Once again, I've plundered the hypothetical depths of the overdraft. This adventure into nothingness comes courtesy of the humble property-owning agency from whom I sought shelter in exchange for money I'll be paying back for the rest of my life and possibly an extra seven years after my own personal oblivion.
The situation plays out thus: in order for me to live in this house for another year (and when I say "year" I use the term loosely to mean "Academic year" which everyone knows is just a fancy way of saying "seven months"), our friendly neighbourhood owners have requested a deposit that's not really a deposit since it's non-returnable. Think of it as more insurance to keep my name, my life and several Earthly possessions (that is to say all of them) shackled unto this place and not have it flogged on to other students looking for some kind of shelter. Naturally, myself and fellow tennants were given prior notice that this would need to be paid, but no prior notice of a "deadline date" as it were. Cue Saturday morning where the wee letter sits on the wee mat at the front door and says we have until Monday to meet their insurance demands. Okay, that sounds a lot more dramatic than it actually should be, but the point I'm attempting to get across (rather lazily) is that given just two days notice, I'm now fresh out of money and will to live.
For the record, when queried on the short notice, it turns out a bit of bad luck, honest human error and a mischievious pixie (probably) were to blame for not giving us (or any other student renting property from them) the appropriate notice, so I can't chastise them too much for it. I'm not badmouthing the company I let this room from, just having a good ol' moan and gripe at an undesirable situation. Translation: if you're reading this and happen to be affiliated with my homeowners, PLEASE DON'T KICK ME OUT!!!
Anyway, with the loan company's money all gone, I'm now burying myself comfortably into the bank's lovely little safety net. Comfortable, yes, but worrying also. If I stay here too long, I fear mesh patterns embedding themselves into my skin and tattooing me with "I don't have my own money, I'm living off other means, I'm scum, berate me!" It is because of this, I've had to, for the first time in over three years, go out to find a job. Now me, sweet innocent me, has been trundling along in fairy-head mode where everything is fine and dandy, things will definitely work out the way I imagine them with no problems or complications at all and life will float on by with the greatest of ease and calm and splendour on the song of a bluebird and cool summer breeze. In case you weren't sure, that laboured metaphor was supposed to tell you that after working for the three years in the same retail outlet, my familiarity and experience within the store would grant me easy, if not instant access to a different branch of the same store chain. After all, they like me so much back home, how could I possibly fail?
I enter; copies of CV in bag, confidence in my head, certainty in my heart, a pocketful of dreams and Paramore (or something) on the iPod. Nothing can bring me down! My luck continues, the first staff member of this particular branch that I come across is a young woman, a friendly looking young woman, dressed in what I know to be the uniform blouse of one in a supervisory position in this particular store chain. I approach.
"Excuse me? Hi. I wonder if you could tell me if you currently have any part-time job vacancies?"
Almost instantly my polite and smiley, confidence driven question is answered: "No."
Aha, a stumbling block. One might have expected such a thing. No matter.
"Could I hand you a CV just in case anything opens up?" I offer, knowing that upon viewing, she'll realise that I would be more than capable to fill the space left by the next victim of a brutal sacking. Again, my discoursal adversary greets my humble polite offer with a syllable: "No."
It's a weird kind of exchange. The answers to my queries are negative, but they're accompanied with a smile; the kind of smile one must always maintain in the retail business, else risk execution. Alas, the optimism-house sort of smile paired up the rejection of my employment query seemed to mock me. This woman was mocking me. This woman stood there and went "nyeh-nyeh-neh-nyeh-nyeh", stuck her thumb to her nose, wiggled the rest of her fingers in front of her face, blew a raspberry at me with just the right amount of spit-flecks and essentially said "I have a job and you don't! This is my job, you can't have it, it's mine! So nyehh" all with a simple smile.
Somewhere in the deepest recesses of my brain, I had anticipated this, or an event similar, in which I might require multiple copies of a CV. It just meant that, rather than cast the majority aside after my place was definitely secured in my first choice of employment, I would have to wander the town and offer my part-time retail services elsewhere. But as it happens, nobody wanted me. I don't think it was anything personal, nobody wanted anyone! Eventually, a whole three places felt some kind of sympathy and took a specially printed sheet of A4 off me with the vague promise of keeping my words in their offices, you know, "just in case anything opens up."
Basically, in almost 1,000 words, I just told you how I'm failing to make an independent living at the moment, but since many people are doing that these days I don't see how my adventures in mundanity are any more significant. Let's take you for example. If you've made it this far, you've just read all this. Your life must be even worse.
Just something to think about.
Wednesday, 1 February 2012
Wednesday, 25 January 2012
The Ultimate Inevitability
Because life gets so boring on occasion, I end up resorting to daydreaming for a considerable portion of time. It's the only time my brain gets to cut loose and run riot and other mildly anarchic sounding phrases as well. Sometimes, the brain strays too far from the boundaries (even though there are no boundaries, but for the sake of this I'm declaring boundaries) of normality and delves into an as yet non-existent future regarding many different scenarios including, but not limited to, future career prospects, future relationships, future living situations, becoming famous, becoming homeless, winning the X Factor, buying an iPad, eating a Terry's Chocolate Orange and, probably most scarily and morbidly of all, imagining a close friend's funeral.
