200 - The Stuart Awards 2013

Six years. Who would have thought I would carry this self-indulgent awards 'ceremony' on for this long? Certainly not me. Quite rightly, past years have had people spoiling the fun, and commenting on how nobody cares about my (expletive) awards; but I question why they read it in the first place then.

So, I take this opportunity to allow any would-be trolls to press the close button on your browser - thank you.

Have they gone? Great. I often think they should put a similar announcement over the speakers on trains and planes, asking any would-be terrorists to kindly vacate.

Anyway, on with the show! Another year has passed, and enclosed in it has been many terrible things that mankind wishes to forget, like Margret Thatcher, the Woolwich terrorist attack, and sitcom failure on BBC1: The Wright Way. However, many great things have happened. A baby was born, Andy Murray won Wimbledon, and we found out that horse meat doesn't taste too bad. As well as that, this year I wrote my 200th post for this blog… In fact, this is that 200th post.

Wow… What. A. Year.

The Doctor at 50

I chose to stay at home to watch Saturday's episode of Doctor Who; I'll choose pizza over popcorn any day. But many others elected to sit in a cinema full of other fans, and pay to watch something they could have watched at home for free. I imagine there were moments when cinemas across the country erupted in cheers as they saw their old favourites grace the big screen.

Over 10 million UK people tuned in to watch the 50th Doctor Who episode, Day of the Doctor. However, you would be forgiven for not bothering to watching it, after the overkill lead up that we have been exposed to over the past few weeks. I enjoy Doctor Who, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't glad that the hype is finally over; at least until they want to celebrate the 75th anniversary.

We have spent six months waiting, after being teased at the end of series 7 with the words 'Introducing John Hurt as The Doctor'. As a result, Doctor Who fans have been suffering from a half-year-long headache, as we all tried to figure out what Stephen Moffat was up to. However, it has certainly been worth the wait.

#RiseOfTheHashtags

#It #seems #every #word #on #the #Internet #now #has #to #have #a #hashtag #in #front #of #it.

Failing that, at the end of a normally-written sentence, people will put a series of hashtags after it, in an attempt to summaries it; and then confuse. #lol #satire #observation #hashtag #blog #twitter #pizza #sexy #YOLO #watermelon

If David Cameron were himself a hashtag, he would be the most popular prime minister of all time, and there would be no doubt of him getting a second, and third term in power, as well as going down in history as more popular and successful than Churchill. But he's not; he's just a man who dreams of being a hashtag. #justsayin #talkincrap

Quarter Of A Life Blogging

Today, 5 years ago, I made my first post to this blog when I was a spotty-faced sixteen year old. I am an almost spotless twenty-one year old, which means I have spent nearly a quarter of my life sharing my ranting through the medium of writing. It was a bit depressing when I realised that fact, and makes me feel old.

However, I am glad I started and glad to have carried on. It has shaped me into the type of writer I am. I feel I now do reasonably well at taking a sly look at the news stories and general things that happen or exist. My particular favourite this year has to be Major Congestion Reported Getting Into SimCity from March. One of a number of blogs that I posted this year for dual purpose: University and this blog.

Amateur Misanthrope

If you ask me what my ideal job would be, I would reply by saying 'I want to get paid for writing about my detestation for mankind, and for being a bastard - just like Charlie Brooker'. I love him, which is a hard thing for a fellow misanthrope to admit. Some young men love women in magazines who show off their perfectly shaped mammary glands. I love an angry man in his 40's who doesn't suffer fools gladly.

Charlie Brooker's most recent book is called 'I Can Make You Hate', which is certainly true, as he is the person who opened my eyes to how shit our world is. His writings are a mix of hilarity and wit, along with disdain and a lot of sneering. Thanks to him, I now realise that humans are nothing more than walking, talking, flatulent haircuts. I am no longer deluded, and share his outlook on life.

Theatre Review: Barking In Essex

On Thursday, 19th September, we went to see the matinee performance of Barking In Essex at the Wyndham Theatre, which stars famous names Lee Evans, Shelia Hancock and Keeley Hawes. This play has incredibly mixed reviews, with some saying how it's the worst play of the year, and others celebrating the wonderful humour which exuberates from it.

