Sexy Reality

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

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

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

Armchair Activist

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

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

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

Katie Hopkins Eats The Souls Of Disabled Children

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

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

Instacrap

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

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

"People wearing coats makes it look cold"

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

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

"People wearing coats makes it looked cold!"

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

The Woolwich Murder

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

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

Henning Wehn: That German Comedian

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

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

April: The Month Stuff Happened

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

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

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

Broadchurch - The Best Whodunnit For Ages

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

My First Blogfolio

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