The Blog Of Stuart

Let's Hack Into My 2011

2012-01-09T12:00:00.000Z

CharlieBrooker said that '2011 has been like one big end-of-season finale; a climactic episode inwhich multiple story arcs come to a head.' This being because ofnumerous uprisings, a few deaths of bad people, a riot or two, anotherfinancial collapse and the death of a national paper after the revelation thatit hacked over 5,000 phones. In comparison, my life has been normal for someoneof a similar age to me, and has been uneventful. However, as an individual, ithas been quite a year.

Asyear's go, for me, it has been a bag of mixed fortunes. I spent the first sixmonths of 2011 in complete agony. Let me explain how bad this agony was: Mostpeople sleep at night. I used to sleep at night, and thankfully, I do now.However, for those six months of my life, I think I only had an entire night ofsleep once a week, and that would usually be because I was so knackered that mybrain struggled to comprehend the concept of pain, or maybe just an overdose ofextra strong pain killers, I don't remember.

Ihad toothache. In fact, no: toothache doesn't fully explain the agony I had. Icall it 'Toothtorture'. I might as well have thumped a nine inch metal nailinto my jaws every 30 seconds for the relief it would have brought me. I wentto the Dentist, then the Dentist, then the Doctor, and then the Dentist a fewmore times before he finally discovered my tooth was dead. Six weeks, over twohours in the Dentist's chair, and a root canal later, I was relieved of thepain and allowed to sleep, every single night, without my synapses interruptingwith pain signals.

Mindyou, a few weeks later, I didn't get much sleep after I spent five days awake andwatching BBC News and Sky News and watching the swarm of rioters smash theirway through London. There were two reasons for this: 1. I was only a month awayfrom moving there to spend the next three years of my life, and 2. I was goingto London a few days later to be a tourist with my girlfriend. Oh, yeah, incase you were not yet aware (but I'm sure you are), I got a girlfriend in 2011.

Tomost, this doesn't seem like much of an achievement, but this is for me. Peoplepreviously knew me as 'Stuart; that guy who is so cynical and angry about theWorld and people, who hardly ever has anyone to love'. Well, now, I'm not thatguy. I have a girl whose hand I can hold, without the police being called andbeing arrested for attempted sexual assault. She is mine. Not officially, but Ihave claimed her as my property, and she has claimed me as hers.

Along-term relationship is new ground for me. I have had more Sea Monkies than Ihave girlfriends. In fact, I think I have had Sea Monkies which have survivedlonger than some of my past relationships. Mind you, that could be identifiedto the fact I spent my time growing Sea Monkies and becoming emotionallyattached to the said Sea Monkies.

Anyway,with the change of our relationship going from 'friends' to 'being in arelationship with', happening in July, this year can surely be said to be ayear of two halves for me: The first half being painful and lonely, and thesecond have not quite as much so, with added happiness and kissing…

Thisall means that I lose the bet I made in my blog about my 2010, when makingassumptions for the upcoming year: "...I bet I'm still singlethough." I usually hate being wrong, but not this time. I'm justthankful I didn't put any money on it...

Thisyear also saw me finish my A-level's and attend a University with a historydating back to the 19th Century: The University of East London. The changewasn't smooth, or even enjoyable, with my results being messed up resulting inme franticly trying to get hold of the University who declined me because ofthis cock up. I mean, how can an examiner forget to mark two years worth ofPhotography work? That eludes me. Anyway, all was resolved, and after a largerdeposit of money exiting my bank accounts, and a large, expensive shop atDunelm Mill, I went to University to study Journalism with Creative Writing.

Sofar, it is going quite well. I have only finished the first semester of thefirst year, but the first few grades I have gotten have been superb. I quiteliterally jumped for joy. Hopefully the end results are just as good. I'll haveto get choreographing a celebration dance. Actually, why bother, just learn oneof the dances on Just Dance 3 and perform that, but maybe a shortened, lesssweaty version.

Whatelse happened for me in 2011? I'm not sure. This year has had so many bigevents happen, that I forget all the silly, insignificant things I have done. Well,I saw a couple of comedians live (Milton Jones and Mark Watson) who were bothvery good. I nearly got to see Jimmy Carr live, but I thought I would ratherget my car clamped and pay £120 fine. My laptop died while watching Stewart Leeon YouTube. I have seen my first musical: We Will Rock. I have been to aGuardian event for Journalists. I have joined the National Union of Journalist.I have stepped foot into a newsroom. I have spent many happy hours in Londonsightseeing. I have been up in a helicopter. I have been to The Doctor WhoExperience in London, flown the TARDIS and been threatened by Daleks. I haveread a few books. I have worked out how to use Skype. I have got a TecoClubcard. I have done other things too...

Letme just elaborate on a few of the above: We Will Rock You is a fantastic bit oftheatre, which I recommend to anyone who likes music and comedy. It was one ofthe most enjoyable evenings of my life. All of the journalism events of myyear, such as attending the Guardian event and being in a newsroom, haveconcreted my aspiration to be a journalist. I loved the atmosphere! I alsorecommend The Doctor Who Experience to everyone who has watched the show(whether you're a virgin or not). Irecommend the book Sh*t My Dad Says if you have a week free and like agiggle. I recommend the Tesco Clubcard if you regularly shop from there.However, I do not recommend getting your car clamped; too much hassle and toomuch money for what is a rubbish service.

Right,so that about sums up my 2011. I hope you also had a great year, and I hopethat 2012 is either as good, or better than the previous year’s you have had.I'm sure you are deserving of it.

Mypredictions for 2012 are quite simple really. I will still be a University nextyear, and I'll be in even more debt. I will hopefully be living in a Londonapartment with my girlfriend, with a nice view of the Thames. I expect to spendmuch more time in London, seeing shows and visiting places. Also, I am prettysure that this year is going to be pretty baby orientated, what with the girlfriend’ssister about to pop one out, and friends in the last few months of bakingtheirs in the oven. Also, I bet this time next year, I won't be single! I'llbet a charity donation on that one.

P.S.Happy New Year

P.P.S.How late is too late to keep wishing people a 'Happy New Year'.

The Stuart Awards 2011

2011-12-29T09:00:00.000Z

Thebiggest and least exciting annual awards ceremony is here. Welcome, to TheStuart Awards 2011. For the fourth year running now, I give out awards for thebest and worse things to happen in the world for that year. The recipient ofeach award has been through lots of consultation, in which I had the one andonly say in who gets the award. As you may be aware, the award is onlyimaginary, and generally the recipient of each award is completely ignorant tothe fact that they have won it. So, let us commence with the first category:

Music

MostAnnoying Song Of The Year: Most will probably disagree with this first winner,as most claim it to be a beautiful piece of music in which any person can'emotionally connect' with. Horse Manure! Adele - Someone Like You,has won this award. In part, because it has been massively overplayed andoverrated, but it is mostly because it is just drivel. The only way I would belikely to enjoy this piece of music, is if it were sung by a choir of dogsbeing castrated while having cats dangled in front of them.

DisappointingSong Of The Year: Maroon 5 - Moves Like Jagger is surprisingly awardedthis. Now, let me just clarify: I love Maroon 5, and they are my favouriteband. I really liked this song to start. However, now it has been over played,I feel has failed to stand the test time within just 6 months. To me, they havea lot of making up to do…

SongOf The Year: Again, rather surprisingly, Coldplay - Paradise winthis award. It has just been caught on my mind since I first heard it. I'm notthe greatest Coldplay fan, but it just seems a brilliant piece of music to me.I love the build-up to the song, and I love the burst of 'Para… Para…Paradise'. How great it is.

SongOf A Few Years Ago Which I Began To Like This Year: He is gay and was acompetitor on American Idol: Adam Lambert - Fever. This was asong I found in a long twisted way which I will not divulge into, but all I sayis find him singing it live on YouTube (so long as you're not homophobic). It'svery good. Also, I would actually recommend his album too.

AlbumOf The Year: He's an Englishman living in France, and he had produced one ofthe happiest and cheerful albums I have possibly ever heard, with every songbeing catchier than the common cold: Julian Perretta - Stitch Me Up.Technically, it was released last year, but I can't help if I found it thisyear. It is a brilliant album which I actually do recommend to everyone. It haswhat I call a 'messy beat', but that adds to its charm, and I just love it.

MostDisappointing Album Of The Year: This honour goes to an album which I didn'tbuy or download, and I didn't even manage to force myself to listen to all thesongs on YouTube. Arctic Monkeys - Suck It And See was liked by alot of people, but to me it 'Sucked'. They are a band which have slipped intoirrelevance and are sinking into a sea of rubbish 'cool' bands. I shall juststick to listening to Favourite Worst Nightmare. They will never topthat one again…

Film & TV

MostIrritating And Largely Unnoticed Revival Of The Year: Big Brother onChannel 5. Last year, it won Best TV Moment Of The Year for the fact ithad actually ended. This year, I have with no regret, taken the award away fromthem. It came back to life on another channel, and was on for almost the entireyear. However, it seems that no-one really took any notice as I heard verylittle about it after the few weeks.

WorstFilm Remake Of The Year: Wuthering Heights. Simple. I wrote ablog bemoaning how they forgot huge chunks and how it was filmed by artstudents trying to make some inadvertent point through soft focus and moths. Itwas just terrible, and the audience at the cinema seemed to agree.

SecondWorst Film Remake Of The Year: The runner up to the previous award was almostas bad, and I felt deserving of the award too. The Witches Of Ozwas made in the US and released over here on DVD. My girlfriend, being a fan ofmusicals, brought it, and we watched it; all 167 minutes of it. Basically,Dorothy, through some hurricane-time-travel crap, is living in modern day NewYork with no memory of the event, but with the help of rubbish acting and datedCGI technology, the worlds collide. Then through some terrible writing andawful acting, you'll regret ever watching it.

DramaOf The Year: Black Mirror. Sceptics might say this is because Iam a Charlie Brooker obsessive, but it isn't. That may be why I originallywatched it, but all three stories were heart-wrenching, at the same as beingdisturbing in this alternate, technology revolved universe. Amazing pieces ofwriting.

FilmOf The Year: You may notice a pattern over the few years of these awards, but Iam a very large kid. Johnny English: Reborn is very worthy ofthis tribute. It is just everything I want in a film: It's silly. It's funny.It's serious. It's fast. It's clever. It's a spoof. It has Rowan Atkinson.

USImport Of The Year: The Big Bang Theory, which won a similaraward back in 2008. It has the potential to be the next Friends, and Ijust laugh at every episode with it being clever, original and silly all at thesame time. Sure, it has the same formula as all American Sitcoms, but it isjust so very funny. It even has a catchphrase: BAZINGA!

ComedyOf The Year: Up until a week or so ago, this award was going to Outnumbered,which would have been its third Stuart Award. However, The Bleak Old ShopOf Stuff, which was on BBC 2 in the build-up to Christmas, had so manyperfect comedy performances, from the experienced to the young, that it had meconstantly laughing for the entire hour. It was rather remarkable.

ComedyDisgrace Of The Year: Mrs Brown's Boys. If you tell me it'sfunny, I will personally bang you over the head with a tin serving plate untilblood pours from your eyes and see if you are still pissing yourself at howfunny it is, with it being done over and over and over and over and over again.

SeriesOf The Year: I cannot leave Doctor Who out of my awards, so Ihave made one especially for it to win. The whole series was gripping with itsstoryline, and it was jammed pack with mystery and intrigue, as well as theusual Doctor Who tomfoolery. As much as I have a chip on my shoulder aboutSteven Moffat, I have to admit he is great at writing a brilliant story.

Celebrity

CelebrityDeath Of The Year: This goes to Amy Winehouse, purely justbecause I found it how remarkably unapologetic the whole of Twitter was when itwas revealed that she did not die as a result of drink nor drugs, after theweeks of shameless judging they threw on her coffin instead of roses.

OriginalBand Publicity Of The Year: I am quite intrigued by how McFlyhave achieved this over the past few months, with two of them winning twoseparate Celebrity shows: I'm A Celebrity… and Strictly Come Dancing. Theydidn't need to do those shows, but they did, and they won. It's made themrather popular I believe.

'HowThe Hell Are The Famous' Of The Year: It is hard to choose just one winner forthis award, so every single person who has appeared on a 'Fake Documentary'on E4, ITV 2 and MTV win this award. I fail to see how anyone can be a fan ofsomeone who has appeared on The Only Way Is Essex.

Journalism

ScandalOf The Year: Yeah, need I even tell you? Yes, it's the News of the WorldPhone Hacking scandal. It could be widened to almost all newspapersnow, but nothing seems to have quite topped the fact that within a week of thenews being released, News of the World were publishing their last evernewspaper.

PhoneHacking Revelation Of The Year: Millie Dowler. The dreadfulbusiness of NotW listening to distraught messages of her friends and familytrying to get into contact with her is just rather upsetting. But hey, takesolace in the fact that they weren't the ones to actually delete the messages…

RevengeOf The Year: This goes to Hugh Grant, in which he 'hacked' aJournalist, Paul McMullan, who revealed all the journalism misdoings, inrevenge for the same journalist 'hacking' a conversation they had. Read it, it is quite interesting.

ArticleOf The Year: Well, it has to go to The Daily Mail's Liz Jones for writing adisturbing article in which she talks about how she stole sperm from herhusband in a desperate bid to have a baby: 'Thecraving for a baby that drives women to the ultimate deception: Liz Jones makesher most shocking confession yet'. Read it, it's just disturbing...

Politics

Political Death Of The Year: Well, I have no idea who to awardthis too. It could go to one of three 'political enemies': Osama BinLaden, Gaddafi or Kim Jong-il. All have their reasons for beingdeserving of this award. In fact, they can share. Their dead anyway… And if Ihear one more joke about Team America existing, I will kill that person whoutters it.

Useless Currency Of The Year: The Euro. This year,it became more unpopular than Jedward, and just like Jedward, if you see theEuro currency arrive on your doorstep, you'll want to douse it in petrol andflick a lighted match at it.

Uprising Of The Year: The Arab Springs. It wentpretty well; as such. The problem is that people got killed amongst it. Terriblebusiness.

General

Over Reaction Of The Year: The uproar following JeremyClarkson appearing on The One Show was just disastrous, and utterlypointless with it just being an excuse for the public sector unions to complainthat no-one cares about their pensions. Well, you know what: You're right. Wepretty much don't.

Royal Wedding Of The Year: The one people cared about.You see there were two royal weddings this year, and basically, people onlycared about the Kate/William wedding. Bless that posh lady who married a rugbyplayer…

Pointless Use Of 24 Hours News Of The Year: The London Riots.Almost every news channel became too paranoid to set foot outside, so madegeneral assumptions for over 100 hours about the whole event from theirstudios, based purely on people calling in and what was being said on Twitter.

Twitterer Of The Year: This goes to, for another year, a comedianand not someone who actually adds anything much positive to the World ofTwitter. This year, the comedian being flattered is in a relationship withSarah Millican. It's Gary Delaney (@GaryDelaney) and he spewsouts lots of awful, one line jokes.

Girlfriend Of The Year: Mine! N’awwww, ain’t I adorable…

And there you have it; the end of the blogging award ceremony inwhich 30 awards were handed out in my mind, and then written down so you canalso join me in imagining the event in your minds. Well, I hope you enjoyed it.Maybe by next year, for The Stuart Awards 2012, I would have struck a deal withRicky Gervais to present the ceremony… Come on Gervais, I will offer you nomoney: None at all!

The Wily Mr Murdoch's

2011-12-24T11:00:00.000Z

Theend of 2011 is approaching, and this year's Formula 1 seasons has come to aclose, after a great year of motor sporting action, with some brilliant raceswhich will be remembered for years, and records which will take many years toeventually be broken. In the United Kingdom, we have been able to watch allthis on the BBC, which has provided a great deal of in-depth analysis which hasinformed and, more importantly, entertained. I'm sure the next season willproduce the same great quality sport. However, no longer will the BBC beshowing the footage of sport in the same way they have for the past two years.And why? Sky!

Skyhave come along and pounced on the healthy chicken, and dragging it back totheir den with their teeth firmly gripping hold of the neck, just like a foxmight. They are stealing the entire healthy crop that every other channel has.Another example of it happening this year is Glee.

ChannelFour took the chance and aired the first two series. No-one knew whether or notit would transfer well to a British audience. Channel Four hand-reared thislittle foreign chick, until it became a hit, with a large fan base of peoplewho listen to the terrible music. Then, just when it was at its healthiest, Skycame leaping in with their multi-millions, and ran off with the high-pitchedchicken shrieking out a Britney hit.

Thatis what Sky does; they let other channels take the risk with a new show, andthen when it becomes popular, they take it and add to their collection of hits.The sneaky bastards.

Now,I have no real issue with Sky taking Glee. In fact, they have done me a favour.My girlfriend watched it in the days when Channel 4 had it, but due to us nothaving Sky, and me never being likely to have it, she can no longer watch it,meaning I am saved from having to listen to crap actors sing crap songs withcrap voices. However, I DO have an issue with them spearheading Formula 1 awayfrom the BBC.

Ihave never really had a passion for a sport before, but I do have an enormousdesire to wake up at 5:30am on a Sunday morning to sit in bed for four hours towatch the race, as well as all the coverage before and after the race. It is anexperience which, in the two years the BBC has had it, has made it a real personableshow. It is a show which you feel a part of. It is an experience which isbetter than actually being at the race. At the race, you can't go and listen toevery race driver talk profoundly in a friendly manner about their emotions atwinning a race.

TheF1 Forum, which always followed the race on the Red Button, gave this us, theaudience; the chance to see a sportsman express human emotion up close, whichwas something to have not been done before. The BBC also go and interviewpeople at the races, such as mechanics who has take a break from rushing to getthe car ready for the race, to talk to nosey film crew. The presenting team go andmingle with the public, especially at the British Grand Prix, and then you alsoget interviews with celebrities such as Sir Paul McCartney and Rowan Atkinson.

Andnow, because of Sky (although not entirely their fault; we can also blame theGovernment for not raising the TV License, meaning the BBC had no extra moneyto afford both BBC 4 and the F1. I mean, why could they not sacrifice BBC 3instead?), that coverage has been sacrificed. The BBC still have coverage, butit is very limited. From 2012, they will only be showing half of the raceslive, with the others being limited to just two hours of highlights. And Sky? They're creating a whole channel,because they have money to piss away on everything.

Skyhas also stolen a considerable amount of the BBC presenting team. So, not onlyhave Sky stolen another program which a channel has worked hard on to make asuccess, but they have also stolen their talent. Why? Because they're greedy,but they're also lazy. Essentially, they take the credit for the hard work doneby other people.

Incase you were not aware, News Corporation own part of Sky, with their bid totake complete control being blocked earlier this year after the News of theWorld scandal.

Nota great year for the Murdoch's overall. But then, hey, feel no sympathy forthem. I mean, they APPARENTLY never read emails to them which informed them ofthe illegal methods that their journalists used to get stories. If that's true,they're incompetent idiots. If it's false, then they're bastard liars who willgo to any mean who protect their sun-warped faces. Neither option is great, butI think we can all agree that the latter is probably the true option.

P.S. Thinkabout it: Are Sky going to produce clips such as these?

Light-Hearted Offence

2011-12-04T20:00:00.000Z

Theworld is filled with morons, and should have a thousand nuclear bombs droppedon it, whilst lions and enraged monkeys rip the faces and limbs from everyperson who has ever uttered 'erm' in a sentence. In fact, every member ofplanet Earth should be taken and shot in front of our God for being the stupid,brain-dead twerps that they are. Full stop.

Areyou offended by those comments? You should be. I just wrote something offenseabout a group of people which is nasty, vindictive and inciting hatred. Comeon, sue me. Take me to court. Issue a statement saying that I should have allfreedom of speech removed from my soul because I use it in a way in which youdisagree with.

Thatis, in fact, an exaggeration; I purely just think that 'the world is filledwith morons'. The rest is optional really. So, do you want to know why I am100% sure that almost every member of human kind is a brain-dead, moronictwerp? Well, let me show you the Oxford Dictionary's 2009 definition of theword 'Comedy':

1 a film, play, or other intended to make people laugh. 2: a light-hearted playin which the characters find happiness after experiencing difficult situations.Synonyms: humour, fun, hilarity, funny side, laughs, jokes.

Icould go into many more dictionary definitions, such as humour, amusing,humorist, funny, etc. Either way, it is generally considered that comedy is notto be taken as truth; as the person's actual honest opinion, however offensiveit may be.

Therehave been many comic moments which have had the context of humour removed tomake something seem simply shockingly offensive. One example is the Ross/BrandSachsgate fiasco, in which they phoned up Manuel from Fawlty Towers to informhim that his granddaughter was a bit of a slut. Although he didn't find thefunny side, Manuel was not too offended and shrugged it off. However, the27,000 other people who were in no way involved, were somehow offended, andcomplained to everyone.

Moststuff which Frankie Boyle says has the comedy element removed and is taken as ablind insult, either at the Queen's vagina, Katie Price's disabled son or KerryKatona. Personally, I don't find much that he says funny; but that is myOPINION, and therefore NOT FACT. Due to that, I know that those comments, putinto context, were meant to be, in some twisted sense, comedy. As I result, Ibrushed them off, and forget about it without an ounce of offence consuming me.

Ido seem to be one of the few people that seems able to distinguish between whatis MY OPINION and what is considered to be FACT. Jeremy Clarkson's latestcomments have been juggled around the Internet, television, newspapers andradio, as part of journalism reporting the offense which has ensued. JeremyClarkson stated on The One Show (BBC 1), that striking public sector workersshould be "executed in front of their families". Not the nicest ofthings to say, I grant you, but it is glaringly obvious that he was presentinga very exaggerated view, which was more than likely for the purposes of tryingto be funny.

Yes,Jeremy Clarkson is in trouble again for telling another bad joke.

Whereever the news has been reported, the comments have had all context removed fromit. You can view the transcript of his comments here, on The Guardian website, and judge for yourselves. In the first 24 hours, barely 5,000 peoplehad heard the comments and complained, and a majority of that was purelybecause a 15 second video of him saying those comments, with everything saidbefore and after removed, was passed around the Internet. The BBC removed thatparticular episode of The One Show from iPlayer, so people could not watch it,and therefore the morons had no way of understanding the context.

Threedays after the comments were made, the number of complaints had risen to over21,000; only 6000 short of the amount received for Sachsgate. Now, maybe I'mbeing blind sighted, but surely if you've been SO offended by a comment, itwouldn't take you three days to complain. Therefore, I suspect that, just likeSachsgate, a majority of the people 'offended' by the comments, never actuallysaw the show live, and have, in fact been offended by BBC News repeating, andTwitter spreading, the 15 second clip. Surely, that is just as meaningful as mecomplaining about the treatment of disabled children in the 19th Century; ahundred years before I was born. If you were not offended at the time, and onlyafter you have been told that something IS offensive, then the complaint shouldbe answered by a gurgling, snot-nosed 6 month old who is sat with the phone inhis mouth, for that is the amount attention and respect their complaindeserves.

Similarly,Life's Too Short is coming under similar scrutiny, with it apparently being offensiveto dwarfs, and therefore people are convinced that Ricky Gervais hates peoplewho have dwarfism just like all other disabilities (people forget that it wasco-written with Stephen Merchant). In fact, there is a campaign under way toget Life's Too Short taken off the telly. There was a whole interview with thecampaign leader a few weeks back in The Guardian's 'g2' pullout. She hasa young son with the disorder. I felt sorry for her until I realised that shetoo, is a moron.

'Substitutethe word "dwarf" with that of another minority or disability'Kirstina Gray says, 'and the BBC would probably find itself in court'.

Whyis it that every individual of this planet seems put upon by the comments ofanother human being? I personally don't think the BBC would find itself incourt as it is comedy, and if it is offending, then get over it; it's notintentional (unless the comedian is Frankie Boyle, then chances are, he waspurposefully trying to offend). In the 'Mockumentary', Warwick Davies plays himselfas being a selfish prick. It's acting. The comedy is in no way pointing fun athis size, just merely using it to enhance the humour. The story line is basedaround that, just like there are films based around 40-year-old virgins.

Ifpeople from minorities or with disabilities, want to be treated as equals tothe rest of the populace, then they have to be able to be subject to comedy,because that is what happens in most walks of life when everyone is equal.People make fun of others, and vice versa. I'm sure there are a majority ofpeople in these 'categories' that can have fun; be subject to 'banter', and notget offended, but there are is a small selection of people, who are either sohighly strung they could bungee jump, or are not properly informed, and thinkthey should be offended. Those people ruin comedy, and life, for the rest ofus. I refuse to live a world where people believe in political correctness.

Asfor Ricky Gervais using the word 'mong', and using it in its traditional sensebefore it became an insult for people with disabilities; it's no different tome saying 'I'm gay because I've finished my Uni essays'… It doesn't mean I'mgoing to have sex with another man in celebration.

Andas for Jeremy Clarkson's other comment about people who commit suicide in frontof trains being selfish; well it just so happens I have long held that same opinion.They cause disruption to hundreds of people, and there is usually a team ofpeople that have to clean that person up, as well as the sadness that personcauses the people they leave behind. A sad, tortured soul or not, it's still apretty selfish act to commit… IN MY OPINION.

Also,just to redistribute a quote from Stephen Fry back in 2005:

'It's now very common to hear peoplesay, "I'm rather offended by that", as if that gives them certainrights. It's no more than a whine. It has no meaning, it has no purpose, it hasno reason to be respected as a phrase. "I'm offended by that." Well,so fucking what?'

Andif you're offended by what I've said, either participate in a healthy,educated, well-written debate with me, or complain.

Wuthering Heights: Filmed in a Shed

2011-11-22T13:00:00.000Z

So,do you know the story of Wuthering Heights? Good. Now, imagine what thatclassic novel would like if it were actually filmed in a shed. Now, imagine itbeing acted by chavs who swear and have a common, English accent. Right, nowimagine that some art students were filming and directing it, with lots of softfocus and irritatingly pointless shots and angles which are apparentlysymbolic. Imagined it? Looks awful doesn't it. It looks like the sort of filmthat Film4 and the British Film Industry might fund, doesn't it. Well, now youdon't have to imagine that, you can go to your local cinema and pay to see it.Yes, PAY to see it.

Thereare lots of things wrong with this movie, but the one that has been mostvocalised in the media is the fact that Heathcliff is black. Yes, Heathcliff isblack. Maybe this is part of the modern view, which says that we are now'colour-blind'. We no longer recognise skin colour. Maybe. And anyway, the skincolour of Heathcliff is never known. In defence of the movie, it does say inthe first chapter of the novel that Heathcliff is 'a dark-skinned gypsy inaspect, in dress and manners a gentleman…' But, in defence of sensibility,people can be dark skinned Caucasians, AND why would women wearing petticoats,from the 19th century, lust after an Afro-Caribbean?

Inclusionof racist language in the movie, mainly from Hindley saying "He's not mybrother, he's a nigger" just made me put my hands up to my face and wantto cry. Emily Brontë. Thestory, just like all other adaptations of Wuthering Heights, was badlyconveyed. Some parts were changed, other parts were added, some partscompletely forgotten and even, most surprisingly, the odd part of the story wastold similarly to the novel. As it is with every adaption of the novel, thecharacter of Lockwood is written out and the role of Nelly is nothing but asupporting character, rather than taking the role of narrator that she has fora majority of the novel. The Linton's are not blonde. Wuthering Heights isnothing but an old, rotting shack in the middle of Yorkshire. The moors of thenovel have been replaced with large hills which surround the landscape. Nochildren, other than Hareton appear to have been born. We see Hareton getconceived in a wet field; an image we are saved from in the novel. Thecharacters are all inappropriate aged. In fact, I could continue to ramble on.

Thelove affair between Heathcliff and Catherine has also been adapted. The rockynature of the relationship is rather accurate, with her hating him at first,and then them being inseparable and protective. Then the appearance of Edgarcomes between them. Heathcliff goes and comes back and finds Catherine married.The problem is that their relationship is depicted as being even weirder thanbefore. The main example being that Catherine licks the bloodied wounds fromHeathcliff's back. I have no idea why. The relationship between them does seemto resemble owner/faithful dog, rather than confused children who experiencelove. The whole time, you just spend laughing at the ridiculousness of thisadaption, or wondering what the hell Arnold is trying to convey.

Thedirecting is terrible. The camera work is dreadful. Someone is riding a horse,but instead of doing a panning shot that follows the horse, or a long-shotwhich allows you to follow the horse across the screen, they opted for a closeup of the horses mane, or a close up of the person's hair. It is as if thecamera operators discovered they could do Macro Photography, so just tookadvantage of it. Every few minutes, there was a close up of a moth in a window,or the intrinsic detail of a feather: all pointless to the telling of thestory. I have always been told that 'less is more' and not to put stuff in'just to fill time'. If you want to see how to fill time in an A-class style,watch this film. Five minutes of this film is watching birds fly.

Ihave a theory too, that the creators of this film are hell-bent of makingpeople blind in the process of watching this film, which is a lovely way totreat people who have already paid £6 a ticket to watch this atrocity. Picturethe scene: You're watching Heathcliff sitting in a dark, barely-lit room atnight. You're struggling to see, so the pupils in your eyes are fully dilatedto allow as much light in as possible. Then BOOM. It feels like someone hasfired a shotgun into your eyes. The scene has cut to one with bright andintense white light, which illuminates the entire room. Too much light isentering your eyes and you feel as if you have turned stiff; you feel dead.

Talkingof dead, there is an abundance of dead animals. You see Heathcliff slaughter asheep with the blood pouring out; for which I had to cover my girlfriend’s eyesto protect her loveliness. Then, later on in the movie, we see Heathcliffstanding over a trapped rabbit, who he then kills by breaking the neck; forwhich my girlfriend covered my eyes to protect me from shouting out “Youbastard!” I don’t know why they kept showing these scenes, but I made sure tosit through to the end to make sure that no animals were hurt in the process.They hadn’t been thankfully.

Iremember a few years ago, ITV made a two-part adaption of the novel. It wasn'tgreat. I, my friends, my classmates and teacher all complained about howinaccurate it was. ‘Dreadful’ we said. We were all in awe at how they hadruined the classic we had spent a year studying. However, in comparison, theITV adaption should have been heralded as a great piece of television. This iscompared to the film however, which makes somewhat of a mockery out of thenovel. The best thing about the ITV adaption was that it didn't cost me to seeit, and the acting was far better. Arnold essentially raped the Emily Brontë novel.

Thisopinion doesn't come down to the fact that Heathcliff was black; that was oneof the least problematic parts of the film. It is part of a wider problem whichis the film, in which no character seemed to be vaguely accurate, and the storybacketballed into a bin. The problem with all the adaptations so far, is thatthey remove the rather unique narrative to the story and forget Lockwood and Nelly.I think the most successful adaption will include them. I accept that anadaptation, unless it was going to be a ten-part TV series, will not includethe entire story, but it should keep the style which every reader loves aboutWuthering Heights. When someone makes that, I think that will be the day when aproper adaptation will have been made, and they will rake in the praise.

This film receivedno praise. I remember sitting through the last two Harry Potter films at thecinema, in which at the end of the film, the audience whooped and cheered inpraise of a brilliantly made film. At the end of watching Wuthering Heights,all I heard was people saying how awful it was and how they did not enjoy it atall.

Mind you, I shouldhave known how terrible the film was going to be when I saw the trailer on theInternet. The most pointless minute of film, in which absolutely nothing isshown. It should have been a clue that this film was being filmed by collegeart students…

An Hour In The Life Of Me

2011-10-31T17:00:00.000Z

You’re probably wonderingwhy I think anyone would care about an uneventful hour of my life two weeksago. You’re probably right; no-one does. That doesn’t stop me though. Thefollowing words are a stream of consciousness: Stuff my brain ordered myfingers to type with any direct input from me, as part of an assignment for the‘Creative Writing’ side of my University degree. Make sense? No. Oh. Wellessentially I sat outside my University accommodation for an hour, and wrote downwhat I saw, heard, smelt and felt. Anyway, I found it quite interesting totype, and it is relatively humorous, so I thought I would share it with yougood people. I hope you do enjoy it.

“I’m sat on a bench, withmy shower fresh hair, underneath the forever watching CCTV camera. I decidedseeing as I was outside, in public, with people, with my laptop, I would sitsomewhere that I would consider safe. Well, not safe, but at least shouldsomeone walk past and casually steal my laptop from underneath my finger tips,I would at least have more chance if catching the bastard. Should I drop thelaptop and begin crying, the people watching the CCTV images would at least geta laugh too.

I’m sat in intensesunlight, with half my keyboard shadowed by the screen, as a result of havingthe sun increasing in height behind it. This has now shown to me how dusty anddirty my laptop actually is. It is terrible, and should my Mum see the state ofit, she would moan and immediately fetch a cloth and some cleaning liquid toachieve the task of cleanliness. I am hopeful that seeing as there is a ratherstrong breeze, the dust will be blown away. Maybe this little assignment willhelp in my cleanliness…

So, as I sit back on theuncomfortable bench, and look over the laptop screen, I can see water,glistening, and full of movement as it flows in the direction of sea. On theother side of this water, I can see a runway, in which a plane is noisilymanoeuvring itself on. Now pausing, the engines are increasing in speed and volumeas I imagine the pilot asking for permission to fly. He clearly has it, as thesounds are increasing. The plane is taking a run up, forever increasing inspeed, and as it moves away, the sound goes with it. And UP it goes, ratherconfidentially too. The plane is now en route to its destination, and all I cansee now as I glance back up to the sky after my running commentary is a faintwhite shape which I imagine to be the plane.

Now it is quiet again, Ican return to admiring the natural beauty of the water as the sun makes myblack laptop rather hot and also making my jean laden legs becomingincreasingly hotter. I spoke of silence too soon, as behind me I can hear thescreeching brakes of a train and the far away sounds of another plane about tomanoeuvre itself to the end of the runway so that it too can make a confidentleap into the sky to get to a destination far away from the rudeness of London.The said plane is a CityJet, with its propellers spinning. Again he positionshimself. Again he speeds up, and again he speeds off into the distance takingthe loud sounds with it.

However, here comes aplane falling from the sky in the nervous, wobbly fashion they seem to alwaysdo. It shakes upon near contact with the runway. He puts his nose up and bum down.He has landed bum first with a little puff of smoke from the wheels as itlands. Now he chucks his nose down and as he now exists the runway to adesignated area, here comes another plane; and he seems just as nervous as heflies in front of the sun and casts a shadow over me, if only for a splitsecond, and he lands. Now, all I cansmell as the wind blows into my direction, is burning rubber and aeroplanefuel. Not exactly the smell of flowers and noise of birds singing that I getback at home in a lovely Kentish village.

Now it is quite again. Thewater looks filled with crystals. It is almost like God, if he existed, haddropped a pot of glitter onto the water. It hurts to look up, not only into thesun, but also into the pool of intense light that is sitting on the water infront of me. Birds are flying too. A seagull is floating in the sky,pointlessly and effortlessly, thanks to the help of the wind. I think he islazy. Other seagulls sit on the water, and look at him, either in awe of theirfloating friend, or bitching about how lazy that other seagull is. It is hardto tell from the wooden bench I am perched on, which one it is.

There are other birds heretoo, but seeing as I am not Twitcher, I cannot reveal their names. I can onlyreally, safely, tell the names of five types of bird: Seagulls, Pigeons, Ducks,Swans and Robbins. The other birds in front of me in the water are not one ofthose five. I would make a guess at it being some type of goose. There are few,baby ones sitting on the water and bobbing up and then down again, beforebobbing up and down again, repeatedly. An adult, (what I am calling a) goose,is standing proudly on the edge of a bank and is constantly ruffling hisfeathers; I think he must have an itch which is bugging him.

I can see a reflection ofmyself in the laptop screen, and I can tell that my hair is almost dry from thesun and the wind. However, this may not be the style that I intended on. I looklike a child who has just discovered the power of electricity and theimportance of not putting metal objects into turned on plug sockets. It lookspositively static…

I keep just looking at thewater, and thinking. I am thinking many deep things which I will not divulgeinto, but I am also thinking about the water that I am starring into. Somewaves look like they are part of some rolling mountains, which stretch as faras the eye can see, in miniature. Other waves are bigger, and I think they lookslightly reminiscent of circus tents. I doubt anyone would agree with that observationhowever, and that is why I took it out twice, before becoming adamant that Iwas going to keep it in, no matter what.

I have just spotted themoon, well, half a moon. It is nearly eleven in the morning, and the moon isout. This phenomenon always intrigues me, and as I think about it, I feel sorryfor Australia. It is night there, and they haven’t got a moon. We have itinstead. The sounds ‘ha ha’ go through my mind now, actually.

People keep walking pastme, with their haircuts and bags and purpose. Look, that boy is wearing a pinktop. It so doesn’t go with those jeans! The people that walk past often stareat me, sat on a bench, alone, and typing. They probably think I am sat herewriting some essay, but what they don’t realise is that the thousand or sowords I have typed, are in fact just drivel.

I am looking out into thedistance now, and I can see buildings. Old buildings, but not old enough towarrant paying £10 to walk about and look at the furniture and portraits. Theyare just old tower blocks that were built after the war. They look ratherlovely, with the sun lighting one half, the shade covering another half,another plane flying in front of them and the soundtrack of sirens ringingaround. London: It seems to be the only place where sirens try and harmonisewith each other.

I am now just lookingaround, letting my brain wonder off, and there are now clouds in a sky which 10minutes ago was absent of any. I would love to be able to tell you what typesof clouds they are. If only I had brought the book I saw in WHSmiths yesterday!Instead, you’ll have to make do with my amateur, and cliché description of thembeing white and fluffy. It creates such a lovely and peaceful image in yourhead. However, in reality, I’m in East London, looking out onto an airport,with workmen drilling and trains clattering and screeching behind me. A millionmiles away from the peaceful lifestyle I once lived not two months ago. Well,in reality, it’s only 52 miles away.

My bum is beginning tohurt, so I shall end it here, with the clouds relieving me from the sun, ifonly for a few seconds, after an observation that I have just had whilstlooking in the direction of Canary Wharf: Doesn’t the Millennium Dome just looklike a dollop of ice cream with several biscuit wafers stuck in around theedge?”

James Bond With Added Funny Gas

2011-10-25T16:00:00.000+01:00

Itwas a few weeks ago now, but I have seen Johnny English Reborn. This is thesecond Johnny English, with the first coming out in 2003 when I was just elevenyears old. Since then, it has been my second favourite movie franchise, withthe first being Toy Story. I know, in just three sentences I have made myselfsound rather childish. That's showing and not telling y'know!

Ilove Rowan Atkinson. I love him for almost every role I have seen him play insitcoms and films, as well as for his 80's satirical humour in 'Not The NineO'Clock News' and his stand-up material (performing sketches on stageessentially). He is, in my opinion, the greatest comedian. Therefore, I wasalways going to be biased to thinking that Johnny English Reborn is thegreatest movie I have seen in some time.

Thecinema I went to was a fancy new cinema complex with more screens than Comet, allshowing different movies. It was a Vue cinema, this one situated in Stratford(because that’s what the Olympics needs). I haven't actually been to a Vuecinema before, but the chairs where more reminiscent of sofas than they wereflimsy fold-down chairs; and that was in the standard, working class section.The screen was so large that you have to turn your head to be able to look fromone side of the screen to another, and the air conditioning was so powerfulthat you could keep an Igloo in there for as long as you liked. The experienceitself was the most pleasant one I have had in a cinema; apart from the largequeue for snacks, the price of the snacks and the fact that there were otherpeople in the cinema.

Anyway,first of all, don't go to see the movie to expect a movie similar to the firstone. It is on a much larger scale, with a more believable and serious storylinewhich has tragedy, as well as moments of ecstatic, Atkinson-esque, pleasure.Think of it as more of a James Bond movie, with funny gas being pumped into thecinema. It is on that sort of large scale. It has a story line which couldeasily be adapted for a serious spy movie.

Wejoin English in Tibet, learning Martial Arts after becoming a disgraced spysome years prior after a failed mission in Mozambique. MI7 need him back for amission to foil a plot to kill the Chinese Premier. Along with his newsidekick, Tucker, he goes to Hong Kong to find people affiliated with a projectnamed 'Vortex'. Humour ensues countless times, which involve a yacht chase, agame of golf and helicopter flying. MI7 then try to assassinate him, before ahilarious conclusion which involves Atkinson wearing lipstick, dancing to WordUp by Korn ("Wave your hands in the air like you don’t care"), somegroin kicks, some wrestling with self, and having a fight scene in a cable car;all of which demonstrations the brilliance of his physical comedy. The moviethen ends after English has attacked the Queen.

Avery short synopsis there, but a lot more comedy ensues. I haven't laughed thatmuch at a film for as long as I can remember; and I had watched the firstJohnny English movie the evening prior to seeing Reborn. It certainly held upto my expectations and then superseded them.

Thefilm also includes a greater cast, included Gillian Anderson (of X-Files fame),who was great for the role of Head of MI7, and Dominic West (of The Wire fame),who was great at playing the 'unexpected' villain of the film. Atkinson'sacting was great too, and it is sometimes hard to believe that this is the manfrom Mr Bean and Blackadder. Also, remembering he is now 56, it is great to seehim still able to perform such brilliant physical comedy, with his trademarkhigh kicks and performing many stunts himself, such as driving a jet-poweredWheelchair through the streets of London.

Iwould recommend the film to anyone with the smallest of funny bones. I reckonit could make almost everyone at least snigger on numerous occasions. The filmisn't a silly, half-term film which is meant for just children, but it isinstead a film which the whole family could enjoy; I'm sure of it. Its adultstory line makes sure of that. The comedy too will appeal to anyone. It is anall-round movie. I urge you to see it; even if you wait for it to come out onDVD. Films transfer onto DVD so quickly these days. It's not as if you'll haveto wait long.

Idon't know how else to put across how much I enjoyed this film. I do notunderstand why critics have been so harsh to this film. I think it's brilliant.Much better than any of your pouncey Twilight rubbish that you watch. I meanThe Inbetweeners movie? If you 'claim to like comedy' that much, then youshould see this. It's adult and childish at the same time, without any needless,apparently funny, swearing.

Ifyou do go and see it at the cinema, do make sure you sit through the creditsand wait patiently. You will not regret it. Out of a packed cinema, only 7people remained at the end to watch one of the funniest Rowan Atkinson skits Ihave seen. It involves him, preparing a casserole, in sync to a piece ofclassical music (Edvard Grieg's In the Hall of the Mountain King - a piece ofmusic everyone will recognise when they hear it). It is brilliant, and I'msaying that as a devoted fan of his visual antics, and think of it as a perfectexample of what Atkinson can achieve, with just simple, everyday items. I wasin awe of that final performance, as well as giggling like I would have when Iwas eleven years old.

Ashamed To Be Human

2011-10-21T15:00:00.000+01:00

Ihave concluded I don't suit the human race. I think I would be much morecomfortable at being part of another species on planet Earth, such as a rabbitor a tortoise. They always seem quite happy and contented and unbothered bywhat is happening in the news. A rabbit’s hutch will be lined with newspaper,but being a rabbit I wouldn't be able to read the text nor really be able tounderstand the context of the pictures. And even if I could understand it, I'deither eat or poo on the offending article. It's easy as a rabbit. I can evenwiggle my nose and ears like a rabbit. Maybe I was meant to be a rabbit? Or ifyou believe in reincarnation, maybe I was once a rabbit. I wish I had a simplelife like a rabbit, where I couldn't get offended.

Whyam I considering the rabbit’s life? Well, the news the past two days hascompletely depressed, revolted and ashamed me. I am part of a species thatmurders. I know it's hardly a news flash: “Human Race Murder”. I'm thinkingmore about a specific murder carried out yesterday; a murder of a bad man. Aterrible man. A man most would agree didn't deserve to live in the first place.However, what has bothered me more is not the murder itself, but the aftermath.His death has been glorified, and that is what I have a problem with.

Almostevery newspaper carried a picture, on the front page, of Colonel Gadaffi. Hislifeless face, covered with blood and a bullet hole in his head, is a picturewhich can be seen everywhere today. The Mirror had the worst, most disgustingpicture and The Sun had a headline, which seemed to be full of pride at hisdeath: "That's For Lockerbie", with the sub-heading "And forYvonne Fletcher. And IRA Semtex Bomb victims." That headline is typical ofThe Sun, and its approach to anything done by, or as a result of, our Army.They are often blinded by a sense of pride. Morality doesn't come into theirfield of approach to news stories like this.

I hate myself for having to put his picture in my blog, but I just wanted to share the front cover. You can hate me and call me hypocritical if you like...

Itcomes to something when the human race uses technology to spread footage of aman being tortured and killed, all done within minutes of the event happening.Within an hour of hearing about the capture and possible death of Gadaffi, Iwas seeing pictures on the BBC Website, and video footage on their newschannel, of his dead, bloodied and beaten body. The BBC defended it, by statingthat they used the video to convey the scale of the "dramatic andgruesome" events. This is the same for every international news outlet inthe country. To me, that is just seems wrong. It seems inhuman to put the faceof a dead man everywhere; we wouldn't even treat an animal in that way.

Ofcourse, we have to appreciate that as a nation, we are cynical enough to takethe opinion that we won't believe something until we have seen it, and studiedit for ourselves. Seeing as we can't all fly to Libya and poke the bodyourselves; video footage is the next best thing. Saying to news outlets thatthey cannot show the pictures in their papers, and websites and news channelswould be censorship, and I am against censorship. I just believe that we don'tneed to see these pictures over and over and over and over again. He isn't avery attractive man in the first place, let alone dead, bruised and bloodied.Why couldn't it just be confined to the Internet and after the watershed on TV?It seems wrong to have this man, who has essentially been 'happy slapped', inthis state, as a picture to symbolise Thursday 20th October 2011.

Totake an extreme view; we wouldn't do this to a victim. If Gadaffi had captured,then beaten and killed an innocent person in public and filmed it and uploadedthe video to the Internet, the media would handle the whole event with moraldecency. The same was done with Osama Bin Laden in May. We had a blurry,inconspicuous picture of a body said to be him, which was plastered everywhere.It seems revolting to do this, time after time. WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THECHILDREN!

Itseems the newspapers have become the medieval equivalent to putting heads of badpeople, on spikes for others to treat as they will. It dehumanised them. Now,the papers print the picture of a lifeless head on the front page instead.

Thereis also the argument of whether he should have been killed in the first place,and even the circumstances of the death are hazy. We have a video of Gadaffi ina bad way, being dragged through the streets of his home town, after beenbeaten up and having blood pouring off of his face. Then the next video we haveis of him lying dead with a small bullet hole. Apparently it was cross fire.However, chances are, it was an emotional person, who probably knew somevictims of Gadaffi's regime, and then, consumed with hate, put a gun to hishead and blew his brains out (metaphorically).

However,now he is dead, people will never know the truth. People will never know hisdarkest secrets (which is possibly a relief for Western countries, who wereheavily affiliated with him). He can never be tried in court, and can never bepunished in the humanly correct way. Many questions will remain unanswered. Howcan a 'new Libya' claim to be any better than Gadaffi, when they begin likethis? But then again, his trial was expected to have taken 10 year. It could besaid to have been a waste of money and time. I know I will still disagree withhis death, and especially how our media have dealt with it.

IfGod existed, and I was him, I would be putting the human race on the naughtystep. No, don't argue and sulk, you done a bad thing, now sit there quietlyuntil I say so; especially you media bastards!

Guardian Debate: How Can The Press Restore Trust

2011-10-09T12:00:00.000+01:00

"Once we lose reporters, we're fucked!"

Unlessyou have spent the past few months on a cloud numbered nine, been in asubmarine or in a coma, you will be fully aware of the phone hacking scandal ofJuly 2011 at News of The World. It shocked and horrified our nation, as well asconfusing us about whether to sympathise or hate the frail or conniving RupertMurdoch. Since then, in fact long before then, the public have lost the trustthey once invested in Journalism. Journalists are now probably somewhere justabove lawyers and estate agents. On this very topic, The Guardian organised asmall, public debate; a post hacking debate in which they were discussing waysin which the press can restore the trust.

ThisGuardian event happened on the 29th September 2011 at The Royal Institute ofGreat Britain, situated in one the poshest roads in one of the poshest areas ofLondon. I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to attend this event forfree. After a trip through London at rush hour on the Underground, a trip whichinvolved a shoulder in the eye and a tube door shutting on my head, I attendedthe event, looking rather underdressed in my jeans and check shirt. I then satin a small theatre with inadequate leg room for someone of the slightly aboveaverage male-height of 6 foot. I was now sat in a room filled with Journalists,Investigative Journalists and other, media-savvy people. This was a great placeto be sat in the middle of for a Student Journalist.

Theroom filled and then the five established names took to their seats before ashort introductory video began. It started with the clip from Fox News duringthe height of the scandal, in which the news anchor, interviewing RupertMurdoch, was being told what not to ask by his interviewee before apologisingin a cringe-worthy manner. Following that, there was a talking head video ofvarious figures from The Guardian, discussing the course of events includingnumerous other clips, such as the embarrassing one of Murdoch saying it ‘wasthe most humble day of my life' to the MPs.

Theline-up for this debate consisted of Kristian Guru Murphy, who chaired theevent. We had Carl Bernstein, an American investigative journalist who largelyreported the Watergate politics scandal for The Washington Post back in1972 in America. Sylvie Kauffman was next to him, who is the current editor forLe Monde in France. George Eustice is a Conservative politician who hashad some large roles in the party, including Press Secretary for David Cameron,who was later succeeded by Andy Coulson: who is a man largely wrapped up inthis whole scandal. Alan Rusbridger was also proudly present, and he is theeditor for The Guardian. He started off the debate by taking to thestand to give an opening statement.

GuruMurphy then asked the others to give an opening statement to this debate. CarlBernstein stated that 'Hackgate' was only as a result of the consumer’s wantsand needs, but agreed that the press abused their rights to freedom of speechand expression. George Eustice then agreed about the 'using and abusing', butalso stated that Journalists would regularly distort the news out of malice. Hethen went on to knock plans to have a 'Journalists Register' (the equivalent toa sex offenders registers), which would strike off Journalists who break thelaw.

SylvieKauffmann then gave her statement, in which compared our press to that of theFrench. She said they have no tabloid press, which is the result of a culturaldifference and the public having no appetite for those kinds of stories. Sheactually noted an opposite scandal in France, in which Special Intelligence spyon reporters. This was completely rejected by a French audience member, whostated that Journalists in France undertake the same methods as the British.Alan Rusbridger claimed that the scandal is a result of a PCC failure. He arguedthat increased regulation could endanger the freedom of the press and aJournalist Register would go back to 1694, when Journalists could be heavilypunished for libels.

Afteran opinionated reaction from Bernstein, who seemed to completely disagree withwhat Rusbridger had just said, the debate was opened up to questions from theaudience. The questions tackled the accumulation of power for News Corporation,in which Rusbridger stated that MPs are trying to stop it, such as the BSkyBbid; albeit last minute, and Kauffmann said the answer is simply moreregulation.

Othersubjects questioned included tabloids, such as it being impossible to comparetabloid and broadsheet press due to them having a hunger for different stories,and also questioning the limits of privacy. Bernstein answered these questionsin saying that responsibility needs to be taken by the corporations, and alsothat they need to be transparent in their methods and how money is being spent.Bernstein also answered a question about the limits of investigativejournalism, in which he thought that the law should not be broken to get astory, but it can still be justified on occasion. He then continued saying thatthe Watergate investigation was legal and that he would have never hackedphones.

Beforethe participants gave their closing statements, Kristian Guru Murphy took apoll regarding regulation. Not many people agreed that the answer was more regulationor that we currently have the right level of regulation. Interestingly, a thirdagreed the answer was less regulation; the same amount of people in the roomwho were also Journalists.

Bernsteinthought that the way to restore trust, something all institutions have lost, isbasically through good reporting. Kauffmann said there is no simple answer torestoring trust and that the public needed to decide the media they want. Shealso said that Journalists, Blogger's and Twitterer's should have the same ethics.On the issue of trust, Eustice stated that in Britain, we have the most trustedbroadcasters but the least trusted newspapers, and that this was an issue.Rusbridger thought that regulation, so long as it was effective, was theanswer, as well as transparency and the want for organisations to correctthemselves too. The debate ended with Rusbridger's final words being "Oncewe lose reporters, we're fucked!"

Sothe conclusion? Well, there didn't seem to be a conclusive one. There are manydifferent opinions in which way to restore trust. I think we are just going tohave to wait for the results from Lord Leveson's Inquiry next year beforereally being able to answer the question.

Three Years Blogging; Now I'm A Sell-Out

2011-09-28T19:00:00.000+01:00

Iwrote my very first blog post on 27th September 2009. Now, 152 blogs, 166,214words (including this blog), and three years (and a day) later, things are verydifferent. In that space of time I've started driving lessons and passed my tests.I have begun and completed my A-levels. I have had many adventures which Ishared with this blog, such as my car's first breakdown, my car's first clamp,my laptops demise, me getting chicken pox and my attendances to great comedianssuch as Lee Mack, Sean Lock and Milton Jones. I have shared my thoughts aboutsome of my favourite albums, films and television series, as well as sharing mythoughts on my least favourite ones too. I have also blogged throughout theslow, public death of a tabloid sweetheart: Jade Goody. Me, and my blog, havebeen through a lot, which I have shared with you; a random Internet user whocomes across my blog through random Google searches and, sometimes, the oddloyal reader comes and goes.

Now,at the end of a third year of average blogging success, everything changes. Oneof the two big, recent, changes in my life, which will undoubtedly make animpact on my blogs from here onwards, is moving to London and being inattendance at a University. The University of East London, for the next fewyears, will be attempting to make me into a successful Writer/Journalist,thanks to the pompously named course 'Journalism Studies with Creative andProfessional Writing'. This is going to give me many opportunities in both theshort and long term. One would assume that you should be able to track myimprovement in lexis choice and combination, throughout the next three years.However, with me spending all my time writing thousands and thousands of wordsin an attempt to get some sort of degree at the end of the three years, so Ican wave it in the faces of potential bosses; chances are the frequency ofwritings for this blog will be heavily impacted. Mind you, I am a Universitystudent now, so chances are I'll use this blog as a way of procrastinationinstead of work.

Luckyfor me, some modules of work are not a million miles away from what I have beendoing for this blogs. I have a module at some point, in which I have to criticthe media for its celebrity obsession and thinking us all mindless lap dogs,and its impact upon society. I've been doing blogs like that for years! Takeany blog about Jade Goody or Katie Price, or the blog about Jan Moir and herslur on homosexuals. Take my recent News of The World blog, or a blog about alarge, life changing event, such as the Japanese Earthquake/Tsunami, or theblog about the Cumbrian Shootings. They all comment on how the media sexes upthe news, to make it grabbing and interesting in order to get the readership,and therefore the money, they want. They comment on how Journalists all wantthat prime front-page story, so they can make a name, and therefore money, forthemselves. Some also, metaphorically, spit on the grave of Jade Goody, but I'mnot sure if that will feature quite so heavily in my University work.

Thecontent of my blog might change slightly too, with some posts being moretopic-based on the World of Journalism. Assuming my application was successful,I will soon have a press card. I can walk up to a police cordon, present mycard to them, and then get the low down. I'm almost one step away from saying"The names Collyer; Stuart Collyer". I could, should I get the break,start writing for small, mundane publications about uninteresting topics, whichI will inevitably be proud of, due to the fact they will be my first, printedwords for the public domain. I will also be able to attend press events, suchas the one I am attending soon, hosted by The Guardian newspaper, in whichpeople will debate about the recent hacking scandal and how the press canrestore trust. These might seem boring to you, but to me, they are interesting.They are exciting. They are my life now.

Forthe second big change in my life, which will have a large impact upon thesubject of blogs, is what makes me a sell-out. Throughout my blogging career, Ihave been single (over three years I think you will find). This has, therefore,made a large impact upon the subjects I occasionally choose to write about. Ihave had numerous blogs bemoaning the fact that I am single. Bemoaning otherpeople in relationships and how open they are about the fact they have anotherpair of lips to passionately kiss all the time. I just generally bemoan otherpeople who seem to be generally happy in front of me. However, due to recentevents (well, events that happened a little while ago now), I suspect that Iwill no longer be moaning about the abstract noun of love, and its effects.Yes, if you haven't already guessed, or don't already know; my Facebook relationshipstatus no longer says 'Single'. It doesn't even say 'It's Complicated'. MyFacebook relationship status now states that I am in fact in a relationship.

Thetale of our love is a lovely little fairy story; but minus the dragons,castles, suits of armour and any real sense of romance. We have known eachother years, with the odd spark of chemistry here and there. People told us weshould be together. Feeling grew. People told us we should be together.Circumstances brought us closer together. People told us we should be together.We got depressed and lonely because we convinced ourselves it couldn't happen.People told us we should be together. I wrote a blog about Unrequited Love andeven made a playlist of songs which made me think about her. People told us weshould be together. We made plans to make sure we went to the same Universitytogether. People told us we should be together. We spent all our time with eachother. People thought we were together. In my car, on a wet evening, I told hermy feelings, with not much response. I organised an evening out for us, which Imessed up and also got a parking fine. Then we got together, and yeah, nowwe're no longer 'Single Pringles'.

Justa note to anyone reading this and thinking 'I knew it' or 'I told you so'… Shutup! You may think you're some sort of 'Cupid', but you're not. I knew you wereright. Even you knew you were probably right at the time, but you didn'tactually help push the 'true course of love', so you have no high ground inthis debate. I don't think anyone actually believed me when I said I didn'tlike her…

Ihave now become the person I hated as a result of this changing relationshipstatus, but I love it. In fact, I love her. I used to take it as a personalinsult when people held hands walking towards me. I hated strangers lockinglips next to me. I disliked friends who were all over their partner in mypresence. Due to my cynical disposition, I could not see why people couldn'tjust be all loved up in private. However, circumstances have changed my viewbecause I walk towards lots of people holding the hand of the other half. Ikiss her in view of many people. To save it for when we're in private, nowseems impossible. I know, you're allowed to puke if you want; I would have if Iwas reading this in my single state.

I'msomewhat of a different person now. Most would say for the better, but I'm sureothers would not agree. I don't hate hearing abstract nouns. In fact, I usethem very frequently these days: 'I love you'. I am not as much of a cynicalmisanthrope as I used to be. Depression has been at a bare minimum, andhappiness has been the dominate emotion I have been feeling, since we becamefully affiliated with each other. I think I am also a nicer person since wecreated a stronger bond between us, in that I am more tolerant and less angrythan I used to be. These have, unfortunately, led to a decrease in the amountof blogs I produce. If I am angry about nothing, then how can I write an angry,extravagant blog bemoaning the topic? That is a question I am yet to answer;but I'm sure when the time comes, normal blogging service will resume. And ifnot? Well, you'll have to put up with blogs about flowers, sunshine and bunnyrabbits.

Whoknows when I might blog next. I might blog soon about the Guardian debate I'mattending. I might blog about the finale of Doctor Who. Or, I might not blogagain for weeks. I don't know, but all I know that I am now starting my fourthyear of blogging. Who would have thought that a small project for ICT wouldturn into something which defines me and gave me the drive to pursue a careerin Journalism?

Inone of my first lectures, we were asked if any of us blog. A few put theirhands up. I was asked what I blog about, after a girl who was askedresponded with "My gap-year experiences". It made me realise just howinsignificant and pointless my blogs can be. But hey, who cares! I'm going tokeep writing them regardless, AND I'm at University in London with my beautifulgirlfriend. Screw you!

Miracle Day Dragged On For Ten Weeks

2011-09-20T22:00:00.000+01:00

TheAmerican bastardisation of what could have ended up as a British drama classicif left be, has come to the end of its first series as a coalition between twosides of the Atlantic Ocean. My initial reaction, as I stated in my blog"Americanised; Synonyms: Bastardised", which was written threeepisodes into the series, was not a positive one. I thought the series was slowto start and felt it had been somewhat ruined and therefore, disappointed withthe whole thing. I hoped that it would pick up with excitement and the usualTorchwood charm which previous fans loved, but were my hopes fulfilled?

Yesand no. Some episodes were fast paced and exciting, and others, continued to beslow and rather boring. Some episodes were created to purely create a backstory, or to create an emotional connection with a new or departing character.Some episodes seemed to be there purely as an afterthought to bridge a gap.However, there were the odd episodes that managed to grip you tightly by theattention strings and not let you go until the credits began to roll. Thereason for this inconsistency seems to be because different writers wrotedifferent episodes. Although top-guy Russell T. Davies wrote the series, heactually only wrote the opening and closing episodes for the series.

Oneof the major problems with the series was the characters. Captain Jack Harkness(John Barrowman) is undoubtedly the main character of Torchwood, and has beenfrom day one. Without that character in the story, it cannot work. Jack has nothad the role in this latest series that he should have had. He has been putsecond behind new American characters. The writers have assumed that we careabout these new American members, so attach personal storylines and tragediesto them. These don't really work purely because we have not had time to get toknow them. The character of Gwen has been somewhat underestimated this seriestoo, with her not being used to her full potential, and only a handful of timesdoes she seem to fully be the strong, independent character who we knew in theprevious series. She still has those personal stories, which are there to helpthe audience relate to the consequences of Miracle Day however, but her strongcharacter is under minded as a result.

Anotherreoccurring character who I'm not sure if we were supposed to despise orsympathise was Oswald Danes; a convicted felon who had been given the deathpenalty for murdering a young woman, but had survived. First we hated him. Hewas taking advantage of miracle day. Then he got shafted by the system that wasusing him, and he regularly got beaten up for no reason. Then he became selfishagain and blackmailing people. Then be became a hero, before showing his truecolours before finally dying. I have no idea what the writers’ purpose for thatcharacter was, and therefore, far too confusing.

Weonly have one episode out of the ten, which I feel felt like an originalTorchwood episode. That was episode 7: "Immortal Sins". It was by farmy favourite episode. The episode consisted of flashbacks of Jack's life, and whilst in the present; he is being takenhostage by Gwen. The episode contains the only contact we have with an alien inthe entire series. It is the only episode that seems to actually fully exceptthat Jack is gay, and takes full advantage of that. Those are the fouringredients to a great, original Torchwood episode: Jack, Gwen, Aliens andoutlandish gay scenes, and guns if you wish to garnish it off with a fifthingredient. Davies seems to have completely sold out on those ingredients,which he could once put together brilliantly, just so he can have largerpopularity state-side and have more money to play with.

Theseries itself has been over stretched too, which has completely weakened theseries storyline. If we hark back to the previous series of Torchwood: Childrenof Earth, the storyline was squeezed to just five episodes. This series wasstretched to 10 episodes, and as a result, some episodes have no purpose atall. Take the second episode where Jack and Gwen are being deported to theAmerica in the plane flight. That flight lasted the entirety of the episode,with no relevant events actually occurring. All that footage could have beenchucked in the bin, and it would have made no difference at all to the series.Those sorts of episodes, as a result, just seem to be irrelevant and anafterthought. Once again, you would have never had that with the older seriesof Torchwood. Every episode was exciting and gripping with an alien whopromised to spark imagination and enjoyment, and maybe even an orgasm or two.

Thelack of any aliens is the biggest crime for this series. Torchwood was oncefull of aliens. It was an extension of Doctor Who and all of their aliens, andsometimes they would overlap too. Now, they both seem like completely differentshows which have nothing in common. They were once such close friends, but now,over time they have fallen apart and now keep very distant from each other.They still remember each other occasionally, but otherwise, contact betweenthem is zilch. They have lost each other’s numbers and have no desire to getback into contact. Torchwood has changed into something different since thecontact was lost, and that is shown in the lack of any alien action.

Sohow could they have improved the series? Aliens and more of Jack. Two simplerequests, yet for some reason the writers decided to completely overlook them.I was so very disappointed in the ending when the event turned out to not be ofa result of an extra-terrestrial being, but instead to be of ordinary, boring,bastard human beings. It was such a cop-out for Torchwood and Russell T.Davies. It certainly is no longerTorchwood, but instead another spin-off going under the same alias.

Thentake the series cliff-hanger. Rex, the black American, is now like Jack:indestructible and can now live forever. That is the biggest mistake of themall. The entire dynamic of the show has been altered. One of the great thingsabout Jack is how individual he is from every other character on the show.Changing that, I think, will be the death of Torchwood. The next series couldvery well be its last, but maybe that isn't such a bad thing. It is painfulwatching Torchwood going through this painful change. Injecting American bloodinto something which is distinctively British through and through is causingvital organs to stop operating, and the entire body will slowly die, even ifthey do inject more of Jack's Miracle, life saving blood into it...

Gok Wan: The Serial Rapist

2011-08-29T12:00:00.011+01:00

To women, Gok Wan is the greatest thing since sliced bread, seeing how it meant they didn't have to cut it themselves every time they made their man a sandwich. To men, Gok Wan is the most insufferable thing since Sex And The City. Men have to sit and watch a skimpy man of Chinese heritage, go around referring to the shape of women by various fruits, and watch him fondle the same woman, whilst screaming bangers enthusiastically, like a spoilt, northern toddler who wants a sausage…

We all know of Gok Wan as a 'fashion expert'. Essentially, he can just tell what clothes and colours complement each other best, and the best colours and clothes are suitable for different woman. I can do that. I always walk down the street judging the clothes woman wear, and bitching about how tight they look, commenting on how they make someone look 5 months pregnant or just plainly having a sense of disgust for anyone wearing a jumpsuit or 'harem trousers'. If someone were to wear harem trousers over a jumpsuit, they would look like a Genie taking a break from attempting to change the oil filter on their car. Not the greatest of looks, I'm sure you will agree.

I think the arrogance that Gok Wan has about his 'talent' is actually very shocking, but that is the fault of thousands of under-confident women and the media, for making him seem like a God-like figure in the fashion World. He is not considered as a personal shopper, which is essentially what he is sometimes, but in fact someone who has the power to positively change a life. He is Channel 4's answer to Nick Knowles and D.I.Y S.O.S. Friends and relatives of a D.I.Y fashion victim will contact him, and he will look judgingly at them, during a montage of the person being miserable, depressed and fading into the background of a crowd of better dressed, happier people. We look at the 30-something, blonde, mother of three in jeans and a cardigan, and feel sympathy. Then, by the end, we have a montage of clips of the person looking happy and chipper, with her new hairstyle and brighter, make-up laden face, walking down the street, with a camera focus that specifically draws your eye to her, all because she is wearing a dress instead. 'She feels like a woman again', or some similar sound bite to the same effect, is played over the top. We are all happy for her, as well as being depressed that we wasted an hour of our life.

He has elements of a serial rapist/killer to him I think too, and it is all part of the process of making a woman 'more confident' and 'beautiful'. Personally, I think otherwise. He puts a female, in a large, white room, placing her in front of the only object in the room; a mirror. He then tells them to strip down to nothing, and they do it, because every woman does what Gok Wan tells them too. This is a woman who hates her body. He then tells them to stare at it. 'Go on, stare at yourself! Look at every wrinkle. Look at every flabby bit. Go on, shake it about a bit. Stare at your sagging cleavage, go on; STARE! Look at the veins in your legs. You think you're revolting, don't you?' He then stands behind the woman, pinching their flabby arms, and then breathing down their neck, sniggering, while he man handles their breasts, he whispers how 'fabulous' they are, in her ear. If he were to then offer them a suicide pill, most women would probably take it at that point. However, surprisingly, he doesn't rape and kill them. He tells them how they should show their body off more and be proud of it.

Women will believe anything that falls from the lips of Gok Wan. If he said on one of his shows, that aubergine shaped women would look better if they dived head-first into a pool of purple paint every morning, and then dressed themselves in something from the Asda cleaning products isle, such as a dustbin bag and a bucket, they would believe him. That very isle in Asda would have been cleared within hours, as well as every single purple paint tin in every B&Q and Homebase being purchased within minutes of the stores opening. Within a week, 80% of the aubergine-shaped women of Britain would be on public transport and walking down the high street, in different shades of purple and wearing mops, dust pans and brushes, all being held in place with green washing line wire.

Gok Wan is the perfect person to advertise to woman, purely for that reason. If an advertising company is looking for someone to get women buying clothes from a high-street brand, he should do it. If an advertising company is looking for someone to get women to buy a particular brand of make-up or other beauty products, they should get him to do it. If an advertising company are looking to sell a particular make of vehicle, they should get him to do so, even if he does know sod all about cars. If an advertising agency wants to sell tin foil to women, they should get him to do so. Want to sell an acidic shampoo that will not only burn away the hair, but will also dissolve the scalp? He is their man. You could probably be advertising euthanasia of all women-folk, and if he done it, all women would happily march into the gas chambers to their death, with their purple skin and clothesline cover dress, happy because Gok Wan said they should.

Personally, I think he is either a complete genius and perverted man, or a very sincere and lovely person. Chances are, it's the latter, but let me just plant the seed of suspicion about him being a perverted genius, into your mind. Is it really beyond possibility that a man would pretend to be gay, just to be able to spend lots of time with lots of women, in order to see them naked and furiously grope their breasts whenever he sees fit? He has the power to make thousands of women wear low cut tops which show off inches of cleavage. How do you know he isn't high up in some London building, and with binoculars, watching them all walk past? Are you a woman who has ever been in London, wearing a low cut blouse, and heard a voice from afar shout 'Bangers!'? It could have been a straight Gok Wan, sitting with a tissue, watching YOU!

Just saying, how do we really know he is gay? Is it just because Wikipedia says so and he mentioned it in a self-centred documentary about being fat? Hmmm, how sure are you?

P.S. The scene from Monty Python's Life Of Brian, where everyone, ironically, states 'Yes, we're all individual' and 'Yes, we are all different', springs to mind...

http://youtu.be/jVygqjyS4CA

Rise Of The Morons

2011-08-22T19:00:00.000+01:00

Once upon a time in a street in Tottenham, London, a black man was shot under dubious circumstances by a Policeman who claimed to have been in danger. However, an IPCC investigation found evidence to disprove that, such as the bullet in the policeman's radio to be of police issue, and the victim’s gun to have not been fired. The friends and family, rather graciously, disagreed and wanted a real answer to the reason for the shooting. The big, hypocritical, media Ogres seemed to ignore this news event and saw no reason to bring attention to it, like they would have, for example, if a Policeman was shot in dubious circumstances by a black man. Then, on a lovely, quiet, summer's afternoon, the victim’s family were upset, and therefore set up a small vigil outside a Police Station in Tottenham.

Then the Morons invaded from across the London borough of Tottenham. Their invasion left much devastation. Police cars were vandalised and set alight. A bus had petrol bombs aimed at it. Shops were looted by these morons for their own personal gain and set about burning various other buildings; one which had survived a World wars. The Morons of Tottenham had invaded, and the News crews had swarmed in to film the burning devastation and make irrational comments. The Tottenham Morons stood behind the various presenters, talking on their phones and lurking about in an attempt to be considered famous by their other Moronic friends. The Moron's grew weary of the vain attempts at being a celebrity, so set about destroying passing cars, before setting upon the news crews and destroying thousands of pounds of equipment. The violence continued for hours, into the early morning hours of Sunday the 7th of August, and news channels speculated from their cosy studios, miles away from the violence, about how bad it was. The morons eventually went home to sleep in their grubby council flats, gathered around the light of social network websites, and their event pages.

Many people spent the following day, insisting that Tottenham was a lovely, happy community, in which the many different races lived together in one, harmonious family which have no problems or 'issues with the black, teenage community'; despite the evidence proving otherwise. The sun began to set, and the disease of Moronicitis [muh-ron-ik-tahy-tis] had spread through to other London boroughs such as Enfield, Islington and Oxford Circus. This violence was much stronger than the previous nights, with more buildings being pointlessly set alight and raided for the consumer goods. A Sony warehouse in Enfield was set ablaze for no reason other than to course as much destruction as possible, and apparently, make a statement about race quality and joblessness. This again continued late into the night, which lead to news channels sending out their helicopters in an attempt to film all huge fires from above, while the ground film crews tip-toed around the city to film the aftermath of rioting, instead of the actual swarm of Morons, ripping their way through toughened glass and metal shutters, and occasionally farting out fire bomb. The Morons eventually grew tired of the lines of ill-equipped and ill-trained police officers following them about, and went to their homes to sleep, in their brand new tracksuit which they had just looted.

The light of Monday morning shined through London, showing the amount of destruction which was left after the swarm of Morons had made their way through the various boroughs. While the Morons slept, the news announced that over 100 people had already been arrested, and that David Cameron was to cut short his holiday to return home, after seeing that Nick Clegg had clearly ballsed up being in charge of the country; much like getting a phone call from a neighbour, to tell you that the person you asked to feed your pets and water the plants, had in fact attacked everything with a flame thrower and hearing the screeching cat through the phone. More people went to the media and to social networking sites to give their own, unwanted opinion to decry how stupid every single teenager who currently exists is. FYI: I'm a teenager, and from my eloquence, you can decipher that I'm not exactly stupid.

The darkness of Monday night loomed, and the Morons woke up for yet another night of pointless violence, despite the news that the Prime Minister's return home was looming. They went on to cause even more, pointless, copycat destruction; still claiming to have a cause to be angry about. It became evident that Moronicitis had spread to both sides of the River Thames, to boroughs such as Lewisham, Woolwich, Peckham, East Ham, Hackney, Camden, Bethnal Green, and even Stratford. The news crews hurried around, again filming the aftermath of the swarms, and interviewing random, angry onlookers who have their own personal, upsetting story, such as having bricks through the window or witnessing violent attacks etc. People which were caught up in the aftermath of Moronicitis, called into the news channels and said, usually very angrily, how pathetic the riots were being and how over stretched the police were. This was usually broadcast over repeated footage of a rampaging fire, or footage which demonstrated the police being over stretched.

As the evening carried on, it continued to become evident that Mononicitis had not only spread through London, but across the country, to other cities such as Bristol, Liverpool and Birmingham. The news had not planned for it to be so wide-spread, and therefore these events were described pointlessly down the phone by local news correspondents, agitatedly saying how Birmingham has small outbursts of violence, sometimes even played over mobile phone footage of Morons charging at a line of police with bins and wood, before running back home. This led to a change in news headline going from 'London Riots' to 'UK Riots'. Monday night was the night when Moronicitis became a national pandemic, with no cure in sight.

The following day, after the Morons had yet again gone back to their hovels to sulk in their own filth, and as the sun once again shinned over London, and other cities, there was light at the end of tunnel. Not the hope of 13,000 police in London to act as a vaccine to Moronicitis, nor was it David Cameron's speech, in which he basically said 'You should all be very ashamed of yourselves'. No. The bad and evil social networking websites, changed their allegiance, and done positive work to help the lives and communities destroyed. Volunteer clean up operations were organised via Twitter, asking people to bring brooms and rubbish sacks, and within the day, totally cleaned up all the London boroughs, as well as other major UK cities. There was hope for humanity and forces of good, just like the end of most, blockbuster, apocalyptic films. Those events remind us that humanity isn't just a violent, moronic species.

Then the evening came. The 13,000 strong army of police officers circulating the English capital, seemed to act as a deterrent, or a vaccine, if you will, resulting in Moronicitis being almost completely cured in the main problem areas. However, the rest of the country was now in the heightened grips of suffering from Moronicitis. Birmingham, Manchester and Leicester were the English cities hit badly by Moronicitis, with many shops in those cities being looted, and yes, pointlessly burnt, as well as the needless violence aimed at the Police, because they ‘like’, represent authority. One of the shops, which the News channels swarmed to, to film its destruction, was a Miss Selfridge in Salford, Manchester. How that represents racial quality issues, I don't know. That, to me at least, (and remember, I don't live in the 'Ghetto's', I live in a Middle class, consistently Conservative village in Kent) seems like needless, pointless violence.

From then on, the nightmare of Moronicitis seemed to subside, and the country, which was once in the grips of this deadly disease, is still continuing to recover. Many people appear to be very lovely and helpful, and are good advocates for humanity. Yet, we are still reminded of Moronicitis, by the facts that the disease took the lives of 5 people, as well as injuring 16 bystanders and 186 police officers, as well as the hundreds of millions of pounds of damage caused by these large swarms of Morons.

Initially, Humanity comes out of these events as a terrible species that does not deserve our place on Planet Earth, however, overall, when you take into account the willingness by the general majority to help communities and individuals recover as quickly as possible, and this 'Keep Calm and Carry On' attitude that, England as a nation has, puts a positive spin on a such an frightening and appalling ordeal, and maybe, just maybe, Humanity isn't that bad after all. I hope the people who were overpowered by Moronicitis will receive the treatment they deserve; being severely punished to the extremes of the Law system, despite their age. As David Cameron said in his speech after his return from Italy; "If you're old enough to commit the crime, you're old enough too punished". The thought of 16 year olds committing these crimes is very depressing. The thought of 10 year olds committing these crimes is upsetting and very worrying. One hopes that the families of those young offenders are also punished, and the Governments threats to do so, were not empty ones.

Anyway, if you want to look at a gallery of scumbags and recent suffers of Moronicitis, then visit 'Crimefighters'. If you recognise one those faces; Shout! Shout loudly, preferably over the phone or on the Internet, at the right source.

If you want to blame the police for the nationwide spread of Moronicitis, then go and see about having that lobotomy reversed; they done their absolute best with the recourses at their disposal. Also, if you're one of those stupid fuddy-duddies whose answer to everything is 'National Service', then go and hang your head in shame at diminishing the work done by our Army.

P.S. I'm not in the slightest bit patriotic, but some people just don't fully appreciate anything!

Americanised; Synonyms: Bastardised

2011-07-31T21:30:00.003+01:00

What is Torchwood without people having group orgies with Aliens in the public toilets of Cardiff, before disintegrating into dust at the point of orgasm? Well, it isn't Torchwood without that. So, what is this show that is currently airing on BBC 1 on a Thursday evening under the name of Torchwood? Well, from what I can deduce, the only recognisable metaphor that could be used to describe this series is to compare it to 'a wolf in sheep's clothing'. It LOOKS like Torchwood, but it isn't Torchwood. It has the two main characters that we recognise as being Torchwood. It has scenes filmed in Cardiff. It has jokes about Cardiff. It has a supernatural storyline which is very, very intriguing and well portrayed, as well as being written by Russell T. Davies. However, from then on, it fails to be anything like the Torchwood that we British fans loved.

This program then, which is hiding under the alias of Torchwood, is brilliant, which makes it terrible. Doesn't make sense huh? Well, I shall explain my problem. Torchwood was originally this brilliant piece of British Drama, which was uniquely British with its humour, captivating (if not eccentric) stories and great characters. This Torchwood 'season' is a co-production between Britain and America. Torchwood now loses everything that was so unique about it when it was set purely in Cardiff. The British humour is sacrificed for the American audience, which is the main problem. However, the fact it is half American, means that the drama element of the program is great. The American's are creating the best quality programming at the moment by far, in all genres. How can their input in British programming be considered as a bad thing? It can't; but it is in Torchwood.

Still not getting me are you? Well, take this is an extreme example to illustrate my point. You can't all-of-a-sudden relocate Coronation Street to a French town and expect it to appeal to the same audience and remain just as popular. Torchwood worked because it was set in Cardiff. You can't all-of-a-sudden relocate Torchwood to America and expect it to appeal to the same audience and remain just as popular (however, viewing figures disprove me thus far).

I personally think that in this 'season' so far (three episodes in), they have focused far too much on building up characters and their own separate stories. The story has been heavily sacrificed as a result, as has the Torchwood feel. The first two episodes particularly were very slow in events actually happening, apart from the odd five minutes which end up being an anti-climax. I think the entirety of the second episode was completely pointless, and to me it just seems like it was a rushed afterthought. The idea seems weakly developed with pointless events thrown in, such as the drugging of Captain Jack, to provide false climax.

I will give credit where credit is due; the third episode was a lot better with it having a quicker pace, but still, there are just pointless interactions between characters which just do not need to happen and add absolutely nothing to the story. They may as well show a still image of the words 'Torchwood' for five minutes every so often. The third episode also had a slight original Torchwood feel to it, with some of the characters having sex. This makes me sound like a homosexual pervert, but as soon as there was a scene with Captain Jack about to have gay sex, I felt that just MAYBE, it was about to feel like Torchwood again. However, then there were some more pointless exchanges with some pointless American actors and it was ruined.

It's the American element of the show that I absolutely hate. Well, hate is a strong word. The Sci-fi element of the show has diminished, with it just being an obscure storyline, just like the American's 'The Event'; it's nothing but a drama about a fictional event. I want supernatural events and aliens, like the first three series of Torchwood. If this 'Miracle Day' doesn't end up being caused by an intergalactic being, I will be very unhappy. Torchwood and Russell T. Davies have sold out, just so they can have more money, and if they sacrifice the original roots of being a Doctor Who spin-off, for bigger, richer roots, then they would be the biggest sell-outs since Green Day went mainstream or when Nick Clegg had a lobotomy if favour of political power.

Anyway, maybe I'm being over critical too early. We're only three episodes into a 'season' of ten episodes. Incidentally, that's another reason for hating the Americanisation of Torchwood. They call it a season, but we Brits call it a series, so the American's ruined that too. Anyway, it might get more entertaining and it may not bother me so much as the SERIES goes on. Fingers crossed...

P.S. Both 'Americanisation' and 'Bastardisation' are spelt with S's, not Z's. It's called English, so therefore you should abide by the same rules as the English... Bloody Americans!

My Review Of NOT Watching Jimmy Carr Live

2011-07-18T18:00:00.018+01:00

I'm sure by now, people who read my blogs regularly will know that after watching a comedy gig live, particularly if it is a well known name such as Lee Mack, Sean Lock or Milton Jones, I blog about it in a 'Look who I've gone and seen' review, which more often than not is full of appraisal. Jimmy Carr would have been no acceptation. Although not one of my all-time favourite comedians, I imagine it would be a fantastic experience to sit through, especially if you had tickets for one of the front rows, and be close enough to be picked on like you see him do in all his stand-up DVD's. That is what makes him a great comedian in my opinion; to be able to interact with the audience in such an insulting way, but still making that person cry with laughter.

Imagine my excitement then, when I was told that I could have tickets to see Jimmy Carr, for free, to sit in the sixth row. I had spent the following few days looking forward to being a part of the whole experience. All I had to do was be at the Margate Winter Gardens on Friday 15th of July by 8pm, park legally and then walk into the theatre, with my friend and tickets in tow, then present them to the usher and sit down. Sounds simple. I've done it enough times when I've seen comedians at The Gulbenkian, Canterbury. I never envisaged any problems.

What ensued was possibly the unluckiest 5 minutes that I have ever had in my life.

I had walked into the theatre and was then asked by the usher to show my tickets. I looked in the envelope in which they were in, to find they were not in there. Complete shock took over my body. I went to the front desk, for them to deliberate for minutes whether to let me in or not (the tickets were not registered in my name you see). They decided that I could have just picked the receipt part of the ticket up and was trying to fool them. After becoming frustrated, I stormed out in a vain attempt to try and find the tickets on the floor outside. I left the house with them. They had to be in Margate. Ironically, I expect someone picked them up, fooled the usher, and took my seats. I hate to badmouth an entire town on this, but everyone in Margate is a bastard. There, I said it. Feel better? Not really.

My vain attempt to find the tickets took me along the path I took to get from the car to the theatre. I found nothing, so thought I'd look in the car before giving up. I looked over the car park wall on my approach to see a man bend down next to my car. I became an athlete (for possibly the first time in my life) thanks to something that could be described as adrenaline, and ran towards the car shouting. The man wasn't stealing it as it looked in my quick glance, but instead the complete opposite: clamping it. I got there before he clamped me, but still, even after I offered to get a ticket and explained the temperamentality of the machine and explaining it to be the reason for a number of other cars having not paid for parking, he still gave my car a bright yellow anklet, stuck a ticket to the window and demanding £120 for the release of my car. I also went for the sympathy vote, explaining that I'd lost my tickets for Jimmy Carr. They very helpfully looked around the whole car park for them. I'd rather they took the clamp off…

Those were the unluckiest 5 minutes of my life. Losing tickets and have some scumbag from Margate use them for himself rather than hand them back to me, before having some scumbags clamp me. A free night out, turned out to cost £120.

I'd done wrong. I understand that. I'm not trying to defend myself from my stupidity regarding the parking. I hadn't paid for parking in a car park which you have to pay to park in, and there were signs, even if hidden around the place, saying that they clamp people who disobey the rules. But the fact that I took the man who clamped me to the machine, and showed him it not accepting the coins in my wallet (it finally accepted one), annoys me. Apparently that was my fault for having dud coins. I think that's the machines fault, not mine. If I took the coins to a bank, they wouldn't throw them back. That stupid robot cost me £120. I worked out that from all the cars clamped in that one car park, they made £720 in the two hours I was there. No wonder they won’t replace the machine.

£120 is an extortionate amount however. £30. Sure. £60. Sure. But £120? That was ridiculous. I think of clamping as blackmail! If you took your child to a child-friendly area where other children were, in which you had to pay a small price for, but you didn't pay and they decided to not give you your child back until you paid a fine 4,000% more than what the original fee would have been, and didn't give you the chance to pay that original fee, and locked the child in a cage in front of your very eyes until the fine was paid, in cash. That would be called blackmail. That would be abduction. Clampers are child-abducting bastards!

I'm angry about this whole situation, mainly due to my stupidity. If it wasn't all so much my fault, it'd be fine, but the fact that all the unlucky events of those five minutes were due to me being stupid, I'm angry. I had to spend two hours in a Margate car park by the sea, watching a shit sunset, while I waited for my father to bail me out. Prison would have been a doddle.

Just in case you think I was being unfair to Margate in an earlier paragraph, I'm not. No good has ever come from me being in Margate. The Margate sands broke my camera last year, just weeks before my Photography exam, meaning I had to buy a new one. The same trip, I am sure to this very day, also gave me Chicken Pox after being in the slums of the town’s Primark, which led to me missing the said Photography exam, meaning I didn't go to University last year AND had to attend another year of school. I am still peeling off the skin from getting burnt on its beach a few weeks ago. And now, the unluckiest five minutes of my life. So, Margate sucks. Get used to!

Don't feel sorry for me though; I still went home pretty happy...

Why Would Anyone Want To Ever Be A Journalist?

2011-07-15T17:30:00.001+01:00

Journalists are complete and utter bastards, I think we can all agree on that. Recent allegations against Journalists, Editors and Newspaper 'brands' make them all come across as heartless bastards with no morals, no guilt and only have a taste for money, and whether it interrupts with some small murder inquiry, well who cares; you could earn up to £100,000 if your fantastic story hits the front page of the News Of The World. Stupid, selfish bastards, that's what Journalists are. Only an idiot would spend three years and get into £21,000 debt so they can become one… Oh, right, yeah. Idiots like me. Want to see what idiot looks like? Come around my house and ask for Stuart. You can punch me if you like (Please don't punch me).

I am utterly disgusted. One could kid themselves that they'll change the face of Journalism, but reality is, I will be nothing but a speck of a dust when it comes to a list of all the Journalists. I'll make no difference what so ever. The last few days, I've begun to reconsider my life plans. Why would anyone willingly become associated with those selfish, incompetent, money sucking, bastard scumbags? That's not to say that these allegations have tainted what it means to be a Journalist; that happened many years ago, but this just highlights how awful those people are. Bastards!

This blog has been written slowly over a course of 10 days (however, it won't seem like it when you read it), and not because I couldn't be bothered to do it, just because this story has moved so quickly, it would just mean that paragraphs of writing would be benign before I even finished the blog, let alone published it.

Anyway, so this story has been going on for years (since 2003 I do believe), with it slowly coming out that politicians like John Prescott and Boris Johnson, as well as celebrities like Hugh Grant and Gwyneth Paltrow, had their phones hacked, and they got a bit angry, and small debates started on Newsnight and Question Time, The Guardian got uppity and the story went away, after a Police Investigation which (now, rather ironically) said that nothing illegal had occurred. Then July 2011 happened and now, within a week, the face of the media has altered drastically and Journalists are hated more than a love child between Katy Price and Piers Morgan would be.

What has all the recent fuss actually been about I hear the ignorant population trying to speculate. Well, essentially, some Journalists have lost sight of what it means to be a Journalist. I have always thought the news was to explain in a clear, unbiased way, the recent events that have been happening locally and World-wide. When Murdoch came to our shores and brought with him his ruthlessness that seemed to change. Now Journalists seek out news stories that they think will help grab that coveted front page headline (Worth up to £100,000 remember), and therefore sell more papers. 'Investigative Reporting' this is called. They will go to any means to find out a dirty secret about someone in the media spotlight, because APPARENTLY, that's what the public want. No, I don't care that someone I've heard of has slept with a hooker. I don't think a majority of the public DO want that. I think they want to be informed in an intelligent, non-patronising manner, about the current news to gain a better understanding of life on our planet.

It came out nearly two weeks ago now that investigative reporting went to the dirty lows where no morals exist and tampered with a murder inquiry just so they could have more people crying for longer to drag a story out. Milly Dowler is the first example we're told of. In 2002, she was abducted before being murdered. However, despite being murdered, she still managed to delete voice messages. As you can see, before they found her body (which took 6 months, a heck of a long and excruciating time for her family you understand), they thought she was alive and listening to her messages. That gave her family and friends false hope. That is despicable. Who could do such a thing? Well, a News Of The World journalist of course. That 'journalist' had hacked the phone of Milly Dowler and was listening to the heartbreaking messages from her loved ones on her phone. And when her voice mail become full, he deleted messages so that more people could leave heartbreaking messages for him to carry on listening to and continue to drag out the story. Yeah, I think if hell exists, there is a place reserved for him down there.

This was what led to this phone hacking scandal to go nuclear, and it then came out that all high profile child murder enquiries would have to be reopened due to it being possible that journalists from the News Of The World had done the same thing.

Then more and more despicable and shameful storied leaked out of the Guardian and the BBC, day after day about the News Of The World hacking peoples phones and bribing policemen. It was revealed that the mobile phones of the victims and the families of the London terrorist attacks (or 7/7 as the media refer to it as), have been hacked, again to listen to all the heartbreaking, upsetting messages that concerned people would have left for them. It was revealed that maybe even the victims from the New York terrorists attack (9/11 as the media refer to it as) had been hacked and now that's being investigated by the FBI. It came out that the families of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan have been hacked. It came out that Gordon Brown had his personal information hacked and The Sun wanted to reveal the news that his son has cystic fibrosis. It was suggested that a private investigator gave personal details of the senior royal family for £1000 a time. It was also, very worryingly, revealed that some reporters paid members of the Metropolitan police to gain these personal numbers and details which led to some of these hackings in the first place. All very hard hitting, shocking stuff.

And after all that news came out, News Of The World closed and will never print again. However, give it a few months and a new paper will take its place, don't worry. Andy Coulson, who was once editor, was arrested, but that's where this story became a witch hunt. Rebekah Brooks wasn't arrested, she wasn't even sacked. Sure, 11 days later, she resigned, but she's still not been arrested. 200 people lost their jobs when News Of The World closed, and for the most part, despite the reputation of the paper, it had some of the best journalists in the country; World even. Very talented, innocent people. Only a few hacked, not all of them. Is it fair they lost their jobs? Not in the slightest. I will give you some figures though: The newspaper printed 2.5 million copies every Sunday. On the final Sunday, they printed under 5 million copies. The front page boasted '7.5 million loyal readers'. They're great journalists, but mathematicians they're not...

So why should you not feel sorry for Rebekah Brooks? Well, let me just remind you that she was arrested in 2005 for, allegedly, domestically abusing her then husband, which was Ross Kemp: TV's hardman! 200 people lost their jobs to try and save her job, and look where that ended. The most disgusting thing about her (second to that hair of her's) is how much of a lying bitch she is. She honestly expects people to believe that she knew nothing about any of this hacking lark. She never questioned any of these secret stories and there source? That means she either lied, in which case she should have been sacked, OR she was an idiotic, incompetent editor who was completely ignorant to everything that happened when she was in charge; in which case she should have been sacked. However, that would never have happened because the political hypocrites wouldn't have liked that. Gordon Brown and David Cameron went to her wedding; how can they possibly take the moral high ground on this? They didn't want her sacked, they wanted her to resign; meaning she still gets a huge pension and other perks, which is wrong. BURN HER; SHE'S A WITCH! I heard someone say we shouldn't harass her as it's not very nice. How bloody ironic!? Some really middle-class idiots phone up Radio 2 y'know. I think we should continue to harass her for a taste of her own medicine if she doesn't get arrested, and it should become legal to intrude on the privacy of her life. I think we should arrest Piers Morgan too. He wasn't editor when the hacking happened, but we should just arrest for once being editor of News Of The World, The Sun and The Daily Mail.

This all came at a very poignant time for the media industry. News Corporation, for some time now, has been trying to buy the complete rights to BSkyB. They already own a percentage, but they wanted more. This is something I and 160,000 other people where against and signed an online petition to stop this happening. You only have to look at America and the Fox network to know that this isn't the way we want our country to end up. This scandal and its tainting on the reputation of News International, along with widespread anger at this deal, led to Rupert Murdoch pulling out his bid. Huzzah! Come on everyone; let's have a party to celebrate the power of public outcry! Woo hoo!

All in all, these have been the worst two weeks that News Corporation has ever had. They've had their reputation ruined both sides of the Atlantic. I mean, we all know how patriotic the American's are and how protective they are of anything to do with 9/11. If victims’ families have been hacked, the American's will want blood. They have lost their biggest selling newspaper. Murdoch has lost his chances of owning BSkyB anytime soon. Rebekah Brooks has gone. And, now they're being investigated which will undoubtedly end with the Murdoch's paying huge sums in damages to everyone. They may as well just send everyone in Britain a cheque for £500 and be done with it. I hope heads roll for all this, I really do.