As humans, we're intelligent enough to not only be aware of our own mortality but also to blank it from our minds completely like it'll never ever happen to us in a million billion years for ever and ever, Amen. Somehow, my consciousness didn't get the memo (either that or it was just drifting off, not paying attention to reality again) meaning it occasionally super-fast-forwards to the ultimate inevitability. We will die. You, right there, yes, you reading this now. You will die. Sorry, but... it's true. Don't blame me. Don't blame anyone, there's nobody you can blame, except biology I suppose, but even then it's difficult to assign conceptual blame to a scientific field. If it's any consolation, I'll die too. Nothing special about me, I will cease to go on living one day, and so will every single one of the seven-billion amongst us. The thing is we won't all pop off at the same time on the same day. Some of us might make it to a ripe old age and just give up when we can't see or hear what's happening on Countdown any more. Some of us might unknowingly attempt to cross the road a second or two too early. Some of us might fall victim to incurable diseases or maladies. Again, for that one, blame biology... if you can.
This notion of death not having a schedule has also been picked up on by a Facebook app which I believe is called "If I Die" (it might not be that exactly, but since I can't be bothered to go check that's what I'm going to say it's called, that way I'm not directly advertising it just in case I so happen to be correct). Apparently, using this app, you can write a backlog of status updates to be released onto your active Facebook profile after you're done with this existential plane. Essentially, you're zombified through the medium of text, able to provide your loved ones with witticisms from beyond the grave. If it were me, I'd probably opt for vaguely inappropriate, sad reminders that I'm dead, such as "still dead, sorry bout that" or "not coming back today... or ever, lol" or "I suppose Belinda Carlisle was right, heaven IS a place on earth since I'm in HELL!!!"
Back to my stupid brain, though, and interestingly during my morbid daydreams, I never envisage my own demise, but I suppose that's mostly because it'd difficult to perceive imaginary events in my own future life after it's ended. That, plus I'm an egotist. However, imagining other people's funerals seems to be a common occurrence in my mindspace. Not common in the way that it happens every single time my brain runs off, more common in the way that Gunther may or may not show up in any given episode of Friends. Furthermore, whenever he does show up, his appearance is only minimal, almost background and he never has a main plotline focus of his own. In imagining such an event, I instantly do two things; the first of which being chastising and yelling at my mind for coming up with such a horrific thought and forcing it to stop thinking about it at once. Naturally the brain retorts with the idea that once a thought has occurred, it cannot be unthought, therefore bugging me with the notion that, in my mind, I've just killed off someone close to me and I do not wish to jinx the fact that they could actually die at some point in the near future since, in my head, that would make me entirely responsible. Which leads me to the second thing that I do; I instantly realise how much this person actual means to me and has influenced my life on some subconscious level. Then I go out of my way to make sure I keep in close contact with that person in the hope that my continued presence before them makes them feel somewhat good.
Basically, you're not really a close friend to me unless I've killed you in my mind and felt sad about it. However, since I hypothetically ended whoever is reading this by pointing out your future death, whoever you are, you are now apparently very important to me. Now don't you just feel loved?
As humans, we're intelligent enough to not only be aware of our own mortality but also to blank it from our minds completely like it'll never ever happen to us in a million billion years for ever and ever, Amen. Somehow, my consciousness didn't get the memo (either that or it was just drifting off, not paying attention to reality again) meaning it occasionally super-fast-forwards to the ultimate inevitability. We will die. You, right there, yes, you reading this now. You will die. Sorry, but... it's true. Don't blame me. Don't blame anyone, there's nobody you can blame, except biology I suppose, but even then it's difficult to assign conceptual blame to a scientific field. If it's any consolation, I'll die too. Nothing special about me, I will cease to go on living one day, and so will every single one of the seven-billion amongst us. The thing is we won't all pop off at the same time on the same day. Some of us might make it to a ripe old age and just give up when we can't see or hear what's happening on Countdown any more. Some of us might unknowingly attempt to cross the road a second or two too early. Some of us might fall victim to incurable diseases or maladies. Again, for that one, blame biology... if you can.
This notion of death not having a schedule has also been picked up on by a Facebook app which I believe is called "If I Die" (it might not be that exactly, but since I can't be bothered to go check that's what I'm going to say it's called, that way I'm not directly advertising it just in case I so happen to be correct). Apparently, using this app, you can write a backlog of status updates to be released onto your active Facebook profile after you're done with this existential plane. Essentially, you're zombified through the medium of text, able to provide your loved ones with witticisms from beyond the grave. If it were me, I'd probably opt for vaguely inappropriate, sad reminders that I'm dead, such as "still dead, sorry bout that" or "not coming back today... or ever, lol" or "I suppose Belinda Carlisle was right, heaven IS a place on earth since I'm in HELL!!!"
Back to my stupid brain, though, and interestingly during my morbid daydreams, I never envisage my own demise, but I suppose that's mostly because it'd difficult to perceive imaginary events in my own future life after it's ended. That, plus I'm an egotist. However, imagining other people's funerals seems to be a common occurrence in my mindspace. Not common in the way that it happens every single time my brain runs off, more common in the way that Gunther may or may not show up in any given episode of Friends. Furthermore, whenever he does show up, his appearance is only minimal, almost background and he never has a main plotline focus of his own. In imagining such an event, I instantly do two things; the first of which being chastising and yelling at my mind for coming up with such a horrific thought and forcing it to stop thinking about it at once. Naturally the brain retorts with the idea that once a thought has occurred, it cannot be unthought, therefore bugging me with the notion that, in my mind, I've just killed off someone close to me and I do not wish to jinx the fact that they could actually die at some point in the near future since, in my head, that would make me entirely responsible. Which leads me to the second thing that I do; I instantly realise how much this person actual means to me and has influenced my life on some subconscious level. Then I go out of my way to make sure I keep in close contact with that person in the hope that my continued presence before them makes them feel somewhat good.
Basically, you're not really a close friend to me unless I've killed you in my mind and felt sad about it. However, since I hypothetically ended whoever is reading this by pointing out your future death, whoever you are, you are now apparently very important to me. Now don't you just feel loved?
Wednesday, 4 January 2012
Time
Whatever happened to time? When you're a child time seems infinite, school drags on forever, Friday night feels miles away from Monday morning. As you get older, you wake up, make breakfast, eat it, watch TV and suddenly it's night. And I'm not just saying that from a TV addict's perspective. Whilst, yes, I do get lost in television's radiant, plasma-fuelled glow for hours on end and never want to unplug it because it's my bestest friend in the whole wide world who I know will never ever leave me, even putting Scrubs repeats on (because Friends repeats now belong to subscription telly) for an hour or so seems to drain the day away.
Of course, it could just be the simple fact that it's still Winter and our top half of the Earth gets fewer hours of sun exposure than them southerners (*shakes fist angrily and mumbles 'grr Australia'*) that makes time feel fleeting. Statistically, we get approximately an hour and a half of daylight now and things will remain that way until mid-May. (Actually, we get more like eight hours, but with our adult perception of time it feels like a mere ninety minutes.) I suppose this is what makes me so glum every this-time-of-year-again. We're so engulfed in darkness that moods have to, by law, be lower than a Jamaican limbo champion competing on the seabed. Because of this, I start making a list of things I should do, things I need to do, things I want to do, and things I know I'll never do - all such things appear in all of these lists - in an attempt to make me feel better about life. But that fact that I'm hypothesising about doing things and not actually doing them makes me feel bad about myself, even though I'm very aware that there are practicalities as to when and where I can do certain things and whenever I do have a chance to get on with something the motivation glands within me go straight to sleep the moment it turns dark, making it so that after 4pm I essentially become a brain dead moron with my head tilted to one side and a drooling tongue lolling out the corner of my mouth as I sit staring at a blank wall. Either that or a television.
The good thing about keeping time though is that I get to memorise the schedules of certain programmes that will televisualise themselves onto my eyes and ears and make me want to live, at least until the end of that particular episode, which reminds me, Scrubs is on again in a bit.
Of course, it could just be the simple fact that it's still Winter and our top half of the Earth gets fewer hours of sun exposure than them southerners (*shakes fist angrily and mumbles 'grr Australia'*) that makes time feel fleeting. Statistically, we get approximately an hour and a half of daylight now and things will remain that way until mid-May. (Actually, we get more like eight hours, but with our adult perception of time it feels like a mere ninety minutes.) I suppose this is what makes me so glum every this-time-of-year-again. We're so engulfed in darkness that moods have to, by law, be lower than a Jamaican limbo champion competing on the seabed. Because of this, I start making a list of things I should do, things I need to do, things I want to do, and things I know I'll never do - all such things appear in all of these lists - in an attempt to make me feel better about life. But that fact that I'm hypothesising about doing things and not actually doing them makes me feel bad about myself, even though I'm very aware that there are practicalities as to when and where I can do certain things and whenever I do have a chance to get on with something the motivation glands within me go straight to sleep the moment it turns dark, making it so that after 4pm I essentially become a brain dead moron with my head tilted to one side and a drooling tongue lolling out the corner of my mouth as I sit staring at a blank wall. Either that or a television.
The good thing about keeping time though is that I get to memorise the schedules of certain programmes that will televisualise themselves onto my eyes and ears and make me want to live, at least until the end of that particular episode, which reminds me, Scrubs is on again in a bit.
Saturday, 31 December 2011
A New Calendar...
According to the common Gregorian calendar, today is the last one before the calendar runs out and has to start all over again for the 2,012th time since people started counting (except if you're in Samoa). It is because of this momentous fact, that there's nowhere else left to go after December except to go back January, that people decide to drink and shout descending numbers at each other as the clock approaches midnight.
This time last year, I was unaware when the exact second of midnight-approaching happened for reasons too complex to get into... but let's try anyway:
In what would later be known in a pointless blog post by someone recalling the event as "the great break-up of 2010", I spent the evening with a large group of people, many of whom have no problem with me personally, but many of whom have personal problems with others of the many, but tolerated each other for the simple fact of getting along and being civil and other phrases which suggest a mutual disdain masked with friendliness. (Reading that back seems like I'm calling such people two-faced, which I'm not really but incidentally that does coincide with January being named after the Roman god Janus - the god of new beginnings often visually depicted as having two faces, one looking back retrospectively and one looking to the future. Funny how stuff links up.) As the stroke of January approached, the air between parties became bitter, or maybe it was because it was Winter. Either way, by 11:45pm it was clear that one lot of people wished to vacate via taxi; a taxi which did not arrive until 11:53pm (or something, I was fairly tipsy by this point and being fed information that someone hates someone else and someone said things about someone's dress or something and someone's hair was probably pulled). Our friend, the taxi, managed to get a group of six (probably) of us to somewhere else by the time 11:59pm came around. Upon leaving the taxi to walk somewhere more indoorsy, someone probably collapsed onto the snow (or slush) covered ground and fireworks went off in the distance all around. Any single one of these seconds I was living through could have been the momentous midnight maker, but with no TV, radio, or Greenwich-synchronised time-telling device to tell us exactly which one it was, that entire walk from the taxi to the front door became magical. Except it wasn't. It was a walk to the front door after getting out a taxi after a night out. The world carried on as normal, just as it always does.
