I spent most of last night (I say "last night", it was really 1am, thus, early today, but for the sake of now existing in a totally different stream of consciousness, what is technically today will henceforth be known as "last night") reading over a bunch of my older posts on this 'ere incarnation of my inner thoughts and that. As it happens, there are seventy-nine of them (well, eighty now with this), and I seem to have a knack for mis-spelling words, leaving words out, missing grammar, missing spaces, and all that kinda crap that I generally hate and usually complain about when other people do them. These seem to be mere instances of human error; after all, you'd probably accidently end up adding an extra "o" to "to" to make "too" and looking foolish because of it if you typed a thousand-or-so words off the top of your head. I, however, refuse to believe I'm clumsy or stupid and put the whole thing down to lack of proof-reading before posting. Mainly because why would you want to read a thousand-or-so words you just expelled from your brain? There's no point putting them back in there.
Therefore, as an eightieth post extravaganza, I'm using this to let you know that I'm going through the entire lot for what I suppose I'll call (with no thought or prior planning going into this) the Grand Proof-Read of 2011. It'll probably take whole hours to complete such a task, maybe even days. It will involve me going back to the very beginning (of this one, I used to have other blog places that I posted about twice in and never bothered with again) and reliving the last two years-or-so of my life with cringing hindsight and bad grammar related tutting in an effort to get everything all ship-shape and updated.
You know, just in case you felt like checking the archives. Which you don't. Because you're an ass. Because you have your own life and you think yourself more important than anyone to take any interest in anyone else, you selfish bastard. So yeah, I'm gonna go back in time to do my best to make myself look good.
Friday, 26 August 2011
Saturday, 20 August 2011
300 People In My Living Room
The world is a mighty confusing place. So much so that this particular rant should've technically been written some three days ago, but at the time, I had nothing to say on the subject and yesterday afternoon's "hunger and loneliness" vibes proved too strong to be shunned. Anyway, I was going to write this thing with regard to myself (in the company of friends, of course, I'm not that much of a miserable loner) venturing to a cinema to watch The Inbetweeners Movie. However, I'm not going to talk about that. Mainly because every other fucker on the face of the Earth who's gone to see it (which apparently seems to be every other fucker on the face of the Earth) has already spouted off about how 'awesome' it was, and how 'amazin'' it was, and how 'ded funni' it was and blah-fucking-blah. So instead, I'll have a wee moan about that instead. This is more about my whole cinema viewing experience, rather than that a review of a film, for two reasons: (1) I find the whole cinema experience much more exciting to write about, and (2) I don't do film reviews. Why does anyone write film reviews, by the way? Correction. Why does anyone who think they can write film reviews write film reviews? Honestly, I've read a bunch and it feels like torture. Like some kind of fanboy 'OMGZ dis film woz well gud, yeahzzz' that any 5-year-old would probably cringe at. So yeah, fuck reviews. (Noticed I'm saying "fuck" a lot... apparently I'm agitated by this and haven't fucking started yet!)
The cinema experience began after 9pm for the ticket purchasing ceremony, although this was preceded by the procession of waiting your turn. By the time the booth people were able to take my money, the next available showing time transpired to be bordering on midnight. This allowed time for snacks and beverages in a nearby bar, but meant that it'd virtually be 2am before I'd see the credits roll. The joys of sleep deprivation. Watching an entire film in a darkened room with itchy, strained eyes just adds to the uniqueness of the experience. The people were a bit odd too. I mean, afterwards, someone told me they found it a bit odd watching The Inbetweeners on a big screen because they weren't used to it, but in that respect, I should really be notifying people that upon my recent purchase of a new 26-inch TV, to replace my little square TV-video-combi thing I've had since age twelve, I started to find it easier to read rolling news tickers and I was confused at how Deal Or No Deal's boxes had suddenly grown massive. I could kind of see what they were getting at, though. I never watched the show avidly, but have found it to be of light entertainment value whenever it's been on. Humorous moments have provided a small chuckle from me to myself as the only one in the room. Sometimes there have been one or two others in the room with me and small chuckles have emanated from each mouth and disappeared a second later. In a crowded, sell-out cinema screen, however, the chuckles amassed and reverberated for minutes longer than was absolutely necessary, giving the whole thing the feeling of there being over 300 people in my living room. And while everyone was too busy laughing at one joke, they missed at least seventeen new utterances that could've contained more joke. Defeated the whole point, really.
Special mention goes to the dumb-fuck sat behind me at the point when, SPOILER ALERT, one girl kisses one guy to make another guy jealous or something teenagery like that. We see lingering shots of her looking at the one she's trying to jealousise (is that a word? Fuck it, it is now!) and reaction shots from him too. Cue the idiot in the chair behind mine, with a genuine sense of "I know something nobody else knows" cleverness, a good 18 seconds after the scene ended: 'oh she was only doing that to make the other guy jealous'. Congratulations. Here's a crash helmet and some armbands. Try not to fuck yourself up too much during your stay on the planet.
Somehow, though, I can't help feeling I'm missing something, because this movie was essentially a spin-off from a TV show, and a very short one at that. So why is everybody cacking their pants about it? The Inbetweeners has existed for three series', each at a total of six episodes, essentially amounting to a total of eighteen half-hour episodes. In comparison, Black Books, which I've recently started watching, produced exactly the same amount of episodes and lasted exactly the same amount of time. Where's the Black Books Movie?!?! And where's all the hype for it? And where's all the love for it? And etc. and all that. For Christ's sake, The Inbetweeners never even had its first run on a main channel! It first blinked into existence on digital channel E4. Although, saying that now does feel a bit redundant since the whole country's practically gone digital. Let's face it, the issue of analogue versus digital channels only affects you if you're elderly or reading this in 1986, which, considering you're reading this a whole 25 years before it's actually been written, is nothing short of miraculous.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not slating The Inbetweeners. I'm just saying I don't understand the hype. To me it's a piece of light entertainment youth comedy blah blah with a few points where it seems to lack a certain something special. But that's it. It's not God. It's not the greatest thing ever to grace the history of human existence. It's just a nice piece of filler-TV. Stop hyping it so much!
Altogether, in my non-professional, non-film reviewy review of not a film, I'd give the film four mundane looking asterisks. * * * * . Look. There they are in all their ordinaryness. Ahhh, it's almost like M*A*S*H without the letters, or they could be used to cover up every time I've mentioned the word "fuck" in this thing, the number of which just so happens to be ten.
The cinema experience began after 9pm for the ticket purchasing ceremony, although this was preceded by the procession of waiting your turn. By the time the booth people were able to take my money, the next available showing time transpired to be bordering on midnight. This allowed time for snacks and beverages in a nearby bar, but meant that it'd virtually be 2am before I'd see the credits roll. The joys of sleep deprivation. Watching an entire film in a darkened room with itchy, strained eyes just adds to the uniqueness of the experience. The people were a bit odd too. I mean, afterwards, someone told me they found it a bit odd watching The Inbetweeners on a big screen because they weren't used to it, but in that respect, I should really be notifying people that upon my recent purchase of a new 26-inch TV, to replace my little square TV-video-combi thing I've had since age twelve, I started to find it easier to read rolling news tickers and I was confused at how Deal Or No Deal's boxes had suddenly grown massive. I could kind of see what they were getting at, though. I never watched the show avidly, but have found it to be of light entertainment value whenever it's been on. Humorous moments have provided a small chuckle from me to myself as the only one in the room. Sometimes there have been one or two others in the room with me and small chuckles have emanated from each mouth and disappeared a second later. In a crowded, sell-out cinema screen, however, the chuckles amassed and reverberated for minutes longer than was absolutely necessary, giving the whole thing the feeling of there being over 300 people in my living room. And while everyone was too busy laughing at one joke, they missed at least seventeen new utterances that could've contained more joke. Defeated the whole point, really.
Special mention goes to the dumb-fuck sat behind me at the point when, SPOILER ALERT, one girl kisses one guy to make another guy jealous or something teenagery like that. We see lingering shots of her looking at the one she's trying to jealousise (is that a word? Fuck it, it is now!) and reaction shots from him too. Cue the idiot in the chair behind mine, with a genuine sense of "I know something nobody else knows" cleverness, a good 18 seconds after the scene ended: 'oh she was only doing that to make the other guy jealous'. Congratulations. Here's a crash helmet and some armbands. Try not to fuck yourself up too much during your stay on the planet.
Somehow, though, I can't help feeling I'm missing something, because this movie was essentially a spin-off from a TV show, and a very short one at that. So why is everybody cacking their pants about it? The Inbetweeners has existed for three series', each at a total of six episodes, essentially amounting to a total of eighteen half-hour episodes. In comparison, Black Books, which I've recently started watching, produced exactly the same amount of episodes and lasted exactly the same amount of time. Where's the Black Books Movie?!?! And where's all the hype for it? And where's all the love for it? And etc. and all that. For Christ's sake, The Inbetweeners never even had its first run on a main channel! It first blinked into existence on digital channel E4. Although, saying that now does feel a bit redundant since the whole country's practically gone digital. Let's face it, the issue of analogue versus digital channels only affects you if you're elderly or reading this in 1986, which, considering you're reading this a whole 25 years before it's actually been written, is nothing short of miraculous.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not slating The Inbetweeners. I'm just saying I don't understand the hype. To me it's a piece of light entertainment youth comedy blah blah with a few points where it seems to lack a certain something special. But that's it. It's not God. It's not the greatest thing ever to grace the history of human existence. It's just a nice piece of filler-TV. Stop hyping it so much!
Altogether, in my non-professional, non-film reviewy review of not a film, I'd give the film four mundane looking asterisks. * * * * . Look. There they are in all their ordinaryness. Ahhh, it's almost like M*A*S*H without the letters, or they could be used to cover up every time I've mentioned the word "fuck" in this thing, the number of which just so happens to be ten.
Friday, 19 August 2011
Things Single People Tell Themselves
I made dinner three-and-a-half hours ago and I still haven't eaten it. That said, I ate half of it originally and will, soon after finishing this, have to resort to entrusting the microwave to cook it again for me. In the time in between then and now I've had a shower, writhed around in pain and read part of a book. This has led me to come here and talk about my feelings and whatnot; mostly feelings of internal pain that start in the head (as your typical headache), continue down my back (as your typical strains of manual labour) and stomach owwies (because I've barely eaten for days, hence why I could only manage half a chicken pie accompanied with half a Pot Noodle). Not just this, however, as my current emotional state at this time, coupled with one or two articles in Charlie Brooker's The Hell Of It All what I just read, have put on the biggest downer I've known for years. I think it's fair to say that whenever the time comes that I lie on my deathbed, squinting into the bright light emanating from a doorway, haloing a silhouetted figure who's beckoning me to depart this plane, or squinting into the bright lights of a speeding motorist coming towards me (whichever wants to come first) and my brain does that thing of showing me all the stand-out moments of my life gone by, like a "Best Bits" montage of my stay here on Earth accompanied by a remixed version of Lady GaGa's Born This Way, I can imagine looking back on this point of my life as being a bit of a crap one.
Enough of my future death. Let's back up to now, shall we? Earlier today, I read a certain polemic written by Charlie Brooker (whose style of writing I'm absolutely not copying, but merely gaining inspiration and creative freedom from, you morons) some two years ago. In it, he went on about not having a wife, partner or potential love interest at all, and the whole article went something along the lines of "blah blah, go away world, blah blah, love's overrated, everything's complicated with other people involved, wahh wahh, we should all marry robots or something". Obviously I'm paraphrasing but you get the general idea. Being involved in a romantic relationship is stupid and only idiots fall in love, except they're not in love with the other person but instead in love with the idea of being in love with someone or at least the fact that there's somebody else there to share in the misery of their ongoing existence and all those kinda things single people tell themselves to make themselves feel less bitter.
Lately, and for probably more than a year now, I've been able to quell the shrieks of neverending loneliness and such and have been able to get on with the other good things in life such as... erm... well... not really caring much about the fact that I'm lonely, and to be honest, it's actually worked. And yes, it has worked. I know this because around a week ago or something (I'm not too good with exact timings), one of my close friends announced the beginning of a new romantic relationship. It was at that point that two things hit me:
The first is the one that's always hit me whenever a close friend has entered into a romantic relationship, wherein my internal monologue glances to the left and says "Hey. (insert name of whoever's applicable at the time) has a girlfriend. Why don't I have a girlfriend? I should have a girlfriend! Hell, I'm better than (insert name of whoever's applicable at the time). What does (insert name of whoever's applicable at the time) have that I don't?" and so on. Therefore, not only do I judge myself on a 'loser' scale, but also end up comparing myself to someone I'm close to, belittling them in an attempt to make me feel better about myself, which ultimately doesn't work since I'm (a) actively trying to think negatively about people I'm fond of, and (b) when I do start to think badly of them, the fact that they've still managed to enter into a relationship with someone else before me makes me feel even worse than that.
Secondly comes what I like to call "odd-wheel syndrome". Of course, everybody knows the expression of being "third-wheel". For example, I have one friend. Me and friend play happily together. Yay, etc. Friend becomes involved with another, they spend more time together. I am forgotten about, except for the few times I'm remembered, but whenever me and friend play together from now on, friend always invites another. Friend and another spend all time together. I am forgotten about despite being in the same room. This has happened to me a fair few times before in life, so much so that I've been more than just the third wheel, but have stretched to fifth and even seventh wheel at certain times. I pretty much become unnecessary and roll away. I've spoke to this close friend of mine about both of these loneliness reminders falling upon me and even got to the point where I couldn't even muster up the words to say I felt happy for him. Why? Because I didn't. Christ if I can't feel happy for myself at any one time, how can I feel happy for anyone else? The best I could do for him was a mock-celebratory 'woop-woop' and a moderately enthusiastic 'yeah... go you!'
The fact that both of these ideas hit me at once proved to me how little thought I'd given to my desires for romance over the last few years at least and now all those banked, unused thoughts and feelings are coming out in the form of words. Luckily, I feel as though I've managed to harness the power of words into this rambling, shambling format where I just go 'AARRRGGHHH' about stuff then click publish, rather than writing depressing poetry in a darkened room with my hair covering one eye. Mostly that's because poetry's not really my forte and I had a haircut recently, however it is starting to get dark outside.
I have a few friends who are a bit hippie and psychic, which is a demeaning way of saying they're in touch with their spiritual side. They pick up on people's moods based on instinct and intuition, they talk to stones and probably relax by playing Solitaire with a standard Tarot deck. They probably laugh in the face of a magic 8-ball and communicate with spirits on another plane of existence without having to close their eyes, pull a contorted face and shudder violently like they've just done several shots of Wray & Nephew's White Rum... you know, like TV "spiritual mediums" do. Anyway, they assure me that things could soon be on the up with regards to my romantic life, but after being told the same thing for years I seem to have developed cynicism on that front. One, however, did tell me - through the means of instinctively picking up on my soul and analysing my personality traits - that I have so much love inside of me to give to all, and that I agree with. I have much love inside of me for those who deserve it. Mainly myself, a select few friends, one or two family members and Karen Gillan off Doctor Who (all for very different reasons). However, after the horrible re-awakening of my loneliness, I've found it difficult to continue playing The Love Fountain and apparently it's given me backache.
Anyway, I still have stomach pains and half a dinner to re-heat.
Enough of my future death. Let's back up to now, shall we? Earlier today, I read a certain polemic written by Charlie Brooker (whose style of writing I'm absolutely not copying, but merely gaining inspiration and creative freedom from, you morons) some two years ago. In it, he went on about not having a wife, partner or potential love interest at all, and the whole article went something along the lines of "blah blah, go away world, blah blah, love's overrated, everything's complicated with other people involved, wahh wahh, we should all marry robots or something". Obviously I'm paraphrasing but you get the general idea. Being involved in a romantic relationship is stupid and only idiots fall in love, except they're not in love with the other person but instead in love with the idea of being in love with someone or at least the fact that there's somebody else there to share in the misery of their ongoing existence and all those kinda things single people tell themselves to make themselves feel less bitter.
Lately, and for probably more than a year now, I've been able to quell the shrieks of neverending loneliness and such and have been able to get on with the other good things in life such as... erm... well... not really caring much about the fact that I'm lonely, and to be honest, it's actually worked. And yes, it has worked. I know this because around a week ago or something (I'm not too good with exact timings), one of my close friends announced the beginning of a new romantic relationship. It was at that point that two things hit me:
The first is the one that's always hit me whenever a close friend has entered into a romantic relationship, wherein my internal monologue glances to the left and says "Hey. (insert name of whoever's applicable at the time) has a girlfriend. Why don't I have a girlfriend? I should have a girlfriend! Hell, I'm better than (insert name of whoever's applicable at the time). What does (insert name of whoever's applicable at the time) have that I don't?" and so on. Therefore, not only do I judge myself on a 'loser' scale, but also end up comparing myself to someone I'm close to, belittling them in an attempt to make me feel better about myself, which ultimately doesn't work since I'm (a) actively trying to think negatively about people I'm fond of, and (b) when I do start to think badly of them, the fact that they've still managed to enter into a relationship with someone else before me makes me feel even worse than that.
Secondly comes what I like to call "odd-wheel syndrome". Of course, everybody knows the expression of being "third-wheel". For example, I have one friend. Me and friend play happily together. Yay, etc. Friend becomes involved with another, they spend more time together. I am forgotten about, except for the few times I'm remembered, but whenever me and friend play together from now on, friend always invites another. Friend and another spend all time together. I am forgotten about despite being in the same room. This has happened to me a fair few times before in life, so much so that I've been more than just the third wheel, but have stretched to fifth and even seventh wheel at certain times. I pretty much become unnecessary and roll away. I've spoke to this close friend of mine about both of these loneliness reminders falling upon me and even got to the point where I couldn't even muster up the words to say I felt happy for him. Why? Because I didn't. Christ if I can't feel happy for myself at any one time, how can I feel happy for anyone else? The best I could do for him was a mock-celebratory 'woop-woop' and a moderately enthusiastic 'yeah... go you!'
The fact that both of these ideas hit me at once proved to me how little thought I'd given to my desires for romance over the last few years at least and now all those banked, unused thoughts and feelings are coming out in the form of words. Luckily, I feel as though I've managed to harness the power of words into this rambling, shambling format where I just go 'AARRRGGHHH' about stuff then click publish, rather than writing depressing poetry in a darkened room with my hair covering one eye. Mostly that's because poetry's not really my forte and I had a haircut recently, however it is starting to get dark outside.
I have a few friends who are a bit hippie and psychic, which is a demeaning way of saying they're in touch with their spiritual side. They pick up on people's moods based on instinct and intuition, they talk to stones and probably relax by playing Solitaire with a standard Tarot deck. They probably laugh in the face of a magic 8-ball and communicate with spirits on another plane of existence without having to close their eyes, pull a contorted face and shudder violently like they've just done several shots of Wray & Nephew's White Rum... you know, like TV "spiritual mediums" do. Anyway, they assure me that things could soon be on the up with regards to my romantic life, but after being told the same thing for years I seem to have developed cynicism on that front. One, however, did tell me - through the means of instinctively picking up on my soul and analysing my personality traits - that I have so much love inside of me to give to all, and that I agree with. I have much love inside of me for those who deserve it. Mainly myself, a select few friends, one or two family members and Karen Gillan off Doctor Who (all for very different reasons). However, after the horrible re-awakening of my loneliness, I've found it difficult to continue playing The Love Fountain and apparently it's given me backache.
Anyway, I still have stomach pains and half a dinner to re-heat.
As a wee amendment, I'd like to add that 24 hours on from this, I walked into the path of an oncoming car without realising. Seems that mode of death is more likely than letting myself just tick away. And for the record, my iPod, whilst in shuffle mode at the time, apparently decided that Marina And The Diamonds' "I Am Not A Robot" is much more likely to accompany my Best Bits.
Friday, 12 August 2011
I Joined The Mob
So it's finally happened. I have become one of "them". I swore I'd never get sucked into such a world of corruption and devastation and what is frankly unnecessary. But I just couldn't help myself. During the great UK riots of August 2011, I joined the mob. I became a Twitter user.
That's right. I actually "tweeted". And not the stupid pointless doesn't-make-any-sense-but-I'll-put-it-anyway-in-an-attempt-at-being-ironic tweets (for example: 'Made up a joke about batteries before, but have come to realise it doesn't work when typed, thus rendering this lot of words pointless.' and 'green lantern is green') that I told myself I'd only ever use it, sparingly, for. No. In the space of one night I practically doubled - and then some - my total amount of "tweets" with a bunch of shit regarding what was happening in correlation with current events. Some were vague attempts at humour ('did I just see someone whacking a sea bass against a the window of a Ladbrokes?'), others were vacant reactions to news developments ('Apparently Camden Market is now burning. This angers and infuriates me.'). Most, if not all, of them included #hashtags. Sometimes even ###multiplehashtags because the attention-seeking bastard monster inside of me wanted to be noticed. Sadly, no attention was given to any of my words and the monster has retreated back inside of me (for now) to have a little cry and remember a time when B*Witched were popular.
But on the subject of the UK riots, which, quite frankly, is a lie (and a lie that BBC News kept ramming through my telly-screen for a solid day until they realised that Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the smattering of other islands what the Queen looks after didn't want to join in with all the madness and eventually had to resort to telling the truth since the only places that people felt the need to take stuff and burn places existed solely on English turf), I must say I found the whole thing oddly surreal. Watching parts of London burning was less like watching an episode of London's Burning and more like watching some apocalyptic disaster movie. Unlike an apocalyptic disaster movie, however, it seemed to go on longer than two hours and largely consisted of the same live shot with no fast-paced edits where we cut to different camera angles of the burning buildings, crowd reactions of people standing in the streets looking upwards with mouths open in unison and pointing, and one man in a skin-tight, pastel coloured uniform running through the streets at break-neck speed on his way to "save the day". Instead, it took a while for me to realise that this was "real" and the stuff on TV was "really happening". Later on, things started looking like some horror-movie with zombies, but not the slow zombies of the 80s, complete with incoherent moans and bits of limbs comically falling off and landing on the ground with a soft thump. No. This is the 21st century and the zombies are faster and cleverer and filled with a riotous energy, not stopping at anything until they get to feast on the living flesh they want. Except these zombies wanted not flesh, but electronic goods. The fact that the phenomenon spread across the country the way it did added to that sense of this whole thing being a movie-adaptation of "What if society went really bad?", but the more it went on, the more reality pounded the crap out of the movie-ness thoughts, leading us to try dealing with the fact that "Shit, guys! Society went really bad!"
Luckily for me, most of the absurdity happened on Monday night, which meant I could stay up and follow the events since I didn't have to work on Tuesday. Therefore I managed to remain in a state of awareness and constant consciousness until pretty much 6am, when the breakfast news people started and my brain stopped. But all through the early hours, my constant desire for news updates grew and grew as the news updates themselves started to dwindle. My one source of constant refreshing during this time, therefore, existed in the form of the one website I vowed to myself years ago not to become involved with. Now, as I type this, my current total of tweets sits at 54. FIFTY-FOUR! Christ, I've only had the thing one month, I should be somewhere around 2... 3 at the very most. I never expected to be up to 54 until I was approaching 82! Evidently, my embracing of Twitter appears to be just the next thing in a long line of fads I never really liked to begin with but apparently somewhere along the way have subconsciously decided "well, if you can't beat them, reluctantly begin to join them in a few years against your own will".
Don't be surprised if I end up taking to the streets in a black tracksuit with a hood over my head, scarf over my face, a lighter in one hand and basebat bat in the other because I want a new mobile phone sometime in 2016.
That's right. I actually "tweeted". And not the stupid pointless doesn't-make-any-sense-but-I'll-put-it-anyway-in-an-attempt-at-being-ironic tweets (for example: 'Made up a joke about batteries before, but have come to realise it doesn't work when typed, thus rendering this lot of words pointless.' and 'green lantern is green') that I told myself I'd only ever use it, sparingly, for. No. In the space of one night I practically doubled - and then some - my total amount of "tweets" with a bunch of shit regarding what was happening in correlation with current events. Some were vague attempts at humour ('did I just see someone whacking a sea bass against a the window of a Ladbrokes?'), others were vacant reactions to news developments ('Apparently Camden Market is now burning. This angers and infuriates me.'). Most, if not all, of them included #hashtags. Sometimes even ###multiplehashtags because the attention-seeking bastard monster inside of me wanted to be noticed. Sadly, no attention was given to any of my words and the monster has retreated back inside of me (for now) to have a little cry and remember a time when B*Witched were popular.
But on the subject of the UK riots, which, quite frankly, is a lie (and a lie that BBC News kept ramming through my telly-screen for a solid day until they realised that Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the smattering of other islands what the Queen looks after didn't want to join in with all the madness and eventually had to resort to telling the truth since the only places that people felt the need to take stuff and burn places existed solely on English turf), I must say I found the whole thing oddly surreal. Watching parts of London burning was less like watching an episode of London's Burning and more like watching some apocalyptic disaster movie. Unlike an apocalyptic disaster movie, however, it seemed to go on longer than two hours and largely consisted of the same live shot with no fast-paced edits where we cut to different camera angles of the burning buildings, crowd reactions of people standing in the streets looking upwards with mouths open in unison and pointing, and one man in a skin-tight, pastel coloured uniform running through the streets at break-neck speed on his way to "save the day". Instead, it took a while for me to realise that this was "real" and the stuff on TV was "really happening". Later on, things started looking like some horror-movie with zombies, but not the slow zombies of the 80s, complete with incoherent moans and bits of limbs comically falling off and landing on the ground with a soft thump. No. This is the 21st century and the zombies are faster and cleverer and filled with a riotous energy, not stopping at anything until they get to feast on the living flesh they want. Except these zombies wanted not flesh, but electronic goods. The fact that the phenomenon spread across the country the way it did added to that sense of this whole thing being a movie-adaptation of "What if society went really bad?", but the more it went on, the more reality pounded the crap out of the movie-ness thoughts, leading us to try dealing with the fact that "Shit, guys! Society went really bad!"
Luckily for me, most of the absurdity happened on Monday night, which meant I could stay up and follow the events since I didn't have to work on Tuesday. Therefore I managed to remain in a state of awareness and constant consciousness until pretty much 6am, when the breakfast news people started and my brain stopped. But all through the early hours, my constant desire for news updates grew and grew as the news updates themselves started to dwindle. My one source of constant refreshing during this time, therefore, existed in the form of the one website I vowed to myself years ago not to become involved with. Now, as I type this, my current total of tweets sits at 54. FIFTY-FOUR! Christ, I've only had the thing one month, I should be somewhere around 2... 3 at the very most. I never expected to be up to 54 until I was approaching 82! Evidently, my embracing of Twitter appears to be just the next thing in a long line of fads I never really liked to begin with but apparently somewhere along the way have subconsciously decided "well, if you can't beat them, reluctantly begin to join them in a few years against your own will".
Don't be surprised if I end up taking to the streets in a black tracksuit with a hood over my head, scarf over my face, a lighter in one hand and basebat bat in the other because I want a new mobile phone sometime in 2016.
Friday, 22 July 2011
Decorum
Did you come here expecting a self indulgent rant about the state of society? Then come on in! Take a seat. No, not like that! Sit up straight, hands in your lap and be quiet while I'm talking. Goodness, you people really have no manners, do you? Well actually, chances are that you're sat there silently as you read this anyway so I won't accuse you of being rude. The rest of the world, on the other hand, might as well sprout legs and take a running leap into the Sun itself. The following takes place between 18:47 and 19:47 on whatever date it was yesterday...
As it stands, I've more-or-less accepted that people are idiots. By that I mean, even though I don't see the resemblance other than the fact that I'm ginger, people (or "idiots") seem to be obsessed with comparing me to him what plays the ginger one in the Harry Potter movie franchise. Apparently the fact that I wear rectangular glasses, have a lack of facial hair and sound slightly more Scouse than my movie-making doppelgänger seems lost on people. They might as well approach me with 'Hey, has anyone ever told you that you're ginger?' Not only is this completely fucking pointless, but it gets even more excruciatingly boring with each mention.
Naturally, living where I've lived, and where I currently happen to be residing in a limbo state right now, the folks have no decorum. If there is, in fact, a Pleasantness Fairy scattering her Peace, Love and Harmony Dust across the land, I can't help but shake the feeling she forgot about this place. Either that or she took one look at us and thought she wouldn't even bother wasting it on us for all the difference it wouldn't make. As I embarked a train with the sounds of an iPod deep in my ears, I happened to walk past and sit a few "sets-of-four-seats" away from a group of young females. You can imagine the type: Scouse, about fifteen years old but look like 10-year-olds trying to look like whores. I imagine myself as a better person to them for even though I bear such thoughts about them, I've not physically shouted them out in the public domain, in close proximity to them, speaking as if they're not actually there. They, however, did. Even though I had musics in my ears, the loudness of a typical dumbass will always overcome it. Of course, I had to mute the bloody thing to gauge the full extent (or rather limited range) of vocabulary that such idiots are able to use. You may think 'Why would you mute the music but still have earphones in to spy on what people are saying? That just makes you seem worried', but unless you've grown up where I've grown up and developed what I can only call "Harry Potter induced paranoia" over the last ten years then I'll probably answer you. Much to my surprise, my suspicions proved true as, at the moment of pause, miniature whore number two spake the words: 'He can't hear you, he's got earphones in'. This is not a good example of decorum.
I'd been contemplating whether or not to stop for Chinese food on the way home and the idiot whores had pretty much confirmed my decision. (By the way, sorry I keep referring to them as "idiots" and "whores", but in honour of the subject matter I'm choosing to lack creativity and force a limited vocabulary on myself. It's Hell.) My endeavours in a local Chinese takeaway didn't do much to boost my already flagging self esteem. After deciding upon my dinner of the evening, I waited patiently for my turn. In comes a couple and the Keeper of the Chips approaches them. In any normal, civilised situation, where manners and decorum exist, this couple would turn to me and say something along the lines of 'I'm sorry, this gentleman was here first'. Instead, I obviously forgot my whereabouts, being on that side of town (where it's even worse, if you can dare to put your brain through imagining) and instead the couple's response was a heavily Scouse-ified 'Eeerrrm yeah, twenty portions of chips, large, pleeeease, and eeerrrm a pie dinn-, no, three pie dinners, an' a can o' dietsss cokkhh, pleeeease.' (That wasn't actually what they ordered, but it's what I imagine they did because my brain was too busy saying 'bastards cut in front of me' *hypothetical shocked face*). Furthermore, the Chinese lady behind the counter went on to deny my existence by asking for orders from more people behind them. I'd suddenly become not just invisible, but non-existent.
After finally getting the food I wanted, I proceeded to power walk home, thinking things couldn't get any more preposterous. I noticed an annoying spot in my direct line of vision all of a sudden and went on to find that a fly had decided to land right on the right lens of my glasses. Even the flies have no manners here.
I intended to flick the fly away, but I'm not sure if it was a lack of accuracy or my outrage at the state of humanity itself, but landing on my glasses was the last thing that fly would ever do. My inaccurate flick resulted in it not being flicked away, but all of its internals being flicked across the lens, resulting in me having to waste more effort in wiping the damn thing clean.
Anyway, I ate the Chinese food, watched TV, stayed in bed all night and now I'm telling you here that I have much more respect, compassion and sympathy for abnormally-looking elderly gentlemen in wheelchairs.
As it stands, I've more-or-less accepted that people are idiots. By that I mean, even though I don't see the resemblance other than the fact that I'm ginger, people (or "idiots") seem to be obsessed with comparing me to him what plays the ginger one in the Harry Potter movie franchise. Apparently the fact that I wear rectangular glasses, have a lack of facial hair and sound slightly more Scouse than my movie-making doppelgänger seems lost on people. They might as well approach me with 'Hey, has anyone ever told you that you're ginger?' Not only is this completely fucking pointless, but it gets even more excruciatingly boring with each mention.
For example: Imagine an elderly man in a wheelchair. Now let's see some sample conversation. Well, I say conversation... it's actually the words of Joe Public.
'Hi there. You know, has anyone ever told you you're old and immobile? Just thought you might like to know; wasn't sure if it'd been brought to your attention before.'
Naturally, living where I've lived, and where I currently happen to be residing in a limbo state right now, the folks have no decorum. If there is, in fact, a Pleasantness Fairy scattering her Peace, Love and Harmony Dust across the land, I can't help but shake the feeling she forgot about this place. Either that or she took one look at us and thought she wouldn't even bother wasting it on us for all the difference it wouldn't make. As I embarked a train with the sounds of an iPod deep in my ears, I happened to walk past and sit a few "sets-of-four-seats" away from a group of young females. You can imagine the type: Scouse, about fifteen years old but look like 10-year-olds trying to look like whores. I imagine myself as a better person to them for even though I bear such thoughts about them, I've not physically shouted them out in the public domain, in close proximity to them, speaking as if they're not actually there. They, however, did. Even though I had musics in my ears, the loudness of a typical dumbass will always overcome it. Of course, I had to mute the bloody thing to gauge the full extent (or rather limited range) of vocabulary that such idiots are able to use. You may think 'Why would you mute the music but still have earphones in to spy on what people are saying? That just makes you seem worried', but unless you've grown up where I've grown up and developed what I can only call "Harry Potter induced paranoia" over the last ten years then I'll probably answer you. Much to my surprise, my suspicions proved true as, at the moment of pause, miniature whore number two spake the words: 'He can't hear you, he's got earphones in'. This is not a good example of decorum.
For example: Imagine, once again, our elderly man in the wheelchair. He has a somewhat disfigured face and a hearing aid in each ear. Commence the words of whores.
'Heehee, look. Freaky old man. Urr, his face is all wrong. Oi! Freaky old man! Freaky old man? Hellooo? Oi! Heehee, freaky old man! Ey, freaky o- Oh, he can't hear us, he's deaf. Ah well, hellooo?! Freaky old man!!!'
I'd been contemplating whether or not to stop for Chinese food on the way home and the idiot whores had pretty much confirmed my decision. (By the way, sorry I keep referring to them as "idiots" and "whores", but in honour of the subject matter I'm choosing to lack creativity and force a limited vocabulary on myself. It's Hell.) My endeavours in a local Chinese takeaway didn't do much to boost my already flagging self esteem. After deciding upon my dinner of the evening, I waited patiently for my turn. In comes a couple and the Keeper of the Chips approaches them. In any normal, civilised situation, where manners and decorum exist, this couple would turn to me and say something along the lines of 'I'm sorry, this gentleman was here first'. Instead, I obviously forgot my whereabouts, being on that side of town (where it's even worse, if you can dare to put your brain through imagining) and instead the couple's response was a heavily Scouse-ified 'Eeerrrm yeah, twenty portions of chips, large, pleeeease, and eeerrrm a pie dinn-, no, three pie dinners, an' a can o' dietsss cokkhh, pleeeease.' (That wasn't actually what they ordered, but it's what I imagine they did because my brain was too busy saying 'bastards cut in front of me' *hypothetical shocked face*). Furthermore, the Chinese lady behind the counter went on to deny my existence by asking for orders from more people behind them. I'd suddenly become not just invisible, but non-existent.
For example: Imagine, again, the deaf elderly man in the wheelchair with his "freaky" face. The Chinese food merchant thinks on the job.
'Right, who am I going to serve next? Someone who's already here? Oh, no, what a freak old man he is. I don't want to serve him, he could infect me with weird-face or immobility or something... I WANT TO LIVE, DAMMIT! Oooh, people just through the door... "Can I take your order please?"'
After finally getting the food I wanted, I proceeded to power walk home, thinking things couldn't get any more preposterous. I noticed an annoying spot in my direct line of vision all of a sudden and went on to find that a fly had decided to land right on the right lens of my glasses. Even the flies have no manners here.
For example: Deaf elderly man, wheelchair, face falling off. Internal fly thoughts.
'Wizz-wizz-wizz, ooh I'm a fly. What a wonderful life it is for a fly. Gee, I could do with a rest. I think I'll go and land somewhere. Somewhere glassy and shiny, yes that'll do. I'm in the mood to land somewhere shiny. Hey, over there, that looks quite shiny. On that old guy's face. Looks like his eye, though. Nah, can't be his eye, it's halfway down his fuckin' face. Think I'll go and land on it.'
I intended to flick the fly away, but I'm not sure if it was a lack of accuracy or my outrage at the state of humanity itself, but landing on my glasses was the last thing that fly would ever do. My inaccurate flick resulted in it not being flicked away, but all of its internals being flicked across the lens, resulting in me having to waste more effort in wiping the damn thing clean.
Anyway, I ate the Chinese food, watched TV, stayed in bed all night and now I'm telling you here that I have much more respect, compassion and sympathy for abnormally-looking elderly gentlemen in wheelchairs.
Monday, 11 July 2011
A House Of Optimism
Have you been injured at work? I haven't, although I do come away from the place suffering aches and pains after constant hours of manual labour. Maybe it's because I've been away from the glamorous world of discount retail for just over nine months and I've gotten used to lazy weekends filled with freedom and me time and doing whatever the Hell it is I want to do. Mostly nothing, but it's been nice to have the option. As of two days ago, however, I've been back to the fluorescent light emporium for the purposes of trying to have money as a student who doesn't know any better, and for each of those two days, I've left the place and come home feeling like my spine's had a run-in with a baseball bat and my feet have been stabbed numerous times by a croquet mallet... and I don't even know how that would work. I suppose I never noticed the life-diminishing pain and agony before because I'd simply "gotten used to it", but now it's nine lazy months on, and I've got a lot of pain to make up for.
If you've ever worked in retail, you'll know the feeling. You'll know how your place of employment is essentially a soul-crushing factory line disguised as a house of optimism. "Good morning, and how are you this fine day, dear citizen?" beam the faces of the company. The voices of the masses, however, often seem gruff, confused, loud, and every fourth word is 'fuck'. That last one was even picked up on by another customer, who I assume "isn't from round here" and noted what a lovely town this is where 'every word is a swear word'. True story. Maybe it's just prevalent where I'm located, which would make sense since, after nearly a year away, I'm suddenly seeing how the rest of the country sees the Scouse accent. Honestly, the amount of 12-14 year olds who've been about this last weekend with mouths and voices and words-that-don't-really-sound-like-words-but-rather-a-continuous-stream-of-noise has been immense; half of them sound like they've just eaten Cilla Black, John Bishop and Sonia for breakfast, washing it all down with 57 cigarettes and a kazoo. The sad thing is I'm still able to understand fluent Scouse.
Fortunately, I've not had to deal with the typical, monolexical attitude of some. You know the ones, the ones who approach from behind unannounced and throw a single word at you and leave you to interpret the rest of the sentence.
"Crackers."
[internal processing... calculating question... *BING*]
[smooth calm female voice: "Could you tell me where the crackers are?"]
Thank God they manage to pick the word signifying the thing they're looking for. Imagine if they approached me armed with just the word "Could". My poor brain would probably get stuck in an infinite loop and explode right there and then in the middle of the shop floor. The soothing female voice would go into overdrive. "Could you tell me where the could you tell me where the could you tell me where the could you tell me where the could you tell me where the could you tell me where the could you tell me where the could y-" *BRAINSPLAT* [bing-bong] 'Clean-up on aisle two, please'.
I do hope, however, that one day someone will approach me with "Mouthwash", therefore I'm justified in assuming they were just simply telling me the title of their favourite Kate Nash song. I could do shifty-eyes and lean over towards them as I give my response. "Wuthering Heights". The confusion in their face leads me to realise what I've actually said. I need to pick up the ball I've just dropped. I let out a forced chuckle and pat my adversary on the shoulder as if lightly batting them away. "Oh-ho-ho! I got it wrong, didn't I? That's Kate Bush, isn't it? God, I am a silly-moo! Ah well..." I wipe a fake tear from my eye "...you win, thanks for playing though, I had a great time."
That one could probably also work with "Foundation".
If you've ever worked in retail, you'll know the feeling. You'll know how your place of employment is essentially a soul-crushing factory line disguised as a house of optimism. "Good morning, and how are you this fine day, dear citizen?" beam the faces of the company. The voices of the masses, however, often seem gruff, confused, loud, and every fourth word is 'fuck'. That last one was even picked up on by another customer, who I assume "isn't from round here" and noted what a lovely town this is where 'every word is a swear word'. True story. Maybe it's just prevalent where I'm located, which would make sense since, after nearly a year away, I'm suddenly seeing how the rest of the country sees the Scouse accent. Honestly, the amount of 12-14 year olds who've been about this last weekend with mouths and voices and words-that-don't-really-sound-like-words-but-rather-a-continuous-stream-of-noise has been immense; half of them sound like they've just eaten Cilla Black, John Bishop and Sonia for breakfast, washing it all down with 57 cigarettes and a kazoo. The sad thing is I'm still able to understand fluent Scouse.
Fortunately, I've not had to deal with the typical, monolexical attitude of some. You know the ones, the ones who approach from behind unannounced and throw a single word at you and leave you to interpret the rest of the sentence.
"Crackers."
[internal processing... calculating question... *BING*]
[smooth calm female voice: "Could you tell me where the crackers are?"]
Thank God they manage to pick the word signifying the thing they're looking for. Imagine if they approached me armed with just the word "Could". My poor brain would probably get stuck in an infinite loop and explode right there and then in the middle of the shop floor. The soothing female voice would go into overdrive. "Could you tell me where the could you tell me where the could you tell me where the could you tell me where the could you tell me where the could you tell me where the could you tell me where the could y-" *BRAINSPLAT* [bing-bong] 'Clean-up on aisle two, please'.
I do hope, however, that one day someone will approach me with "Mouthwash", therefore I'm justified in assuming they were just simply telling me the title of their favourite Kate Nash song. I could do shifty-eyes and lean over towards them as I give my response. "Wuthering Heights". The confusion in their face leads me to realise what I've actually said. I need to pick up the ball I've just dropped. I let out a forced chuckle and pat my adversary on the shoulder as if lightly batting them away. "Oh-ho-ho! I got it wrong, didn't I? That's Kate Bush, isn't it? God, I am a silly-moo! Ah well..." I wipe a fake tear from my eye "...you win, thanks for playing though, I had a great time."
That one could probably also work with "Foundation".
Friday, 8 July 2011
Beansprouts
Remember when I told you three weeks ago about my recent vacation in Germany? Well there was just so much stuff I had to talk about I can't believe I've missed some out. It largely centres around the E.coli epidemic that was going on over there and the time I thought I had it. I didn't really have it, I'd just eaten far too much cheese, chocolate and ice cream (although not all at the same time, that's just ludicrous!) so my diet went all wibbly and my bum bum felt like a fucking warzone. Lying down on the cool tiled bathroom floor seemed like a good idea at 3am in a panic-ridden state of "oh my God, I'm gonna die here tonight", fearing that I'd crap so hard I'd end up flushing my very life and soul down toilet never to be seen again. Cool tiled floors are never what they seem though. They are, in fact, not cool. They're fucking freezing. I even needed to lay a towel out on the floor to act as a buffer between body and temperature-not-best-suitable-for-body. I don't think I fell asleep there but I might've well done for about half an hour. But hey, when you're in a hot room in a hot country with only the bare essential underclothing on and feeling like you want to undress more but don't wanna leave a trail of blood and innards all over the place, you kind of want to go lie in a cold room for ages until it passes!
I don't think I had the evil disease, though, and it was probably just paranoia kicking in, and I believe this for one reason: during the entire trip I didn't see any beansprouts at all. This even displeased me in a Chinese restaurant one night where the all-you-can-eat buffet lacked one vital ingredient. "God, you'd think they'd have some beansprouts," Jamie muttered stupidly to himself, the dumbass, before eventually remembering that Germany's supply of beansprouts was under intense investigation during this time for putting people in hospital. The thought didn't come to his mind straight away though, like a lightbulb coming on, but instead was more like a fluorescent tube light that flickered for a few seconds before blinding him with the stupidly obvious realisation. I think it was the fact I was in a Chinese restaurant that threw me off. They have the same things in Britain as they do in Germany which is weird because they specialise in food from China and my internationalism-scope-er-ometer must've malfunctioned for a few seconds.
I learned to use chopsticks for the first time though, so it wasn't an entirely horrible trip.
I don't think I had the evil disease, though, and it was probably just paranoia kicking in, and I believe this for one reason: during the entire trip I didn't see any beansprouts at all. This even displeased me in a Chinese restaurant one night where the all-you-can-eat buffet lacked one vital ingredient. "God, you'd think they'd have some beansprouts," Jamie muttered stupidly to himself, the dumbass, before eventually remembering that Germany's supply of beansprouts was under intense investigation during this time for putting people in hospital. The thought didn't come to his mind straight away though, like a lightbulb coming on, but instead was more like a fluorescent tube light that flickered for a few seconds before blinding him with the stupidly obvious realisation. I think it was the fact I was in a Chinese restaurant that threw me off. They have the same things in Britain as they do in Germany which is weird because they specialise in food from China and my internationalism-scope-er-ometer must've malfunctioned for a few seconds.
I learned to use chopsticks for the first time though, so it wasn't an entirely horrible trip.
