The Worst Game Ever

Okay, so, its like Scrabble, but with numbers instead of words. Like in Scrabble, a collection of tiles are kept in an opaque bag, and each player takes out seven tiles at a time - unlike in Scrabble, these tiles are marked with numbers, not letters - like in Scrabble, these tiles are scored according to how often they are used in common parlance, for instance, the number '2', which, as we all know, is used all the time, will only be worth one point, while the number '8', which is used much, much less than '2', shall be worth five points. After each player has seven tiles on their tray, they then place them down to create a number - if able, they will score a double word score if they use all seven of their tiles in one go!

The game will be called 'Cr4pple', and playing it will be introduced as a humane alternative to capital punishment.

Channel 4 is going downhill...

Man, have you seen the things C4 is trying to pass off as journalism these days? Tonight's 'Dispatches' program is basically asking the question 'Are Chinks trying to Murder our Children?', and the week before that was just a pile of Thatcherite house-prise-whinging. I don't know when it happened, but at some point the program just became an animated Daily Mail headline.

Sigh, but that is the curse of having political convictions - you just have to put up with living with the constant urge to punch the media in its twatty little face until it stops moving.

On the other hand, maybe I'm just acting out against C4 because they refused to pick up the third series of Lost? In the words of what passes for journalism these days, 'YOU DECIDE'!

Surrender?

Is surrendering yourself the only way to acheive freedom? A lot of schools of thought would say so: George Orwell stated (ironically) that 'Freedom is Slavery', and perhaps the vice versa is equally the case.

One of the possible translations in Arabic of the word 'Islam' is 'submission'. People say that growing up is all about learning to live with authority, to give in to its requests, more like. For animals, there are no choices, they do what their instincts command of them - perhaps that is the true definition of freedom? The inability to do anything else? On the other end of the scale, the human beings who are most obsessed with the ideal of freedom are those who have too much of it rather than those who have too little of it...

Whenever someone asks me about my politics, I refuse to answer in more than one word, (because, after all, the question is too vague to demand anything but a vague answer), and that one word I say is 'Liberal'. The word stems from the Latin word for freedom, and so really, as an ideology, it is obsessed with freedom - and so am I.

This is something that I find confusing, because sometimes I view the concept of 'freedom' as something that is profoundly real, perhaps even ultrareal, and at other times I view it as the ultimate abstraction, and illusion created by a brain with waaaaay to much time on its hands. What does it say of me that I am someone who believes in something so strongly that I can't even consistantly grasp in my own mind?

Maybe its true to say that freedom only really comes from surrendering oneself. I mean, in my own life I have found an unfortunate symmetry between the times in which I have been happiest, and the times in which others have had more say over my life. Maybe I've disgusted some people with this revelation, maybe I've revealed myself to be some kind of natural slave...

PAH! I've been thinking about writing this blog for the past few days, and haven't - somewhat because I've been busy (goram essays...), but also because I realised that as soon as I got round to writing it it would be nothing but a set of introverted self-questionnaires. But here it is nonetheless!!!

In other words, I bought a new razor. Its one of these new ones with the ninety-three blades and a soothing strip of elixir of life built in. As soon as I got it I decided to shave myself up a pair of moustachey-sideburney-joiny-uppy-things.

In any case, I think next January calls for another image reinvention.

But for the Flap of a Butterfly's Wing...

My life is astronomically unlikely.

Decades before my conception events occured that brought Great Britain into a ruinously expensive war in continental Europe, a war that put Britain on the road to financial descent and, eventually, towards decolonisation. The election of a monotesticled man in Germany was the point of no return, and from there, it became inevitable that Britain would have to go grant India its independence, as neither the troops, nor the monies, nor the will-power existed to keep it anymore. And so my mother's family, understandably unenthusiastic about being governed by those that they had been complicit in oppressing for the past century, decided to quit India. Minute fluctuations within the realm of International Politics had magnified to the point where my Grandmother had to traverse the thousands of kilometres from Andhra Pradesh to Yorkshire.

Whilst on the paternal side, my dad was ridiculously lucky. As the second youngest of five children, he survived whilst his two eldest brothers were killed in near-identical accidents. His twin sister went blind in her teenage years and succumbed to depression and morbid obesity. Whilst his younger brother squandered his natural intelligence on distructive substance abuse and familial discord. My dad, despite his dyslexia, managed to make his way through mandatory education, force his way through an Open University degree, pull and eventually marry one of the most popular Mod Chicks in Leeds and move out of a slummish inner-city area into one of the snootiest suburbs of the Greater Birmingham area...

Somewhere in that story of ridiculously unlikely events, the two component parts of my genetic make-up were splashed together.

I grew up in Solihull, and went to school there (where me gerr-gus Yerkshuh accent wers bulli'd aut'a mi - something I still resent to this day). But, strangest of all, it was somehow decided in that time that I was intelligent. How that happened I'm still not really sure, but happened it did, and that affected the way the education system treated me from then onwards.

Fast forward to when I was eleven years old. My mother decided that I should take the entrance exam for the King Edward grammar schools. I was strongly against this decision, but, being eleven, I had little ability to oppose the decision. In an act of bizarre pre-pubescent rebellion I decided to guess the answer to every question in the entrance exam. I let my pen hover over the multiple choice answers and I just let fate decide where it should fall. This is really the point of divergence in my twisted tale - literally anything could have come of this...

The results came back. I didn't get in. 'Well that's that,' thought I. A couple of weeks later, a change of plans: I did get in. Some kid, somewhere, decided not to take advantage of the grammar school education, and I got to take their place. I've occassionally wondered what the person was like, and how, perhaps, my attendence at the school came at the expense of the kid who could have grown up to cure cancer...

So yeah, then I went to school. And it was the worst time of my life. I didn't really have any friends and more often than not I cried myself to sleep - before that point I thought 'cry yourself to sleep' was just a turn of phrase, but no!, it is actually possible. I'm not a fan of diagnosing emotional problems as if they were fully-fledged medical illnesses - but I suppose that at that time I was "suffering from Depression".

Things got better though, I didn't get any smarter. I floated through my education. Admittedly, I didn't try as hard as I possibly could all the time - rather, I tried as hard as I felt any given task deserved to be tried, which, seeing as I'm an arrogant little sod, wasn't that hard.

I came to my GCSEs, and I barely scraped a good enough score to stay in school. I came to my A-levels and got a set of results that were actually terrible. Way lower than even I expected, and way lower than what any university was offering - and yet I was still accepted. At this point I started thinking along these kind of lines... Everything was just seeming unrationally unlikely. I came to two possible conclusions: The first, that there was some kind of grand conspiracy amongst The Establishment to see that I, personally, succeed.

Or, I'm just ridiculously lucky. I'm some kind of Statistical Surfer, surfing at the front of an increasingly collapsing wavefront of probability.

The wavefront is either going to remain stable and carry me to torturously-metaphorical shore of success - or, it'll collapse, and I'll come crashing down. When I look back over my years of good-fortune and incomprehensible success its often hard for me to believe that any of it is due to my own actions. I mean, most people have a wide catalogue of empirical evidence to support the theory that hard work breeds success - whereas when I look back on my life, due to what is probably just pure coincidence, I actually see the exact opposite corrolation: the times in my life when I remember working the hardest usually end up in miserable failure, whereas the times where I try the least often end up accumulating into extraordinary success.