I haven't become cynical of celebrating New Year (as many of the people who can see the crap I put on Facebook might often think), but there are those who use the humble realm of Facebook to proclaim how the new year is an excuse for a new start, a new me, a new diet, a new change of underwear, a new dog, a new calendar... Somehow I don't particularly see the appeal in altering my outlook on life or eating habits based solely on the fact that the little '2011' in the corner of my computer screen is henceforth to be replaced with a '2012'. My outlook on life has always been mediocre with occasional hits and occasional misses and I don't believe that any force or power on the planet will take notice and make the next 365 days (or is it 366 this time?) filled with chocolate and rainbows and boobs.
This portion of the Internet will still exist and occasionally churn out gormless crap (like this) erratically and sporadically, despite my best intentions to keep doing this on a weekly basis. The fact that it's been over three weeks since the last one and that today is Saturday just proves how incoherent my posting-every-Wednesday mentality has become. Having said that, don't expect anything too special on the 4th, if anything at all.
Incidentally, once again I don't have anyone to kiss at midnight.
This time last year, I was unaware when the exact second of midnight-approaching happened for reasons too complex to get into... but let's try anyway:
In what would later be known in a pointless blog post by someone recalling the event as "the great break-up of 2010", I spent the evening with a large group of people, many of whom have no problem with me personally, but many of whom have personal problems with others of the many, but tolerated each other for the simple fact of getting along and being civil and other phrases which suggest a mutual disdain masked with friendliness. (Reading that back seems like I'm calling such people two-faced, which I'm not really but incidentally that does coincide with January being named after the Roman god Janus - the god of new beginnings often visually depicted as having two faces, one looking back retrospectively and one looking to the future. Funny how stuff links up.) As the stroke of January approached, the air between parties became bitter, or maybe it was because it was Winter. Either way, by 11:45pm it was clear that one lot of people wished to vacate via taxi; a taxi which did not arrive until 11:53pm (or something, I was fairly tipsy by this point and being fed information that someone hates someone else and someone said things about someone's dress or something and someone's hair was probably pulled). Our friend, the taxi, managed to get a group of six (probably) of us to somewhere else by the time 11:59pm came around. Upon leaving the taxi to walk somewhere more indoorsy, someone probably collapsed onto the snow (or slush) covered ground and fireworks went off in the distance all around. Any single one of these seconds I was living through could have been the momentous midnight maker, but with no TV, radio, or Greenwich-synchronised time-telling device to tell us exactly which one it was, that entire walk from the taxi to the front door became magical. Except it wasn't. It was a walk to the front door after getting out a taxi after a night out. The world carried on as normal, just as it always does.
I haven't become cynical of celebrating New Year (as many of the people who can see the crap I put on Facebook might often think), but there are those who use the humble realm of Facebook to proclaim how the new year is an excuse for a new start, a new me, a new diet, a new change of underwear, a new dog, a new calendar... Somehow I don't particularly see the appeal in altering my outlook on life or eating habits based solely on the fact that the little '2011' in the corner of my computer screen is henceforth to be replaced with a '2012'. My outlook on life has always been mediocre with occasional hits and occasional misses and I don't believe that any force or power on the planet will take notice and make the next 365 days (or is it 366 this time?) filled with chocolate and rainbows and boobs.
This portion of the Internet will still exist and occasionally churn out gormless crap (like this) erratically and sporadically, despite my best intentions to keep doing this on a weekly basis. The fact that it's been over three weeks since the last one and that today is Saturday just proves how incoherent my posting-every-Wednesday mentality has become. Having said that, don't expect anything too special on the 4th, if anything at all.
Incidentally, once again I don't have anyone to kiss at midnight.
Wednesday, 7 December 2011
The Festive Spirit
In the midst of hand-scrawled sheets of lined A4, books big enough to squash rats, clothes that haven't been hung up again days after being discarded onto the futon, half a packet of malted milks, an empty mug, a plate with nay but a splattering of disused tomato ketchup left upon it and the cold air of a house in December without the central heating on, he sits at the computer, in between finishing one mammoth essay and preparing to start another, and tries to collect all the thoughts and musings he's had brewing up over the last three weeks. And, do you know what? He's gone blank again.
Now that December's actually arrived, I don't feel so cynical about people getting excited in preparation for Christmas any more. Sure, I don't exactly get into the festive spirit until about 7pm on Christmas Eve - and even then I quickly snap out of it by the time The Queen's on - but I don't mind others getting excited during the month of December. But this year seems to have taken the proverbial candy cane. My Facebook News Feed (because I'm, like, so up to date, you get me?) faced a torrent of festive, and somewhat illiterate, abuse from the easily distracted. "omg soo exited for xmas" was just one of the fictional examples I just made up to give you the impression of what I faced... in the middle of November.
