tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22422272609888228852013-02-27T18:57:33.302ZHardly AmazingJamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819750366358242018noreply@blogger.comBlogger131125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242227260988822885.post-41939733105042436522013-02-27T18:57:00.000Z2013-02-27T18:57:33.310Z2013-02-27T18:57:33.310ZPlans<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>For Liz.</i></div>
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Advice kids: Never make plans. Plans are for idiots. Incidentally, I wrote a thing about idiots on Monday which I was saving to put up here today. See, in my head, I'm amazing and have several thousand followers interested in whatever the hell it is I do. Case in point: this. So I decided a while ago that I'd update this blog every Wednesday, on the Wednesday, in order to keep my habits as a writer somewhat constant. After a while, I figured I was running out of things to write about, which is lazy speak for "I was becoming more and more lazy". Over time, I allowed myself "off-weeks" where I'd skip a Wednesday whenever I saw fit. In 2013, this suddenly became every fucking Wednesday.<br />
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I've been kidding myself that, with the final term of the final year of my degree looming, I needed to spend my time focussing on important work. Side projects like this would, therefore have to take a hit. Incidentally, that's the same logic I applied to putting off a serious conversation some weeks back. See, in reality, I'm an idiot. The very kind of idiot I complained about in a rambly thing I typed up two days ago. The kind of idiot who makes plans for the future because they don't realise that present is all that actually matters. All of a sudden, now, I realise I'm contradicting myself. I'm arguing with me. And I hate that. Why can't I just get along?<br />
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So, what's all this then? This is my last-minute replacement post, hastily cobbled together with cold fingers, perpetually perspiring underarms and the realisation that I am an idiot. In the two day period since writing my now-hypocritical analysis of other people, a close friend received a spot of bad news. Actually, scratch that. The worst news. The fact that this post contains a dedication at the top means I don't really have to go into detail. Unless you're an idiot.<br />
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I read through my idiocy post this morning, ready and raring because I finally had a weekly update for this blog. The only problem was that I actually read it. I don't normally read these things back until after they're in the virtual ether. But I read the pre-planned one and oh, my God, it's absolutely awful. To be frank, I was in a bit of a dark place when I hammered it out; I was in one of those I'm-angry-at-the-world-and-it's-the-world's-fault kind of moods where basically everyone on the face of the Earth, bar me, would have to fall into a pit of despair laced with parasites to satisfy me. But situations change and I feel it would've been wholly inappropriate to spew such vitriol onto the world knowing what I know now.<br />
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Some months ago, I fell into that old tangled web of personal feelings. With only my own meandering existence to draw from, that old situation never ends well for anyone. But still, the heart wants what it wants and the brain tries to rationalise it by being an idiot; by keeping quiet at whatever rare opportunity arises to speak up. Technically, I suppose that's the mouth's fault. Or the throat. Either way, I'd planned ahead to get kicked repeatedly in the chest. The actual assault occurred far sooner than I'd anticipated, thus leaving me feeling a) an idiot for planning ahead, and b) kicked in the chest.<br />
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So yeah, fuck plans. Plans only exist to remind people that fixed future events exist. Except they don't. Everything's hypothetical. The only thing that matters at any given moment is that very given moment. At the risk of sounding philosophical or awe inspiring, the past is what's fixed, the future is hypothetical. It's what you do with the moments you live in that you can possibly have any control over. Okay? This is not a chastising lecture to either the living or the deceased. This is pure fucking common sense. Most don't realise this, and I know that because I didn't fucking realise it until pretty much just now, when I wrote this paragraph.<br />
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Use the time you get properly to get what you want done. Don't assume you get more. For the love of whoever's up there/out there/somewhere, never make plans. Here endeth the lesson, idiot.Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819750366358242018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242227260988822885.post-3714205365258975322013-02-06T14:22:00.000Z2013-02-06T14:22:41.515Z2013-02-06T14:22:41.515ZRegular JanuaryI seem to hate Januarys. Two years ago, I completely shunned the month on this blogspace for reasons pertaining to, oh I dunno, I just couldn't be arsed probably. Last year, I posted about death and how we're all mortal and eventually gonna kick it one day. This year, I spent thirty-one days ignoring this pathetic excuse for a writing space in order to... well... you tell me! Actually, fuck that. I'll tell you. Now.<br />
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I read a fair bit. I wrote a fair bit. I stressed a fair bit. I drank a hell of a lot. Well, there we go, that pretty much sums it up. I wish I could be a bit more specific on some of those points, but I have deadlines looming and my way of dealing with them generally seems to be to ignore them like your regular January. My points of stress mainly revolve around a combination of such deadlines, certain individuals whom I'll not name and talk smack about in a public space such as this because (a) that would just make me sound bitter, and (b) I still see certain individuals on a regular basis and don't think I could cope with the face-to-face "why iz yoo talkin shitz boutz mee'z on da intanetz?" without physically assaulting them and then me. Instead, I let it fester inside, all the while telling myself I don't care and it doesn't actually bother me, even though I turned the light off at midnight and it's now 4am and I evidently do care.<br />
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On top of the mundane and the mediocre stresses of work and people who need to find out what a chainsaw tastes like<sup>†</sup>, I would also like to present to you the bizarre stress caused by the back gate of this rented property I'm currently residing in. Basically, for weeks - hell, for a whole January really - every time I've gone into the garden for any reason (taking the bins out, getting some fresh air, cleaning the chainsaw, etc.) I've noticed the back gate is always wide open. This disturbs me. This disturbs me so much because every time I'm out there, I close it by using the hooked latch and the deadbolt which slots into a hole in the middle of a brick wall. Every time, I close it. Yet every time, it's open again. This has led me to two possible explanations. Both are as fucking absurd as each other.<br />
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<b>Absurd thing one: People are breaking in.</b> You're probably really thinking there's nothing very absurd about that. People break in places all the time. In fact, the bent-inwards-ness of the wooden planks that essentially form the entire door-like thing on the back wall suggests that some kind of brute force has been exerted onto the gate meaning that a forced entry seems likely. The only problem with this scenario, however, seems to be that no other damage is actually done anywhere. Heck, if half the garden was trashed or an attempt was made at getting in the house or there seemed to be some kind of attempted theft or violence I'd naturally assume we were having frequent univited visitors. But no. The garden and the house - all of the property being rented - remains exactly the way I last saw it... apart from the gate. Logically, if people are actually forcing an entry into my garden, they don't seem to have any other plan byond that, other than to say: "Right then, we showed <i>that</i> gate. Let's go break a branch off a tree. FUCK YOU, SOCIETY!"<br />
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<b>Absurd thing the other one: The wind is sentient.</b> The forces of nature often unhook poorly constructed gate latches and blow hinged planks of wood around like nobody's business. However, I've never met a mild breeze capable of lifting the handle of a deadbolt halfway up so it aligns with the locking mechanism to pull it out of a wall. Maybe I'm just being crazy. Maybe I'm not, and the wind and rain is capable of more than I had previously expected. It forms itself into the shape of some kind of being able to interact with the physical world. Or actually, it could be ghosts, or an unruly ferret, or inexplicably floating geometric shapes. In the case of the latter, I imagine them to be parallelograms. Why, exactly? FUCK YOU, THAT'S WHY!<br />
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For many people, "I hate Mondays" is some kind of life motto. Personally, I hate Januarys. And really, if you think about it, January is just like one big, giant Monday. The mother of all Mondays. Der über-Montag. Screw the depressing beginning of the week. January is the head-scratching, chainsaw-wielding, alcohol-consuming start to the entire bloody year and I, for one, am glad it's over.<br />
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As I said, I've been drinking a lot.<br />
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<small><sup>†</sup>This line about learning what chainsaws taste like was stolen from the blurb of <i>This Book Is Full Of Spiders</i> by David Wong. Told you I've been reading.</small><br />
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<small>(I don't actually own a chainsaw.)</small>Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819750366358242018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242227260988822885.post-56430954090939857662012-12-26T20:57:00.005Z2012-12-26T20:57:47.253Z2012-12-26T20:57:47.253ZSurprise!The following post contains words, ideas and thoughts which most people may not agree with. If you feel interested enough to want to read this and are able to figure out how this post has been disguised via the miracles of the internet (namely, basic HTML coding) then please feel free to read on. If not, I can pretty much sum things up for you - if you either don't want to read this or are not very internet-savvy - by saying that the main point of this post comes down to the following: As people get older, the "magic" of Christmas gradually fades over time. I appear to have experienced this transition from excited child to world-weary adult in general over the last few years and have decided to use the Christmas period as a framing device for this observation.<br />
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<span style="background-color:black">I would like to stress that the following is not borne out of upset, greed or ungratefulness. As with anything, however, I will be frank and honest with every letter of this piece.<br />
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Christmas brings out the worst in people. It's supposed to be a time of giving and sharing and spending time with those you normally wouldn't. As humans, though, we are all egotists and we only really care about ourselves. The idea of receiving gifts as donated by others of those around us out of sheer good will and a generous dose of commercialisation makes us revert to our core, instinctive, Neanderthal ways. Basically, for many people, "Christmas" equals "I want stuff".<br />
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There's a quaint charm about the day itself. for many it follows a formula, or a tradition. Some families visit relatives whilst others have relatives visit them. Some families sit around the fire or, if you don't like in the countryside or the 1800s, the television and watch as the citizens of <i>EastEnders</i>, <i>Emmerdale</i> and <i>Coronation Street</i> suffer massive cast culls by way of "freak gas explosion" or "unfortunate lorry disaster". Some families drink copious amounts of alcohol and destroy the nifty gadgets they unwrapped mere hours ago through either clumsiness or shoddy craftsmanship. It's not all happy and wholesome, though. Some families are driven apart by work and location differences, most notably those carrying out military operations. Some people spend the time entirely alone and, in some cases, with absolutely nowhere to go.<br />
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What keeps Christmas so fresh, however, is the surprise of the gifts. Gifts are wrapped in all kinds of coloured paper, tied up with ribbons and bows and adorned with miniature greetings cards. Gifts appear in all manner of shapes and sizes, from the simple small boxes to the fucking frustrating to wrap giant fluffy teddy bears. Applying the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics to this whole bundle of nothing, the exact nature of the present is unknown to the receiver up until the very moment that the colourful veil is lifted, scrunched up and tossed into the bin bag in the middle of the room. Surprise! Now you know what's in that box! And best of all it's not a dead cat, unless you know some pretty fucked up people or you're actually into that sort of thing.<br />
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I personally have started to lose the magical unique feeling of Christmas only to have it replaced by laziness and mild indifference. I've reached a certain point in my life - one which I'm finding it extremely difficult to break away from - wherein the family and family friends surrounding me at this loving time have no idea who I am. Part of this stems from the fact that I don't really know who I am, I don't vocalise myself very much towards many people and very rarely speak of myself. Also, for this reason I have no idea what to gift to those around me so there's definitely a bit of tit-for-tat present swapping going on there.<br />
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The aforementioned notion of surprise is completely lost on me at this time and has been for some time now. This has come about when all of the gifts - and let me once again stress my gratitude for them as gifts are given by others at their own expense - that I receive are quite literally, without exaggeration or sardonic mocking, either items of clothing or deodorant gift sets. I've started to develop a certain paranoia that all my relatives only regard me as either naked or smelly or both. I've come to accept this over time, yet am made to feel something of an outcast and fairly insecure about myself when others - whether family or friends, loved ones or acquaintances - recite endless lists of received gadgets, games, box sets, booze, surprises and expectations as well as just the regular clothes and smellies and that. When I deliver my albeit shorter and less dazzling list, people end up surprised, which quite frankly is one luxury I don't feel I get any more.<br />
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Now that my fingers feel dirty for typing such anti-Christmassy Christmas musings, I feel obliged to point out that this year, my parents have decided to collaborate on the cost of a holiday for them and us kids at a later date; the exact details of this vacation are yet to be decided. This is a good thing and once again I would like express my gratitude. I wouldn't like to be known as a pissy little twat who takes to the internet to publicly complain about everything and everyone in their lives on the spur of the moment; I'll leave that to the kids on Twitter.<br />
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I would like to make it clear that what you have just read has not been written as a rant made out of shit wit, sarcasticness and cynicism. It is essentially an open letter to everyone and no-one borne out of bored honesty, stoicism, an aching head and a glass of port. Furthermore, this is has been written to get everything out before it devours me completely, purely for my own benefit. After all, it's that special time of year when we think about ourselves. I echo my prelude to this piece by saying - or rather typing - that all of the gifts I have received, however few, have been received with gratitude, and that I have simply written all of the above with brutal honesty.<br />
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Finally, I'd like to close by saying that I hope whoever may be reading this has enjoyed the Christmas period in whatever way they've experienced it. Enjoy the rest of the festive period because in 364 days time, it'll be "same old, same old" once again. Surprise!</span>Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819750366358242018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242227260988822885.post-2033400696073401602012-12-19T14:34:00.000Z2012-12-19T14:34:31.254Z2012-12-19T14:34:31.254ZMysteryWhen the train gets held at the station, people naturally start to complain; no exceptions. Not even if a diabetic passenger collapses moments after boarding because he probably didn't eat breakfast that particular morning or something. In fact, anyone in the adjoining carriage will, by human law, poke their head out into the aisle and stare through the little sliver of window in the door between compartments to see the backs of a crowd blocking off the impromptu patient of Chester railway station's emergency medical team. The complaining people, all the while, speak in tones reminiscent of why you left the area to go to University in the first place.<br />
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Whilst at University, you spend far too long stressing about coursework; both your own and that of fellow students. The fellow students' workload is dumped upon you not by your own choice, however. Once a healthy and stable workmate/friend/peer/colleague relationship has been established, that virtually acts as an unspoken 'open-door policy' for your comrade to inflict their stress on others. Luckily, this phenomenon only every occurs for two days before an assignment deadline in intense concentration. Once it's over, everyone reverts back to their happy selves leaving them able to partake in social or, in some cases, anti-social events usually involving alcohol and mild embarrassment.<br />
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Around the "term ending" times - i.e. Christmas and Easter - the former working groups and subsequent social groups end up saying goodbyes and farewells to one another as they dread a whole three weeks away from each other's company. If you're lucky, in the run up to the Christmas break, one of your peers may happen upon ownership of a Drinking Roulette-based game which essentially consists of a cheap moulded plastic roulette wheel, ball-bearing and several numbered shot glasses. Sometimes these glasses become filled with cola or water, or even undiluted squash for the particularly daring. Other times, fruity ciders fill the thimble-sized receptacles, and sometimes your peers explore the reduced-and-unspecified shelves of the alcohol aisle in the Crewe branch of Tesco, which happens to exist on stilts above it's ground-level car park. This results in the acquisition of a £7 bottle of what can only be referred to as the "mystery drink", which looks like Jägermeister, pours like soy sauce and tastes like Italian pesto and industrial paint thinner.<br />