Barking In Essex is a dark, tragic comedy about the Packers, a hapless criminal family, who are obviously from Essex. It's the story of a family whom, having spent the proceeds from a robbery undertaken by notorious gangster and younger son Algie, face having to cover their tracks before he returns home from seven years in prison. This involves dead bodies and fleeing to a not-so exotic location for the second act, where they begin to hatch various plots against each other, and eventually reaching a loud and tragic ending.

Sexy Reality

Think of a sexy uniform. If you're a man, you are stereotypically thinking of a nurse, a maid or an air hostess. If you're a woman, it might be a fireman, a mechanic or a builder. An initial analysis shows that men like women who do stuff for them, such as look after, clean or fetch drinks for them. Women like men who do dangerous jobs and get filthy doing them; maybe so they can clean them after.

However, the uniforms you are probably thinking are not the uniforms people actually wear doing that job. Chances are you're thinking of the sort of costume a strip-o-gram might wear, or what one might find at the back of Ann Summers.

In reality, nurses, maids and air hostesses don't wear dresses that only just cover their bum, so that when they bend down to pick up a needle, feather duster or napkin, they flaunt their red thong in your face like a baboon. Also in reality, firemen don't attend fires topless for very obvious reasons; they'd singe their chest hair. And chances are, if you're a woman lucky enough to have a mechanic or builder who works topless, you're unlucky enough to have a mechanic or builder who has larger breasts than you.

Armchair Activist

A few days ago I took a bump to the head. And by that, I mean I accidentally whacked my head against the wooden door frame of a shed, multiple times until it culminated in one final blow which made me cry and punch said shed in a fit of emotion. I'd say I suffered for about two days after. Partly because the top of my head was bruised in such a way that a gentle breeze hurt. Partly because my personality took a minor detour towards selflessly wanting to help thy neighbour.

I took to Twitter to vent my rage at how Twitter is being mistreated at present. Within 10 minutes I had signed an online petition, vowed to join a Twitter boycott and shared my activistic opinions regarding 'trolling' with my followers. All within half hour of waking up and hearing the news of journalist Caroline Criado-Perez being inundated with rape threats. I lost two followers.

Following the story from its beginnings last week, through to the time of writing, is incredibly interesting if you like studying the evolution of stories. Last week, this story was originally the successful campaign by Caroline Criado-Perez to get a female back on English tender. Then some men who obviously felt women were getting ideas above their station, decided to send rape threats to her. And then people complained. And more men sent rape and death threats to more high profile females on Twitter. Then, on July 31st, one man tweeted bomb threats to three female journalists. As understated as this sounds, it got VERY out of hand.

Katie Hopkins Eats The Souls Of Disabled Children

I figured that Katie Hopkins wouldn't mind me writing that about her. It might even give her an idea for her next topic to be outraged on. You see, her diet actually consists of outrage directed at her. She is a monster who feeds on incandescent fury, and it makes her grow bigger, stronger and more opinionated, until one day she will defeat Holly Willoughby.

The media attention surrounding her has grown since the start of 2013, but particularly in the past few weeks. She is arguably one of the most famous Apprentices to come out of the show after causing much controversy and finally quitting the show. Since then, she's not really had a proper job, as far as I can see from Googling her name. Her career highlights include going into the I'm A Celebrity jungle, appearing on Question Time, appearing on This Morning, taking Alan Sugar to court and having her name trend on Twitter.

Instacrap

So, you have a few hundred pounds laying around. You want a new, cool phone. However, you also want to take pictures and easily share them with friends. You also want to look as if you can take a good picture without really thinking. And not only that, but you're looking for a passing bandwagon to jump on and go for a long boring, monochrome journey on.  Well, what is one to do? To buy an iPhone and download an Instagram app like every other blind sheep in the world.

Perhaps I'm being a snob and I've not really 'gotten it', like most other fads, but I don't get what the hell you all like about it. I just typed 'Instagram photos' into Google, and it occurred to me that had I entered these photographs into my A level Photography coursework, I would have lost marks for bad editing. All that has simply changed is the 'warmth'; they have cooled the picture, which simply means putting a blue tint to the picture. That's bad editing skill. Honestly.