The only way it could get worse for the Journalism industry is if it were revealed that it's their fault Princess Diana died in that French tunnel because they were too busy, photographing the scene and trying to grab the headline first, to actually help her… WHAT!?

P.S. I would love to write so much more and express my opinions, so maybe I’ll do a second blog soon on the subject. Watch this blogspot…

"...And The Kangaroo Wasn't Even There!"

2011-07-09T19:40:00.000+01:00

Don't get that punch line? Well, then you've not seen Mark Watson on his new tour 'Request Routes'. Just for the sheer randomness and build-up to that punch line, I think it will stay with me for a long time to come. Am I going to ruin it for you? No; I'd never give it the justice that it deserves. Anyway, was he worth going to see? Positively, absolutely yes! I'm not sure when he actually started his routine. You could easily mistake him for a humorous, mumbling fool on stage, but he isn't. He's very clever.

He's not like stand-up comedians I've seen perform live before. He doesn't deliver joke after joke in the orderly fashion that Milton Jones does. His routine didn't seem contrived to go in a certain way like those of Ardal O'Hanlon, Sean Lock and Lee Mack and it wasn't a political lecture like that of Jeremy Hardy. Nor was it an over-used routine that he's stuck to for year after year like Paul Zerdin. Mark Watson was Mark Watson; handy because that's who we got tickets to see…

The warm-up act was possibly one of the funniest I've seen. It had me, and the entire audience, laughing, crying and participating. It was mostly improvised by the changing surroundings and the people that it saw, and picking on people who were absolutely ignorant to the whole thing until they sat down and saw what was happening. The warm-up act wasn't some young, budding comedian, yearning for a break into the comedy world. It involved Microsoft software on a laptop, a screen and a projector and remained silent in its 'geekyness'. Who was it? It was Mark Watson, warming up the audience for his sell-out show at Canterbury's Gulbenkian Theatre on Thursday, 7th June, 2010. While the audience entered, he sat on his laptop talking to the audience via Microsoft, a projector and a screen. He commented on people as they walked past the stage, finding their seats. The audience fell in love with him.

Mark Watson left the stage then entered back on, the audience cheered, whooped and whistled, and then Mark Watson chatted to us, in a very casual manner like we were all friends and he told us all his funny stories. He is very much the raconteur. He had stories of fatherhood, public transport, social awkwardness, politeness, and much more. The stories were gripping with regular laughter breaking them up. He interacted with audience by having breaks to chat about daily amounts of water intake and the like. He challenged the audience with a game and we were participates in the comedians strategy for dealing with late comers. It wasn't funny, it was fun.

The interval started after asking the audience for the time, and 15 minutes later he came back for another chat, before starting the latter half of his comedy routine about the same topics, mainly surrounding his social awkwardness in the real world when interacting with people. He even performed for us, LIVE, his lines for both the Magner's Pear Cider advert and the Innocent Smoothies advert (however, he didn't change into his white rabbit alias that we recognise him as…). The audience laughed a lot more, then he asked for the time one more time before slowing his routine down to do some self-promotional admin before leaving the stage.

His stand-up was one of the best I've seen, with me not getting bored and continually being gripped. When you walk out of a theatre with aching cheeks, hurting lungs and a sore throat, you know that you have had a great night of laughter. His routine was packed with laughter and was clever planned, and certainly, it was cleverly performed. I do have one criticism, mainly due to my gender, sexuality and social annoyance: I don't like that I saw his underwear every other minute. However, I'm sure they'll be a lot who would never complain, so yeah. If the worse thing I can say is that 'He showed his underwear too much', then Mark Watson is a fantastic comedian, with a brilliant routine that you should definitely see live. Even if only to understand how "…and the kangaroo wasn't even there!" is a punch line…

And if you think I've ruined the experience for you by doing a general overview of it and releasing the clever warm-up act to you, I haven't. I reckon it ends up different each night.

"D'yew Ge' Me, Like? D'yew Know Wot I'm Sayin'?" No.

2011-06-30T18:30:00.002+01:00

I'm going to University. Yeah, hark at me aye, all grown up and going into the big world of paying extortionate amounts in pounds sterling for an education and living away from Mummy and Daddy. I'll be in the mature World of paying for a TV license, gas bills, rent and buying Milk from Asda after shuffling around looking for food. All this while attempting to successfully pass a three-year joint-honours degree. And where am I going to University I hear you forgetting to care about? The University of East London. Yeah, not exactly one of the great classics such as Oxford or Cambridge, but you know, a degree is a degree.

My degree and my place of study don't seem to really match each other. When people ask (and they're asking a lot, repeatedly) 'Where you going and what you doing?' I have to tell them that a) I'm going to 'The University of East London', which, let's be honest, isn't the grandest and most inspirational of names; and I then have to tell them that b) I'm studying 'Journalism Studies with Creative and Professional Writing', which, let's be honest, is a pompous name and I feel guilty every single time I say the name of my course. I love it and I'm so excited and I'm itching and scratching wanting to start it now, but I always feel like I'm saying it like a statement that implies 'I'm better than you'. Why I feel that, I have absolutely no idea. I just feel that where ever I spread the knowledge of my degree, I'm leaving a trail of resentment, annoyance and snobbishness. But hey, at least I'm not Philosophy!

I've now made two trips to the area now, and, well, let's just say it doesn't resemble the cast of Oliver!, but the Olympics haven't brought a higher class of people to the area. I am yet to hear someone speak the native tongue of East London: Cockney. I am yet to hear someone say: "Awright geeezzaa! Hello an' welcome. Nice tit for tat yew got there! Sorted mate!"; which in plain English would mean "Hello and welcome. Nice hat you have there!" The language now is still sort of Cockney, but, like English, the young generation have played about with it. Every sentence will, undoubtedly, contain the words "D'yew ge' me?", "Like" and "D'yew know wot I'm sayin'?" It has the elements of cockney, but I don't recognise it as cockney. You feel like turning around and saying 'YES, I do understand you! Gaaaaawd blimey; yer 'avin' a giraffe!"

My last journey into East London consisted of me parking in a Morrisons. I was sat by my car when a group of teenagers walked past and then hung around near me and my car. Unfortunately, I could hear their conversation, which consisted a lot of "D'yew ge' me?", "Like" and "D'yew know wot I'm sayin'?", with nouns chucked in to form something as reminiscent as a sentence. Surprisingly, it hasn't deterred me from attending there local University. I mean, it just gives me something to moan about, and God knows I love a good rant about society. Anyway, I am now going to share a rough transcript of the conversation. You can imagine it being performed as a sketch. You know, a Catherine Tate-like figure who repeatedly answers "D'yew know wot I'm sayin'?" to every question. If it helps.

Girl One: (whilst sobbing) I don' wanna talk to 'im, yew know? 'e really upset me like. 'e was like, really mean.

Girl Two: Awww, why you cryin'? Don' cry, 'e ain't worth it. 'e was really nasty dough!

Girl One: (While finishing sobbing) I know, like. 'e was really out of order, yew know what I'm sayin'?

Girl Three: Ar' yer, tot'lly.

Girl One: (With conviction) Yew two, like, gonna 'ave to choose between me an' 'im.

Girl Three: We choose yew 'course

Girl Two: Yer, we gotta stick together.

Girl One: 'e really upset me dough, I like, like this scarf an' I can't believe 'e wood dis it like dat. It cost me like two nin'y nine from Primark, D'yew get me, like?

Girl Two: Yer, tot'lly. I really like dat scarf.

Boy: Wot yew chattin'?

Girl Two: We ain't talking to yew!

Boy: (Huffs) I like, di'n't say dat I di'n't like it, d'yew ge' me? I jus' said she shuldn' wear it in summer. Yew know, it's hot like, d'yew know what I'm sayin'?

Girl One: Nar, yew said yew hated it. It cost me like two nin'y nine from Primark.

Boy: What!? D'yew ge' me? It nice scarf yer, but like, yew don' wear it in summer, yer? D'yew know what I'm sayin'?

It's just a load fickle rubbish they kept spewing out. They carried on late into mid-afternoon like that, but I didn't hear the rest of it because the long, open road home was awaiting me.

Anyway, I'll be going to live there in a few months, and I don't think I will be able to properly understand a single word which anyone says to me. I was hoping that maybe there was a Rosetta Stone CD that would teach me modern cockney, but there isn't. Anyway, so maybe Rosetta stone should consider making one. I mean, I'd buy one, and I'm sure I can't be the only one. My current languages consist of English, Sarcasm, a few little hints of French, and I would love to add fluent Cockney to that list. Not this new fangled Cockney because it’s just solely "D'yew ge' me?", "Like" and "D'yew know wot I'm sayin'?", but I want to be able to successfully use Cockney Rhyming Slang. A lot of people know 'Apples and pears' means 'stairs', ‘phone’ is ‘dog and bone’, and everyone knows 'Giraffe' is 'laugh'. Anyway, so I'll have three years to learn the lingo, then, I will write a blog consisted of only Rhyming slang for my East London hommies! (Don't hold me to that though)

Two of the best-known Cockney's: Chas and Dave

I'm not worried about picking up the accent and the slang however, because I'm very hard to influence. I'm quite an outcast from the 'Teenage Stereotype' from my local area. Every Friday and Monday, for example, a lot of people flock to one of the clubs in the local city, Canterbury. I don't. I'm 19, and I'm proud to say, I still not set foot in one. I have legally been able to enter one for 13 months now; I'm yet to do so. I have no plans to do so either. I have no problems with pubs; pubs are great. Some of my favourite conversations have occurred in pubs over a pint of larger and a shot, but, I don't like people enough for the clubbing scene. I don't like being with large groups of people, so why would I want to spend a few hours with drunk, sweaty and horny people with loud, banging music which I very much doubt is my type of music. I've listened to club remixes; they ruin perfectly good songs! Plus, a lot of 'Canterburians' use slang, and I've not picked them up. Well, I only use it to mock. Anyway, if I can survive that with little influence, I'm sure a few years in London's East End will be doddle.

And if not? Well, like I said, I’ll just have to moan and blog about it. However, you do have permission to either slap me incredibly hard or shoot me in the liver should I start using the lingo regularly and finish every sentence with 'D'yew get me, like?" It's what I would have wanted before the disease overpowered my immune system…

Now, you're in for a treat! Remember that transcript above? I've performed it as a skit. I know; lucky right! Anyway, I've joined the YouTube generation of 'vlogging' now. And here, is the, video! Enjoy!

http://youtu.be/eNKVHaOGKC4

The Other Way Is Sussex

2011-06-23T16:00:00.004+01:00

Television isn't in a great place at the moment. There are moments when brilliance peers through, like the sun shining through occasional holes in the dark, rain-filled clouds of idiocy, but overall, only taboo language can successfully describe the light emitted from everyone's televisions. Dramas are, for the most part, relatively predictable and usually pretty boring these days. Comedy's are, for the most part, aimed at the stereotypically stupid and mentally disabled. Talent shows are, for the most part, fixed to give Simon Cowell media coverage and money. And documentaries; they seem to be choreographed to show the 'real lives' of the stereotypically stupid and horny, shown on ITV 2 and E4.

With television being mostly repeats, it's not so much a bother that the output is mainly crap, than it would have been 15 years ago before we had a huge selection of TV to choose from, but it is. With there being very little output of new shows, we need those shows to be brilliant, fantastic, sensational, inspiring and many other buzz words. Let's take comedies as an example. It's all a matter of opinion, I know, but comedy isn't funny.

I can think of three sitcoms in recent years, that have come from British television, which are reliably funny; Outnumbered (BBC 1), The IT Crowd (C4) and Not Going Out (BBC 1). The former is a great, part improvised, comedy with child actors to be jealous of and wish were your own children. It is the younger, funnier brother of My Family, in that most people can relate to it in one way or another. The IT Crowd is just written by one of our greatest comedy writers in current times; Graham Lineham, who created characters people emphasis with whilst laughing at, and has storylines that take the strangest of turns and can have a house of people cackling madly. The latter, Not Going Out, has those brilliant one lines that resonate and make you laugh louder the more you think about it and stay with you for a long time. The acting may not be anything special, but those lines make up for it. The BBC made a good choice when they decided to 'uncancel' it. Also, take Horrible Histories (CBBC), highly amusing and possibly one of the greatest current comedies, with it mixing intellect with witty sketches. The kids have it so good these days. I had an idea that they should create an adult version for a prime-time BBC 2 slot, but you know what, I think if they showed the CBBC episodes in the evening, it would be just as successful. Plus, people might actually learn something about the Romans, The Tudors and more importantly, The Stuarts! I loved those books when I was child, and turning it into a television show, albeit 10 years late, was a great idea.

The other sitcoms that keep spewing out are not reliably funny and can sometimes make you cringe and want to eat your own eyes and ears so you don't have to withstand another second of it. Anything on BBC 3 usually ticks that box. Lee Nelson's Well Good Show, which I hope is ironically named, is awful, disgusting and utterly vile. Coming of Age seems to think it has cleverly exaggerated the teenage stereotype with humorous consequences, but has instead created glaringly wretched characters with storylines so weak an Ant could beat it in a fight. We Are Klang, from 2009, with Greg Davies had some great ideas, but they were tearfully mistreated, and in the true style of BBC 3, unfunny and utterly cringe worthy.

My Family (BBC 1) should have been cancelled years ago. I used to really enjoy it when I was younger, but now I'm older, the show is older and the family are older, it just doesn't work anymore. Most people will agree that it went downhill when Nick (you know, the man from the BT Ads. He recently became a father and got married. We're all happy for the BT couple…) left the show. Now the children aren't children, it has failed to continue to be a family sitcom, which is were Outnumbered steps in and takes the reins. Everyone wave goodbye to the Harper family. Go on, wave! It's the final series. Toodles!

I come from the era of Ben Elton and Richard Curtis. Back in the days when they wrote comedy and when comedy was great. How can I watch comedy from 30 years ago and laugh harder than what I do at current sitcoms? Blackadder: Sarcastic brilliance. Fawlty Towers: Unbelievably angry humour. Monty Python: Mind-blowingly, erratically random, superbness. Not The Nine O'clock News: Fantastically satirical sketch show. One Foot In The Grave: Belly laughter with a dash of sentimentality. Anything with Ronnie Barker: Well he was just a linguistic genius. There are so, so, so many more. Why can't we make shows like them anymore? Who the bloody hell thought Mrs Brown's Boys (BBC 1) was funny? The audience laughed at the word 'Willy'. That is how bad comedy is; people found that show so funny, it's been commissioned a second series. The BBC 1 controller is robbing ME and YOU of brilliant, clever, witty, laugh out loud humour. How dare him! I will soon be paying my TV license to fund television atrocity such as that.

The God of our dear English language!

Soaps used to represent the real lives of real people. Sure, they exaggerated it a bit to make it more entertaining than mundane, but it still had the ingredients of real life. Now, they seem to have lost the recipe and are now just experimenting to try and give it a bit of a kick; and they ruined it. Coronation Street is the main culprit. A tram crash. Numerous explosions within the past year. Dead bodies buried and hidden everywhere. The placentas of illegitimate children cover the cobbles. Murderer's hide everywhere. What kind of street is this? The crime statistics of Coronation Street must be awful. Its surprising people move there. The writers need to be strung up and shot. The story lines are awful. Then, they're about to destroy the Rovers Return in a huge riot. These aren't stories to entertain, infuse and grab the viewers’ attentions while helping them forget their problems. It's not that anymore. Coronation Street used to be funny. Now, they're trying to turn the soap into a huge production; like they're The Bourne Ultimatum or something. It's ridiculous I tells ya!

Talent shows are now so unbearable to watch. Sure, they were not exactly the most entertaining or morally right shows on the box a few years ago, but now they're just ridiculous. I think Simon Cowell should now just go and live with his metaphorical mistress (America) and leave us (Britain) to move on and carry on life without him. He's either with us, or with those slutty Yanks. The same goes for Piers Morgan while we're on that topic. Keep them, we don't want them back. They're your problems now! Anyway, talent shows are on the way out, and they should just leave respectfully instead of kicking up an undignified fuss. Britain's Got Talent (ITV) is over, you don't need to import David Hasslehoff for us to realise that. Britain has very little talent, and dancing dogs are not part of it. The X Factor too has gone. It can never recover now the peoples' princess, Cheryl Cole, has had her public image tarnished in such a disrespectful way. A show with Gary Barlow, Kelly Rowland and Tulisa? Please, that sounds worse than an American chat show hosted by scared-ferret-in-a-suit, Piers Morgan.

Yet, for some reason, they won't let Big Brother die. Last year, it finished. This year, Channel 5 and that bastard Richard Desmond, have brought it back. Now, I also think reality television is, even if very slowly, dying. We all know that comebacks usually don't work. Take the band Blue; they came back and we still hate them. Take Michael Schumacher; he was World F1 champion, but since he returned last year, he hasn't even won a podium. There should be a general rule, which means should you chuck in the towel, you can never come back. That's the one positive thing about Jade Goody; she isn’t coming back! We don't seriously need Big Brother do we? It's always the same every year; a few gay, very bitchy men, in a house with a few idiotic slutty blonde men and women, a hip black man, a middle aged man trying to impress their child and a few people who resemble house plants and vacuums with gormless faces drawn on. Exactly, we don't need Big Brother!

Now, reality television shows are being replaced by ‘reality documentaries’. Big Fat Gypsy Weddings (C4) seemed to be the first to kick it off with its huge popularity. You know those novelty toilet brush covers from the 90's? The women in the show look just like them. It's just a way of making people who work hard all their life think 'How the hell can they do nothing with their lives and afford that wedding, when I work 5 days a week and think buying a pizza on a Friday is pushing the boat out!' It made you resent Gypsies even more; but not as much as the Gypsies you see in town forcing heather in tinfoil down people’s throats for £1.

The popular reality documentaries now, are The Only Way is Essex (ITV 2) and Made In Chelsea (E4), with a new show Geordie Shore (MTV) slowly gaining popularity. These three shows are the tackiest shows on British television, possibly ever. I haven't watched them, but from the adverts and from what I've heard, these are the stupidest, sluttish, glamed-up freaks that we have ever seen. Big breasts, hair extensions and more make-up than the Avon catalogue; it's like Katie Price has been cloned, and then, they’ve spread them across the country and sent TV crews to film their integration into society. THEN, The Only Way Is Essex won a bloody BAFTA! This is the evidence that television is going down the drain. Society is going down with it, and we're drowning in that dirty bath water, urine, excrement and the stubble from the legs of females, and it'll get in your throat and, it just doesn’t bare thinking about.

So, a conclusion. There is very little comedy that is actually funny. Documentaries are not very informative. Dramas are very little in way of dramatic, apart from occasional glimpses of greatness on BBC 1. Reality hasn't shown the real lives of anyone recently. Soaps are competing with Hollywood films. Talent shows are just a way of showcases Simon Cowell's new facelift. And Gypsies; since when did they become popular?

Watching Doctor Who From Behind A Brick Wall

2011-06-09T18:00:00.001+01:00

The word 'Epic' is chucked about far too much in these modern times, and so often describing the most modern, least 'epical' of objects. Rihanna's new song is not epic. A cheese sandwich with Worcestershire sauce is not epic. A well trimmed lawn is not epic. A leap-year is not epic. Noticing the time is 11:11 am is not epic. KitKat sharing packs are not epic. Payday is not epic. However, an 8 minute prog-rock classic from the 80's which contains an entire orchestra of instrument with deep, meaningful lyrics, is epic. A long classic poem which is celebratory of a beautiful orchid by one of the vintage romantic poets, is an epic. Climbing Mount Everest using just your fingernails, is epic. The mid-series finale of the Sixth series of Doctor Who, was epic.

We're now half way through the sixth series of Doctor Who since its return to this millennium, and we're half way through Matt Smith's second series as the famous, heroic Doctor. Critics have hailed this series as being too scary and too complicated. I disagree. Yes, it's scary and very dark at frequent moments. Sometime hiding behind the sofa just isn't enough and you have to run outside and hide behind the brick wall, but that's the charm of Doctor Who. Yes, it's complicated, but only is you're multitasking. If you sit down and watch without playing about on your phone or updating your status on Facebook, you will understand it without a problem. Television seems to no longer be a form of escapism for the common person, but instead a colourful and noisy background to peoples' Tweeting activities, with them able to occasionally glance up and still understand the entire plot of Coronation Street. Doctor Who is still very much in the escapism category. It forces you to sit down and enjoy it, and if you don’t, you won't get it. Simples.

Anyway, enough about the opinions of idiotic critics, and now my opinion; which is still critical and at times, very idiotic. I have been completely disappointed by this current series of Doctor Who, but still at the same time completely gripped and loving every second of it (I did say I was still very idiotic). I think I'm disappointed because of the series being split into two. Just as you've got into it, you're chucked back outside in the pouring rain and told to wait until the autumn before you can come back. I know why Moffat has chosen to do it, and I totally agree with his thinking, the epic cliff hanger, but that's the reason for my disappointment. Last year it took about 5 episodes for me to be completely engrossed. You can't have one KitKat finger without wanting the other immediately; and I have the same opinion on the Doctor Who scheduling.

The episodes have been completely and utterly brilliant so far, and the second half promises to be just as good. The first episode back is called 'Let's Kill Hitler' for Christ's sake. How can that not be a totally brilliant, mind-boggling episode? Anyway, let's do a quick flick through the episodes thus far:

'The Impossible Astronaut' & 'The Day of the Moon'

The Silence: Classic Alien appearance but wearing suits. What a great foe! Now children are scared of everything they cannot remember. Now every child is scared of every noise they ever hear. The power of Doctor Who is amazing. And The Doctor; from the future; he gets shot; and he dies; PERMANTELY! Given a Viking burial. What? Mind boggled within ten minutes. We still don't know what that's all about, but I think we can make a relatively safe assumption that it's a young River Song in the astronaut outfit who shoots him. It's hard to describe the entire plot quickly, what with so much happening, but it ends with River and The Doctor sharing a kiss, just after she's killed The Silence in a really showy-off way. Other way's we're gripped into the series is that we know Amy might or might not be pregnant and we're intrigued by who the mysterious 'Eye-Patched Lady' is. Oh, and who is River Song already? Both of these episodes were written by Moffat, Doctor Who Supremo. More about him later… (Yeah, I can do cliff hangers too!)

'The Curse of the Black Spot'

This was an episode written by Stephen Thompson. This is the man who wrote the Sherlock episode which I considered to be the weakest. Unfortunately, I carry the same opinion for this episode. It seemed very anti-climax, and just a bit ridiculous I felt. I liked the idea of the 'TARDIS trio' being on a pirate ship, and seeing Amy swing from the rope as a heroine, was very pleasing to me, but it was essentially just the personal discoveries of a ruthless pirate who becomes a good Dad; too happy for me. Not dark enough. It was brilliantly performed by all involved and cleverly put together. However, a 17th century pirate having a space ship as the ending? No, I disliked that ending.