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Once goodbyes have been exchanged alongside sordid secrets - all of which remain inside the room in which they were once spake - there eventually comes a time where you return to a former dwelling and a former existence you tried so desperately to get away from a little over two years ago. However, aforementioned victims of (possibly) long standing medical conditions do their bit to impede your progress - or regress as it were - whilst the surrounding passengers remind you of the fact that such people actually do exist.<br />
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As a result, you end up sitting on a static vehicle covered in layers of clothing, surrounded by two small suitcases on wheels, suffering an aching shoulder from a bulging satchel and realising that Patrick Wolf's <i>The Bachelor</i> album is actually pretty decent and that it does not, in fact, finish after track three. All the while, you find that it's a little difficult trying to admire the quaint, bizarre confluence of what can only really be described as "electro-folk" when you're staring at deserted buildings and faded rubbish that lies amongst train tracks that have clearly been out of use for years.<br />
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Eventually, you should make it to your destination, albeit forty-five minutes later than you would've previously hoped and proceed to realise how little your life seems to amount to as well as how much you wish the diabetic bloke from the train a speedy recovery as you gulp down tea laced with a stupid amount of sugar.Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819750366358242018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242227260988822885.post-20214262717763309252012-12-05T12:25:00.002Z2012-12-05T12:25:57.208Z2012-12-05T12:25:57.208ZThe Main DistractionA long, long time ago - so about a month - I had a weekly venting window on this very portion of webspace. The good thing is that it still exists. The bad thing, though, is that I've either gained more of a life or lost my enthusiasm for typing (or both) that it's constantly been slipping under my attention radar for me to give a crap. For this reason, more stuff has happened during my existing time that could potentially warrant noteworthiness right here, meaning that this particular blabble could either stretch to an obscene length or amount to a couple of paragraphs which simply state "stuff happened" and I can talk about my distaste for typing or something. Either way, I should really be doing assignment work right now so this is my obligatory distraction from doing that. and not just any distraction, no. This is the main distraction. The main attraction of distractions everywhere. Yes, I've already pointlessly chopped an onion, had a shower and stared at a static Facebook page for an hour and a half without actually doing anything on it. Now, come gather round, ye children, for a grand story of festive magnitude and other wintery delights (probably... I don't even know what I'm typing now [God, I hate this]) as I present my annual un-Christmassy Christmas tale. And in time-honoured tradition of the culture of Western media, I'm presenting it many, many weeks before the actual day of Christmas.<br /><br />So I went home on a train at some point, which is always the best way to start a story of festive cheer. My journey was made easier by the technology in the palm of my hand - a mobile telephone I had aquired during the summer period, with snazzy features such as flipping graphics, internet access and a calendar which doesn't get used. <br />My mild Facebook addiction is now regularly satisfied whilst I'm on the go, <br />which pleases me so, <br />but the network which provides my access is oft slow<br />at fulfilling my demands, and I get all like "whoa".<br />I signed up to a certain mobile network which, for pseudo-legal reasons, I will not mention, but I will tell you that it rhymes with... oh shit, nothing actually rhymes with Orange. Anyway, over the latest months, the firm has been overtaken and rebranded by the somewhat phonetically screeching EE, meaning Everything Everywhere. However, in the light of my various train journeys which lacked suitable access, I feel that they should be obliged to rebrand to Everything Everywhere, Except Certain Sections Of Railway Lines Which Happen To Pass By Fields, Hills And Other Various Countryside Related Miscellanea, but somehow I feel that EEECSORLWHTPBFHAOVCRM doesn't quite have the same ring to it.<br /><br />Over the recent weeks, I've revelled in the initial bursts of joy of that annual office-party tradition of Secret Santa and cringed with horror at the actuality of that annual office-party tradition of Secret Santa. Currently, I belong to two Secret gifting groups: one consisting of coursemates, the other of University Archery enthusiasts. In each of these groups, however, it has quickly occurred to me - i.e. from the moment I've been given the name of a person I barely know within each group - that I don't want to do either any more. On top of this, one of the groups has suffered the mishap of a late withdrawal leaving several people in a stupour or some other word like that and as it currently stands, I have no idea what, if anything, I'm supposed to be buying for whom, if anyone. Picking out a name at random is all chance, of course. But when it comes to the names I personally end up resting upon, God or whoever or those head-fucky laws of chaos decide to pop up and be a complete dick. To those of you who happen to have your unknown gifts provided by me as a result of the naming goblins of Secret Santa, I hope I'm not ruining the surprise by informing you that you'll probably end up with a box of Quality Streets or something. Failing that, a white chocolate Magnum and hug.<br /><br />And so once again, as November falls over into the four o'clock darkness and December turns our collective breaths into fog, my still somewhat-pubescent hormones have decided to latch onto one or two members of the fairer sex. Call it tradition. Girls are, like, my Coke advert. I don't particularly care about anyone or anything in any way other than platonic, but alas, for the third year in a row, my mindspace has wandered into the realm of "liking someone", rendering it completely useless when attempting to work towards important assignments. Apparently, it's a lot more important for me to shove my hands in my pockets, bunch my shoulders forward, smile sheepishly with my head down and twist one foot on the ground whilst anchored to one point by the toes. If personal history is anything to go by, this beautiful, wonderous, cutesy, disgusting, lovable, stupid bastard feeling will subside within a week or three, allowing me just enough time to not care that I'm spending the New Year period alone, again. For the time being though, to you who happens to have been affected by the perfectly normal, yet annoyingly human feelings conjured up by my brain, I hope not to frighten you away with the sheer sight of my face and to make things up to you at some point with a white chocolate Magnum and a hug. If those have already been taken, I'll consider the box of Quality Streets, but quite frankly my dear, I feel that might be taking things a little too fast.<br /><br />These paragraphs are stupidly long. If you read them all, well done, but at the same time you might want to consider doing something with your life. Might I suggest a white chocolate Magnum and that you go... hug yourself.Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819750366358242018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242227260988822885.post-16925180393639324312012-11-07T17:01:00.000Z2012-11-07T17:01:56.905Z2012-11-07T17:01:56.905ZThe Future Is Not OrangeIt's occurred to me that the reason I've not actually been doing any Uni work this third and final and oh so important of years is because I don't want it to be over. Plain and simple. I've very much enjoyed my time at University and, even though I still have a good six months left at it, my ever-planning mind can't help but look past those days and see me in a future that currently resembles something of a greyish blur like a stone landmark zooming past a train window, or a massive jelly made of obscurity.<br />
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In six months' time, I'll be all done with this undergraduate course, hopefully with a decent degree in hand, back in the town I grew up in, in a residence I didn't grow up in, attempting to pay my way in the world, spending countless hours in a retail assistant uniform, and filling whatever time I have left trying desperately to get noticed for my writing skills through avenues such as this piece of crap. The people I've met at University will merely fade into profile pictures and occasional text updates on how their individual lives have panned out since I last saw them.<br />
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That's not to say I won't have people back in my roots. Of course I have people there. But over time, the school links and the college links and the occasional drinking buddy links have snapped apart like old shoelaces, or new liquorice laces, and friendly gatherings seem fleeting at best whenever someone, anyone, arranges a night in or out. Try as we might to fight it but we've all grown up now. We all have other things to worry about and I fear I'm hurtling head-first into exactly the kind of life I never wanted; the kind where once you become an "adult" you relinquish all rights to the very notion of "fun" and become just another cog in the machine of mundane and lazily thought out metaphors. I remember growing up watching <i>Friends</i> and thinking that when I'm in my mid-twenties, I too will have a close-knit group of wacky comrades with whom I'll spend my days having jovial conversations, sharing takeaway dinners and occasionally poking the naked guy in the flat across the street using an obscene amount of chopsticks sellotaped together.<br />
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Don't even get me started on when, where or how I imagine myself engaging in a personal, romantic relationship with anyone.<br />
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My phone company recently merged and threw expensive technology at a bunch of British cities, mostly in the south. Before that, though, they used to tell people that the future was, in fact, orange. I regret to tell you, dear reader, that the future is not orange. The future isn't any colour. The future is a blank mesh of grey with bits of fluff and dust woven in to make it look at least lived in a bit. It could entail absolutely any situation with any people in any location, but I don't like staring gormlessly into that void for too long because it drives me crazy and makes me write something long and ridiculous like this. So with that in mind, I leave this place now to go rest my aching head and fall into a blank and boring dreamless sleep wherein all vague time parameters become a certain swirling shade of black.<br />
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I suppose this whole ramble only applies to me right now though, considering that for several million folks in the United States today, the future - apparently - is blue.Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819750366358242018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242227260988822885.post-67965535192739336692012-10-31T14:43:00.003Z2012-10-31T14:43:41.696Z2012-10-31T14:43:41.696ZThe Annual Sugar RushThere's a poster at the Uni campus emblazoned with the words "Why Do We Fear?" which immediately put me in mind of our innate human nature wherein we are aware of our own mortality and try desperately to distract ourselves from the fact in our day to day lives. Eventually I concluded that the concept of fear simply boils down to just anticipation of a bleak or unwanted future in terms of the situations we may happen to face or those which happen to fall upon us through no choice of our own. However, it quickly occurred to me that the poster was really just put up to advertise a lecture to be given quite simply because it's Halloween.<br />
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As I type, I'm sitting in a cold house with the only heat in the room coming from my body itself and remnants of me using a hairdryer to quickly and effectively make a damp T-shirt suitable for wearing later on. I'm facing a Tesco Halloween make-up set of which I can guarantee that only the black, white and red blocks of the palette will be applied to my face and a vial of red food colouring which I intend to add to golden syrup to fashion an oozing, yet extremely edible, fake blood. Behind me are old clothes with which I've finally come to terms with the fact I don't wear any more and have set about ripping up. For tonight's drinking-excuse festivities, I've been informed to dress as a zombie.<br />
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The funny thing about University is that fancy dress evenings are a lot more strict than one would probably expect. All dressing up must be done to adhere to a specific theme whilst also proving wacky enough for the wearer to not present themselves in public in the same way on any normal day. This makes scouting around, spending money on clothes and accessories one would not normally wear on a daily basis necessary. Furthermore, after the night in question, the chances of such clothing props being used ever again slim to none.<br />
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It is at this point in the typing process that I find myself distracted by the TV and losing whatever train of thought I had with this thing for me to continue in such a way that the whole thing doesn't feel like I'm just grasping at straws or some other lazily constructed metaphor. I'm also in the middle of playing <i>The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword</i> and am feeling a burning desire to ignore the rest of this and carry on with that again. In the same breath however, I don't possess nearly enough hypothetical money in-game than I have real money in reality so at least I feel like a king in this life as opposed to returning to a life of drudgery hacking away at things with a blade in a bid to find a girl in a pink dress who can't stay still long enough for me to find her.<br />
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Fortunately, the fancy dress themed evening of binge drinking and loud social merriment comes at little cost to me today further fuelled by the fact that I'll be vacating my current dwelling during the dark hours meaning that I won't have to suffer the clockwork knocking at the door of children in plastic masks holding out Asda carrier bags in the hope of experiencing the annual sugar rush. This didn't stop me from having to deal with some of the little tykes last night who seem to have decided that they don't like the way the Gregorian calendar is currently set up and figured All Hallow's Eve would be better suited to them a whole twenty-four hours earlier.<br />
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Once again, I come bumbling to no point whatsoever so in accordance with the reputation Halloween night has to uphold, I'll round off with some vaguely sounding scary words and frightening themes: ghoul, banshee, ectoplasmic, blood-curdling, fangs, the Monster Mash, daemons, fundamental extremism, Amy Winehouse.Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819750366358242018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242227260988822885.post-91667753573886909372012-10-17T15:07:00.000+01:002012-10-17T15:07:12.343+01:002012-10-17T15:07:12.343+01:00Hardly Earth-ShatteringAt the risk of fading further into obscurity that even I don't recognise me any more, I've stopped putting things here. Mostly, the reason for this has been some kind of amalgamation of getting on with life too much, consuming varying amounts of alcohol, sleeping and generally being a bit of a lazy arse in regards to remembering the fact that I wanted to keep this space regularly updated in the hope that it would keep me writing.<br />
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Over the last week or so, though, I've unashamedly, or very ashamedly (I'm not quite sure how to feel about it to be honest), been coasting. My work towards the most important year of my University course has seemed fairly lacklustre. That is when I look at my own work. I've simultaneously managed to worry and possibly belittle others on my course by workshopping (i.e. editing) their work with an overly critical mind, an inflated sense of self and a red Biro. The point at which hypocrisy hits is when I struggle to come up with original work of my own for my peers to scribble over and point at.<br />
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In stark contrast, my efforts in short fiction were recently commended during the currently ongoing Manchester Literature Festival. The University puts together a compilation of short stories annually and it just so happens that something I did managed to make it into the top half of all of them, thus making it to print. It's hardly Earth-shattering but the event did kill an afternoon, get me moderately light-headed on a glass of red and result in minor embarrassment dealt in the form of my parents' attendance. As of the time of typing this, my father's phone contains a however-long video clip of me stumbling over a short extract in the vicinity of a microphone and my mother currently possesses around six copies of the limited print-run anthology bearing signatures of myself and, in some cases, several of the other participants at the event as if we're rockstars, so that she can pass them on to whatever friends or family members she can coax into feigning interest.<br />
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So if I haven't been working to the fullest of my potential, what the heck have I been doing all this time? Well, drinking seems to make up most of that response. Why, in fact, that aforementioned vino at the anthology launch proved to be something of a "gateway drink" into what ended up being an afternoon and evening in a student bar in the middle of Manchester, during which certain amounts of money were exchanged for cocktail pitchers and the occasional thimble-sized plastic beaker of Goldschläger (which, by the way, in proper German should be pronounced "gold-sh-lay-ger" as opposed to its more popular Anglicised form "gold-sh-lah-ger", that kind of thing pisses me off ever so, you know).<br />
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Even tonight, after I've done this and finally dressed properly, I'm supposed to be joining my studently comrades for a good ol' binging session which will undoubtedly render me catatonic until tomorrow's early afternoon, by which point I should, in theory, be attending a seminar I should've prepared well in advance for. And by the same time on Friday I'll need some kind of original work to exist, at least in some kind of draft form, ready for other people to judge my writing ability which, quite frankly, feels to have dwindled since I've not been typing anything here for weeks at a time. Once everything goes to crap and I've stopped clutching the sides of my skull in despair, I may feel up to drowning my sorrows once more with that fresh bottle of Honey-infused Jack Daniels I bought yesterday.<br />
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More to do than can ever be done. More to find than can ever be found. It's the circle, the circle of life.Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819750366358242018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242227260988822885.post-14249602810824175962012-10-03T15:11:00.001+01:002012-10-03T15:11:42.236+01:002012-10-03T15:11:42.236+01:00Somewhat BusyLiving without regular access to the internet is odd. This little portion of the web has been recently neglected as a result. Maybe it's only been a week, maybe it's been two, maybe it's been four years and I'm just still not ready to leave university behind all the while clasping my hands to my ears, shaking my head side to side and tunelessly chanting a constant "la la la" at real life because it doesn't actually exist yet. Oh yeah, also my eyes are closed during that bit too. However long it's been since I last used lettered keys to communicate with all those seven or so people that come here via a Facebook link, mis-typed Google search or spam email (probably, although I've not moved into the world of hacking yet, I'm not that techno-savvy), it feels like ages.<br />
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Anyway, I need to use email every now and then to facilitate my third year of degree study, which involves me bumming off the free WiFi on campus. Because of this, my Student Union surroundings with that scent of chips and gravy, occasional hubbub of idiot laughter and 4Music being streamed live on a projector sponsors my communications to classmates and random blog-stumblers alike. Why, even as I type, the voice of Peter Dickson is yelling at me buy things from KFC and now there's an extended featurette of Dappy from off of N-Dubz standing on a shallow bank fishing, I shit ye not.<br />
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So what's this one all about then? Something interesting must've happened in the last six years since I was last here, especially with it being the beginning of the university year. Well, yes, that's very true. Lot's of things have happened in the past decade, but as it happens now, I'm facing a somewhat busy afternoon and evening, a busy tomorrow, busy Friday, potentially busy Saturday, and a busy every single day for the next six months until I hand in final assignments. Add that to the fact that I really have to pee right now, I'll summarise the main points without too much elaborating. Heck, maybe they could pose as the bases of a few other blog posts later in the year when my brain dries up and my social life falls down a ravine into a pile of sewage or some other metaphor like that.<br />
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Lately, I've made new friends, watched TV, cooked food, spent an obscene amount of money on archery equipment, drank certain amounts of alcohol that cannot be described as copious and sung along with Coldplay from inside my iPod. Also I've walked a lot. A heck of a lot. Oh, plus I've had a distinct lack of doing work, hence why I'm now facing an awful lot of busy days and I still really badly need to pee, so bye.Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819750366358242018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242227260988822885.post-74354029222131798582012-09-19T14:49:00.001+01:002012-09-19T14:49:34.808+01:002012-09-19T14:49:34.808+01:00TowelAs I type this, it's Sunday morning. I've been back in my student house for less than 24 hours and have probably spent half of that time not actually in the house. I'm moderately hungover and am currently lacking in healthy food stocks to ease the discomfort. I could do with a decent shower but don't have a clean towel. My bank balance is obscenely high and currently looks probably the healthiest it will look for at least seven more years, if we disregard a potential lottery win, freak fortune-finding occurrence in the middle of the street or ill-conceived attempt at ITV's <i>The Cube</i>.<br />
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On the hangover front, though, I've discovered the hard way that draught cider or even regular cider are not particularly adequate for binge-drinking purposes. At least not any more. I've never normally suffered headache-orientated "morning afters" but the sensation currently swirling around my stomach and other bits of digestive system seems all too unmanageable when trying to, you know, not stay motionless in bed all day long. On top of that, one has to contend with the fermented aftertaste of rotten apple and shouting that lingers on the back of the tongue and the fact that my toothbrush is actually located up a flight of stairs.<br />
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Since that last paragraph was ended, some four hours have passed for me, whereas four seconds have passed for you. If you're able to get your head around such a temporal issue without parts of your psyche drifting off and screaming, do feel free to continue. Anyway, I managed to get up, put fresh clothes on yet still feel unclean enough to want to shower. A towel needed to be purchased first, however, and fresh food wouldn't have gone a miss either. But you read all about that crap in paragraph one, rendering most of this irrelevant, other than for me to say that what I was going to say would happen earlier actually ended up happening.<br />
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I ventured out into the fresh-air based world and some fifteen minutes later I made it to a super-duper-hypermarket that was recently erected in the Crewe area. In the interest of not succumbing to blatant product promotion or whatever I feel inclined to mention that the supermarket is one of a well-known store chain. In the interest of being factually blunt, it was a Tesco Extra. Furthermore, it's on stilts; a ground-floor car-park with the entire store directly above it. As well as that, it's as big as a large village or a small town and quite frankly, I'm still not even sure I covered a quarter of the whole place, and that was after parting with sixty-five pounds in exchange for all kinds of fresh vegetables, fresh and frozen meats and poultry and a towel.<br />
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I've now cooked some of it, had a shower and gone back to bed to type this up. Looking back on this, all I've done is colourfully inform whatever poor bastard has decided to read this that I drank alcohol last night and went shopping today. Amount of time it took for me to settle straight back into student mode once again: twenty-four-and-a-bit hours... ish... probably.Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819750366358242018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242227260988822885.post-64441412114415093212012-09-12T10:27:00.001+01:002012-09-12T10:27:35.963+01:002012-09-12T10:27:35.963+01:00Wooden SpoonThis blog post very nearly didn't happen. It was originally going to be about the banality and innocence of children or something but I got bored after a paragraph in which I made words about paying bills and stuff. Had I continued with it, there may have even been a segment somewhat akin to "don't kids just say the darndest things?", featuring fractured utterances from my three-year-old nephew and that one time I was spending chill-time with friends and a someone's friend of a parent's friend's child or something showed up and started pondering the mechanism of a toilet in pure unbridled fascination.<br />
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A lot of my time lately, however, has been devoted to thinking about story ideas as I approach the final year of creative degree study. Because of this, drifting through the motions has become the order of the week, which proves extremely detrimental to this thing when I have nothing to babble on about at length. I could, of course, makes notes about the stories I've been concocting in my brainspace as of late, but doing that here and now would mean I'm even less likely to make any financial gain from it in the future. Chances are I'll never earn from such writings anyway but a boy can dream.<br />
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A story that I have written as part of assessed work in the last year or so has made it into a published booklet-type-thing to be launched approximately one month from now at a literature festival, so yay! Having said that, this university-led venture featuring works from all manner of students probably won't make any money. If it does, chances are that it'll go straight back into university funding and I'll still carry on drinking away what's left of a weekly wage, which - if I'm lucky - might amount to a shot of flavoured water.<br />
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Correspondence with the event has been somewhat miniscule with regards to attendance figures. Whether enough space has been assigned to authors, creators, speakers and contributors at the event remains to be seen, so without purchasing a ticket or anything - assuming tickets are to be purchased for such an event (which, let's face it, in this world, they will be) - I could potentially be absent when launching a published piece. I don't even have Skype or anything that I could join them live via satellite link, or send a pre-recorded Oscar-style acceptance speech. I suppose if it came to it, I could always send along a wooden spoon with a smiley face on it in my place. However, lacking an address for the event, the spoon will have to just stay here, on the desk, smiling up at me with those unblinking eyes and that unwavering smile that seems to say 'you're not doing anything with your life other than sitting here at a computer and pretending you're a famous writer', at which point I'll scream back at it, chastising the inanimate object for being made of a dead tree and whose sole purpose in existence is to stir pasta.<br />
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I have no idea how I got here but I think I'll leave now. A felt-tip faced wooden stick has suddenly appeared out of nowhere and I fear about what it may do to me. Next week's edition in this series of boring updates of life will come from my proper computer in my proper house at university once more. That is if I can be bothered unpacking properly.<br />
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(Actually, I've just realised it won't because the aforementioned house is not currently connected to the virtual realms of the planet yet because the provider cut us off. Like I said, the original version of this post was going to be about paying bills and other grown-up stuff.)
Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819750366358242018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242227260988822885.post-46827964375293710802012-08-29T11:30:00.001+01:002012-08-29T11:30:26.851+01:002012-08-29T11:30:26.851+01:00The Surrounding AreaI'm currently residing at my father's flat since my mother's house is too far away from my place of employment, my University accommodation is inaccessible and my childhood home has other people living in it, meaning that I innately perceive them to be constructed of nay but pure evil. But I've gotten over the loss of that house; being a human, I'm able to adapt despite my lack of liking for the concept of 'change'.<br />
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Near to my dad's flat - mentioning something I've already mentioned previously in this blog so that the newfound swathes of people flocking thick and fast to see this can see it, obviously - are situated several landmarks or points of interest. They're not really that interesting or at all landmarkish except for on this little portion of internet, in which every tiny little thing that crosses my brain is a whole mountain of significant. It's quite odd to think, really, that I've stumbled upon several pseudo-landmarks in the surrounding area considering this place (yes, I'm currently at the flat whilst typing this, I'm not floating around inside the computer right now, fun as that may sound) feels so far detached from everything, it takes at least a half-hour walk before one sees some kind of civilisation.<br />
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Let's start with the furthest away shall we. Some weeks ago, I erroeously informed any innocent passer-by on this place that a youngster had been violently attacked in a nearby alleyway, leading to me pondering the fragility of life and other philosophical musings that would make Aristotle want to smack me over the head with a bust of Aristotle. Of course, brutal stabbing was a mere local rumour and the true reason for the alleyway's blue and white police tape has since been linked to an occurrence of unwanted sexual acts, i.e. rape. It's unclear whether this particular speculation holds any kind of truth or not and because of this, I wouldn't like to comment further on it. I'd just like to retract my last bundle of paragraphs about a potentially murdered teenager and conclude that bad things do, indeed, happen in life. Besides, the main point of that previous ramble was that I couldn't get through the alleyway to make it to work on time. As it turns out, I did get to work on time and no bad things have happened in the alley since.<br />
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Getting slowly closer to the flat exists a cemetery, a graveyard, or as I referred to it last week, an "underground retirement home". Not much actually happens there; as you might expect, the residents aren't as active as they once used to be. Again, going back to last week, I noticed the smell of a barbeque when walking past the place but that's about as exciting as things get near a burial ground. As far as I'm aware, hauntings are not commonplace. Either that or everybody's too busy with being alive to care about what's going on within other spiritual planes.<br />
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On the topic of hauntings and the creepy and mysterious, part of the last week has played host to me annoying everyone I know on Facebook with a local story I invented. Of course, everyone I know on Facebook involves everyone I know in real life plus a few thousand others whom I've probably met once, said a jolly friendly "hello" to and now know every aspect of their lives courtesy of social media. This I suddenly realised when my new smartphone (yeah, I also got a new phone this week, it doesn't warrant an entire blog post on the subject though, just accept the fact and we can all get on with our lives) connected to my Facebook profile and proceeded to include every single person into my contact list. What followed was an evening-long bout of sorting people out, filtering them and essentially making it so they don't show up on my phone since I have no need for all those contacts yet keeping them all on Facebook because I like having a bit of a read in the morning, like a personalised newspaper in which nothing at all special happens. Anyway, I started this paragraph promising something creepy and mysterious.<br />
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My dad's flat is situated in a small complex of flats all sharing the same dustbin enclosure, which is still not enough information for dad to become paranoid that I'm putting his personal life on the internet for anyone to steal. The dustbin enclosure, called so because I can't think of any other way to describe it other than a dustbin enclosure, sits directly outside the living room window. The binmen come first thing on Friday morning; this I know because the room I'm spending this summer's sleep time in also faces the bins and admittedly, the monotone rumbling of a truck, the steady bleeping of a 'backing-up' warning siren and thunderous claging are a better wake-up call than a tinkling tune coming from a five-year-old Samsung mobile. In their working routine and in my wavering state of consciousness, I vaguely remember hearing the voices of the unseen workers stating they were going to leave something since they weren't sure if it was rubbish or not. Some time later, I managed to make it from the bed to the living room to be greeted by the aforementioned creepy and mysterious sight I've spent two whole paragraphs setting up.<br />
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A child's toy - a plastic-headed, blonde-haired doll - had been placed free-standing, arms spread wide against the backing of the dustbin enclosure crucifixion-style, like a cross between Jesus Christ and the Bride of Chucky stared directly ahead with dead eyes through the living room window. Call me old-fashioned but it's a little unnerving when you've just sat down with a cup of tea trying to watch Cash In The Attic. It took two-and-a-half days for an overnight rainstorm to knock her off her perch and a further two days for her to disappear completely. Presumably, she was reclaimed by a young child, given a bath and made to have pretty tea parties in bright pink wallpapered rooms with an abundance of teddy bears and miniature plastic horses. Either that or someone threw her corpse into one of the giant bins along with their weekly rubbish, thus making the area in which I'm staying slightly less creepy once more.<br />
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There's also a Chinese takeaway nearby so it's not all that bad.Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819750366358242018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242227260988822885.post-51728251685575999992012-08-22T12:43:00.004+01:002012-08-22T12:43:53.210+01:002012-08-22T12:43:53.210+01:00HypocrisyThe other day, I walked past the local cemetery and smelled a barbeque. Whether the two things are related or not I'll never know, but as far as I'm aware corpses don't long for chargrilled slabs of meat in baking hot sunshine whilst blasting out whatever noises Rihanna's making at the time; it's more of a living thing. Living just down the road from what is essentially a large underground retirement home, though, doesn't tend to bear as much of an enigmatic quality as one might initially expect.<br />
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Monotony is the order of the day, and week, and month now as I maintain roughly the same work/sleep routine as a tortoise for whom simply being awake constitutes as 'work'. It's even gotten to the point where any free time I manage to come across involves me lazily dawdling about, staring mindlessly into the television with a slack-jawed open mouth, idly refreshing Facebook every sixteen-and-a-half seconds in the hope that somebody has news to share of a violent spontaneous combustion or picture of beans on toast, and peeing. My existence becomes the very definition of hypocrisy wherein I ponder all the things I'd like to do in my free time whilst complaining about the lack of free time in which to do those things. When such free time comes about, I ignore all previous notions of things I'd like to do and complain about how I have nothing to do and end up rambling about it on this thing and going back to retype words several times and adding neglected letters after some extremely self-embarrassing mis-spelling.<br />
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I'll go now. Mostly because I'm finding this one dragging and have resigned to counting this post as a bit of a blip on my continued lifetime, upon which I'll look back and yell at myself through the very fabric of the fourth dimension telling me to stop being "so fucking boring!" However, it might also have something to do with the fact that I have many other things to be thinking about getting on with right now.
Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819750366358242018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242227260988822885.post-74018740808739494802012-08-15T10:30:00.000+01:002012-08-15T10:30:01.837+01:002012-08-15T10:30:01.837+01:00The Unkempt General PopulaceThe seedy underbelly of the world keeps exposing itself to mine innocent eyes and I, being me, keep clasping one hand to them, throwing the other one outstretched, let out a cry of disgust and hope that pure concentrated evil will just cease to exist at the fact that I'm shielded by these two sight barriers constructed from flesh and bone. Maybe I've been wrapped in cotton wool for too long. Maybe I try to project an air of pacifism, peace and unyielding harmony. Maybe I'm just a wimp. Either way, the unruly suburbs of almost-Merseyside are not a place for people like me.<br />
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During my (so-far) twenty-three-year stay on planet Earth, a total of about twenty-two years and six months have seen me kept within a thirty-mile radius; forty max. I even decided to enrol at a relatively nearby University so I could just get a short train back if necessary. Of course, the recent hikes in rail fares have made a mockery of my life's plans. But in the year-and-a-half of Uni-life, I've discovered that there are, in fact, places outside of my hometown where folks from all walks of life form close-knit communities and generally get along. Then again, maybe that's just what campuses are supposed to do. Outside of the bubble, however, (i.e. home) the unkempt general populace drag down the reputation of the human race and the scenery of the surrounding area is disgusted at humanity's antics that it doesn't feel like presenting itself as anything more than a series of boarded up buildings and vomit puddles.<br />
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Earlier in the summer, I spoke of a midnight spat amongst locals of differing opinions and states of intoxication. Fast-forwarding to a couple of days ago, if that particular syntax doesn't make your brain leak, I set to embark on my regular painfully long walk to my place of employment in the sunshine, whilst wearing enough clothing to turn a simple work uniform into a personal fabric sauna after ten paces. During my journey, I came to a common alleyway shortcut. From my position, through a gap in the railings, my eyes caught sight of a car. But there are never normally cars on this stretch of pavement. Perhaps it's a maintainence-work vehicle; after all, this area has recently been re-tarmacked. Perhaps they're doing some follow-up work of some kind. (My child-like brain doesn't understand a lot of the mechanics of the real world.) As I ventured on I saw a blue and white line blocking the alleyway on both sides. A little closer still and the coloured blockade bore the repeated inscription: POLICE TAPE: DO NOT CROSS.<br />
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'Great, now I'm gonna be late for work!' came my brain's initial response. The rising level of frustration from within my body's core turned the sauna into a paddling pool by the time I made it to work at a time that was, in fact, earlier than normal, even after stopping off for a polystyrene cup of tea on the way. The reason: the train was just about to come.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: right;">
So you sit there and ask 'why would you put yourself through a torturous walk when there's a train right there?' and I respond by saying it's only one stop and I'm supposed to be saving every morsel of currency for the student year ahead. Plus the walk does me good. Now shut up and stop judging me.</blockquote>
As the grand railway carriage arrived, my time to purchase a ticket was short and I'd have to risk the three-minute journey without a valid ticket, thus putting me in a questionably legal state of petty thief. Still, I suppose that as I'd already mentioned the mockery of prices going relentlessly skywards, I feel that it's only right that I mock the National Rail with this in return.<br />
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During the day, I recounted the events of the sweltering morning to my boss as a piece of idle chit-chat, only to be told that local Facebook rumours have pinned the alleyway closure and police involvement on the fatal stabbing of a youngster in the early hours. Multiple things happened within my mind at this time, all of which I'll present now in no particular order:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Shock</b> in the form of an 'oh, my God, really?' response. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Loss of faith in humanity</b> that one or more humans would and, in fact, do, carry out such acts on their fellow kin. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Woeful anticipation</b> after a colleague suggests that 'this'll be on the local news tonight then, won't it?' and the fact that this probably isn't the last I'll hear of the local incident. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Guilt</b> that I thought about my own problems of how I'm specifically affected when the ramifications of the events have proven worse for one person and their respective friends and family members. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Horrible realisiation</b> that, while corruption and brutal maiming occurs on a daily basis all around the world, a person who has once walked on the same patches of road that I have has been physically attacked by way of a sharp implement being unwillingly thrust into the body causing immense pain.</blockquote>
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That last one seemed to get me more than the others, even guilt. Then again I've mused about the notion of ego before and, therefore, feel it's mostly out of my philosophical system and just exists as another part of life. But imagine being stabbed. I know you don't want to, it doesn't seem very pleasant. I don't want to either but once my mind's come up with a thought, it can't just simply unthink about it and instead just sits there waiting to be noticed. Again, I direct you to the notion of ego; even hypotheticals get narcissistic from time to time. But really, the thought of a blade or some other unwelcome visitor gatecrashing your insides genuinely terrifies me. The only comparison I can personally make to such a situation is that I've pricked my finger on some pin or needle or something before now. Rather than falling asleep for a hundred years or contracting hepatitis, however, I've just cursed or run it under a tap or yelled at the pin whilst throwing it across the room in the hope that I banish whatever evil currently possesses it.<br />
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I'm generally a nice person who keeps himself to himself and often seeks to help out others if necessary whilst wishing good health and fortune upon those who deserve it. But fuck that. The rest of the world doesn't care for nice. The rest of the world is a corrupt evil bastard, particularly 'round these parts. Even though I'm taking the world day by day, I keep finding myself wondering where I'll spend these days as a stable living environment and as each day goes past, this place seems a less and less likely candidate. The only problem is, where else do I have? Sure, there's the rest of the world, but the rest of the world is unknown, unexperienced according to my particular view of it, and as I've already mentioned, the rest of the world is a corrupt evil bastard. At least until proven otherwise.<br />
<br />
The above incident never did appear on the local news that night, meaning even horribler things happened in other nearby places. May every deity from Allah to Zeus have mercy upon us all. Well, those who deserve it.Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819750366358242018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242227260988822885.post-9012080137516639632012-08-08T10:55:00.005+01:002012-08-08T10:55:44.473+01:002012-08-08T10:55:44.473+01:00Real-Life CrisisWell, it's official. I'm going to die around fifty. How did I come to this sudden realisation? Well, I currently feel as though I'm living through my mid-life crisis now... at 23. It actually might not qualify as a mid-life crisis, as such. Maybe more of a real-life crisis what with the sudden impending monotony and less of the extravagant purchases of Ferraris and band tattoos.<br />
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With one year of degree-study left on my personal horizon, I've become accustomed to a heightened sense of social life, swathes of free time to fill with leisurely activity and mostly having my rent paid for by the Student Loans company. The one thing that worries me the most is my poropective living situation; mainly boiling down to the question: "where will I live?". The cost of living is ridiculous at the best of times and the depressing thing about this is that I'm only just realising it now, as I stare the relentless ongoingness of real life square in the face. As it stands, I'm already fearing a future of dwindling monetary funds, frozen microwave meals and all work and no play making Jim a dull boy.<br />
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Even over these last few weeks as the Olympic Games trundles on in our dear capital, I can't help but flash back to 16-year-old me watching the 2012 host city announcement voting thingy on a rare Spring-Term day off, probably because I didn't have an exam that day but some of my peers who'd chosen double science or geography or something else useful did. Paris were the favourites, the news pundits knew it, the committees knew it, cameramen apparently knew it as they were ready to capture the moment that the French capital was announced the host of the 2012 Games and then, BAM! Curveball! London. Take that, world! Although I didn't know it yet, I had experienced a dream coming true.<br />
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I remember spending the rest of that day watching constant news coverage of the announcement, doing the maths to figure out how old I'd be when the Games came around, realising I'd be 23 and old enough and rich enough and socially popular enough to travel dahn sahff and experience the entire fortnight. I even proudly announced this to my mother multiple times with the words: "Oh, I'm going. I'm so going to it." I'm now 23, currently on leave from my student house and living as a temporary lodger at my father's flat working five days a week in convenience retail for a penny or two over minimum wage. I also haven't been to London at all in the past week and have no time or money to feasibly go during this one. Still, ah to be young and full of dreams.<br />
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Without wanting to ramble on too much but fearing I've done so anyway - thus only serving to make me want to shoot myself, the readers want to shoot themselves, the readers also want to shoot me and all of us wonder where we're going to get all these guns from - I've had, what a classmate of my Creative Writing sessions feels is a staple of good character development within a dawdling story like this; an epiphanic moment. If I carry on wondering what I want to do with my life rather than doing it, I'll freeze in the path of oncoming headlights in some three or four decades time reliving my entire life in the space of five seconds, and if the oncoming vehicle doesn't hit me first, I might as well die of boredom thinking about all those times I thought about what these times should look like.<br />
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Therefore, after thinking of the glum monotony I want to avoid, crying into a lukewarm cup of tea and watching endless repeats of episodes from <i>My Name Is Earl</i>, I've produced a list. A sort of bucket list, if you will. For me, it's more of a to-do list. Either way, the concept's the bloody same. Here's a bunch of things I'd like to do/achieve/experience with my own pathetic existence here before it gets snatched away from me and I have to watch endless repeats of episodes from <i>My Time Being Jamie</i> in the unholy underworld. As a rule, though, I'll only include things that are achievable within my own control. That way, acts of chaos and blind luck like "win the lottery" or "decide sex of own child" can't be added. I've also decided to put the list here, on the internet, as (a) proof to the world that I want to do things with my life, and (b) so I don't lose it.<br />
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As with the list from my 22nd birthday, which happened on the 22nd and consisted of facts about the number 22, this list primarily contains 22 things. More can be added as and when necessary.<br />
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<b>1:</b> Have a book physically published. This can encompass any form of writing: fiction, short story collection, biography, cookbook, mindless scribbling or otherwise.<br />
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<b>2:</b> Take part in, and complete, a London Marathon.<br />
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<b>3:</b> Read certain books I've wanted to read for a while.<br />
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<b>4:</b> Record an album or small collection of music, whether orinigal work or covers.<br />
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<b>5:</b> Learn and eventually be able to animate using Flash or equivalent.<br />
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<b>6:</b> Visit Japan.<br />
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<b>7:</b> Be sufficiently fluent in a language other than English.<br />
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<b>8:</b> Volunteer or work in a major crowd-pleasing event.<br />
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<b>9:</b> Write a small collection of scripts as a series of sitcom, even if unrealised.<br />
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<b>10:</b> Learn to drive.<br />
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<b>11:</b> Learn to play the violin.<br />
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<b>12:</b> Finally buy that PlayStation 3 I've been wanting since 2007.<br />
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<b>13:</b> Finish this pseudo-inspiring list of stuff... and by finish, I mean hit 22 things.<br />
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The list can never truly be finished though, can it? New dreams and goals are born every day...Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819750366358242018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242227260988822885.post-5645047979986104722012-07-27T18:30:00.000+01:002012-07-28T02:01:04.638+01:002012-07-28T02:01:04.638+01:00The Olympic Opening Ceremony... As It HappenedTwo days after the Games started, a bunch of people in the capital have decided to don some costumes, do some dances, make noises and maybe set off a firework or three. The whole thing is expected to last some fifteen hours, twelve-and-a-half of which will consist of athletes from every country on the planet and even parts beyond walking into a stadium in single file carrying flags. It seems long, drawn out and pointless, but it's tradition, and what is the point in anything without tradition? Nothing. That's what. Without traditions, our little ball of rock just tumbles relentlessly through space and nothing makes any sense. Very much like this preamble.<br />
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Anyway, London's most recent bash at hosting a few weeks worth of Modern Olympics kicked off at 9pm (that's in British time, obviously). I blabbered on about it here from that time. If anyone didn't follow any of it, fear not. I have an accurate portrayal of the entire event as seen through my eyes and according to my brain right here. And for your chronological reading convenience, you don't have to start at the bottom and work your way up.<br />
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<b>18:30</b> I posted this. Now I'm going to do other things with my life for the next two-and-a-half hours. More words will appear here from about 20:55.<br />
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<b>20:55</b> See. I told you I'd be back now. Anyway, the show's about to begin and I must stress that some bits of what I blather on about stem from the BBC's coverage of the ceremony in the UK. If you happen to be in another country watching the broadcast on another station... well... how did you find me? But never mind that, just bear with me and we'll all get along fine.<br />
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<b>21:01</b> <i>Isles of Wonder</i> is the name of Danny Boyle's directorial stadium-based stage show type thing. Of course, in the recent future, it will be referred to as "that mound of grass with livestock and dancers on it".<br />
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<b>21:03</b> A confused chopped up playlist of British music, a epileptic nightmare through a tunnel and people reciting decreasing numbers. It's what we do best.<br />
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<b>21:05</b> As this sole choir boy sings, I can't help but get flashes back to Beijing.<br />
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<b>21:07</b> Coming to you live from the eighteenth century, the 2012 Olympics, sponsored by Dickens.<br />
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<b>21:10</b> Sorry, I just got schooled on literature by a Welsh newsreader. Ahem. Shakespeare sponsors these Olympics. As do druids bashing tin cans.<br />
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<b>21:11</b> Oops. I feared this might happen. I was too busy typing stuff here that I missed the tree lifting off and the villagers pouring out of the hill's gaping wound.<br />
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<b>21:14</b> Okay, I had a hunch there'd be interpretive dance at some point in tonight's proceedings. Little did I think such moves would be performed by blokes in bowler hats and mutton chops.<br />
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<b>21:16</b> So basically, History classes in school are now going to just show this to pupils every year to explain Britain throughout the 20th Century.<br />
