Business as usual

Si tu le parle 'mmiezzo americano?
Quando se fa l'ammore sotto 'a luna,
Come te vene 'capa e di: "I love you?"

Breaking News in national newspapers! Joe McElderry, that northern kid who won X factor last year, stunned the nation by announcing that he is gay. This is the one who once uttered the line "I don't fancy Cheryl", shortly before covering a Hannah Montana song. I'd have been more surprised if he came out as straight.

Also on the subject, Cheryl Cole has made a miraculous recovery from Malaria, despite several over-the-top proclamations of her imminent death. I know she's the 'nation's sweetheart', whatever that means, but even this seems a little much.

Aside from being "a little bit vague and not with it" in the words of one fan, she's also been described as "severely underweight and unable to talk properly".

No change then.

Sheffield

These streets will make you feel brand new,

Big lights will inspire you,
Now you're in New York, New York, New York ..

It's come to the point once again where my body clock is buggered beyond immediate repair, but not even in the usual, workable nocturnal way. It's a strange half-a-day-behind kind of thing, which is messing with my head and making what should be late afternoon breakfast time. I think I'll order out.

I was in Sheffield yesterday with a few special people, eating pasties and doing Northern sightseeing and such like. Have you ever been to Weston Park Museum? It's one of those interactive child friendly museums with a plethora of different exhibitions which in retrospect I can't possibly link together (e.g. the prominence of Sheffield as an international steelworks city; Egyptian mummies; Prehistoric creatures; A room full of paintings and plates and crockery; a stuffed polar bear etc).

Looks like this.

For me, the crowning part has to be comments left by children who've visited; sometimes it's in a comment book, sometimes they're on bits of paper provided by the museum which ask friendly questions for the child to answer.

Ruth, Anna, Benjy - I hope you read this and laugh again as much as we did at the time. One of the best child comments of all ..

Museum Question: What is precious to you?

Child scrawl: Woodlice, cheese, and Lego.

Only it was scrawled in such a fashion that the latter word looked as if it said 'Legs'. Woodlice, cheese and legs. You couldn't write that kind of comedy.

Regardless of the fact that it was a simple legibility issue, and that I myself have always been a big fan of Lego, the reality remains that somewhere in the world, there is a child who holds woodlice and cheese close to their heart. How I wish I could meet them one day.

Love and gratitude

Daydream,

I fell asleep amid the flowers,
For a couple of hours,
On a beautiful day ..

I've just finished reading the last entry of my Wingman's blog documenting his year abroad in Japan, and am feeling rather melancholy. Just as he feels, in his own words, "a profound sense of gratitude", theres a feeling just kicking in for me now of what an incredible experience it all was, and a similar gratitude on my part for him and 2 other lovely people that I know out there who took their time to show me as much I saw.


Guys, thankyou.

Another sell out.

I really love to be alone without all the
Ache and pain, and the april showers ..
But it ain't long before I long for you,
like a ray of hope coming through the blue ..

I've just got another shitload of stuff for Germany, the excitingly titled 'Summer information pack', which is actually a very long and scary email with more attachments than you can shake a stick at. This will inevitably mean more forms to fill in, more emails to send and more German to remember. This next year had better be the best year of my life.

I discovered the delights of Halifax last night, where I met an array of increasingly bizarre people, including ones wearing so much fake tan that even the word orange wasn't in sight; more of an industrial pink-grey. Kind of like spam wearing fake tan.

Todays 'lowest sell-out' award however goes to Gok Wan, who has managed to somehow get his big gay face plastered onto the front of those Snack-a-Jack things (I've only just realised upon typing this that I don't actually know what they are. Ricecakes?). In any case, his silly mug blows kisses from the front of the pack and urges whoevers stuffing their face to "Bag some She-time", whatever the fuck that means.

Why is Gok Wan choosing our snacks for us now? This combined with some of his curious fashion suggestions? I'd be happier having David Blunkett draw up my Summer look for me and have Stevie Wonder in charge of my snacks.

But, theres a bonus for fans! For the price of a packet of Snack-a-Jacks, you could win £500 and a posh makeover! Are you feeling lucky, punk?

Overkill alert

Don't be shocked by the tone of my voice,

Just got my new weapon,
weapon of choice ..

I've been meaning to work this into an earlier post but it's difficult to link bizarre weaponry to political or football related posts. Thus, it gets its own post all to itself.

That's an AA-12. It's an automatic shotgun. An automatic god-darned shotgun. Although it beggars the immediate question 'what scenario exists for such a thing?', you have to admit, if you can't have fun with an automatic 12-gauge shotgun you're either a pussy, or a cripple. Or both.

This makes my christmas list 2010.

The race scientifics of M&M's

But I won 't hesitate, no more, no more
It cannot wait, I'm yours ..

I bought some M&M's the other day, for the first time in years, and after perusing the colours, have decided that they are dodging the race bullet.

Consider: All the colours used in M&M's have 'characters' and personalities applied to them which is embodied by their colour. This has occasionally been exploited by advertising campaigns. So we have red, the kind of tough, mean spirited one; yellow, kind of happy go lucky one; green is a feminine character; blue is the laid back, doesn't give a toss one, and orange .. orange is undecipherable. He probably embodies fearful or some such thing.

Ah, but brown?

I'd have expected some awkward move, such as making the brown M&M something like a stereotypical Oxford professor, when in reality brown would represent the lazy, earthy, perhaps slightly dumb one, a farcry from the 'sharp' personalities of red and blue. This just isn't how we perceive the colour! I won't go down the bullshit political correctness route on all this, but it's true: there has never been a 'personality' of any kind applied to the brown M&M because they know that the race-pandering they'd put forth so as not to offend brown-skinned individuals (e.g. examples such as the Oxford professor) would be outrightly rejected.

Of course, they didn't give a shit about the oriental implications with that ol' yellow M&M, but nobody really cares about offending Asians.

Purgatory.

Them check say me come from cosmo spring,

But a true dem no know and ting,
Dem no know say we top ranking,
Uptown Top Ranking ..

Yesterday's trips to and from Leeds reminded me why I started to hate public transport and people when they're combined. Dare I say it without sounding like some 18th century bourgois onlooker, the journey there was so chock full of such dysfunctional family groups and general tossmongers that my will to live hung in the balance.

The best one had to be a family of 4 who were going to York. I know this because mother wouldn't shut up about it. Father was a strange sort of black wife-beater type with an 80's pornstar moustache; think Lando Calrissian but bald. He cracks open a tinnie.

Their eldest daughter, with a face like a watermelon, demands crisps, raving about what kind of pissing hair extensions she's going to have before, during and after their holiday to Spain in 2 weeks. She's one of those people who giggles in a kind of gay hyperactive way, like they're wired up to a drip full of liquefied Haribo.

"Am in a proper good mood today, me" she announces loudly for the benefit of the train. Cheers for that love.

The younger sister, with hair like carrotty sick, who until now has been playing on a pink nintendo DS with 'princess' engraved on the back in silver now decides she doesn't like crisps and tearfully demands alternative snacks. Mother coos and Lando half-arsedly complies and sends one of those fruit winder things over, which shuts her the hell up. Mother reads aloud from 'OK' magazine, an article to the tune of 'I was raped and left for dead by my ex, but I have come away a stronger woman even though I probably won't walk for 6 weeks.'

"Aw, that's well harsh is that", notes Watermelon.

Have you ever shared a moment with a train passenger whom you've never met before; a moment where you glance at each other and with that one passing second of eye contact, the message 'you hate this family too, right?' is immediately conveyed? I have.

There's some kind of delay between Huddersfield and Leeds. We plod along at a snails pace. Carrot-sick whines for more fruit winders. Watermelon contemplates eye makeup. Mother shares 'OK' magazine. Lando opens another can.

The train rolls on.

Bullets are cheaper than prison

Why don’t you do right, like some other men do?

Get out of here and get me some money too ..

So it seems that Raoul Moat won't become the month-long story worthy of great attention that I was expecting. The events surrounding his death however are vaguely funny, in a surreal, macabre way.

What wouldn't I have given to have witnessed that scene? Moat, on the bank of a Rothbury river, surrounded by armed police, while police negotiators talk to him calmly as he holds his shotgun to his throat. The standoff, bathed in the spotlight of a police helicopter, is tense.

Then, from what I can infer from the plethora of news stories that I've scoured after not quite believing it, Paul Gascoigne turns up after a few at the pub armed with chicken, fishing rods, and more booze, with the fool-proof plan of a little night time angling with Moat, to try and convince him to put his weapons down and go quietly.

He was also confused apparently as to why the police wouldn't let him through the cordon. You've done us proud again Gazza.

Besides, Moat was probably making a fuss about nothing, his breakup and all. I'm sure there are plenty of other nice young women out there looking for serious relationships with burly ginger geordies with histories of violent crime and steroid abuse.

Thus ends the life of the 3rd murderous fuckhead in as many months. That 'crossbow cannibal' twat, Derrick Bird, the angry taxi driver, and now ol' Raoul. Nuts eh? You wait ages for a serial killer and then 3 turn up at once.


Oh, and my sincerest thoughts go to the poor bastard pictured up there on the left who seems to have been kitted out with stuff the Police found at Toys R Us. He seems rightfully pissed off.

Chillin'

Picture yourself in a boat on a river,

With tangerine trees and marmalade skies,

Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly,

A girl with kaleidoscope eyes ..

I made a promise a short while back that there would be no more football related entries, but as the semi finals have just been and gone, the actual final now looms on sunday and the subject is thus likely to pop up again.

Germany lost 1-nil to Spain today, giving us a kick in the tits two-fold: not only did it shit on our tentative hopes of "maybe we lost to Germany because they're simply the best team in the tournament?", it also suggests we're doubly crap for losing against a team that gave such a low performance as they did tonight. Pfft.

I've been very lucky this week in the sense that I've procured a room in Leeds amongst old fellow block-mates which has allowed me to keep taking part in all the bizarre shit that I've become accustomed to in their midst, which is nice.

Back up North

Innocent smile,
Runnin' free,
Baby's gonna give it like it used to be ..

Hello goslings.

I've just got back from a few days camping in Newquay where I wrestled unsuccessfully with a camping stove and cursed the British weather for being rainy and windy on me occasionally. Yes, I sunbathed, frequently and spiritedly, but I did wear a fleece as I did so.

This short break has also taught me that I am a crap partner to play in a pool tournament with. The snooker type one, not the swimming sort, that is. Fair play, I'm a bit shite at it, but the hissy strop that came about as a result of my performance the other night simply did not equate. To that particular partner I say this: When you enter your "It's not about taking part, its about winning" mindset that I know so well, you have all the charm of a whales cock. You're fine otherwise.

But, what I did take away from this short holiday was re-discovering my ability to read.

I used to plough through books and absolutely bum reading, but now its usually a case of "Goodness, look at all these books I haven't read; don't they all look interesting? No, wait - better not risk it. I shall read this book that I know by heart to see if its changed in any way since the last time".

Thus I've gone through months and months of not reading a new book.

The book that broke this tradition however was given and recommended by a friend. It's called Flashman, the first of a series called The Flashman Papers. It follows the fictional exploits of a more minor character (the school bully, the titular Flashman) from Tom Brown's Schooldays, and basically tells of life after his expulsion from school from his point of view. Victorian life and wars through the eyes of a cowardly, cheating, womanising bastard. Its ruddy brill and pretty funny, if a little dark at times. I recommend lots.

And after a message that worried me a little, I'd like to confirm that I'm still very fond of all you people who I haven't seen for the best part of a month. Especially this person - "I'm scared you [-] don't want to be my friend anymore". Mate, I ruddy love you. I'll visit soon.