"People wearing coats makes it look cold"

On a May morning I was walking to the train station, girlfriend in hand, and it was a cold, windy day. Remember it was over 20 degrees a few weeks ago? Well, this was the following week when our thermometer was hitting an impressive 8 degrees in London. There was a bitter wind, and I had salvaged my thick shirts from the other end of the wardrobe; it was that cold. I ventured outside on a daring mission to hand my University coursework in. Living just yards away from the Thames means that our little area of Woolwich gets hit by even stronger, unprovoked winds. And in the bitter wind, I at one point even had to do the zip up on my coat; not an easy task in the wind.

In our walk to the train station, we walked towards two female teenagers; the sort that often get branded as 'yobs' and 'chavs' in the media. They were quietly gossiping amongst themselves. I had stopped to do my coat up in view of the pair, with my bag banging against my leg. We continued on, and just as we began to pass them, one of the two women erupted, and with added profanities, stated that:

"People wearing coats makes it looked cold!"

Like British people do, me and the other half carried on walking past, quietly bemused. Her sentence then began to properly sink in. "People wearing coats makes it look cold". That is what she said. I looked back. I looked forward. Again I turn backwards. SHE was wearing a thick coat with fur bursting out of it. And Ugg boots. She looked like a bear who had stumbled  onto a make-up counter in a department store. I was wearing a thin blue coat and Converses. I was dressed correctly for the weather, whereas she was dressed for freezing temperatures, and SHE has the cheek to moan about me wearing a coat.

The Woolwich Murder

I was in Woolwich on that day. 22 May 2013. I live there. Fortunately, I was safely in our flat at 2:20pm. I was oblivious anything had happened. Then, helicopters kept circling around and around, and the sounds of distant sirens could be heard. However, after nearly a year of living there, I've become immune to that. Then I read a strange Tweet that stated that something had happened in Woolwich. No more than that. I went to Google. Two men had been shot after brandishing swords, barely a ten minutes walk away.

Telling it from my point of view is not interesting in the slightest. However, I haven't stopped thinking about it. Especially since I found out, many hours later, that it was being classified as an act of terrorism, and that they had beheaded a serving soilder. Those pictures on the television that evening will forever be imprinted in my brain. There has been much discussion as to whether that picture of Michael Adebolajo, the man with bloodied hands holding the meat cleaver, speaking to the camera, should have ever been used. They were distressing for me, let alone a young child walking past a newsagents on the way to school the next morning.

Henning Wehn: That German Comedian

Henning Wehn brought his latest stand-up comedy show, Henning Knows Bestest, to Canterbury's The Gulbenkian Theatre on Saturday, May 11th. I travelled from London to see him, and it was definitely worth the journey, and missing Doctor Who; after all, you can't iPlayer theatre.

Regardless, beforehand I had only really seen him on comedy panel shows, on Dave's One Night Stand and occasionally on Radio 4, so it was a slight gamble. However, it was one of the best comedy nights I have had. It started off with him being his own warm-up act. Unfortunately, the material he used in this section of the show seemed to be his go-to jokes he uses on TV; witty, satirical observations. For example, in the week following this show, he was on 10 O'Clock Live, providing a few jokes about Europe, all of which I had heard just days earlier.

April: The Month Stuff Happened

Well, I suppose April 2013 will be written in quite a few history books over the years. Some might say that it hasn't exactly been a slow news month. This month has seen my Godson turn 1, the upgrading of our Broadband package and me getting a few articles published in a local newspaper. As important as these things are to me, they are not events that are going to make it into the history books.

One of the most devastating stories was the Boston bombs on the 15th of April. The tragic scenes were shared around the world within minutes, and thanks to the Internet, I had pictures filling up my Twitter feed. I love being on Twitter to watch stories like this develop, however, it is never long before people start making inappropriate jokes and flexing their Photoshop skills. Things inevitably begin to turn ugly, and soon you can't believe anything. As someone else rather eloquently put it:

Twitter does its best work in the first five minutes after a disaster, and its worst in the twelve hours after that.
— Matt Roller (@rolldiggity) April 15, 2013

Broadchurch - The Best Whodunnit For Ages

The eight-part ITV series has come to an end, and those who have invested the past weeks watching it, now know who the killer is. For those who did, it was a rewarding end, tying up all the loose ends, bringing closure for the town and it's viewers, but also they got to watch some brilliant acting. It is at this point I should stress that if you don't want to read spoilers, find something else to do on the Internet - You're welcome.

My First Blogfolio

You may know. You may not know. I spent a week, a month ago, doing work experience at the local newspaper organisation - the Kent Messenger - and it is here I got the chance to do 8 hours of sitting down a day, in a busy and light-hearted office. Despite it, at times,  being dull when I had nothing to do, it was a great experience which hasn't put me off a career in journalism. I even got three articles published; one with my name in the by-line, and the other two anonymous, so you'll have to just believe me when I say that I wrote them.

Save The Journalist

I blog. You noticed did you? What a clever little so-and-so you are. Luckily, this blog isn’t massively read, makes me diddlysquat and is written solely by moi. Along with the fact that the servers that run this blog are owned by Google and located in the USA, I should be completely exempt from the new press regulation rules that are being pushed through by the Government. However, as someone who is over half the way through their Journalism degree at University, and looking for a career in local newsprint – they are a major worry.

I'm a media watcher, and I do not doubt for one minute that changes need to happen – how can anyone argue in the post-Hackgate times we live in - but this is certainly not the way. This has been the opportunity politicians wanted to gag the media – the same media that four years ago ran stories about all of their MP’s Expenses. Under these regulations, we would have never known about the duck pond.

Major Congestion Reported Getting Into SimCity

I have come up with another insult to sling around the playground: "Your Mumma's so fat, that she's slower than an EA Game Server". I can imagine it would be, and quite rightly so, followed by a chorus of "RINSED" by some teenagers, who also slap their fingers in appreciation.

This comes in light of recent events, in which people spent tens of pounds on a PC game, only to be told they couldn't play the game because too many people were playing the game. One might think that if you made 'X' number of games, you would, in the end, expect 'X' amount of people to actually want to play the game. But I'm not an expert, so what do I know?

You Think You Need A Holiday?

I made a stark realisation the other day, whilst in the pub with a small group of people. They were discussing holidays. The usual, 'where we're going this year', 'where we've been' and 'where we want to go' conjecture. I was very quiet during this period. I have never left the country and therefore never had a passport, as one has never been needed. However, I thought about the last time I went on any form of a holiday. The answer is 2003.

This raises a lot of questions about the actual point of holidays, and that most people are idiots. Far too often I see and hear people proclaiming that they need a holiday. Fair enough. However, more often than not, the people who 'need' a holiday, are the people who went on holiday a few months beforehand. I know they went on holiday a few months beforehand because they never shut up about their holiday, and then posted endless pictures on Facebook of them drinking in a foreign pub, eating foreign food or sitting under a foreign sky next to a foreign sea on a foreign beach with foreign people frolicking about, wearing their foreign sun cream. Then, they return to the UK and show off their foreign sunburn and you can see the foreign tan-lines from wearing their foreign bikini.

Let's Reminisce Into My 2012

This blog is an example of how neglectful I have become of my little bit of Internet space. 2012 has been and gone for nearly a month now, and yet I am only just about to write my usual blog on the subject. Anyway, it was another year to remember, which involved a lot mature stuff by me. It has changed me; for example I now own a washing up bowl.

So, the first four months of the year were fairly uneventful, what with it mainly consisting of writing essays and creating a student film. The film involved lots of trekking across London packed with a multitude of different equipment, and then hours of painstaking editing. Luckily, I enjoyed being with the people I done.

Milton Jones - Warming Us Up

Ahead of his 2013 tour, Milton Jones ventured down into Canterbury on a cold, January night. He came came and warmed us all up with his one liners, testing which ones worked, and which did not. Turns out, they mostly all had the audience laughing hard.

Milton Jones' Grandfather (I think it's just Milton Jones dressed up however) came out first and warmed up for the warm up for Milton's warm up show. He came onto the stage in an usual manner, but it shows an increase in his profits as it was more adventurous than pushing a trolley on like like he did last year. It obviously contained lots of his usual top class one-liners.

The Stuart Awards 2012

Well, it was that time of year where I present, through the power of typing, my awards for some of the best and worse things of the year. However, University work and a dodgy laptop, put the least anticipated awards ceremony back a few weeks. You know, just like the American writer's strike meant they had to postpone The Grammy's...
Anyway, it's time to crack on with the first awards: