I spent most of last night (I say "last night", it was really 1am, thus, early today, but for the sake of now existing in a totally different stream of consciousness, what is technically today will henceforth be known as "last night") reading over a bunch of my older posts on this 'ere incarnation of my inner thoughts and that. As it happens, there are seventy-nine of them (well, eighty now with this), and I seem to have a knack for mis-spelling words, leaving words out, missing grammar, missing spaces, and all that kinda crap that I generally hate and usually complain about when other people do them. These seem to be mere instances of human error; after all, you'd probably accidently end up adding an extra "o" to "to" to make "too" and looking foolish because of it if you typed a thousand-or-so words off the top of your head. I, however, refuse to believe I'm clumsy or stupid and put the whole thing down to lack of proof-reading before posting. Mainly because why would you want to read a thousand-or-so words you just expelled from your brain? There's no point putting them back in there.
Therefore, as an eightieth post extravaganza, I'm using this to let you know that I'm going through the entire lot for what I suppose I'll call (with no thought or prior planning going into this) the Grand Proof-Read of 2011. It'll probably take whole hours to complete such a task, maybe even days. It will involve me going back to the very beginning (of this one, I used to have other blog places that I posted about twice in and never bothered with again) and reliving the last two years-or-so of my life with cringing hindsight and bad grammar related tutting in an effort to get everything all ship-shape and updated.
You know, just in case you felt like checking the archives. Which you don't. Because you're an ass. Because you have your own life and you think yourself more important than anyone to take any interest in anyone else, you selfish bastard. So yeah, I'm gonna go back in time to do my best to make myself look good.
Friday 26 August 2011
Saturday 20 August 2011
300 People In My Living Room
The world is a mighty confusing place. So much so that this particular rant should've technically been written some three days ago, but at the time, I had nothing to say on the subject and yesterday afternoon's "hunger and loneliness" vibes proved too strong to be shunned. Anyway, I was going to write this thing with regard to myself (in the company of friends, of course, I'm not that much of a miserable loner) venturing to a cinema to watch The Inbetweeners Movie. However, I'm not going to talk about that. Mainly because every other fucker on the face of the Earth who's gone to see it (which apparently seems to be every other fucker on the face of the Earth) has already spouted off about how 'awesome' it was, and how 'amazin'' it was, and how 'ded funni' it was and blah-fucking-blah. So instead, I'll have a wee moan about that instead. This is more about my whole cinema viewing experience, rather than that a review of a film, for two reasons: (1) I find the whole cinema experience much more exciting to write about, and (2) I don't do film reviews. Why does anyone write film reviews, by the way? Correction. Why does anyone who think they can write film reviews write film reviews? Honestly, I've read a bunch and it feels like torture. Like some kind of fanboy 'OMGZ dis film woz well gud, yeahzzz' that any 5-year-old would probably cringe at. So yeah, fuck reviews. (Noticed I'm saying "fuck" a lot... apparently I'm agitated by this and haven't fucking started yet!)
The cinema experience began after 9pm for the ticket purchasing ceremony, although this was preceded by the procession of waiting your turn. By the time the booth people were able to take my money, the next available showing time transpired to be bordering on midnight. This allowed time for snacks and beverages in a nearby bar, but meant that it'd virtually be 2am before I'd see the credits roll. The joys of sleep deprivation. Watching an entire film in a darkened room with itchy, strained eyes just adds to the uniqueness of the experience. The people were a bit odd too. I mean, afterwards, someone told me they found it a bit odd watching The Inbetweeners on a big screen because they weren't used to it, but in that respect, I should really be notifying people that upon my recent purchase of a new 26-inch TV, to replace my little square TV-video-combi thing I've had since age twelve, I started to find it easier to read rolling news tickers and I was confused at how Deal Or No Deal's boxes had suddenly grown massive. I could kind of see what they were getting at, though. I never watched the show avidly, but have found it to be of light entertainment value whenever it's been on. Humorous moments have provided a small chuckle from me to myself as the only one in the room. Sometimes there have been one or two others in the room with me and small chuckles have emanated from each mouth and disappeared a second later. In a crowded, sell-out cinema screen, however, the chuckles amassed and reverberated for minutes longer than was absolutely necessary, giving the whole thing the feeling of there being over 300 people in my living room. And while everyone was too busy laughing at one joke, they missed at least seventeen new utterances that could've contained more joke. Defeated the whole point, really.
Special mention goes to the dumb-fuck sat behind me at the point when, SPOILER ALERT, one girl kisses one guy to make another guy jealous or something teenagery like that. We see lingering shots of her looking at the one she's trying to jealousise (is that a word? Fuck it, it is now!) and reaction shots from him too. Cue the idiot in the chair behind mine, with a genuine sense of "I know something nobody else knows" cleverness, a good 18 seconds after the scene ended: 'oh she was only doing that to make the other guy jealous'. Congratulations. Here's a crash helmet and some armbands. Try not to fuck yourself up too much during your stay on the planet.
Somehow, though, I can't help feeling I'm missing something, because this movie was essentially a spin-off from a TV show, and a very short one at that. So why is everybody cacking their pants about it? The Inbetweeners has existed for three series', each at a total of six episodes, essentially amounting to a total of eighteen half-hour episodes. In comparison, Black Books, which I've recently started watching, produced exactly the same amount of episodes and lasted exactly the same amount of time. Where's the Black Books Movie?!?! And where's all the hype for it? And where's all the love for it? And etc. and all that. For Christ's sake, The Inbetweeners never even had its first run on a main channel! It first blinked into existence on digital channel E4. Although, saying that now does feel a bit redundant since the whole country's practically gone digital. Let's face it, the issue of analogue versus digital channels only affects you if you're elderly or reading this in 1986, which, considering you're reading this a whole 25 years before it's actually been written, is nothing short of miraculous.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not slating The Inbetweeners. I'm just saying I don't understand the hype. To me it's a piece of light entertainment youth comedy blah blah with a few points where it seems to lack a certain something special. But that's it. It's not God. It's not the greatest thing ever to grace the history of human existence. It's just a nice piece of filler-TV. Stop hyping it so much!
Altogether, in my non-professional, non-film reviewy review of not a film, I'd give the film four mundane looking asterisks. * * * * . Look. There they are in all their ordinaryness. Ahhh, it's almost like M*A*S*H without the letters, or they could be used to cover up every time I've mentioned the word "fuck" in this thing, the number of which just so happens to be ten.
The cinema experience began after 9pm for the ticket purchasing ceremony, although this was preceded by the procession of waiting your turn. By the time the booth people were able to take my money, the next available showing time transpired to be bordering on midnight. This allowed time for snacks and beverages in a nearby bar, but meant that it'd virtually be 2am before I'd see the credits roll. The joys of sleep deprivation. Watching an entire film in a darkened room with itchy, strained eyes just adds to the uniqueness of the experience. The people were a bit odd too. I mean, afterwards, someone told me they found it a bit odd watching The Inbetweeners on a big screen because they weren't used to it, but in that respect, I should really be notifying people that upon my recent purchase of a new 26-inch TV, to replace my little square TV-video-combi thing I've had since age twelve, I started to find it easier to read rolling news tickers and I was confused at how Deal Or No Deal's boxes had suddenly grown massive. I could kind of see what they were getting at, though. I never watched the show avidly, but have found it to be of light entertainment value whenever it's been on. Humorous moments have provided a small chuckle from me to myself as the only one in the room. Sometimes there have been one or two others in the room with me and small chuckles have emanated from each mouth and disappeared a second later. In a crowded, sell-out cinema screen, however, the chuckles amassed and reverberated for minutes longer than was absolutely necessary, giving the whole thing the feeling of there being over 300 people in my living room. And while everyone was too busy laughing at one joke, they missed at least seventeen new utterances that could've contained more joke. Defeated the whole point, really.