This confuses the fuck out of me, because, really, according to all logic, it shouldn't be the case. So either I am just experiencing a life-long streak of heads-up coin-tosses - or I have a destiny. I'm... probably more inclined to believe the former.

In which case, I'll just hang-ten, enjoy the ride, and wait to see if my whipe-out ever comes.

Saiyonara dudes.

I Hate Walking Behind People

Especially female people. Seriously. I find it one of life's most unpleasant experiences.

I mean, there I'll be, walking down a narrow pavement, and some woman is walking in front of me, and then suddenly she realises that I'm walking behind her.

"Who the fuck is this loser?" says her back, (yes it actually does, I'm an expert body-language, so st'fu).

"What the fuck is he doing?" continues the Back, "Does he think he's going to rape me? Fuck that, this bastard isn't worthy of raping my little brother's diseases Syrian hamster. Man, I hope this fucking cunt just completely dies forever!"

Y'know, just really offencive stuff. I'm just walking around minding my own business being treated like shit and barraged with constant abuse by some stranger's shoulderblades. So then I work up the speed and shove my way past them. THAT'LL SHOW THEM!!!

Sigh.

When exactly did I become such a neurotic wreck?

Old People

Damn they're annoying. Even more annoying than children and grown-ups if you ask me! (Yes, I'm 20-years old and I still use the term 'grown-ups' get used to it).

This morning I had to get onto campus early to check to see if I hadn't accidentally (read: retardedly) paid £30 for a ticket for an event that I had then gone and missed, (it turns out I hadn't, which is grand), and what should have been a 15 minute bus journey here was nearly doubled in time by the futile attempts of old people to get on and/or off the bus. Its maddening. I was maddened.

And like, this one time, a few days ago, it was raining, and there was this old lady on the bus, and I sat and watched her as she put a Morrisons bag over her head - like it was a completely normal thing to do! And then, perhaps because deep down the part of her that used to dance the Charleston told her that this was somewhat indignified, she then wrapped her scarf around her head - mayhaps to hide her shame!! But I just didn't get it - skin is already pretty waterproof, eons of evolution have afforded us that power, it needn't be backed up with the hydrophobia of a common plastic bag!

However, a small mote of comfort embraces me. It always seems to be the women who age the worst. Maybe its 'cos of all those disgusting parasitic children that grow out of them over the years, or maybe its because the older gentlemen have had it so ingrained into them through their national service years that it is imperative that one stands upright that they are then completely unable to hunch up and wither away the way their female counterparts do. Seriously, next time you see an old couple, compare the man to his woman, the man will likely stand tall, with a sense of (now somewhat distant, foggy-eyed pride), while the woman will look like one of those mean turtles from Super Mario Brothers.

Sometimes Its Tiring To Be Right All The Time...

So, it turns out that Iran hasn't been seeking to develop Weapons of Mass Destrution, and haven't been since at least 2003.

This is something I've been saying for years - actual years. It just would not make any sense for Iran, the most strategically ascendent nation in the region to put that it has acheived over the past decade in jeopardy by so openly flouting international law and inviting international intervention, (the explodey kind of intervention).

People may then say, 'Ah, but that would only apply if Iran were a rational state, but they're not! They're not, they're crazy fanatical towelheads!' - to which my response is: 'No they're not. They're the God-Damn MIGHTY PERSIAN EMPIRE. They assembled one of the largest empires the world ever saw while Western Europe was still burning people on suspicion of witchcraft - they clearly know what they're doing.'

In fact, I'm going to come out and say this: I'm a bit of an Iranophile. I think its a pretty great country, and it deserves any successes coming to it. Granted the current government is a bit shitty (although the West is primarily to blame for the election of Ahmadinejad, the man is widely hated by his own people, but then, when you find your nation being subjected to years and years of false allegations and very serious threats, you're obviously going to vote for the guy who shouts the loudest back at them). And yes, the state itself has some pretty serious human rights issues... although, it is a lot more liberal by far than most of our so-called allies in the region, and anyone in the government who claims that Britain refuses to have good relations with Iran because of its human rights record - while simultaneously selling military equipment to the fucking al-Sauds!? Well, it whiffs a bit of hypocracy.

If I were in charge of this kind of stuff, I would dumb all of Britain's support for the absolute monarchs and petty dictators of Arabia, and throw our lot in with Iran. Because the Iranian people, unlike most of their Arab counterparts, actually quite like us. In Arabia, democracy is something to be feared, because if it were acheived you would basically nation upon nation governed by Bin Laden wannabes. Iran, meanwhile, it already a fairly well-established and stable democracy.

But alas, geopolitics and neoimperialism being what it is, the West urgently needs to oppress any independent oppositional voice from the Third World whilst simultaneously backing any pyschotic bastard who promises to tow our line.

Oh, and yes, I do recognise the irony of writing a defence of a state that denies the legality of the State of Israel, and whose current president is probably a Holocaust-denier, on the day before Hanukkah...

Have a Tovful Hanukkah by the way, (he said Hebrew-butcheringly).

Happy Dodecember

Hey everyone. First things first, happy Dodecember! I hope you all enjoyed your small morsel of chocolate today, I know I did!

Hey, so, has anybody ever seen this thing 'Heroes: Unmasked' that they show on BBC2, usually straight after 'Heroes'. Its basically the worst thing ever.

Essentially, its a 15 minute programme dedicated to informing you 'how awesome' the show that you have just deliberately taken 45 minutes out of your lives to watch just was. Sounds redundant? WELL THAT'S 'COS IT IS! And, additionally, to get you psyched up about the next episode - which is by this point almost farsical, as the season finale of Heroes was first broadcast weeeeeeeeeell over a year ago now, and does nothing but illustrate how slow the Beeb was to jump on the Heroes bandwagon. As it is, I'm not sure whether this terrible excuse of a quart-hour of broadcasting is a BBC2, licence-fee-payer-funded, production, or whether its a slight repackaging of a pre-existing US version of a similiar thing, (but with the voice of Anthony Head (whatever happened to the Stewart?) played over it).

I don't know.. maybe its part of a wider culture of these modern epic TV shows, like, I know Doctor Who makes a similar straight-afterward-behind-the-scenes-slash-awesomeness-recap show, that I, I admit, have occassionally watched. But this 'Heroes: Unmasked' thing is just terrible. Firstly, its devoid of a lot of the backstage stuff, (and the stuff it does have is universally unimpressive, "Look! We've made Los Angeles look like New York! How the fuck clever are we!?" and "Look! We're using a thinkputerbox to make a thing look more..." yeah, yeah, yeah whatever, you get the picture, unimpressive), and so, without that to fall back on, they rely on retarded interviews with actors.

Now, television actors are all basically idiots. But there are two kinds of telly-acting idiots for the purpose of this rant: the kind who knows shit-all about their character, refuses to let that on, and just rambles moronically and the kind who knows slightly more than shit-all about their character but who still ramble moronically. The two actors who appear most frequently are the actors who play Professor Poindextinder and Douchey Governface - the latter gives all of his interviews dressed in a NASA flight jacket and a cowboy hat, now, just imagine, for a moment, someone dressed in a NASA flight jacket and a cowboy hat... Don't you just want to beat them untill they stop moving, "SHUT THE FUCK UP! YOU'RE NOT A FUCKING ASTRONAUT, AND YOU'RE NOT A FUCKING COWBOY!!!"

What he actually is is an actor in a over-financed, under... -goodnessful TV show. Yet he thinks he's God's gift to female Space-Cowboys.

