap you have cleverly set me, but instead focus on what I really enjoy and what bugs the hell out of me from the most notable kids.

There are two basic extremes- compliant and incompliant kids. The compliant kids, unfairly I admit, never receive as much attention as the incompliant at no fault of their own. The majority of your attentions and efforts are spent trying to get the unruly children to fall into line and the personalities they display at this age so blindingly obvious as the roots of later traits. These kids don't generally adhere to rules, authority or procedure and make it their prerogative to be noticed. If you want to be noticed, the easiest way is to be disobedient- it is that rudimentary.

As I have long said and noticed you can spot a well-behaved kid a mile off, the same as a chav or a doctor. There are many children who look so adorable and are so helpful that you just know straight away that this is just who they are and isn't some vain attempt to gain favour at camp. They tend to be more shy and introverted, responsive to orders and give each activity their all without trying to impress their peers through bad behaviour. As a result they tend to stick to smaller groups and form more meaningful relationships with their selected peers than the badly behaved children. One of the girls reminds me of a little Morna, she is so sweet. One of the "populars," that is to say of the outgoing and easily distracted lot, verbally bullied this girl. She really took it to heart and got so upset about it but didn't want to let it show. I felt really bad for her, she does everything right, tries her heart out at everything, never complains, is so nice to everyone and yet felt so dejected because this group of girls decided to take a dislike to her. I spend most of my time with the well-behaved kids when I can but it can be difficult when the disobedient children are my responsibility, you just can't leave them alone because anything that happens to them gets put round my neck. I consoled her the best I could but I could see that even at this age the power of isolation used by some girls to exclude others is something that cannot be changed by outside forces. If she was accepted into their crew she would just turn into one of them and that would be a damned shame because she's such an adorable and well-mannered girl.

The disobedient kids are so shallow and petty sometimes that it's easy to just get bored with it all and try to block them out, given that I've to spend up to nine hours a day with some of them. They crave attention so much that I begin to wonder who they're trying to impress. One of the quotes that stuck with me in first year psychology was "how much of what we do is to impress the opposite sex?" and that might provide the answer for some of their actions but isn't satisfactory for others. The more impressionable border-line bad kids are drawn to the obvious leaders, who are cocksure little cunts who think that rules don't apply to them and question almost everything that is asked of them. They flaunt the rules incessantly to the point where you just end up saying "you know what, I don't get paid enough for this crap. Do what the fuck you want," but minus an expletive. I don't want to play their game. If they want attention, they can do it through well-meaning effort because I'm not about to stoke the fire and let them think that being loud, obnoxious, quarrelsome little benders is going to win any acclaim or praise from anyone other than the lapdogs. They command so much of the time spent from coach to children, it really is unfair and I used to hate it, so now that I'm finally in charge I won't tolerate or entertain any time wasters. Not on my watch.

I'll give you a brief run-down of some of the children that particularly stick in my memory, and by brief I really am going to cut it short because of time restrictions and the fact that these kids, in the long run, aren't terribly noteworthy.

One kid called Lauren, and I'm ashamed to say this, is an ugly little ginger kid with a really gross chipped tooth. It's like the tooth is a cat flap that opens when she grinds her teeth, it really is quite repulsive. She constantly runs up to me and contorts her face into the ugliest composition imaginable and waggles the tooth by grinding her teeth together, in my face. All the time. It pisses me off no end. Another trio of kids started calling themselves "Alan's minions" and do my dirty work for me, which is quite handy but rather annoying at times because they don't take a hint to go away when I want some peace and quiet at lunch. They've attached themselves to me and the only time I can shake them off is when I get in my car and drive home at the end of the day. Then there is Lewis, who is a prime candidate for nedhood in his older years if ever I saw one. He is exceptionally loud and just begs for attention. Even when not asked, he stands up to make a joke which tends to be as sophisticated as a blunk stick with a rusty nail banged through it. I just know that there is nothing you could ever say or do to this kid that will deter him from acting the clown all the time or taking pleasure from destruction. He needs a big reality check and fast, I'm sure at his school he is always the one getting into trouble and enjoys being singled out as the daring bad boy of the class. I hate his stupid guts, I wish I could just bellow at him and put him back in his place for being such a loudmouth self-assured little cunt.

Lucy, who I described above, and Hannah are just model campers. They listen to everything they're told, are approachable and friendly, always help out and make teaching them a pleasure rather than a chore. If I have kids I pray they turn out like those two and not one of the so-called popular kids who have annoyance as the primary main objective on their agenda. Erin is your stereotypical country girl, cute as a button (cough) and filled with so many fascinating and endearing traits. As a minion, she runs up to me, throws her right arm into a salute, cries "attention!" and then wafts her hand in front of her nose and says "a-cheese!" ("at-ease"). It's not all that much comedy but cute as hell.

The rest of the coaches are cool enough although as it's Easter it's just Ally (camp manager) and I along with four girls. One of them, Natalie, is good friends with many of the populars from my school and goes to Edinburgh Uni. She seems like the sort of girl who, once you get to know her, is really cool. But for the time being trying to strike up a conversation is akin to pulling teeth and usually emerges with nothing more than the most basic scripted small talk. I told her that when Eilidh, another coach, baby-talks the kids in that patronising motherly tone it turns me on but I didn't get so much as a shrug out of her. She probably thinks I'm a pervert now. Ally is a class act, the most laid-back superordinate I have ever met. The camp runs so smoothly just because he never pulls rank and the whole atmosphere is that of us being given space to work and teach on our own without a big-brother figure looming. It works great and I'm sure the kids appreciate the relaxed attitude also. Jen and I do extra time but we take turns to go home early on alternate days as there are only 10 kids to sign out from 4-5:30 so it means I get home and beat the rush hour traffic every second day. Last year we didn't get on all that great and while we get on much better this year, I think we both subconsciously knew that letting each other go early on subsequent days would avoid an awkward hour and a half of feigning to express interest in what each others' plans were. A win-win situation by my account.

After only four days working there I'm pretty knackered, and the fun doesn't stop as I'm back at the Running Shop on saturday. Oh joy of joys! It's all good money though and the camp broke things up quite nicely, rather than suffering the monotony of an endless streak of days on the retail floor shop. I'd love to talk to you all more about my time at home but I'll leave that for a retrospective blog sometime, but in the mean time I'm going to make my sandwiches for tomorrow and hit the sack early.

Things That Are Wrong With Today's Society

2005-03-31T19:53:00.000+01:00

The Internet:

Qualité aimable, grandes boules du feu. Grande merde de singe d'âne, baise! says:
not much, the internet seems devoid of anything interesting
Qualité aimable, grandes boules du feu. Grande merde de singe d'âne, baise! says:
yourself
Return of Star's Personal Vendetta says:
ah just writing a blog, trying to put interesting stuff on the internet as it turns out
Return of Star's Personal Vendetta says:
we should hook up some time

Jhocks

2005-03-28T10:55:00.000+01:00

A proper blog in the near future. So many ideas, so little time. Reading back this is one of my favourite Scottish Boozing reviews and I feel like posting it for the archive's sake if anything. Never were truer words spoken of the infamous chipper, so here we go, SB style.

Jax
ELLON

For long Scotland has enjoyed a rich tradition of haggis, bagpipes, kilts and, more recently, fish and chips. The timeless coupling of freshly caught fish with diced potatoes has become as Scottish as fried kangaroo bollocks is Australian, yet, amidst the foreign wave of tandoori dishes, Chinese takeaways and genuine Italian pizza, fish and chips has held its placed in an ever increasingly saturated marketplace.

A properly battered fish is as saliva-inducing as Wonka's own Scrumdidleumpcious Bar, and add to this eclectic mix a plate of well cooked chips and we have the strongest marriage of ingredients this side of chilli and tabasco. Then, if you're particularly indulgent, you'll have it splattered with tomato ketchup, salt with a side of chip-shop onion. If you're drooling over your keyboard and a small electric fire is imminent then my good friend, Jax is where you should next be heading.

In a town awash with eateries Jax is a welcome corner where Scottish grease-soaked food is prepared just the way we like- artery-choking fat in bucketloads, and then some. If you hold a Jax chip up to the sunlight you will be astounded to watch the fat drip off it for the next sixty seconds like it were subjected to an hour on the Foreman in a sauna on the face of the sun, leaving you with an empty shell of "potato" that's either reconstituted batter or something you dread to think of in detail. By comparison, the neighboring Ashvale is a mere French imitation, selling french fries with a beret and crying "zut alors, les Ecossais! Les Ecossais!"

The Ashvale is all very well, but ask yourself- can you feel the fat dribble down your chin? Chips that are so chunky and badder than a pot noodle on acid that you feel compelled to turn yourself into the police? The Ashvale closes at some insanely early time and is run by Scotland-hating facists, people who are twisted and steal money from orphanages and spend it on formulating ways to get less fish into their suppers while staying above EU standards. They charge you ridiculous prices at lunch time because they know they monopolize the East side, to wit: if you're in the PE department you can wave goodbye to a good lunch, for the canteen or horrendous queues loom, unless you run. We here at Scottish Boozing don't believe in physical exercise of any sort, as you may have gathered by this point.

So we've established that the Ashvale, while good in some respects, is a cheap knock off of the lofty Jax, but why?

To start, the owner is a genuinely decent chap. One time when I was thoroughly maulled he pulled up outside of Jax, and was about to enter. Before he could, however, I says to him "any chance of a free drink?" He turns to me, the clouds parting and a ray of sunshine illuminating his generous face, a symphony of angels singing latin hymns from above, and he searches his pockets. "Here, you shall drink tonight" he said, tapping my head, as I entered Jax in tow and bought myself a can of Irn Bru.*

Secondly although Jax isn't the best chipper in Scotland it's got a sizeable menu, and the food there isn't bad by my books. Reasonably priced, not too long a wait for food, good selection... yes, I'd say Jax is highly commendable! Although there are a few hags behind the till Jax do employ the occasionally banterous person, who'll happily add limitless amounts of vinegar to your meal should you request! A trick that Tom has exploited on many, many occasions.

If you click the "map" button you might also realise that Jax is ideally situated in the center of Ellon, making for short trips between pub and food. However, if you're confronted by a gang of neds (a common occurence when you venture "too close" to Fandangos) say the secret "aye ahmn awa tae Jhocks min" and they'll let you pass. Forget this though, and you have made a grave error. Their eyesight isn't very good (have they seen themselves in a mirror?) but they can hear a fight up to a mile away, so practice the voice. If in doubt, shove a fist in your mouth and practice the uneducated ned voice in front of a mirror, but don't forget to add "min" at the end of every sentence and try missing out key conjoining words. Stick with our preformed sentence, and you should pass.

There is no other way to brave Jax and live to tell the tale.

* Marginally distorted from the truth

Easter Break

2005-03-16T20:02:00.000Z

It's that time of the year again where I wrap up the loose ends and attempt to mentally prepare my sparse readership for another blogless spell. This 'vacation' is going to be as hard as ever, involving long working hours, trying to fit in daily training runs, juggling time spent between my friends and girlfriend, and also trying to do the coursework and reading that has been set for me. My parents say I "treat the house like a hotel", which is a fair analogy actually. It's not intentional; allow me to demonstrate a typical day at the Sports Camp:

6:30am Alarm goes
6:45am Slowly bring myself to get out of bed. The sound of my phone alarm is truly the worst sound in the world.
7:15am Leave the house having made my sandwiches, showered, done my hair, and thrown all the essentials in the car boot.
8:30am Arrive at King's if I'm lucky. Being in Cults, and given the Aberdeen traffic, the traffic fluctuations can cause you to be up to half an hour off-time depending on many conditions. 1hr driving is very optimistic, but luckily my co-workers understand why I'm sometimes quarter of an hour late (or even early).
12:30pm Unbelievably, I've been here for four hours already. In that time I have had one fifteen minute break, but to be fair it's not too bad if you pace yourself. Some days I'll just feel ready for bed at this point.
1:30pm Lunch is finished, but it's not your conventional lunch. I've eaten three sandwiches of cheese, ham, cucumber, onion and lettuce and then have two kitkats and about a litre of juice. Everyone comments on the shitload I eat, but I'm so busy it just takes it out of me. The kids sit in the same hall as us for supervision reasons, so you can't hear yourself think.
5:30pm It sounds so fast, but I've been up for 11 hours and working for 9 hours with kids. I'm shattered.
6:30pm It took me half an hour to drive as far as the Chris Anderson stadium thanks to the absurd rush-hour traffic. I do a 1mile warmup, a fast track session and a 1mile cool down. After standing on your feet all day, training can be a killer.
8:15pm Arrive home at last, usually have a meal cooked and ready for me. By the time I've showered and checked my Dominion ('tis the season) it's already 9 O'clock. If I'm particularly tired, I'll just watch a half hour of sky and go to bed.
9:15pm Arrive either at Leanne's or a friend's house, depending on what the plans are. I want to stay longer but most nights I can't keep my eyes open after half ten.
10:30pm Drive home. I've driven for over 3 hours today, and this is a standard day. I've become an aggressive commuter, diving between lanes and trigger-happy on the horn. I've come to love not having to drive when I get to Loughborough, oddly enough.
11:00pm A quick snack, watch a little bit of telly and then back to bed. I never get to sleep quickly, so I can expect a maximum of six to seven hours sleep before I do it all again tomorrow.

That's the condensed version of my days, I'll write a fuller account sometime during the holidays. Note how little time I have for coursework or any personal time, it really is one harsh month of solid work. The contrast to the sleepy days here in Loughborough is truly immense, it really is. Thankfully however when I'm on camp in summer I get the weekends off, which tend to be times for relaxing and recharging of the batteries, but when I'm at the Running Shop I'm often working weekends too. For the record, I'm working ten solid days at the running shop starting from next monday and then straight into the camp for four days and then back at the Running Shop. It's all good money though and I'll have plenty of time to lie in when I'm back in Loughborough.

So that's the work situation for you. I don't let it get in the way of socialising because I can catch up on lost sleep pretty quick if I get to bed early. The hardest part is having to adjust to the routine, once I'm in my stride it's okay. For the first week or so I just can't sleep, even when I'm tired, although I've always found it hard regulating sleep at short notice. At the end of last summer I was so monumentally fatigued, the hours had drained me and although I made a good deal of money I felt like I couldn't spend any of it as I had to be sensible for the coming year what with the house and all. This time however I realise that there's a nice amount of dosh growing in my account despite all the outgoing bills so I can afford myself that little bit more luxuries this holiday.

Sometimes last year I just slept over at Tete's in Aberdeen as it was a handy calling point in for when I was working. It meant I could do my training and be rested by about eight o'clock and wouldn't have to get up until almost an hour later such was the close proximity from Tete's to Cults Academy.

But enough about work, it's starting to depress me!

Coming home tends to fill me with mixed feelings. On the one hand it's nice being with your parents, to a small extent, and it is certainly really great meeting up with your old pals. However since leaving the nest, so to speak, I have come to enjoy the independence that being in a different country affords you. Even moving as far afield as Aberdeen would still have afforded me some level of independence, but I'm not someone that does things by halves. Living under your parents' roof is, how do I put this delicately, rather gay. It means being under constant scrutiny, having to justify yourself and your methods, having to conform to the elder-generation's standards and sleeping in a single bed. That last point might not apply to everyone but it applies to me and my room back home is about half the size of the one I have here. A minor gripe, in fact a rather narrow-minded one, but a gripe it remains.

The next time I blog it will likely be a sore rant about how hard I have it, or how going to the Moorings with a twenty-pound note is a recipe for retrograde amnesia. Either way I'll be suffering in the morning. I think I've outdone myself these past couple of months with the volume and originality of posts, so I'm going to take a well-deserved hiatus, for the time being at least. Have a wonderful Easter break everyone and take it easy. Your words, not mine ;)

The Ultimate Fifa Celebration

2005-03-14T22:27:00.000Z

How to showboat in your opponent's face Fifa-style, as demonstrated by our cleaning lady.

Your Missed Opportunity

2005-03-14T21:39:00.000Z

I'm sure you're all dying to hear the results of my little experiment. You're probably, rather naively, expecting a compendium of character faults that various people have submitted for my reading over the course of the ten days that have past since I posted that succinct article. The list would naturally include several key faults you yourself would admit to attributing to me, whether they bug the hell out of you or are minor grievances that you can otherwise put up with.

But alas, no such list is possible I'm afraid, for no one submitted any serious character faults. Not a single person. Judging by these conclusive results I am loved by one and all, seen as an ethereal being embodying all that it is to be perfect.

You could read it that way, or you could look deeper and unearth what, I suspect, is the truth.

I fazed you. I called your bluff. The truth of the matter is that people are extremely adverse to confrontation, unless, of course, they can do so anonymously. I tried to make it as simple and as easy as I possibly could by eliminating the usual factors that hold people back from speaking their mind. I made it so that you were not mislead whatsoever into thinking that I was seeking a balanced argument of any sort, just a few gripes is all I asked. You were not put on the spot which is another contributing factor to why people are sometimes muted when there is something they clearly want to say. The most compelling point is that you did not even have to tell me in person; a nice, faceless email that you could write and edit at your own leisure was the method I opted for. Besides the issue of anonymity, there is nothing more I could have done to coaxe you into getting your most frank confessions off your chest.

I'm happy about that.

It makes me feel good that I'm not hiding under a rock, praying that people think favourably of me. I asked you directly under the most agreeable circumstances I could imagine and yet, after a full ten days and 400 hits later, my mailbox was empty of any serious challenge. Why?

It is human nature to reassure themselves by confirming negative opinion of others with their peers. This social interaction can be of a malicious bent, tarnishing the reputation of others whilst cowardly spinning lies behind their target's back. The shameful spiral, while sometimes harmless, can cause deep-ingrained hatred or dislike of another and transfer onto gullible, easily-led others. General opinion or perception of others is not as self-motivated as you may believe, in fact, our majority perceptions have been shaped at some stage by virtue of information divulged by others either positive or negative. One example is to look at famous figures you have never encountered. We all have opinions of Paris Hilton, Wayne Rooney and Mother Teresa, but how many of us have ever had the chance to encounter these people personally? It would take a very foolish and brash person to assert that their opinions are their own with no influence or bias from others.

All this is fairly self-evident. Even people we know well can be categorised by certain MCD's (membership categorisation devices) for example, that ridiculous Poulet Tete. We may interpret his current actions as being ridiculous simply because a select few people have previously categorised (rightly or wrongly) that Tete is an exceedingly ridiculous person. Whether we acknowledge it or not we all have personalities that are pretty much defined by others, again, either rightly or wrongly. I could talk all day about misperceptions and their social connotations but I don't want to insult your intelligence. All I need to convey is that by bitching people can pick up and maintain a very biased opinion of someone, and if that is the case with me, I'm one of the few who'd want to know about it and who it is coming from.

However, my little experiment failed. With a response rate of zero, to call it a "failure" is a flattery too exceptional for this dismally poor excursion. I know there are things you don't like about me, as there are also things I dislike about you. It comforts me though that these gripes are so small, so seemingly insignificant, that you would rather spare your blushes and save 'face' than go through the social irritation of confrontation. To wit: there may be minor issues, but nothing especially noteworthy. And that makes me a happy lad :)

Although if I'm being fair, people who read this site shouldn't intensely dislike me on the whole. Having said that, if some ned fucker like Chappy posted a similar article (along with all the atrocious spelling errors one might expect) I would have typed up and mailed an exhaustive list before the page had even finished loading. I made the outing as fair as possible, even taunting you at the end, so no one could accuse me of shielding myself from the truth.

A lot can be read into this, far more than I could hope to cover in the limited time I have to type this. You've had your chance to put me back in my place and have your moment of glory on the front page, if you want to get it out in the open now it's just going to have to be to my face. I know that can be a daunting task for anyone, but don't say I haven't been fair in giving you an easier option.

It sounds very confrontional I admit, and that's because it is. I myself realise this is all coming off a little 'overly aggressive.' I have no major problems with anyone and for once I think I can say with some conviction that I am entirely happy with all the friends that I have. Sure, some ties have been skimmed along the way, as you might expect with moving six-hundred miles away, but since coming to Loughborough the net gains have been immense. You only need to look at the photos below to realise that, and even then there is only one of my five house mates and associated friends present (my good pal Juan, the legendary Comedy Williamson and Parrsy who was so drunk he didn't get let into Echos, amongst others who sadly didn't make the final cut for lack of film exposure). Those who I've lost contact with are still great banter when we cross paths on nights out, and the lack of communications is most certainly not down to any ill feeling whatsoever.

So while this all may sound a little too belligerent for your liking, fear not everyone. It was necessary to eliminate the experimental artefact that you all mistook my genuine challenge as jest, although a couple didn't seem to read it as I intended and wrote simply "you smell". I will endeavour to work on my odour issues.

Believe me, things are going swimmingly right now so I'll take the silence on a positive note as a sign that things are fine. I intend to post one more blog before I go home on the friday, where it'll be off to Snail's flat for pre-night out brews and the rest spent in a drunken haze between the Moorings and Tiger Tiger for Shaw's birthday. There is a relief, I'm sure you'll relate to, that no confrontation was necessary. It's something we humans do exceptionally well: eluding harmful consequences. The ability to keep quiet is about the most well-trained ego-preserving device taught from birth. The ability to speak your mind, I'm certain you'll all note, almost always comes with it consequences. Sometimes, it's better just to keep quiet.

Random Thoughts 2

2005-03-12T00:02:00.000Z

I did an unstructured post like this a while back and while it may not have been particularly memorable, I enjoyed it. So much so in fact that I've decided to give it a re-run, for old time's sake. Cluttered thoughts, therefore, follow below:

First up is something that has been nagging and annoying me for a considerable time now. You see, every thursday I have a delightful lecture entitled "Biological Basis Of Behaviour." Now, having never studied psychology, you can imagine the degree of suckage this poses to me. The lecturer is a muttering, fast-talking cunt who utters technical (hence, important) words under his breath so that it sounds like "and you can see here the hrummphidic portion of the..." like we're supposed to know that the hell he's babbling on about. It leads to highly unsatisfactory notes that are useful only to those with chronic dyslexia and a very unfulfilling, and yes, boring, two hours. But I endure it and what's more I attempt to scrawl what little notes I can out of it.

My coursemate, who I will call Tutmoses The Third for reasons of anonymity, does none of this however. Oh no, Tutmoses invariably gives up approximately five minutes into the lecture. Rather than sit quietly or fall asleep, Tutmoses proceeds to doodle on the back of her folder for the following one hour and fifty-five minutes.

Tutmoses is of the inclination that we are still in primary school. Tutmoses does not realise that we can, in fact, leave the lecture at any given point. Nor does she realise that we are not obliged to attend any lectures, and declines the opportunity to simply not come in at nine o'clock in the morning. Does our lecturer, or indeed, any lecturer keep a sheet of attendance? Oh wait- no they don't! Is it because we're not in high school? Oh yes, I think it is!

It pisses me right off. While I'm trying to decipher Mr Babbles-a-lot's boring shit about how the inner organs function, out the corner of my eye is some bored primary school kid scribbling lots of stupid boxes and little doodles that are pointless and counter-productive to her learning. The extent of pointlessness is a degree that I cannot hope to explain. I mean, why draw "TUTMOSES" in three dimensions? No one passes exams by embossing their own first name, and no amount of doodling irrelevant cartoons is going to get you greater than a 3/1 "pass."

Now I'm a tactful person, and I don't want to sour my relationship with my friends. So after the first lecture I said, jokingly, "hey, you'd have been better staying in bed than coming to this lecture!" Tutmoses replied "heh, yeah!"

Job done.

Except, not. She has been doing this for the past few weeks and no matter how many hints I drop she doesn't get it. It's like she hears what she wants to, literally. After five minutes of placid introduction the lecturer finally musters up the sufficient levels of tedium to engage in the first slide, which corresponds exactly to the point Tutmoses switches off. Last week she drew up some stupid grid for a full hour and started playing herself at boxes. Oh, geez, Tutmoses, you must be really bored! If you're so bored why don't you go home and frig your snatch for a few hours and leave me alone? It annoys me a lot, so much so that I'm just gonna go off and repress it now and deal with it through my own patented methods of forceful forgetting. If you're gonna doodle, do it where I either can't hear it for two long hours or just don't show up. 'Nuff said.

Sticking with psychology, what is the deal with the naive perception that psychology students are continually psychoanalysing people? It's something of a running joke in the industry, both Molly and Anissia said to me straight "dude I get that all the time!" when I presented a new msn name simply stating "I'm a psychology student, that means I'm psychoanalysing you RIGHT NOW!" It's a stereotype so misinformed it makes me want to cringe, was there some cult comic that stereotyped psychologists that I missed? Perhaps a comedy starring John Cleese as a wannabe-psychologist who continually tried to analyse folk with disastrous consequences? The fact of the matter is that psychoanalysis relies on a regimented and reinforced procedure delving into a person’s personal background, not on making a fleeting deduction of a person's character. Everyone analyses parts of people's psyche: it is not restricted to those in a given profession. If it were, only psychologists would be able to maintain an opinion of persons based on what they know. So don't make a moron of yourself by confronting me, thinking unrightly that as a psychology student I am actively and continually making mental notes on your behaviour, and just accept that everyone does it as part of their everyday schema.

The next random thought concerns good causes. I'm all for giving to charity, as a member of the first world, I feel it necessary to make me feel better about myself and give myself a leg in an argument regarding poverty and inequality. But there are limits as to what I will or won't do for this short-lived feeling of "doing good." Being wacky is not what I do, not for charity, not for nobody. I'm kind of like Gareth from the Office in that respect; I believe in helping others, but not by making a fool of myself. If I'm going to give to the poor, I don't need to do it through some crazily-dressed wacky colourful person with a bucket for collections. If you're going to ask for money, conduct yourself with some dignity.

"Ohh, Star, you're not in the spirit of the occasion!"

Yes I am. People are starving and dying of aids in Africa, why joke about it? Why should some clown who decides to spend twenty-four hours in a bath full of baked beans suddenly compel me to depart with my cash? Why should a live performance by McFly (can we really not do any better?) make me put money towards the poor kids in Africa? It's prostitution, and I dislike it. If I see someone in the street asking to donate to a worthy cause, I'll happily give, but why should we have this yearly coaxation of funds through celebrity degradation? I care not if Cat Deely gets "gunked" or not, give us some proper entertainment. I think I just dislike family-friendly viewing, I'm at that age, so I'm entitled to. Seeing a bunch of smug-faced grinning celebrities getting gunked with goo or partaking in wacky activities is not what I pay my license to see, and certainly isn't my primary reason for donating to charity.

Man, I'm turning into a grumpy old git.

Elsewhere, I've gone back to the state of saturation I reached just before Christmas and no doubt at other times during this blog's history too. Things I enjoyed so much have, well, just been overdone to the point of saturation really. We all became masters of Mario Kart, we realised we'd gone too far when Jibba obtained a perfect 160-point score (out of 160) in the all-star mirror-mode cup 150cc- something I simply couldn't be arsed doing. I achieved some obscene times in time trial, most notably over Yoshi Circuit, DK Mountain and Baby Park, and the computer generally couldn't touch us. So we dumped Mario Kart.

However for every minute spent on Mario Kart, we must have spent two or three on Fifa. Even Omar, who comes round about twice a week, became an absolute legend at Fifa just by virtue of playing us every time he was round. We have slowly begun to realise that Fifa is as much luck as it is skill, but it took hundreds of gameplay hours to finally prove this beyond dispute. Just when we thought we had done everything, I finally hit the Mecca of Fifa- scoring just after the half-way line. It was a fucking peach of a shot, and one that I tried literally thousands of times. "You'll never do it!" the nay-sayers cried, endless times, but yet I persisted. Then, in a moment of utter finesse, I bypassed Tom's entire midfield, defence and goalkeeper by striking at a 30 degrees angle I reckon to the perpendicular about 60 metres from the goalmouth with Saviola of Argentina. It just was such a peach of a shot, striking the underside of the crossbar and deflecting into the goal. After these countless hours, I can now say I have graduated from the school of Fifa.

It reminds me of the glorious days of ISS, but that's another story altogether.

I've seen all the South Park, Futurama, Simpsons, Family Guy and Red Dwarf that I care to see. All that is left is the occasional update (new South Park came out on thurs) and weeklies like Desperate Housewives and a few others I can't be bothered to mention. Even pool at Riley's is getting stale after I six-balled Mr Lawrence, narrowly missing out on the granny in the process (lucky bastard). Juan is always good banter though, so we're gonna play tomorrow. It only kills so many hours, but it's better than not playing pool I guess.

I've even taken to watching rugby. Rugby! A sport I admittedly think is horribly shit and unnecessarily stop-start, but I have taken to watching during these Six Nations, so I now have a minimal appreciation of the rather homosexual man-piling sport. It was entertaining watching England lose their first three games, I'm going to watch Scotland play Wales in the pub on Sunday. Let's hope they don't humiliate themselves. About six months ago I wouldn't have cared, but this is just how things are... unfortunately. It always turns out this way at this point of the year, that's why they programme in the rugby at this time to try and win over some new fans.

Exams are far away and coursework is even further away. Besides attending lectures, what else is a student supposed to do? I've been doing the reading and attending the lectures, I've been a good boy this year. My exams kinda fucked up again last year, I have no idea what the problem is in all honesty. I'm doing my best but I'm still hovering around the 60% mark. Sigh. Hopefully it'll all click together but I can live with a 2/1, I still don't know what I want to be. I just got a phone call from Cletus so that's always positive (the whole Cletus Cam malarkey blew over, you'll be happy to know).

During the holidays I'm going to be working like a motherfucker, yet again. So that this doesn't crop up in a search term and I don't get fired for the fourth time, I'm going to refer to my vocations as Running Shop and Sports Camp. I'm working in Running Shop for three weeks hopefully, I worked over 100 hours for them during Christmas and am hoping they can offer a similar number over Easter because the bills are piling up and I'm still lacking in financial funds. It's a bitch getting up at 7:30 and getting home for 6:00, doing training, seeing my girlfriend or friends for an hour then getting up at 7:30, but if it means financial security, so be it. I love being able to order a takeaway, buy what the fuck I want within reason knowing it's all paid for, so I'll live with the long hours. Besides, all my friends work during the day, so I'm not missing out on anything.

The Camp will be especially torturous this year as I've opted for what they call "Extra Time." It means getting in at 8:30 and working until 5:30, which, believe me, is a long day when you're working with kids. It suits me far more though because due to the dodgy rush-hour traffic of Aberdeen, I have to get in for 8:30 anyway to avoid the traffic or leave my house fifteen minutes later (I'm not shitting you) and arrive for 9:30. It's just how it works, so it really does benefit me even though I have to hang around for an hour after camp finishes. Besides, what's there to do between 6:00-7:00pm anyway?

During camp hours I'll be on a rate of ?50/day and during Running Shop hours ill be on approximately ?35/day rate. Not so bad all in all actually, at least it gives me something to do during the day. I appreciate now how long and tiresome the days can be when you have nothing to do, and if you ask me, I wouldn't mind earning a few quid rather than just laying about the house. The problem is if I go for a job now I'll be too busy in Loughborough when I get back after Easter to maintain it, especially given the fact I train six days per week for athletics!

It may come across as a curse just now, but I bet I'll be pining for a day to myself come a fortnight's time when I'm waking myself at 6:45am to deal with a bunch of intolerable kids.

Published Writer

2005-03-09T15:43:00.000Z

Put The Knives Away
	However statistically accurate RM Jones' letter (Letters, Feb 23rd) may have been, the tone in which he replied, I felt, was unnecessarily vehement and defensive towards what was merely an opinion. Such an intense knee-jerk reaction is enough to frighten even the most ardent and well-meaning reader into keeping quiet for fear of a Jones-esque lambaste! I am not a qualified coach, nor am I particularly talented athlete, but I never realised I had to be a double Olympic champion to have a discernable opinion on the theoretical sub two-hour marathon. Exaggerations aside, it was disappointing that Stan		Greenberg's comments were belittled and made to seem absurd especially from a man who is clearly well educated. There is a degree of tact and subtlety missing from many of these letters, usually resulting in tiresome mud-slinging across issues. AW appeals to all, but I can't help but notice the letters page being the reserve for elitist know-it-alls who misconstrue well-intended comments as some form of personal attack. Judging by AW's comment a fortnight ago, I am not alone in feeling despair at the discord and lack of diplomacy shown each week on the letters page. Alan Wales, Loughborough

If there's one thing guaranteed to get you a free prize, it's taking a hardline moral stance in a weekly magazine.

As a student I'm always on the lookout for freebies no matter how utterly lame and useless they may seem for a freebie is exactly that: something for nothing. Usually freebies tend to be shitty keyrings or other heavily marketed cheapo "goods" that serve very little functional value and tend to be destined for the bin or, if no bin is in proximity, the floor. Freebies are generally disliked by most, especially the hoards of free newspapers that are laden with adverts for local produce. It's quite handy of them to deliver our bog roll bi-weekly though, even if the print does leave a black residue on your ass which occasionally transfers onto your boxers. Still, it's free, and that's what is important.

So when I noticed that my beloved Athletics Weekly were dishing out free Coolmax Endurance t-shirts, I just had to get me in on that action. I sat on the idea for a while until one afternoon, when the treasured weekly popped through the mailbox, I read a letter that simply needed a suitably worded response.

You see, my unenlightened readership, the letters page in AW is more often than not a battleground for supreme righteousness where if you can't win the moral victory by virtue of a well-worded and balanced argument, you can almost certainly floor your opposition by either citation of significant coaches or by complex number-crunching. These techniques give credence to any argument, a phenomenon long known to discourse analysts whereby any argument which is supported by outside opinion/knowledge is given credence beyond calculation. Even quotes that don't make any sense can turn arguments, so long as the person you are quoting has historical authority.

The bickering can last several months to the point where the original argument is but a distant memory. Kind of like internet arguments, except that the mediator tends to be the editor who has final say over which letters get printed and which don't. Out of all the magazines I have ever read, AW is about the only where I can genuinely say that they endeavour to print letters that both seriously criticise and condemn their publication. There is no bias whatsoever, and I'm sure there are many who appreciate the honestly displayed by the editor to print accusatory letters.

Normally I wouldn't get involved in the trifle and usually inconsequential quarrels of the few old timers, but there was a damned good t-shirt at stake. It was time to take the gloves off and really throw myself into the fray, hopefully emerging one t-shirt the better.

The moral hardline would be simply to play the role of unimpressed observer who would have to shield one Stan Greenberg from the barrage of abuse he sustained from the clearly malcontent RM Jones (yes, the illustrious Jones). In reality I have no beef with either side, and quite enjoy reading the tactless bickering that many enjoy as a weekly pursuit. However, you don't win t-shirts by being a gutless fence-sitter, so I had to dive in head-first and commit myself.

The resultant letter has been reproduced above. In all honestly I wondered whether it would even get printed or not, but I'd rather it wasn't printed than make 'ordinary' letter status. Thankfully the latter was not the case, and I can now look forward to one medium-sized Coolmax t-shirt in the near future. I would share the goods with the two men who without their help none of this would be possible, but I'm just too damned selfish.

Whether there is a response or not I doubt highly. The letter was coyly written to make any attack at the helpful mediator contradict my assertion and make everything I said about petty bickering ring embarrassingly true. If all has gone to plan I've nicked myself a free t-shirt without becoming a part of the war in itself. If the oldtimer fraternity do decide to turn on me, you'll find me cowering underneath my letterbox in a motionless brace position.

Phillip The Easy-Going Fish

2005-03-08T14:24:00.000Z

Phillip's Penthouse: Dubiously Offcolour

What's your favourite pet and why? Do you prefer a pet that can, seemingly, show affection and love? A cuddly pet? Or an ornamental pet, like small reptiles?

Pets are naturally an extension of a person's personality, so making a decision to purchase an animal is no small undertaking as there are just so many different kinds to choose from. Dogs and felines generally tend to be higher-maintenance pets than, say, rodents or small animals. With training they can be rewarding pets that show love and dependency towards the owner on some level, although the more cynically minded will claim their affection is a mere reciprocation for food and warmth. With cats this is especially the case- they walk around like they own the place, deserting the owner during most hours returning only momentarily to feed before scarpering off again like the selfish ingrates they clearly and demonstrably are. They are a manipulative and excessively self-interested animal manifesting all the negative affect of a spoilt rich kid, looking at you with their calculating beady-eyes, smugly satisfied with how easy they have it. It pisses me right off, there's nothing like wiping the smirk off a cat's face and putting it back in its place.

Sorry, I got sidetracked a bit there.

Then you have the winged beasts like parrots and budgerigars that have limited appeal to anyone who is not eligible for pension support. Caging pets is always going to be a mute point for some activists, so denying birds of the ability to fly is surely... a little mean, really. It's kind of akin to pulling the legs off a daddy-long-legs and getting a perverse pleasure out of it. Birds tend to be a nice talking point until some wise-ass trains their parrott up to either make you look like a fool or just repeat "you're a cock! You're a cock!" ad finem. You can't beat a parrot in an argument, and even if you did you'd look stupid and everyone would big up the parrot like he was some comedy genius and it would be like being in the playground all over again. Losing a verbal contest to a parrot is both humiliating and degrading so if he starts making it personal just sit at the side and throw coins at him through the bars with velocity.

Small animals like hamsters and gerbils are fine to a point depending on what your needs are. They eat, sleep and run about when you take them out, and caring for them can be therapeutic and relaxing so long as you didn't buy a gerbil because those little bastards never sit still long enough for you to find inner peace. They're kinda cute, the ugly ones get left behind in the pet shop, and don't question who you are or why you haven't got a job yet. Nope, those little tykes will always be there for you through the good and bad times and will become the most reliable friends you have. Just don't substitute their love for a girlfriend's, because that sort of love is illegal or at least strongly frowned upon. I haven't consulted the law on it yet.

Then you have the ornamental pets like geckos and fish. The former tends to be the reserve of angry punk rockers who see a part of themselves in their resisting, uncooperative pets, and the latter the domain of rich people or old ladies and even rich old ladies. Fish are a versatile pet being the only legally edible pet to my knowledge, meaning that their existence is forever on a knife-edge. One wrong move little fishy and it's vinaigrette for you.

Yet despite this little bonus James has decided not ever to eat his pet fan-tail fish, which makes James' decision to buy a fish all the more confounding.

It kind of just swims around all day, never appearing to need any sleep. Once a day a few droplets of fish food are peppered over the surface of the water and little phillip "the ~~killer~~ laidback fish" fishson gets to nibble away at his daily intake of soggy food. It's the kind of routine hum-drum activity phillip would have come to expect of his new owner, if his memory wasn't limited to a three-second cycle.

Because of phillip's preposterously small memory capacity his life revolves around swimming circles round the bowl being constantly surprised. He spends his days taking in the sights, forgetting them, and then three seconds later being knocked back again at the beautiful scenery. Phillip just sort of exists doing nothing, going laps in his bowl and feeding occasionally. It's an enviable life actually, and you have to wonder if Phillip, for all his cognitive disadvantages, is happier than any of us with our fancy newfangled "consciousness" and "emotions." Phillip has no reason to be anything other than infinitely happy as he is fully catered for and never suffers boredom due to his small memory. To phillip, everything is a brand new never-before-seen experience. It's like being locked in a boundless funfair with limitless amounts of money.

As a living, breathing ornament phillip fits the bill perfectly. He glubs around the bowl with a vacant expression on his face, sometimes darting around, sometimes lethargically floating in middle water, unsure almost exactly what he wants to do next. I tried to teach him to say "da-da" but he turned his back on me, the giant ogre face seemingly disturbing him with what he probably heard as the water-distorted "blurrgh-blurrgh!"

I like phillip. He's a tranquil entity just going about his own business, free from the turmoil and bustle of the wider world outside his bowl. Phillip is the fish's fish, and he doesn't pretend to be anything he isn't. He'll never procreate but he won't care, he's the lovable loser we can all relate to and that's what makes us love him. He doesn't bugger off once you've fed him, he doesn't give you stick, he doesn't treat you like a moron or make you feel like an idiot. He's just a tap-water fish who swims with a swagger and does what he feels like, and we can all learn a lesson from phillip.

As far as pets go, phillip is one cool motherfucker. Phillip is a metaphor for life, sometimes we forget it's the small things that really make life enjoyable. Floating about his aquatic world, phillip proves that sometimes the simple things in life are the best. You can try your best to faze him but he'll just swim it off and forget it ever happened. Nothing you can do will faze phillip or stop him making the most of the situation. If phillip were a guy, he'd surely be lying on a sun lounger on a far-away Caribbean beach sipping pimms and lemonade, watching the sun dawn on the harmonious ocean with only the sounds of the sea as company.

Photos

2005-03-06T16:25:00.000Z

Your Golden Opportunity

2005-03-05T00:44:00.000Z

This might sound peculiar but I think it would be an interesting angle to go with. I want you to tell me the absolute worst thing about me, the things you hate the most, the things you bitch to your friends about but would never say to my face. I want you to unreservedly take shots at me, but don't waste my time with anonymous comments (as many of you cowards, I know, would opt for); make it personal with no regards for my feelings. Don't hold back. I can take it.

Once the corpus of data is in I will centre a blog around them and hopefully learn to be a better person, but I can't do that while you craven pussies keep bitching behind my back. This is your big chance to get it off your chest so take it with both hands. Go nuts. Hit me where it hurts.

Email fluent85@hotmail.com with your most heartfelt grievances. If you don't do it now then forever hold your peace, you recreant wuss. Prove to yourself you've got the balls for it's too easy to bitch and whine when the subject has no chance to respond. Now's your chance so either take it or just shut the fuck up and keep it to yourself in future.

The Ipod

2005-03-04T13:31:00.000Z

Bleepblog don't really see the Ipod for what it is

It seems like I've pressed a button with a lot of people that I shouldn't have. The Ipod is a very tender issue, and I know you want me to retract what I said. On the Scottish Boozing forums I got this lovely and eloquently written complaint from a certain Johnny Goode:

I have an iPod and I would say it is one of the best things i have ever bought. For a start it allows a multitude of sub-folders ( just like a hard drive) - to reinforce this I have most of my desktop hardrive backed up in the same file structure as it is on my desktop. Correct me if I'm wrong but the PSP only allows Sony's signature file extension meaning no more MP3's and any song you want to use has to be downloaded from the sony site (more money!). I'll agree it has an array of features but for the person just wanting to listen to music what use is playing a game I ask you?

To save me from running round in circles, I'm just going to paste my argument:

Firstly- get your facts straight. Read this article (or Google's cache):

"Following Sony's recent discovery that people have large MP3 music libraries, the PSP will support MP3 for audio playback as well as Sony's own ATRAC format"

Also, I find it ironic that an Ipod user should complain about Sony's service when the Ipod forces you to use the rather crap Itunes. To me it seems like a tradeoff with neither side looking the better. Also Sony are releasing a hard-drive to accompany flash-based memory (currently up at a Gig => more than enough), so really, what does the Ipod do that is so special?

You cannot hope to appreciate the PSP fully until you see it in action. The screen is absolutely incredible and plays DVD quality movies, which is substantially better than the Ipod already. Add to the fact that the PSP is technically as powerful as the Playstation two and you really start to appreciate what a technical marvel it is. And, here's another one in the eye to you Ipod goons, it is wirelessly internet enabled. The whole package is just so many years ahead of the Ipod I find incredible that you're trying to (and failling to) find any real counter argument.

You can listen to music, show photos, play DVD quality movies and play computer games to the standard of current home consoles.

Apple have gone rotten. The aesthetics are up to you to decide- I personally find it bland and empty, totally devoid of any personality. If I was you I'd be pretty gutted too spending so much money on something that is already so monumentally outdated.

My dad got a free MP3 player with his Virgin bank account. To be perfectly honest, and with the capacity issue aside, I couldn't find one reason for him to spend ?200 to get the same thing with an Apple logo on it.

If you have another side of the argument, feel free to vent it here.

Future Perfect?

2005-03-04T13:23:00.000Z

It dawned on me; what happens when I look back at this blog in the distant future? Or, for that matter, if anyone else does? The mind boggles at what they might read or think about this, mistaking it as a rigidly factual documentation of my life. I can confidently predict that none of the images will be present (unless you're viewing this from my backup) and you won't be able to read this using existing or current technology. The majority of my blogs, like the one below, are based on a shred of truth and distorted for comedic effect. I did spend sixty pounds on two books (the pound sterling still exists in the future, right?) but the bookshop was unlike either extreme I portrayed. It was just an ordinary bookshop but I felt it necessary to characterise it from the perspective of happy or angry Al for dramatic effect. Besides that, my attitude really is an intense dislike of books at age nineteen. I wonder if I'll ever grow to enjoy books... only time will tell.

I want to make a brief account of what I perceive to denominate a fair depiction of life between 2000-2005 from my point of view before I stick my neck out and make bold predictions of what the future holds.

Currently Tony Blair is Prime Minister, the Queen is still alive and regrettably in Monarchic power, and the average man earns circa ?20-25,000 per annum and the World's richest man is either the Sultan of Brunei or the co-founder of Microsoft Bill Gates, who is reputed to be worth in the region of eight billion pounds. As yet we still have no contact with extraterrestrial life forms, we don't know how the dinosaurs died or how the Universe began; in short, there are still many, many great unanswered questions to be resolved. The average household PC has specs in the region of 2 gigahertz, 40 gigabyte hard drive and is broadband or modem (56kbs) equipped. Radio is still auditory, terrestrial television has five channels, the common household has a washing machine, dishwasher and fridge/freezer. Homosexuals have become more accepted figures in society in the past decade, Scotland has just recently built its own Parliament, Rangers are top of the SPL with Celtic a close second and Chelsea are nine points clear of the Premiership. Current health scares are mainly cancers and circulatory diseases, class A and B drugs are all illegal, recreational drugs have been declassified but cannot be bought in a shop and the rate of alcohol abuse in Britain is at an all-time high. The big three in computer games, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo all have 128-bit machines out, Britain's favourite soaps are Eastenders and Coronation Street and, finally, the Independent, Guardian and the Sun are amongst the highest-grossing daily newspapers. Video has been phased out for DVD, the Asian tsunami killed hundreds of thousands of people and hip-hop is one of the major categories of popular music.

How interesting would it be to read an Egyptian take on pre-AD life? That's the angle I'm going for anyway with this article, as pointless as it may seem at this present moment, so bear with it.

The past century has seen incredible advances in technology and attitudinal changes, witnessed two world wars and generally altered beyond belief since the start of the 1900s as my ninety-nine year old great Aunt will more than happily tell you in exhaustive detail. In fact, I remember in school using an Archimedes 8-bit computer to publish a word-processed document which was printed on an old black-and-white dot-matrix printer. Even in my short existence radical changes have occurred is what I'm getting at.

So what does the future hold? I'm not talking about the foreseeable future, I'm thinking big here. I'm talking sixty to seventy years in the future during the decade 2070 where I'll be over eighty-five. If you're reading this in 2070 through some archaic primitive Pentium One you peddled off a beggar in Ethiopia, I hope the written word hasn't been surpassed entirely by visual forms of communication. The layout and design may be embarrassingly retro to you, but I hope the appreciation of literary aptitude hasn't left you completely. I hope you're living the dream too because given your upbringing you really have no excuse not to be living comfortably. Most importantly I hope I'm not dead by 2070, and if I am, I hope this is a fitting and lasting tribute to me as a person. If I'm still blogging by 2070 then goddamn that's a shitload of words, but to be perfectly honest if I keep this up past five years I'll be mightily impressed. To make it this far is an achievement I never thought imaginable, but the recurring theme prevails that no one knows what the future holds for them.

If it sounds like I'm talking to myself it is because I am. Can you communicate with your future self? You should try it. Sixty years down the line it's gonna creep the bejesus out of me, but you need the initiative to boldly write it first and overcome the stigma of essentially going through the first stage of clinical madness.

It is time now to polish off my crystal ball and pen the most likely and fanciful future I can imagine at age nineteen. Whether any of it turns out to be true remains, of course, to be seen.

Global Future (post-2070):

* Handwriting will still exist in under-developed countries but will gradually be phased out by electronic forms of communications. Although British kids will still be taught how to write, reminders, literature, essays and all non-verbal communications will primarily be electronic. Voice recognition technology will be advanced to the point where typing becomes obsolete and all our communications can be transferred immediately by a global network. Mobile phones will resemble ear sockets that project an image by some manner so it is perceived by the individual and no one else. Thus, incoming messages will be told into the ear much like email currently, leading to an integrated sensory record between people.

* Cars will be fully automated using a technology similar to GPS meaning that traffic accidents will drastically be reduced to next to zero. Needless to say retards will still walk the planet, so we can't hold out for a completely death-free traffic existence until a Eugenics movement is finally imposed (not until well after 2100). You will simply state your destination and the car will take you there as quickly and safely as possible. Also transport will inevitably rely on some form of non-fossilised energy source, possibly solar, but as yet it's impossible to know for certain.

* There will still be a low/middle and upper class, but the low will be less disadvantaged as history has continuously dictated. The middle will be able to afford sophisticated possessions and the material wealth of people will be considerably higher due to ever-lowering costs of production. African nations will still be impoverished, alas, but the problem of African debt will not sort itself out for many, many centuries.

* The PC brigade will continue to chip away at the fabric of society, meaning that more gays will be in the media and religious tolerance will be at the point where Muslim women are considered sex symbols. Needless to say the majority will still lead diverse lives but certain practices we enjoyed in the twentieth century will be abolished. That means no more industrial waste, CS gasses, personal privileges (there will be controls over what you eat) etc.

* All drugs will become legal. In the past drugs were illegal due to an historical oversight on behalf of the Government, but spying a chance to appease drug users and place a hefty tax sometime between now and 2070 drugs will become legal. The cultural taboo will be lifted and taking drugs will be no more frowned upon than drinking coffee or eating Madeline cake. At the same time alcohol will still be readily available, probably more watered down and 'woman-friendly' than ever. I hasten to add, alcohol will be indistinguishable from fruit juice.

* The feminism of men begins. Already jewellery on men is more than acceptable (I have a gold chain and bracelet, so I'm not one to judge negatively), men are becoming more image conscious and in 2070 men will be as paranoid and conscious of their image as women are today. The desire to be hairless will be prevalent and men will talk in smooth tones and use a multitude of toiletries. Of all the points, I feel this is one of the most probable yet unbelievable.

* The pound will be no more. Perhaps not replaced by the Euro, but there is a nagging feeling that the currency we exchange will not the common pound. The dollar, perhaps?

* Houses will look similar on the outside but inside there will be a greater investment in integrated appliances and "bubble" decor. Furniture will be completely ergonomic with curved aesthetics and technology, as I've already predicted, will be intertwined with our being and fit around our lifestyle. Television, if it still exists, will be akin to a plasma screen in the wall that operates by voice entirely or, if we want to be ultra science fiction, mental thoughts. But don't hold out for that last one.

* Music will operate much like point one at the earpiece, and will not differ drastically to modern music. Forget this futuristic techno shite, the emphasis will be melodic tunes that are attuned to your personal emotions. Music will not be static anymore but adjustable to what you want to hear at a given moment. Sound ridiculous? You just wait for dynamic music to happen. It's the future.

* Work will be more scientific with regular breaks and the 20th century plague of "stress" will be thing of the past. Incidentally in Japan there is no concept of "stress" for humanistic reasons, it is only a matter of time before the factors attributing stress are finally removed in the west.

* Continental travel will be readily available to all, leading to much greater cultural diversity. Caravan holidays will become obsolete and tenting will also simply be another outdated pursuit, giving way to holidays in the sun, which should be affordable to all.

* Robots will have realistic bipedal movement and will be advanced to the point of being able to hold a convincing conversation. At this point they won't be able to simulate intricate human actions but will be able to perform tasks like ironing, washing dishes and placing the dried dishes accordingly.

* The Internet will be no more but its successor will build on the principles that began the internet. Instead, the worldwide sensory store will do everything the internet does like communicate (news, between people, information etc), arrange meetings and involve all the senses, not just hearing and sight. Wherever you move you will be constantly connected to the exchange.

* Dreams will a recordable and playable media. Whether the dreams are converted a video state or not is a possibility, but more likely (to me anyway) the playback mechanism will be a vivid memory like state. This way complete discresion is assured and the headache of trying to convert mental images into physical images is avoided.

* In mild contrast to the above point you will be able to take snapshots or even videos of what you see through your eyes. This means that no will have ignorance as a defence for a continuous video of what people saw will always be readily available. These videos (or perhaps stills, depending on how science has advanced) will become a biographical account of everyone's personal lives, preventing lying and giving birth to a 100% infallible justice system. Besides legal applications, having an 'always-on' video to life is an immeasurably handy tool; the possibilities are actually endless.

Personal Future:

* I guess I'd better start with the obvious. If all goes smoothly I'd like to marry in my early thirties but I'm a realist, so I'm going to forecast I marry at age 37 to a woman who I met at a group of some kind, most likely a work group. In time we'll have (pick a number...) three kids who will attend a state school and we'll live in a detached house in a respectable suburb.

* Is it grim to predict deaths? This might not be easy reading for some readers so if you are of a delicate inclination please, read no further. It's not often I give forewarning of sensitive issues, but I know curiosity will implore you to continue whether you don't want to know what I think or do. Reading further is not advisable, so heed the warning.

My mother will die before my father. That is no reflection of character whatsoever but a morbid, nagging, and immensely saddening thought. History wise the females from both sides have always outlived the males (sometimes by several decades) and my mother is in far better, how do I put this, 'physical shape' than my father. He'd acknowledge the risks he is running from his current lifestyle with cholesterol and blood-pressure levels reaching the dangerous, but I know he has a hell of a lot longer to go yet, as do both of them. It's just a gut feeling, and don't ask me to justify it because I can't. However long it takes, when one of them pass away it will not be long before the other follows. I guess that's a bizarre testimony to the undying (excuse the terminology) affection they feel for each other, but like I said; they both have many years to live. I'm talking decades from now people, and I neither want to be right nor wrong. Perhaps I'll look back at all of this and realise just how wrong I was.

* I will die in my eighties. That's a bold and immensely unsubstantiated statement I know, but what the fuck, I'm standing by it. If I live to be eighty the decision to end at eighty will naturally still be in my hands ;) Oops, wrong smiley :p [Note: You won't remember what a smiley is, but back in my time it was used an exceptionally primitive way of conveying emotions. Is it all flooding back?]

* Career-wise, in a roundabout way I'd love to have managerial position. How psychology ties into that I don't know, but I'm principally picking vocations out of a hat right now. I'd like to head a firm (unlikely, I know) or at least be in charge of subordinates with a respectable job title and salary to match. At current prices a salary in excess of ?30k would be satisfactory, although perhaps not initially, but like all Brits I want to earn as much as I can for the work done.

* I can be an ill-fated chap so I predict having at least one major trip to A&E before I die of natural causes. I cannot envisage myself ever getting a respiratory disease or a cancer, I'm going to be one of the lucky people not to get a debilitating disease. However, I guarantee I will lose my mind in old age. That's kind of depressing, but inevitable. Be it Alzheimer’s or whatever I will suffer a serious and eventually fatal mental illness much like so many of my close family have. Sigh.

* I won't be running when I'm in my thirties. That's not a plan by the way, just something I 'feel'. I enjoy being competitive but I predict having a full-time job and a family will be the end of my leisurely running. Another point I sincerely hope I'm wrong with but the prediction, however depressing, stands.

* Bald head.

Phew, I think that'll do for now! I'll pack my crystal ball back into its case for the time being and let time be the judge of how correct I am or am not. In a strange way, I sort of imagine my future twenty year-old son browsing through the annuls of Starsite ("Dadsite!" he'll joke), absorbing the scribblings of his parental superior. In a quasi-realistic way I hope he reads this and thinks "man, my dad was pretty cool."

It's one of my biggest personal regrets not to have any insight into my father as anything other than a parental figure. I've only seen one photo of him at my age and it was, well, really spooky. He was stood beside his dad on a beach front and he said to me "looking at this photo made my dad realise how old he was getting." He has told me choice anecdotes of his youth but clearly repackaged as to suit his current image, besides, there's only so much you can say about your youth in verbal form without simplifying it drastically. I never had the privilege of meeting my grandfather, but I certainly hope my offspring have plenty of opportunity to meet their grandparents. I wish my parents had kept something like this, or even a written diary would have been a revelation beyond comparison. Instead I only get rehashed stories deemed suitable for my hearing which, although interesting, do not capture how their adolescence actually was, how they felt, what they did, and how they became who they are now as a consequence of it.

When we retell stories we are actively reconstructing them and we tell what we deem suitable for our audience. With a blog all articles are written in the near present, which captures a perspective on a moment in time which can never be replicated. We shorten out stories, omit unnecessary details, change important elements, rationalise key elements and generally summarise what was in actual fact a very distinct and rich account. As a continuous present, blogs allow us to give a detailed account that can never be replicated from the same perspective, nor retold with even marginally the detail that the written form allows.

Whoever reads this is looking back at a highly personalised account of life from my perspective. As the first blog written for those in the future (see "We" by Yevgeny Zamyatin for a similarly written story) that I have done, I hope it serves a purpose to anecdotally describe attitudes and visions in 2005 both tongue-in-cheek and deadly serious (again with the inappropriate terminology). As one last thing to say to future persons reading this; did things pan out the way I'd hoped? If they didn't, well, at least this survived, and that's a positive I'll be proud of. Oh and I'm a big believer in euthanasia so, ahem, if I ever become incapable of communication in the future... yeah. Thanks.

Next week: We're back in the present, so stay tuned for some more worldly experiences and musings loosely relevant to current times. Unless you're in the distant future, in which case, expect more outdated and grossly irrelevant skim-worthy crap.

On Record

2005-02-28T22:44:00.000Z

I just want to put this on record so that if anyone claims to have thought of it, I'll say they copied me and will immediately file a lawsuit for damages in excess of a million dollars. The magical first year blog milestones are:

1:100:10,000:100,000

1 year
100 posts
10,000 hits
100,000 words

Needless to say none of these are measures of quality of writing, but then again you can't reliably measure quality of writing objectively so we'll just overlook that. Admittedly the 10k hits can be slow to start but its a general guideline for a well established website even outwith Blogging circles. If you manage these milestones then you have done exceptionally well and should afford yourself a well-earned pat on the back :)

Relating to my last rather emo-faggish blog (spares blushes) I went out and did something I haven't done for many a year: I read a book simply entitled "how to write." Even as a relatively practiced author I acknowledged the need to get back to basics and relearn the simple rules of writing that until now had simply been embedded in my being.

The inspiration came from esteemed Professor Mark Lansdale (who has, by the
way, perfected the mad scientist look), who suggested I did just the above. Not as an insult you ought to understand, but a chance for me to appreciate how it is Human Science writers differ from my Journalistic style. Anecdotally he related it to being like a young foreigner who had passively acquired a language without being able to specify exactly what rules governed it. For example, do you know what a proper pronoun is? While I had the book open I flicked to the grammar section as a refresher course on what is acceptable and unacceptable use of grammar, and let me tell you; it wasn't all self-evident. I toyed with the idea of photocopying the apostrophe use section for Beefy's late-night reading, but I enjoy laughing at his grammatical errors far too much to do that to myself.

Briefly browsing through past blogs some errors do crop up here and there but I view this as progression, and as such I feel no compulsion to go back and correct them. Thankfully the spelling appears to be satisfactory although in places unsettlingly American thanks, in part, to MS Word (too many z's for starterz).

Once I had used the library's facilities to enlighten my writing misconceptions, I toddled off to Blackwells to purchase essential course texts. High in spirits with a spring in my step, the rosy flowers and dazzling sunlight made for a pleasant and jovial spring meander. The birds were singing and there wasn't a cloud in the sky, as I fed an inquisitive squirrel a few crumbs from my choc-chip muffin out my hand. Had it been a Disney film, he'd have whistled to me on my shoulder as I skipped down the lane, but instead scurried off into the surrounding foliage.

Entering the Student Union I dipped my hat to each passer-by and bid him good day, soulfully awash with glee. As I walked into Blackwells the glorious smell of freshly stacked books overpowered me, heading towards the Psychology section so as to peruse the literature I would willingly part my cash with to part-satisfy my insatiable love of reading.

Except, that's not how it happened at all.

Trudging torpidly down towards the Student Union, I mentally prepared myself to do one of the things I hate doing most- spending money on books. Ownership of books is something I attempt to limit as far as I can, from where I'm standing once you're read a book there's no point in having it anymore. Thus, buying books can be an expensive and unfulfilling pursuit, especially as my exposure to the leaves within is minimal.

Tripping over myself, I begrudgingly headed towards the Union hands in pockets. I passed a flattened squirrel carcass on the road, the sight enough to make me feel queasy but still not replacing the intense feeling of dread at having to enter the unknown territory. Viewing the Union, an overwhelming feeling of dread made me twitch my wallet-pocket like a gunman in the Wild West. I was ready to protect my baby, I knew what I was about to do contradicted all my moral standings. Before long, I was there.

Scanning the room, I eventually managed to find the minute "Human Sciences" section located in the darkest, most dreary corner of the dank outlet. Picking up a wafer-thin text on Discourse Analysis, I noticed it coinciding with my list of necessary texts.

"Twenty fucking quid?!" I choked after flipping the book, my pulse rate collapsing to near comatose. "Sweet tapdancing Christ...". I had to sit down. It became glaringly obvious that I would have to drastically reduce my aspirations of purchasing several key texts. After much deliberation, I settled on two texts that I pray will get me through the semester. The second cost a jaw-dropping forty quid; enough to make me break sweat and grab my face in astonishment. I determined to read every last word several times to attempt to get my moneys-worth. Goddamn my tight-fisted logic.

I want to put this on record too: I hate books, and the absurd price attributed to unavoidable course-specific texts. The powers that be know you're cornered and have no other choice but to spend, it's a conspiracy I tell you. The library is always 'mysteriously' under stocked on the most expensive books which just so happen to be readily available at Blackwells. Also, the forty pound book comes with supplementary CD-ROM, no doubt to give credence to the outrageous price tag. Conveniently, Blackwells don't stock the non-CD-ROM version.

Student budgeting is hard enough without having to factor in fucking books. Looks like I'll be housebound for the next few weeks to recoup the scandalous cost of my two newest and suitably detested purchases. Anything that prevents me from enjoying a nightlife immediately becomes an object of immeasurable loathing. I'll read it, but I certainly won't enjoy it. And I'm certainly not using the accompanying CD-ROM for anything other than hammer-fodder for when studying becomes particularly stressful.

Well Fuck Me

2005-02-24T14:41:00.000Z

Fifty-two percent.

Maybe it might look like more if I add a zero to it?

052%

Somehow that seems less.

Well fuck me. Fifty-two per-fucking-cent.

How did it come to this... look at me, I'm a trembling wreck. Fifty-two percent isn't that bad, I'm sure plenty has been achieved with fifty-two percent.

Oh my god, I'm delirious. I'm sick. How could a double-digit score infuse a physical illness in me? I want to cry but can't muster the somatic response to even sob. Listen to me- somatic. That's rich, coming from someone who gets fifty-two percent in essays. Perhaps I could still get a gardening job somewhere, yeah, that's what I'll do. I'll work with my hands for a while. Let this all blow over.

...

Shit man I'm losing my head. I can't concentrate. All I can think about is the ramifications of such a miserly score, it's not fair. It's unjust I say. What do you know, you're just a piece of paper with a barely pronounceable score. Fif... fift... fif- oh, I can't say it. That score. You, right there, with those judgemental numbers. Labelling me all the while, thinking you know something about me I don't, acting like everything's alright. Here's a newsflash- everything is not alright. Everything is not okay, so stop doing whatever it is you're doing and let me live.

Okay, think. Think goddamit. No, stop playing with your zip. It's no use pining about it, what's done is done. Move on.

...

Phew, deep breath. Now, where did it all go wrong?

I... I don't know. Everything's a blur right now. I did all the reading -check- went to all the lectures -check- followed instruction -check- put a lot of effort into my work -check- and handed it in on time.

Check, and double check.

Perhaps I wasn't built for this psychology lark. I wish I'd realised that in first year, but mid-way through second year is generally considered the point of no return. I understand everything but I can't seem to get it right. It's like a respectable grade is just within my reach but stretch as I may I just can't seem to grab it. No amount of work has saved me. And that's depressing.

All the pieces are there yet all I see is a jumbled mess on the coffee table. I pick and place them, working to obscene hours in the morning yet it just doesn't click. The image is half-there, but what use is a half-finished jigsaw? Nothing to nobody, like fifty-two percent. Be as well not even handing it in.

I guess that's it. I'm spent. I'm exhausted. If ever there was a craving for the easygoing days of high school it is now- a social environment where you know what you have to do to do well. The shoe is on the other foot now, and the future seems as uncertain as ever. I'll bounce back, but not right now. I'll regroup in time, but if I were to do it again, I can honestly say I have no idea what I can do differently.

If you want to know what a fifty-two and a fifty-eight (for comedy value) percent essay looks like I've attached them below. If you think you can do better, well, you wouldn't be the only one. In fact, you'd be in the majority.

Well fuck me. Fuck me, this course and my wasted efforts.

The Complete Idiot's Guide To Stuffing Up Spectacularly (52%)
The Complete Idiot's Guide To Stuffing Up Spectacularly (58%)

Things That Are Wrong With Today's Society

2005-02-22T11:30:00.000Z

My handiwork at Tete's house

Who is Tete trying to kid?!

We slaved long and hard over that bandy-legged goon trying to think up an appropriate nickname for him. We toyed with summation nicknames like "Barthol Compu-Bored" and even called him "Phenz" to his own desires before dropping both like they were Advanced Rocket Science modules. Many a lunch time was spent racking our brains in silence, declaring "how ab- no, that doesn't work", searching to replace the nickname "Ander" coined so inventively by his older sister who is noted for her nicknaming skills or lack thereof.

For a brief period he was known as the "Milkybar kid", but we had to refrain from calling him that because it was just so poignantly accurate and was "painfully insulting" (the words of my Guidance teacher when I consulted her about it in a rare moment of moral dilemma). So the Milkybar kid title was dropped too, although not without some groans from those who had become accustomed to calling our high-reaching chum that. In retrospect a name like that would have stunted his social development for life, which didn't seem fair given he spent a high proportion of his time as the only male kid in his year group at primary. He needed a break, so we gave him it, only this once though.

The long winter months gave way to summer and it seemed like Ander would never be baptised with a nickname worthy of his status. We'd practically given up on the cause until one lunchtime when I lost it, probably over something trivial like a mispronunciation, and called him something like a "doofy kid with a stupid chicken head." The chuckles abound and from that point on I started calling him Chicken Head much to his initial dislike. The name stuck for a while until a chance encounter with Yann while exiting French class.

I made some passing comment about Chicken Head and Yann bellowed "Poulet Tete!" I practically fell to my knees laughing, it summed him up beautifully! Walking into lunch the four of us (discluding Tete, naturally) repeated questions like "whatcha eating, Poulet Tete" to choruses of "my name's not Poulet Tete- it's ANDER." We were eventually subjected to a short bout of the silent treatment but were adamant this name would stick and stick good, with or without Ander's co-operation. The silent treatment can only last so long.

Over the course of time Ander grew to acknowledge the name Poulet Tete, but due to vocalisation issues it gradually slipped to become simply "Tete." Tete resolved his issues with his newfound nickname and began to accept it, but not quite to the delirious extent we had, howling "Teeeeeeeeete!" in uncontrolled fits of laughter. Sometimes I'd just be walking down the road and start smirking to myself whispering "Tete...!", snickering at quite possibly the single greatest nickname ever derived. The name Tete followed him all the way to his very last day at academy and still endures with those who knew him from those unrivalled days at school. During an MSN convo with Morna I called him "that ridiculous Poulet Tete", which has also became synonymous with the fair-haired giant to recapitulate his unnatural and wayward behaviour.

Yet, I always had the sneaking suspicion that once Tete had evaded our company he would desperately try to reinvent himself. When I heard word that Tete was insisting his peers call him "Xander" at school I shook my head at that ingrate. Xander sounds like some superhero latino with striking dark hair and eyes, a complete world apart from the Tete I know and love (as a friend). Why Tete, why? Even "Ander X" sounds more Tete-like than Xander and not as ridiculously exotic given he's born and bred a Scot. To be fair though, I wouldn't expect anything else from that ridiculous Poulet Tete- it's the quintessential Tete thing to do.

Xander indeed. I had to see it to believe it.

What's So Great About The Ipod?

2005-02-21T17:22:00.000Z

The Ipod is indisputably the must-have fashion accessory of the 21st century. Or is it?

That opening line, I'll bet, would be concurrent with about every other article you've read about Apple's wondertoy, and would likely be followed up with "it's sleek, it's elegant, and you want one!". You do want one and if you haven't bought one yet, why haven't you? What you will soon learn is that Apple are the undisputed experts at whipping up hype and media frenzy over technology that is nowhere near as revolutionary or functional as they would have you believe. The Ipod is a novelty no more advanced for its time than the Tamagotchy or the Yo Yo before it, and like its fad-forefathers there is only a matter of time before consumers dissent to how desirable this bared-down walkman is.

To begin with, what does the Ipod do? It plays music. And, erm, theres a few built in 'games' that are based on the same technology the calculator was originally founded on and is embarrassingly substandard even to the original monochrome Gameboy. That is all the Ipod does. How much did you say it cost again?

Apple have always played to the minimalist strategy, convincing its consumer base that it is "hip" and "cool" to be understated. It is a lazy strategy that would rightly fall flat on its face if Apple fans weren't the doe-eyed halfwits who embrace such a lethargic culture and append tags such as "cool", "sleek" and "stylish" to the barren design. The box in which it is encased on the shop shelf is pure white with the Apple logo on one side and the words "made in California" on the other. Really jumps out at you doesn't it? Ironic then that Safeway Savers products come in a similar white casing with the words "Safeway Savers [Product Name]", yet you don't see legions of ardent wallet-burnt fans cramming into Safeways to get their mitts on some low-grade grub. Safeways Safers isn't cool, but supposedly the Ipod is. How did this come to be?

The truth is I don't know. Like many other fads it just seems inexplicable to try and see the extreme buzz and excitement about buying a pure white box (not even "eggshell" or "morning bliss" white- just white) which contains a pure-white music player, with pure-white headphones, a pure-white charger and no doubt some other assembly pieces that are- you guessed it- pure white. Perhaps it started as an anti-Microsoft movement, but somewhere along the line the feeling of the Ipod being somewhat special leaked into the mainstream.

Proud Ipod owners regularly approach me, lifting their noses peering down at my Sony/Philips MP3 player (two companies that actually know something about music) and ask "what's the memory on that thing?" Ah yes, the memory. Despite there being several products on the market that boast a similar capacity Ipod users feel superior simply by virtue of being part of the mainstream sheep shepherded by Apple's R&D department.

"It's 256mb" I reply, stating that the Ipod's useless 20min skip protection- a token gesture that makes it useful only to poser Gym users intent on ten minutes of barely-physical exercise- is of no benefit to I. Said Ipod user sneers and then tells me the only stat the average Ipod user can recite:

"My Ipod holds 20,000 songs."

"And how many do you have?"

"As many as I want!" the user-loser quips, the joke never seeming to grow old but advantageously avoids the real issue that 99% of Ipod users never use more than a gig of space. Some more informed individuals will tell you that the Ipod's memory can be used to store anything, but without the ability to store subfolders (what the hell's the deal with that anyway? Oh wait, Apple don't want it used to supplement HDD space... how charitable) it's really of no use to anyone who doesn't have a personal collection of every song ever made. Go to your my computer, click the "C" drive and unless every single file on your computer is there, you're gonna have problems. Cynical, cynical ol'Apple! See why that's not on the box now? The minimalist stance sure is convenient at hiding important issues that would otherwise be noted prior to buying the product.

Language specialists would hint at another reason for the Ipod's success- it is the only portable MP3 player that people can recognise by name. Notice how no one calls it the "Apple Ipod"? It's the same reason why Sega dropped the label "Sega" from its ill-fated Dreamcast- when a company is in trouble, it reinvents itself by disguising its heritage. Brand loyalty has been built up with the Ipod thorough Apple's Itunes; to use a hackneyed example, little Johnny's mother having bought him an Ipod for Christmas is naturally going to purchase an IMac for his next computer. Such a clever marketing ploy! Did you notice the prefixed "I" in front of their products? Imouse, Ilap... I won't bore you with examples, you can see where this is heading.

The Ipod is a byword for technological sexiness. It appeals to the masses. Bono has one. Your friend down the road has one. You either have one or want one. What I'm getting at is how influential the power of marketing and word of mouth is; when something becomes cool or in fashion, people want it. So what if it costs ?200? It plays music baby, but more importantly, it's Chic.

Well sorry, but this author isn't going to brown-nose Apple and neither will you over the coming years because of one word: PSP. Your ideas of minimalist being maximal will soon be inverted on its head and you will soon look at the Ipod and exclaim like I have "is that it?" You will both rue and lament your decision to purchase it as its metaphorical sheen of newness is rubbed off to reveal a rusty layer of steel, with the PSP being the abrasive material.

"What's the PSP" you cry, holding onto your dear Ipod, covering its earphone socket so as not to make it realise how pathetic and unfuture-proof it is. The PSP is Sony's answer to everything, and you will know all about it soon enough.

Einstein searched for a theory of everything, one unified theory that would explain everything that is, ever was or ever will be. Sony have taken this approach, licked its wounds from losing the best Walkman mantle to Apple, used their unquestioned console expertise, taken their knowledge of audio-visual devices and realised an all-in-one super-handheld the likes of which the Western world has never seen (Japan, incidentally, already has it and other technologies that put 3G about ten years behind them).

The rebuttal of the Ipod has already begun in the land of the rising sun, and market analysts predict Apple's poor attempts at updating the franchise are dejected and entirely underpar Sony's gadget. No more of this less-is-more shit, Sony mean business by cramming as much as they can into a portable device. It plays music, so already it is as good as the Ipod. It is also a console as powerful as the current PS2, making it startlingly powerful for an opening attempt at the handheld market which for so long has been Nintendo's domain.

As a side note, Nintendo do have a new handheld out called the DS. By their own admission it is the fastest produced handheld they've ever created. Knowing Sony were to release a handheld, Nintendo rushed a new handheld into the shops so that the PSP couldn't be compared to their lacklustre GBA which truly is pathetic in comparison. The DS is about half as powerful as the PSP and only plays games, as Nintendo have no expertise in other areas. Nintendo were careful not to market the DS as the GBA's successor, as they frantically rush to develop a handheld that can hope to compete with Sony's miniature behemoth. Alas, it appears Nintendo are destined to follow Sega to an early grave, much like Atari and Commodore did in the late Eighties to those two. It's sad really, but how can anyone except Microsoft hope to compete with Sony now?

As well as playing music and games it is Internet enabled, plays UMD disks (essentially supersmall DVDS), can be used as a word processor, and being flash-based you can put anything from your computer onto a flash card i.e photos and show them to your mates. Did I mention it plays video games too? The PSP is going to take the world by storm and Apple will be left wondering what they're supposed to do to compete. One more thing- it costs the same as the Ipod. That's a kick in the nuts for all you Christmas shoppers who ran out and bought one.

The Ipod is merely an overhyped music player that, for me, doesn't even look all that special. Compared to the PSP's gorgeous screen with an output of 16.77 million colours, the Ipod's monochrome screen is markedly ugly and future developments to put a colour screen in look undercooked and thrown in as an after throught, and certainly are no match to Sony's sleek wide screen movie-playing marvel. Say it with me: PSP. Slips off the tongue effortlessly, doesn't it?

I hate Sony as much as the next Sony-bashing zealot, but if there's one thing I'll be glad of it's the demise of Apple and their functionally crippled music player. Soon, you will all see the Ipod for what it is: a big overpriced design-retarded chunk of unishaded plastic. Get ready to move them music files over again, the pretender is about to be vanquished by the rightful King.

Two days after posting this article, Apple slashed the price of its entire product line in the Ipod range. You thought Apple were just being generous, but now you understand their knee-jerk reaction to Sony's killer app. Simple economics. Apple are doing desperate things now to hold onto market share, and don't you just loathe them for it? Soon, the Ipod fad will all be over. No amount of price dropping will save them.

The Complete Retrospective Sixth Year

2005-02-14T22:37:00.000Z

Looking back, we as sixth year students were about as mature as a group of pre-pubescent school children trying to push each other onto a concrete slab nicknamed the "gay machine". Had I attended an all-boys school no doubt these childish actions would have been beat out of me from an early age, but in an obscure way putting your child through the all-boys system is a quirky gay-machine in its own right where there is an input [child enters school] process [child develops feelings for boys, has no other outlet for sexual feelings] and output [child develops homosexual tendencies]. Conversely, had I attended an all-girls school I'd have likely developed into a well-rounded emotionally stable individual, albeit worryingly gender confused.

But for all this speculation I was raised in a mixed-gender elementary school and the results of my first nineteen years on this planet you can observe throughout the rest of this website. Slightly neurotic, self-opinionated and aggressively goal-oriented just about sums up the 145,000 words (give or take a few) penned thus far that give clues to aspects of my personality. The nature/nurture issue aside, I grew up exceedingly childish for various reasons and never really outgrew the enjoyment of frivolous pranks and clownish charades.

Strangely enough, the frequency of arsing about would not be at its highest between the primary/secondary school transition but rather in my final year of schooling, where the art of sophisticated humour had been finely honed and duly practiced. Gone were inhibitions and "crapping it" about getting sent to Mrs Stuart's office for taking a prank too far and disrespecting authority, as these delightful anecdotes I have generously listed below will give weight to.

Generally speaking sixth year began much where fifth year ended, minus a few stoners who had decided enough was enough of the intolerant academy (my sister, incidentally, was one of them). However the main bulk of decent people had stayed on (the chav and chavettes left at the end of fourth year, thankfully) with the lure of taking some easy-street subjects like Business Management, Geography and suchlike and fulfilling the usually undemanding entry standards to get into University. The majority got unconditionals for University a month or so before Christmas which, not surprisingly, correlates exceptionally highly to the point where the vast majority of students stopped caring about the system or the people who enforce it. The result: mass lounging in the STA and mass defiance for conformity. Logic stresses that a school can't expel everyone, so as long as there is sufficiently high numbers of rebellious people it is impossible to make people examples of (although they did try, unsuccessfully).

I'm being careful here not to re-write what I wrote at the time in previous blogs. In summation though sixth-year was an open party in the STA where classes were largely optional and you could do anything within reasonable limits behind the masked STA doors. Everyone without exception in the class of '02/03 could sit back, take a deep breath and recount classic tales unique to themselves and their group of which there were four main- The Populars, The Hattoners, The Tarvis/Chilli Pepper Crew (they didn't have a name, but every one of them can be classified as either Tarves or the Red Hot Chilli Peppers fans being as one-dimensional as many of them were) and the Savages, of which I was one. Without exception, the Savages were the most banterous crew and the envy of the rest. The Savage parties gained legendary status and although many would try to deny it, the Savage table was the place to be. We pioneered Wee Issue, which still stands as a cult emblem of sixth year- far removed from the Hattoner's "Environment Club" headed by reformed Hattoner Tommy, who is now an honourable member of the Tolbooth massive. Wee Issue was banned but survived as an underground publication, forever immortalised as the physical representation of the incomparable Sixth-Year '02/03.

I want to run-down some of my most treasured individual memories of that final year, but it would be an impossibility to even attempt to put what the entire year meant into words. Take these as mere 'highlights' for me personally, but as has already been stated if you took any handful of people from that year they'd tell you countless different stories. Enjoy this short collection of banterous tales that I have to tell.

* Dabby's final warning is adorned with penises

The whole Advanced Higher English saga is one that could take an extremely long time to detail, but I will summarise the gravity of the situation Dabby found himself in as swiftly as I can manage. With the Wee Issue being rumbled moments before circulation and Dabby's appalling lack of concern or care for his demeanour or effort to Advanced Higher English, his relationship with the effective Head Mistress was sour and edgy. After a failed attempt at conjuring up a barely legitimate essay on Austen's Emma, The Hogg's temper and patience was reaching fever pitch with the nonchalant Dabby. The severity of the situation was such that Mrs Stuart only needed the slightest shred of evidence Dabby wasn't putting effort into his work to kick him off the course or perhaps worse. She needed to make an example of someone, and was betting on Dabby failing to produce an adequate piece of work given his extreme dislike of Austen.

The night before and Dabby had managed the feat thanks to the newly found Gradesaver.com. Gradesaver would become a lifeline to us who could not bring ourselves to read the utterly detestable novel, and Dabby's application of their brief summaries and quotations was inspired. Going to the canteen during break, Dabby made the unfortunate error of leaving his critical essay behind. Enter Star.

Spying the essay sitting provocatively on the bare table, I reached into my pocket and produced an HB pencil. Lifting the first page, I began drawing all manners of penises and cum-bespattered mouths around the conclusive page of the essay, giggling and chuckling uncontrollably. Grinning as he returned, the unobservant Dabby grabbed the paper as the bell rang and went for his meeting with Mrs Stuart. Following him like a pair of assassins, Tom and I laughed and nearly shat ourselves at the prospect of camping outside Mrs Stuart's office and hearing the biggest bollocking of Dabby's short life. Unfortunately, Mrs Stuart told him to stand there for a few minutes as she dealt with someone else, which gave him time to spot the sickening sketches.

He managed to splot them out using his thumb, averting a disaster that we will never know how grievous it could have been. The image of hiding round the corner awaiting Dabby's unknown fate and muffling our laughs is a moment I'll never forget.

* The sole meeting with Wee Issue's Co-ordinator

It was a meeting so cringeworthy it makes the Office look like a serious factual drama in comparison. Every club has to have a figurehead; an adult who exerts some responsibility and control over the group. However, the Wee Issue was never about following protocol, but in order to achieve publication we had to humour our co-ordinator and then immediately ignore her dispensable advice.

Little did we know she would turn out, and I quote Dabby from the deceased Wee Issue blog, to be "anointed Queen prude by general opinion." She was offended at the notion of writing anything that could be remotely construed as controversial and suggested we do TV listings and an "achievers" feature for people in Ellon Academy who had done noteworthy achievements. TK and Anna joined our group, possibly the most deplorable nerds you've ever heard of. We couldn't break it to them their book reviews weren't welcome, so we got Morna to do it. Her soul is now the property of the devil.

Her ideas of the publication were polar opposites to our own, I felt genuinely bad sitting there entertaining her repeated ridiculous suggestions like interviewing the Doc. Instead, we interviewed Feil Mary; a mental-institute escapee who lived nearby Costcutters in a caravan and spent her day cycling around the perimeters of the academy. She once played the harmonica for us in 4th year and we threw pennies at her feet.

We were told that our publication had to be respectable but we could wangle in some "street-cred" (her exact words) if we were subtle about it. Instead, we unsubtly and unceremoniously never saw her again, for obvious reasons. Who knows how sixth year would have shaped itself if we'd just taken her advice...

* Lee Christie's countless contributions to our Business Management enjoyment

Christie was a shy, retreating nerd who was mostly harmless and rarely ventured into sunlight except during school hours. Thus, he was a prime target for people who are short of material and need a quick fix. It was Christie's lamentable luck therefore to be seated behind myself and Beefy in Business Management; a pair of disinterested students who without his presence may have taken to actually doing the work prescribed.

There are too many tales of Business Management for me to try and do justice to them all with my limited time, but there are some classics. One time we asked him if he would "do" (we didn't want to be too crass towards the poor lad) Britney Spears, to which he predictably squirmed and kept trying to avoid the question. Then, to mine and Beefy's amazement, Rebecca Smith asks him "would you do me Lee?" And Laura Coonan asks "would you do me Lee?" His reaction was priceless. It was if Britney had entered the class herself just to pose that question to the bashful nerd, it couldn't have been better even if we had choreographed it.

Mr Forbes once rumbled us in the STA as half the class decided not to bother showing up to class. Instead of giving us some sort of punishment, he just sat down and told us "all the boring types like Lee are in the class" and, rather disgruntled, sat with us. It was so eloquently put that there and then Mr Forbes became an honorary Savage. One final memory is of the last day and Mr Forbes had told us to just go to the pub and enjoy ourselves. Christie was frantically scribbling away at math problems, so as an act of charity I grabbed his textbook, crumpled it up and stomped on it saying "this is the problem! This is the problem!" I was asked to stop, which I did rather discontented as my work here wasn't finished, but I really felt like I'd began Christie's path to social enlightenment. One day he will thank me.

* An inopportune bout of hystericals. Miss Duncan is not laughing.

Oh Lordy, was she not pleased! It was your average English period with Duncan as she rambled and enthused about some well-known author who no one could care less about. As she handed out her fifteenth print of some really lame and unwanted Seamus "peat bogs" Heaney poem, she paused at Dabby's desk. She told him he didn't need to put so much work on his desk and moved her way up the row.

I looked at his face and he gave the most comedy "you just can't win" face I've ever seen in my life as she moved on up the row. I started laughing uncontrollably at the notion that- for once- Dabby was being told off for being overprepared for class! I tried to play it off as sneezing but got such a fit of laughter that I couldn't hide it any longer. By the time she had pieced together what was happening there were tears streaming down my eyes as the collective classroom turned and stared at the dead man sitting.

Miss Duncan erupted, screaming "infants!" and other comedy phrases that only served to fuel the hilarity. She incorporated Dabby into the yelling bellowing "if you two can't handle the work" and other unrelated sentences that are clearly a standard pre-written telling off as outlined in the Big Book Of Telling-Offs. Her rant was lengthy and not at all related to me laughing, involving Dabby as much as me despite him actually doing what he's supposed to for a change.

* Mr Elsey is confronted with the fuzzy student

Two for one here- at the end of lunchtime I thought hey, how cool would it be to reverse my shirt, put glasses on my head and sit through English facing the wall? There and then I decided to do it, much to my own amusement. It took Elsey a full five minutes to finally twig that the hairy-faced student facing him wasn't Harry from Harry and the Hendersons. It was so out of place and un-sixth year like that it had to gain legendary status.

Also that period that wanker Dabby wrote "penis" all over my work. I tried to get it off muttering "you bender" repeatedly but the commotion only served to catch Elsey's attention. He asked to see my work and I went to front with an essay sporting the word "penis" spotted all over it. He told me I was a sick pervert or something to which I replied "it says pen fifteen." Whether he believed me or not I'll perhaps never know, but all I can say for certain is that Dabby is a class A bender.

* Modern Studies is no joke.

Just a short one here- Beefy and I were going home early, a regular feature of our Wednesday afternoons, and decided to have a cheeky spy at Dabby's Modern Studies class. There he was, sitting at the very front on his own (I suspect he was placed there deliberately) with his elbow firmly planted on the desk looking as completely bored and devoid of any emotion as I've ever seen. We started laughing so fucking hard it was embarrassing, as the whole class turned to look out the window at us, unable to get off their seats as the midget teacher continued his lesson.

We hid under the ledge and kept bawling with laughter for nigh on three minutes, peeping our heads over to glance at the sucker at the front having to endure the midget's pointless scribblings on the board. Morna said she could hear and recognise us three doors down with our unsuppressed and rather vocal belly-laughing. Towards the end we started improvising, laughing stupidly and in foreign languages playing off each other's increasingly ridiculous laughter. I don't think I've ever laughed so loudly and for so long at Dabby's misfortune.

* Miss Hogg is not especially pleased

I had numerous confrontations with the Hogg; most were well mannered affairs caused by my incomplete knowledge of eighteenth-century social ettiquette, some regarded my general disinterest in her teachings, but by far and away the most vehemently fought battles regarded her refusal to read my writing.

My writing has been described as being permanently in italics; it is both beautifully scripted and purposely formed. I will defend it to my death. The Hogg, on the other hand, feels my writing is scrappy, ugly and a pimple of the face of society at large. Its perishment is both her concern and her moral duty. One day however, I pushed her unintentionally to her limits.

She made a comment about my writing and I peered up at her from my crumpled Gradesaver notes, and decided to ignore it. Then, she pushed and kept pushing. Out of nowhere I told her firmly "the SQA don't have a problem marking it" before realising what I'd done. The class went silent. The Hogg lept to her feet and marched out the room.

I sat there alone wondering what the hell I had just started. Lauren whispers "you shouldn't have done that" and then Dabby, being the eversmug git who constantly kicks my chair during the Hogg's class, gives me his two cents as well. The anticipation was unbearable. Eventually, the Hogg's thumping footsteps are audible and then ten seconds later she waddles into the class with Mrs Bell (this is actually her name, I'm not trying to be insolent!) sheepishly in tow.

"Mrs Bell claims she complains regularly about your writing. And Miss Duncan says she asks you to type up all your work because she can't read it!"

I slumped in my chair. I wasn't going to be allowed to get away with this, the Hogg had clearly done her research. For the next five minutes I tried to worm my way out of it but the Hogg had outfoxed me and I was going to suffer her tirade. Clearly there had been some lunchroom chit-chat with the merciless Hogg and my four other English teachers, and I had to take her stinging attack on the chin. If it wasn't bad enough having to try and continually bat off the Hogg's impossibly complicated Austen questions about a book I swore to her I'd read but now I'd have to sit through all her handwriting jibes too. Incidentally, Dabby told her squarely he hadn't read the book when she asked us all and consequently got into a lot of trouble for it (see Dabby's last chance), but at least he had something to fall back on when the Hogg would ask us why Mr Knightly couldn't win someone's hand in marriage or any other blatantly obvious fact to anyone who'd even heard of the book.

The Hogg didn't especially like me, and boy did I know it.

* PSE? Sorry, we'd scarpered about two hours ago.

PSE, or Personal And Social Education, gained a new degree of tedium in sixth year where the entire year had to sit and listen to the boresome yawn-fest Miss Tomlinson rabble on about hippy issues like saving the rain forest. After the initial baptism of tedium, Yann and I decided not to put ourselves through such auditory torture ever again. As it was 5th period on a friday and we had 6th off for 'study', we would routinely scarper and leave the suckers behind to endure Miss Tomlinson's boring tirade. Eventually they would make everyone sign in, which we did, and then scarpered. If only Mrs Stuart had thought this through more thoroughly!

Usually we'd just tuck off to the golf club to play pool, envisaging Tom or Tete's face as they listened unendingly to the tiresome Tomlinson. Knowing full-well their suffering made the escape all the more tantalising and enjoyable, as we basked in Yann's room sipping cool beer and lapping up the freedom from Tomlinson and her equally-uninteresting guest speakers. We truly thought we were extra-smart, but the relatively low attendance suggested we weren't the only crafty individuals to bypass the entirely useless PSE. Still, there was a certain buzz of hearing the lunch bell ring knowing that school was out for us and we could leave three hours before the other saps. Sweeeet.

* Mr Ritchie should have been in Dead Poet's Society

Forget Robin Williams, Mbaza Ritchie is the undisputed champ of unorthodox teaching. Without notice he'll charge towards your desk, stare at you and return to his workings on the board. He'll throw chalk at you. Ritchie will do anything that isn't normally acceptable by an adult just because he can. And you know what? I learnt more from Ritchie than any other maths teacher just because it stuck. His classes were constantly fresh and enjoyable, if only for his curious and often inexplicable behaviour. Ritchie wouldn't have asked you to stand on your desks, he'd have thrown it at you.

* The RSPCA do not condone eating fish that are sold as pets

Yet another timeless Wee Issue stunt designed to shock and amuse our fellow sixth year chums. It was decided that each issue would have a challenge, and for our second issue resident stuntman Yann would eat three socially unacceptable items. The general theme was "items that can be bought in a pet shop", so it came to the fateful day where we wandered down into Ellon to purchase the items. Rather than perform the stunt behind closed doors, we made it an STA spectacle for all to admire, so returned with the three items to the STA and gave Yann about ten minutes to mentally prepare.

Very quickly word of the challenge spread throughout the canteen, leading some from the Tarves/Chilli Pepper group to boycott the event. Seeing as this form of protest caught no one's attention, they plotted to steal our third item but to cut a long story short never managed to. A large crowd had assembled around the Savage table to witness the talking point of the year, as Yann took centre stage.

The first item was a few dog treats called Schmackos, which were roughly 5% meat and the rest unsavoury ingredients I was too repulsed to investigate. Yann ate them with salivous vigour, although admittedly this disgusting act was a mere bit-part to the main event. The second item which I confidently predicted was both indigestible and unbreakable (it is, afterall, designed to withstand a dog chewing it) was a rubber dog ball. How Yann was supposed to eat it I'll never know, all I know is that he didn't manage to dent it. It was quickly pushed aside, and then the main event came.

Sammy was a goldfish we bought from Pets Paradise about thirty minutes previously. While Yann was warming up he (the fish, not Yann) almost managed to escape down a sink plug as we transferred him from his bag to a glass beaker. After that minor incident, he was swimming about the glass quite contently. After the rubber ball the crowd grew impatient crying "fish! Fish! Fish!" making such a noise it would have reverberated throughout the school. The assembled crowd truly was massive and the vast majority were really up for some pet fish eating. Yann held up the beaker and started downing away, effectively calling the numbers out on poor Sammy's life. Sammy began swimming as far away from the gaping vortex as his little fins would carry him, but alas was swallowed whole with Yann's final gulp.

The crowd were adulated and cried to the roof tops- a new legend was born. We paraded Yann briefly and for the rest of the day all you could hear were musings about the boy who ate a pet Goldfish. Later the RSPCA, tipped off by Kellogg, paid Pets Paradise a visit but alas, it was too late to save poor Sammy. The whole incident was forwarded to Mrs Stuart, who no doubt cried "Wee Issue!" while shaking her first to the ceiling.

A truly momentous day for all who witnessed it, and another feather in the cap of Wee Issue.

* Trashing Mrs Stuart's Office

On the final day I met up with Dabby to do the rounds to hand back all our books and get that final signature from Mrs Stuart herself that would terminate our association with our school of six years. I went to Elsey's room and realised I'd forgotten my copy of Emma, but continued as Dabby needed his signature. He wasn't in, so I took the opportunity to nick another copy so I could give it to Miss Duncan. She never asked us for the book so sneakily Dabby and I held onto our copies to burn at the stake at Tete's, which meant I had two copies of the dreaded book to burn. How fate deals a fair hand.

All our books returned, we went to Mrs Stuart's office to get our final signature except on this occasion she wasn't in. The temptation got the better of us. We toppled her stack of filed documents and generally trashed her office the best one can given ten seconds of frantic whirlwind destruction. It was immensely satisfying and, to top it all off, we came back thirty minutes later and put 'afters' into the devastation. One final single-fingered salute to the crowned Queen of power-tripping bitches.

* The Doc was once a badass too

The only telling off I had to sit through with the Doc regarding the Wee Issue website. For those who don't know, weeissue.blogspot.com was once a thriving anti-establishment website who had such esteemed writers as Sharon, Kayleigh, Lauren, Dabby and I. It was a medley of some very fine Bloggers, the only two remaining being of course the latter but some of Sharon and Kayleigh's work can still be found if you dig deep enough. The site would have been very well if, once again, the pathetic losers from the Tarvis/Chilli Pepper table (they didn't have much of the sixth year spirit, as is self-evident) spearheaded by Kellogg hadn't tipped off the Doc and Mrs Stuart of our underground musings.

The website got us in a shitload of trouble, possibly even more than the actual Wee Issue magazine. Soon the Doc was threatening legal action and demanded the site be shut down for defamation against members of staff. We were all threatened with expulsion, naturally, and verged on the brink of some dreadful repercussions. The Doc sat there with printouts of the site and read us some choice excerpts.

"The balding technician", Dabby wrote, "is an utter fucking bender." Not a good start. He then went on to read some more of Dabby's slander, but avoided the taboo subject of Kayleigh's weekly writings on the best anal sex and my porn of the week feature. The whole thing was exceptionally embarrassing, accentuated ten fold when the Doc told us his story of his 'underground magazine'.

The Doc painted a picture of himself being the rebellious sort, having also got the rap for writing inappropriate things. It was as transparent as fucking glass, the Doc clearly desperate to shed his stigma of being a stuffy stuck-up bell who's primary job was to call disruptive pupils to his office and offload made-up stories of his youth. Surely a man of his standing has better things to spend his time on? Usually it's left to his lesser, Mrs Stuart, to chase up unruly pupils but she must have been ill or on her period this day. The Doc was about as intimidating as Christie wielding a prawn cracker, and clearly needed some practice in being the authority figure. As I left, grinning at Kayleigh who had managed to silence the Doc with her distasteful and unspeakable sex advice, I envisaged myself in his position. If I get a doctorate in psychology like him and land up working back at Academy on the other side, I promise not to subject disobedient pupils to tales that enforce my badass credentials. Instead, I think I'll just put my Viking hat on and spare the "I was like you too" see-through crap. Still, the whole notion of the Doc being remotely pro-badass had me grinning for weeks.

And at that point, I'm gonna call an end to this chapter. It's been a wonderful trip down memory lane people, and if you happen to be involved in any of these stories, or you were a part of the irreplaceable sixth year atmosphere, do feel free to pop back some years down the line and relive the memories :) This piece will be kept in the archives filed under "Ellon Academy", which for me I haven't even scratched the surface of yet. I still haven't mentioned the other aspects of Ellon Academy, the years progressing from the library to the ledge and eventually to form the Savages in the STA. Sixth year was as much about the extra-school banter we enjoyed, but I'm afraid that's going to have to wait for another day when I feel especially nostalgic and have unbridled time to kill. I hope you've enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it, and I know if I wrote this back in the day, it would be laden with artistically drawn phalluses, swastikas and other childishly amusing illustrations.

Priceless memories that, now written, won't be forgotten.

Where Do We Go Now?

2005-02-12T18:11:00.000Z

Yesterday, there was so many things
I was never told
Now that I'm startin' to learn
I feel I'm growing old

'Cause yesterday's got nothin' for me
Old pictures that I'll always see
Time just fades the pages
In my book of memories
Prayers in my pocket
And no hand in destiny
I'll keep on movin' along
With no time to plant my feet

'Cause yesterday's got nothin' for me
Old pictures that I'll always see
Some things could be better
If we'd all just let them be

Yesterday's got nothin' for me
Yesterday's got nothin' for me
Got nothin' for me

Yesterday, there was so many things
I was never shown
Suddenly this time I found
I'm on the streets and I'm all alone

Yesterday's got nothin' for me
Old pictures that I'll always see
I ain't got time to reminisce old novelties

Yesterday's got nothin' for me
Yesterday's got nothin' for me
Yesterday's got nothin' for me
Yesterday

Yesterday.

These words you should live your life by. It seems kind of odd, but sometimes I can just get drunk listening to Guns N' Roses, absorbing their wisdom and just being so content in that state for unspecified lengths of time. I'm sure everyone has a band or some form of literature that has that effect on them, but even though I don't usually talk much about my on-off relationship with the mighty GnR, they still have a profound effect on my and other people's lives.

It makes me wonder- and this seems kind of topical in light of recent developments- could a drug artificially recreate this sense of chilled-out euphoria? It's a state of complete contentment in ones own company... no television and no other person, just you alone with mild alcohol-induced melancholy. The catalyst for me is a meaningful serenade; which turns out to be GnR, a band whom each song reflects a significant memory. I can hear songs I haven't heard for years and very strong memories appear from seemingly nowhere between drum beats, guitar solos and allusive verses. This multi-sensory store of feeling is an efficacy of combined memories, tastes, haptic perceptions and acoustic recollections resulting in a melody of pleasing remembrances.

Contrary to what you may think, there is happiness in being sad. This may be something of a paradox to you, but why else would so many seek a depressant to cure their depression? Alcoholism, by definition, is a self-punitive act whereby the depressed seek solace in their depression. There is a self-denying catharsis allocated with being self-punitive: to re-state; making yourself feel bad is a way of making up for doing wrong onto others. Thus, subconsciously, alcoholics seek to remedy wrongs by punishing themselves and wallowing in self-pity. It is a relentless cycle, but one which if uncontrolled can spiral to lengths unimaginable. Without rehabilitation, there is no cure.

This may seem an extreme example of creating a mind state using drugs (alcohol is a drug too, you know), but I just want to make the point- sanity is only a subjective description, and those who rely on ultra-humanistic support (drugs, alcohol) are merely creating for themselves a fabricated extra-reality. To wit: happiness is what you make of it. I won't elaborate it any further.

Live your life by your own principles, the bible or whatever you deem to be a fair account of an ideal lifestyle. In the end, ultimately; reality, contentment, self-actualisation and self-fulfilment are governed by your own perceptions or degrees of. You cannot hope to live by other people's standards, so create your own. Afterall, your definitions of success, happiness or contentment may not necessarily coincide with those of significant others.

Be yourself.

There are vices we are warned of from an early age, some of which are reinforced by law and some of which are socially defined. Once you reach the age of leaving the home (which, for some people, may be in their twenties) you soon begin to appreciate the value of independence. With independence comes responsibility and with responsibility, so the chain of reasoning goes, comes consequences. You're free to push boundaries but the question remains how far do you want to go?

You never really know how something will affect you until you've tried it. Despite this undeniable logic there are certain things I won't do. I may not be the best person at exercising self-restraint but there are certain places I won't go- not because I've been warned not to, but because I myself can weigh the benefits and see they aren't worth the consequences. Moderation is something that cannot be exercised with complete reliability when you're dealing with something that is a dangerous mind-altering pill. As there is happiness in being sad, likewise is there exhilaration in breaking social taboos.

What goes up, must come down.

If I have an inner child, he is burning ants with a magnifying glass. Never has it been my intention to harm others or to bring harm onto myself but there is something about that substance that can change a usually docile happy-go-lucky individual into a senseless and irrational drunk. I dread to think what an unintentional overdose would do to me. Unlike alcohol, drugs are not socially acceptable around any of my peer groups. To me, hard drugs are the domain of smackhead hardhouse lunatics seeking an ever-increasingly dangerous thrill on the rollercoaster that is underground drug dealing. Having said that, I've never met a weed-smoker who wasn't immediately approachable and friendly.

It's all about moderation and life choices isn't it? If you need hard drugs to make your night enjoyable then you're missing the point somewhere. I believe the thrill of pushing boundaries outlives the physical thrill achieved from the substance. Conversely, do I really need to drink alcohol to enjoy my night out?

In short: yes. And that's about the most damning evidence there is against my life choice to not experiment with hard drugs. All I do know, however, is I won't feel deprived if I never touch them. You have to question how far you want to go and why.

I think I'll just stick with this chilled-out ambience without the experimentation. The worst thing I'll wake up with is a headache.

I can live with that.

ADDITIONAL: Some vintage and essential Guns N' Roses:

November Rain

Patience

Don't Cry

Estranged

Locomotive (Complicity)

Yesterdays

The Garden

Dead Flowers

New rose

Human Being

Live And Let Die

Madagascar

One In A Million

Oh yes, and more search engine madness! It seems people just can't stop themselves from entering obscure and totally irrelevant searches and winding up here, no doubt extremely disappointed. What's the deal with this sicko?

S Club 8 Cleavage ~ had undone their flexi wonder bras to "maximum cleavage." After telling a ... the quintessential Edinburgh womaniser- dancing with Ho's to S Club 8, drinking beers

Why search for a nonexistant term? What next, S Club 8 pubes? And as for this next geezer, SPELLING!!

Were About In Manchester Dose Christiano Ronaldo Live On ~ he began slating Manchester United forward Cristiano Ronaldo with such compulsion it ... harrowing tale of Christiano Ronaldo living on the streets

All he learned from that excerpt is that Ronaldo lives on the streets, in Lawrence's dream world. It would be nice if someone could render a search term that would turn up a result they were looking for. However, this next guy wins the award for most stupid and inane reason for visiting Starsite:

Budweiser Horse Fart Advert ~ Mr.Jack's Birthday, the advert practically demands you, "a glass ... born on" date put on Budweiser bottles. It makes me ... unannounced, he'll let loose the biggest fart I've ever heard

Maybe I should change my writing to suit my new target audience...

Chavs, Fat Admirers, Money Shots And Magpies

2005-02-09T16:35:00.000Z

Last night's terrestrial television was, for only one night, almost as good as Sky.

It is not often that I'll insinuate Sky to be inferior to the vastly lesser terrestrial tv, but last night's programming made the usual chore of picking between the five inseparably poor channels a doddle. The similarly bland melange of programmes cross-channel can be categorised into three easy divisions:

* News (10% of airtime)
* Home Decoration/Improvement shows (89% of airtime)
* Other (1% of airtime)

The only home improvement show worth watching is ITV's 60 Minute Challenge, but only for Claire Sweeny's fantastically revealing and inappropriate choice of top and lack of supportive undergarments thereunder. Sweeny has one recognisable role and that is to look slutty and gear up the workmen by constantly bending over and/or kneeling down by routinely volunteering for paint jobs (usually white, spraying all over face), and one must not forget her invaluable blowing of the 'whistle' (sexual innuendo duly noted) at each fifteen minute break. Sweeny constantly contradicts the professional designers with inane comments that are unintelligible to anyone with a passing knowledge of which colours don't go with pink; colours that, rather frightfully, include maroon and fluorescent yellow. I have been reliably informed that Sweeny doesn't originate from that regional Mecca of clueless sluts known as 'Essex', but hear the Queen is going to give her a new year's honour for her services to the partially see-through textiles industry.

So besides my daily and rarely-missed dose of 60 Second Climax, terrestrial televison particularly during the daytime leaves much to be desired. The entire situation is so desperate I took to watching Name Your Price for a brief period, before growing tired of its unrestrained homosexuality. Short of hibernating during the day or actually attending lectures, the daytime can go slowly especially if you've conquered the Mario Kart leader boards and have ran out of wool to knit with. However, all is not lost yet; while evening television suffers from much the same foibles as daytime television (minus, I regret to say, the habitually underdressed Sweeny), Channel Four has begun something of a resurgence when it comes to top-quality evening scheduling.

Firstly you should punch in the number 4 on your remote when the clock turns 9pm on tuesdays for you're sure to witness something I know is close to all your hearts- the comeuppance of Chavs. Brat Camp uses advanced psychological techniques to prove what we all knew was true that Chavs only get their sense of hardmanship from a lack of parental authority. These Chavs are used to getting their own way, doing as they want and generally feeling comfortable with being the little shits they are. Do not misinterpret the title- these kids are no different to Chappy, Ant, MacIntyre or any other hardman who have thrown away career prospects at the tender age of fourteen to live a life of petty crime and solvent abuse.

I found it fascinating that, let's use an example here, Chappy has such a well-built father painted from head-to-toe in tattoos who for all his might and showmanship can't even discipline his own sons. The product is an arrogant, self-absorbed little cunt who indulges himself in underage sex, picking fights at the bus stop and thinks he's the Johnny Big-Balls of the Ellon nightlife. I can't wait, and I say this with complete conviction, to bring my Mercedes into Chappy's place of work which, at best, will be scrubbing motors with a ragged sponge that he bought himself after losing the last one. I'll tip him good- I'll say, and I've prepared this speech for a long time:

Who's the big man, now?

And he'll look up at me from my car's wheel rim, aghast, unable to find the words to retort because his limited vocabulary can't register a sentence that sums up "not me". I'll enter the multi-thousand pound motor and drive it out the car dealership, looking at my sparkling Rolex and realising Chappy would have to work a further nine hours to match the pay I just received for my lunch hour. Of course, he'll blame the father- as do we all. Which is why Brat Camp is so remarkably wonderful and revealing.

The kids show up to camp dying for a cigarette (one of them actually quips "I haven't smoked in two fucking days!") full of the unrepressed anger we've come to expect from the most unwanted of scum currently polluting the gene pool. There is a term psychologists use to describe copulation between Chavs and it's known as "the circle of disadvantage"- When a Chav gives birth, they pass on what little they know about life and reinforce anti-social behaviour, leading to ever-increasing teen pregnancy and child delinquency rates. The kids get put on the Impact programme, which is a simple way of allowing them to test out their boundaries and witness the repercussions. There is a real gang mentality amongst the most petty and pathetic of the crew, but to give an unbiased account of what's happened, there are two who have decided just to get on with it as one says "I don't know these people, I don't care if they like me or not." Needless to say the other five grow to resent these two and actively begin trying to bully them... can you think of a real world example where this happens? Clue: Replace the Ranch with the Bus Stop, and the conformists with normal people.

What is so touching about this series is that, with a few boundaries and achievable goals, there can be dramatic turnabouts in behaviour as the two I mentioned attests to. All are intially given physical boundaries like the circle on Impact that they have to sit in, and also mental boundaries like not being allowed to speak during sleep time. By introducing these and reinforcing with punishments (lack of progression onto more favourable stages) the Chavs can learn to become marginally agreeable persons. If I were in power, I would bring back Military service if it's anything like the Turnabout Camp. The state this country is in with Chavs who flaunt Governmental rules and are practically immune from repercussions when caught or uncaught is disgraceful. As Brat Camp proves, if the parents aren't going to do their duty as guardians, then it must be up to someone who will. Chappy wouldn't last five minutes in a world where his cuntish lack of ability to conform would have serious repercussions. If anything, he'd end up like the five non-conforming kids on Brat Camp- tearful and remorseful, with a newfound appreciation for others. Instead, well, I don't need to tell you- If you really have to know, try waiting for a bus on friday night in Ellon. He'll be the one who approaches you and offers you a schmack (tip: Don't answer. Just leave).

But wait, don't hit that remote! One commendable television programme does not threaten Sky's strangehold on evening viewing. Oh no, you still have Shameless to look forward to! However, if you were me last night, you'd have also seen the shocking Fat Admirers And Fat Feeders.

Who's the fattest person you've ever seen? Was it Fat Rat? Rik Waller? Fern Britton? Now, let me rephrase that: Who's the fattest person you were attracted to? Now things are starting to get interesting.

Fat women are inherently ugly, period. I'm not talking chubby women here, although the term 'chubby' is hardly desirable and calling a chubby woman chubby will result in a firm smack across the face which, if you didn't take my advice a couple of paragraphs up, will be your second this week. I'd imagine a fat woman punching you would hurt more than a Chav's punch, both physically and mentally, but both can be avoided by keeping schtum. Ah, the benefits of not opening your gob!!

Call me brutally harsh, but fat women aren't attractive. Yet, for all my misconceptions, I really felt this one was the one that would never change. I could say before with confidence "fat women aren't attractive" and be fairly certain the sentiment would extend throughout the whole company. Even if some people were keeping quiet for fear of embarrassment, I would still walk away convinced I was right and had been all along. However, due to the advent of the Internet, a whole subculture of grotesque fetishes are surfacing and people feel safe behind their monitors openly discussing their vile attractions. Somewhere along the line, the message got round to a Channel Four producer and the rest... well, the rest is history, isn't it?

FA's (Fat Admirers) are people who until the past decade had to keep their love of giant superwomen suppressed. An early indication that you're an FA is a deep love of the song Fat Bottom Girls, oh, and a love of curvaceous women. Where FA's go one step too far is when an FA becomes a feeder and, for the benefit of Feesh, feed their wives to the point where they become entirely dependent on the FA for everything. They become bedbound or to rephrase become prisoners in their own bodies- they can't get up to phone the police, they can't cook for themselves, they can't go outside and they can't independently go to the bathroom. The logistics of that last point aren't mentioned in the documentary and some part of me is thankful for it.

The women develop incredible bed sores and their thigh leg skin can become one inch deep with the thick ropey texture of elephant skin. Needless to say breathing is a struggle and even managing to touch fingers behind their own backs is a physical impossibility. Sex becomes impossible after a certain degree of fatness because the thighs are just too huge... quite why anyone would want to shag an eight-hundred pound monster is definitely beyond me. The documentary was one of those peeping-through-your-fingers ones where you'd grimace at the titanic human and the abuse her body suffered as a consequence of her husband's twisted fantasy, but yet at the same time muster some perverse enjoyment from it. How someone can voluntarily gain so many hundreds of pounds is just mind-blowing, and goes far beyond the realms of normal decency.

I really did labour to hold my food down when she posed 'erotically' for the cameras just before she lost the ability to walk due to her leviathan size.

As for television tonight folks, I can highly recommend Desperate Housewives. There really is no stigma attached lads, it isn't Sex And The "OMFG Is That A Versache Dress?" City- just a shameless exploration of Forty-something's sexual activities set in the backdrop of a Stepford Wives-alike suburb. Ok, so maybe it is like S&TC- except it stars forty-year old hotties, and not the pension-pinching Carrie Bradshaw (ouch!).

~~~~~~~~~~~The observant amongst you might have noticed the title includes the rather random words "Money Shots" and "Magpies". I'd like to conduct a quick survey: how many people do you think read my site for money shots or magpie trivia?

Well, as it turns out, several of you! Last week I rather sneakily hid a site statistic counter at the bottom of my site to ascertain exactly where people were coming from. The majority, as you might expect, basically came of their own accord by typing the address into their address bar. A handful came directly from Scottish Boozing, and one solitary visitor came by clicking the link on Dabby's blog. Cheers Dabby- it means the world to me.

Digging deeper into the referral links and some bizarre results turned up. As it transpires, if you type in Money Shot into either Altavista or Lycos image search you'll find none other than Jordan unveiling her bra for the Lufbra massive as posted on this website! If you ask me that's a pretty obscure claim to search fame. Starsite- don’t bother checking out porn sites for money shots, just read some dudes blog with 'em!

Additionally, should you decide to type Celtic FC Songs Downloads/Over And Over into Google, you're in the wrong place! Yet, one sadly mistaken chap decided to come visit ol' Starsite anyway, just in the off chance I was peddling illegal downloads of Celtic FC anthems.

Yet, this is not the most peculiar search term I uncovered. If you ask the question What Do You Call A Thieving Bird? into the Ask Jeeves search engine the third site down is, you guessed it, Starsite! The quote that sums up my site, hopelessly bypassing the META tags I carefully put in during the site's inception, is "this had led me to call this group of kids the "magpies", for their appropriate resemblance to the thieving bird". So there we have it- conclusive proof that Starsite is not only a darned good read, but it's also educational!

I bet you never imagined people read Starsite to learn more about Ornithology, Celtic Football Club chants or for softcore pornography...

This Will Change Your Life

2005-02-08T17:40:00.000Z

There is something perversely satisfying about writing a website using only notepad and a pirated beta copy of Paint Shop Pro Eight.

The thrill of bedroom coding a website using only the most archaic of tools that were essentially available to designers in the twentieth century is a buzz that fewer and fewer individuals can relate to. The only thing more hardcore than coding a website in notepad is writing it on paper and transferring it to your server (bypassing ftp entirely) through a divine power of osmosis interconnecting man and machine; a gift, as legend has it, that only he named Neo possesses. Neo is a fictional character but is as jealously guarded as a figure of religious importance to old-school bedroom coders as the Christ is to the Christian faith, or Ronald McDonald is to a generation of obese PE-dodging kids who retell stories of Ronald feeding the poor with only five bacon double-cheeseburgers and portions of potato wedges. Neo is the epitome of manliness to nerds- a man who can jump in and out of binary code at will, beds hot female librarians at his leisure and beats up bullies by pulling out his laptop and dazzling them with multi-coloured graphs of varying parabolic functions. Neo has no regards for his own well being whatsoever by wearing shades indoors, a feat of ocular endurance John West wishes he could pull off without giving himself a migraine. Seeing as Neo is merely an cynical money-spinning ideal created to sell movie merchandise, I consider myself fairly hardcore in light of the harsh reality that nerds really can't bed hot women nor attain any real-world credibility.

I have Microsoft Word, but I choose not to use it. I also have Dreamweaver and an as yet unopened copy of Frontpage Express; my graphical user interface virginity is still in tact I'm delighted to report, the self-approbation of having it and knowing I can use it at any moment yet choosing not to is immeasurably and unspeakably hardcore. Continuing with the Matrix analogy as I really do strive to explain this in laymen’s terms for you incorrigible simpletons, the notepad-using website designer has the enviable ability to see pages of code and form a mental image of the site in his head. Knowing the very building blocks of designing a site gives him a privileged position and allows the designer to get his hands dirty with some seriously messy code and much like the changing room ladies (again with the pop culture, you worthless saps really need to broaden your horizons) they can turn an incomprehensible jumble of assorted letters into a fully-functioning wondersite.

Artistic vision is also preferential but as you have noticed with the very best websites like Google the miniminalist strategy is optimum. There is an old cliché that rings true not just to the online world but to every form of media that goes simply 'content is king'. You can dress a carthorse in silver robes but it a carthorse it remains. Touché, Le Sun.

So what does one do if they are blessed with the lofty ability to craft functional and eye-pleasing websites? Well they can either turn to the dark side and use their powers to code crass websites like tubgirl.com or the- I shudder to mention it- unequivocally detestable will-youngonline.com. Or, if they have seen the light, they can code marvellous feats of ingenuity such as, I don't know, the upcoming Scottishboozing.com?

The whole point I'm getting to is that Starsite is a barren wasteland compared to the currently undergoing development Scottish Boozing which I can assure you will be a corker once I'm done with it. Starsite is all about the writing; you won't find any fancy-arsed RSS feed here, and nor will you find complex scripts that change your bloody cursor and you certainly will never see anything a low-level "my first web page" Frontpage Express dad of four couldn't rattle off in a weekend with a little artistic merit and application. And you know what? It works. But as far as design difficulty goes, Starsite is degradingly 'beginner'.

We're talking big things here, people, and it's killing me not being able to run my mouth off about it. But like the master of tension I am, you're just going to have to wait until summer when Scottish Boozing undergoes its most significant facelift yet. Are you unloading in your underwear with anticipation? Because I know I am.

Things That Are Wrong With Today's Society

2005-02-01T23:43:00.000Z

What happened to all the people born before Christ? Did they become the first people to populate hell?

Them wacky Christians and their double-standards.

100 Things About Me

2005-01-30T20:56:00.000Z

In Cyberspace, No One Can Hear You Type

Clicking the "next blog" button is a life choice few make, but those who do choose to press it grow to regret it even if only for a few seconds, while others resent the outcome so much they develop an extreme dislike of all forms of literature: it is that bad. The 'next blog' is not just a metaphor anymore, but something you can actually see and interact with unlike the 'girl next door' metaphor; who for me is a withered aunt who's only resemblance to my ideal girl next door, Jordan, is an oversized chest used primarily to feed her legion of cats. Or so I have heard.

Usually the results are terribly depressing; rushed websites await the web traveller, most of which are pointless or unbearably irrelevant, sometimes even both. Is the literacy rate of people on the internet really so low? This small snapshot of the internet-going public, who it must be stressed feel themselves suitably qualified to write when in fact clearly aren't, are interminably tiresome individuals with either nothing to write about or without the capability to write anything remotely meaningful or interesting. In a lot of ways people like to 'tread water' by trying out this blog thing, admittedly with disastrous results. Motivation can stem from a number of sources; self-actualisation, pleasure, entertainment, and worst of all, boredom. Being bored is never a great motivator and never has been, and as the shelf life of any blog looms ever closer, the boredom gremlin begins to creep up like in those Adult Learning adverts whispering "we can't do this! This is not for us!" Quitters, all of them, but then again being a quitter isn't the stigma these days that it once used to be. No one can keep a blog running permanently, I refuse to believe it. At some point, everyone bites the bullet.

You may be thinking this is the end of Starsite, but far from it. I am merely bemoaning the lack of intelligible or interesting blogs and trying to find some meaning for the offending "next blog" button that seems to churn up never-ending reams of shite. You may not know of the Bloggie awards, but they are gaining a lot of press for reasons that beat me stupid like my right hand on a sunday night. To get a high-ranking blog you need to fulfil these criteria:

* You need to be a huge sell-out
* You can't swear, use offensive or derogatory language
* You have to be a member of about twenty affiliate programs, blogrings, blogrolls and link to about fifty websites none of which you've ever visited. See point one.
* You need to be adorably self-opinionated but not tread on any majority group's toes. Having any discernable opinion on religion makes you a fascist, and any gay-bashing immediately makes you a homophobe.
* Humour must be observational, but not contradict the above point.
* You need a catchy one-liner, the more irreverent and off-beat the better. So a blog called "boing boing" or "not scary, not a duck" will be an immediate success regardless of content or literary merit (actual examples, sadly).
* Owning a blog since 1997 makes it an instant classic, even if it hasn't be updated for eight years

You can't win- all the hyped up blogs are pishwater of the yellowest variety, and all the decent small time blogs are crowded and untraceable from the vast swarms of one-post-jims who never get round to deleting their fucking blog once they've decided that writing isn't actually for them afterall. Who knows, maybe one day I'll look up at that list again and realise I violated each of those points. But by that time my counter will read a healthy 200,000 and I'll have one of those coveted Bloggie awards and the $20.05 amazon voucher to match. Starsite- Can't I Stay Up Longer Mum? Winner.

I lost thread of what I was actually going to write about in these last few paragrpahs, if you couldn't tell. The single-minded rage of the Bloggie awards not only recognising wank blogs but actively rewarding them for being the sell-outs detailed above is enough to make anyone write in excess of five-hundred words to rectify it (ahem). Hey shut up, reading this makes you twice the nerd I am, so you sit and think about that for a moment. In cyberspace, no one can hear you type. Haha I think I might patent that, or at the very least make it this blog's subtitle. Yes, on second thought, that would be the appropriate course of action. The greatest form of wit is that spontaneous charge of genius that no one can explain but is an innate gift of the few.

I had intended to write one hundred things about me as a crash-course in all things Starry, and in fact have. So without further ado, I bring you:

100 Things About Me

I am known as Waleser to my primary school friends, Star to my academy friends, and The Highlander to my University friends.
I have been a middle-distance athlete for ten years, and have won the Scottish title three times over 3000m and Cross-Country as an U17 and 800m as an U20.
I have been fired from three jobs, all of which were dishwashing jobs.
I have a pet hedgehog called Axl who is an African Breed Pygmy hedgehog of the salt and pepper colour.
My favourite takeways include curry, kebabs, chinese and Indian.
I will eat almost anything, although I dislike honey, shell fish and mushrooms.
I am a reasonably accomplished web designer.
I do not consider myself to be funny.
My favourite band is Guns N' Roses, but I am also partial to a lot of hip hop. I will listen to anything so long as it isn't dance music or hard rock.
I started this blog to provide my friends with an entertaining account of my life, to voice my opinions, to cure boredom, to write an account of my life and to improve my writing.
I bought a digital camera last year because I have virtually no pictures of myself or others that aren't taken for formal occasions. I printed fifty off at the end of last summer of my friends and they are all on my wall in my Lufbra bedroom.
My typical mileage in winter is between 40-60 miles/week, but I still consider my sprint to be my strongest point and my endurance to be my weakest.
The last film I saw was Team America.
I hate cats because they are overly independent and they walk around like they own the place.
I also hate dogs who chase me when I run, but I hate their owners even more. I tend to give them abusive language or gestures to show my disgust.
I avoided a court summons for refusing to pay for a train fare.
I think South Park is quality and can't stand whining teenage dramas like the OC and Dawson's Creek.
I secretly like Hanson's new song.
I drink far too much, but my student budget has helped me cut back due to my inability to afford alcohol anymore.
I study Psychology and I find the course interesting, but the grades I get for work are the worst I've ever had since primary school. Expect a blog on this in the near future.
I rate Dabby and Beefy as my best friends as well as a lot of people I'm too pressed for time to name!
I generally miss breakfast unless I have to work or go to a 9am lecture.
My fondest memories are of 6th and the early academy years where Dabby, MJ, Goldie and I slummed it out at the bottom of the food chain.
I was joint top goal scorer in my primary school football team with the school bully.
If I could change one thing about me it would be the bags under my eyes.
In five years I have only ever bought two mobile phones.
I bite my nails and don't care who knows.
I have a type A personality where I feel constantly pressed by time, impatient, hungry for success and show little emotion.
I use notepad to write everything.
On sky my favourite channel is Bravo and least favourite is Living.
One of my favourite smells is petrol.
I never watch films more than once in a six-month period.
I hate disloyalty or people who don't reciprocate effort.
The Tolbooth has an important spiritual significance for me.
I have done many petty crimes in my life, most involving relocating choice council signs or cones. I also stole three left over bananas today from a conference room that had been used.
My favourite job was working for a kid's sports camp, even though I got landed with a paedophile retard. Only fellow co-workers could hope to sympathise with me.
Every blog is based on a shred of truth, usually distorted for comic effect.
I am overly competitive in accordance with my Type A personality.
I love listening to Tupac and Biggie even though I'm not a gangster or a Nigga.
The thought of physical torture is unbearable.
I hate the cold.
I have only ever properly been abroad once to Turkey; the rest of the times I visited france, and Belgium for two days where I ran my 1500m pb of 3:50.43.
People who hum or whistle seriously piss me off.
My ankles crack when I walk, but only very perceptive people have ever commented on it.
My best summer involved staying up to 4am most nights drinking.
I hate getting up to the sound of an alarm.
I pushed my twin sister into a tv when I was little causing a permanent mark beside her eye. I have no recollection of the event whatsoever.
I have had a hernia removed, my tonsils removed, gromits put into my ears and countless other problems in my early years.
The average blog takes me well in excess of an hour to write.
I dislike lists but use them all the same.
My first kiss was with Victoria Officer and I have since lost my virginity. I two-timed two girls when I was in primary one and had to invite both to my birthday party.
My favourite drink is Carlsberg Export and spirit is Butterscotch Schnapps.
I am cocksure of my pool skills despite getting beat regularly. It takes me about four games to get used to a table before I start winning.
I will watch any sport on television and have found myself watching darts, skiing and indoor bowls.
My academic record currently reads 11111111, AAAAAA, AA at standard grade, higher and advanced higher respectively.
I am atheist. I have a very low opinion of people with absurd religious beliefs, and especially people who use their ignorance as a soure of pride.
I can't bear camp men.
I love seeing my name in print.
My ultimate goal would be the acquisition of money in great amounts. Money, contrary to popular belief, really can buy everything.
My current favourite song is Locomotive by Guns N' roses.
I have downloaded thousands of pounds worth of tv shows, music, and programs. I plan to return them all once I'm finished.
I crave for my own car.
I will only ever make or keep a promise if it was I who instigated it. If someone asked me "do you promise... [you didn't take those bananas?]" I will lie and not feel any remorse for it. You are naked without your ability to lie.
I watch neighbours when I can.
I am an msn addict. I regularly rotate my msn name to keep me amused.
I spell check every blog although some grammatical errors do slip through. I also use a thesaurus because I want to improve my writing.
I think I can do anything when I'm very drunk. I wake up with huge memory blanks and do seriously stupid things that I don't remember.
I am an exam whizz. Ask me anything.
Yet, I am undeniably crap at pub quiz's. My general knowledge is pathetic.
The last thing you'll ever hear me say is "you're right" unless it's with sarcastic intent.
My relationship with my parents is extremely distant. I have not heard from them for a month.
I was one of the most popular kids in primary school. I also got into three fights- all of which were broken up by a playground attendant.
Rich people can suck my bell, until I'm rich, where they can be my best friends.
I have no idea what career I want to take, despite being in my final year of University next year.
My leg muscles are well defined, but the cold Scottish summer doesn't lend itself to short-wearing. As a consequence, people categorise me as skinny for my upper body.
I'm a sucker for novelty records that lose their appeal after a few listens.
If the money is right, I will gladly move abroad to a warmer country to work.
I never read books, everything I know about writing has come from magazines and school work.
My bed has some sort of magnetic force. I can never get out of it unless I have a meeting or engagement.
I went through a very brief skater-punk phase.
I shave once a week.
I have fond memories of SNES games and N64 games where I had an unnatural obsession.
I am not a nerd, but if you were to write my interests and academic record I would fill all the criteria.
I won the English prize at my academy despite not reading any of the books or showing any interest in class.
I raced a school bus and won, making the front page of the Press and Journal and pages of the Sun and the Scotsman.
My hair is a constant source of annoyance. No matter what treatment or haircare product used, it always looks crap.
I can be really lazy for certain things.
There is no feeling more satisfying than getting into a warm bed after a cold shower.
My room mate last year was an African called Cletus, who I filmed on this website without him knowing for a full week using my webcam.
If someone buys me a pint, I always buy them one back.
I hate being taken for granted.
I have never tried recreational drugs but am always open to new experiences, even if it means overcoming my dislike of mushrooms.
I hate all forms of public transport, even though it takes me nine hours to get from my Ellon home to my Loughborough home.
I have been with Leanne for over two years now. I rarely mention her on this blog.
I seldomly buy new clothes or any unnecessary indulgences.
I spend over ?35 a week on food, ?65 on rent, ?5-10 on alcohol and ?20 on nights out. My student loan doesn't even cover rent and tuition fees, despite being ?4000.
Some of my most cherished comments are on my Yearbook.
When I grow old I want to grow old disgracefully, like Hugh Heffner.
I can text faster than the current Guinness world record.
This post is now the longest I have ever written: it is 2665 words.

The "G" Word

2005-01-23T18:58:00.000Z

Watching the recent Manchester United versus Exeter City FA cup third round tie, Monsieur Lawrence embarked upon yet another of his vituperative rants. Tongue laced with acid, he began slating Manchester United forward Cristiano Ronaldo with such compulsion it left gentle Mark open-jawed with astonishment. In the space of ten seconds he had systematically managed to use every swear word and associated conjunction I had ever heard of or even dared to imagine. Such was the ferocity of his outburst that it caused James to shuffle awayn slowly from the erupting volcano, his lips quivering with trepidation at the prospect of Lawrence lashing out at the nearest person in fury. Amidst the barrage of insults I managed to count the word "nigger" a total of thirty-seven times, a feat that even the late Mrockzchek would tip his hat to. His face red and twisted an evil shape of anger, Lawrence bellowed "fucks sake!" as an intermediary pause between slanging stanzas, his stinging words aimed squarely at poor unassuming figure on television.

Losing breath slightly, Lawrence calmed down into what we now call the "secondary" outburst that consists of a more lower-toned aggression, whereby his utter disgust and contempt at (in particular Manchester United) opposing players and fans is recited to himself, almost oblivious to anyone in the room. The famous Lawrence tantrum can be thrown at any minute; once, I caught him shouting at the kitchen hob for a full five minutes while it warmed, screaming "your cunter mother I will fuck" repeatedly until we got our second warning from the neighbours who rather sympathetically have put us on a weekly tri-warning system. Still babbling to himself, Lawrence depicted a harrowing tale of Christiano Ronaldo living on the streets, gaining sustenance in the form of male cum from his clientele of lonely male homosexuals. A wry smile emerged as he pondered the dynamics of Ronaldo falling from grace, his psychotic leer and subsequent transfixion on the baby-faced star left a chilling silence in the room, us being careful not to appear to be taking sides by talking amongst each other, such is the raging paranoia built up in the Rushden and Diamonds fan. He sat with his chin slightly protruded towards the television set, his blinkrate never broaching the two blink per minute barrier. With a cold hostility and view to channelling his hatred for the United forward by some form of extrasensory occult power, he sat in this frozen state until half time, the whistle acting like some magical "now wake!" signal from Paul McKenna himself.

Lawrence can snap at any given moment, and regularly loses the plot over the most trivial of things. He doesn't "dislike" anything- he's either impartial to something, or he hates it with a vehement passion that shows clear signs of neuroticism. If you go into his room, the first thing you'll notice are the dents in his walls that you would rightly deduce are the product of his fists. He scrawled "die, Henry, die" onto his back using an elaborate system of pulleys, knives and mirrors claiming that scars are "real man's tattoos" and that "if you so much as say a word of this to anyone" followed by the motion of me dying of aids. I really don't want to get into how he showed me that, but it involved a jar of marmalade and a goat's torso he'd stashed under his bed as an offering to his own personal god.

Yet, for all this you may imagine that even though his rants are amusing in a kind of perversely entertaining kind of way, he can be quite philosophical in between bursts of obscene language. As the second half began, Lawrence laid back and watched the action from his vantage point of twenty centimetres from the surface of the screen. Suddenly and inexplicably Lawrence jumped from his seat, and started clawing at the pixellated representation of Ronaldo's eyes and attempting to bite him, the curvature of the screen causing him to get a laughable "lock-jaw." As he muttered to himself in childlike fashion, I managed to pick up a scrap of Lawrence logic filter through the match commentary. Still on the subject of Ronaldo, he branded the twenty-one year old "an arrogant little baby." I never thought much of it at the time, but when I retreated to my bedroom I began to ponder Lawrence's musings.

Can you have an arrogant baby? It's not something you really associate with an infant, but seems more like an adult trait. Can you 'learn' arrogance? At first, the "arrogant baby" seemed like a paradox ("a seemingly contradictory statement that may nonetheless be true"). Using my Nobel non-nominated paradox killer, The ChuChu Rocket Analogy, the results came back conclusive:

Deceptively simple, The ChuChu Rocket Analogy
has puzzled academics for generations
As the mouse never enters the paradox loop, it can't even be a paradox, let alone one that is resolvable. Thus, it must be an oxymoron. And you thought the ChuChu Rocket Analogy was just a stupid concept that had no real-world application.~~~~~~~~~
In other ponderings, I've been wondering: why are there ginger people in the world? I'm no advocate of the Eugenics movement; in fact, some gingers (pronounced GING-ERS) of the female variety are actually mildly attractive. But like Lawrence stated in one of his more well mannered moods, you'd tell them to 'shave down there' first, provided they hadn't yet come to the same conclusion. If we take an evolutionary approach to the Ginger phenomenon, we see that being a ginger confers no evolutionary advantage as defined by Charles Darwin in his seminal Origin Of Species. For simplicity, I'm going to relate to Ginger Men- where I will argue that they are impoverished by their strikingly disagreeable looks.

* Variation Under Nature: Variations within a species begin indistinguishable at first, but gradually develop into differences that have an evolutionary advantage. Gingers are immediately noticeable by prey; they also tend to be hideously ugly. Ginger men lie squarely at the bottom of the food chain and are outcast from most groups, and also fail to score with the opposite sex unless they too are ginger, in which the case the offspring are destined to be cursed with comedy hair.

* Struggle For Existence: "Each organic being is striving to multiply to be vigorous, healthy, and to survive - often at the expense of members of its own species or those of a competing species." To lessen the damage, Gingers are always "skimmed" from the group. If you have to start somewhere, Darwin would have argued in a less-politically correct era, it may as well be gingers.

* Laws Of Variation: One day the ginger gene will be eliminated, see above. This will create a super-race of blondes, brunettes, blackies and even purple-haired people; it is no coincidence that the colour ginger doesn't occur in nature. One day the gingers will be wiped out, and those left will be stuffed ornaments in the Natural History Museum; a shocking display of the inadequacy of current human evolution through cell mutation. "A brighter future" the slogan will run below, "a dimmer hair colour."

* Instinct: Currently the instinct to ginger hair has been repressed; long ago, it was a physical vomit. Now it's a wretch. In the future, it will be a compulsion to kill, kill, kill. See the above point.

You can't argue with Darwinian logic; so please, if you have to screw a ginger, make sure she is well shaved. And make sure you have a sturdy and highly robust condom.

The Battle Of Baby Park

2005-01-18T22:12:00.000Z

Gently putting down the Gamecube controller in satisfied fashion, Jibba turned smugly to the seated contingent. From the glowing screen were the ranks "JIB" stretching down the column entitled "Records", his hands still moist with the sweat of effort. Despite the seminal game being set aside for the quest for FIFA perfection, the big man had dusted off the controller in secret and began single-handedly tearing down the times of the self-proclaimed "Timetriallist, The"; the recognised master of time-shaving powerslides and general Mario Kart maestro. The Eliteness; the MK Master- his title was unquestioned, his dominance undisputed. His stunning lap times and solo achievements were considered irreproachable; a beacon onto where all future performances would be gauged.

Yet, lurking in the shadows, laid a foe who would mount a challenge on the great man of gaming. His pedigree was largely unknown despite having numerous Grand Prix victories to his name, the real prestige would always come with battles against the clock where the scourge of ground-levelling items were but a distant bitter memory. He would go by the initials "JIB"; the unmistakable calling sign of the enemy! The sensai was known only by the initials F.A.G., reputed to be either an acronym of great secrecy or an inadvertent insult to would-be contenders who would suffer the indignity of losing to the self-proclaimed FAG. The annuls had been rewritten. The initials F.A.G were no longer sitting proudly atop the Mario Kart halls of fame, leading to widespread confusion and discontent.

Watching this uncouth renegade in the audience was the esteemed FAG himself; a man of great lore and mystique, whose Karting skills had quashed the wills and competitive instincts of weaker men. Where lesser beings would have panicked or conceded defeat, the FAG sat silently, soaking in the air of expectation. With a simple flick of the wrist, the challenge had been laid in his hands; he was holding the controller, and that could mean only one thing: It was on.

The course for the title would be Baby Park- the deceptively simple oval loop, a test of fourteen corners spread across seven laps. To conquer it demands impeccable timing, precision and concentration, for the two combatants would be battling for mere tenths of an advantage over a tantalisingly beginner course that would be decimated by the seasoned experts... there are no gimmicks, obstacles or obstructions in Baby Park, only ten-seconds worth of tarmac. To complete Baby Park is an insultingly simple task- to master it in its fullest, however, requires literally pixel-perfect timing and blue-exhaust boosting at each corner. There is no margin for error; if even one corner goes badly, then you are forced to restart. There is no truer test of cornering abilities than the epoch-making Baby Park. With this in mind, the mighty FAG let the contours of the controller slip effortlessly into his palm and readied himself to re-establish his position as at the top of the rankings board.

Rediscovering that magic touch, the revered virtuoso weaved and dodged around the symmetrical track, hitting the corners with clinical precision and keeping the racing line that he was famous for. Screeching round the final bend, he pulled in with a time that shattered the 1:16-second barrier (hereby known as the "elusive sixteen second barrier") and claimed top-spot ahead of the unruly rival. Truly, a masterful display had just been achieved but it was not to last long. Saving the ghost, it took the best part of a half hour for the notorious FAG's challenger to best him with a time that would be a low fifteen. Speculation grew as to whether or not this barrier could be broken.

"There is a good second to come off that yet" the FAG confidently predicted amidst gasps and yells of "you're crazy!". Snatching the pad, the FAG set about redefining the parameters of Baby Park. Following his rival's ghost, he cut the corners with an extreme display of driver manoeuvring, attacking the bends with ferocious tilt and consistency. After several attempts, a near perfect run-in had achieved the seemingly impossible- a one-fourteen had been achieved, much to the admiration of the assembled masses. The competition managed to draw in wandering passer-by’s, who grew curious as to where the whoops and cries were coming from. It would take his opponent several attempts to even come close; so long, in fact, that the FAG went for a long run to pass the time.

When he returned, the aura of smugness on his rival's face told the whole story. Drawing a deep breath, the FAG entered the living room to see those heart-dropping statistics:

JIB 1:14.287
FAG 1:14.563

After trying for a considerable time, it seemed like his predictions would prove true that for the Koopa/Toad combo a one-fourteen was maxing out the limits of the racing line. Never letting up, the FAG raced until the tips of his fingers bled. Then, on one momentous trial the ghost was behind on lap four- could he continue this unflaltering pace to the line? As the Kart swung in for the final lap, a noticeable lead had been gained on the map. Keeping his concentration, the Kart powered round the final bend as the collective held their breath. Crossing the line, the inconceivable time flooded the screen- the fourteen second barrier had been broached, and the FAG regained his lead.

The ghost was nigh-on perfection, could this stunning time be matched? After over an hour of unrelenting practice, JIB had pulled together a stunning display of Karting to record a high one-thirteen; mere thousands of a second in front of FAG. It seemed like the great man would have to once again rise to the occasion and prove his worth in an ever-increasingly demanding competition. Stopping his meal mid-way, the furious FAG grabbed the controller and set himself to breaking the elusive record set by his most worthy of rivals.

The Battle Of Baby Park seemed to have tapered off at 1:13.6. Regardless of the amounts of attempts it seemed that this time would stand until the next generation of drivers would give up the loyal Koopa/Toad combo and have to beat the record by ulterior means. Then, when it seemed all hope was lost, something magical occurred.

Putting together what can only be described as the indefectible performance, each corner clicked into place with mathematical precision and timing, typifying why the FAG is the envy of all pretender drivers. He wasn't just racing faster; he was racing smarter, and knocking chunks out of the ghost. Such a display had never been seen before, it was unquestionably the pinnacle of racing perfection. Charging towards the line, the final time registered a time that no one had dared dream imaginable: He had recorded 1:12.882, smashing the previous mark, becoming the only member of the illustrious sub-thirteen club.

It was a standard that Jibba would attempt to break for nearly two solid hours. The gallant, triumphant FAG sipped Carlsberg all during Jibba's feeble attempts, smugly satisfied with his indelible performance. To this day FAG rides high on the crest of perfection, still the only member of the exclusive sub-thirteen Baby Park club.

If you've skipped to the end, please take a moment to realise that the "sub-thirteen Baby Park club" isn't what it sounds like. Honestly!

Late Entry...

2005-01-15T15:17:00.000Z

Mason, Tom, Star, Jibba, Ako

Photo Blog

2005-01-09T20:26:00.000Z

A picture is worth a thousand words. If so, the following blog is worth in excess of 134,000 words :p

I'll be frank- I haven't done any revision or work for my exams whatsoever. Alas, no, I've been working long in a running shop and busy doing more important things like combing my hair than to be bothered with the trifle issue of exams. Except, these exams are weighted as 20% of my final degree. Ye gods.

So for the coming fortnight I will have to keep as low a profile as is possible, entering sunlight only to snatch what scraps of food I can before retiring to the darkness to work ever harder at trying to nail these exams. Which is bad news for you, blog fans. This dreadful news will likely leave you weeping at the keyboard, wondering why this cruel fate has befallen you. If you're bored, I suggest you read a book. However drab Austen is, it'll make you appreciate this site even more and you'll have broadened your intellectual horizons, if only marginally.

As some form of mild compensation, I have uploaded a choice selection of photos from mine very own digitalis camerus. Be warned- I am not the best of photographers, especially not when drunk. Most of the photos are cringingly amateurish at best, but I feel they are representative of what they're supposed to show. Mostly, people. And in some cases, animals.

To use the 'Hello' programme could take a lifetime, so instead I've just uploaded them to the Scottish Boozing server for all to glance at. I'm too busy and in demand to put them into a 'proper' album, so the links with the sexual-sounding prefix 'S5300XXX' will have to suffice. If I could make money out of this blog, trust me, I would write a hell of a lot more often. But as it stands, this degree is my best chance of not living in the gutter and ruing chances lost... so I bid farewell, for the time being.

>>STAR'S CAMERA PHOTOS<<

Sixty-Second Profile: Dabby's Brother

2005-01-02T19:33:00.000Z

Ah, Dabby's brother- an enigma in his own right. Often considered an ancillary character in the savage lineage, Dabby's brother was the heir apparent; a poor mans Dabby, forever consigned to being a mere novelty. A likeness unlike any other, Dabby's brother was a sporadic source of entertainment perchance any fortuitous encounter 'tween corridor walls. Fondly remembered as the amiable underachiever, Dabby's brother was always somewhat of a mystery package to us. His silent demeanor and short exposure left much to the imagination, as he went about his daily life with as much dignity as he could muster, given the unfortunate resemblance to one of Ellon Academy's finest characters. Indeed, he seemed forever resigned to live his life in his alter-ego's shadow, however much he tried to etch out his own individual being.

To this day he remains a misunderstood passer-by, having no discernible background other than being a remarkably similar second best to the original Dabby. So, my dear friends, let us raise a glass to the man of mirror images, lest we forget his all-encompassing powers of effortless impersonation. The next time you're standing in a corridor, pay close attention. You never know if Dabby's elusive brother will walk by in front of your very eyes.

The Fearon Residence: An Insider's View

2004-12-30T20:36:00.000Z

Dabby's family always make me laugh.

Whoa, calm down! Let me explain first! Christ, people really can take this blog hyper sensitively. Just relax, start breathing, and wait for the inevitable justification that will soothe your distress like some sort of verbal Calimine Lotion.

If you'd let me finish, I'd have said "Dabby's family always make laugh because of their fantastically endearing quirks." Dabby's grandmother is so luringly naive you can't fail to smile at her beautifully innocent outlook on young people. Clearly besotted with the changed attitudes around her, she continues to believe in the goodness of youngsters as if it were still the early nineteen hundreds. Her gift of a book on Mammoths to her grandson, who to her is still the wide-eyed nine year old who would read in awe about the hairy giants from ages past, shows how far out of touch she is with today's youth. Of all the people who would unappreciate a book, especially one on the natural world, it is surely her nineteen year old grandson. And why shouldn't he? Such a 'present' is monumentally crap in anyone's eyes, but bless her for her good intentions.

Last sunday, while at Dabby's partaking in a drinking game, we went downstairs to replenish the stores in anticipation of further muckling. At the kitchen both his mother and his grandmother were enthusing about a home made gin made primarily from raspberries and london gin (so, not exactly home made after all). This rather logically thought out concotion resulted in a beautifully reddened liquor; one that smelt of raspberries, and tasted like gin. While not wanting to offend my humble hosts, I played along and joined in the rapturous acclaim for the beverage. Noticing we'd entered the room, Dabby's mother- half way through a sentence beginning with "just look at how"- cut her story mid way and offered us the mildest of tastes. Grandmother, ever worried of tempting her grandson down the wrong path, played the role of mediator. As the liquor trickled down the glass, Grandmother Fearon intervened with a panicked "I... I think that's enough!" The sum volume: one shot.

Running over to the glass cabinet, she quickly retrieved another identical glass and Dabby's ma diced the miniscule taster in half into the adjacent glass. As I put my hand forward to sample this once in a lifetime opportunity, the ever conscious grandmother swiftly put the glass to her nasal region. Like a seasoned wine taster, she let her olfactory senses indulge in the sweet aroma, before concluding "it has a wonderful smell! Smell that young Alan!"

"Mmm, that's amazing! Can you smell that Daniel?" I forwarded, prodding Dabby in the ribs. Just before I was about to sample the delicacy, Grandmother interposed. "This stuff is real strong! Real strong!" she said maniacally, her words spoken with the wisdom of age. It was assumed that we are both unspoiled youths, not yet familiar with adult matters like alcohol. Growing up in the country, it's easy to assume Dabby the quiet untainted child who speaks when spoken to and to whom the mention of Amy down the road brings shied blushes and to whom intercourse is a very confusing word, never spoken of or inclined to in public and kept strictly to the privacy of the marital bed. In fact, her vision of Dabby involves a baggy pair of dungarees with tears and mud marks at the knee; a mischievous boy at the void between childhood and adolescence, who chews straw and plays on the neighbours bails until mother cries "dinner!" and he runs as fast as his portly legs will carry him, yelling "boy oh boy, spinach!"

Dabby, clearly eager not to offend or condescend Granny, played his role like a masterful theatre actor. "Oh, wow, this smells rootin' good!" his Grandmother likely interpreted of his "it's nice." Leaning over to give him a big sloppy kiss and pinch his cheek, before sending him to bed with a hot cocoa and pat on the bum, I interjected this Little House horror show to get to the tasting so we could continue our manly drinking game. "Good gracious!" she exclaimed before charging off to the fridge, my lengthy sigh coupled with a rude head shaking clearly not escaping the attention of Ma Fearon. Before I knew it, Grandmother had transformed the demi-shot of blood red liquor into a tall glass of crystal clear lemonade with trace (0.001%) alcohol swimming about somewhere. The solicitous elder tasted her new concoction, then further continued to pour this lemonade avec alcohol-morsel mixture into an even taller glass, again filled with lemonade. Taking a sip, she deemed this lemonade to be of a low enough alcohol content for our consumption and thus allowed us to retreat upstairs with our lemonade, patting Dabby on the bum and exclaiming "there's my boy! If it's still too strong you tell Granny!"

Within minutes of returning upstairs, I was back down to pilfer the gin that had so far eluded us while Granny attended to pictures of Dabby as a baby with his mother. We finished the whole bottle in the end, and while I felt guilty for letting poor Grandma down Dabby's dogged determination to topple my resilience ended fruitlessly. In fact, after nailing half a bottle of Sherry Dabby- the shrewd deceptor- filled the rest with water. Donning my cape and pipe, I pointed out to the elementary sycophant that even if Ma Fearon missed the popped cork, surely the grossly diluted Sherry would get her Bat Senses tingling. But such an evaluation of her little boy seemed improbable, especially given his sickeningly adorable photo of himself at age three with puppy dog eyes and characteristic ear-to-ear beamer (see photo a few blogs down, bet you didn't know this grin has been honed to perfection since childhood) that adorns the prime location at the dinner table. No, it seemed that deviant bad influence from Ellon would be taking the rap. Again.

The dinner table, for those who don't know, is the set piece for the most ancient and hallowed mother-son moment in the entire Fearon house hold. It is one that has remained unchanged since Toddlerhood, and is always guaranteed to put a smile on little Daniel's face.

It is a tradition that has been past down the lineage from generation to generation; one that is past down like a priceless brooch, or a family custom. However, this is uniquely a Fearon family tradition- for reasons that will become all too apparent. All Fearon daughters are exquisite cooks; the skill is inherited in their genes, which began at a time when the men would hunt animals and the women would forage and prepare the meals in anticipation of their arrival. As the generations evolved, the Fearons became respected chefs and food delicatessens up until Trisha Fearon IV who has become the first recorded Fearon-family Home Economics teacher. However, even though the vocations may change there has been a recipe in the family that has been kept a secret even to this very day, and is jealously guarded from the prying eyes of outsiders. No Fearon has ever broken the tradition, even when Lords and Kingsmen hampered for a meal of this quality, and even when children who would love to make it their Home Economics project clamoured for the recipe, they have only ever served it for their own kind far away from untrustworthy non-Fearons who would otherwise commercialise the secret recipe. So when the revered idea was leaked unintentionally by Dabby's ma, it sparked a shrouded and fierce denial from all contingents.

An emergency Fearon family meeting was called, where relatives as far afield as New Zealand attended the crisis talks. After long debates and heated arguments it was finally resolved to simply deny any existence or knowledge of the fabled "cheesy tea." Showing tattoos of a Dairylea Dunker Fun Pack being opened with the bread stick dolloped in the cheese portion, the brethren left Udny, never to meet or contact one another again. To put this mythical dish into perspective, I will now describe what it is like to sample its delicious taste.

After a long train journey, Daniel Fearon arrives fatigued and exhausted in his home town of Udny Station. Craving a beer, he avoids the temptation to quickly stop by the Udny Hotel for fear of being noticed or lynched because, as everyone knows, anyone who moves even temporarily from rural Udny is brandished a Judas and an Outbreeder, and is forever condemned a man of the devils kin. Leaving the Hotel to the shadows, he rewraps his scarf around his hands to form makeshift mittens to ward off the intolerable cold. Slicing the driving rain his house slowly emerges from the darkness, looking exactly as he'd left it. Pausing, he stops with saddened emotions to view the house that has, to him, somehow been trapped in time.

"Is this it?" he thinks to himself. His Edinburgh travels have been varied and marvellous, how he would love to share them! Yet, for all his travels, this is still his home. And while the world moves around him at a frightening pace in the metropolis of Scotland's capital, he feels somewhat like Frodo Baggins, returning to the quiet Shire where nothing of note truly ever happens and everyone knows him by first name. Only the one window to the lower left of the house is alight, and he can make out the feint silhouette of an ageing figure stalking in the back of the room. A sudden depression clouds his sadness, as he realises the profound event his homecoming is to one special lady. While other bonds are temporary, the memories this one place on the entire Earth's surface almost causes him to shed a tear; "I'm home", he whispers to himself, striding towards the porch.

Ringing the door bell, he waits patiently for the figure to approach. The outside light illuminates, followed by the actual doorway as the figure edges ever closer. The rattle of the keys is heard, and the clanging in the key hole makes the apprehension almost unbearable. As the door swings slowly open, his composure leaves him.

"Mum!" he cries, wrapping his arms round his beloved mother. They share a unique moment of togetherness, before prising themselves and indulging in social niceties. As Dabby removes his shoes, an angelic smell overpowers him, causing him to stutter and divert his attention. Smiling, his mother adds: "I've made your favourite."

Entering the dining area, an assortment of cheesy snacks is lain on a silver dish with fine china surrounding the gleaming snack holder. The smell is simply sumptuous, far too good to resist. Dabby dives onto the chair and quickly stuffs a napkin under his T-shirt, snatching the fine silverwear and stabbing a chunk of finest Wendsleydale with the sharpened knife. Completely forgetting his mothers omnipresence in the corner of the room, her face marked with pride, Dabby continues to pick and gorge the carefully selected and nutritionally balanced treat. Always the same: a ring of various cheesy's (circumference 15cm), an inner circle of bread or cracker based fillers and an outer square of cheese derivatives and creative cheese alterations (melted cheese, dippers etc). Frantically chowing down the motley menage, he grabs bread sticks and slaps on layer after layer of cheeses to create his very own cheesy tea sandwich. Gnawing on the sides, he creates a perfect mathematical cube of cheese inaugurated food, acknowledging its splendour only momentarily before wolfing the lot in one go. His ravenous eyes leaves no spot untouched, as he elevates the expensive platter and licks the entire area onto which any scrap of food has been placed. The voracity of his eating manner may seem savage at first, but this lust for cheesy perfection has been imbedded in his being from birth.

Nearing completion of the eagerly awaited meal, he rounds up the remaining crumbs and nibbles at them slowly, savouring every moment he can from the experience. He feels worn out by his Herculean effort, and brushes away the beads of sweat from his brow. In many ways he feels he has climaxed, and the feeling of satisfaction overcomes every fibre of his body.

Still with the motherly sheen of pride, Ma Fearon- the provider- ruffles his hair a little and removes the now empty platter and cutlery to dispose of in the washing machine. Dabby sits at the table contented, the thoughts of the feast still running through his mind as he replays the best parts and still tastes the various cheese derivatives. For a fleeting moment himself and his mother are bonded and feel closer together than they could possibly imagine; she kneels down and plants a big kiss on his forehead, the childlike Dabby smirking throughout, full of happiness with a rejuvinated outlook on life. At this most tender of moments, he suddenly feels five years old again, and submits his inhibitions to hug his mother in return. It will not be a while before a cheesy tea is bestowed upon him, but he knows as with christmas, this special occassion only comes round very infrequently. Retiring to his room, his belly filled with cheesy goodnesses, he tucks himself up for bed, still tasting the wonderful cheesy ensemble that makes him feel so at home.

Yuletide Polemic

2004-12-24T01:49:00.000Z

Wow, so much has happened I don't know where to begin!

The start, perchance. Forsooth! They don't call me on-the-ball-Al for anything.

I guess the last thing of note would be leaving Loughborough, where semester one has come to an ending of apocalyptic magnitude. Actually, not really; when you consider what a turbulent year it has been, the last week passed with little more than a whimper for me. The main highlight of the final week was watching the entire Lord Of The Rings Extended Edition trilogy, and my arse still feels numb from it. Coursework aside (the last week has been particularly stressful, with an uncooperative group who seemed to have annointed me leader on the grounds that I'm the only one who doesn't seem content with shrugging my shoulders and waiting for someone else to pipe up), the last night with the flatmates fizzled out as usual. Avid fans of my blog, particularly those who are up early before I can delete beer-fulled rants, will note with feverish relish how disillusioned I am with with not having any reliable friends in Aberdeen (besides one person). Such a sweeping statement would normally endear a footnote, but I will leave it blank for the simple reason that it is so painfully accurate without being needlessly overcomplicated.

In a sense I hark for a Spoof-like character; probably the last really genuine and dedicated friend I had, whom I (very sadly in retrospect) split acquitances with nigh-on eight years ago, who would not just accept my company but actively make efforts to see me in return. Bring out the violin strings and orchestral ensemble, for this is a tragic tale. I am an excessively needy person, but is it too much to ask for a friend who doesn't mind picking up the phone and saying perhaps "fancy a few brews at mine tonight?" My long search for a friend who shows any sign of reciprication continues onwards fruitlessly abound, destination unknown. A giver I am, and a victim of my own ingenuity and gumption. If I didn't make any effort, and decided to bar myself from initiating any form of reunion, I would be a very lonely person indeed. How wonderful it must be to play Online RPGs, where your close circle of friends is organised and reunited automatically by order in which guild you joined. Like my coursework example- there are leaders, and followers. I seem to play the eternal leader. The 'organiser'. There are far too few shepherds and too many sheep in my many social circles- besides the Athletes, who really seem to have a fantastic social life just because they're always so well organised. No last-minute mass withdrawals, or even nights out hinging on the attendence of a very select few with them at all.

My flatmates are very nice people, don't get me wrong, but they are distinctly 'cliquey'. It's no fault of their own, but the main three (the Whitby trio) really do stick together and pretty much do what the other two do and nothing else. On countless occassions I've attempted to organise a night out, go to the pool hall, a drinking game, a night in, and even gave them a week's notice to come out on the Friday of Dabby's arrival. It was a Universal no-show, actually no surprise to myself, and really lacked the closeness I'd come to realise at Stirling (more later). It is genuinely saddening, especially given my (admittedly over) anticipation for the second year. It just seems like no one could give a shit what I want to do, unless it corresponds with their own plans. It's not easy to admit that, but I really do feel left on the outside, and if I'm given the oppertunity to move out I may do so just because I can't be fucked being treated like a social irrelevancy or someone who tags along with the main group. Fuck that shit. Ironic, isn't it, how I'd love people to be more responsive, yet find myself in a group so hyper-responsive to themselves that my input or desires mean literally nothing. They call it 'isolation' or 'alienation', but I call it just trying in vain to break into a group of people who've known each other for years to no avail. If it's my last year at Chester Close, and this is another Starsite exclusive, it won't be for want of staying- it'll be the burning desire to meet people who'll really accept me. Ian has, and I wish he was staying next year, but a house with the athletes would be simply fantastic. We've all felt this way at times, and I hope it passes, but right now the future seems as uncertain as ever.

So I left Chester Close for the Christmas period with Axl in hand and went to Glasgow, where I pretty much got pissed with Tete and Jenny at a party and passed out. Nicely. But before that, came the incomparible experience of Stirling.

Stirling was an experience totally off the hook in every way. I arrived on the friday and had a relitavely quiet night in while Tommy worked and I sat bantering with his flatmates, who are people of the soundest calibre. As I was racing the next day I skipped the brews and retired to bed quite early, playing some Pro Evo 4 just before kip. Tommy told me not to get pubes on his bed, so I slept with my boxers on. Just this once. The next day the race was fantastic- I didn't run especially strong, certainly not inditicative of my training- but meeting my running pals from Aberdeen was awesome. If it wasn't for the banter I'm not sure I'd still be running. They're a great crowd, and while we were marginally disappointed with a team bronze it still felt like a strong team effort. Even having been gone so long I was told how much I was missed at the track which was reassuring, having been back and kicked ass I can say that there are still certain qualities which I do miss from training with the Aberdeen lads, even if our sessions are considerably easier than at the 'Borough. So that night I and Tommy's flatmates got most sincerely drunk and learnt a new drinking game, one of the challenges being the 'waterfall' which I'll detail if I ever see you in the pub. When Tommy got in we went to the Union, a mere shadow of Loughborough's but still enjoyable, and partook in many dares. Tommy's chat up line (forced by myself and Andrew) was "Hi, I'm Tommy, I'm from the Shire- Would you like to touch my precious?!" Genius! The night blasted off, and before leaving we nicked a huge pinboard. After five fumbled minutes of trying to change the letters to read "Wanker" the campus police showed up. As I turned to see them, Tommy was already half way up the road running for dear life!! I legged it and we got a chasey from the pigs, which was exhilirating and typical student behaviour but not condonable because getting caught has serious repercussions. We reconnaised with his flatmates in a neighborouring bush, and sauntered back to his flat to drink until 6am. I'll maybe post the photos when I can be a) bothered b) the patron saint of blogging. Awesome weekend and looking forward to the "safe" banter at christmas (as Tommy "Two Knives" Dunz would say).

Since being home the training has declined almost embarassingly, but in its place I've been working like a motherfucker at the Run-4-It shop. We had a staff night out, drank my fellow co-workers under the table, nuff said really. Working Christmas Eve and Boxing day just because I'm hardcore, the money going straight into my landlords pocket as I continue to pay for a house I'm not using. If anyone wants to sublet in Loughborough, you know the number. I've got to be up in five hours so I might head- Tommy, Drew, Ally, Extreme and others are coming tomorrow to start the festivities (get muckle drunk) and then tuck to the booth so I've got more hosting on my hands (yep...). I did invite the Savages but not one of them wanted to come or even bothered to reply so they can suck my fucking bell because it's the very last time I go out my way for any of them. After hosting two parties over summer, a dreadful burden and a labour of love, and countless other meetings I'm all out of caring for this pitiful 'group' of friends. I'm not interested in leeching wankers overly content on being alone, and I never have been. Have it your way.

I don't want to end this blog on a negative note so I'll say ?140 earned this week- every penny is going behind the bar tomorrow or being spent on takeaways. I deserve it.

The Athlete's Ball

2004-12-09T20:25:00.000Z

Tagline: "Who says athletes don’t have balls?"

No one to my knowledge but the double entendre wasn't wasted on me. Around this time of year there is a slew of pre-christmas balls which I will now refer to as functions, because the word "balls" is making me snigger too much. One such function is the Athlete's Ball whereby the general athletic fraternity of Loughborough University congregate to enjoy each others company in the pleasant surroundings of the Jarvis Ramada hotel. Formal wear is of the black collar variety, making for an unmistakable 'promlike' atmosphere of well suited males and tastefully dressed damsels.

The formal commenced at the classy establishment of JC's, although anyone with even a passing knowledge of Loughborough will recognise the subtle undertones of sarcasm running through that statement. JC's is a purely functional 'Union bar' (although only very loosely affiliated to the Union); quite cramped at the best of times and seems to have an identity crisis of Michael Jackson proportions. There is the token pool table taking up a quarter of the room, I'm not sure how much of a money spinner it is but all I do know is that space could have been better used with a table thus increasing sitting space quarter-fold, perhaps, although admittedly I'm no architect. Being a chief writer on Scottish Boozing tends to make you hypercritical of most average pubs even when judgement is uncalled for (like now), but I don't want to offend anyone with misconceptions that JC's is anything less than uninspired, so I'll say something ambiguous... JC's is indifferent. However there is a nice tablet detailing the Athletic Club's annual achievements, so it is not an entirely inappropriate meeting place. Just a crap pub.

On arrival it became blatantly clear who'd began drinking only just past the hour of noon, and who would begin the daunting journey to intoxicationsville in earnest at JC's. Vandenberg was clearly the most drunk, having been at the pub since one o'clock with Scagg, Ali and Parrsy. For those of you who's memory hasn't deteriorated from Korsakoff's syndrome (about 0.5% of my readership), Scagg is also known as the Wild Boar- a man whose legend will later be enscribed on the Athletic Club achievement tablet, current holder of the Chunder mile record; the blue ribband event of the athletic drinking calender. The Soosmeister and Lisa were in attendance, not entirely sober but steadily getting there, as well as the rest of the group. There was good banter, especially surrounding the latest publication of the Athletic Club magazine which contained an article written by Vberg himself (hard hitting journalism with criticism levelled rather unsubtly at Gav) and the "Incest Tree"- a chart of who has pulled who within the athletic club. Clearly written by a sprinter, it neglected a few choice pullings but still an impressive account of how much interathlete relationships there are in the club.

AWOL was Comedy Williamson, who looked like he'd pulled another late entry which looked increasingly mal-timed, especially as we began to board the bus. Ian actually lent me the suit I wore which fitted like the proverbial glove, an investment I'd love to shell out on but my tightfisted personality just can't justify spending over a hundred pounds on something I might use once a year. I got a grilling, unsurprisingly, by the kilt wearing minority like I was Judas himself which was maybe deserved. Just before boarding the bus about thirty sprinters got on, then I was asked to present my ticket, and then everyone else got on unhassled. If only the odds of useless shit like that could be used productively to say win something, instead of me getting picked out at random from a lot of two hundred just to prove I had a ticket. I'm not fucking Mexican, I don't try to sneak onto buses routinely to try my luck out and save myself having to shell out money. The inconvenience, however marginal, was a personal insult and degrading to all Scotsmen who are branded untrustworthy just for having a slightly altered vernacular. Some places won't even accept Scottish tender, like we somehow print our own money on our Hewlett-Packard inkjets at home and manage to authenticate it by drawing seemingly holographic indents using a box of Crayola.

So I bantered with Gav on the bus, who is actually quite good banter but seems to have problems understanding why Bekele won't beat Ej G over 4k cross country. Yes, this is the standard conversation at an Athlete's ball, lap it up. It's an indulgence you only get once a year and with no outspoken non-athletes in attendance the chances of being branded boring twats is minimal as the function of outsiders against athletes tends towards zero. Sorry for the divergence, all this coursework is making me see graphs of social settings, kind of like in the Matrix when the nerds see places in lieu of numbers.

The hotel was lavish and suitably posh, with the bar prices being over the odds but what did you expect. The cheapest way to get drunk was nailing pints of Fosters (a mere ?2.75), which became my strategy for the night. There was plenty of great banter around the bar and after the photos were taken (will be posted on Starsite when it's printed!) the dining hall opened up, reminiscent of my own high school prom. The food, while looking visually appealing, was unsatisfactory and made me realise why posh girls are all thin. There was a small portion of potatoes and two shreds of carrot, seemingly thrown in as an after-thought, and some crazy sausage wrapped in chicken. It took me just under thirty seconds to polish off the whole 'meal', but thankfully the actual eating of the food was a minor distraction to the quality banter going on cross-table.

And then it happened. I slipped up, and I wasn't even that drunk at this stage. The moment that makes you cringe when you wake up, the solitary moment that always happens when I drink. I did something I shouldn't have done.

Leaving the table to grab another pint at the bar, I entrusted Scagg to guard my seat. While he successfully managed to bat off some sprinter lose who was looking to ogle the birds at the other end of our table, he was powerless to Gandy's all-consuming presence. Gandy, as you're likely unaware, is the big show. He is the strongest reason to train at Loughborough- when Gandy says jump, everyone jumps. When Gandy enters the room you are quiet. When Gandy takes a session you listen and you do it. If Gandy decides he doesn't like you, it is within his power to kick you out the inner circle and cripple your athletic career indefinitely. You cannot go overboard with the metaphors- Gandy has more power and respect than his namesake. Gandy, for all intents and purposes, is the big cheese. You do not upset the Gandy man, because the Gandy man can.

Not realising Gandy had occupied my seat, and thinking it another sprinter lose, I said- rather callously when I reflect- "Oh, I see what's happening here."

Then he turned around. It was at this precise moment when my heart sank and any aspirations of making the A team this year went out the window. He apologetically left to sit at another table, and I died of shame.

I am in an inescapable predicament. Now in the light of soberness I realise my grave error, my lack of choice words, and the damage is irreparable. I dare not bring it up with him, I have to pray that he got so drunk that the incident is forgotten, but prayers are all I have. I will try to befriend him, but Gandy is not used to being spoken to in any manner other than reverence. Gandy trained Seb Coe when he was at Loughborough, Gandy has very little time for boarderline 'athletes' like myself, so any interaction with him has to be as amicable as you can possibly make it. I do fear I have screwed up one of the few chances I had at making any positive impression on him, and now whenever he sees me it will be in a negative how-dare-he light. For all my stupid drunken antics, this one has the most far-reaching consequence. I have a lot of brown-nosing to do if I'm ever going to be in contention for a place on the BUSA team. Afterall, it's hardly as if they're short on potential runners. Loughborough do not field also-rans.

As the night moved on I became increasingly more drunk, by the end I deposited ?25 behind the bar in exchange for muckle drunkeness. I spent a portion of the night debating with a Danish guy, who seemed a little like a lonely figure, about who was greater- Wilson Kipketer or Seb Coe. It got a little heated, especially seeing as Kipketer was born in bloody Kenya, but it was great banter nevertheless. The ball- one of the few places and times where you can have a lengthy drunken debate with a Dane about why Kipketer is a fraud. Marvellous.

I seemed to be in an argumentative mood, as I was soon balancing the origins of man with Grandad Junior. It was well-meaning though, and he didn't take it too personally when I put forward the argument as to why his entire belief system is nothing more than a collection of fairy tales written for kids. Legendary banter. One of my more obscure memories is Ricky's fantastic Paul Burrell impression, it was comedic gold as far as I'm concerned. Elsewhere the formal was pretty standard, some embarrassing attempts at dancing and singing and some poor attempts at holding a repectable conversation without slurring or losing track. I turned down the opportunity to go to Echos afterwards, purely because I couldn't be arsed and went for a cheeky kebab instead.

After sleeping through both my lectures today, the cringing memory of my brief encounter with Gandy stayed with me for most of the day, making for some frequent knuckle-chewing each time the wretched memory surfaced. Apart from that, a relatively 'uneventful' night inso far as I didn't damage, steal or do both to anything and generally behaved myself. Yet, somehow, I managed to jeopardise my whole athletics career. Way to go, McWales.

Additional: Lost at birth, Parrsy and Dabby

Cunts Of The Month

2004-12-02T01:28:00.000Z

Do they know it's Hanukah?

Oh yes, back by very popular demand it's that part of the site which aims to celebrate those few amongst us who push the envelope of cuntish behaviour so far it re-emerges at the other side of your house. The portion of this site which celebrates and details the very zenith of cunt; people who can devote years of infatigable work to displacing fellow cunts from the top 100 cunts of the year. A minority of individuals so in perceivably talented at making cunts of themselves it makes the average layman blush with shame- make no mistake, anyone who receives the hallowed cunt of the month is assuredly a cunt of the most monumental variety. People who define new frontiers of sheer dickishness and unashamable self-importance it has to be engraved on some sort of award, never to be forgotten. And while the cunt of the month award has laid dormant for many a month it has not been forgotten, and now at this most timely of intervals it simply had to be resurrected. For you see, there is not a sole cunt of the month for december; rather a gaggle of self-righteous, egocentrical cunts who gathered on one 'special' occasion to make proper cunts of themselves. Yes my friends, this months group award goes to the self-righteous cunts from Band Aid 20.

Band Aid 20 is a group of artists, some cunts in their own right and some not, who have 'joined together' (been emotionally blackmailled by Christian extremists) to 'pay tribute' (steal the entire format) of the original Band Aid- the group of cunts who set the ball rolling all those twenty years ago. The 'artists'- I use the term loosely because Busted are in it- were thrown together for one afternoon to sing "Do They Know It's Christmas?" The answer, I'm afraid, you ignorant cunts is yes- but it means shit to them.

Do you think starving kids, the likes of whom are featured in the video, give and receive christmas presents? Do they wish for snow? NO, they fucking don't. And neither do they give a shit whether it's christmas or not, and even if they did I doubt their sundials would point to december 25th and they'd cry "oohhh christ was born today people let's rejoice that we have fuck all and praise him for all the wonderful burdons he has imposed upon us and share presents of dirt and straw beneath a christmas bush in our little mud huts and let's have a christmas dinner of maize and share the love at this special time of year despite the Hutus raining bullets on us." You can almost see Bob Geldof, in his multiplex mansion sipping cognac saying "we have the gift of song" like it's going to make any impact whatsoever on the so-called third world. A group of cash-soaked celebrities singing a line of verse isn't going to make any noticeable difference, it's just a way for them to clear their conscious for being such lavishly spoilt and indulgent 365 days of the year.

I find it very patronising and assuming that they sing a chorus that goes simply "do they know it's Christmas?" Sells well, doesn't it, lots of christian cheer. You can make a shedload of money out of Christian ignorance and commercialism (even if you're not christian how much have you spent this christmas?) but I'll reserve that for a later blog. The fact is religious tolerance should be shown during such a seminal song, but singing "do they know it's christmas?" is surely like jeering "don't you know our celebration is better than yours?"

Imagine a group of wealthy Swiss jews coming over to Britain and releasing a song called "do they know it's Hanukah?" and handing out food and supplies, belittling you and making you feel unsatisfactory as a human with a dud non-giving belief system. You'd be like "no thanks, I'm not jewish." It all smacks of self-importance to me. They lap up the wealthy lifestyle, get chauffeured from continent to continent, but if it's so important to give to Africa why not live a minimalist lifestyle? Why not sell that gold Rolex and use a standard ?5 watch? Oh I see, there's a clear double standard here, but actually not- all this song is, is an alibi. Ask Robbie Williams what his contribution is to helping the needy and he'll stutter, and then snap "hey, I went on that fucking record didn't I?!" And that minimalist attitude applies to EVERYONE who takes equality seriously, if you're such a good christian, look around- you shouldn't have half of the material wealth you do. But this is not the issue.

Our ensemble includes Will Young- the token queer- Joss Stone (famous for what?) and Dido, possibly the closest famous name you'll ever find to a sexual toy. All in this to up their rep, to make them out to be bigger players than they actually are. Everyone on this track is selfish, and I have no respect for any of them. If you're going to do something for charity, go sell that condo you own in LA and stop tugging at the heartstrings of millions of ignorant christmas shoppers to give you the title of number one christmas song. It's bad enough they've been guilted into buying presents for the whole wider family, as it's a 'tradition' (hey, how christmassy is Santa? Seriously? Created by Coca-cola? A multinational corperation? Oops, said too much!) without this group of cunts coming along releasing a record to satisfy their own unequivocal egotristic needs to somehow lessen the feeling of outrageous satiation that they all must be overburdoned with. It they know it's christmas, surely you must know it's harder for a rich celebrity to get into heaven that a camel to pass through the eye of a needle? Chalk one, Star.

I'll leave this blog on the simple lyric which I think sums up the whole charade of 'caring for the needy' and unmasks the scam which I have brought to light:

"Well tonight thank God it's them instead of you"

You are all thoroughly deserved of Cunts Of The Month Award, December, for unremitting and unfaltering actions befitting that of the world's finest cunts. Enjoy your christmas number one you selfish cunts.

Life In Loughborough

2004-11-24T01:47:00.000Z

Ok, so somewhere along the line someone described the humble blog as being "a voyage of self discovery... a tableau rosa where the world can learn about you, and you can learn about yourself." This philosopher was none other than I, and where I feel I have covered two of those bases, there is still one I feel I neglect. I often depersonalise blogs for several reasons, none of which I feel like getting into right now. But let me allow you to gaze at my life like the channel three production "Through The Keyhole" and learn more about this fabulous life in Loughborough. Perhaps this is just inflated egotistical self-reflections from someone who dares to write about themselves, in which case I suggest strongly you visit another website, because you aren't going to like the rest. No siree, the rest is purely for my own gratification, and there is absolutely no obligation to venture any further forth. So I begin.

Loughborough is a market town situated in the East Midlands of England, far removed from Scotland or indeed any costal region for a one hundred mile radius. You won't have heard of it; having seen life from both sides of the border, it is as fair to compare Scotland to haggis, kilts and Edinburgh as it is to compare England to tea, stiff upper lips and London. Both are gross misinterpretations of countries rich in heritage, and although Loughborough may lie in London, or Manchester, or Liverpool's shadow, it is certainly no second-rate city to live in. Much like Aberdeen possesses its own charm and admiralty, Loughborough is a city steeped in tradition and is synonymous with only one thing- sporting perfection.

But don't let that put you off, I chose not to come to Loughborough to further my athletics non-career, but to further my academic prospects. There are few who would travel the distance I have for a University inferior to anything I could have found in Scotland, which is why I haven't. I may sound like an intolerable boast, but I genuinely think I could have studied in almost all, if not all, of Britain's leading Universities. The reason I chose Loughborough is because of its all-round appeal to me. Socially, it had the biggest student Union in England, academically it placed in the top ten for Psychology (my chosen course), and it is a large but not intimidatingly large city. I couldn't have lived in a bustling city like Birmingham, nor could I have lived in a deadbeat 'city' like Dundee, where the idea of a night out is to pilfer electonic goods and pawn them the following morning at Cash Converters.

The crowd I have fallen in with has been nothing but a stroke of luck on my behalf, and I don't deny that I couldn't have found such a great bunch of guys to befriend in any other city. But the fact that I have befriended such a great group is decidedly convenient to me, and has made life living here a walk in the park. To start, my flatmates are a like-minded bunch, and if there is any friction its over the most trivial of matters, like who has the thickest pubic hair. I didn't talk to Mark for over a week on that one. There is a general casualness about living in this wonderful house that has made living here so enjoyable, as it was in Butler Court. Even Cletus, who by all intents and purposes should hate me like a Nazi who sanctioned the murder of a whole household, still (infrequently) phones me, which is testament to how good things were back then and still are. Nilesh, my landlord, came round today and didn't even say anything about me having a pet hedgehog, which was reassuring. Some nights I could almost fall asleep in the black couches in the living room, watching tv on one screen and playing FIFA on the other. The fridge in the living room tops it all off, and I'm sure it accounts for me taking about 60% of our overall household alcoholic consumption. It's just perfect for relaxing, and although the banter isn't as good as back home, it's still what you would plan in your fantasy (or ideal) home. I never rue the day I left hall, and nine times out of ten its purely down to the amazing living room, double beds, multiple fridges and freezers, and the incomparable sense of independence. There's nothing like being 500-odd miles away from your parents, with a bunch of people you'd never met since a year and a half ago, sitting drinking brews in front of your own tv in your own living room only 5 minutes walk from campus and arguably the greatest student union in the country.

I also owe a lot of this melancholy to the fantastic running clique I often meet up with, who have to be simply the most fantastic group of lads (and girls!) I've met since leaving my cosy home. They epitomise everything that makes me love my Scottish Boozing pals, but with the quantity to make any serious night out a roaring success. Even when I've not explicitly arranged to meet any of them on a night out I invariably stumple across at least a half dozen, just because of the sheer quantity of people I have become to know through association of the athletic's union. As a regular training partner I often meet up with Comedy Williamson, perhaps one of the most genuine people you are likely to ever meet. I may be stifled with emotion, but I can say that Ian is as reliable a friend as anyone could ask for. One day I might detail the whole gang further, but for now I'll leave you on the note that the running crew are simply outrageous, and almost every night out reminds me of being back home.

My course, on the other hand, is an altogether more depressing account. I have befriended many people on my course, but of the main four I hang about with, three are leaving next year to do a placement. My best friend on my course, Richard, is going too which is a major bummer. Next year it is likely to be just me and Andrea, and I don't fancy leaving the other three behind very much at all. Besides Andrea, there are others, who of course have formed strong bonds with different people. I might emit a long sigh right now, reasoning "that's life", taking another swill on my Carlsberg. Instead, I think I will just remain silent. Next year will be very difficult, especially being my final year, and with the dwindling amount of cohorts at my disposal it will really be a test of coping ability.

Loughborough, on the whole, is a very surreal place if you have even a passing interest in sport. During my first weeks I saw the likes of Chris Rawlinson and co running through the outwoods (of all the places!) and have since seen a mirriage of people I'd normally only associate with athletic superstardom out on routine runs. Even last week I saw Radcliffe out on a run, mere days before she won her inaugural title at the New York Marathon. One time in echos I saw Anthony Whiteman, Chris Thompson, Spencer Barden and others out clubbing... it was peculiar, but shouldn't have been, afterall this is the premier sporting establishment in the country. You get used to it in a sense, but there are times when training with an Olympian (Soos) seems a little too over the top, especially for a boy raised in the quiet and uneventful city of Aberdeen.

So there we have it: Loughborough. A place not much heard of north of the border, but has an unassailable reputation in England. Come visit the student aristocracy sometime, and enjoy the top notch house we live in, and sample the incredible student life I'm living here. Leanne's been down already, and so will Dabby come friday... what's stopping you? Head down to nine Chester Close, we'll crack open the brews, and really live it up like it were the first week of summer.

Scottish Boozing #3

2004-11-22T15:03:00.000Z

Yes, once again Scottish Boozing has been relaunched. My complete disregard for this blog has been the result of coding Scottish Boozing solidly for the past week. So long have I been locked in my room coding, in fact, that I've taken to using my own bin as a makeshift toilet. Lovely.

For those of you unaquianted with the finer points of coding a website like Scottish Boozing, it is laborious, and difficult.

And you know what all this lovely code amounts to? The results are pictured below:

So go wild kids, and check out the new www.scottishboozing.com and see what all the fuss is about.

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

2004-11-12T20:17:00.000Z

What do you get if you cross David Beckham, a US army recruit, and a sphynx cat?

ME!

This is a harrowing tale of one man's disillusionment with his stubborn top hair, one that should be read with caution; for the contents are extremely disturbing, and those of a faint inclination should read no further. It portrays his desperation, his feeling of entrapment in a predicament that lent itself no consolidation. For years he has silently harboured a deep resentment to his parents for burdening him with such undoing genes; genes that have made his life a daily hell. Now you will have unrestricted access to his innermost thoughts, and hold the key to a greater understanding of those less privileged. For now the veil has been torn open, and you must face what I am about to tell you- you must fight the urge to withdraw. What I am about to say will disturb you to the very core of your being, but I must stress- this is no easier for I to report as it is for you to read. Read on, and being enlightened, for I compel you so.

The man I speak of is in fact myself, the change in tense being used for dramatic effect. Long now have I suffered the indignity of a hair type so inflexible and unmanageable that it has created almost incalculable neuroses to appear. Until lately I have not been able to pinpoint the exact cause of these neuroses, but a chance encounter with a wandering psychologist outside Costco opened up the grandest secret.

"Get a haircut, you fucking hippie" he cried from across the street. For a moment I was stunned. My mouth lay open but the words wouldn't form: it had taken this much courage to finally leave the house, but his words cut through me like a serial murderer brandishing a longsword. Aghast, and unable to respond, I left the scene. That night was the most sleepless night I've had in years. His words echoed through my ears, all this time I had managed to repress my deep loathing of my hair, yet now it felt like everyone knew. They were all watching me, all along, judging me, sniggering, pointing... looking at not me, but my hair. Had mine eyes seen this I could have coped, I could have adjusted. It was like a hammerblow to my fragile mentality, and one that left me reeling.

His face followed me for weeks as my hair naturally grew longer. I learned to hate him and made silly vows for revenge, ones that I knew would never come to fruition. I think the intense dislike I had for the man got me through the initial weeks, he was almost like a scapegoat. If I saw him, I convinced myself, I'd demand an apology with backup threats and claims to have links with the mafia. He would have to take his words back and I could live again, I assured myself. As the days went by my disgust of my hair grew to the point where I avoided all reflective surfaces. I couldn't even look my flatmates in the eye for fear of seeing my own reflection, however small, and their looks of disappointment.

I eventually resolved to do something about it. I scoured the internet far and wide to find a cure, even trying out the yahoo search engine after exhausting google of all possible combinations of hair, bad, treatment, just for men, style and closet homosexual. It seemed that nowhere had the answer for such latently unlike able hair. I even confided in my sister, which I hadn't done since we were infants and all I felt was her scorn. "Get a life" she finished, just before hanging up. I was devastated. Her words followed me around the next day, I couldn't sleep at night. It felt like deja vu. Was I really a loser?

In the end I sought solace in the house of god. Sitting at a pew in the empty church, I looked up at the Christ's blood stained face and prayed out loud. It felt like a scene from a hollywood blockbuster, but I knew deep down it couldn't have been. No style department would ever let me past with hair this disorganised and repulsive. I wept at the pew and mumbled "why god... why?" I would have liked to have imagined a bright light breaking through the old building, but alas, none materialised. I made the executive decision to leave the church and all its corruption behind reasoning that if there were a god he would be called Stan and would still live with his mother.

After turning to Buddhism I was inspired by the notion of the circle of life. Perhaps, just perhaps, I could lop off all my hair and start anew. I toyed with the idea for a length of time before sticking with it. That night I sought the help of a man who knew ways of doing this, back alley ways that would necessitate risk, but also, I prayed- hope.

"Jibba" I sighed, kicking my heels and fidgeting with my cuff. "I need your help."

"One moment he cried", flushing the toilet. "What?"

"This hair" I mumbled, "I need rid of it."

Jibba paused for a moment. He knew this would be a risky assignment, although he knew just the people who could help me.

"It won't be cheap" he exclaimed, "I haven't done a job like this for a while. Listen!" he snapped, edging closer to my face. "Meet me outback in ten minutes. Bring no one."

I nodded approvingly. He was a good friend, I couldn't rely on anyone else for a job this risky. If anyone could pull strings, it was him, I mulled. Those ten minutes were the longest of my life. I spent the whole time checking and rechecking my tax return form nervously, willing the clock on. At the end of those ten minutes I stood in the bathroom, wondering if he would fulfil his half of the bargain. Then the light dimmed and a monstrous figure appeared: it was Jibba, armed with a razor. Stepping forth from the shadows he shoved me back into the chair and a gleam emerged from his smile. "This, my friend, is the point of no return."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After the ordeal I looked myself in the mirror- what a transformation! It may not have brought out my best features, but it removed my worst- and I felt like a free man. I felt like the shackles had been cut and I could return to normal society again. "Thank you!" I cried, turning to warmly shake his hand. He had gone. Slightly puzzled, I looked at the mass of hair on the floor and emitted a long sigh. After all these years I could finally begin again and start to rebuild myself. I looked up at the sky from the window and held up a single finger salute.

"This one's for you god" I cried, suddenly overcome with anger at the omnipotent entity that had marred my life with less than adequate genes. It was at that time that I realised that God and L'Oreal were in collaboration, in it together to make my hair look terrible.

"This one's for you, L'Oreal!" I cried valiantly sticking my arse out the window, before Mark came up the stairs to ask what all the commotion was about. He called the police and they came to snuff out the supposed intruder. "It's me officer! Alan Wales!" I told them, showing them my driving licence. "That's not you" he replied, before handcuffing me. He then seemed to remove his face, which transpired to be a mask, and shrieked "only kidding! It's me, Tom!"

We all laughed as he removed the handcuffs (taken from his private porn collection) and we all went to the living room. That night his face followed me, I had the worst nights sleep since coming to Loughborough. I vowed to kill him, but stopped that thought there to run my hands over my baldhead, and suddenly all the rage subsided. "I'm the luckiest guy in the world, even if it looks like I've had chemo" I said to myself in a soliloquy, unknowing the irony that would soon befall me.

Additional: While I'm uploading photos I thought I'd put this one up of Axl, for people who have never seen him:

*Legend*

Things That Are Wrong With Today's Society

2004-11-09T18:25:00.000Z

Even on panoramic Tom just couldn't find a way to photograph
Tete's ass without Molly's knockers filling two-thirds of the frame.

The Plight Of The Ho

2004-11-08T21:29:00.000Z

Again apologies for the lack of posts, I never realised the whole fabric of space-time would collapse if I neglected to blog on a frequent basis. But because I sympathise with you worthless, wretched creeps I'll post, so you can put that pocket knife back. Self harm should only be reserved for serious injustices, like when your mum makes you eat broccoli.

Of late I've been fuming at something I never thought I'd really care about but surprised myself at how much I do- ho's.

Yes, damned ho's. For those who are not "wit'it" or down with the white take on black culture (make up your mind people, do we hate them, or want to be them?) a ho is an Americanism for what could also be described as a slapper who doesn't sell sex. A wannabe whore. I like whores, mainly because the pimps do a sterling job of keeping them under control, and they provide an invaluable service. But when you remove the pimp from the whore you get a ho- a slutty, unreserved manipulating temptress- the likes of whom have plagued mankind as far back as we can trace. Eve was a ho, and look at what happened when that vile temptress pitted us against the lord.

So it continues down the line- same ho, different age. And when they're not bent on containing mankind or looking provocatively with no intention of following up, they're at FND, flouting the rules and irritating you like sandpaper pants. Just the other week- and this isn't an isolated incident either- I went for a piss in the male urinals (ignorance is NO defence) and queued behind a group of giggling ho's.

I queued behind a group of ho's, to get into the male urinal. Of course when they got in they were like "hey there boys!", as if they'd just walked onto the dance floor or onto the set of Where The Boys Are 7. It made me see red. How dare they! I suspect, in fact I'm almost 100% sure, that this has some legal ramifications. Let's see the flipside- how would people react if I, and a trio of friends, entered the female cubicles laughing and making jibes? Now what if the girls had to squat to take a piss, like they do in France, exposing their cunts to our view while they leak into a hole? And we just casually stand there observing, throwing in remarks and laughing it off, before taking our individual turn to piss and then exit, still in full view of the squatting girls?

It makes me so mad I want to shit myself. That those disgusting ho's, who have no shred of morality between them, believe it is ok to just walk in on me taking a whizz is outrageous. And it's not just this, it's their whole mentality. Their "I'm a slag but actually hard to get" leading-on attitude and shallow personalities that makes me- a reasonably well adjusted individual- feel like some social inferiority. Someone who wishes he could just throw away all traces of education and become a 'popular'. I think this is the root of my hatred of ho's, knowing that at University you shouldn't have to be confronted with these superficial layabout slackers, who still have the vestiges of high school firmly instilled in themselves. Anyone can get into Uni these days, and the plight of the ho's is just peripheral evidence that image-conscious idiots can still get through on joke courses like Geography And Sport And Leisure (an actual course you can study at Loughborough). It used to be an honour to study at University, where only the most gifted scholars could succeed, but now it's like a given, the Government desperate to pack as many people off to Uni as they can to make their term in power seem less lax than it actually was. The result- ho's. Girls who dress like slappers, act like slappers, but don't have the discipline of a good pimp. God I wish pimps were mandatory at the Union, the bouncers are too soft on women, their "hands-off" policy leading to the outrage in the male toilets described above.

Staff training days would consist mainly of backhander practice on dummy women, with a microphone nearby to measure decibel stingage. It would be compulsary to have some teeth knocked out, just for dramatic effect, and gang tatoos marked on every pimp with the Loughborough crest and logo across the chest. Official uniform would be dished out in a big bin, filled to the brim with bling bling paraphernalia like heavy gold chains and rings. The trousers would be baggy to resemble prison uniform but the pimp can wear his own choice of basketball vest, torn t-shirt or kappa tracksuit top. Linguistic class would be taken by a real-life pimp, with the aim to sounding like an American deviant with choice repetitions of "I thought I told you to shut up bitch?" and "you messin' wit' my ho's I'm gonna slap you up so you look like Michael Jackson". Any ho found to be flirting or giving hand jobs for free will have their face swiftly thrust onto a hot stove, and then some follow-up bitch slaps on the bleeding cheek to make sure she never insinuates anything mildly sexual without an advance payment. Oh, and if they ever step foot in a male urinal, a legion of pimps will wade their way through the FND crowd on radio alert and smack them up before dragging them by the hair to the pimpmobile for some more pimp brutality.

The bouncers at Loughborough really are a soft bunch of cunts.

Elsewhere I had a pretty good housewarming party, spend most of it getting muckled and accepting applause from my house mates for having the frost twins come round. I lapped up their jubilant cries and "praise Allahs" for a large portion of the night before showing the Lufbra massive Axl. He's a bit of a legend like, and proves the old adage that "Quills bring Girls" (coined by me). There's a girl who I'll call The Boner because that's what Ali gets every time I mention her who I continually seem to piss off and/or aggrivate. I called The Boner twice that night, against Ali's will (even though it was a favour on my behalf), and she still didn't come. So the only two girls I brought, out of a promised 30, where the Frosties. Which means a nice 100% ratio of hotties to mingers, which is quite respectable for any party, even if the results are highly unrepresentative. It's a shame because I'm not a horrible guy per se, it's just she's only ever seen the worst parts of me (when I've been muckle fit buckled). And I don't think calling her The Boner will help either, but there you have it. I don't make up the rules.

The party blasted off and we tucked into town after, and then the memory goes blank again. All I remember is waking up with terrible, terrible heartburn at 5am with an empty pizza box and a kebab box beside my bed. I could still taste the straight gin I'd been nailing that night, and it took a good many pints of water before the burning pain finally subsided. I have some photos of the night, but they're mostly blurred and focused on places they shouldn't be. Places I'm too afraid and embarrassed to detail any further. But rest assured, the delete function came in dab handy in the morning, which made me realise something. How wonderful it is to have a biological delete function that auto blocks out memories of when you're wasted, because you can be sure that at least somewhere along the line you annoyed/offended or just pissed someone right off while in a paralytic state of intoxication. That morning I woke up with the circumstantial evidence that I'd called The Boner a second time that night, which needless to say was news to me. No doubt the conversation got ugly, but without any memories, I refuse to believe anything anyone tells me.

And no, planted 'evidence' of a used condom on my bed won't work either, and whoever the sick bastard is that put it there can reclaim it before my fist reclaims their face.

Yeah you heard me. I own you, and your face.

Election Time!

2004-10-25T15:37:00.000+01:00

WHAM! POW!

That's the earth shattering noise of two battle-hardened contestants locked in mortal combat, dashing between arenas in an overblown anime style to a sunset backdrop. The very fate of all humanity and everything that ever was or ever will be hangs in the balance between these two rivals. The stars have drawn the two warriors to fulfill their destiny and discover once and for all who is the anointed one: the one the elders foresaw would lead the world from chaos into order, the one who would defeat evil when the constellations of Lepus and Perseus cross beneath the crescent moon. For many years The Battle Of Ages has waged and now, on this most fateful of days, it is left to the two figureheads of each army to face one another.

As the dust settles and the adversaries regain their composure for the breathtaking climax utop the highest peak, they meet eye to eye for a fleeting second. Once friends, they believed in similar ideals: freedom, loyalty, equality. Somewhere along the line, however, their paths diverged and they would later become engrossed in a fiercely fought rivalry that would culminate in this very duel; for the winner, everything. Total undisputed power. For the vanquished foe; a premature death, and the indignity of losing at that hands of the superior competitor, forever being immortalised as the disgraced loser.

At least, so it is in cartoons. Subsequently, so it is in American politics.

The American elections are completely embellished affairs, soaked in vibrant colours and tickertape reception. They are precisely as absurd as the scenario detailed above, which could plausibly be a storyline from the often ridiculous Dragon Ball Z, whereby every episode entails two characters (usually stupidly outweighed) fighting through highs and lows for hours to seal the fate of the world- as you do. After a while, it wears thin: again, as it is with American politics.

Both candidates are walking caricatures, the very images of what it is to be a 'good American'- ideals that hold well in America but would be seen as deplorable in more stringent continents like Asia, where only the most intelligent statesmen are ever voted in charge. They charge from state to state bringing with them their entourage; a laughable group of media obsessed auxiliaries almost as keen as the candidate himself (note gender: never herself) to kiss ass and brown-nose their way to voter confidence. No photograph of candidate-hugging-stranger's-child can ever be too corny or overdone, especially at this the height of electoral activity less than a week before the polls open.

Judging by my tone you'd imagine this annoys me, but alas it doesn't- these are mere observations. In many ways it's good that the election process tunes into idiot America, for without it there would be less than a one percent voter turnout (ouch!). Bright lights, big audiences, loud voices... there is a distinct 'carnival' atmosphere to American politics that makes it more a spectacle than a genuine democratic process. The debates, of which there are three, are a world apart from dry, boring parliament. Every inflex at the end of a sentence illicits cheers from the supporting masses, somewhat like a pantomime, where the idiot rednecks boo the bad guy and cheer the hero. Without spelling it out, because you're not American, I'll leave the further parallels between the American presidency and the apt pantomime analogy alone, for the time being. The debates are an opportunity to attack personality and sling mud at the opposition, attempting to put dents into their popularity. And don't be confused, it is just a popularity contest: if you're black, you're doomed, no matter how effective a president you'll be or appealing your policies are. However, if you're the Terminator, well hell! You can be Governor of California!

Like the two fictitious characters I fabricated above, these two genuinely are battling out for the highest position of authority you can possibly have anywhere in this whole planet. The winner will hold untold power, and his name will be repeated by numerous and incalculable amounts of people throughout the globe. It beggars belief just how influential one of these two will be, yet the whole rights of passage is treated like a giant soap opera, dumbed down and packaged so that even the most inbred halfwit can see worth in heading down to the village hall to vote.

In any other country it would be insulting. But in America it's kind of a given that the majority of the electorate can relate to a gun-toting yank who loves sport (predominantly American football, baseball, basketball etc), large scale corporations (capitalism!), and family. The dutiful wives are almost ceremoniously hauled onto stage every debate or conference, usually with the wide-eyed, smiling kids and on some occasions pet dog too. "Look, I'm one of you!" the whole wretched act symbolises, and is almost compulsory for any would-be President.

It's all so excessive and overkilled that any more grandeur and they would become those two characters I created above, and that really is about as absurd as you can. For a country that prides itself on its "big American values", the election is a perfect reflection on that mentality. You could realistically see yourself watching the vote count unfold with a box of popcorn and a chilled one, watching the head clowns entertain the masses, waving your "Vote BUSH/KERRY for PRESIDENT" flag that everyone seems to have, caught up in euphoric will no different to how you would be at a Yankies game. The election is followed devoutly by people in a manner no different to your average sports fan, and for this reason it becomes the spectacle I have outlined quite forcefully above. It's the sort of election that kids would enjoy watching, and call me fatuous, but that's never encouraging.

Quick Link

2004-10-23T13:19:00.000+01:00

Gamespotting

[This link has replaced what would otherwise be a witty and informative piece of journalistic gold]

Craziest Web Author Ever

2004-10-19T21:12:00.000+01:00

Eureka!

After many, many years of being an active member of the 'internet' (porn chat rooms only for the first few years admittedly) I can finally say with some degree of conviction that I have finally found most insane person on the internet, and it's not the AUBL no1 poster either!

No, no: There are many nutcases on the internet, more than you can possibly imagine. But the number one hallmark of the looniest, most crazy people who you'd hate to ever meet is their insatiable and incomprehendable level of persistence for even the most meagre of goals. No doubt you've all opened an email and gotten 'wacky' links to some dumbass who gets 1 million hits per day (who's ever seen The Ninja one? Or Maddox?) and thought 'man this guy has totally lost it'. Most of these are sell-outs, who started off small and have eaten off their own success. To wit, their persistence is a result and not an effect of their success. I firmly believe both of the above named websites would have ground to a halt many years ago if it wasn't for the word of mouth generated that have catapulted their sites into internet notoriety, and now financial gain.

However, the site I stumbled across today beggars belief simply because of the creater's unrivalled dedication to something so blatantly crap. Something so unlikeable and pointless that to dedicate even a mere fraction of the time it has taken to accomplish is something the average sane person wouldn't dream. There are thousands of ridiculous world records like the longest nails, or biggest ball of yarn but yet they all, on some level, have purpose. They are world records- they are globally acknowledged as being the best in the world. Again, there is notoriety- something that can spurr on half-way nutters and convince them that a life of pity is worthy of the accolade.

Without dragging this out unnecessarily, I firmly believe this guy is the most insane person I have ever met outside of the walls of Cornhill. There is no opportunity to earn money off his venture, there is very little site traffic: he really is doing this entirely for himself.

The website is actually a perverse dedication to a computer game released in 1994 by Squaresoft called "The Secret Of Mana" for the Super Nintendo. But rather than number crunch or any of your traditional nerd avenues for fanaticism, he has taken the creative approach by making- get this- 199 episodes (so far!) using Flash with sprites and locations found within the game.

What is so astonishing is how hard, and you have to appreciate this, it is to make a flash movie like this. And how utterly pointless. To underline his already well established craziness, the plotlines aren't related and they make no fucking sense even on their own merits. Go check out a few of the movies and see if you get any satisfaction out of watching it, other than the smirk you'll no doubt develop at how retarded the whole thing is.

It pains me to think of how long he's been doing this for. There's even... it sounds so stupid, I keep thinking this is some kind of stitch up... the opportunity to buy special episodes! Just in case you watch all 199 movies and have the desire to see more.

So there we have it- my candidate for craziest lunatic on the internet- The Secret Of Mana Theatre.

THE SECRET OF MANA THEATRE ARCHIVES

You will regret it.

The Fresher's Flu... And Then Some

2004-10-16T16:19:00.000+01:00

This past week I have come face to face with my very own mortality and, accordingly, I have had to re-evaluate some of my priorities in life. For you see my discerning reader, I have been gripped by the "Fresher's Flu"- the modern day equivalency of the dastardly black plague, returned in a new guise to reclaim the descendants of the survivors of its plight nearly seven hundred years ago.

The "Fresher's Flu" may sound tame enough, but for the countless victims it is a daily torture and constant drain on the mind and wallet- a curse upon all who fall under its spell! From dawn to dusk the sufferers report mixed sensations of "feeling like shit" and "wishing they were dead", according to esteemed researchers in the field. To even lay eyes on one of the fresher's plague's victims is a grim sight, and not one for the fainthearted.

They lie in their beds like invalids, with neither the motivation nor means to move from their effective death beds. Faces green and bereft of any of the vestiges of life they sniffle and cough violently; the very image of biological self-degeneration. Words cannot hope to summarise the anguish they must feel as the disease renders the victims housebound, doomed to suffer in solitude like lepers to attempt to contaminate the illness.

Yet, despite our best efforts, the flu returns at precisely the same time the following year, as if it lies dormant eleven months of the year in the Union just waiting for an unassuming fresher to give the proverbial menace the lease of life it needs to infect thousands. The flu spreads like bacteria and can multiply and spread itself exponentially, but for all our scientific developments it is still time that forms the only defence against the flu, a harrowing truth I learned only recently during a visit to the doctor.

"Antibiotics don't work" she told me, like I'd somehow managed to miss the Government's multi-million pound advertising campaign. "So stop asking me."

Rather flummoxed by her ability to stand her ground for so long, I had to take plan B. Shiftily scanning the room for signs of surveillance, I probed the inside pocket in my jacket and produced a brown envelope.

"Here..." I said, coughing to try and mask my voice in case they had hidden microphones. "Now, I'm going to ask you again. Give me my antibiotics."

Looking somewhat embarrassed, or frustrated- I couldn't tell- she pushed back the envelope over the desk with a sigh. "Antibiotics don-"

I cut her off with a swift cutting motion using my right arm. I got the point. I left the office after ten minutes of highly charged haggling, muttering obscenities under my breath and kicking her tin bin over on my way out. I could make out a feint "hey! Come back here..." but this small act of deviance was my way of getting even for her reluctance to hand over my god damned antibiotics. She was lucky I wasn't asking for any large scale operation, because that would have meant having to bring my good friend Mr Bat into her office for a brief 'consultation.'

So all because some fucking fresher thought he'd come to the Union harbouring a cold and because the bitch at the GP office wouldn't give me my antibiotics, I sit here in my room typing with a noticeable sniffle and routine cough pattern, which has restricted me from training for over a week now and to a minor extent attending lectures also. To paraphrase my opening few paragraphs; it is not fun, in fact I find it decidedly inconvenient. In a word, it's frustrating: frustration arising from the blockage of goal-based actions (according to my social psychology lecturer, the goal being healthy well-being or ability to sit in my living room in only my boxers). And the best way to combat frustration is to do a cathartic activity, like beating the shit out of that fresher.

Now there are a lot of fresher's with the flu, so I'm going to single-handedly hunt down and destroy any fresher with a chronic case of the flu for burdening me with this fucking annoying illness. And then I'm going to rob him on a sliding scale for emotional damages, loss of earnings, expenditure on medicines and the taxi to arrive at his house so I could in turn mug him. And then I'm going to teabag him, just so who knows who not to mess with.

On a personal note, all this illness (can you use illness in this way? Seems logical, but doesn't sound right) has made me realise how fragile the human frame is. A few micro biotic particles and BAM, you hit the floor like Golliath, completely incapable of defence as they bring you down from the inside. It's a chilling thought. Cancer, as you're no doubt all aware, happens when your own body turns on itself through malignant cells. Kind of like a civil war, except no one knows why it started, and you're the occupied territory. So somewhere in my body there is a war going on and I'm spectator, throwing in liquid reinforcements of the Venos variety, and I'm taking all the hits from the opposition. It is a fruitless war, and one that I will pull through for the time being, at least until the superbugs come along and we're all screwed.

You can thank the NHS for the whole superbug epidemic, once again proving that the NHS kill off more people than they save. A bit like the American troops! Haha, I really should move into political satire.

Enough of this nonsense, it's time to get philosophical. They say that as soon as you're born you're dying, which is why the religious types negate the "living" stage and sacrifice it entirely for the "post-death" stage. If you live a good life, by their pre-defined standards, you will live in eternal bliss. So says a carpenter who lived two thousand years ago, as well as many other figureheads of various religions- most more credible than the messiah chosen by christianity.

FACT: All religions are fear-based. There is an inherent fear that if you don't follow the practices laid out by religion, then there is a consequence to suffer in your 'next' life or even this present life. They are mental bullies. They have been using the latent fear of the afterlife to suppress civilisations for years, which is why I don't prescribe to any of it. If I died tomorrow, would I really be sent to live in an eternal pit of fire for my menial ill decisions during life? Ask any good christian and they will say no, of course not, they might even concede it a ridiculous notion. Without a 'hell' ideal, there is no christianity. The whole thing is a two-thousand year joke on the ignorant's behalf; a fairytale fabricated out of thin air to win over the unenlightened masses and generate revenue for those in power and also enforce restraint though guilt and fear of going to hell indefinitely as opposed to physical dominance.

I've been locked in this room for too long. If I die of the Fresher's Flu, please don't give me the last rights. Instead, just say "who's paranoid, now?" and move my jaw bone up and down, and perhaps flex my tongue a little just for fun. It'll be amusing, and it'll ease the sense of sadness somehow.

An obscure note to end a blog on I know, but contemplating religion does kind of fuck you up and make you paranoid about all sorts of things, which is why most religious types are anal wideboys who won't even talk to you or do anything that might ruin their chance at a happy afterlife like having sex before marriage (a big no no!). Shout "boo!" and see if they don't jump. I tell you, if religion were a science it would be the most discredited science since... well, introspection!*

*Psychologist joke.