Tuesday, 5 July 2011
80 Kilometers-An-Hour Auf Der Autobahn
Well, it's been a long time coming, but I finally have the time to do this. Then again, I always had the time, but I now have the notes and the willpower to do this. But first, let me cast your mind back a wee bit, for this post isn't supposed to have been this late. Instead, the day is Monday the 13th of June: the weather has been fluctuating between scorching summer heat and dreary miserable rain, the Paris episode of The Apprentice hasn't happened yet, and I'm still twenty-one, and yesterday night I arrived back on English soil after a week of visiting relatives in northern Germany...
We've all seen it. That one person/couple/family/group of morons in a public place you just seem to see everywhere you go. The people who complain about the way things are run in plain earshot of the crowds of randomers, the people who complain about the way things are run in plain earshot of the staff who are just there to enforce the rules, the people who complain about their seat on public transport not being the seat they wanted, the people who complain about the fridge being set to 4°C instead of 3°C therefore destroying the optimum integrity of milk... the people who complain about, well, just about anything as though the world should be run according to their own personal standards and not by any pre-devised regulations that have already been constructed for the convenience of the masses of people what make up the general public. Yep, we've all seen them. But at the start of this trip, Manchester Airport played hosted to my parents being the centre of attention, whilst that younger guy in the glasses who's stood with them - yeah, him, the one with his head in his hands - tried my best to remain as normal in keeping with the rest of the public as possible. It's very rare for me to act normal and I refuse to have my chances ruined by the folks when every little thing that could possibly go awry, does.
I would just like to take the opportunity to say that I am not, of course, slandering my own parents here, but merely exaggerating an undesirable situation for pseudo-comic effect. (Just in the event that one of them happens to read this and thinks I'm saying bad things about people I know on the Internet for all the paedophiles and axe-murderers to read, since they are the only people who use the Internet anyway.)
So yeah, I became one of "those people", you know, the group of people who make a scene in public, and you know you shouldn't stare at them, but you so desperately want to. Luckily, two hours sat in the seat at the very back of the aircraft with your face stuck in a random book managed to calm my paranoid mind of 'everyone looking at me'.
T-Mobile were the first to welcome me into the country, notifying me of the extra charges on my phone if I were to ever use it during this week. Surely though, one text message should be enough. When it takes them six texts to tell me (over the course of 40 minutes - by my calculation, one message every 6 minutes and 50ish seconds) of this necessary information, I've never felt more likely to hurl my phone onto the Autobahn, or call up the head at T-Mobile and tell them that I'm aware I'm currently in Germany and quite frankly I don't care about the tiny changes to the cost of my phone calls, although incidentally, such a phone call would've probably cost me dearly. However, for your reading enjoyment/pleasure/frustration, I present to you a typical text message alert from the first night:
And so, onto the first night, and through some 'legally grey-area' complication, we were able to receive British TV over there (which, a little later in the holiday, prompted my mother to be branded a holiday 'spoil-sport' for a whole thirty minutes as we "didn't come all the way to Germany to watch Emmerdale") meaning that an extensive range of English-language films were on offer to us. Unfortunately, since the flight was delayed by about an hour, it ended up being closer to 11pm when we arrived at our lodgings, rather than "just after 9", and by 11 o'clock there's barely a decent film showing on normal telly. Ultimately, we ended up settling on Schindler's List, quite fitting if we visited Germany in the 1940s, but it's been around 70 years since the happenings of the Second World War, Hitler and the Third Reich, and all those Jewish containment camps, and somehow I can't help shake the feeling that time's moved on. Oh well, being one of the only open-minded people in my country (it seems), I'll just have to be lumped into that category of ignorant English pigs who still lord it over the Germans about how we beat them at international war and football tournaments. Thank God the Eurovision Song Contest isn't significantly popular, or else we would've felt their wrath this time last year when Germany romped to victory and the UK finished dead last. However, since Schindler's List goes on for six-and-a-half hours (well it doesn't really but I imagine that's what it feels like) and it already being well after midnight before the little girl in the red coat showed up, majoritatively we resigned to tiredness.
They have Ikeas in Germany. Bit of a redundant statement; they have Ikeas everywhere, just like they have McDonald's, petrol stations and grass. But I was somewhat surprised considering I've never been to any Ikea in the UK before so the whole thing was just as special as I imagined. Mainland Europe's most cutting-edge furniture designs all housed in a gigantic building with foreign language descriptions of each product, store section and emergency exit sign. My mother, in a bout of forgetting which country she was even in, did that thing what propa inglish peepul doo, engaging staff and customers alike in super fast paced English conversation only to be met with blank looks from the German population. Luckily, she never resorted to the football-hooligan's guide to speaking foreign languages, wherein every word is spoken in PLAIN... ENGLISH... ONLY... LOUDER... AND... SLOWER... thus forcing the recipient into understanding you or running to the nearest telephone to alert the authorities that people are shouting gibberish at them and they don't know how to contain the situation. The best part was when my Deutschland-dwelling sister, who needed to kit out her living room with flat-pack furniture, bought too much that it all had to be done in two trips, thus leaving myself and mother with a mini-mountain of dismantled coffee tables and such. Asking Customer Services to keep an eye on the purchases while we waited for our second-journey to pick us up wasn't such a bad idea. However, a bad idea was approaching them with a "'scuse me love, spoken English, complex query, blah blah blah", which left the poor old woman behind the counter making muted excuses for going in the back room and subsequently returning with another employee who tentatively asked in her best English if we were the arrogant bastards who needed assistance. Naturally, she didn't know the English words for "arrogant bastards" but proceeded to help us anyway, leaving me to ponder if the whole spectacle could've been avoided if only my mother had opened with some variant of "Entschuldigung, können Sie Englisch sprechen, bitte?", or a simple "Sprechen Sie Englisch?", or even a semi-distressed, panic ridden "ENGLISCH SPEAK-IDY? NEIN?" whilst containing the urge to smear excrement all over the walls.
Already I feel like I've said far too much on Ikea, but the ride home is where all of this has been leading too. See, the second-journey ended up overloading the back seat of the car with boxed goods so much that, legally, at least one of us should've stayed behind at Ikea for another hour or so. Being English, none of us could be bothered with such a situation and thus a novel seating arrangement was improvised on the spot. This largely consisted of three adults and one infant sitting in the car as normal, but with the other "adult" half-crouched in the backseat cavity where the legs go, half sat on the window-winder-downer spike thingy. I tell you what, on the big list of life experiences, I never thought I'd be able to check off "contort self into cramped backseat of car, somehow, with arse almost pressed against window whilst doing 80 kilometers-an-hour auf der Autobahn". Apparently we would've also been driving on the right-hand side, which would've been even more disorienting but luckily I was staring at the floor for most of that half-hour. The whole thing also led to another life experience being ticked off, "exit a car by backwards roll".
More stuff happened during the week but I apparently didn't care enough to write them down; it seems nothing could top the Ikea day, but judging by how long it's gone on for, it's just as well I have not much to write about. That is, except for what I would like to Christen the new and improved German National Anthem: 'The Quarter-to-Eight Song'. Except it's apparently not specific to quarter-to-eight, but specific to quarter-to-any hour. Typically, we're used to clocks chiming every fifteen minutes but with a special chime on the hour, every hour. It's the same in Germany, except the tower clock in the town chimes on the hour, at quarter-past and at half-past. But every forty-five minutes past, the chimes and bells break out in song. Apparently quarter-to-twelve is the new midday in Germany. I haven't had the chance to research this because it's the 13th of June, and I only got back into the country last night, remember.
Anyway, that's it, that's the highlights apart from the gift-set bottles of Jägermeister and complimentary Jägermeister-y shot glasses I got for a decent price in Hannover's Duty Free stop, as you're on your way out of the country. I can predict lots of good times drinking all this Jägermeister and I'll never get sick of it. I'll never become ill from drinking too much of it, and I'll not post anything on the 30th of June saying otherwise.