Special mention goes to the dumb-fuck sat behind me at the point when, SPOILER ALERT, one girl kisses one guy to make another guy jealous or something teenagery like that. We see lingering shots of her looking at the one she's trying to jealousise (is that a word? Fuck it, it is now!) and reaction shots from him too. Cue the idiot in the chair behind mine, with a genuine sense of "I know something nobody else knows" cleverness, a good 18 seconds after the scene ended: 'oh she was only doing that to make the other guy jealous'. Congratulations. Here's a crash helmet and some armbands. Try not to fuck yourself up too much during your stay on the planet.
Somehow, though, I can't help feeling I'm missing something, because this movie was essentially a spin-off from a TV show, and a very short one at that. So why is everybody cacking their pants about it? The Inbetweeners has existed for three series', each at a total of six episodes, essentially amounting to a total of eighteen half-hour episodes. In comparison, Black Books, which I've recently started watching, produced exactly the same amount of episodes and lasted exactly the same amount of time. Where's the Black Books Movie?!?! And where's all the hype for it? And where's all the love for it? And etc. and all that. For Christ's sake, The Inbetweeners never even had its first run on a main channel! It first blinked into existence on digital channel E4. Although, saying that now does feel a bit redundant since the whole country's practically gone digital. Let's face it, the issue of analogue versus digital channels only affects you if you're elderly or reading this in 1986, which, considering you're reading this a whole 25 years before it's actually been written, is nothing short of miraculous.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not slating The Inbetweeners. I'm just saying I don't understand the hype. To me it's a piece of light entertainment youth comedy blah blah with a few points where it seems to lack a certain something special. But that's it. It's not God. It's not the greatest thing ever to grace the history of human existence. It's just a nice piece of filler-TV. Stop hyping it so much!
Altogether, in my non-professional, non-film reviewy review of not a film, I'd give the film four mundane looking asterisks. * * * * . Look. There they are in all their ordinaryness. Ahhh, it's almost like M*A*S*H without the letters, or they could be used to cover up every time I've mentioned the word "fuck" in this thing, the number of which just so happens to be ten.
Friday 19 August 2011
Things Single People Tell Themselves
I made dinner three-and-a-half hours ago and I still haven't eaten it. That said, I ate half of it originally and will, soon after finishing this, have to resort to entrusting the microwave to cook it again for me. In the time in between then and now I've had a shower, writhed around in pain and read part of a book. This has led me to come here and talk about my feelings and whatnot; mostly feelings of internal pain that start in the head (as your typical headache), continue down my back (as your typical strains of manual labour) and stomach owwies (because I've barely eaten for days, hence why I could only manage half a chicken pie accompanied with half a Pot Noodle). Not just this, however, as my current emotional state at this time, coupled with one or two articles in Charlie Brooker's The Hell Of It All what I just read, have put on the biggest downer I've known for years. I think it's fair to say that whenever the time comes that I lie on my deathbed, squinting into the bright light emanating from a doorway, haloing a silhouetted figure who's beckoning me to depart this plane, or squinting into the bright lights of a speeding motorist coming towards me (whichever wants to come first) and my brain does that thing of showing me all the stand-out moments of my life gone by, like a "Best Bits" montage of my stay here on Earth accompanied by a remixed version of Lady GaGa's Born This Way, I can imagine looking back on this point of my life as being a bit of a crap one.
Enough of my future death. Let's back up to now, shall we? Earlier today, I read a certain polemic written by Charlie Brooker (whose style of writing I'm absolutely not copying, but merely gaining inspiration and creative freedom from, you morons) some two years ago. In it, he went on about not having a wife, partner or potential love interest at all, and the whole article went something along the lines of "blah blah, go away world, blah blah, love's overrated, everything's complicated with other people involved, wahh wahh, we should all marry robots or something". Obviously I'm paraphrasing but you get the general idea. Being involved in a romantic relationship is stupid and only idiots fall in love, except they're not in love with the other person but instead in love with the idea of being in love with someone or at least the fact that there's somebody else there to share in the misery of their ongoing existence and all those kinda things single people tell themselves to make themselves feel less bitter.
Lately, and for probably more than a year now, I've been able to quell the shrieks of neverending loneliness and such and have been able to get on with the other good things in life such as... erm... well... not really caring much about the fact that I'm lonely, and to be honest, it's actually worked. And yes, it has worked. I know this because around a week ago or something (I'm not too good with exact timings), one of my close friends announced the beginning of a new romantic relationship. It was at that point that two things hit me:
The first is the one that's always hit me whenever a close friend has entered into a romantic relationship, wherein my internal monologue glances to the left and says "Hey. (insert name of whoever's applicable at the time) has a girlfriend. Why don't I have a girlfriend? I should have a girlfriend! Hell, I'm better than (insert name of whoever's applicable at the time). What does (insert name of whoever's applicable at the time) have that I don't?" and so on. Therefore, not only do I judge myself on a 'loser' scale, but also end up comparing myself to someone I'm close to, belittling them in an attempt to make me feel better about myself, which ultimately doesn't work since I'm (a) actively trying to think negatively about people I'm fond of, and (b) when I do start to think badly of them, the fact that they've still managed to enter into a relationship with someone else before me makes me feel even worse than that.
Secondly comes what I like to call "odd-wheel syndrome". Of course, everybody knows the expression of being "third-wheel". For example, I have one friend. Me and friend play happily together. Yay, etc. Friend becomes involved with another, they spend more time together. I am forgotten about, except for the few times I'm remembered, but whenever me and friend play together from now on, friend always invites another. Friend and another spend all time together. I am forgotten about despite being in the same room. This has happened to me a fair few times before in life, so much so that I've been more than just the third wheel, but have stretched to fifth and even seventh wheel at certain times. I pretty much become unnecessary and roll away. I've spoke to this close friend of mine about both of these loneliness reminders falling upon me and even got to the point where I couldn't even muster up the words to say I felt happy for him. Why? Because I didn't. Christ if I can't feel happy for myself at any one time, how can I feel happy for anyone else? The best I could do for him was a mock-celebratory 'woop-woop' and a moderately enthusiastic 'yeah... go you!'
The fact that both of these ideas hit me at once proved to me how little thought I'd given to my desires for romance over the last few years at least and now all those banked, unused thoughts and feelings are coming out in the form of words. Luckily, I feel as though I've managed to harness the power of words into this rambling, shambling format where I just go 'AARRRGGHHH' about stuff then click publish, rather than writing depressing poetry in a darkened room with my hair covering one eye. Mostly that's because poetry's not really my forte and I had a haircut recently, however it is starting to get dark outside.
I have a few friends who are a bit hippie and psychic, which is a demeaning way of saying they're in touch with their spiritual side. They pick up on people's moods based on instinct and intuition, they talk to stones and probably relax by playing Solitaire with a standard Tarot deck. They probably laugh in the face of a magic 8-ball and communicate with spirits on another plane of existence without having to close their eyes, pull a contorted face and shudder violently like they've just done several shots of Wray & Nephew's White Rum... you know, like TV "spiritual mediums" do. Anyway, they assure me that things could soon be on the up with regards to my romantic life, but after being told the same thing for years I seem to have developed cynicism on that front. One, however, did tell me - through the means of instinctively picking up on my soul and analysing my personality traits - that I have so much love inside of me to give to all, and that I agree with. I have much love inside of me for those who deserve it. Mainly myself, a select few friends, one or two family members and Karen Gillan off Doctor Who (all for very different reasons). However, after the horrible re-awakening of my loneliness, I've found it difficult to continue playing The Love Fountain and apparently it's given me backache.
Anyway, I still have stomach pains and half a dinner to re-heat.
Enough of my future death. Let's back up to now, shall we? Earlier today, I read a certain polemic written by Charlie Brooker (whose style of writing I'm absolutely not copying, but merely gaining inspiration and creative freedom from, you morons) some two years ago. In it, he went on about not having a wife, partner or potential love interest at all, and the whole article went something along the lines of "blah blah, go away world, blah blah, love's overrated, everything's complicated with other people involved, wahh wahh, we should all marry robots or something". Obviously I'm paraphrasing but you get the general idea. Being involved in a romantic relationship is stupid and only idiots fall in love, except they're not in love with the other person but instead in love with the idea of being in love with someone or at least the fact that there's somebody else there to share in the misery of their ongoing existence and all those kinda things single people tell themselves to make themselves feel less bitter.
Lately, and for probably more than a year now, I've been able to quell the shrieks of neverending loneliness and such and have been able to get on with the other good things in life such as... erm... well... not really caring much about the fact that I'm lonely, and to be honest, it's actually worked. And yes, it has worked. I know this because around a week ago or something (I'm not too good with exact timings), one of my close friends announced the beginning of a new romantic relationship. It was at that point that two things hit me:
The first is the one that's always hit me whenever a close friend has entered into a romantic relationship, wherein my internal monologue glances to the left and says "Hey. (insert name of whoever's applicable at the time) has a girlfriend. Why don't I have a girlfriend? I should have a girlfriend! Hell, I'm better than (insert name of whoever's applicable at the time). What does (insert name of whoever's applicable at the time) have that I don't?" and so on. Therefore, not only do I judge myself on a 'loser' scale, but also end up comparing myself to someone I'm close to, belittling them in an attempt to make me feel better about myself, which ultimately doesn't work since I'm (a) actively trying to think negatively about people I'm fond of, and (b) when I do start to think badly of them, the fact that they've still managed to enter into a relationship with someone else before me makes me feel even worse than that.
Secondly comes what I like to call "odd-wheel syndrome". Of course, everybody knows the expression of being "third-wheel". For example, I have one friend. Me and friend play happily together. Yay, etc. Friend becomes involved with another, they spend more time together. I am forgotten about, except for the few times I'm remembered, but whenever me and friend play together from now on, friend always invites another. Friend and another spend all time together. I am forgotten about despite being in the same room. This has happened to me a fair few times before in life, so much so that I've been more than just the third wheel, but have stretched to fifth and even seventh wheel at certain times. I pretty much become unnecessary and roll away. I've spoke to this close friend of mine about both of these loneliness reminders falling upon me and even got to the point where I couldn't even muster up the words to say I felt happy for him. Why? Because I didn't. Christ if I can't feel happy for myself at any one time, how can I feel happy for anyone else? The best I could do for him was a mock-celebratory 'woop-woop' and a moderately enthusiastic 'yeah... go you!'
The fact that both of these ideas hit me at once proved to me how little thought I'd given to my desires for romance over the last few years at least and now all those banked, unused thoughts and feelings are coming out in the form of words. Luckily, I feel as though I've managed to harness the power of words into this rambling, shambling format where I just go 'AARRRGGHHH' about stuff then click publish, rather than writing depressing poetry in a darkened room with my hair covering one eye. Mostly that's because poetry's not really my forte and I had a haircut recently, however it is starting to get dark outside.
I have a few friends who are a bit hippie and psychic, which is a demeaning way of saying they're in touch with their spiritual side. They pick up on people's moods based on instinct and intuition, they talk to stones and probably relax by playing Solitaire with a standard Tarot deck. They probably laugh in the face of a magic 8-ball and communicate with spirits on another plane of existence without having to close their eyes, pull a contorted face and shudder violently like they've just done several shots of Wray & Nephew's White Rum... you know, like TV "spiritual mediums" do. Anyway, they assure me that things could soon be on the up with regards to my romantic life, but after being told the same thing for years I seem to have developed cynicism on that front. One, however, did tell me - through the means of instinctively picking up on my soul and analysing my personality traits - that I have so much love inside of me to give to all, and that I agree with. I have much love inside of me for those who deserve it. Mainly myself, a select few friends, one or two family members and Karen Gillan off Doctor Who (all for very different reasons). However, after the horrible re-awakening of my loneliness, I've found it difficult to continue playing The Love Fountain and apparently it's given me backache.
Anyway, I still have stomach pains and half a dinner to re-heat.
As a wee amendment, I'd like to add that 24 hours on from this, I walked into the path of an oncoming car without realising. Seems that mode of death is more likely than letting myself just tick away. And for the record, my iPod, whilst in shuffle mode at the time, apparently decided that Marina And The Diamonds' "I Am Not A Robot" is much more likely to accompany my Best Bits.
Friday 12 August 2011
I Joined The Mob
So it's finally happened. I have become one of "them". I swore I'd never get sucked into such a world of corruption and devastation and what is frankly unnecessary. But I just couldn't help myself. During the great UK riots of August 2011, I joined the mob. I became a Twitter user.
That's right. I actually "tweeted". And not the stupid pointless doesn't-make-any-sense-but-I'll-put-it-anyway-in-an-attempt-at-being-ironic tweets (for example: 'Made up a joke about batteries before, but have come to realise it doesn't work when typed, thus rendering this lot of words pointless.' and 'green lantern is green') that I told myself I'd only ever use it, sparingly, for. No. In the space of one night I practically doubled - and then some - my total amount of "tweets" with a bunch of shit regarding what was happening in correlation with current events. Some were vague attempts at humour ('did I just see someone whacking a sea bass against a the window of a Ladbrokes?'), others were vacant reactions to news developments ('Apparently Camden Market is now burning. This angers and infuriates me.'). Most, if not all, of them included #hashtags. Sometimes even ###multiplehashtags because the attention-seeking bastard monster inside of me wanted to be noticed. Sadly, no attention was given to any of my words and the monster has retreated back inside of me (for now) to have a little cry and remember a time when B*Witched were popular.
But on the subject of the UK riots, which, quite frankly, is a lie (and a lie that BBC News kept ramming through my telly-screen for a solid day until they realised that Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the smattering of other islands what the Queen looks after didn't want to join in with all the madness and eventually had to resort to telling the truth since the only places that people felt the need to take stuff and burn places existed solely on English turf), I must say I found the whole thing oddly surreal. Watching parts of London burning was less like watching an episode of London's Burning and more like watching some apocalyptic disaster movie. Unlike an apocalyptic disaster movie, however, it seemed to go on longer than two hours and largely consisted of the same live shot with no fast-paced edits where we cut to different camera angles of the burning buildings, crowd reactions of people standing in the streets looking upwards with mouths open in unison and pointing, and one man in a skin-tight, pastel coloured uniform running through the streets at break-neck speed on his way to "save the day". Instead, it took a while for me to realise that this was "real" and the stuff on TV was "really happening". Later on, things started looking like some horror-movie with zombies, but not the slow zombies of the 80s, complete with incoherent moans and bits of limbs comically falling off and landing on the ground with a soft thump. No. This is the 21st century and the zombies are faster and cleverer and filled with a riotous energy, not stopping at anything until they get to feast on the living flesh they want. Except these zombies wanted not flesh, but electronic goods. The fact that the phenomenon spread across the country the way it did added to that sense of this whole thing being a movie-adaptation of "What if society went really bad?", but the more it went on, the more reality pounded the crap out of the movie-ness thoughts, leading us to try dealing with the fact that "Shit, guys! Society went really bad!"
Luckily for me, most of the absurdity happened on Monday night, which meant I could stay up and follow the events since I didn't have to work on Tuesday. Therefore I managed to remain in a state of awareness and constant consciousness until pretty much 6am, when the breakfast news people started and my brain stopped. But all through the early hours, my constant desire for news updates grew and grew as the news updates themselves started to dwindle. My one source of constant refreshing during this time, therefore, existed in the form of the one website I vowed to myself years ago not to become involved with. Now, as I type this, my current total of tweets sits at 54. FIFTY-FOUR! Christ, I've only had the thing one month, I should be somewhere around 2... 3 at the very most. I never expected to be up to 54 until I was approaching 82! Evidently, my embracing of Twitter appears to be just the next thing in a long line of fads I never really liked to begin with but apparently somewhere along the way have subconsciously decided "well, if you can't beat them, reluctantly begin to join them in a few years against your own will".
Don't be surprised if I end up taking to the streets in a black tracksuit with a hood over my head, scarf over my face, a lighter in one hand and basebat bat in the other because I want a new mobile phone sometime in 2016.
That's right. I actually "tweeted". And not the stupid pointless doesn't-make-any-sense-but-I'll-put-it-anyway-in-an-attempt-at-being-ironic tweets (for example: 'Made up a joke about batteries before, but have come to realise it doesn't work when typed, thus rendering this lot of words pointless.' and 'green lantern is green') that I told myself I'd only ever use it, sparingly, for. No. In the space of one night I practically doubled - and then some - my total amount of "tweets" with a bunch of shit regarding what was happening in correlation with current events. Some were vague attempts at humour ('did I just see someone whacking a sea bass against a the window of a Ladbrokes?'), others were vacant reactions to news developments ('Apparently Camden Market is now burning. This angers and infuriates me.'). Most, if not all, of them included #hashtags. Sometimes even ###multiplehashtags because the attention-seeking bastard monster inside of me wanted to be noticed. Sadly, no attention was given to any of my words and the monster has retreated back inside of me (for now) to have a little cry and remember a time when B*Witched were popular.
But on the subject of the UK riots, which, quite frankly, is a lie (and a lie that BBC News kept ramming through my telly-screen for a solid day until they realised that Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the smattering of other islands what the Queen looks after didn't want to join in with all the madness and eventually had to resort to telling the truth since the only places that people felt the need to take stuff and burn places existed solely on English turf), I must say I found the whole thing oddly surreal. Watching parts of London burning was less like watching an episode of London's Burning and more like watching some apocalyptic disaster movie. Unlike an apocalyptic disaster movie, however, it seemed to go on longer than two hours and largely consisted of the same live shot with no fast-paced edits where we cut to different camera angles of the burning buildings, crowd reactions of people standing in the streets looking upwards with mouths open in unison and pointing, and one man in a skin-tight, pastel coloured uniform running through the streets at break-neck speed on his way to "save the day". Instead, it took a while for me to realise that this was "real" and the stuff on TV was "really happening". Later on, things started looking like some horror-movie with zombies, but not the slow zombies of the 80s, complete with incoherent moans and bits of limbs comically falling off and landing on the ground with a soft thump. No. This is the 21st century and the zombies are faster and cleverer and filled with a riotous energy, not stopping at anything until they get to feast on the living flesh they want. Except these zombies wanted not flesh, but electronic goods. The fact that the phenomenon spread across the country the way it did added to that sense of this whole thing being a movie-adaptation of "What if society went really bad?", but the more it went on, the more reality pounded the crap out of the movie-ness thoughts, leading us to try dealing with the fact that "Shit, guys! Society went really bad!"
Luckily for me, most of the absurdity happened on Monday night, which meant I could stay up and follow the events since I didn't have to work on Tuesday. Therefore I managed to remain in a state of awareness and constant consciousness until pretty much 6am, when the breakfast news people started and my brain stopped. But all through the early hours, my constant desire for news updates grew and grew as the news updates themselves started to dwindle. My one source of constant refreshing during this time, therefore, existed in the form of the one website I vowed to myself years ago not to become involved with. Now, as I type this, my current total of tweets sits at 54. FIFTY-FOUR! Christ, I've only had the thing one month, I should be somewhere around 2... 3 at the very most. I never expected to be up to 54 until I was approaching 82! Evidently, my embracing of Twitter appears to be just the next thing in a long line of fads I never really liked to begin with but apparently somewhere along the way have subconsciously decided "well, if you can't beat them, reluctantly begin to join them in a few years against your own will".
Don't be surprised if I end up taking to the streets in a black tracksuit with a hood over my head, scarf over my face, a lighter in one hand and basebat bat in the other because I want a new mobile phone sometime in 2016.
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