'The Doctor's Wife'

This is my favourite episode of the series so far, just for how fantastically brilliant the idea was. This was written by Neil Gaiman, a well known writer of Sci-fi, and you can tell he is a fan of Doctor Who just by all the references to the old series, within the episode. I like episodes that use Doctor Who history. Anyway, essentially the soul of the TARDIS is put into the body of an excited woman named Idris, played by Suranne Jones. This worried me as I have somehow gained an indescribable resentment against her, which puts me off watching anything she does. However, she was perfect and demonstrated a beautiful version of what the TARDIS would be like, if it possessed a body, being true to the personality we believe her to have. The scene between the TARDIS and The Doctor in the junkyard was a great piece of television I felt too when they were arguing. I loved the darkness between Rory and Amy while running through the TARDIS corridors too; worryingly scary, but still fantastic, especially with the return of the previous TARDIS 'Desktop'. There are just so many positives about this episode. You can tell that I was very enthused by this one.

'The Rebel Flesh' & 'The Almost People'

These two episodes failed to completely grip me, and I admit to not fully understanding the entirety of both episodes due to fumbling about with the phone I brought hours before the second of these episodes, but I think that due to the fact I was just a bit bored by how drawn out it was. It was written by Matthew Graham, writer of 'Fear Her', the episode with the 2012 Olympics, back in the days of Tennant. That was quiet a thought provoking episode, and so were these episodes, essentially addressing the issue of whether man-made life would have the same rights us, a debate which can bring about fierce thoughts, which were perfectly demonstrated by this episode however. A great idea, but I feel it was a bit stretched out for two episodes, but in the same sense, if the same story was told in one episode, I'd probably complain about it being squashed. I do like it when Doctor Who reveals the greatest monsters to be a threat to humans, is in fact us.

'A Good Man Goes To War'

This being the mid-series finale, which was written by Moffat. The title of this episode was kept a secret for as long as possible, to keep the finale as much a secret as possible, and I love how enthusiastic Moffat is about keeping as much a secret for the sake of the fans, but more on that a little later. This episode had it all really; fantastically huge twists, the resolution of storylines started earlier, the creation of new captive story lines, and a huge, epic cliff hanger. The biggest of them all being that Rory and Amy now have a child, which is part Time Lord due to the child being conceived on the TARDIS in a time vortex, and it is revealed at the brutal end of the episode that River Song is Melody; the child of Rory and Amy. How do they react? We'll wait and see. It was quite a clever way of including lots of different aliens in a story without having The Doctor defeat them again, and instead having them on his side; as an army. It was the Sci-fi version of David Cameron's Big Society.

Look they're shocked! But what happens next?

It was announced last week that the Daleks were taking a holiday from Doctor Who, because they are the 'most reliably defeated enemies in the Universe' according to Moffat, and indeed he is right. He knows what he's on about. However, I do ask the question: Why bother giving the Daleks a new paint job if you're not going to take them out for a ride and show them off for a bit? I just think they should have had one big finale, before they went away for a few years, like they do in the soaps. They'll make a character have an affair and then have a miscarriage before they disappear to Spain for seven years. Where was the Doctor Who equivalent to that? Anyway, I'm not complaining too much, because that finale was pretty damn epic.

Mind you, maybe that's in comparison to what was on the TV the week before? A week when ITV had the same schedule for the entire week: Two hours of what was apparently 'British talent', intercut with half hour of the blandest and most predictable storyline within Coronation Street. What happened to soaps representing real life? Maybe they made the finale seem even better? That was perfect scheduling on behalf of the BBC.

Now, for the paragraphs you've all been waiting for: Steven Moffat. I still firmly stick to my guns about him not being the greatest writer, which I had last year. However, that hasn't been so obvious this series because he seems to have uncovered the Holy Grail of writing a fantastic, gripping Doctor Who series. He has real enthusiasm for the show, which shines through whenever he gives interviews and even when you watch his episodes. You can tell how passionate he is about Doctor Who, in how he wants to keep everything a secret. The plot for the first two episodes was leaked by some 'fans' on the Internet, and this seemed to genuinely upset him, which I find so refreshing and rather endearing. He's just a normal guy living his dream.

The cliff hanger has now been brought back to both Doctor Who, and television in general. Coronation Street do cliff hangers, but you only have to wait half hour. The American's are able to create cliff hangers that last between one series and another. Us Brit's cannot do that. Well, excluding Moffat. Every episode this series has had a cliff hanger of some kind. Some cliff hangers from this series have been 'unhung' now, but some still continue, and more created. With each episode, you gained more subtle information to allow the audience to create their own, different opinions of what the cliff hanger will result in. This makes you tune in every Saturday without fail. Now we have cliff hangers which will remain 'hanging' until the September return. Steven Moffat is fast becoming one of the greatest things to happen to British Television.

Now, I just want to cover the characters; mainly Rory. I think he is possibly the greatest companion The Doctor has ever had. This is a man who has been killed several times, been erased from existence after saving The Doctor's life, turned into plastic (Autons) and guarded the Pandorica for 2000 years as a Roman. As a character, he is pretty damn brilliant. All this while being in the shadow of Amy. A much better duo than Rose and Micky, that's for sure.

He always has the same facial expression though...

And as for Matt Smith, yesterday it was announced that he would be returning for another series, so long may the 'TARDIS trio' remain intact. Mind you, I wonder what will happen now Amy and Rory have a baby. The Universe is not a safe place for a baby, even if she is half Time Lord. We will have to just wait for September for the final six episodes of this series. Three months. It's a long old wait...

MoneySuperInjunction.com

2011-05-30T12:00:00.005+01:00

That website may not yet exist, but if we carry on the path which rich society and gossip is descending down, I give it two years before the website is fully operational. The TV adverts will obviously feature Omid Djalili, where he goes about the World bothering celebrities and telling them that they could have gotten a better deal on their Super Injunction if they had visited MoneySuperInjunction.com first. The website will compare different injunction formulas possible and help the user by suggesting the option that is the best value for money to give them the privacy they want. A service provided completely for free too due to advertising funding.

It has been an odd week or so in which, for once, the UK media has not been able to publish gossip about a footballer and reality TV show having forbidden sex, when everyone else has been talking about it. Twitter was revelling in having 'one up' on the media and the law, so everyone was Tweeting the name 'Ryan Giggs'. 70,000 people broke the law by talking about it. One of which was me, and others included people I follow. It was just a lot of people just figuratively sticking two fingers up at The Sun newspaper and shaking their wrists with pleasure at the law. It was a beautiful, yet confusing moment for British society. If Twitter existed in the 80's, it would have been used in exactly the same way.

I blogged quite a while ago about having Freedom of Speech so long as you keep your mouth shut and remain politically correct at all times, and this follows on from that point and how Twitter has a huge influence upon that. In response to Paul Chambers Tweeting "FUCK! Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!", he was arrested and thousands of Twitterer's sent the same message in protest. One anonymous person Tweeted "Footballer Ryan Giggs had an extramarital affair with Big Brother star Imogen Thomas which lasted for 7 months. #superinjunction" and it went relatively unnoticed for a little while, and the user went on, power sick, and started Tweeting nonsense speculation Tweet's about other celebrities. Anyway, the first Tweet was true, and it soon started spreading.

Once it had spread and gained enough momentum, The Sun appealed for the injunction to be overturned, which was rejected. Twitterer's continued to spread the news and made jokes. Ryan Giggs got angry. The media became irritated. Politicians became irritated. Twitterer's continued to revel and because so many people Tweeted the news, it became impossible to impose the law, but it continued. Eventually, Lib Dem MP John Hemming boiled and spilt the news by abusing/using (it depends on your own opinion) his powers within the Houses of Commons. The Speaker had a mini rant, and the media where finally in ecstasy at now being able to report the news. However, the injunction still remains in place, so it is technically illegal to report it even though, in practice, it isn't illegal because it was mentioned in the Houses of Common. Geddit? Yeah, the law is like a cryptic puzzle. No one has an idea where anyone stands.

There was a great piece of TV in the early morning on Daybreak in the week, in which Max Clifford, media guru/obscene profanity (depends on your opinion), was quizzed for his thoughts on the super injunction fiasco. This is the man who gave the media Jade Goody by the way, so we can agree he has an extremely warped sense of righteousness. He stated that this culture was very worrying because it meant his clients [and therefore him] couldn't make any money. He didn't say that directly, but it was as implicit as stating that you didn't know the sex of your future child whilst winking and holding a pink balloon saying 'It's a girl'.

He did also make one point which I think lends this story a deliciously ironic twist: if Ryan Giggs had never put up an injunction, the story would have never come out due to Imogen Thomas agreeing to keep it secret. The intrigue of the injunction is what led to the story actually coming out and making Giggs a target for matrimonial hate. No-one wanted to publish it in the first place. That, for me, just makes the story a lot sweeter to enjoy.

Now, I wander into the debate of whether Super Injunctions are right or wrong, and I am sitting on the fence about it: I cannot decide what my overall opinion is on this humiliating failure. Both sides of the argument, I think, include very good points. The main points against the injunctions are that a) only the very rich can afford to get them; and b) if you're going to be in the public eye and you don't want people to know you have sex with hookers, and then you shouldn't have sex with hookers. There are also points for the use of injunctions that are a) why is it any of our business; and b) it gives the family a chance to recover and stay together if the media don't shout their private news in big black letters on the front of every newspaper. The case of Andrew Marr springs straight into mind.

A few years ago, with a fellow female Journalist, Marr had an affair and thought that maybe a child she had conceived might have been due to their shenanigans. The injunction was put in place and Marr's marriage had time to heal and survive and DNA testing proved the child not to be his. The injunction stopped speculation by the media and didn't tear the family apart, but it does appear hypocritical when he is grilling politicians on their scandalous private lives, when he himself has one and won't share it. That is something which Ian Hislop campaigned for and was his point every time he was interviewed on the news the day the story hit the media. The story illustrates the good and the bad of super injunctions.

On the whole however, I do totally disagree with the use of super injunctions, as both an aspiring Journalist and a member of the naïve public. I know the Conservatives are in power, but it doesn't necessarily mean we have to live in a time when the rich can do whatever they wish because they are rich. Who wants to live in a society as blatantly biased as that? David Cameron was quick to jump on the band wagon and condemn the use of super injunctions. He is a PR genius, so when he is becoming unpopular due to so many U-turns on the NHS reforms for example, by agreeing with the public on matters such as super injunctions, he seems like a good guy.

If this isn't kept under control, where are we going to end up as a society? Will people get injunctions out to keep the results of sporting events quiet, so that no-one can report the results of the football match between Chelsea and West Ham until Match of the Day is on in the evening? Will BBC 3 be able to get injunctions out every time they produce another horrid 'comedy' aimed at youth to prevent people saying how rubbish it was? Is it possible to get a super injunction to prevent parents from telling their children that Santa isn't real? Could it be possible for a man to get an injunction out to stop ex girlfriends from revealing the length of his penis? Will chocolate manufactures be able to get a super injunction out to stop people from knowing that chocolate may contain nuts? You see, if it gets out of control, it could get dangerous and people with nut allergies could die!

I don't think we'll stop this super injunction society any time soon, and if we could, we wouldn't be allowed to know how. I think maybe we should slap a time limit on how long a super injunction lasts. A judge should say "Sure, you can have an injunction. But, in 6 months time, the news will come out", and Mr Sex-obsessed Actor will say yes as it gives him chance to sort his life out, and all is well in the end. I mean, this might be the only way to save children with nut allergies! Don't be a bastard and let them die!

The Torturesome Twinge Of Teeth

2011-05-23T16:00:00.002+01:00

I am reaching a point in my life when I've discovered that my entire body, and particularly the pain receptors which are linked between certain parts of my body and my bastard brain, hate me. My body likes to randomly stop doing things, which other people's body's do perfectly well, just for the sheer hell of it. My toe nails every other year decide to grow inwards because I wear shoes, something which almost every other person on this planet can achieve in one way or another without having to visit a 'foot specialist'. Most people can eat a dinner without their stomach growling like a cow afterwards for reasons no-one really knows. I can't sit in a Costa coffee shop without randomly hiccupping at least once at some point during the visit, whether I've drunk hot chocolate, water or eaten an egg sandwich. Most people can touch a shopping trolley or a light switch without getting a static shot. My ears can't sustain a winter without just refusing not to work with no prior warning. A lot of people can also have teeth in their mouth without a chronic pain which emotionally cripples them and is only kept at bay by living off Pain Killers.

For nearly six months, I have had the same on/off pain in the left side of mouth. Not to one specific tooth; every single flaming tooth on the left of my mouth hurts in some sort of orderly fashion. The pain itself is hard to describe, but I shall try anyway.

You know when you get a deep cut on your hands or anywhere on your body, and you get in a warm bath a few hours after sustaining the said injury, and it stings quite a bit, yet you keep curiously putting it in and out to feel the pain? It's a lot worse than that. You know when you burn your tongue on a hot dinner and you have that painful discomfort for a few days? It's a lot worse than that. You know when you have been punched in the groin by someone with a stud ring on seventy three times within a year minute while having an elephant truck stuffed in your ear gradually? It's worse than that. You know when you get run over by a twenty ton truck going at 150mph down a hill covered in scorpions with a snake pit at the bottom? It's probably not as bad as that. You know when you've been forced to watch every hour of Big Brother contestants blathering in the diary room while someone poked pins randomly into you while another person punched you once every four hours in the face? It's about the same as that. Really irritating intense painful discomfort and you wish it would just stop because you cannot believe how long it can go on for, whilst thinking to yourself "This cannot be good for my mouth".

The obvious answer is to go and visit the Dentist when you get a pain in your mouth, and like a normal person, I did. In fact, in the past six months I have now visited him five times and the hospital once. I've been poked and scrapped and drilled and moulded and x-rayed while taking varying prescribed tablets, and yet, still, the pain has failed to disappear. Now, this is leading me to thinking a number of things. I could be suffering from some rare syndrome not directly related to my teeth but causes this pain (I don't know if such a thing exists, but I still think it). I could be going insane and imagining these pains like the maniac I've clearly transformed into. Maybe I'm stuck with this for the rest of my life because that's how my body rolls.

No-one knows the source of my pain. Everyone has had suspicions, but no-one has actually been proved to be correct. It started life as nerve damage which would be solved by a week’s antibiotics over the Christmas week. Then it wasn't. Then it was due to a tooth being slightly large which would be solved by drilling part of it off. Then it wasn't. Then it might have either been cists or a wisdom tooth which we would find out by an x-ray. Then it wasn't. Now, it's apparently due to me grinding my teeth which will apparently be solved by a bite guard. (It isn't, but my Dentist won't listen to me).

My perfect pearly teeth in X-ray form

I just do not know what the problem is. Maybe my Doctor will help me this week. I'm going to see him about this pain, and I feel guilty, like I'm cheating on my Dentist. Either way, I think this to be conclusive proof that God does not exist. I'm a good, respectful, caring, helpful and reliable person, and even though I don't believe in him, if I were 'one of his flock', he should look after me regardless. I do not deserve this intense pain for six months, and I cannot see how this can be part of his 'divine plan' for my life, so he cannot exist. OR, he does exist and he is a real sadistic bastard. If so, he's probably German…

In the past few months I have also ingested the equivalent to half of Boots, in a vain attempt to save myself from the pain of my mouth. Anadin. Anadin Extra. Boots Paracetamol. Tesco Paracetamol. Morrison's Paracatamol. Panadol. Panadol Fast Relief. Ibrufen. Co Codamol. Pain Killing Mouth wash. And various dissolvable tablets, but the name has vanished. I could be mistaken as an addict. If I got pulled over, I'd probably lose my licence for driving under the influence. Also, the frequency in which I visit the toilet has been increased as a result of poisoning my system. It doesn't matter how many drugs I stuff down my throat, the pain still exists, just the intensity may decrease slightly. Bastards. My teeth are going to kill me, and I don't mean that one night they'll leap out of my mouth, grow to 6 foot tall and then just start throwing me about until I'm a limp carcass (however, gangs of giant teeth are a very serious problem for a modern Britain), I just mean they'll figuratively kill me.

Anyway, I think I failed at describing the pain in my dental region, even though it is a right Piers Morgan (synonymous with being a huge, ugly, rude pain in my arse), so let me pass that responsibility to the XKCD comic...

Dental Nerve - XKCD

UPDATE:
Since the writing of this blog, I've had a few more visits to the Dentist. Turns out I had a huge infection in the tooth I had a filling in some months back, so I'm now in the middle of Root Canal treatment and the pain has subsided. Good news for me, but my Dentist is still confused why it never appeared on any x-rays. The wonders of Dentistry aye...

If Only Diana Were Alive!

2011-04-29T14:00:00.001+01:00

Everything for the past few weeks has been to do with the Royal Wedding. Prince William and Kate (From today called Catherine) have made their vows and tied the metaphorical knot of marriage, unless Westminster Abbey was blown up and I didn’t get chance to remove this blog before it posted at it’s scheduled time of course (if that is the case, I apologise for my insensitivity). Anyway, let’s assume they haven’t been horrifically murdered.

Is it just me who thinks this looks like a promotional shot for a new Doctor Who alien?

Every media outlet has been bursting with excitement at this event. The news has interviewed Kate Middleton’s distant family who own chips shops and interviewing people she went to school with to find out what kind of girl she was. The news has covered all the preparation details from policemen checking drains for bombs and transatlantic TV channels setting up a media centre not far from Buckingham Palace. People watch the news to get updates on the days national and international events; not speculation about a wedding. There’s been speculation about what the wedding dress will look like, and whether she’ll wear long or short arms. Phoooar, I hoped she was to wear short sleeves; nothing like a bit of Royal elbow action!

We’ve had predictions about the weather, which I predict will have undoubtedly been wrong. There have been rumours of what David Cameron will wear. The SkyHDCopter has been circling the route for the past week, to needlessly pump fumes into the Ozone Layer and achieve very little else. Obviously, there have been many comparisons to Diana. There verb ‘commoner’ has insultingly been continuously used to describe Kate Middleton, and the emphasis has repeatedly been that on the 29th of April 2011, she becomes something meaningful – a Princess. Prince Harry dated a girl named ‘Chelsy’. Princess Chelsy. Now, that’s common. Kate is not.

This wedding has rekindled the argument of whether we, as a nation, still need a monarchy. Notice that only idiots say ‘No’ in that debate. The people that think we shouldn’t have a monarchy are the same people that idolise Katie Price and her weddings. At least Royal Weddings happen infrequently instead of it being a bi-annual event.

I would never use the word ‘Royalist’ to describe myself. I’m not their biggest fan. I haven’t got a display cabinet in my house which is full of Royal memorabilia like a mug for the Queen’s coronation or a plate with the face of Prince Charles and Diana on it and nor am I gaining an erection at the chance to buy more Royal wedding memorabilia. I just appreciate the history of our country, which always remains synonymous with the Royal family. Almost the entire World appreciates it, apart from the infuriatingly ignorant disciples of Katie Price.

Imagine a World where Britain never had a monarchy. England wouldn’t have its beautiful castles or other classic British attractions. Fairy Stories would involve back alleys instead of a Prince wooing his Princess. Disney wouldn’t have its Disney Princess franchise (This surprisingly upsets me). We Brits would be much more like Europe. Visitors wouldn’t flock to our country, and therefore we would be skint. Money would look a lot different. And the most horrifying: Blackadder may have never existed!

Okay, they are not the greatest reasons ever, but they should be carefully considered before we even embark on hinting at the possibility of starting to think about the removal of our Royals. Britain without a monarchy is like a dog without a bone: It will survive, but it would lose its spirit and never quite be the same again.

And Diana. We wouldn’t have idolised her if it wasn’t for the Royal Family! We wouldn’t have had a week of national mourning when she was killed in a tunnel in France. We wouldn’t find all the jokes about her death funny because we wouldn’t have a clue of who she was. Mind you, if it wasn’t for the Royal family, one could probably argue she would still be alive, but instead working as a checkout girl at Asda. Swings and roundabout aye?

So, the People’s Princess has been dead for over a decade, and we have slowly lost faith in our monarchy and its usefulness. Maybe Princess Catherine will tug on the nations Heartstrings to become the next Queen of our Hearts. Mind you, the Queen does have no power. All the decisions are made by the politicians and she just sits there pretending to care and nodding at the appropriate times.

We all secretly love the Queen though. It’s like the way we love our Mum’s. We have no actual reason to love them, but they’ve always been there and we know that society says we should, so we do. It’s instinctive, maternal love. We should take great pride in our Queen. We don’t have enough pride for her these days. We seem to have evolved into a cynical, stoical nation of people. And how many people actually know our National Anthem? Not many. Not even I know it. It should have been compulsorily taught to us in Primary school, along with the association of characters to letters of the alphabet, like Kicking King (For the letter K) and Kissing Cousins (to represent the letter X?), as well as learning about Autumn every Autumn.

It doesn’t matter what you think about the Royal family, because they are not going to just give up their power, and a military coup is very unlikely. So if you don’t like it, either get used to the Royal family or move to America where you can then look at us, full of admiration.

That is my biggest annoyance! Bloody indecisive Americans! During the civil war they kicked us out, and now, they want in. They admire our Royal family. They seem to even admire our British ideals. Bloody hypocrites! Then, ironically, we seem to admire Barack Obama and wish we had such a powerful, elegant leader. Typical neighbours; looking over each other’s fences (in this metaphor, the Atlantic Ocean is the ronsealed fence) at their lives, full of jealousy.

Well, I hope you Brits enjoyed your Street parties, filled with VE Day spirit with cupcakes, crumpets, bunting and the typical British weather, and I hope you Yanks enjoyed waking up early to see a wedding full of people you have never heard nor care about.

One last thought: Why didn’t we charge the Yanks an extortionate rate for the rights to show the wedding and pay for it that way, as opposed to letting them enjoy festivities for a cheap price? It would save our pounds sterling. I’m sure Fox News could afford it.

Good luck to the newest Royal wedding; they need it. And long live Princess Catherine. I hope she lasts longer than Diana. OH, IF ONLY DIANA WERE STILL ALIVE TODAY!

Book Review: Sh*t My Dad Says

2011-04-22T11:00:00.000+01:00

I’m not a keen reader of book. For instance, last year I read none. The books I had read the previous year were actually compulsory for my English A-level. However, there has been a change for 2011. Maybe it’s something in the water, possibly the long, cold, harsh Winter has completely altered me, or probably because I’m finding the right books and have a lot of free time on my hands. Whatever the reason, I am currently on my third book of the year. The first one being a Charlie Brooker book I made an attempt at starting many years ago. The second one started life as a ‘Twitter Sensation’ before becoming a book and then an American sitcom, making it somewhat of an American institution.

This is called ‘Sh*t My Dad Says’, and as the title suggests, it has a hefty amount of swearing, so if your easily offended, this is not the book for you (mind you, nor are a majority of my blogs, so what are you doing here?). I had heard about this book long before buying it and even read the introduction on the Amazon website. Then, once confronted by the book in HMV, and a large amount of vouchers received for my birthday, I couldn’t resist purchasing it. The back of the book got me more intrigued by the book, and the following line from the blurb, I think, describes it perfectly. Better than what I will attempt to say anyway.

“More than a million people now follow Mr Halpern Senior’s philosophical gems every day on Twitter, and this book weaves a brilliantly funny, surprisingly touching coming-of-age memoir around the best of his quotes.”

The author is pretty unknown, but Justin Halpern is a comedy writer for varying websites and such. On a whole, his writing is pretty talented and knows the secrets behind comedy and can get as much laughter out of a scenario as is possible. However, his use of metaphors seem to be too often and sometimes are very forced. It is like he is trying desperately hard to come across as talented. They sometimes seem somewhat pressurised. For those amongst you who are not Sherlock Holmes, Justin Halpern is the son, writing down his father’s brilliant quips.

“So there you go. Your mother thinks you’re handsome. This should be an exciting day for you.”