We've all seen it. That one person/couple/family/group of morons in a public place you just seem to see everywhere you go. The people who complain about the way things are run in plain earshot of the crowds of randomers, the people who complain about the way things are run in plain earshot of the staff who are just there to enforce the rules, the people who complain about their seat on public transport not being the seat they wanted, the people who complain about the fridge being set to 4°C instead of 3°C therefore destroying the optimum integrity of milk... the people who complain about, well, just about anything as though the world should be run according to their own personal standards and not by any pre-devised regulations that have already been constructed for the convenience of the masses of people what make up the general public. Yep, we've all seen them. But at the start of this trip, Manchester Airport played hosted to my parents being the centre of attention, whilst that younger guy in the glasses who's stood with them - yeah, him, the one with his head in his hands - tried my best to remain as normal in keeping with the rest of the public as possible. It's very rare for me to act normal and I refuse to have my chances ruined by the folks when every little thing that could possibly go awry, does.
I would just like to take the opportunity to say that I am not, of course, slandering my own parents here, but merely exaggerating an undesirable situation for pseudo-comic effect. (Just in the event that one of them happens to read this and thinks I'm saying bad things about people I know on the Internet for all the paedophiles and axe-murderers to read, since they are the only people who use the Internet anyway.)
So yeah, I became one of "those people", you know, the group of people who make a scene in public, and you know you shouldn't stare at them, but you so desperately want to. Luckily, two hours sat in the seat at the very back of the aircraft with your face stuck in a random book managed to calm my paranoid mind of 'everyone looking at me'.
T-Mobile were the first to welcome me into the country, notifying me of the extra charges on my phone if I were to ever use it during this week. Surely though, one text message should be enough. When it takes them six texts to tell me (over the course of 40 minutes - by my calculation, one message every 6 minutes and 50ish seconds) of this necessary information, I've never felt more likely to hurl my phone onto the Autobahn, or call up the head at T-Mobile and tell them that I'm aware I'm currently in Germany and quite frankly I don't care about the tiny changes to the cost of my phone calls, although incidentally, such a phone call would've probably cost me dearly. However, for your reading enjoyment/pleasure/frustration, I present to you a typical text message alert from the first night:
T-Mobile welcomes you to Germany. It now costs (ever-so-slightly higher price tariff than normal) per minute to call, (same again but can't be arsed typing it all out and feeling slightly more creative than to simply copy and paste) per text message. To use the Internet on your phone, you will need to purchase Euro-Boosters, which will grant you 20
PAGES
OF
ANNOYING
TEXT
MESSAGE...
And so, onto the first night, and through some 'legally grey-area' complication, we were able to receive British TV over there (which, a little later in the holiday, prompted my mother to be branded a holiday 'spoil-sport' for a whole thirty minutes as we "didn't come all the way to Germany to watch Emmerdale") meaning that an extensive range of English-language films were on offer to us. Unfortunately, since the flight was delayed by about an hour, it ended up being closer to 11pm when we arrived at our lodgings, rather than "just after 9", and by 11 o'clock there's barely a decent film showing on normal telly. Ultimately, we ended up settling on Schindler's List, quite fitting if we visited Germany in the 1940s, but it's been around 70 years since the happenings of the Second World War, Hitler and the Third Reich, and all those Jewish containment camps, and somehow I can't help shake the feeling that time's moved on. Oh well, being one of the only open-minded people in my country (it seems), I'll just have to be lumped into that category of ignorant English pigs who still lord it over the Germans about how we beat them at international war and football tournaments. Thank God the Eurovision Song Contest isn't significantly popular, or else we would've felt their wrath this time last year when Germany romped to victory and the UK finished dead last. However, since Schindler's List goes on for six-and-a-half hours (well it doesn't really but I imagine that's what it feels like) and it already being well after midnight before the little girl in the red coat showed up, majoritatively we resigned to tiredness.
They have Ikeas in Germany. Bit of a redundant statement; they have Ikeas everywhere, just like they have McDonald's, petrol stations and grass. But I was somewhat surprised considering I've never been to any Ikea in the UK before so the whole thing was just as special as I imagined. Mainland Europe's most cutting-edge furniture designs all housed in a gigantic building with foreign language descriptions of each product, store section and emergency exit sign. My mother, in a bout of forgetting which country she was even in, did that thing what propa inglish peepul doo, engaging staff and customers alike in super fast paced English conversation only to be met with blank looks from the German population. Luckily, she never resorted to the football-hooligan's guide to speaking foreign languages, wherein every word is spoken in PLAIN... ENGLISH... ONLY... LOUDER... AND... SLOWER... thus forcing the recipient into understanding you or running to the nearest telephone to alert the authorities that people are shouting gibberish at them and they don't know how to contain the situation. The best part was when my Deutschland-dwelling sister, who needed to kit out her living room with flat-pack furniture, bought too much that it all had to be done in two trips, thus leaving myself and mother with a mini-mountain of dismantled coffee tables and such. Asking Customer Services to keep an eye on the purchases while we waited for our second-journey to pick us up wasn't such a bad idea. However, a bad idea was approaching them with a "'scuse me love, spoken English, complex query, blah blah blah", which left the poor old woman behind the counter making muted excuses for going in the back room and subsequently returning with another employee who tentatively asked in her best English if we were the arrogant bastards who needed assistance. Naturally, she didn't know the English words for "arrogant bastards" but proceeded to help us anyway, leaving me to ponder if the whole spectacle could've been avoided if only my mother had opened with some variant of "Entschuldigung, können Sie Englisch sprechen, bitte?", or a simple "Sprechen Sie Englisch?", or even a semi-distressed, panic ridden "ENGLISCH SPEAK-IDY? NEIN?" whilst containing the urge to smear excrement all over the walls.
Already I feel like I've said far too much on Ikea, but the ride home is where all of this has been leading too. See, the second-journey ended up overloading the back seat of the car with boxed goods so much that, legally, at least one of us should've stayed behind at Ikea for another hour or so. Being English, none of us could be bothered with such a situation and thus a novel seating arrangement was improvised on the spot. This largely consisted of three adults and one infant sitting in the car as normal, but with the other "adult" half-crouched in the backseat cavity where the legs go, half sat on the window-winder-downer spike thingy. I tell you what, on the big list of life experiences, I never thought I'd be able to check off "contort self into cramped backseat of car, somehow, with arse almost pressed against window whilst doing 80 kilometers-an-hour auf der Autobahn". Apparently we would've also been driving on the right-hand side, which would've been even more disorienting but luckily I was staring at the floor for most of that half-hour. The whole thing also led to another life experience being ticked off, "exit a car by backwards roll".
More stuff happened during the week but I apparently didn't care enough to write them down; it seems nothing could top the Ikea day, but judging by how long it's gone on for, it's just as well I have not much to write about. That is, except for what I would like to Christen the new and improved German National Anthem: 'The Quarter-to-Eight Song'. Except it's apparently not specific to quarter-to-eight, but specific to quarter-to-any hour. Typically, we're used to clocks chiming every fifteen minutes but with a special chime on the hour, every hour. It's the same in Germany, except the tower clock in the town chimes on the hour, at quarter-past and at half-past. But every forty-five minutes past, the chimes and bells break out in song. Apparently quarter-to-twelve is the new midday in Germany. I haven't had the chance to research this because it's the 13th of June, and I only got back into the country last night, remember.
Anyway, that's it, that's the highlights apart from the gift-set bottles of Jägermeister and complimentary Jägermeister-y shot glasses I got for a decent price in Hannover's Duty Free stop, as you're on your way out of the country. I can predict lots of good times drinking all this Jägermeister and I'll never get sick of it. I'll never become ill from drinking too much of it, and I'll not post anything on the 30th of June saying otherwise.
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