Sigh. I don't like 'Heroes'. Basically. Also, 'Heroes: Unmasked' is stupid. There, okay, I think that's my basic points carried across.

(In other news, its essay-season, and I'm thinking that it would be really great to be able to end all of my essays with tirades against pretentiously-dressed, shit-talking Hollywood pricks, and then conclude with the blatant lie that the preceding block of text actually expressed a coherent argument.)

Once again, Happy Dodecember buoys and grills.

Morecambe: The Desolete, Hellish Wasteland for all the Family!!!

Morecambe should hire me to make up slogans for them. Well... maybe they shouldn't. I would, afterall, just make up deliberately terrible slogans: "Morecambe: "The Most Dangerous Place in Britain" says Alan Titchmarsh", and "Morecambe: Blah Blah Blah, Whatever, Its Shit".

In other news, I went to Morecambe today. And it was crappy. Again. Although, I probably will take that back if I ever go there during the summer, seaside towns are really only to be enjoyed during the summer. However, I had a very specific reason to be there. A lea-flette told me that Marcus Brigstocke would be performing his comedic stylings - but, upon arriving at the Morecambe Platform, a man with weird teeth and a respectful demeanour told me that the show had been postponed untill the 25th January. Marcus Brigstocke, you lazy southern ponce!

Speaking of ponciness, I was actually fairly sure he was a gaymosexual, 'cos of this one time I saw him presenting some kind of Gay Comedy Award thingie... but nope, turns out he's as straight as a father of two. But yeah, the basic point of this portion of the blog is to ask whether any of you loyal readers want to trek up to see me around the Janule-tide season and witness such a comedic showcase with me. It'll be fun and cold, and fun, and wet, and fun, and miserable!

In other other news, it turns out that there is no such band as "Andy and the Ampersands". I find that really hard to believe, considering how brilliant and amazing a name that is... So, if anyone's going to start a band, you can have that name, SO LONG AS YOU PROMISE TO BE GOOD! I hate it when good band names are taken up by terrible bands.

Bye scamps and scampettes!

If I could go back in time and change one thing...

It would be the fate of the European Broadcating Union.

The EBU was founded with spectacular dreams, of being a pan-European television network. A network that supported the independent productions of all its constituent networks, (i.e. the networks of all the constituent EC member states), and presented them within a single unit that the entire European community could enjoy.

Its primary attempt at creating a pan-European television network was Eurovision, yes, that Eurovision. However, this was the '50s, and most states in Europe, and elsewhere, believed that broadcasting was a national resource, and not something to be controlled by an extranational force - and so the EBU's attempts at creating a de facto cultural European Union were quashed. It continued to operate as a medium of inter-European network cooperation, but its time as an independent broadcaster was never to come.

Now, I'm not saying I don't enjoy the Eurovision Song Contest... okay, yes I am, I am saying I don't enjoy the Eurovision Song Contest. But what I am saying is that it could have been so much more, imagine a television channel, establised from the 1950s onward, dedicated to broadcasting the best in broadcasting from throughout Western Europe - we would, by this time, be so much more culturally competent, the arts of our nearest European nations would not be lost to us, they would be available instantly.

However, it is not the spread of the High Arts that would be most influential. Imagine a Britain that had grown up on the Soap Operas of mainland Europe from the 1960s onward, (overlayed with a subtle dub, but with the reality of a European origin always evident), French, or German, or Austrian, or Italian celebrities would be easily recognisible on the streets of any English town.

If this isn't a shared culture, I don't know what is...

Honestly, I must say, as a Eurofederalist, that this would be my wet-dream. I have always hoped that Europe would consider itself a united culture, (which, I, at least, feel it is, but, acknowledge, that others may not), and would bring us closer to ever greater union.

This isn't saying that the Eurovision Song Contest mightn't exist, indeed, maybe we would even do better!

Plans for the Future...

Recently, Alex Salmond, King of the Picts, declared to his rabblous hoarde that Scotland would be independent by 2017. He has said such things before, usually in the form of whimsical rhymes, i.e. "Free by '93" and "In heaven by 2007". I personally think he could have forced a rhyme out of this one... "Independeen by 2017" maybe? I don't know, maybe he could claim 'independeen' is Scots for 'independence', I'm sure some people would believe him. Sean Connery would probably believe him, the snivelling cunt...

Anyway, I digress. The point is, I think Salmond may have a point this time... Scotland may actually pull the plug on the Act of Union this time! And this is quite worrysome for me, because I quite like the Union, I think it works, and that the various nations of Britain compliment each other in a way that brings out the best in each other, and, more importantly, suppresses the worst in each other. For instance, most English people are twats, snivelly little NIMBYist morons who read the Daily Mail and view Gypsies and Pakistanis as the cause of all life's problems, without the Scots and the Welsh around to send a (disproportionately large) number of representatives to Parliament, the country would probably be a much worse place to live. Of course, this isn't to say that our Celtic Compatriots aren't also twats, but they are twats in a different way, in a way that, if I may be so bold, John Bull can help them with.

So yeah, I think I've come to a realisation. That if worse comes to worst, and the UK splits up, I think I would consider renouncing my citizenship. Because I have absolutely no interest in living in a state exclusively run by Englishmen... Seriously. It'd be like 1984-meets-Jane Austen.

However, I don't want to become stateless, statelessness isn't the way to go. If I were stateless, who would protect me from the Hobbesian State of Nature? HMM!? WHO!? Ahem, no, I'd need to apply for citizenship from somewhere else. France is one possibility. I've always considered myself as being somewhat Gallic, I mean, I don't speak French with any degree of competence, but that can be remedied. But I do think my fundamental vision of society and culture is much more in line with the French model than any kind of English model. I mean, I think corruption is broadly acceptable in almost all levels of government, I like food and shouting, I think the lack of a single English word translatable from 'viver' is bemoanable, etc. etc.

But I think I may be missing a trick here. I mean, what is it that I want to do with my life? Some among you may recall that I wish to be a diplomat. And what is it that a recently independent nation needs to do? Send diplomatic missions to all other independent nations! If Scotland becomes independent they will very quickly need to establish and staff embassies all over the world, and, an individual, conveniently placed, could well jump aboard that bandwagon for his own personal and professional gain! But then... do I have it in me to do that? Do jump ship and throw my lot in with a group that has just recently ripped apart my country for my own selfish purposes?

Yeah of course I do! Hmm... yeah, I'm liking this idea. Thomas O'Dare (I may aswell readopt the Irish, much-cooler version of my surname while I'm at it!), Ambassador of the Republic of Scotland... Bonnie.

Luckily, I should be able to convince any future Scottish Foreign Office of my viability as a representative of their state, for I know the answer to the Scottish Shibboleth! The key to convincing any Scot that you are one of them! If they ask, "do ye know Angus McCloud?" I shall reply, "yes". Not 'aye', that'll just give it away that you're trying to be more Scottish than you actually are.

Everyone knows that.

Good Things

A good thing about this year, as opposed to last year, is that I have almost unfettered access to a television. This is good, because I really enjoy television. Often I will sat around in the living room, watching television, thinking 'oh boy, I sure do enjoy television'. Which is good because with no internet at home, and no friends or anything to do stuff with during evenings, I would surely be bored out of my skull without it. So there we go, there is a good thing. Ta da.

Oh wait, the title is a plural... I need another good thing... umm... err... s-s-soup?

Cuntchester

I have decided to make some lifestyle changes.