You know who I blame? Coca-Cola. Well, not necessarily the drinks manufacturers themselves, but the infamous traditional television advert that comes this time each year. For those who may be reading this from Mars or have been under extremely heavy sedation for a vast chunk of life, the Christmas-themed advert for Coca-Cola depicts a morbidly obese, myopic, elderly man, who clearly hasn't shaved since Take That first split up, riding around streets littered with as many people as there are snowflakes in a giant red truck with an obscene amount of fairy lights stapled to it so that he can pass around retro-style glass Coca-Cola bottles to children. Essentially, Band Aid (and subsequently, Band Aid 20) needn't have sang "Do They Know It's Christmas?" at all if only Coca-Cola felt like they could've just cancelled Africa's debt with a snap of their fingers. Nevertheless, for the masses, the first sight of the eagerly anticipated Coca-Cola Christmas advert is the first big signifier that Christmas is on the way. The fact that this momentous occasion happened in November this year made me somewhat irritated at the socio-cultural phenomenon of the Facebook-status boom. That plus it happened during the results show of the X Factor, which just makes me wonder why Facebook itself didn't just develop a consciousness and shoot itself there and then after a vast activity overload.
For others though, the apparently now sadly departed Toys R Us TV spot (which, for the sake of nostalgia, I have included a little linky there) gets people all of a merry. And why do I call it "apparently now sadly departed"? Because even though Toys R Us are still advertising on TV this festive season, they've given the advertising promo a complete revamp. Gone is the magical place we drive down the animated road towards. Gone is Geoffrey the Giraffe, who assured us there are millions of toys all under one roof. Now we get a CGI Toys R Us catalogue with the enchanting, night-time singy voice being replaced by someone who got fired from singing The Tweenies' theme tune and told us there is such a child label as a "Toys R Us kid". For the benefit of all that is right with the world, I won't be including a link to it for two reasons: 1) You can probably catch it on TV right now as it's currently running as opposed to the 90s advert which, as you might have guessed, is not, and 2) because I don't like it.
Other cultural signifiers which allude to the oncoming of the Christmas period come from the world of popular music. "Christmas" can easily be defined as a musical genre in its own right, with the cheesy, the sublime, the heartwarming, The Darkness and the easily-sing-along-able-to all featuring at this time of the year. Songs like the aforementioned Band Aid effort, Shakin' Stevens, Wizzard and Slade have all integrated themselves into the subconscious of many that it's hard not to enjoy them, "Last Christmas" is a nice song haunted by the fact that it was, in fact, Wham! that sang it in the first place, Cliff Richard will always be present and by the time it's taken me to finish this entire piece, Mariah Carey still won't have finished squawking the intro to "All I Want For Christmas Is You".
For many though, the recent resurgence in popularity for festive slanging match "Fairytale Of New York" has gone from strength to strength, which is unfortunate since it took the untimely death of singer Kirsty MacColl in the December of 2000 to boost it. Since then, the song's been praised by many and criticised by the prudish (mostly because is has the word "faggot" in it and non-gay people think it's probably offensive even though they have no concept of context) and has time and time again been cast into the shadow of Christmas number 2, or 3, or 5, or whatever, never managing to reach the festive top spot.
As for myself, I care a great deal for The Pogues' Christmas effort, but that was mostly because I like to go for the underdog, the relatively obscure and unknown and the generally underrated things in life. However, with so many people feeling the love for "Fairytale Of New York", while I don't deny it being a definitive Christmas song, I feel like I have to have a new underdog, a new joint favourite. And luckily, two years ago I rediscovered a Christmas song from my childhood. And I know I remember it from my childhood because my sister told me recently that she held the same sentiments for this particular tune, even after our mother told both of us she was completely unaware of it. Who's the crazy one now, hmmm? Anyway, as much as it appears around Christmas, Kate Bush's "December Will Be Magic Again" revolves around, well, just that, December. As such, I've been doing well to stick to a regime of listening to the song at least once a day from the first of this month, which, I suppose, is more than I can say for vowing to myself to post to this thing once a week. Give me another three weeks to get back to this.
Meanwhile, I'll probably forget to listen to Kate Bush somewhere around December the fifteenth.
Now that December's actually arrived, I don't feel so cynical about people getting excited in preparation for Christmas any more. Sure, I don't exactly get into the festive spirit until about 7pm on Christmas Eve - and even then I quickly snap out of it by the time The Queen's on - but I don't mind others getting excited during the month of December. But this year seems to have taken the proverbial candy cane. My Facebook News Feed (because I'm, like, so up to date, you get me?) faced a torrent of festive, and somewhat illiterate, abuse from the easily distracted. "omg soo exited for xmas" was just one of the fictional examples I just made up to give you the impression of what I faced... in the middle of November.
You know who I blame? Coca-Cola. Well, not necessarily the drinks manufacturers themselves, but the infamous traditional television advert that comes this time each year. For those who may be reading this from Mars or have been under extremely heavy sedation for a vast chunk of life, the Christmas-themed advert for Coca-Cola depicts a morbidly obese, myopic, elderly man, who clearly hasn't shaved since Take That first split up, riding around streets littered with as many people as there are snowflakes in a giant red truck with an obscene amount of fairy lights stapled to it so that he can pass around retro-style glass Coca-Cola bottles to children. Essentially, Band Aid (and subsequently, Band Aid 20) needn't have sang "Do They Know It's Christmas?" at all if only Coca-Cola felt like they could've just cancelled Africa's debt with a snap of their fingers. Nevertheless, for the masses, the first sight of the eagerly anticipated Coca-Cola Christmas advert is the first big signifier that Christmas is on the way. The fact that this momentous occasion happened in November this year made me somewhat irritated at the socio-cultural phenomenon of the Facebook-status boom. That plus it happened during the results show of the X Factor, which just makes me wonder why Facebook itself didn't just develop a consciousness and shoot itself there and then after a vast activity overload.
For others though, the apparently now sadly departed Toys R Us TV spot (which, for the sake of nostalgia, I have included a little linky there) gets people all of a merry. And why do I call it "apparently now sadly departed"? Because even though Toys R Us are still advertising on TV this festive season, they've given the advertising promo a complete revamp. Gone is the magical place we drive down the animated road towards. Gone is Geoffrey the Giraffe, who assured us there are millions of toys all under one roof. Now we get a CGI Toys R Us catalogue with the enchanting, night-time singy voice being replaced by someone who got fired from singing The Tweenies' theme tune and told us there is such a child label as a "Toys R Us kid". For the benefit of all that is right with the world, I won't be including a link to it for two reasons: 1) You can probably catch it on TV right now as it's currently running as opposed to the 90s advert which, as you might have guessed, is not, and 2) because I don't like it.
Other cultural signifiers which allude to the oncoming of the Christmas period come from the world of popular music. "Christmas" can easily be defined as a musical genre in its own right, with the cheesy, the sublime, the heartwarming, The Darkness and the easily-sing-along-able-to all featuring at this time of the year. Songs like the aforementioned Band Aid effort, Shakin' Stevens, Wizzard and Slade have all integrated themselves into the subconscious of many that it's hard not to enjoy them, "Last Christmas" is a nice song haunted by the fact that it was, in fact, Wham! that sang it in the first place, Cliff Richard will always be present and by the time it's taken me to finish this entire piece, Mariah Carey still won't have finished squawking the intro to "All I Want For Christmas Is You".
For many though, the recent resurgence in popularity for festive slanging match "Fairytale Of New York" has gone from strength to strength, which is unfortunate since it took the untimely death of singer Kirsty MacColl in the December of 2000 to boost it. Since then, the song's been praised by many and criticised by the prudish (mostly because is has the word "faggot" in it and non-gay people think it's probably offensive even though they have no concept of context) and has time and time again been cast into the shadow of Christmas number 2, or 3, or 5, or whatever, never managing to reach the festive top spot.
As for myself, I care a great deal for The Pogues' Christmas effort, but that was mostly because I like to go for the underdog, the relatively obscure and unknown and the generally underrated things in life. However, with so many people feeling the love for "Fairytale Of New York", while I don't deny it being a definitive Christmas song, I feel like I have to have a new underdog, a new joint favourite. And luckily, two years ago I rediscovered a Christmas song from my childhood. And I know I remember it from my childhood because my sister told me recently that she held the same sentiments for this particular tune, even after our mother told both of us she was completely unaware of it. Who's the crazy one now, hmmm? Anyway, as much as it appears around Christmas, Kate Bush's "December Will Be Magic Again" revolves around, well, just that, December. As such, I've been doing well to stick to a regime of listening to the song at least once a day from the first of this month, which, I suppose, is more than I can say for vowing to myself to post to this thing once a week. Give me another three weeks to get back to this.
Meanwhile, I'll probably forget to listen to Kate Bush somewhere around December the fifteenth.
Wednesday, 16 November 2011
In Bed
According to Horoscopes, it's currently the lunar high. Basically what that means is that the moon is presently in a position in its orbit that, from an Earthly viewpoint, makes it correspond with other stars in the sky in such a way that it casts positive feelings upon the peoples of this planet, and it also proves why I'm somewhat sceptical of astrology. I'm not feeling such positivity. I'm far from feeling high. The only thing high about me is my hair which, due to excessive sleeping and lack of hair washes, is stuck in an upright position one could easily assume to be a "bed-head" look or possibly an audition for Jedward.
With that in mind, I wouldn't so much say I'm depressed. However, with Winter very much here, that ol' Seasonal Affective Disorder has managed to kick in again (and for the record, whoever came up with the name of a mood-affecting mental problem which can be condensed into the anachronism SAD clearly shows severe signs of sarcasmic bastardery). Okay, I've never been officially diagnosed with what is essentially wintery depression, but I'm not denying that every end-of-year for the last six I've managed to (for no reason other than because I feel like it) not eat, think about how little money I have, and stay in bed for large portions of the day. Hell, I awoke at 11:30 this morning desperately needing to pee and it took me until after 1pm to actually get up and go. And what did I do for that hour-and-a-half of lying perfectly still? Why, a conversation with the self about... something... or something else, I can't remember which. Either way, it wasn't important enough for me to remember. Coming back to the present time as I type this, I'm back in bed and it's at this time I'm thankful that I'm a complete douche with a laptop as a well as a desktop.
Part of the reason for a poo-poo mood at this present time stems from my frustration at the University; my reasoning for this taking us back to the days of High School. Initially, we're told to prepare ourselves for deadlines so far in advance we could take the next two years off if we get a move on. That's why at this level of education I've fully expected to have preparations for assignment work (due in during the first week of December) drilled into me from day one. It's now two or three weeks before deadline and I still have nary an idea of how I'm supposed to approach such work. It's got to the point where I'm fully believing that the University is worse at keeping track of assignments than I am, and now we're at this point, I'm reluctant to even do them if it means I have to move at least three inches from this bed.
There was probably going to be more to this, but since it's taken me over an hour to get through that much it's quite clear I'm not even up to tapping away at this thing any more. Or using my brain to come up with more words. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a whole lot of nothing else to do today.
With that in mind, I wouldn't so much say I'm depressed. However, with Winter very much here, that ol' Seasonal Affective Disorder has managed to kick in again (and for the record, whoever came up with the name of a mood-affecting mental problem which can be condensed into the anachronism SAD clearly shows severe signs of sarcasmic bastardery). Okay, I've never been officially diagnosed with what is essentially wintery depression, but I'm not denying that every end-of-year for the last six I've managed to (for no reason other than because I feel like it) not eat, think about how little money I have, and stay in bed for large portions of the day. Hell, I awoke at 11:30 this morning desperately needing to pee and it took me until after 1pm to actually get up and go. And what did I do for that hour-and-a-half of lying perfectly still? Why, a conversation with the self about... something... or something else, I can't remember which. Either way, it wasn't important enough for me to remember. Coming back to the present time as I type this, I'm back in bed and it's at this time I'm thankful that I'm a complete douche with a laptop as a well as a desktop.
Part of the reason for a poo-poo mood at this present time stems from my frustration at the University; my reasoning for this taking us back to the days of High School. Initially, we're told to prepare ourselves for deadlines so far in advance we could take the next two years off if we get a move on. That's why at this level of education I've fully expected to have preparations for assignment work (due in during the first week of December) drilled into me from day one. It's now two or three weeks before deadline and I still have nary an idea of how I'm supposed to approach such work. It's got to the point where I'm fully believing that the University is worse at keeping track of assignments than I am, and now we're at this point, I'm reluctant to even do them if it means I have to move at least three inches from this bed.
There was probably going to be more to this, but since it's taken me over an hour to get through that much it's quite clear I'm not even up to tapping away at this thing any more. Or using my brain to come up with more words. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a whole lot of nothing else to do today.
Wednesday, 9 November 2011
Showers
I've arrived here with a brain all of a mess, with nothing in particular to focus on, with a cup of tea I somehow forgot to put the teaspoon-and-a-half of sugar in but have been drinking it anyway because I simply can't be bothered going back to the kitchen.
I'm cold, so much so that I'm still shivering under three layers of clothing and a double duvet next to a radiator set to 22°C.
It's dark. The kind of "Winter's coming", four-in-the-afternoon dark where it's barely actually dark outside, but dull - the sun's on its way back under the horizon; a horizon blocked by the row of terraced house outside my window (which has the blinds shut, mind). I don't have the room light on, meaning that the only way I can see this keyboard as I type stuff on it is by crouching over it with screwed up eyes next to the fluorescent white currently projected from this monitor.
I need to pee, but I'm hellbent on finishing this first, even though I don't know where it's going or how long it will end up being. Incidentally, I just farted.
I have other work to be doing; work I should've been doing earlier in the week, or even late last week, but I haven't. Naturally you may think I've been leading an unbelievably interesting life in the time that's passed. I haven't. I've arsed about mostly, and when I haven't arsed about, I've been thinking of arsing about (is that how you spell "arsing", or does it have an 'e' in it?), and when I haven't been thinking of ars...thating about, I've been asleep, and when I haven't been any of the above, I've been so bored I've resorted to taking a shower because just sitting there makes me feel like I'm collecting dust, or germs, or procrastination mildew. I've been so bored I've showered an awful lot. I've had more showers this week than I have since April 2006... probably.
I'm currently down to one meal a day through current eating habits; two if you count a packet of instant noodles as a bona fide meal. I don't feel undernourished. I don't feel hungry at all. I could probably pass for anorexic if I didn't live so close to an onslaught of takeaways and kebab houses.
I keep thinking "there's got to be some story to this", but there isn't, and probably never will be. This is not a narrative. This is not a sharing of my opinion over a certain matter. This is an assortment of last minute, here-and-now observations I've decided to note down in a desperate attempt to force myself to fill this space up a bit more of a Wednesday.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off for a shower.
I'm cold, so much so that I'm still shivering under three layers of clothing and a double duvet next to a radiator set to 22°C.
It's dark. The kind of "Winter's coming", four-in-the-afternoon dark where it's barely actually dark outside, but dull - the sun's on its way back under the horizon; a horizon blocked by the row of terraced house outside my window (which has the blinds shut, mind). I don't have the room light on, meaning that the only way I can see this keyboard as I type stuff on it is by crouching over it with screwed up eyes next to the fluorescent white currently projected from this monitor.
I need to pee, but I'm hellbent on finishing this first, even though I don't know where it's going or how long it will end up being. Incidentally, I just farted.
I have other work to be doing; work I should've been doing earlier in the week, or even late last week, but I haven't. Naturally you may think I've been leading an unbelievably interesting life in the time that's passed. I haven't. I've arsed about mostly, and when I haven't arsed about, I've been thinking of arsing about (is that how you spell "arsing", or does it have an 'e' in it?), and when I haven't been thinking of ars...thating about, I've been asleep, and when I haven't been any of the above, I've been so bored I've resorted to taking a shower because just sitting there makes me feel like I'm collecting dust, or germs, or procrastination mildew. I've been so bored I've showered an awful lot. I've had more showers this week than I have since April 2006... probably.
I'm currently down to one meal a day through current eating habits; two if you count a packet of instant noodles as a bona fide meal. I don't feel undernourished. I don't feel hungry at all. I could probably pass for anorexic if I didn't live so close to an onslaught of takeaways and kebab houses.
I keep thinking "there's got to be some story to this", but there isn't, and probably never will be. This is not a narrative. This is not a sharing of my opinion over a certain matter. This is an assortment of last minute, here-and-now observations I've decided to note down in a desperate attempt to force myself to fill this space up a bit more of a Wednesday.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off for a shower.
Wednesday, 2 November 2011
The Chilli/Chocolate Combination
So here it is, as an 89th episode spectacular (and mostly because I can't be bothered tocome up with anything new today but want to stick to my once-a-week, doing-one-of-these-every-Wednesday kinda thing), my first (and so far only) published bit of rambling. Huzzah and joy and such. You can see the original broadcast of this one courtesy of those lovely people at Gumbo Press who make Word Gumbo, free and online. Based on its second-issue-from-August theme of "Opposites", this little bit goes on in very much the same way as the rest of my bollocks, in the way that I have a boring life which I attempt to make more interesting by using long words. And now that my back-up option is gone, it means from now on I'll have to actually write something every single week. Enjoy a wee slice of my typings past.
Have you ever tried chilli and chocolate? I haven't, but I imagine it to be absolutely awful. Although, having said that I don't really like chilli, so the fact that I'm using it in an argument seems somewhat redundant. It's not the chilli per se, but all hot and spicy food in general. Evidently, my tongue lacks the capacity it would normally need to have what you could call an "extensive palette", and instead decides to ignore any taste provided by such spices in lieu of screaming out 'Oh, my God, why? WHY?! The pain! Seven-thousand fire-tipped needles of pain, na na na, na na na, no we don't like vindaloo'. Fortunately, my tongue doesn't have a mouth of its own thus can't verbalise such exclamatory-ness whenever faced with such a situation at a formal dinner party (although, the idea of a formal dinner party that serves vindaloo as its main course seems a whole other situation altogether). But I digress...
I could've said "Have you ever tried cheese and chocolate?" since I can cope with cheese. I quite like cheese. In fact, half the time I order a pizza in, I'm a little tempted to leave all the extra toppings, ask them to hold the tomato sauce, and just forget the bread while they're at it in the hope that they'd be so kind as to just bring me a box of melted cheese, but I'm getting away from myself again here. I can't imagine cheese and chocolate being too complimentary. I mean for one thing, they both start with "ch" and end with "e"; it's a marriage made in Hell. (Moments after typing that, I noticed that "chilli" also starts with "ch" so had to add the thing about the "e" at the end too to make my point somehow appear valid.)
But I suppose the reason people like the chilli/chocolate combination comes down to their apparent oppositeness. Things just tend to work well together when accompanied by something on the other end of the scale: light and shade, sweet and sour, Philip Schofield and Holly Willoughby, they all manage to not overpower the other one. There's even more, an almost endless list of opposites that attract (which I won't go into on account of the fact that I'm already about 400 words into this and the fact that I'd like to go to bed sometime tonight), so why did I open with the food one?
Well it would be a bit rubbish if I didn't answer that question considering (a) the question has now been imposed unto the world, and (b) you didn't actually ask it, dear reader, but are now filled with moderate intrigue as to why I posed the question in the first place in the vague hope you get an answer to satisfy the aforementioned intrigue, meaning that I must now (a) come up with something which I suppose could validly be considered an appropriate answer, and (b) not go to bed.
Umm...
Ahh...
Oh, OK, how's this for ya? I've very recently become somewhat addicted to culinary ventures. I suppose (in my head) that's a fancy way of saying 'I like cooking', but of course it gets pretty tough trying to cook something exquisite when you're a student and you're essentially living off beans, mouldy bread and half an onion. Also I have a not-so-broad palette, did I mention? Therefore, I get my cookery fix from the magic picture-emitting machine in the corner of the room. I suppose I like to think that if this whole University course ends up falling through, or leaving me with no options, or Deal Or No Deal doesn't accept my application, or it does but when I get there I don't get my hundred grand, then at least I could try my hand at cooking.
Maybe not professionally, mind. That whole 'yes chef, no chef, three haggises full chef' malarkey, where Gordon Ramsay ends up saying the f word just because he fuckin' feels like it would probably get me down after a short while. But if I managed to end up in a Greasy Spoon somewhere, making tried-and-tested breakfasts for construction workers, et cetera, it wouldn't be the most terrible thing to me. Because right now, I know terrible. Terrible is sitting in front of the TV, watching people making the perfect duck à l'orange with glazed carrots and dauphinoise potatoes and other such things that sound really fancy while I'm chowing down on my third packet of Super Noodles of the day (and my sixteenth packet of the week).
So there. There's opposites. There's me, sat in a pokey little flat boiling a kettle for a living, versus the chefs working some amazing culinary processes on the best cuts of meat imaginable. I guess you could say that's more juxtaposition, or contrasting, but for the purposes of this little (well, I say 'little') rant about nothing in particular, I'm going to call it opposites. So there we have it. Opposites like chilli and chocolate complement each other, opposites like braised beef and wafer-thin ham make you feel terrible.
I suppose you could say they're opposites.
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