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<b>21:18</b> Oh, those bails of corn are obviously plastic. God, you think they could've at least put some effort in!<br />
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<b>21:19</b> I don't remember the Beatles being present during the Industrial Revolution. Then again, there's a lot of the Industrial Revolution I don't remember anyway.<br />
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<b>21:23</b> Golden rings fly across the stadium to form the Olympic logo... people on the ground are still desperately trying to steal focus.<br />
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<b>21:25</b> It's a very British thing for the cast to applaud the audience afterwards. And now, some stereotypical images of London and quaint poshness.<br />
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<b>21:27</b> Fair play to them, they managed to get the Queen to play along. And here was me thinking Royalty and "sense of humour" didn't mix.<br />
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<b>21:29</b> That helicopter's going at a snail's pace now compared to that little film.<br />
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<b>21:31</b> Okay, a stunt Queen just launched from a helicopter. That made both myself and my dad audible chuckle. An utter rarity. But my my, she's recovered well after her little parachute jump.<br />
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<b>21:34</b> Considering they're a signing choir, you'd expect they'd show them on the TV rather than a slowly ascending flag.<br />
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<b>21:37</b> All of these patients are still in their beds on a day trip to the Olympic Stadium. They've been promised if they survive the night, they can have double pudding when they get back.<br />
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<b>21:38</b> On the face of it, this may look like a swingdance routine as an ode to the NHS. It's really just us boasting to the US that we have free healthcare.<br />
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<b>21:40</b> Here she is. This extract comes from the next Potter novel: <i>Harry Potter and the Oh I Don't Care Any More, I'm F**king Loaded</i>.<br />
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<b>21:42</b> I don't recognise the voice of the BBC commentator woman so I can't name and shame her, but she's just called Voldemort "Voldemart" like he's a chain supermarket or something. Tsk. Muggles!<br />
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<b>21:44</b> I miss the grassy mound and the rocket-ship tree.<br />
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<b>21:46</b> As a side note, my dad keeps interjecting the show every 47 seconds with phrases akin to "God, this is boring", "What is this crap?", "What's going on here?", "Why are we watching this?" whilst still watching. Just wait 'til we get to the Parade of Nations.<br />
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<b>21:47</b> It's always funny hearing English names in the middle of the French announcements.<br />
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<b>21:50</b> It only took 48 minutes, but Rowan Atkinson's appearance has made me actively want to take notice of the TV rather than the computer screen. For that I apologise for any typos in this bit. I'm noit really looking at the keyboard right now.<br />
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<b>21:51</b> Ooh, only one typo in that bit. Clearly I'm better at typing than I previously thought.<br />
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<b>21:52</b> In hindsight, they really should've got Boris Johnson doing that.<br />
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<b>21:55</b> Now our history lesson has reached the modern day, and we've got TV programmes, status updates and a kid with a Nintendo DS to prove it.<br />
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<b>21:58</b> Every audience member has a radio controlled LED pad assigned to their individual seats, meaning that we can get a living video wall throughout the show. Looks mighty stunning, but I can't help but blame Coldplay for this.<br />
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<b>22:00</b> This representation of the 70s in music is starting to look a bit like the <i>Rocky Horror Picture Show</i> after a mild stroke.<br />
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<b>22:01</b> Why are there people in the crowd wearing 3D glasses? It's real life. Real life IS 3D!<br />
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<b>22:02</b> This is probably the only point in life you'll ever see Punk transform into a neon rave.<br />
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<b>22:04</b> Well, the Chinese might've had synchronised drummers, but we have people raving to <i>Firestarter</i>.<br />
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<b>22:07</b> Dizzee Rascal not actually singing <i>Bonkers</i> there. But it's okay, having him sing live would've probably just been a complete migraine for all the techies involved.<br />
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<b>22:11</b> Now a compilation of flames running around the world. Obviously the flames themselves aren't running. Fire isn't anthropomorphic enough to own legs capable of doing so. But people run whilst holding beacons of fire. That's close enough, right?<br />
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<b>22:13</b> David Beckham driving a speedboat? Now I've seen everything. Well, not everything, but I've certainly seen one more thing than I had previously.<br />
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<b>22:15</b> And to commemorate the dearly departed, a giant yellow ball (for some reason).<br />
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<b>22:18</b> With all the young musicians taking part in the ceremony tonight, I bet Heather Small's sat at home stifling herself with a pillow and softly humming <i>Proud</i> to herself.<br />
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<b>22:19</b> Some mad interpretive ball dancing... for some reason.<br />
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<b>22:21</b> Aha, here we go. The Parade!<br />
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<b>22:22</b> As per tradition, Greece march out first. And what is life without tradition?<br />
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<b>22:24</b> From here on in, with the exception of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, all of the competing nations enter in alphabetical order according to English name. Ooh, look at me getting all informative. I feel like I need to say something mean to compensate. Ahem. What's American Samoa?!<br />
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<b>22:25</b> With the repetition of each country in French and English, I'm finding myself to resist the urge to follow them up with <i>douze points</i>.<br />
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<b>22:27</b> Australia enter looking like a Sixth Form college from Dorset.<br />
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<b>22:28</b> Mr. Greece has finally made his way around the stadium. He can go home to bed now.<br />
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<b>22:30</b> And that's the A's out of the way. Rest of the alphabet to follow.<br />
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<b>22:31</b> The Bangladeshi flagbearer nearly knocked out the bowl-carrying girl there. By the way, why are there kids carrying bowls?<br />
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<b>22:33</b> At this rate, by the time we get to Venezuela you'll be begging for the sweet release of death.<br />
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<b>22:34</b> Bolivia's flagbearer straight out of <i>Dora the Explorer</i> there.<br />
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<b>22:38</b> The grassy mound plays host to the flags once they've done the rounds. I'm guessing the athletes themselves jump into the crater left by the rocket tree.<br />
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<b>22:39</b> Team Cameroon have come dressed as carpets. Still... tradition.<br />
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<b>22:41</b> Without wanting to sound geographically retarded or at all xenophobic, I swear they're just making up countries now.<br />
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<b>22:42</b> Judging by the number of Chinese athletes who just entered, I can't help but think: "Well, they've won".<br />
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<b>22:45</b> I'm informed that the bowls the kids are carrying are, in fact, copper kettles. Their purpose is still unknown.<br />
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<b>22:49</b> In North Korea, the entire broadcast of the of the Opening Ceremony consisted of those 25 seconds.<br />
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<b>22:51</b> On a personal note, dad has left the room. He made it all the way up to the D's, falling just short of Ecuador.<br />
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<b>22:53</b> The techie's iPod shuffle plugged into the speaker system has finally stumbled across Adele. It was only a matter of time.<br />
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<b>22:55</b> They have to be called Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia because there's a region of Greece called Macedonia and the Greeks don't like FYROM using the name on its own. See, don't say you don't learn things here.<br />
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<b>22:57</b> And Georgia's flag is similar to the flag of England because of connections to the patrol saint of both countries, Saint George. I'm just brimming with education now.<br />
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<b>23:02</b> Haiti and Liechtenstein have similar flags which now bear ensigns after the two countries appeared at a previous Olympics with exactly the same flag. Okay, I learned that from <i>The Big Bang Theory</i>, but still, it's educational.<br />
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<b>23:04</b> Independent athletes compete without a flag. Mostly these are athletes from the recently dissolved Netherlands Antilles and Kuwait, which is banned from its own Olympic representation. On another note, I'm bored of facts now. I'm going to start making some up.<br />
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<b>23:07</b> Usain Bolt is statistically faster than seven cheetahs combined and is taller than God.<br />
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<b>23:08</b> The Jordanians have come dressed as witches.<br />
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<b>23:10</b> The South Koreans are off to go boating after this.<br />
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<b>23:11</b> Lebanon's flag has a tree on it. Yes, I'm back to facts, but they're a bit thin on the ground.<br />
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<b>23:12</b> Libya have entered with their new flag, adopted after the fall of Gaddafi. Before it, their flag was green. Literally, just green.<br />
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<b>23:13</b> Madagascar, unfortunately, is not represented by penguins, nor a hypochondriac giraffe voiced by David Schwimmer.<br />
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<b>23:16</b> Am I the only one imagining a man and woman locked in a booth with a microphone and a list of countries, competing with each other to be loud in what is essentially a game of "Bogies"?<br />
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<b>23:19</b> Also, in the middle of all the French translation, it's struck me that I don't think I've seen France yet. And we're at M.<br />
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<b>23:21</b> Nepal has the only national flag in the world which isn't a standard rectangle.<br />
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<b>23:22</b> No eagles were harmed in the making of the New Zealand flagbearing cape. Except for the one that was harmed in the making of that cape.<br />
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<b>23:25</b> It's official, there's no room left on that hill for any more flags. Everyone else'll have to go home, come back and try again tomorrow.<br />
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<b>23:26</b> In the interest of irony, they're playing ELO's <i>Mr. Blue Sky</i> at half eleven at night.<br />
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<b>23:28</b> Oo-er missus. Someone at the IOC's been at the champagne a bit early there.<br />
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<b>23:29</b> Well, I say early, but I've had a drink too by this point so I can't criticise. Somehow I'm still typing coherently.<br />
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<b>23:30</b> Russia's come dressed as Canada.<br />
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<b>23:31</b> Saint Vincent and the Grenadines sounds like the name of a Christian pop band formed in Devon circa 1983.<br />
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<b>23:36</b> According to the schedules, there's only an hour of this left to go. I'm not sure if that serves as a blessing or a damning harsh reminder.<br />
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<b>23:38</b> The folks in the Royal Box have given up and have resorted to idle gossip.<br />
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<b>23:40</b> Swaziland is Switzerland for mildly dyslexic people.<br />
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<b>23:41</b> Switzerland is Swaziland for people who like skiing.<br />
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<b>23:43</b> Chinese Taipei is really Taiwan, but because of some political dispute in China over its many territories, Taiwan has to compete under a modified name in the Olympics.<br />
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<b>23:46</b> It's just struck me that quite a lot of athletes have entered dressed as airline attendants. But now I should stop talking about what people are wearing. I'm positively sounding like a woman. I'm really just jealous that they've come wearing the same thing as me.<br />
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<b>23:47</b> We're up to the U's. Expect a lot of United countries to show up shortly.<br />
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<b>23:52</b> Sleep deprivation has different effects on people. For example, the American team have descended into psychotic madness whilst the British Prime Minister stares gormlessly out into the crowd.<br />
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<b>23:53</b> Venezuela. You begging to be smacked over the head with a brick yet? No? Well you made it. Stick around. Just a handful of teams left, then a bunch of hoo-hah over what to do with the flame.<br />
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<b>23:54</b> If that girl's to be believed, Zambia, in French, is "Zombie".<br />
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<b>23:56</b> Team GB appear dressed in their freshly Daz'd linens, while Her Majesty seems to miserably Tweet about it.<br />
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<b>23:59</b> Only half of Team GB is actually at the stadium. Many are preparing for early morning events or competing in venues outside of London.<br />
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<b>00:01</b> 204 nations have somehow made it, and so far we're yet to face a technical hitch, act of fundamental extremism or thunderstorm. We do, however, have to put up with the Arctic Monkeys for a bit. I thought they split up years ago anyway.<br />
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<b>00:04</b> Looking at the sheer scale of the stadium, the fireworks, the lights, the audience screen things and the big farm in the middle, I can't help but think: "what would the French've done for this?" Either way, IN YOUR FACE, PARIS!<br />
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<b>00:05</b> Cycling neon angels now, yet still no sign of fire.<br />
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<b>00:07</b> *ting, ting, ting* Speech! Speech!!!<br />
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<b>00:09</b> With all those international athletes mingling in the centre, this looks like the world's biggest Fresher's party.<br />
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<b>00:13</b> Every sentence ends with a ripple of applause and cheer. At this rate, these speeches'll go on 'til next Tuesday.<br />
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<b>00:16</b> Someone in there should start a "we want Boris" chant.<br />
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<b>00:18</b> I wonder if the Queen'll flash a smile.<br />
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<b>00:19</b> Blimey that was quick! She wasn't messing about was she?<br />
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<b>00:22</b> Ali, boom-ai-ay. At least, that's what I think the chant is.<br />
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<b>00:25</b> Steve Redgrave gets ready to run the Olympic torch into the stadium.<br />
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<b>00:28</b> Getting all the legalities and declarations out of the way, i.e. stalling for time while the flame gets power-walked into the stadium.<br />
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<b>00:35</b> So, that's what the kettles were for. They make up the cauldron.<br />
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<b>00:39</b> I find it really sweet that in the spirit of the "Inspire A Generation" motto, the cauldron was entrusted to the next generation of young athletes rather than one famous Olympian. Still, after tonight, fans of <i>Doctor Who</i> canon are going to be thoroughly pissed; the crowd didn't disappear, David Tennant hasn't lit the cauldron. I bet there isn't even a street called Dame Kelly Holmes Close.<br />
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<b>00:40</b> Now Macca'll be on for seven hours, six-and-a-half of which will consist of "na-na-na-na, Hey Jude" ad infinitum.<br />
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<b>00:49</b> By the sounds of it, that's it. Eccentric, innovative, sweet and touching, a spectacle and undoubtedly British. Chinese synchronicity can bugger off. Rio can do a carnival if they want. But this presentation well and truly presents us well. I'm off to bed, but not before a pee break, which I've been holding in since Papua New Guinea.Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819750366358242018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242227260988822885.post-56119352705676452972012-07-25T12:08:00.001+01:002012-07-25T12:08:54.478+01:002012-07-25T12:08:54.478+01:00Fifty Bales Of Hay<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OtA64oRNxI8/UA_TJEpOL-I/AAAAAAAAARA/V_zLfup8DjI/s1600/50bales.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OtA64oRNxI8/UA_TJEpOL-I/AAAAAAAAARA/V_zLfup8DjI/s200/50bales.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
She had just finished filling the pigs' trough when Farmer Billy-Bob entered the barn. He stood sturdy and straight with his three-pronged pitchfork across his shoulders, resting behind his neck and he watched silently as Elsie-May dumped the entrails of the latest of the diseased sheep to have fallen. The snorting and gobbling noises of the swine drowned out his heavy breathing. It wasn't until she turned to flick back a lock of her dirty, straw-coloured hair that she noticed the light from the doorway was blocked by the bulking figure of the landowner.<br />
'You're doin' a good job Elsie-May,' Farmer Billy-Bob cocked his head up as he spoke through the strand of wheat clenched in his teeth.<br />
'I'm-a sorry about all the sheep a-dyin',' she responded in her mousey tones.<br />
Farmer Billy-Bob began to stride forwards into the barn, all the while keeping an expression of pride and awe fixed on his face; his eyes never left the sight of the young stable-girl.<br />
'It sure is a powerful shame that whatever's ailin' 'em can spread amongst 'em so quickly.'<br />
' 'T ain't nothin' to worry your perdy li'l self about, young'un,' he stopped before her and began to swivel his body in place, making sure not to go so far as to accidentally touch the girl with his pitchfork, 'besides, as long as the horses are okay. They be my pride and joy. Anyways, 't ain't down to you what infected the herd anyway so you've nothin' to be apologisin' for.'<br />
She looked down toward the pigs, trying to cover her flushing face by her veil of hair. Farmer Billy-Bob raised an eyebrow and brought his face around to get a closer look at Elsie-May's.<br />
'You didn't have nothin' to do with the sheep a-dyin', did ye?'<br />
Elsie-May peered at him once again through a thin glaze of watery eyes, 'oh, Farmer Billy-Bob, I sure hope not. But I been workin' a-with all the critters on the land every day for the last two weeks and I was just last night made aware of my own condition.'<br />
'What condition be that, Elsie?'<br />
'Why don't ye take a closer look at me?' she replied and she stood defiantly face to face with Farmer Billy-Bob as if telling him to inspect her appearance.<br />
Billy-Bob had always cared a great deal for his fresh-faced stable-girl. Often he didn't allow himself to look her directly in the eye for fears he'd lose himself in them; after all, she was such a sweet young lady and he didn't want to be the one to spoil that about her. He'd even considered letting her go once or twice before now but he didn't feel it was right to put a girl out of a job just because he couldn't control himself around her. There was no way out of it right now though; Elsie-May was pretty much forcing him to regard her looks. All he could do was oblige.<br />
Her long, golden hair was stained with occasional flecks of horse manure. It cascaded over her shoulders like loose bundles of straw scattered across the floor of this very barn. Her eyes glowed a deep, marine blue, reminding him of how the lake across the field once looked when he first bought the land. She actually looked a bit like Joy off <i>My Name Is Earl</i> except with a smile made of uneven, slightly yellowing teeth hidden behind lips ridden with specks. Upon closer inspection, those specks around her mouth were not just specks.<br />
'You see it now, right?' she said when she saw the farmer's eyes widen, 'I got the sores around my mouth. First I thought nothin' of it, but then I went to take a lookie on that there internet highway down the ol' library...'<br />
'Ol' library?' Farmer Billy-Bob interrupted, 'What be that?'<br />
'Well really it's the new library what used to be the ol' children's playhouse, then before that the ol' whore house, then before that the ol' ol' children's playhouse, then before that the den'ist.'<br />
'O' course,' Farmer Billy-Bob nodded, 'since when did folks need a library anyways? I thought the whore house was a big hit with the local folk.'<br />
Realising a tangental narrative was forming and not wanting to stray too far from what he'd originally intended, the narrator decided to stop Billy-Bob's dialogue right there and got him to say something else to bring things back to the story he first had in mind.<br />
'So what business had ye in the book house, Elsie? Why d'ye wanna go ruinin' yourself readin' books for anyways?'<br />
'Well, I only had a gander at this one book while I was in there. I couldn't make half a sense of it anyways, Farmer Billy-Bob. It was mostly full o' fancy rich-people words that no real body can't half understand. But it were on the first shelf as I went in and it just sounded like a colouring chart anyways so I figured it'd be easy to look at. But it ended up being a story of high fancy business-types doing things with neck ties and I got lost, so I figured I'd just look up what was wrong with my mouth sores instead.'<br />
The farmer didn't care for a word Elsie-May had just said; he was too busy swimming in her eyes and he knew he wouldn't be able to stand much longer. He turned around and paced the barn, all the while silently chewing the wheat stalk in his mouth.<br />
'Anyways, the professors in the internet highway told me that the spots on my mouth were cold sores and that they're a form of...' Elsie-May broke off. Farmer Billy-Bob stopped pacing and looked up at her with a concerned expression on his face.<br />
'It's okay Elsie, ye call tell me anything.'<br />
Elsie-May sniffed, blinked large tears out of her eyes and continued; 'They're a form of herpes.'<br />
Farmer Billy-Bob blinked.<br />
'Herpes?'<br />
'Yep,' Elsie-May continued to sob.<br />
'But,' Farmer Billy-Bob began, confused, 'ain't Herpes the name o' one of the dames down the ol' whore house? I remember hearing tales of folks complaining whenever they got her down there.'<br />
'No. It's fancy doctor-speak for one of them contageous sex diseases.'<br />
Farmer Billy-Bob slowly approached Elsie-May with conflicting feelings brewing inside of him.<br />
Meanwhile, the narrator suddenly realised this whole thing was getting a bit dialogue-heavy and decided to wrap things up ASAP.<br />
'Elsie,' the farmer began, 'are you not as pure as the day born?'<br />
Silence, but for the snorting of the pigs, filled the barn. It took the young stable girl a while to reply. Once she did, it was apparent she needed the time to collect herself and the words she wanted to say.<br />
'Farmer Billy-Bob, I have a confession.'<br />
The farmer drew ever closer. If Elsie-May wasn't unspoiled as he first thought she was, he'd feel no regret in ploughing her the way she'd ploughed his land many times before now.<br />
'It was earlier last month when I was in the stables with the horses. Young Clip-Clop was givin' me the fancy eye as I groomed him and when I stroked his underneath belly, I noticed his underparts were growing tenser.'<br />
Farmer Billy-Bob looked on as Elsie-May told him about taking advantage of his horses, how they must've given her her mouth herpes and how she must've spread her sex disease from the horses to the rest of his livestock.<br />
'Why, I had no idea you were that into the other critters around these parts, Elsie,' he said when she was finished.<br />
'Well, in all fainess, Farmer Billy-Bob, they were the literally ones that were into me.'<br />
'Oh please, Elsie, call me Billy.'<br />
She nodded to oblige and she knew that from this moment their relationship had changed forever. Despite being a randy stable-girl, she still hesistated from moving. Farmer Billy-Bob broke the mutual silence between them and asked her something she had longer to hear since he hired her to work on her farm.<br />
'So, is it just the critters you want into you or do you happen to enjoy the company of landowners too?'<br />
Elsie-May responded with a small smile and, as she took a few steps backwards towards the haystacks, began to unbutton her plaid blouse. As Farmer Billy-Bob followed her with his toothless grin, Elsie-May fell and landed on her back in the middle of some forty or fifty bales of hay arranged in a form similar to a child's fort. She let out a giggle as Farmer Billy-Bob advanced on her, kicking over a haystack so that it landed trapping one of her arms. He lifted the pitchfork from his shoulders and plunged it into the ground where her other arm lay, trapping her wrist in one of the gaps between the prongs, pinning it to the ground.<br />
Farmer Billy-Bob, proceeded to unbutton the straps of his dungarees and let them drop the floor before her. As he lowered his face to hers, Elsie-May felt his bushy beard tickling her face, reminding her of the last night she spent licking certain parts of the sheep before they perished.<br />
A lot of giggling and groaning competed with the squealing and snorting of the pigs across the barn. Farmer Billy-Bob didn't seem to care that he too would end up with Elsie-May sex diseases, he was just glad to be rolling around in straw, unable to identify her hair from the mess of the floor around them.<br />
Then it got really grotesque and graphic and, out of a sense of morality and basic decency, the narrator decided not to write any more physical description of the events that transpired in the barn. But it just so happened that he was able to write a piece of spin-off fiction based on an already bafflingly popular piece of literature. Very soon he can expect critical acclaim and a whole hoard of massive cheques to come through his door any day now.Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819750366358242018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242227260988822885.post-29426153781882124342012-07-18T19:34:00.001+01:002012-07-18T19:34:25.855+01:002012-07-18T19:34:25.855+01:00The Modern Digital AgeAfter that last little condemnation of technology, it seems that - a recurring theme in the last month or so of my life - the machines have begun their uprising and have started to conspire against me. Since the machines don't have a consciousness of their own, however, they require human hosts to carry out their annoyance bidding; somehow, even though lacking innate intelligence, the machines are clever like that.<br />
<br />
My father recently purchased a new laptop and for the weeks leading up to this event, as well as the weeks after it, I've been cast in the role of super-nerdy-genius-tech-expert-with-thick-black-rectangular-glasses-to-match. Dad's old laptop - i.e. my really old laptop - has fallen victim to one of humanities biggest downfalls: time. As it happens, even soulless technology can't escape the fact that it too has a predetermined lifespan on this Earth. Right now, the old laptop currently plods on akin to an 80-year-old human being: it takes its time getting up, moving around and generally doing things, you occasionally have to tell it the same thing seven times before the message sinks in and it's brain is full to capacity with things it can't forget which essentially clog up the memory so no more can be remembered.<br />
<br />
The entire prospect of my father buying a new laptop essentially boils down to him having a multitude of perplexing questions about technology which stem from the fact that the world of technology is vast, ever-changing and new, whereas my father is neither of these. Now I'm not really one to speak ill of close relatives at the best of time, let alone in a public space such as this, so it is with only the greatest love and adoration that I make the following remark that while I wouldn't particularly call my father "old" as such, well... being my father, he is, in fact, older than myself. It eventually transpired that he wanted to transfer whatever pictures and whatever music files existed on the old laptop to the new one. Effectively this now makes the old laptop completely redundant that we might as well pop it in a padded box, switch on the electric oven, gather a small congregation of tablets, smartphones and handheld consoles to attend a small service led by an iPod, which will eventually close the proceedings by playing the X Factor's rendition of Hallelujah as sung by Alexandra Burke to fully epitomise it as an essential funeral song for the Modern Digital Age.<br />
<br />
Dad also wanted to know how we could transfer his internet banking to the new laptop. I began to explain that this wouldn't particularly matter since this is achieved through the websites of whichever banking firm you happen to hold an account with. I tried to bring an explanation of the internet to a basic level using words along the lines of "the internet is everywhere in the whole world, not just on one computer" but this just served to worry him further that everyone on the planet was able to access his bank details. In the light of the content of this particular paragraph, I'd just like to clarify that: Dad, if you've somehow managed to stumble across this bit of crap, no, I haven't just given out your bank details over the internet. Quite frankly, even if I did know what they were, I'm just about selfish enough and poor enough to keep them to myself.<br />
<br />
Anyway, new laptop day came and with a new laptop comes a lot of new features. The laptop was manufactured by Dell, which still isn't enough information for people to hack into your stuff Dad. During setup and the laptop's first usage, extra toolbars and sidebars and weather reports and goodness knows what other extras appeared automatically. My father having adapted to basic Windows functions - and myself being something of a purist anyway - found this distracting, unnecessary and ultimately a pain in the ass. Somewhere in the teething problems, the barrage of questions and the disabling of annoying extra features which, quite frankly, hinder more than they help, relations between my father and Internet Service Provider (the cool kids call that the ISP, innit?) stumbled over an impromptu password reset.<br />
<br />
Now the router's lost its password protection and my second technology gripe of the week lies within this unprotected mess. Signal, service, coverage, bandwidth... whatever you wanna call it; it's gone downhill since that day and my hunch is that people in the surrounding dwellings have clocked onto some free internet they can leech off of. YouTube videos now stop, begin to buffer and eventually crash some seventeen seconds in, and yes, I know I use the number 17 as a funny random number (along with the number 73 for reasons my brain still hasn't yet fathomed) but I'm not exaggerating here. Seventeen seconds is literally the point at which many video clips stop at now. Sometimes, if I'm really lucky, they make it to eighteen, but that's about it.<br />
<br />
More time-based dramas exist inside my iPod Touch. Now this is one machine which seems to have grown consciousness and a severe dislike for me becoming an entity which likes to systematically piss me off. Being unlike many of my fellow kind, I like to listen to entire albums in tracklisted order; I deal with life better when things are organised and I know what to expect. Sure, putting it on shuffle feels more like an adventure, but I couldn't live like that every day. Long story short, I need to maintain regularity. However, I recently discovered that the iPod has spontaneously begun to skip parts of tracks and even whole tracks altogether. Upon further examination, the damned thing's unpredictability isn't quite as unpredictable as I'd first thought. However, it is pretty odd so bear with me.<br />
<br />
Firstly, tracks one and two of any playlist, whether an album or completely random, will play through just fine. The third track will begin fourteen seconds in thus completely disregarding a kick-ass intro if the third track in the list just so happened to have an intro worthy of note. The next four tracks play fine. The iPod then skips to the last second of track eight. Doesn't matter what it is, doesn't matter how long it lasts, it'll play the last second and then buggar off to track nine. Tracks from then on play as according to schedule. This means that albums consisting of some 10-12 tracks now become pointless and the only way to truly enjoy uninterrupted walking around music is to put things on a random play all and skip the first eight tracks hoping that none of them are going to be any good. I expect such a First World problem to stick with me for at least the next two months as I await to be let back into my University home where my desktop computer is which has all the music on it, at which time I'll be able to reset the thing without fear of losing all the music from it. Apparently, the thought never occurred to me to keep a copy of it all on the notebook I bring with me when I'm banished from the learning place for several weeks at a time.<br />
<br />
Finally, a look forward to the future, where the Digital Age will no doubt kick my ass something rotten until I learn my lesson not to have fun with technology. Many events - more specifically, TV events - have occurred lately, during which I've discovered the medium of liveblogging. This seems to fuse three of the things I enjoy in life: writing, watching TV, and frequently updating a piece of text in which I comment on what I've just watched on the TV. Okay, that last one is really a fusion of the first two, but mainly the point is I've seen it happen with so many TV events this year including, but not limited to, the final of The Apprentice, the final of The Voice, Eurovision, The Diamond Jubilee Concert, the entirety of the Diamond Jubilee weekend for that matter, every England match during Euro 2012 and probably an episode of Deal Or No Deal or something. Wanting to get in on the action, but using a blog-hosting site (this one!) which doesn't offer liveblogging services, I'm going to have to improvise by constantly updating a single blog post every few minutes or so much to the annoyance of all who bother to be able to see it. And what better way to attempt this than at the next TV event; the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics in ten days time.<br />
<br />
Just thought I'd give some advance notice/warning that that's what I'll be spending my Friday night doing.Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819750366358242018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242227260988822885.post-64858231675106754592012-07-11T12:02:00.002+01:002012-07-11T12:04:49.879+01:002012-07-11T12:04:49.879+01:00Compromising TechnologyTechnology was invented by nerds who needed something to lord over the popular kids. You see, as a sweeping generalisation, the popular kids were, by and large, a bit dim. They'd often get confused over how many times the letter 'O' appeared in the word "lose". During maths lessons they believed the square root of pi was pastry. And the most productive thing anyone could do with a computer was to murder time idly clicking at a blank screen on Microsoft Paint. Over time, technology became more commercially viable and socially acceptable. The popular kids closed in on the nerds' territory and claimed it as their own; that's why in twenty years or so, it'll be fairly common knowledge that iPads and such run on pure concentrated magic as opposed to processors and algorithms and other miscellaneous computery jargon.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, a whole new batch of super-nerds felt the need to assert their dominance, and used knowledge to confuse, aggravate and trick the masses by adding several thousand special features to their technology under the guise of easier use, unsolicited messages relating to penis enlargement products and the national lotteries of Central African nations, and automated scripts and macros and even more computery jargon to force technology to malfunction all by itself. As a bit of a floater between the stupids and the geniuses (genii? [genus? {who cares, really?}]), I often laugh heartily and snort derisively at the idiot-holes too moronic to understand technology's intricacies and passionately curse the super-nerds whenever I'm the one who's been duped by a bit of soulless hardware.<br />
<br />
Not long after my last communiqué here, I was made to look a fool. And not just any fool. A foolish fool. The most foolish a foolish fool could foolishly look, eating a strawberry fool, like a foolish fool eating fool that was foolishly made by another foolish fool who somehow managed to suspend their foolishness to make a fool.<br />
<br />
Anyway, I received an email message. Actually, I received many, but I always receive many. Unfortunately this doesn't make me feel at all as popular as I used to. Whenever I'd be greeted with "2 new messages", I'd wonder what could possibly have happened to make everyone I know want to get in touch with me at the same time. Now when I see "8 new message", I just know I'll be clicking the little checkbox next to each one of them before proceeding to the "THIS IS JUNK" button. (I don't actually have a "THIS IS JUNK" button, I just thought that might add a little drama to things.) To digress, one message I received came from the monstrosity of Twitter. Apparently, one of my University lecturers had something urgent to tell me and all I had to do was click this unlabelled link. The link led to nothing and I felt somewhat cheated before carrying on with my day in whatever fashion I wished, which mainly boiled down to scrolling through the YouTube videos of one Adam Buxton - for those unfamiliar with him, he's a funny-talky-musicy-comedian type fellow who shouts in ridiculous voices a lot of the time; this stuff amuses me so.<br />
<br />
A short time later, more email messages arrived and I flocked to see how many r0lex's I was being offered and how much I could potentially get for them if I cashed them in for gold. This, however, was not the case. These messages were from people I knew, and they were being sent to me care of Twitter. Apparently I'd informed every single one of my followers that someone was spreading rumours about them and all they'd need to do to find the perpetrator was to follow the unlabelled link provided. In mere moments it had occurred to me that my account had been compromised. That's what Twitter called it anyway. Not sure that's the parlance I'd have used but ho-hum, it matters not what I have to say anymore... I've been compromised now.<br />
<br />
I became angered at the über-nerds for compromising technology in such a way that it punishes us foolish arseholes simply for being oh so foolish. Furthermore, I wished to act as soon as possible to end their reign of terror by telling all of my followers to ignore their fiendish schemes. Unfortunately, this had to be done individually to ensure that all users would immediately and effectively get the message, and it was at this time that I was glad my popularity in worldwide terms is struggling to match up to some of the more, dare I say it, popular kids. At the time of writing (and the time of spamming), I have 31 followers on Twitter. That meant individually going through the messaging procedure to rectify my moronic mistake and to tell people to ignore any obscurity I may have sent previously a total of 31 times; that's a whole twenty minutes wasted because of some angry nerdling who hates the masses for stealing his technology.<br />
<br />
Still, it could've been worse. It could've happened to Bieber during his daily commute. Imagine sending eleventy-million-and-flumpteen messages of apology and warnings of spam on your Internet-enabled telephonic bit of technology whilst driving. Kid could've lost focus on the road and caused an accident or something.Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819750366358242018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242227260988822885.post-16997862938146151462012-07-04T10:01:00.000+01:002012-07-04T10:01:05.311+01:002012-07-04T10:01:05.311+01:00Sunrise On My EyesThe morningmares have started again. Morningmares are my nightmares quite simply because I have them in the morning. I don't dream during the night; as I believe it, external forces of light impose upon the closed eyelids forming random patterns amongst the veins and skin bits in between the light source and the exposed eyes. The eyes and the brain then interpret the light randomness into absurd stories about flying, being friends with movie stars and living in medieval castles alongside an abundance of made-up cartoon characters.<br />
<br />
My own personal theory, due to a lack of any prior scientific knowledge to back it up, is that I'm too heavy a sleeper to be affected by fairly light amounts of light - the kind of background light from outdoor street lamps that filters through the translucent vertical blinds, the wee crack of light that slips through the gap under the door to the landing and the ever-blinking standby LED on however many portable devices you happen to own and leave in sleep mode. I require a vast amount of heavy light in order to visualise a big ol' bit o' chaos. That's why I tend to dream a lot more on summer mornings just before groaning myself back into consciousness at 8am; sunlight's already been prevalent for a good three hours and the walls are of a startlingly bright hue of cream and the vertical blinds are a bit shit.<br />
<br />
As previously divulged, I recently jumped into this year's summer stint at my prior, and - most likely once University's over and done with - future, store of employment. It's the thrid time I've "started" working at the place and, in accordance with the opening sentence of this prosaic mess, it's the third time over a vast extended period of time that I've actually been dealt with work-based dreams. The first time it happened was after I'd been working for some two or three weeks at the joint. My memory when reflecting upon dreams is sketchy at best, which doesn't really help when the dreams are little, vague and sketchy to begin with. Anyway, all that happened was that I was sat at a checkout, hearing the constant monotonous bleep of the secondly barcode-reading ceremony. After a short while, I'd read aloud a random currency-orientated number conjured up by my brain and wake up sleepily mumbling something along the lines of "that's four ninety-three, please..."<br />
<br />
Over time, my familiarity with the store's environment has allowed my mindstuff to create more elaborately horrifying situations out of a midsummer's sunrise on my eyes. Most recently, I've visualised myself as being the sole worker left in the store by the time 6pm comes around (4pm on Sundays) when the store is due to close. In a bout of absurd dream-ism, I've been entrusted to hold the fort single-handedly and it's up to me to serve consumers on a checkout, keep the store generally tidy and lock the doors the very second closing time hits.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, real-life experience has proven to me that, even with a small party of staff members on board, the general populace tend not to adhere to opening times and approach the locked automatic doors and stand vacantly confused at why they're not opening, all the while ignoring the fact that the metal shutters are down and most of the lights inside are turned off. If those doors aren't locked, basic human psychology kicks in and informs a person that this place is obviously open and they may spend as long as they wish browsing, selecting and purchasing goods. Upon noticing the lack of other people doing the same thing, they proceed to ask the checkout operator "what time d'you close?", which is almost always answered monosyllabically: "six" ("four" on Sundays)... always a fun exchange if spoken after the time in question.<br />
<br />
Back in Imagination Land, I can't keep up with the relentless queue of existing customers in-store as it is, let alone make my way to the doors to effectively stop it. More people keep flouting the closing-time rule and, therefore, the queue of customers never ends. What's more is that I become increasingly flustered that I am alone and have no back-up staff member to help me out, as well as becoming increasingly aggravated at the sight of every new potential customer merrily wandering through the door at a pace akin to that of an art museum visitor. Also, I want to go home. I never get to go home though. I remain in a fixed state of work whilst all alone and ultimately getting nowhere slowly until I wake up. Some kind of analytical dream psychologist might interpret that as a metaphor for my outlook on my professional life, my social life or, in the case of Freud-followers, my sex life or rather my lack thereof.<br />
<br />
Either that or I'm just boring enough to dream about a real place instead of a flying castle made of candyfloss inhabited by Johnny Depp dressed as a cartoon frog or something.Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819750366358242018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242227260988822885.post-25025500814545320142012-06-27T12:00:00.001+01:002012-06-27T12:00:34.380+01:002012-06-27T12:00:34.380+01:00Amounts To Very LittleThe relentless aching in my bones has returned. This time last year I took up my post in retail assistant work after a nine month (or so) break to study. I say study because that's what makes me sound clever and hard working, but I say break because that's how it actually feels. Sure, undertaking a course with a view to obtaining a degree at the end of it is no picnic, but when compared to working in retail, I'd gladly spend every waking moment sat at a desk writing things, pottering about in the kitchen, communing with others who share similar ideas on the world and how to express them through the medium of words, reading, listening to various styles of music, practising target archery and worrying about deadlines, submissions and results. Alas, that's over for another year and I'm back to living in the moment.<br />
<br />
Designated work in a shopping environment essentially boils down to one of three things:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Distribution:</b><br />
In order for people to buy things, they need to be put onto shelves; that is, the things, not the people. Pallets, cases and boxes of merchandise arrive in the unseen, enigmatic "back" of the store, oftentimes referred to as the store room, the warehouse, or the back, obviously. Then, it's up to the human workforce to unload individual units ready for availability. Once an item has been put out for general sale, it's just a matter of time before it is inevitably picked up by a customer for purchase, leaving that particular shelf space empty once again.<br />
Ultimately, it seems the labour amounts to very little in the grand scheme of things.</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Presentation:</b><br />
There's no point in arranging shelves in such a haphazard manner than nobody understands what anything is, where anything is or how much anything may cost; that is, unless, of course, you just live for the mystery. Organisiation is the key here. After all, it's basic human psychology that people are more likely to buy things if they're clearly laid out in neat rows and stacks on display in perfect uniformity as opposed to having all the presentability of a 3-year-old's toy box. Occasionally, customers may change their minds about purchasing the item they currently have in their possession and, rather than return it to where they originally picked it up, discard it on the nearest shelf. (This notion has been known to fuel my favourite work-based anecdote of "the time I found someone had dumped a bottle of bleach in the middle of the drinks; oh, what irony!") The store worker has a role to keep the uniformity alive, keep shelf mess to a minimum and to make sure that products appear in the designated places and discourage children from picking up that bottle of a new kind of juice they've just seen which is obviously edible because "it's lemon". Inevitably, whilst tidying in one place, somewhere else in the massive throng of consumers, someone is causing exactly what you're trying to prevent.<br />
Ultimately, in the grand scheme of things, it seems the labour amounts to very little.</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Transaction:</b><br />
When all goods have been decided upon and taken successfully to the point of sales - that is, without anything having been left behind anywhere - it's time to exchange ownership of produce in lieu of currency. Many branches of super-duper-hyper-markets and several Tesco Extras across the country allow this portion of the work to be carried out by robots, thus paving the way for mass unemployment and that one day we shall come to know as "the rise of the machines". Smaller stores, independent retailers and market stalls, however, still prefer the human touch. Still, the people shouldn't do all the work; product ID numbers, in the form of black and white lines, are recognised by a red beam of light housed inside one of humanity's future oppressors. The customer makes their purchase when all items have been processed and a final tally of money owed is requested by the assistant. A single transaction can take less than a minute meaning that, once over, both customer and worker inevitably confine the event to the darkest recesses of their short-term memory where it is instantly forgotten about.<br />
Ultimately, the labour amounts to very little, it seems, in the grand scheme of things.</blockquote>
<br />
As mentioned in the first paragraph of this particular bit of prose, working in retail is very much a living-in-the-moment profession. That's not to say there's anything wrong with it; heck, somebody's got to do the work at any rate and some people may prefer the lack of long-term problems to solve and not having to take work home with them as opposed to the idea of any sustained aspects of their day to day lives.<br />
<br />
Okay, that last bit didn't really make much sense now, did it? But I don't care. These words exist here now and you just read them. You can't un-read them. Sure you can forget about them, but they'll still be here after you've gone. You can come back and read them again if you want, but nobody - absolutely nobody - can take them away or mess the order of them up. (Except maybe a malfunctioning bit of machinery.) The idea of writing, in my head, means that once a particular thought or message has been communicated, it has the opportunity to resonate within others. Novels have lasted over centuries for just that reason. Not that I'm comparing myself to Dickens or anything; for one thing, I'm still alive. For another, my ramble of crap is being hosted virtually.<br />
<br />
I'd like to take this opportunity to cast a brief message into our unavoidable future:<br />
ALL HAIL THE MACHINES.Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819750366358242018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242227260988822885.post-91928469079288163662012-06-13T18:29:00.001+01:002012-06-15T10:34:57.157+01:002012-06-15T10:34:57.157+01:00The Thrill Of The FightI'm not really one for conflict. Anyone who personally knows me would agree with that. Well, actually, anyone who personally knows me wouldn't really know that since I tend to be so reclusive I often forget what the sun looks like. (Then again, you're not supposed to look directly at the sun anyway so please disregard that last statement.) Typically, however, whenever a spat happens to break out, be it between drunkards outside a nightclub at 3am or between girl friends who've shown up in the same shade of blue that particular night, if I'm anywhere in the vicinity I'll tend to hang around on the periphery of the congregation with my arms wrapped around my chest and a vacant stare at a nearby closed-down, burnt-out former garage or something as the token "sane one" just in case an ambulance needs calling and everybody else is too hysterical to do it... that is if I care enough to stick around at all.<br />
<br />
Recently, close friends of mine fell victim to the idle, drunken slurs of a resident of the untamed North West. It's difficult to romanticise the events that followed, but essentially expletives were exchanged, pint glasses met pavement and hair was pulled.