Firstly, I've decided to abstain from alcohol for a while. Its recently occurred to me that I've never actually been on one of those "I'm never going to drink again!"-stretches, so I thought, 'well Tom, you probably spend way too much money on booze as it is, and its the casual drinking that gets you dependent'... et cetera, so yeah, I'm putting a lid on that for about a month or so. Cheers.

Another thing, I've started reducing the amount I eat as well. I've started keeping myself well-stocked with chewing gum, so that whenever I feel like eating, I'll just chew some gum and bypass that urge, (dropping the booze is partly to help with this, because Drink makes it a lot harder to not eat crap). So there's that aswell.

It'd be good to start exercising more... but, meh, I find exercise intensely uncomfortable. Also my leg has started going all spazzy, which is probably something to do with either stress, malnutrition, excessive alcohol, all of the above.

Blah blah blah.

Also, did anyone watch the new Boosh last night? It was pretty great.

And now for fun, I propose that everyone prefixes any comment to this entry with a fictional town name containing a swearword (i.e. Cuntchester).

This entry is kinda like an invitation...

Hey losers. So, the gears of fate are in motion, and it has come into fruition. I'm coming back down to Brum on the 22nd, and I'd like to invite some of you to hang out with me at my home.

However, this shan't just be any old out-hanging. No sir. What I have come into possession of is the box set of Lost Series 3, and I know for a fact that when I get home I'm going to want to sit and watch all 15 hours of it, the question is: WHO WILL JOIN ME!?

So yeah, I'm thinking we'll start this early on on Friday 23rd, and carry on deep into the night, get some take-aways, drink some tea, maybe nap for a few hours, and then carry on watching our eyes out.

Okay, so, yeah, resvip if you dare!

EDIT, SCHMEDIT!!!

This doodah is now happening on the 24th. GET USED TO IT!

This post is the 26th...

I had a really good lecture yesterday. It was about Francis Fukuyama. Fukuyama has one of those arguments that a lot of people know the jist of, (all history is the struggle of opposing ideas > the ideas that emerge following the struggle are always better than the original ideas before the struggle > today, there is no set of (universal) ideas that can challenge Western Liberal Democracy > therefore, Western Liberal Democracy is the perfect idea, and all societies in the world shall transitition into it until > we reach the End of History). But its actually a lot more nuanced than that.

Fukuyama's argument is often used as a strawman, people hear that he is a self-confessed Neo-Conservative and instantly assume that his End of History-talk is nothing but Yankee bragging, saying to the world 'look, Every-Opposing-Idea! We whooped your ass!' Not so. Fukuyama himself is quite pessimistic about the oncoming era of post-history, he says that while events will continue to happen, they will become increasingly trivialised, and as will our reaction to them, for instance, think back to see if you can remember any of the faces on the people killed two years ago on 7th July... now see if you can remember the face of Madeleine McCann... indeed, challenge yourself to forget the face of Madeleine McCann, you probably never will. Fukuyama predicts that one by one the people in this world who actually give a shit about anything will drop dead, and we'll live in a world of uniform ideology and maddening triviality, he nearly jokes at the end of his argument that World War Three will probably be caused by Boredom.

However, I think there is one major flaw in this prediction. Basically, the view of history Fukuyama uses is borrowed from Friedrich Hegel. Hegel came up with the idea of history as a dialectic between competing ideas, (that the industrial revolution was in effect the idea-set of rural-based feudalism being challenged by the idea-set of urban-based capitalism, for instance), but, he said, it wasn't a case that there was ever an idea that completely won, whenever one set of ideas competes with another it can't help but absorb the best bits from the defeated idea, (kinda like Highlander... or maybe Pokémon...), and so new ideas were always syntheses of old, dominant ideas, and newer, dissenting ideas.

Except in the case of Prussia, Hegel said Prussianly. Or 'Hegel Prussianed', if you prefer. Hegel said that the ideology of the Kingdom of Prussia had borrowed from the best bits of German Oligarchism and French Radical Republicanism, and had in fact become the perfect ideology, through which all men could know freedom, if they only embraced it. He, like Fukuyama a century later, had decided that his system had acheived perfection - and that the End of History had occurred... in 1850... Of course, Prussian ideas subsided into the ideology of pan-Germanism, which in turn was overthrown, and had its tennets incorporated into Weimar Republicanism, which was then absorbed into a breed of Genocidal Fascism, which was then challenged and defeated on either side by Internationalist Capitalism and Stalinist Socialism, which then wriggled and jiggled and squiggled and came out eventually as Modern Germany, a state with an ideology that still somewhat resembles what Hegel described at the ultimate ideology, but that also contained scores of other ideas... so, Hegel, remember what they say about the counting of unhatched chickens.

But if Fukuyama is as wrong as Hegel, where does that leave us? Does it mean that we too are destined to eventually embrace a synthesis of our own ideology, and those ideologies that oppose and despise us? What on Earth could the West have to learn from the al-Qaedas of the world!? But then... Hegel probably thought much the same thing...

Al-Qaeda aside, there are many other forces in this world that are constructively anti-Western. Perhaps what we have to learn from those who oppose us is... well, opposition. Westerners have become what Nietzsche described as the Letztemanns, the Last Men, beings concerned with nothing but their own immediate desires, heartless and passionless, a race destined to either whither away into nothingness or else be devoured by the Supermen.

I would argue that there are Supermen in this world. And they live in the South and in the East, in the regions of the world were globalisation and capitalism have not yet created a prosperity stable enough to allow people to grow soft and apathetic. In the worst places in the world hide people who care enough about things to die for them, and to kill for them.

And thus, Tom unvails his master-argument in favour of large-scale immigration: the West NEEDS to be challenged. Not just on the international, high-political stage, (most people on the street couldn't give a shit about that), no, to really rekindle the fire of hatred (constructive hatred, that is) in people's hearts, the challenge must be in our faces all the time. Now, I'm NOT saying every hateful fanatic in the world is a decent person, on the contrary, most of them are fairly monstrous people, but they have what we need. The West, in my view, stands at a crossroads, on one side, there is the path of the Letztemanns, the path to boredom, apathy, and an ignomious demise, on the other side, is the rocky path of rebirth, the path where we fully embrace those who hate us, learn to hate them back and ultimately pull ourselves back up into real life!

Y'know what's a good verb?

'Frequent'. 'Frequent' is a brilliant verb. It means, 'to go to/attend (somewhere) frequently', and from that meaning, all it does it takes the adverb and contract it down into verb form, in terms of sheer economy of language, that's a masterstroke. It kind of makes me wish more adverbs could be transformed into verbs, like, instead of 'I did the dishes competently', you could say, 'I competented the dishes', or, instead of 'I made love passionately', you could say, 'I passionated the love'. AND SO ON!

Blah blah blah

Blah blahblahblahblah. Blah blah blah, blah!? Blahblah blah blah blah. Blah blahblahblah, blah blah blah blahblah, blah blah blahblah blah blahblah - BLAH BLAH BLAHBLAH BLAHBLAH!!!

Blah. Blah blahblah blah blah blahblahblah-blahblah blahblah, blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blahblah blah!!!

Blah blahblah blah blah blahblahblahblahblahblahblah blah, blahblah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

Blah blah, Blah.

Poxes on Voxes.

Yesterday... well, I say yesterday, twas more like yesterevening, or maybe even yesternight, I was sat in my college foyer using the internets, when a girl walked past the open doors with a couple of friends, pointed at me and said "that guy's been there all year!"

That really pissed me off, firstly because unwarrented hyperbole makes me just about as angry as anything could ever EVER be (I have in fact, only been in that spot for a tiny fraction of the year), but secondly because of the way she said it, with such blatant condescension, I considered shouting back, pointing out to her her error, but that would merely appear playful, and wouldn't accurately represent how personally offended I was, then I considered running out after her and punching her in the back of the head, but alas, I'm lazy, that would probably be overkill and I think hitting girls is banned under the Geneva Convention.

But still, I was pretty dang angry. And she had one of those annoying-as-scat voices that are all like, 'meh meh meh MEHMEH', like the kind of voices 11-year old girls use when they want to sound smart.

In fact, moving away from Specificality, and in the the Realm of Generalness, (the Realm of Generalness, of course, is governed via military junta *ba dum dum tiiish!*), I basically don't like most voices. Basically. In fact, I'd like you all to consider, that if I've never complemented you on your voice, then chances are, I secretly hate it. THAT'S THE WAY I AM! I secretly hate things all the time! Wahey!

Um, bye.

The Subconscious is a Cruel Mistress...

My subconscious has come up with a brand new trick to taunt me.

Basically, towards the end of my REM sleep cycle, it will start playing a dream - quite a boring dream really, quite uneventful. Essentially, I will be sitting around just hanging out with someone, like... sittin' around, chillin', having a good old chin-wag, etc...

Then I wake up and think, 'ahh, good work Sub-C, I'll go send that person a facebook message and maybe go for a drink or two', and then I realise that THE PERSON DOESN'T EXIST! So yeah, thanks subconscious, thanks for taunting me with the great experience of hanging out and listening to the latest Vandals album in Wolverhampton (or maybe Preston) with Elizabeth Hsieng Fu, (this morning's guest)... Mumble grumble anger etc.

Whilst on the subject of waking up, do you ever get it where you wake up with an alarm, but that you're so tired that you're completely unable to understand what the alarm even means? Like, yesterday, my alarm went off, and instead of thinking 'oh, that's my phone, time to wake up', I actually thought, 'oh, that's my robot, telling me that my bacon eggs have hatched.'

BACON EGGS!? I mean whatthefuck? I was trying to think about what that could have possibly meant later on, and I eventually came up with the idea of an egg-borne animal that perfectly ressembles a rasher of bacon. And with that thought, I will leave you.

Canalyse This! (and, its less successful sequel, Canalyse That)

Today has really been like two days. 'What!? Shut up Tom!' I hear you say! But no, I am not mad, nor am I enumerate! What I mean is that I didn't go to bed untill around noon, meaning that I had two separate 'day'-like entities today.

The first started yesterday, and continued, for wont of my better judgement into today as I decided that the best way to assure that I will be able to get to my early 9am lecture would be to stay up all night, and instead take it as a very late lecture. So I stayed up all night watching BBC4, (Charlie Brooker was on, as was a really fun documentary double bill about motorways, more on that later!). Of course, anyone who has ever tried to stay up all night will know that it is very stupid and boring, by far the most stupid-and-boring part of last night was when my housemate came home with a big, fat, stupid woman, and I'm not just defaming womankind, (or wymymkind, as retards with no knowledge of the English language may say), this woman was actually big, fat, and stupid. She started talking to me in retarded phrasebook Greek, FOR NO REASON!

It was at that point that I made a decision, instead of sitting around my stupid shitty ghey-ass cockfostering house, I would go on a long leisurely walk to Uni. Upon inspection of my A-Z, (again, more on that later!), I discovered that the canal that runs near my house actually makes a sharp right angle turn southward and skims right next to the Lancaster University campus, 'great!', thought I, nice, flat, duckful walking.

So yeah, blah blah blah, walked along a canal, got lost, found a few abandoned houses that could perhaps serve as squats, got lost again, and eventually got to Uni. Only to sit through the worst lecture imaginable! The guy's name is Mark, and he has the political awareness of a GCSE student, and he spends hours at a time rambling on about anti-Bush conspiracy theories and how the US Government "is controlled by Israeli money", *cou-anti-Semite-ugh!* And he just lies. He stands there and tells mistruths, like, today, he said that Bush's administration denies the existance of man-made climate change, which is total bullshit, as a large chunk of the 2007 State of the Union address covered the crisis of climate change - so either this man is completely fucking incompetent, in that, as a man whose job it is to lecture politics does not even have the slightest clue about the POTUS' recent sayings-on, OR, he deliberately lied, in an attempt to manipulate the opinions of this nations youth.

In either case, I'm sleeping through his lectures from now on.

Another canal story, I while back I walked down Manchester's infamous Canal Street at night. Weirdly enough, despite the fact that I am a card-carrying bisexual, (at least, I would be, if I hadn't dropped said card), the thought of men wanting to have sex with me quite terrifies me. As it so happens, so does the thought of women wanting to have sex with me... but that is a much more abstract fear, *failed attempt at self-depricating humour'd!*

Anyway, NOW FOR THE LATER BIT, I urge Cassy, if she's reading, to read this next bit extra hard.

Last night I was watching a documentary about the British motorway system. It revealed that there was a whole hidden world beneath the humble service station. While to us, sane people, it may appear to be the worst conceivable place - back in the day, it was considered to be the pôshest of pôssible plôces, *ahem*, places. Like, if you've ever been to a service station restaurant to find an unusually large concentration of folk who were young in the 50s, and naturally assumed that they were on a long journey and got hungry, YOU WOULD BE WRONG! It turns out, that mostly, the entire point of their journey was to go eat at a service station restaurant!!! Sigh... there are huge sections of this British nation's people who I suspect I will never be able to understand...

Anyway, another thing said documentary discussed was the role of hitch-hiking in 1970s motorway culture. And while I've always thought hitch-hiking was kinda cool, this doc' left me thinking that hitch-hiking was very cool! And so, I scurried around for my A-Z, (discovered the route of the Lancaster Canal), and found that the M6 runs remarkably close to where I live, and so, CASSY, when I come to visit you in Sheffield, I have decided that I will hitch-hike there!!!

So yeah, looks like I'm have to going to practice on holding the kind of conversation that will ingratiate me with truckers...

HairbRUSH!!!

T'other day I was in Manchester.

More specifically, I was in a Superdrug in Manchester, and I decided that I should buy a hairbrush, "no longer shall your hair control you, Tom!" I said to myself, "from henceforth, you will own a hairbrush, and every day you shall use it to sculpt your hair into a form that best appeases YOU!" So then I bought a hairbrush, and I used it for a few days. Then I decided I should reflect upon this... event with a blog entry.

The worst part of brushing one's hair is, without doubt, the beginning of brushing one's hair - when you first touch brush to hair and the whole experience is a distressing concert of hair-pulling and that-kind-of-pain-that-is-quite-painful-but-not-quite-painful-enough-to-justify-you-saying-'ow', after that however, you get into what I have affectionately, and rather perversely called, the 'glory zone', that's the part when the hair just flows the brush and obeys your every command.

Its kind of like an authoritarian society, he said politics-student-iously, whereby once you have crushed the citizens of their will to dissent, they then swiftly submit to your will... untill you then push it to far and they rebel and hang you naked from a streetlight in central Rome, but, I don't think that applies to hairstyling, at least, I HOPE that doesn't apply to hairstyling.

But yeah, since that day, I've enjoyed fluffing my hair up, brushing it down, fluffing it down and brushing it up - and so all is well! Hooray!

This is my blog for now, I promise the next one will be less braindead and effeminate.

Events and happenings, all about the place!

Last night I watched 'the Number 23' and 'the Last King of Scotland'. I enjoyed them both.

If ever anyone were to ask me for a piece of wisdom, I would tell them this: 'you will feel much more fulfilled if you learn to accept that a decent wedge of the world's population find your existance utterly offencive.' Once you've got this sorted out in your head, the urge to please everyone all the time quickly dissipates, and you're left with a more common sense approach to life. This particularly works in regards to trying to convince... people of... things. A lot of people think that there is one answer out there that, if repeated and forced enough, will please everybody - there isn't, so please stop trying. For instance, I find the belief that there exists a God who is utterly transcendental, and greater than any human being, utterly offencive, and, for lack of a better word, sacreligious. But I also recognise that many people will think exactly the same thing of what I just said. So y'know, to state the obvious, tolerance is the key.

In this light of respecting one's innate disagreeability, I am going to make a definitive statement: soup should be made from meat. A vegetarian soup is not a soup, its just... not... soup.

Also, I made'd a comic, I reckon I'll upload it!



Sigh. Okay, the reason I don't like making comics is that while I may be confident enough with my ability to draw while doodling, when what you draw will be there from when you draw untill when you leave it alone - its then when you have to make a comic out of it, when you have to rule out all the frames, and plan the positions and place in the text and then ink it and scan and attempt to do some kind of weird image-fiddling ritual to darken up the lines, etc. etc. after all that your sense of scrutiny starts to overload and by the time you've finished the piece you're looking at it thinking... 'What a piece of shit. That doesn't deserve to whipe an arse, yet alone grace the internets."

I don't know, maybe practice helps. But practice is still doing, and doing isn't fun.

Anyway, bye.

Of Muggles and Mujahideen...

Man! I am exhausted.

I decided to take that long epic walk from Lancaster Town to Lancaster University, and, as I mentioned, its epic. But I didn't just take that walk for my health! Oh no! Anyone who does anything for their health is goram fool! No, I took the hour-long walk so I could have a bath - regrettably, after nearly three weeks of living in my house I still can't work the boiler for shit, (same goes for the oven, the doors and even the floors, I CANNOT WORK THE FLOOR!). So yeah, walking for miles just for water... I'm kind of like an African. But fatter. And God hasn't cursed my existence.

Moving on! Imagine now, dear readers, that I am taking out my hypothetical list of things to show hypothetical visitors to Lancaster. I am adding now, to this list, the wee village of Scotforth. Its about half a mile north of the University and its very pretty, there's one tiny road leading through it, which is all rusticky and less-travelled, and all the houses are beautiful. And there are bunnies running around everywhere and a stream runs the whole thing. When I was in Scotforth, AND ONLY WHEN I WAS IN SCOTFORTH (I must emphasise), I was actually able to understand why some losers people spend their entire adult lives obsessing about house prices.

Anyway, on to the main impetus of this blog! This portion of the blog is going to be of a somewhat... reviewy nature.

Firstestly, I finally read the latest Harry Potter. And y'know what, I quite liked it. It marched its way along with an exciting little mystery, and (cliché alert), it seemed more grown-up than the other books - but yes, I know, that's what everyone has said about each book since the original... but in this one, its less glaringly obvious that the main characters are children (which, as a 20-year old, I am now perfectly entitled to call 17-year olds, so, na-dee-na-dee-na-na!). However, to put my opinion into context, I hardly remember anything of any of the other books, so whadda I know, eh!?

But yeah, good book, made me go "OOH!" at one point, made me quite tense at the bit near the end when it seemed that Harry was going to die, (society at large however, already gave me the impression that Harry would survive, but still...). All in all actually, I was quite impressed with my own ability over the last couple of months of avoiding spoilers, I mean, it was difficult at the start, but after a while, people started to assume that anyone who cared about the book would have already read it by now, GUESS I PROVED THEM WRONG!

One thing I didn't like though, like, really didn't like, was the ending and the epilogue. Basically, to synopsise, JK epilogues up the whole thing by saying "and then, nothing at all interesting happened for several decades, the characters all wound up marrying the people they were with by the end of this book (no matter how retarded these relationships may seem), no adventures every happened to anyone else, ever again... so you bastards can't ever expect me to write another fucking book! Ha. Ha. Ha!" Which was really just mean of her. I mean, a LOT of people dedicated a significant part of their lives to the HP series, and would have quite liked for it to remain open ended, and for them to put their dorky little imaginations into gear and imagine what happened next!!! But nope. JK Rowling shattered their dreams, which is... just... mean.

SECOND REVIEW!!!

Last night I went to go see 'The Kingdom'. It was really good. The opening credits were like a brief li'l documentary about Saudi Arabia's relations with the West and its own people, which let you know from the start that yes, this film was going to be explodey and bloodthirsty, but it would also educational! Exploducational!!!

Basically, some terr'rists blow up a Western compound outside Riyadh, like, really blow it up, I remember watching it thinking, 'okay, yeah, that's pretty blown up but surely they can't blow it up even mo-- OH GOD THEY BLEW IT UP SOME MORE!', and the CIA wants to go 'vestigate, but, as any layman knows!, the Saudi government rules via a very inflexible understanding with its population of bat-shit insane extremists that while the government needs American force to secure the supply of oil, and thus secure the status of the Kingdom geopolitically, that Western Infidels are incredibly unwelcome, and that their presence should be kept to a minimum. BUT THAT DOESN'T STOP THE HERMAPHRODITICALLY-NAMED JAMIE FOXX, oh no, him and his team sneak into the country and befriend a friendly Arab.

Then, much like Harry, Ron and Hermione, they wander around the mysterious hidden world in hopes of solving their own little mystery. And then they do, and then they decide to go home, BUT THEN IT GETS REALLY ACTIONNY! I was literally on the edge of my seat! Okay.. technically it was the back edge of my seat, but I was still rather excited.

So yeah, 'The Kingdom' gets a...

... GOOD OUT OF THUMBS!!!

Yay! Woo!

In other news, I forgot to bring a replacement shirt for after walking an hour to get to the bath, so, while as when I first got out I could have passed it off as an intriguing musk, I fear now that I just smell... oh well.

Anyway! I'm in the Liberry, so I should probably find that book I was looking for.

Also wow. This is quite a long blog.

I am fully in love with the Brothers Chaps

The new sbemail is great.

Everyone should check it out at Homestarrunner.com!

Also, in regards to my recent grumpiness, it turns out that its because i haven't something that rhymes with thanked in a while. But now I have expressed my 'gratitude', and I'm feeling a lot better.

Returnage

Ever get the feeling that nobody really knows you that well? Ever then get the feeling that that's probably a good thing, 'cos they wouldn't like the real you? These are both bad feelings and I hope you never feel them, but, in all probability, you will.

In reaction to these thoughts, I have decided to force myself back into ye olde blogodrome and make this a little space where people can get a more accurate view of me. Frankness, here I come! Step one: remove all the unnecessary cheerfulness, a lot of the time I'll write a blog without having much to say, and so instead just recount the days events and splash in phrases like, "which was awesome!" and "which I really enjoyed!" and "which scored a solid five stars out of five!" - well enough of those. My usually reaction to things is barely concealed misery, and that's the way I'm going to recount it. Like today, fr'instance, I woke up at ten, found no reason to be awake, tried to defeat a game of solitaire for three and a half hours, moped about how lame I am, walked through the rain and then pretended to be happy to see some people.

Also its raining. Thanks Lancashire, thanks.

Erm... what else... I saw Superbad. Didn't like it. That was, of course, mostly my fault, as I had decided in advance that I didn't want to like it, and when I got to finally see it, the weight of the world had brought me down and I was in no mood for enjoying anything. However, as a slight defence against any possible charge of depressive-loserness, my student newspaper gave it a very bad review, which I agreed with almost word for word: you can't be a touching film about modern adolescence and a gross-out American Pie-esque comedy at the same time.

Also, the subject matter pissed me off. I'm half toying with the idea of avowed celibacy.

Congratulations for reading 'till the end, saiyonara.

I Don't Wanna Grow Up

Hey gang.

Firstly, I would like to thank Luciano Pavarotti for only taking 24 hours to die. I'm someone who watches the news, and it just doesn't do to hear that someone is seriously ill, because when someone is seriously ill what can the news say? They can say, "Jamie Theakston is seriously ill... um... that's it." Its only when they actually die that they can go into detail, and say, "Jamie Theakston has died today. Jamie was an entertainer who liked entertaining, going to the University of North London, supporting Brighton and Hove Albion FC and prostitution." But if they take ages to die, you're bored of them by the time you actually hear their obituary!

Speaking of which - WE'RE ALL STILL WAITING ARIEL SHARON! This isn't... Notdead...srael. No, its not, so why don't you get with the real world.

IN OTHER NEWS! Haribo, (as part of some sort of marketing campaign to make you think they are decent people), have started a campaign to petition the government to raise the Age of Majority to 30. I actually think thats a really good idea, who wouldn't want to legally be a child until they hit the big 3-oh!? Retards and dickminges, that's who!

In any case, i recommend y'all sign it at www.haribo.co.uk

Today, my blog title is mostly the name of a song by the Descendents, they're cool, you're not.

Advanced Boneitis!

About the time I got back from London, I started to notice a gross swelling on my elbow. My theory was that it was advanced boneitis, my dad's theory was that it was due a repetitive strain injury - of course, that's ridiculous, what kind of repetitive action could I possible be doing with my right arm! In any case, it got pretty painful, so I decided to see a medicineman.

And that's where I've been this morning, (and I mean morning, an 8.40am doctor's appointment is goram barbaric! I can tell why most of the world is dying of treatable diseases if doctor's expect people to be up that early!). The charlatan, the quack, the discotheque, said to me, he said, 'Tom, its probably an infected insect bite, here's a prescription for some pennicilin.' I don't know... sounds like witchcraft to me.

Also, today's blog title is another Futurama reference, one would almost think that I like that programme! THE WORLD IS FULL OF ABSURDITIES!

I was the cutest little black kid on TV, I made a jillion dollars that my parents stole from me, my life was over when I hit puberty...

Hey LTRFTWs, how's one and all? I have recently spent some time in and around London - the highlight of this time was almost certainly seeing Avenue Q, indeed, the light of this was so high, that I have no choice but to blog about it.

It was very good. The songs were plentiful and funniful. And although the characters go through bouts of alcoholism, homelessness and agrophobia, it still makes you feel all warm and fuzzy just like Sesame Street (of which Avenue Q is a loving parody) used to do.

I would recommend people to go see it, but recommending that people should go see a West End Musical is like recommeding they take part in a super-sonic rocket laser race on the moon - sure, it sounds cool, but its not really something you can just pop and do.

Not like board games. Those can be played whenever you want. So long as you have a friend to play with. And... also like, a board game.

I went to Roo's house earlier to play Scrabble, the word of the game was almost certainly, 'smeeeep'.

More like... WANK Holiday Monday

You all know me, when I get an idea in my head and decide I'm going to do something, I get right up and... um... occassionally mention over the next few months that I may go and do that thing I talked about. One of those very things I've been thinking about doing over the past few months is checking out the Tanning Salon at the end of my street.

Right now I am hearing the sinister cacophony of a dozen raising eyebrows, but here me out okay, its for the experience. I mean, it is an activity that is widely enjoyed by a significant portion of the population, so maybe there's something in it. I know there are health risks involved in excessive use, but I'm probably not going to want to/definitely can't afford to use sunbeds excessively, and then again, everything potentially cool has health risks attached - AYE! I IS TALKIN' ABOUT THE CRACK!

But then, I got there just now, and because its Bank Holiday Monday, it was closed! And then I was slightly annoyed... I had to bathe and put on a shirt to go there! And all f'r n'thin'!

And that's why I'm annoyed at Bank Holiday Monday, because this is the last chance I'm going to have to go there for the rest of the week, 'cos I'm going down South tomorrow.

And that brings me to the next topic: I am going down South tomorrow. So don't be all wanderin' aboot thinkin' t' thisennes, 'ay-up! where's ar-Tom?' COS I ALREADY TOLD YOU, I'M DOWN SOUTH!

::Blog accomplished, transmission out::

Isn't it always the way?

As soon as one commits to doing something daily, one suddenly decides not to do that thing. By that thing, I mean this blog, but here I am! FORCING OUT AN ENTRY!

First things first, I'd like to thank Cassy for a wonderful night on Monday. I was meant to be dressed as Michael J. Fox from Teen Wolf, but I'm not so sure if it worked. Anyway, it was fun.

Also on Monday, I did end up seeing Eagle vs Shark, and it was goodness. A really sweet and funny film. It caused smiles all around.

Probably also some other stuff happened, but right now, I'm bored out of my skull, so... I'll love you and leave you for later. Maybe tomorrow night? If you're good.

(Not) Eagle vs Shark

A note in advance: I'm squinting while writing this. I ate the rest of my Gumbo for dinner, but thought it would be nicer with some more chilli peppers, so I chopped them up and got their oils and stuff all over my hands, and then later, when it became time for eye-rubbings... well, you get the picture, and its a picture of stingy-ness!

So today, I woke up, and thought, 'yay, today is the day I go and see smash hit New Zealand romantic comedy!' I was going to see it yesterday, but then Cassy told me to see it with her today, then it turned out she couldn't come, so, I uh, guess that she's just a big tease. Indeed, loads of other things also happened to me and those around me during the course of the day, some of those things involved me ending up not actually going to see that film. Instead I chilled out with Cassy, Paula and Sarah, and followed them around while they went shopping - I was even in a bra shop for like a few seconds *GIGGLES UNCONTROLLABLY*. I bought a basketball for part of a fancy dress costume, (I'm dressing as Michael J. Fox from Teen Wolf), and, best of all, I kept the receipt, so I can exchange it back for money after the night! Huzzah for cheapness.

It was a shame about Eagle vs Shark though. But Paula said that she'd like to see it on Monday, which is cool, I'll see it with her, Paula's cool, seein' a film with Paula would be cool, INDEED, all kinds of things are cool. Um, so like, if anyone here hasn't heard of this film I insist of rattling on about, I'm gunna try and see if I can embed the Youtube video of the trailer:

Gumbo

Today, I made, (with Meg's help), a gumbo!

Gumbo is a Cajun dish, derived from a West African recipe and consisting of a simple basic sauce, thick broth and the so-called 'Holy Trinity' of vegetables: peppers, onion and celery. It was very tasteful. Its archetypical 'soul food', i.e. food developed by the substantial slave population in Colonial America.