So, the book. It shows the father and son relationship between a loving, but very straight talking, opinionated scientist in nuclear medicine (the Dad), and a young boy/man going through the regular ordeals of a growing American boy. It’s very light-hearted, and is in great detail. The two main characters, and others, have been created brilliantly so you can imagine these interactions happening, and I think that takes skill to achieve.

“A three-year-old doesn’t have a license to act like an asshole.”

Each chapter follows particular scenarios which are memorable in the life of Justin, and how his Dad either reacted to, or was involved in them. It may not seem that great when described like this, but trust me, it bloody well is. The first chapter starts off being about how this book came about, and the events that led towards it. The author had quit his job and been dumped by his girlfriend, on the same day, which led to him seeking shelter with parents, essentially.

“All I ask is that you pick up your stuff so you don’t leave your bedroom looking like it was used for a gangbang. Also, sorry that your girlfriend dumped you.”

The following chapters describe events that happened while Justin grew up, in order from six years old to the writing of the book. Such events include attending a family wedding, failing maths, going to college and working in the kitchens at Hooters. Hilarity ensues in every chapter, I promise.

“You’re not a cigar guy… Well, the first reason that jumps out at me is that you hold it like you’re jerking off a mouse.”

I absolutely love the father, and is actually quite inspiring for an angry person like myself. How can you possibly not laugh at someone who says “Your brother brought his baby over this morning. He told me it could stand. It couldn’t stand for shit. Big let down” or says “Hello… Fuck you” to a telemarketer. The book is absolutely filled with superb quotes like these, with there being two or three pages of odd remarks in between each chapter. These are a brilliant touch; with it is yet another way of filling the book with humour, and it really just makes the book look a lot larger than it is in reality.

“The baby will talk when he talks, relax. It ain’t like he knows the cure for cancer and just ain’t spitting it out.”

The book is 185 pages long, which is quite small in book terms anyway. The font is rather large; not much smaller than what you might find in a children’s book. It has a lot of chapters, but they’re relatively short with the longer ones reaching a peak of eleven pages. Then, between each chapter, you have two or three pages of quotes. This isn’t a book you take on holiday to read for days on the beach while catching some serious skin cancer, or you spend many weeks thinking deeply about. You could read and enjoy it on a long coach or plane journey to past the time with laughter, or do what I did, and read big chunks at a time over the course of a week. I still highly recommend this book to anyone who appreciates angry, straight-talking humour and can happily read page after page of the word ‘bullshit’.

“What are you doing with that rake?... No, that is not raking… What? Different styles of raking? No, there’s one style, and then there’s bullshit. Guess which one you’re doing.”

So, I recommend the book, but what about the sitcom?

Well, part created by Justin Halpern, it was produced for the American network CBS, and they, probably in an attempt at political correctness, called it ‘$#*! My Dad Says’. In the UK, it is currently being shown on the channel that is currently being called ‘Five*’. I have only watched one episode, and that was the opening episode. The following words will give you can understanding as to why I watched no more. The Dad is played by William Shatner.

“You’re going to run into jerk-offs, but remember, It’s not the size of the asshole you worry about, it’s how much shit comes out of it.”

I understand he is popular, but I have always thought that he does not suit comedy. I find his delivery of funny lines to very ‘wooden’ and it almost seems like he doesn’t get the joke he is saying. I personally think the TV adaption to be very poor, and I can’t be the only one to think so, otherwise it wouldn’t be buried away in schedules of what is a channel filled with bullshit in the UK. I hope Mr Halpern Senior gave a frank and more insulting opinion of the show, in his own unique, loving way.

“Son, you’re a good athlete, but I’ve seen what you call swimming. It looks like a slow kid on his knees trying to smash ants.”

The End Of A Blogging Era

2011-04-09T12:00:00.002+01:00

I don’t want people to get upset at this, but I have some sad news that I feel I need to inform you about. A death, very close to my heart has occurred of a very close friend. In fact, my greatest ally when it came to writing rants about varying topics in usually over a thousand words. I now have to face a future in blogging without the help of this friend. I will continue, but it will be difficult for a long while. I miss having this companion by my side. The death happened Tuesday the 5th April 2011 late in the evening. It was sudden and unexpected. Attempts at resuscitation were futile. For once, turning it off and on again did not work. The cause of death was the failure of a vital organ: The graphics card. Yes my loyal reader, my laptop, imaginatively named ‘Laptopo’, has died.

Just weeks before his third birthday, the dreaded blue screen appeared. It’s like watching the life drain from the eyes of a loved one as they look at you for the final time, before collapsing in front of your very eyes. You become over whelmed by emotion. It happened so quickly you just don’t know what to do. You rush over and hold them in your arms, turn them off and on again in a vain attampt to rescue them, but it was too late: upon the reboot, it was obvious The Grim Reaper has taken his latest victim.

Evidence upon the reboot that Laptopo has died.

Tuesday was a normal day. That evening I had come home and switched on my laptop like I do every single day. I had sat on Facebook and Twitter reading boring update after boring update after boring update, while doing little bits of writing here and there for various projects. Like every evening, I also spent time bemoaning the slow streaming of videos on YouTube. I had watched my current favourite song (Patrick Wolf – The City) in staggered moments. Then, I began watching Stewart Lee clips for some comic relief, when, while Stewart Lee slatted Russell Brand on my screen, Laptopo died. I had a tear in my eye.

That tear was partly due to the untimely death of my friend, but also for the inappropriate timing of my friend’s death. Just when you need them the most, they bugger off it seems. As many teenagers of my age doing their A-levels will know, exam season is fast approaching. Therefore it is handy when your laptop, with all your work saved on, dies and takes it all with him. Some will cry ‘Well, you should have backed up’. Well, Mr Hindsight, I have been backing up. Once a month, I back up. A back up was due, so the past months work was lost. Not a lot, but enough to be a big pain up the royal arse.

The next day, I drove to PC World with the corpse of my fellow comrade on the passenger’s seat, to beg of them to save the memory of the deceased friend.

Now, this were my blog changes tone from being a compassionate epilogue about the death of a loved one, to a rage against the machine.

Bloody PC World! Like every corporate machine, they want money to even look you in eye.

This particular corporate machine back it’s customers into a corner, so they have no choice but to either be a computer expert themselves with all the correct gizmos, or to pay a PC World employee to do it for you. It cost £30 to get my stuff, which I created myself, back in my accessible hands. This was my own writing and my own photography. If you spent a week building a lovely shelving unit, then you had to pay a stranger for it, you would be fuming. Mind you, if the Coalition had its own way, they would start taxing people as freely as that.

The people at PC World were rather lovely, if not unnaturally obsessed with watching Loose Women and Janet Street-Porter’s lazy right eye. I still wouldn’t say the experience was worth the £30. All he did was dock my Hard Drive (If that isn’t a euphemism, I don’t know what is…) and put various bits of its contents on a DVD disc. £30! Pah! If I were a Gypsy, I’d put a curse on them; or sell them some lucky heather in an attempt to earn my money back.

Now, my computing life is very scattered. I have my music and pictures of an external Hard Drive. I have my current work on a number of memory stick. I’m borrowing a laptop to allow me onto the Internet for a few weeks (and indeed writing this very blog from). Then, I’m using my old laptop to do work on, such as using Photoshop. I was using my old laptop for the Internet, but then I remembered why it became my old laptop. Every 5 minutes, the Internet cuts out because the laptop stupidly decides to change the network password. I never named my old laptop because we never really ‘hit it off’, and now you understand why: he was a bastard!

Now, I’m going to have to spend hours pouring over websites to determine what laptop will be a sufficient replacement. You can’t replace love like what I and Laptopo had, but he was soon reaching retirement age. He became easily confused and was very slow to do anything; much like a senile old man you have to keep waking up whenever you want to have a conversation with him.

It looks like I will soon be entering the Windows 7 generation, and from what I have experienced on this laptop I have borrowed, it is exactly the same as Vista, just a bit more transparent and the use of any lexis is kept to a minimum. Obviously Microsoft spent billions of dollars on redesigning their new Operating System. I would get a Mac however if I had the money, but bloody Apple with their desirable, white, products, have to make everything so sodding expensive.

Now, please join me in a moments silence to remember my great friend. Rest In Peace Laptopo; you were one in a few hundred thousand!

March Madness

2011-03-31T18:00:00.001+01:00

There have been plenty of slow news weeks. Even slow news months. The past month has probably been the complete opposite with so much happening, the news has struggled to fit it all in. Obviously we've had the Japanese Earthquake which has resulted in weeks of footage enforcing the destructive force left in its wake. We started a 'war' in Libya because it's been too long since we bombed another country which lots of oil. London has been hit by what are becoming trademark protests over money and lots of graffiti is used. There's been a double murder, with one victim being a woman who left a nightclub at 3am; a fact constantly told to us and repeatedly proved by CCTV footage. A 'Supermoon' loomed over the horizon for the first time in 11 years. The biggest news of all is that petrol is 1p cheaper, and thanks to that, I can afford a Mediterranean holiday!

Of course I can't afford a Mediterranean holiday. I haven't even got a passport...

I'm not going to jabber on about the Japanese Earthquake and subsequent disasters because I've already written in great length about that in my previous blog. However, I would just like to point one thing out to my local County Council. Three months after the cold weather, we still have roads smothered in bloody pot holes, and when they are finally repaired, they're done so poorly, that the road crumbles again as soon as a cyclist travels over it. The Japanese: Within a week of the tsunami, a road which was destroyed by its destructive force, was rebuilt and open. Shaming us Brits: It's the Japanese way...

In just a week!

There is one question which no-one really knows the answer to at the moment: Are we actually at war? The way I read it, the short and technical answer is probably no; not for now atleast. However, we are doing nothing to help international relations with Libya, and if you look at our current bombing habits, it's hard to not think we're at war. The English, American and French coalition are actually only enforcing a no-fly zone. This means, that no flights are currently, legally allowed to occur in the airspace above Libya. That’s simple enough. That just means we attack planes that break this rule in an attempt to keep civilians safe. Of course it's not that simple! America is involved. They seem to think that life is actually just a real game of Black Ops or some other war game with similarity. Just shoot anyone who has a vaguely coloured tone, just in case. "They're covered in dust? Better shoot just to be sure”.

An American plane came into difficulties and crashed near a village. The pilots parachuted safely. The locals welcomed the American's and even celebrated how they were helping their country. Then, during a mission to rescue said pilots by American troops, six villagers were shot and injured, including a young boy who lost a leg. An accident they call it. How does that even happen? America is just not happy unless they're shooting at people of a different race.

This does seem like this is going to end in much the same way as Iraq and Afghanistan; which is what people are worried about. We're forcing a country to abide by our rules. Sure, Gaddafi is a bit 'crazy'. I thought we were past the times when a leader would kill his country's citizens because they disagreed with him. Now, there is a debate about how involved we should become in this. Technically, it's illegal for us to give arms to the Libyan people to overthrow the Government. David Cameron still wants to do it though. However, we gave Afghanistan arms in the 90's, and look how that ended. This is a very complex issue which I know not enough about to be able to write more about before becoming inaccurate, boring and just writing gobbledegook.

Next issue on this month’s agenda: The London Protests.

London. It's such a wonderful, beautiful city. Apart from when a small selection of society decide to smash up shops, throw ammonia at policemen, vandalising historic monuments and just generally make profanities of themselves.

The March 2011 protests were about the recent budget cuts. 250,000 respectable citizens marched through the streets of London holding placards to make their point, whilst keeping within the law and having fun. The news repeatedly referred to it as a 'carnival atmosphere'. Then, a couple hundred people turned up disguised in balaclavas, and thought they would undermine the respectable citizens in their aim, by trashing London. As soon as the media found these events scattered across London, the media concentrated on them instead. Suddenly, the majority are forgotten once again.

Let me share a few figures. 66 people were injured; including 13 police. 214 protestors were arrested. That final figure is awful. I understand some of the anger by these protests, in that they attacked the shops, banks and hotels which avoid paying taxes in some shape or form. However, vandalising really isn't helping. Why does this always have to happen? We're a civilised community in this country, and a small percentage just wants to be violent.

Let's forget the protests that are 'fighting' for our future, and just concentrate on the main issue. Like everyone, I disapprove of the budget cuts, but I appreciate that it needs to be done, and maybe it could have been enforced slowly over a longer period, but let's just get over it, carry on with our lives and just be more conservative with our money. Could be worse; we could have just been hit by a huge earthquake and tsunami which killed thousands and destroyed life as we know it...

Labour seem somewhat hypocritical in all this however. I hear you cry 'But Stuart, politicians are never hypocritical. That word doesn't even appear in their dictionaries!" Yes dear reader, it's true. They're thinking about winning back more local council positions in the upcoming elections and are looking ahead to the future when they bid for power of the country again. They want people to like them again, and they're doing that by declaring that what Cameron and his followers are doing, is wrong. However, weren't Labour planning cuts nearly as bad? Yes, yes they were. They seem to have carefully forgotten that fact... Hmm.

Those have been the main points for March, but so much more has happened, and 2011 is proving to be such a busy year. However, I have limited knowledge, limited time and limited motivation to write a huge blog, decrying how awful life is becoming!

In April, we can looks forward to Easter Egg scoffing, a royal wedding and much more I expect...

WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE!

2011-03-21T17:00:00.003Z

I blame those pesky neutrinos. If you have seen the film '2012', you will know why. I only watched it very recently for the first time after buying it cheap in HMV. It is possibly one of the best disaster movies I have seen. I'll give you a quick synopsis in case you have not seen it. Essentially, neutrinos from a solar flare penetrate the Earth and warm up with Earth's core. (Already, the film has got the 'sciencey' bit wrong in that Neutrinos do not behave in that sort of way...). There are lots people running around and warning each other about the impending doom. The year 2012 arrives and lots on mini-quakes start to occur across the globe, and this causes cracks in the Earth's surface. The movie follows a family as they try to outrun the disaster, in which they drive through crumbling cities and fly around the World, getting help from people they meet along the way. They make it to China where the World's richest and most deserved get a pass onto one of numerous arks, along with every species of animal, in a modern-day adaption of the tale of Noah. By this point, you have to forget that millions of people have died in tsunamis, eruptions of super volcanoes, epic earthquakes and other natural disasters, so you can buy into the fact that everyone on these arks are happy that they are saved. The destruction of Earth stops as quickly as it started, and everyone moves to Africa. They probably live happily ever after. Finished.

The film 2012 is based around the idea of the Mayan's Calendar, which states that on the 21st of December, 2012, the World will come to an end. This, of course, is only a theory, but conspiracy theorists and movie directors find this a great idea to exploit. There is a possibility to this, albeit a slight one, in that our Sun's solar activity is going to intensify and let out huge solar flares as part of its 11 year cycle that coincidentally reaches its peak in 2012. These are not going to heat our World up to a point which we all fall into the Earth's core however. At worst, it will destroy our communication systems, and you know, to a stroppy teenager who can't text their mate down the road because of the inconvenience caused by the Sun, it may probably seem like the end of the world.

The film, although brilliant if you remove yourself from rational thought, is so far from possibility, it becomes laughable. Much like another apocalyptic movie, ‘The Day After Tomorrow', in that everything happens with such speed, if you were a deep sleeper, you'd miss the whole event.

However, maybe these laughable films are actually, slowly, becoming a reality. We're only three months into 2011 and already Australia has been flooded and hit by a hurricane, New Zealand has been rocked by an Earthquake and Japan has been almost destroyed by a horrific Earthquake which resulted in a huge tsunami and (at the time of writing) is about to be vaporised by a huge nuclear explosion, should you choose believe the news. The closer we get to 2012, should we expect an increase in even worse global events happening? The apocalypse is only one calendar away! Imagine the irony; just as the middle-eastern countries release themselves from the oppression of unfair Governments, they end up killed by a super volcano in the middle of Egypt. Also, why are we even bothered by increased tuition fees and a slashed NHS budget? We'd have all drowned in a freak tsunami from the Irish Sea by the time the effects really hit us. Damn you Neutrinos! Damn you!

In all seriousness (and those are three words you read rarely on this blog), the recent events in Japan are absolutely terrible. Seeing those initial pictures on the News on the 11th March, really depressed me. It scared me. It is horrifying. I just don't know what to say. A confirmed number of over 8,000 people have lost their lives, and another 13,000 are missing. The devastation is beyond imaginable, and I'm sure the true extent is impossible to try and convey on the news. However, still, the media 'flood' to this event like Cheetahs to a limping Zebra.

Every fifteen minutes for the first few days on 24 Hour News channels, we were shown the same videos, which involved aerial shots of huge tides sweeping away towns, cars floating about like plastic ducks and amateur footage of people running upstairs after spotting the water gushing into their homes. The media were keen to keep this story fresh, so they, as they always do, talked to irrelevant people who knew less than them. My favourite example is when a news presenter was talking to an English person in Japan through Skype. Great idea, but when the person lives the other side of the country, how is he supposed to know how people who have lost their homes and family, are coping?

Then each night a reporter would go and stand in front of a devastating scene to illustrate how bad this event was. This has ranged from standing in front of a ferry which was swept aground and now sitting atop a building, to a wrecked lorry mounted upon a pile of rubbish. I'm expecting the news reporters to become desperate and just start standing in front of a field of corpses, while he delivers his piece to camera with a deadpan expression on his face.

This is the tsunami the Japanese side of the North Pacific...

You really do have to admire the Japanese people though. If this event happened anywhere else in the World, the News channels would have hours of footage in which women do pieces to camera while sobbing uncontrollably, while others are behind them in the foetus position while screaming in a foreign language. I have seen no clips like that from the Japanese. They just seem to have accepted it and have resolved to carry on and sort out the aftermath as soon as possible. In fact, they seem to be more British than I. They really have taken the motto "Keep Calm and Carry On" to heart. For that, I think the Japanese are the strongest and most admirable race on our Earth. I am proud to be of the same species as them. The Americans however, I am not. When news hit America that a big tide was on its way, they wept at the camera continuously, and prayed to God. All they got was a slightly bigger wave than normal. Yet still, they cried at the camera, telling us how scared this made them feel.

This is the 'tsunami' the American side of the North Pacific...

"Dear America, Grow some balls. Signed, Britain."

Mind you, we Brits are still guilty of finding misfortune at the misery of another nation. The past week has just been filled with people stating that Nuclear Power is unsafe and dangerous due to the recent danger caused by the Japanese Earthquake. On the contrary, I think this is a testament to how safe Nuclear Power is and how safe the systems put in place are. One of the most powerful Earthquakes in recent memory strikes not far from these sites, and then huge tidal waves swept through. This is the same Earthquake that made skyscrapers many miles away sway, and the same tsunami that swept many building from their foundations. Yet, for the most part, these buildings remained in tack.

The word 'meltdown' has been thrown across the media and Internet a lot of recent days, and this is a word which has the power to strike panic into one’s mind. It's one of those buzzwords that aren’t a used a lot, but when it is used: Woah, you better run away screaming! I'm not going to claim to know a great deal about Nuclear energy, but those explosions were caused by the formation of hydrogen gas when the cooling equipment failed to work and the hot rods and steam reacted with each other. Why did the cooling equipment not work? Damaged power supplies stopped them working. This isn't a demonstration of how dangerous nuclear power is; it's a demonstrating of how fragile our World is.

I, and I am sure a lot of other people paying attention to this story, have learnt a lot/had our memories refreshed about Nuclear Power. The news, although sometimes morally wrong, can be very informative when it needs to make the ignorant masses understand important news events. In your face Jamie's Dream School! Give us devastation and computer animations with things blowing up, in amongst some words from the periodic table and innuendos such as 'rods becoming hot', we, as a nation, are well away.

Anyway, my biggest of sympathies go to Japanese people, but, I'm sure they will rebuild their destroyed towns and communities to something much better than they previously had and put us to shame again. It's the Japanese way.

Jamie Oliver's Terrorist Recruitment Show

2011-03-16T12:00:00.003Z

We've all been to school. Some of us have excelled and have surpassed all expectations. Others amongst us didn't do so well. The rest of us hit all the averages. Average students. These average students are hitting all the targets set by the Government. The average students don't get celebrated for their achievements and the average student doesn't disrupt a class and gain attention that way. The average student is the one the teacher cannot remember the name of. The average isn't known personally to the headmaster. The average student goes through their schooling career relatively unnoticed and doesn't complain about it. The average student is completely forgotten about.

I put myself in the category of an average student. I got a majority of my GCSE's to a C or B grade. I wasn't disruptive. My talents are not/have not been celebrated by my school in the 8 years I have been there. It took years for teachers to associate my face with my name in some cases. I'm not well known to my headmaster. I have spent the past 8 years in a high school where I have been completely overlooked, and guess what; I've not complained about it. I've just gotten on with it. I've watched people around me be praised for their extra-curriculum talents and achievements, while I've been completely forgotten and my talents unnoticed by the vast majority. I've also sat in a class while arrogant, disruptive, idiotic twerps muck about and try their best to wind up the teacher up and therefore stopping 30 other students from gaining the education they deserve. They do this repeatedly, and repeatedly, and no punishment is awarded so the class continues to be disrupted.

Yet, it is those arrogant, disruptive, idiotic twerps that have been given their own series on Channel Four called 'Jamie Oliver's Dream School'. This is so that Jamie Oliver can put his arm around them and tell them that the education system has failed them. As a reward for being an arrogant, disruptive, idiotic twerp, they get educated by people who are widely respected in their subject fields. Possibly the greatest historian, David Starkey, aptly teaches them History. One of the greatest political minds [Citation Needed], Alistair Campbell, teaches them the ways of Politics. Simon Callow, one of the highly respected Shakespearean actors, teaches these arrogant, disruptive, idiotic twerps the ways of Shakespeare. Robert Winston, a widely respected scientist, teaches them Science. Rankin, one of the greatest, currently active Photographers, teachers these bloody children Photography. There are so many examples of brilliant people teaching their subject field to children who I feel do not deserve these brilliant experiences.

This is a fine example of the average student, the same students who have had their learning constantly disrupted by these arrogant, disruptive, idiotic twerps, being overlooked and forgotten. I don't even think this selection of children have the word 'bashful' in their dictionaries. Our reward for doing well is a piece of paper. Their reward for failing is spending two months in the company of a selection of brilliant people, who they don't even know. Ironically, if they actually learnt anything at school, they might know who some of these people are!

The worst thing about all of this is that most of them don't even appreciate the experience of a lifetime which has been put in front of them! Most of them are treating it in exactly the same way as they treated their schooling career. Constantly talking, bickering, texting, dreaming, disrupting and just generally being profanities, and ruining this experience for those of them that do want to change their luck. The Government can't understand why people of our own countries turn to terrorism. I can understand exactly where they're coming from. Watching this show is enough to radicalise me into being a terrorist.

Is this show actually trying to raise awareness of our failing education system? No. Is this show actually trying to help these children improve on their skills so they do better at life? No. Is this show purely another way for Channel Four to entertain its audience rather than document and inform? No. How do I know that? Simple; the students they focus on mainly. They have 20 children. They focus mainly on about 3 or 4. These are the ones who shout and argue. Connor is the main one, and he is an 18 year old cockney who has no GCSE's. He speaks his mind and he takes no shit; not even from Starkey. Starkey called him fat. Connor retorted by pointing out Starkey's shortness. It was the greatest televised debate since Gordon Brown agreed to everything Nick Clegg said in last year’s disappointing election debates.

There's a girl called Angelique (but we can call her 'Angiie') and is from Essex. She has that grating, stereotypical voice, but credit where credit is due; she has the intelligence, willingness to do anything in a fun way, and will do anything to get her voice heard. If I had to pick a favourite, it'd be her. There are a couple of other ‘students’ who could have easily all been grown from the same foetus. I find it hard to distinguish between them, and they all spend an equal amount of time complaining about how hard done by they are. I can't really remember or name any others because they just blend into the background. Mind you, there's one that always sticks out for me, and that's Jamal, who I find looks like Prince and prances around like a young Louie Spence who's be told to 'try and act like a straight man?'

This pointless campaign belongs to Jamie Oliver, and he seems to be more of an arrogant, disruptive, idiotic twerp than the arrogant, disruptive, idiotic twerps masquerading as students who have been failed, rather than students who have failed. He is possibly one of the most hypocritical people you can find on TV (Ahead of him on that list are Nick Clegg and David Cameron). He walks around the 'school' constantly reassuring these teenagers that they are intelligent people brimming with humour, loveliness and potential and are overlooked by the schools who are only interested in getting averages than education. Then, he does pieces to camera and he talks to the expert teachers, constantly referring to the teenagers as 'feral'. He also continues to tell the selection of 'feral' children that he respects them. Call me old fashioned, but I always thought of respect as something to be earned. Now, the only things I can think they have done to earn his respect are to turn up to at the school and allow themselves to be filmed. He comes across as a two-faced profanity, and incidentally, he has a large tongue in both his faces. Jamie Oliver must have a foul-smelling, brown nose. Is he isn't rimming the students; he's licking the bowels of the experts he has got in to teach these 'feral' teenagers.

He even sits like an arrogant, disruptive, idiotic twerp...

Let us take David Starkey as a prime example. Regular viewers of Question Time will know that when he appears on the panel, you can expect heated debates in which his immense brain power makes even the best MP's look like tatty teddy bears with their stuffing pouring out of a seam between their legs. If he has an opinion, he will voice it, and he will stand his ground. So, 18 year old Connor was never going to be a match for him. Starkey made a comment about him being fat (and let's be honest, he is a bit) by saying "You're so fat, you can barely move". Connor responded "I guarantee you I can move faster than you old man. Look at your glasses man" and later added "You’re about 4ft tall. Have you always been that tall?" This resulted in everyone being a bit pissy at Starkey, and Starkey as a result having a bit of a diva attack.

Starkey refused to return to the show and real-life headmaster wanted him disciplined. A fair comment, but you can't discipline the teachers and not the students. That's sending them the wrong message. This 'Dream School' clearly has no ethos whatsoever. Anyway, Jamie was running between all the parties, telling them exactly what they wanted them to hear. How he can taste his food with the amount of shit he has up his nose as a result, is totally beyond me. However, Jamie and his two-faces work, and everyone shakes hands, makes up and Starkey even ended up called Connor 'sweet'. Aww.

Connor just before he blew...

This is possibly one of the most predictable shows on TV. We should know by now that Channel 4 does not make shows for an education purpose or to raise awareness for something. Anything and everything that they do is for entertainment. Bearing that in mind, it was obvious that these children would spend their entire time in front of a camera, playing up to it. They argue and shout. They drink and text. They ignore and chatter. They annoy and emotionally cripple a nation. It certainly is an interesting show, but it isn't doing anything for raising awareness of our education system. It does the complete opposite. I mean, I'm the same age as these teenagers, and the education system hasn't failed me. I'm pretty intelligent, and I was an average student who got no special treatment.

I somehow manage to throw together this blog. Not bad for someone with an English Education. Where's my respect Jamie!?

Thou Shall Not Share Thy Opinion

2011-02-27T12:00:00.002Z

You have an opinion that you would like to express do you? Well, let us make some checks... Is it remotely racist? Can it be construed as sexist? Are you mocking religion? What about being homophobic? Could it be gingerist? How about insulting fat people or discriminating the disabled? Are you Fascist or Ageist? Is what you are saying stereotyping a group within society, like Gypsy's or Dwarfs or is it a joke about class? Are you promoting genocide or heightism? Does this comment hate on young people? Are you pointing fun at Goths etc? Could this be you thinking you're satirising politics? Is it judging people with a certain taste of music? Are you generalising people with certain jobs like estate agents or lawyers? Do you want to share findings which you have spent years researching and have conclusive proof for what you want to say? Are you just pointing out the bleeding obvious?

If it is any of the above, then I would keep quiet if I were you. I mean, we don't want to start a worldwide scandal here. Mind you, if you really have no choice and you have to express your opinion, then take the following advice: Stand your ground. Or, failing that, run away as soon as someone slightly disagrees with your opinion and apologise until you have completely worn away all twenty eight of your teeth and then resign from your job, no matter what it is. You're an I.T. Technician whole commented on a ginger person standing in the queue in front of you to your friend the next day? Resign! You’re an old lady who said to a tall black man “You’re very tall dear, aren’t you; and surprisingly nice...”? Well run away before he gets offended dammit! How dare you people try and carry out the basic human right of Freedom of Speech. You disgust me! Moving your tongue about like a free spirit; you Hippie! Oh no, now I've done it. I'll have to get a job and resign straight away to prove how deeply sorry I am for any offence I may caused to anyone, ever!

Shall we take a break from the sarcasm and calm down now?

In case you are yet to notice, this blog is trying to make sense of this new trend we have of complaining about someone's opinion and thus taking a metaphorical sledge hammer to Freedom of Speech after being deeply offended by something we heard someone might have said.

In recent weeks, television personalities have been at the front of this worldwide misunderstanding. The BBC had to apologise to China after an innocent joke, made on Qi a little while back, was completely misunderstood by the entire nation and taken as slanderous racism. The little bloke on Top Gear forced the BBC to apologise to Mexico after he called them all lazy and flatulent. Maybe he took it slightly too far in the end, but it was merely exaggerating on a stereotype, which doesn't translate well in other countries. The latter scandal infuriated everyone who didn't particularly care. Steve Coogan is one, as he ranted to The Daily Express about the trio’s casual racism and calling them bullies. Yes, you see, sharing your opinion is no longer considered to be decent honesty; it is now called 'bullying'.

Take another recent example: the sexism scandal of Sky Sport pundits, which resulted in Andy Gray being sacked and Richard Keys resigning. The entire thing was due to them merely expressing the opinion that a female football official would not be able to under the Off-Side Rule. It isn't even as if they said it publically on TV; the pair was just recorded off air saying it. Now, how many blokes do you think sat in pubs watching the game and said exactly the same thing? I wouldn't like to guess how many. I don't think that was a comment to be taken as gospel; I think it was just part of a blokey shenanigan. Mind you, Andy Gray did lose his case when it was revealed he asked a female to help 'tuck him in', but even that was just a bit of banter, and it was off air.

We are nearing a time when you might as well be sacked for thinking. This must be a scary time if you are one of those lunatics that constantly wears a tinfoil hat for fear that the CIA are reading your mind. If even a slightly racist thought crossed their brain waves for more than a nanosecond, they would constantly fear the risk of being prosecuted. Many times I have had the thought to kill people. Could I therefore be charged for Intention to kill or commit GBH? If I had a barely racist thought, that doesn't mean I'm going to don the KKK's white cape and start chasing black people does it!? The world needs to get a grasp of how ridiculous it is becoming in an attempt to remain politically correct at all times.

Twitter is making this even worse as well. Over a year ago, a man called Paul Chambers tweeted "FUCK! Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!" That is very unlikely to have been a real threat. I mean, you don't see al-Qaeda making threats on social networking sites. That would ruin the point of them. This was clearly an attempt at humour by the accountant, albeit slightly ill-conceived. This man has been charged of 'sending a menacing electronic communication'. Utter ridiculousness!

Paul Chambers, the bastard who tried to have a sense of humour!

I'm currently a bit peeved at the NHS and how I have been untreated with my dental pain the past few months because of bureaucratic slowness, so if I should tweet: "FUCK! Kent and Canterbury Hospital are irritatingly slow. They have one week to get me an appointment or I'm blowing the hospital sky high!"* am I going to be prosecuted? I probably won't because there is no real menace behind it, and if I know that and you know that, then where is the threat? It's the same thing.

Another example of this is a Conservative councillor being arrested for comments he made on Twitter about a Journalist, saying she should 'be stoned to death'. This has led to the man losing his job as councillor. I think it is a scary thought that normal people can be convicted through comments made on social networking sites. The amount of times I've called Piers Morgan a cunt, or continuously ranted about Jade Goody and applauding her eventual death. I tweeted the other day that I wanted to punch a small child in the face because my toothache was getting unbearable; am I now at risk of being arrested? Well, I hope not. I tweeted a long time ago that I drove through a set of red lights (accidentally, I'm not a dickhead). I didn't get contacted by the DVLA, but why is that any different? That is an actual crime that I committed; not an empty threat about blowing an airport up.

Twitter is also the centre of other scandals, such as comedians pointing out the bleeding obvious to Keith Chegwin. A comedian pointed out to the ageing unfunny man that a lot of the jokes he tweeted were not actually his, and were in fact material by current comedians working the circuit, and he claiming it as his own material. Other comedians then backed up the claims which 'Cheggers' refused to admit to, and carried on tweeting the jokes of people like Milton Jones. It has resulted in a continuous debate on Twitter with many slanderous comments being passed about. All this just because someone noticed that Chegwin tweeted jokes of other people; and it was painfully obvious. It was a friendly comment which ensued into electronic carnage with various top Tweeters abandoning the social networking site.

I mean, both sides of the debate have fair points. Jokes are a comedian’s livelihood. You don't steal famous artworks and claim them as your own handiwork. However, can someone actually claim ownership of a joke? Someone put the words in the right order to cause laughter, but can they actually own it? That's the beauty of jokes; you can share them with the world, and they get passed around and changed.

We just live in silly times where people are easily offended. I don't know the Offside Rule in Football particularly well, but accuse me of not knowing it; I'm not going to get offended. You can call me overweight if you want, I'm not going to get offended. You can make fun of my race and nationality; I'm not going to get offended. You can call me ginger if you want, I won't get offended (Mind you, I'm not ginger, so I'd just be confused...). So the list could carry on. It's an opinion, not fact. You see, the fact seems to be that you have the freedom of speech, but just don't be moronic enough to actually practice your rights.

That is what happens when you let people read The Daily Mail. Their journalists and columnist regularly flex their outrage muscles and think up slanderous opinions about anyone and anything, link it up to some comment about immigration, and BAM! That person's opinion has been turned into fact just because Daily Mail readers are gullible enough to believe anything. Tell them that Princess Diana, The Nations Princess, was actually killed by a giant Octopus brandishing the Eiffel Tower as a weapon, who then got stuck in the tunnel, and was also under the awesome power of an asylum seeker with a vengeance, they'd probably believe you. The Daily Mail has ruined England, and is the source of a virus that is spreading worldwide, which allows people to be told when they are outraged. It's the next pandemic: Offendere Flu. How do we cure this? Well, I'm afraid morons are just going to have to be culled in their millions in a frantic bid to save the uninfected members of the Human Race.**

I have no conclusive end for this blog. I get annoyed by people being offended and big scandals being born from someone sharing their opinions with another, joking about, being misunderstood or just pointing out the bleeding obvious that everyone is also thinking. This needs to come to an end, but I don't actually see a way in which this can resolved. I think it's a scary moment to voice unappreciated opinions. Thank God no-one has heard from Jim Davidson for a while. What? He's making a comeback this year? Oh mercy!

*This is a joke. I am not going to blow up Kent and Canterbury Hospital, or any other hospital. This was an ill-conceived attempt at humour which I deeply regret and hope no-one has been inconvenienced by my comment. No malice was intended.

**This is a joke. When I said I wanted all moronic people culled, I was misquoted and I am deeply apologetic for any offence caused to the community of complete morons...

Milton Jones. You Know, Him With The Shirts On Mock The Week...

2011-02-25T12:00:00.010Z

The Crazy-haired, obscure shirt-wearer, pun-machine,
that is Milton Jones!

I don't think Milton Jones really suits the surroundings of Mock The Week. The show is a bear pit where comedians race to get their joke heard, and it will sometimes involve a race to the microphone or shouting louder than someone else until they give up. However, he still seems to excel himself. He is much like a senile Grandad who sits in the corner of a room quietly, until you forget he's there. Then, all of a sudden, he says what he has just been thinking about amongst all of the shouting. Everyone stops and listens, and then everyone laughs harder than they have previously to any of the other comedian’s material. He is brilliant and fast becoming my favourite current comedian.

Therefore, it won't come as a surprise when I say that I have now seen him perform live for the second time, in a space of under 18 months. I reviewed his first show in 'My Comedy Nights Reviewed' blog at the end of 2009, and I very much enjoyed it. Well, I obviously did otherwise I wouldn't put myself through torture of going to watch him again for a few hours...

The show at Canterbury's Gulbenkian Theatre was actually scheduled for January, but due to 'TV commitments', it got postponed by a month. Also, this date was one of two, with the first one being booked very fast. This I think is a sign of how his popularity has increased since our last meeting. However, he is still different from all other comedians I have seen live. Last time I saw him walking about outside after the show. This time, I saw him wondering around before the show. I have only seen five other comedians live, but none of them have walked through the cafe part of the theatre, to buy a sandwich. Obviously, being the English people I, my friend and everyone else in 'holding pen' are, I don't believe anyone actually acknowledged him.

Anyway, once released from the holding pen into the theatre, and after a few Queen songs played and the lights turned off, the warm-up act came out. This was Milton Jones's Grandfather; or for the more cynical amongst us, Milton Jones wearing a cap, jacket and a gurn, whilst pushing a check shopping trolley, in the guise of the aforementioned Grandfather. Yes, he was his own warm-up act.

Or rather, he was a warm-up act for his warm-up act. After Milton's 'Grandfather' left the stage, a young chap called James 'Giftshop' Acaster took to the stage. In all honesty, I am always cynical about young comedians, so I was feeling anxious about this blonde haired man who has barely stopped using Freederm. He was actually, really funny and I thought him a great addition to the night. A great raconteur who will make every audience member squirm at the amount of detail he squeezes from every story. He also had great audience interaction in which he practically sodomised another young man live on stage. Whether that was a one off or if it always happens, I don't know, but that was a moment which had the entire room laughing. If it wasn't part of his routine, it probably is now. Incidentally, you won't get the 'Giftshop' part of his name unless you see him live.

He left the stage leaving everyone still slightly giggling and the interval happened.

Then the interval ceased, people returned to their seats and on stage came Milton Jones, sporting a blue addition to his collection of fabulous shirts.

His act was obviously brilliant. It was fast paced puns continuously, with him using props such as an overhead projector, a small book and slides to help him seamlessly flit from pun to another. He was only ever slowed down by hecklers, but then when has that never been the case with top comedians? He, and indeed other members of the audience, dealt with the heckler, who was soon put back in his place. One may enquire why people insist on shouting out, when they don't intend to deal with the follow up.

If you have flicked back to my old blog, you would notice that Milton has done the same thing in his last live show, such as dressing as an old man, but it was completely different. In fact, I think Milton was fantastic and I actually never wanted him to stop telling jokes. I would have been happy to sit there for many more hours. This whole evening out only took up two hours of life, and it felt like much longer. I suppose being told a vast volume of jokes in a short amount of time seems to affect how time seems to pass.

If you can go and see him, I strongly recommend it. If you like jokes, laughter, sodomy, old people impersonations, colourful shirts and props, then Milton Jones: Lion Whisper is the comedy show for you.

P.S. I have no real idea why he named it 'Lion Whisper', apart from the fact it's a reference to one of his jokes, which you'll miss if you cough.

Stuart's Unrequited Love Song Album

2011-02-14T15:00:00.020Z

Regular readers of my misanthropic writings on this blog, or just generally know me, have an idea of my general idea of 'love', and will know this is yet another blog with a cynical outlook on the basic human emotion of Love. Not a lot has changed in the area of love since my blogs last Valentine's Day. I'm still single. People around me still insist on being 'in love' and insist of sharing it with the entire world. Surely I'm not the only one that hates being sat next to people who smooch each other’s faces off?

I have nothing more to say, so this year, I'm here to support my fellow singletons in their day of need. We're the sort of people that dread 14th February. We're the sort of people who never get a Valentine's card. We're the sort of people who never get the person we want, and probably, at some point in our lives, will settle for anyone. We are the unrequited lovers.

In respect to those people, I have created my own playlist of Unrequited Love Songs. This will give people the power to celebrate Valentine's in their own way. I have put this playlist on both YouTube and Spotify, and you can listen to all twenty songs the whole way through using whichever format you like. It will only take 80 minutes up of your life, and let's be honest, if you're reading this blog on Valentine's Day, you have the time. Below I have given a small insight into why I have picked each song. Think of it as the inlay which sits in the CD case and hardly ever gets read. Enjoy:

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=65C2AB4059BEBFE1

On Spotify: Stuart's Valaween Unrequited Love Album

1. Is This Love? - Whitesnake

Now, my album starts off with one of the vintage love song anthems. It's hard to find a love album which doesn't contain a Whitesnake song. 'Is This Love?' is a nice way to ease a listener into a romantic album. Everyone associates it with love, and with it being about the unrequited love for another, it also fits into the genre of this particular album of love songs rather well.

2. Lovestruck - Madness

This is my sort of love song. It has an odd, cheery beat and rather unusual. Yes, this song may actually be about the love of a lamp post, but the general message is relevant. Listen to the lyrics. They're great. Remember, the lamp post is actually a metaphor. We're not dealing with a song about Objectum Sexuality. Anyway, I think it's a great song, and I hope you do too.

3. Auf Achse - Franz Ferdinand

Never judge a song by its title. This song is actually about the unreturned love for a girl. I really like Franz Ferdinand, so I will always like this song. Again, it doesn't have that classic love song feel to it, but it's catchy and again, listen to the lyrics and understand the message in the song. Mind you, the general gist of the song is 'You want her, but you can't have her'...

4. Invisible Touch - Genesis

This is a return to the classic love song genre. The words 'Phil Collins' are actually synonymous with love songs. It has a powerful edge to the song, and it kind of gets in your head after a while. Again, it works in this album because of it describing the power someone can have and how they can change you. Also, I love the sounds of the 70's; as do the normal love song albums. There seems to be something about that era.

5. What If You Knew - Gabriella Cilmi

I don't suppose you really know this song, but this is a song about the unrequited love of a best friend. I think the lyrics are actually clever and I really love this song (I don't suppose the song loves me back though). It's also the only song on the album sung by a female. Not an intended choice, just how it worked out. It has a slightly electro, catchy feel to it too and is not what you would expect from a classic love song.

6. Boomerang - Plain White T's

This is a modern song, which takes a different outlook on love, in comparison to the old classics. This song is about how the loved might treat the other person due to being oblivious to the feelings the other feels, and also how the unrequited lover would feel as a result. It has great lyrics which I expect from Plain White T's, and is again, not the classic sound for a love album. Are you noticing a trend here?

7. Iris - Goo Goo Dolls

This is one of my all time favourite songs, and also an unappreciated classic of the love songs. Ronan Keating covered it, so it must be a classic love song, right? It's slow, yet intense beat pierces your emotions via the ear cannel, and the lyrics are brilliantly powerful; listen to them carefully to understand the full message. Listen to it a few times and you notice more. The song also has the big key change at the end, which something else which is synonymous of a true, emotional song about love.

8. I Found Out - Pigeon Detectives

Indie Rock; Hormonal teenagers with mixed emotions about everything. A short song, but they fit a lot in. It’s about the feeling of not being good enough for the person you love, which is classic of unrequited love, and I think it brilliant for this album as half way through it wakes you up in case you start to feel depressed.

9. Creep - Radiohead

You're brought back down by this amazingly powerful and emotional song. This song is again completely different from the classic love song, yet has just as good of a message. The sound is intense, just like the lyrics and the singing and the subject is again about the feeling of being unworthy. Also, slightly about stalking, but that's what love it about, right?

10. Sleepless - Until June

I'm mad about this song and this band. They are unknown, yet brilliant. This is sort of a classic song about love, and is something which a majority of people will be able to relate to: Not being able to sleep because you can't stop thinking about that one person and is also about the feelings of love. I think this song has a great sound, and for me at least, evokes emotions unlike any other song.

11. Shiver - Coldplay

Being in unrequited love can be depressing, and you cannot have an album of depressing songs without including Coldplay's dull and depressing sound. This song is good for that, and this song is also good for the message conveyed: wanting to change to get what you want. I like this song though, and again you can tell the emotion in the song.

12. Look Away - Chicago

The video for this is odd, but it matches the era which it comes from. Chicago are another classic rock band which are known for their big love ballads. This song covers the thought of the one you love (in this case, an ex) having another lover, and the intense feelings which this makes the unloved person feel, and forced to cover them up. Also, it has that classic key change towards the end.

13. Can't Fight This Feeling - REO Speedwagon

Another of the classic love songs on this album, and it might also make you want to buy yoghurt after a recent advertising campaign. The message is one classic of unrequited love, and feeling closer to that one person, who doesn't feel the same for you and also covers the mental turmoil caused to you. It's also filled with many metaphors, such as candles and ships.

14. Over And Out - Newton Faulkner

I don't particularly like him, and I think he has chosen an awful piano sound for the verses, but the power of the chorus and the general lyrics of the song are what make me like this song and made me put it in. Also, in the video, he hasn't quite figured the complexities of creating a hologram, but maybe I'm being too critical. Just listen to the lyrics of the song, enjoy them and relate to them. Overall, it's good.

15. My Never - Blue October

This, and the following few songs, are slow and depressing, so get over it. This song has some beautiful lyrics I think, and the emotion is just flowing out of the singers’ voice. There isn't a lot to say about it, just listen to it and let the lyrics and the sounds of the song consume you.

16. If You're Not The One - Daniel Beddingfield

I was in two minds about including this song. I mean, it's far too obvious and overused in these scenarios, but I've not actually heard it for a while, and I don't expect you have either, so here it is. You all know the message of this unrequited love song (I think it's rather sweet though), so just listen to it. If it's too 'popish' for you, then skip it.

17. You're Beautiful - James Blunt

Another edition to the 'obvious', 'classic' and 'overused' categories, but I think it's actually a rather good song. I'm not one of these people that get annoyed by his voice. Again, you know it, so there's no point me blabbering on, but it fits the message brilliantly with the lyrics '... But I'll never be with you'. Mind you, he does sound slightly like a stalker in the song.

18. Gotten - Slash featuring Adam Levine

This is another one of my very favourite tracks. You can interpret this song in many different ways, but I think it to be about the unrequited love for another and how the thoughts of them being with another mentally hurt you. A great song what with it having brilliant lyrics, a great guitarist and one of my favourite singers (FYI: He's from Maroon 5).

19. Congratulations - Blue October

Yes, another song by them. They must go through a lot of emotional turmoil. Anyway, this is another fantastic song which is really thought provoking and beautiful in its sound and meaning. This is a song about wanting to tell the person you love how you feel, but finding out it's too late. Again, just sit back, listen to the song, and let it touch your soul. Too cheesy?

20. I Can't Believe That You Would Fall For All The Crap In This Song - Sparks

Not strictly a song about the unrequited love for another, but it is an uplifting song which will wash you of the emotions you may have felt for the previous nineteen tracks. I think this is actually a song which should appear on every love song, and with it actually satirising boybands and their love songs, it works. A lot of people don't quite get them. Yes, they're weird and one of the blokes has moustache and yes, their dancing is a lot to be desired, but give them a chance to captivate you.

I really hope you have/you will enjoy my selection of songs of the Unrequited Love genre. I hope you feel fine, and get through Valentine's Day without using too many tissues (Your imagination can decide what you do with the said tissues...).

I hope you got a Valentine's Card and that you soon find love. If not, I’ll see you again next Valentine’s Day for another cynical blog.