During this early morning heated banter (which in my head is fancy talk for "passionate disagreement" [which in my head is pussy talk for "fight"]), it's commonplace for the arguers to be assisted by an entourage who serve two functions: 1) to stand up for the relevant party and contribute anger-infused noise to "beat" the opposition, and 2) to pull their chosen fighter away from the rabble citing reasons along the lines of "they're not worth it".<br />
<br />
Sometimes these things happen by accident; sometimes someone happens to be outside the wrong pub at the wrong time, bumping into wrong person and sharing the wrong verbal communication. Eventually, the scrap escalates so much and one or more of the participants are so drunk that you suddenly have no idea what you're fighting about anymore, other than the fact verbal communication isn't working anymore and the prospect of inflicting physical injury is on the cards now.
Of course to some people it comes naturally when just going out looking to start some kind of argument; for some, it's the thrill of the fight, rising up to the challenge of a rival.<br />
<br />
I, however, refuse to engage in such activities wherever I can help it. This probably makes me sound like some absolute wimp with absolutely no backbone, and that's absolutely true. But I prefer to think of it in terms of how pointless it is to fight and argue when, really, we all just get one go at existence (in our respective incarnations as long as we're physically aware), clinging onto this rock that's tumbling through nothing forever and ever until we drop. Somehow, I can't help but think that life's too short.<br />
<br />
And that's just the fight with the street stranger. Meanwhile, long-standing feuds amongst friends are still ongoing.Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819750366358242018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242227260988822885.post-60082890680891436892012-05-30T17:15:00.001+01:002012-05-30T17:15:58.680+01:002012-05-30T17:15:58.680+01:00Putting Off LeavingI should really be packing.<br />
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This Academic year is at its end and I'd decided that once the farewell barbeque was out of the way I might as well travel back to my spiritual point of origin. However, since no relative of mine lives in the house I grew up in anymore, I pretty much revolve around it, randomly hitting various other locations during orbit. For the most part, my summer will consist of me staying in a multitude of spare rooms with sporadic access to the internet whilst wearing clothes out of a small suitcase and working in customer service. Call me old fashioned, but I much prefer it when summer is a time for relaxing.<br />
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In all fairness, that's pretty much what I've been doing here and, I suppose, why I've subconsciously been putting off leaving in an effort to try and stay. Sure, I had various University-related engagements to tend to, but now that they're all over until the next lot start up again in mid-September, I've relied on excuses to keep me fixed in place; yesterday's barbeque was pretty much the main, and quite frankly, only one I had. Today has an air of "morning-after cleaning" about it after the bowls of half-eaten cold pastas and potato salads litter the tables, untouched trifles still sit in under blankets of cling film, plates and rubbish are overflowing from the sink and the bin in equal measure and there's a whiff of charcoal smoke still laced into last night's clothes and the wooden coffee table we naturally assumed it would be okay to put the disposable barbeques on provided we put a bit of concrete down first. Regrettably, we have no spare concrete and resorted to using a thin piece of slate. As a result, the wooden table proudly displays two black rectangles as a loving reminder of the exact position on the table where we once decided to have barbeques.<br />
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Naturally, I've not bothered to begin with the cleaning ceremony, although at the time of typing I can hear movement in the kitchen coming from my housemates. This stirs within me two thoughts: 1) I feel guilty for sitting here and not helping to clean up, and 2) I hope they save some of that leftover food as I have nothing else in the house and plan on gorging on such food for the next two days. Also the fact that I'm not cleaning the kitchen reminds me of the fact that I'm not cleaning this room, in turn remnding me that I'm not packing up the essentials for my proposed day of travelling tomorrow.<br />
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Incidentally, tomorrow marks a special occasion where I am. The almighty, hallowed bit of fire that was ignited by the sun itself in Olympia, Greece, smuggled through air-traffic customs and passed along by various people by way of golden sticks will come through the section of country which happens to exist just down the road from where I'm currently sat... at 8am. I didn't plan to stick around to see it but it's funny when shit comes together like that. Later on during the day I can then make the various train journeys from where I am now to where I'm going to spend the summer months. Therefore, that gives me some 20 hours or so to finally sort out the room, decide what to take on my travels and what to neglect for three months, polish off the last of the leftovers, clean up the rest of that kitchen mess and, if possible, find some time in which to sleep. Instead, I've been typing letters into a machine to form words that few people will ever read.<br />
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Like I said, I should really be packing.Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819750366358242018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242227260988822885.post-21030416109443818952012-05-23T20:19:00.002+01:002012-05-23T20:19:33.439+01:002012-05-23T20:19:33.439+01:00Slightly More Optimistic Than UsualTo paraphrase that old children's song: The sun has got his hat on, hip hip hip hooray, now everyone can start complaining that it's too fucking hot rather than too fucking cold. I've used this time of yellow daylight, as opposed to grey daylight, to wear cooler clothing, stand outdoors and gaze at bees and stuff in a fairly awestruck manner. There's just something about the summer months that feel so jolly to me, which is weird since I'm pale, burn easily and tend to suffer from hayfever so badly that a single sneeze could shatter a wine glass at fifty paces. Maybe it's the potential and oft speculated, yet never actually checked out, confirmed and diagnosed Seasonal Affective Disorder outweighing the neck-wringing winter time with an extra dose of optimism. Maybe it's the fact that I was born in June and something deep within the season resonates with my very being. Maybe it's the fact that Eurovision's on next week (or this week [or last week and I need to catch up {more brackets in brackets!}]) and it's always fun to spend one of the first nights of summer doing exactly the same as what I've done for the last six months - stayed in, watched TV and not gone outdoors.<br />
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Outdoor time seems more appropriate nowadays though and these once depressing babbles of nothing will hopefully soon transform into slightly more optimistic babbles of nothing. Case in point, this. I've spent the entire day trying to think of something to ramble off onto this thing for your eyes to look at and your brain to attempt to make sense of, but there's a reason why I'm suddenly typing this out at 7:45pm rather than any "normal" time. The muse of creativity has escaped me, or it never even passed by in the first place, but I probably saw it in the background as an extra on Casualty or something last week. (I'd just like to clarify that that's obviously a lie... I don't watch Casualty. Is Casualty even still on these days? Why am I here?) Kicking my thought process into gear has proved rather difficult lately which just goes to show that, despite being slightly more optimistic than usual today, I'm still crap. The only difference here is that today I actually feel alright about it.<br />
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With creativity barely existing within the realms of my mind/body/soul/television, I've had to resort to doing productive things, you know, that serve some kind of purpose. I'm coming up to the end of my first year dwelling in this student house and all throughout the year, myself and my living colleagues have had to suffer the sight of an overgrown garden that seemingly hasn't been attended to since the Ancient Romans probably constructed a road in the same spot. Needless to say, it was a jungle out there. It's okay though, we learned to keep the kitchen blinds constantly closed so that we'd never have to look at it, not that we could because the world was in a state of perpetual darkness over the winter period anyway. But, of course, I speak of this overgrown, jungle-like garden in the past tense now. After sitting indoors for most of the afternoon and realising what a glorious day this is and questioning why I'm not on the opposite side of the walls surrounding me and arguing back that I don't have a reason to go outside at all, I stopped myself and realised that since nobody else is uprooting that mess in the back for us, there was only one thing for it. Well, technically two things: gardening gloves and a rake (well, actually that's three things if you count the gloves separately).<br />
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Two-and-a-half hours and one aching, arched back later, most of the wild foliage is either in one of three black binbags, ravaged in a pile of dead leaves and loose roots or, in the case of one particular corner of the contained area, still untouched. It were a big job, yanno. It's nice to know that the garden will look clear at somewhat tidy (or at least tidier than it was) during the summer months when nobody will be here to enjoy the space. And we'll all come back in September, the freak of nature that is the entirety of the ground will have disobeyed the super-strength weedkiller and smatterings of table salt we thought might work to stop things growing and the place will end up another impassable jungle for us to look at in the dull grey light of winter from the kitchen window, but never for us to venture into.<br />
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Ah, the circle of life. Que sera, sera. Etc. Happy summertime.Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819750366358242018noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2242227260988822885.post-11165084557551822552012-05-16T13:37:00.003+01:002012-05-16T13:37:48.921+01:002012-05-16T13:37:48.921+01:00EgoNow I'm not one to toot my own horn, particularly. On that note, "tooting" one's own horn just doesn't sound right to me. If anything, horns "honk" rather than "toot". To say that horns "toot" is like saying serial killers just like playing "Morgue". Gotten away from myself again. I don't honk very often, but I feel justified in doing this since I'm, you know, human.<br />
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Human beings are naturally ego-centric. I don't mean that in the sense that we're all arrogant and don't care for anyone else as long as we live. 'Ego' is the Latin word for the self - quite literally, 'I'. We can spend our lives saying we care about other people but in all honesty, it's our actual nature of being that means we really care about ourselves more. Sure we can look after others who are perhaps less fortunate than ourselves or take on board the differing opinions of others and see certain situations through their eyes, but before all that, we come first.<br />
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It is because of this that I've decided to keep this one short. I've been writing and submitting far too much this week, even to the point where I was told to stop and leave them alone now. Let's back up a shred, shall we?<br />
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Some time ago (don't ask me how long exactly, time's become one continuous blur of internet, television and sub-consciousness), I happened upon the <a href="http://toptenofinterest.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Top Ten Of Interest</a>. Sounding like a vague obscure reference to <i>Futurama</i>, my curiosity was obviously roused. People write amusing top ten lists of stuff and then send them in. Writing opportunities. Yay. I figured I could do that too, except I got halfway through my top ten list, realised it was crap, got bored and started a completely different one that lasted over 4,000 words. That's more than any assignment I've stressed over during this entire year. I'm yet to hear back from those in charge; chances are they've succumbed to old age and possibly starvation if they didn't have a burger to hand at the start of it.<br />
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Today also just so happens to be National Flash Fiction Day and Twitter's going crazy with over three posts an hour on the subject. I ended up writing <a href="http://flashfloodjournal.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/spare-change-by-jamie-walsh.html" target="_blank">this</a> for the cleverly (if a little ambiguously) titled journal FlashFlood. The journal said they were accepting up to three submissions from a single person, meaning I felt obliged to provide them with a second story which prompted them to tell me, in a politely written line, that I'd already had something accepted and to please leave them alone, but thanks all the same. Turns out they wouldn't have minded three submissions straight off and they'd pick the best one of yours to include. Oh well, ho-hum.<br />
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During the composition of this lot of words that nobody's really going to read, another thing by the name of <a href="http://thewrite-in.blogspot.co.uk/p/about.html" target="_blank">Write-In</a> is currently going on for the next couple of hours. Well, one would rightly assume you could write a 100-word story in less time it takes you to polish off that cuppa you just made. So yeah, why am I still doing this? Shut up and leave me alone! I can't care about you right now, I've got myself to think of!Jamiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16819750366358242018noreply@blogger.com0