And so, I'm quite proud of myself for making this meal - especially the part of me that is a die-hard Dixiephile. The Southern USA is so much better than the North, the North is just so obsessed with how great it is, while the South just trundles along, and never claims to be anything more than it really is.

In closing, the word 'Cajun' is a pidginisation of the French 'Acadien', an individual from the French Colony of Acadia. MY POINT BEING, Acadia is a really great name for a colony, its so whimsical-sounding, I mean, the only geographical location that comes close to meeting that level of whimsy is Narnia, and we all know what Narnia (Turkish Delight) is like!

Vodka

Vodka has a special place in our generation. We embrace it to a degree that would embarress your average Slav. I don't really know why this is, it may be something to do with the fact that we are the first post-Cold War generation - for us, vodka is something that can be drunk freely without people suspecting that you are a Double Agent, collecting secrets from John Bull and sendin' them right back to the Kremlin!! Ahem, sorry, Cold War rhetoric makes me quite moist.

But even that doesn't completely explain the phenemenon, because (and I may be being controversial when I say this, but...) vodka just isn't very nice! Indeed, a hint about the nature of vodka comes from the word's etymology, it derivates from the Slavic roots 'voda', meaning water, and the suffix, '-ka', which, (more-or-less), means '-ish'. So vodka is a waterish drink, which really goes quite a way to demonstrate how plain and unimaginative it is. I mean, it does do the job, i.e. get you rat-arsed, but it doesn't deliver any nice taste along the way, and well, drinking for the taste rather than for the effect is what separates us from the animals! Those filthy, godless animals...


However, I don't mean to disparrage all vodkas, there is a great deal of niceness out there is vodkadom, BUT, that's not what everyone drinks. The most common vodka in this country is Smirnoff... which is French, so I don't get the kinda pseudo-post-Soviet-Kitsch-kinda appeal that people get from drinking it, and in any case, its shit. There is some good stuff, particularly the Polish stuff.

In any case, and this is a trick I learnt from working at the douchey Olde John O'Gaunt in Lancaster: KEEP YOUR VODKA IN THE FREEZER! It keeps it in a very viscous state, and makes it taste tres yummy, some of the water freezes into little bits of crystalised ice, but it will always stay in a liquid state (due to the alcohol content). So, my advice to you, always drink your vodka from the freezer, (if you're going to drink it at all), and you'll never want to go back to the room-temperature stuff.

PS. The housing guy didn't ring back today, (grr+eep=grreep!!!).

Happy Birthday India

Today is India's birthday, (well, it is over here still, in the GMT-zone - in India, its tomorrow, and people are getting on with their lives).

I'm a little bit Indian. I'm not exactly sure how Indian exactly, because when your family is part of the lower echelons of the Anglo civil service of the Emparh, intermarrying with the locals is something you try to downplay. But I am a little bit Indian, I've seen olde, (like, really olde), family pictures with huge turban'd Punjabis standing in the background, (people who my grandma would begrudgingly concede were her grandparents/uncles/whatevers).

So, India has a bit of a place in my heart. I do still have relatives living there, so I guess I have some kind of link... I'm not one of these geneologically-inclined people, hell, I'm not even inclined to enjoy the company of my living relatives, I really need to be nagged quite a lot to ring any kind of "grand"-"parent" or anything. But yeah, other people know them, so there we are.

INDEED! Ahem... sorry. Indeed, its often been a little dreamlet of mine to move in with my long lost relatives in India, and chillax in a little corner of anachronistic Anglo-Indian Raj. I may even retire in India, (I have ethical issues with retiring in a nation with such a demographic skew towards the elderly).

But the whole thing is, that without the events of 1947, I just would not have been born. The whole 'Quit India' kafuffle, my grandma wouldn't have moved back to Blighty, never would have met my granddad, so, I wouldn't be there. So, um, thanks Gandhi!

In other news: my accomodation for next year is looking more sorted out than ever! So when I get moved in there, I'll wire up my scanner and I'll start treating you guys with the occassional doodle. But that's not until October, so holdeth not thy breatheseses.

Goodbye! And namaste!

The Ballad of Trolley Brown

Gather round bitches and bastards and hear ye a tale:
A tale of misery that's sure to make your frown,
Gather round and hear the Ballad of Trolley Brown.

Okay, I was planning on rhyming all the way through this blog, but that's difficult, so HERE COME'S DA PROSE: So there I was, I was on my way home after a day of not-insignificant drinking, I got off the train at Solihull and decided to walk the 20ish minute walk home. Those familiar with the walk to my house will know there's like a little gimmel-like thing, all over-grown and pitch-black and rustly and (probably) haunted.

Okay, and this is where my weird emotions come in, while walking through there I discovered an abandoned Tesco's shopping trolley. With my drunken craziness I anthropomorphicised this trolley, and suddenly got really worried for it - it was all alone in this scary environment, miles away from the nearest Tesco's. Who knows how it could have got there!? Or what could have been planned for it!? Maybe some malcontent had abducted it and was planning on dumping it in the canal!?

So I took it home.

I rolled it along for the last five minutes of my journey home and parked it in my dining room. At that point it just occured to me that my dad may find its sudden appearance a bit weird. So I got out and the post-its and intended to write an explanation, "IT FOLLOWED ME HOME" read my scrawled note.

The next morning my dad burst into my room bein' all like, 'wah wah wah, I don't want for there to be trolley!' And, unfortunately, in my half-asleep, hung-over state, I could really defend its presence.

And so, as I woke up yesterday morning, I found the trolley had been taken away.

I had a lot of dreams for that trolley, I was planning on taking it up to Uni, and living a full and bountiful (and trolleyful) life with it. But nope, all that was gone.

... *mumble grumble*

Entry Two: The Blog Has Landed

Here it is, entry the second.

I'm going to take this oppurtunity to give you a sneak peak behind the sceneaks.. So don't freak.

One of the most difficult decisions one has to make when publishing anything on the Interwebs
is what case regime one is going to use: ALL CAPS is one alternative, but that can seem a bit aggressive and, frankly, n00bish - not to mention that it kinda takes the impact away from any occassional all caps phrase that you may want to SHOUT. So ALL CAPS is out. Similar to ALL CAPS is CrAzY cAsE, cRaZy CaSe is perhaps the most retarded case regime of them all, and is used primarily by eleven year old girls - I ain't no preteen girl, so that one is out too. Which leaves us with the two favourites: all lower case and Standard. I am a fan of all lower case, its a regime I enjoy writing in, its cute, its friendly, its down to earth, its huggable-wuvable-giveitacuddleable. However, all lower case isn't always appropriate, for instance, let's imagine I wanted to spread some kind of serious point, (as I occassionally do), you wouldn't take me seriously at all if I didn't bother to capitalise.

And so here I am, using the standard English-language casing system. I just thought I'd let you know all the thoughts that were going through my head when I chose to decide upon that.. choice, and so you know that I was thinking about y'all, and not just instinctually going for what I should have instinctually gone for anyway.

Anyway, I need to go put some clothes on, bye everyone! Oh, and kudos for anyone who got that the blog title was a reference to Futurama.

Is this what you want? Is this what you want!?

Well, here it is. My triumphant return to the blogodrome! People have been asking me to get myself one of these things for a while, so here it is.

So allow me to introduce myself, my name is Tom, I am 5'10" and have a moustache. I am boring and whiney and am filled with many boring and whiney opinions.

Here is a picture of me with a girl on my shoulders: