At the third stroke, the time will be ..

Do you believe
In what you see ..?

I'll have to make this a brief one, as I have a seminar at 9am tomorrow (theoretically today). It seems that the strike action proposed for tomorrow has been called off and we get to go to uni and save our educations after all. Hurrah and huzzah.

Last night was a more drunken one than expected, causing me to inconveniently miss my 10am lecture this morning. I had to wake up about 8:45, to allow myself enough time to wake myself up properly and make the oh-so-tough decision to walk or get the bus. So, when my snowy, drunken self got home at around half 1, I went to set my phone alarm for said time. I don't really recall this part. Anyway, I woke up this morning to my alarm going off and looked at the time - 6:30. Brilliant, plenty of time left. So I went back to sleep, woke up again after a couple of hours, looked at my phone - 8:30. Stonking, I have an hour and a half before my lecture. Sweet. Then glanced up at my wall clock, which handily read 10:30. Huh? Shit.

Apparently when I went to set the alarm, I accidentally put the actual phone time back 2 hours, god knows how. Then, instead of fixing it, I just went ahead and set my alarm for 8:45. Of course, not ever remembering doing this, I thus woke up at 6:30 not realising it was 8:30. I kind of felt like the guy in Memento. I looked for a tattoo on my body somewhere that said 'You're a retard. You set your clock wrong last night. No-one killed your wife'.

So yes, the drunk mind works in mysterious ways. Particularly when cider to the brain has taken precedence over blood and oxygen.

James Christ and Associates.

I cheated myself,

like I knew I would,
I told you I was trouble,
You know that I'm no good ..

If anyone ever says to you, "That Max Martin bloke is a pretty cool guy", then you can swiftly counter that statement with this piece of information:

He went to work, spewed hot chocolate down his white shirt when something made him laugh, accidentally set his tie on fire for the second time in a fortnight, left work wearing a jacket inside out, walked through snowy leeds in his converse, contrary to his many many past warnings, got in and played Modern Warfare 2 online for 2 hours. Then had a shower.

Hot damn, I love this game.

In keeping with this great image being presented of myself, I'm browsing the net at the moment looking for information on 'Denglisch'. I'm far too tired and unmotivated to give you a personal breakdown of it's meaning, thus: Wikipedia, I choose you! - "Denglisch is a portmanteau of the German words Deutsch and Englisch. Used in all German-speaking countries, it describes an influx of English, or pseudo-English, vocabulary into the German language through travel and English's widespread usage in advertising, business and IT . Synonyms are Gerglish, Angleutsch and Engleutsch."

This pastime gives me new reason to love the internet. It's the way that any search can be hijacked by something so brilliantly unrelated that concentration is impossible. One would think, that under the fairly non-assuming google search criteria of "effects of Denglisch", one would get fairly specific results. But no. Granted, I'm on page 10, but it's handily given me a news story dating from 2003 - ""Israeli archaeological experts said Wednesday an inscription on an ancient stone box suggesting it once contained the bones of Jesus' brother, James, was a forgery." This is from Yahoo. I've used 'search' on the entire page. It found the words 'effects' and 'of', but none of that all-important 'Denglisch'. For Christ's sake. And his brother James's, for that matter.

James? James Christ?

That's like discovering Doug Hitler. Or Brian Mussolini.

Different classes of strange people.

I need a gun to keep myself from harm,

The poor people are burning in the Sun ..
And they ain't got a chance, they ain't got a chance,
I need a gun, 'cos all I do is dance,
Cos' all I do is dance ..

Gorillaz are back again, yo.

I've just come across a story on BBC news about veteran Tory MP Nicholas Winterton. It seems, that in light of recent spending cuts, MP's are no longer allowed to travel First Class on trains. Or something like that, it wasn't completely clear. In any case, this smarmy twat has kicked out against this rule in such typical Tory fashion - that is, 'it's one rule for us and another for everyone else'. His argument had some decent ground at first - since he will now have to travel standard class - "I would not do work because people would be looking over your shoulder the entire time, there would be noise, there would be distraction." Fair point. The whole illusion was shattered however when he added one of the most cringeworthy quotes of 2010: "They are a totally different type of people".

Credit where it's due in this case to Cameron's swift handling of the carryonsky - "A Tory spokesman said Sir Nicholas's remarks were "the out-of-touch views of a soon-to-retire backbench MP". Ha, bet he feels a twat now. Not even the Tories want you. Ha.

I say gas them, gas them all!

At the other end of the spectrum, I saw a bloke in Headingley today walking up past Sainsbury's with a can of Stella in his jacket breast pocket. Think about that. It's 8:30am. He has a can of Stella in his fucking pocket. You simply couldn't attempt to offend a guy like that. Imagine if you saw him with his kids, in a hypothetical situation, and you cursed loudly in front of them accidentally:- "Sorry mate, I didn't realise you had kids, I didn't mean to swe- you know what, you don't even care. You have a can of Stella in your pocket. Fuck it". Combined with his denim jacket and unkempt 80's pornstar moustache he made an impressive sight. Anyone who walks around in that getup just screams "I gave up a long time ago. Fuck off and leave me be."

This would have completed him

His morning routine must be great. Mine goes: 'wallet, phone, keys, pen, bag with notebook'. His must involve just slapping his pockets and going 'Wallet, Stella.. Let's go'. I also like to imagine he makes reference to it a lot in conversation, and says things at home like "Gosh darn it, where's my Stella .. Oh wait, it's here in my pocket! Right where I left it!"

I want the two people described in this blog to meet one day. On a train.

Traffic control

I ain't happy, I'm feeling glad,

I got sunshine in a bag,
I'm useless, but not for long
The future is comin' on, it's comin' on, it's comin' on ..

I'd like to draw attention to today's 'what I'm listening to'. I've only recently started listening to Gorillaz again, possibly some of the first songs I ever really appreciated. The one above is the intro to 'Clint Eastwood', which is simply flawless. Spotify it now, it's a stonking tune.

In today's lecture I'd like to let you in on the scary dangers of human herd mentality. I finished uni today at 1.00 and was making my way across campus to head home. As I neared the road, a huge herd of students came out and began walking across a gap in the road, even though cars were having to slow down and/or avoid them by the end. I stood politely however, as drivers were looking grumpy, and because I wanted to prove that I am a big boy and can wait for the green man.


It's a hilarious phenomenon though. If you're alone you stop, look, listen, if a car's gonna go where you're crossing, you don't move. But in a group, this doesn't happen. The bigger the group the better it gets; everyone just loses their mind and submits to the hive mentality, which just kind of says "go". As long as you stick to the middle, you're ok. The people around you are your buffers and it is they who will be squashed.

It pisses me off however on those frequent occasions when I too succumb to herd mentality. It's always at that critical moment of semi-daydream; "dumdeedumdeedum fuck me there's a car next to my thigh why am I in the middle of the road oh balls I've succumbed to herd mentality." This happens much too often. No more herds, no more! Although my herd mentality seems to kick in when faced with any herd bigger than 1, which doesn't bode well for my survival.

Bad hair day

We're caught in a trap,
I can't walk out ..
Because I love you too much baby ..

Yesterday was Valentines day, which meant I got to go to work and carry food and drinks to people who love each other. In another of my cunning cunning plans, I craftily booked off the daytime shift and got the evening one, to give me time to recover from what I expected to be a godawful hangover. But, as luck would have it, no such hangover arose and I worked for a measly four hours on one of the easiest shifts of my life. A very short shift, but just long enough for the last train to Leeds to go. Curse you, fate.

As such, I kipped at home and got the train back this morning. I'm not a fan of getting the train in the morning, because its always rammed between Sheffield and Huddersfield, and then between Huddersfield and Leeds. This morning though, I had the pleasure of a seat! Yes, a real seat, unbooked, untaken. As I approached, I thought 'isn't this great? I shall sit behind this lady who is taking her daughter to town for the day'.

Then I sat down properly and realised it was a guy with filthy hair. I'm gonna avoid being a hair fascist; I spend far too many days being a greasy minger, and have spent my fair share of time with a really crap looking curtainy mop, and I'm not ashamed to admit that. But seriously, this was something else. This hair had swine flu. It was so gross and greasy. There was dandruff as well. I didn't want to take my bag off my shoulder out of fear that some hair or a rodent would fall off this bloke's head onto it. I was almost tempted to recommend Head and Shoulders, something that would do a better job than the stuff he uses at the moment, which I believe is cooking oil or WD-40 or similar. It was so disgusting it was untrue.

This is not a substitute.

The little girl sitting with this bloke also had an annoying habit of touching it, much to my chagrin. Just kind of bopping his head with her fingers. I wanted to put her in a dishwasher. Shortly after, our hero broke out a bag of crisps for them to share, some of which the little girl spilt onto her seat. She brushed at it for a bit and then looked horrified at the mess of crisp debris. Young lady, you just touched a head full of hair that probably has frogspawn, SARS and parmesan cheese in it. Crisps are ok.

This was followed by what can only be described as the most pointless lecture of my life. It was like a Year 9 geography lesson. In preparation for a year in Germany, in which we interact with German speakers on a daily basis, our helpful preparatory lecture was on .. Austria. Fair enough, you might say - do the Austrians themselves not speak German? But this thing was actually about Austria - demographics and population and coats of arms and crap like that. The kind of material that may only ever be handy in a pub quiz, and even thats pushing it. It was silly.

Motherfuckin' snakes.

Cellophane, Mr. Cellophane
Shoulda been my name,
Mr Cellophane,
'Cos you can look right through me,
Walk right by me,
And never know I'm there ..

Having no memory of writing or posting that previous entry ("sprunk") is probably the best thing to mention first and foremost. That was a darn good night.

My thought process is in that skittish hungover stage, and the next paragraph and it's content are a a credit thereto: Every once in a while I'll walk out of the toilet either at home or at uni and get this awful feeling that I've left my fly wide open. You quickly realise that this isn't the case, but it's one of those few times in life of unparalleled fear, like missing the last step on a staircase. One never knows. Something in the vicinity of the toilet could have easily distracted you, like a flier about a charity, or a missing tile or an overly expensive condom machine. So yeah, if I share a house or a seminar with you and I saunter back with my nethers showing, give me a shout. Be subtle about it though.

I'm actually waiting for an Amazon order at the moment, not in the literal sense of peering through the curtains for a delivery, but sitting around patiently wondering when it'll arrive. In-keeping with all the fun things I do, it's a book by German author Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Die Physiker, or 'The Physicists'. It seems to be about 3 guys in a mental asylum, 2 of whom think they're famous scientists and one of whom actually is. And then the leader of the asylum steals some groundbreaking scientific plans made by the 3rd guy and plans world domination. No, seriously. That should be an interesting read.

In other recent happenings, I watched 'Snakes on a plane' for the first time. People have always recommended it to me, but upon actually seeing it, my initial reaction was more in the way of 'that was like having diarrhoea for just over an hour and a half'. Imagine if the big letter 'Y' in Hollywood took a big dump. This is the result.

If you haven't seen it, it's about a group of high school snakes who all vow to lose their virginity before spring break.

Sadly, that plotline would probably have improved it. It has all the emotional impact of Schindler's List, except instead of a little girl in a red coat walking through the mass execution of a Jewish ghetto, some guy has his cock bitten by a snake. Disappointment, guys. Nothing but disappointment.

Anyway, I'll round this off as I have a presentation to do for Tuesday. Vista continues its ongoing plan to thwart me however, as this latest version of windows seems to no longer have Powerpoint in its list of Office programmes. WHY?

Sprunk

Is the sound of man.


Too many sharks
cheese beefeater.

Ha ha! We are made of stars.
Is this a song?


Blank.
Endless caverns, a barren land.


I find a lot of the time I care far too much about unimportant things.

For example, less than 2500 pandas, that’s all we’ve got left in the wild.

I care.

I’m going to fail my uni exams, I reckon.
I care, but I can’t bring myself to work.
I lack motivation.

Dreadlock chainsaw golfclub earwax.
dolphinshark metatarsel megalodon.

Leoplurodon, Charlie.


Twas the night before something.

Tumultuous must have interesting etymology.


Stream of conciousness is easy.

Grim Fandango.




My god, I'm so drunk.

Sloths

In my dreams I'm dying all the time,
And when I wake it's kaleidoscopic mind,
I never meant to hurt you,
I never meant to lie,
So this is goodbye ..
This is goodbye ..

I realised today that my best friend looks just like a sloth. Man, how cool is that?

It has Anthony Hopkins!

I did my best to notice,
When the call came down the line,
Up to the platform of surrender
I was brought but I was kind ..

I've just realised that the last post had less actual 'post' than intro lyrics. Never mind.

We went on a messy one the other night with the German Society. Messy for two reasons, the first very good reason was that a fair few of us got absolutely trolleyed - Dora and Pippa, I'm looking at you - and some of our number were also drawn into removing shirts and waving them around. That one's for you Dave. The second reason was more of a literal one; the floor was really fucking filthy. My converse are pretty much grey, and my trouser legs are caked in black stuff. All in all, a pretty good night. I don't know if any of you have noticed, those of you who have ever been to Mission in Leeds, that the little brick tunnels you go through between each room and the entrance bit are covered in slime? Touch them next time you're in there, and then be ready to wipe all the gunk off your hands. It's pretty gross.

I also have a profound sense of having beaten the system, seeing as the ID I used shows me about 10 years old. It looks nothing like me.

Tonight in our house is Mexican night, formerly thought to be Mexican-and-baking night, but that fell through as nobody really wanted to bake. Instead we're wearing sombreros and eating fajitas and drinking a fair amount of tequila, which should make staggering out of bed tomorrow at 9am even more of a fun-filled challenge. I'm wearing the sombrero now actually, I enjoy it.

I've also just watched a trailer for 'The Wolfman', with Benicio del Toro and Anthony Hopkins. It actually looks ok, I give it praise mainly for not being another of the crappy vampire flicks that everyone seems to be bumming at the moment. We could really do without any more of that for a while.

Yay! Anthony Hopkins

I think my rekindling of love for Anthony Hopkins is because they've been showing Hannibal and Red Dragon on BBC3 recently. If you haven't seen them do. They're bloody awesome. The Wolfman also has Hugo Weaving, which is always a plus point. Hot damn, that man can do some epic performances. I'll be hugely disappointed if he isn't granted a load of great one liners, like he was with Elrond and Agent Smith. And he better not die at the end.

Ketchup

Birds flying high you know how I feel
Sun in the sky you know how I feel
Reeds driftin' on by you know how I feel
It's a new dawn, It's a new day ..

We had a rather scary lecture today concerning our year abroad. What with studying German and all that, in September I get thrown out there and have to live there for a year and be a classroom and assistant and things. But apparently there's a great deal of paperwork, such as opening a German bank account and 'registering with the police' that has to be done first, stuff that I'd probably find difficulty with in English. I don't feel nervous about it, I'm just painfully aware of the 'ignorant British mong' aura that's gonna surround me like the plague for 9+ months. To top it all of, it's a pass/fail scenario; I only get to carry on in 4th year if my employer likes me and if I do everything they say to a worthy level.

There's very little doubt that this blog will carry on right over the next year or so, but we've also been told we have to give regular updates about the year back to the University, so they can tell if we're emotionally fulfilled enough not to start losing it while we're away. This might have been a nice sentiment, except that the damn thing has to be in German. My lecturers are gonna be in for a poorly written treat every fortnight or so.

In other happenings, my attention was drawn by something on BBC news to google, where I searched for something that has always been an item of bizarre and macabre interest: suicide bomber/terrorist training camps. I've yet to fully grasp the notion of a 'suicide bomber training camp'. I like to think of that now old scenario; I forget who said it first: A guy with an explosives vest stands before a group of twenty-something hopefuls and says "Right guys, pay attention. I'm only gonna show you this once." There was an equally baffling headline, again on the BBC I believe:- 'Suicide bomber strikes again'. He clearly wasn't very fucking good then, was he?


The crowning video however was the general terrorist training camp, presumably Taliban or Mujahideen or similar. It seems fairly similar to your average army camp at first, bar the fact that everyone looks Middle eastern and there are some fairly angry beards going on. It's guys running obstacle courses, doing the monkey bars, crawling flat on their stomachs - all that stuff. But suddenly there are guys running along and jumping through hoops of fire. What kind of practical use will that serve? One can imagine Al-Qaeda getting their hands on some exclusive SAS training video which someone accidentally taped over with their visit to the circus.

"Jamal, I've obtained a top secret special forces training video! We'll need barbed wire, a decent obstacle course, a nice shooting range and a hoop that we can set alight!"

"A hoop, Rashied?"

"Yes, for us to jump through"

"We have to jump through a hoop?"

"Jamal, to have an army as strong as the Infidels, it's clear we need a burning hoop. If the British soldiers do it then so shall we. The video also says we'll need a couple of elephants, a monkey riding a trike and a novelty undersized car."

Stupid terrorists.

Vibrators and blood clots.

And our freedom's consuming itself,
What we've become is contrary to what we want,
Take a bow ..

I've been getting a shitload of spam email lately. Most of it makes no sense, but every once in a while a subject line comes across and makes me giggle like a small child.

The current favourite was "Did you get blood clots while on birth control?", but that was replaced yesterday with this absolute gem:- "For your wife's last b-day you gave her a vibrator because of your hopeless Erectile Dysfunction".

This got me wondering if that somewhere in the world, this was the truth. Some poor weedy bloke, probably sitting at his computer in the small hours of the morning in his underpants while his wife lay in the bedroom spooning the vibrator. Cast your mind to that previous birthday. He would probably be wearing a paper party hat, his wife had just blown out the candles on her cake, then she opened up her gift, her face falling.

"Oh James, this is awkward. Why would you get me this?"

Then he would sigh, bow his head and say, "It's because of my hopeless Erectile Dysfunction. Please note that the E and D should be capitalized. I love you."

It's all a gamble, really.

I fly like paper, get high like planes,
If you catch me at the border I got visas in my name,
If you come around here, I make 'em all day,
I get one down in a second if you wait ..

I saw Avatar for the 2nd time in 3D today, sadly not at the IMAX, but it was still as ruddy epic the second time round, and I left with the same feeling as before, the one of 'I dearly wish I had a huge fuck-off orange dragon that I could control with my thoughts'.

This second viewing was my successful attempt to avoid ice skating with the German Society, much as I love them, as I consider ice skating (or Eislaufen as they say in Deutschland) to be a sport for the sado-masochistic and the mentally ill. Unless you have Torvill and Dean-esque aspirations, then you're essentially paying to either glide round a slippery surface for a couple of hours, the novelty of which wears off fast, or cause yourself needless injury. Ice skating is bad times, end of.

No.

We've started lectures too; we had our first Bertolt Brecht one today. In-keeping with a rising tradition, we seem to have chosen Brecht because he's complicated and utterly depressing, another German novel of that type to add to the growing pile. There's that, and a lecture about gender roles in Weimar Germany (oh god why? Why?).

My elective course this semester is entitled "How children learn and communicate and how adults can help them". I expected this to be a fairly 'hands-on' sort of carryonsky, where we're taught how children learn and how we can help them. It seems sadly to be based around the more psychological aspects of growing up and learning, a topic which I thought I'd seen the end of when I turned my back on Freud's silly theories. Not yet apparently. Gah.

I'm also struggling for money at the moment; not that I'm lacking in it, but that for the 2nd time a Natwest cashpoint has conked out at the moment when I enter the amount of money, and eaten my card. So now I have the prospect, every time I need some money, of trekking down to the HSBC in town and drawing out said money with the aid of a little slip of paper. The first time, the cashier woman didn't have a goddamn clue how to use the computer, so I stood for half an hour while she faffed and distracted colleagues and generally sent the whole thing tits up. The second time I got a grumpy oriental girl, who didn't seem to understand that I didn't have a chequebook, and that I had no money in the world. Luckily, we managed to reach an understanding, and she thrust a £20 note resentfully through the little glass door and sent me on my way.

It's been a tough 4 days.

I've just got back from the Faversham, home of loud music and sticky floors, and eaten an ungodly amount of pasta. Its ten to 4, but not even this bothers me because I found out a short while ago that my only seminar tomorrow, a dreaded 9am, is cancelled. Get in.

Pimp my wheelchair

Now I've heard there was a secret chord,
That David played, and it pleased the Lord,
But you don't really care for music, do you?

In my ongoing attempt to become the stupidest person on the planet, I watched part of another episode of the flamboyant abomination that is Gok Wan. In a latest ratings-grabbing idea, Gok forsakes his apparently outdated hordes of naked fatties and turns his attention to - wait for it - disabled people! Yes, people in wheelchairs and with missing limbs are the new focus of dross telly.

Now, you might say "Max, lots of people probably watched that programme. It wasn't that bad - it raised awareness and suppressed prejudices. It was actually a bold, eye-opening and interesting insight into modern fashion".

I would then reply, after a hearty laugh at your childlike innocence, "Oh, my child. Do shut up."

It's all about the confidence, apparently.

I've never really been into crappy fashion shows, least of all the ones headed by Gok Wan. If he ever tried that stuff in China, country of his heritage, he'd probably disappear and never be heard from again within the week. (Gok, take note: potential career move in China?) I would probably never have watched it, but my housemates were watching and it felt right, lest I become a reclusive wanker.

The programme culminated in our wheelchair bound leading lady appearing bollock naked on Gok's famous catwalk in a shopping centre somewhere. I had to laugh at the inevitable trauma that will surely catch up with the woman's 10 year old son standing in the crowd, watching his naked mother. I wonder what Freud would make of that.

I blame the French.

People talking without speaking,
People hearing without listening,
People writing songs that voices never share,
and no one dare disturb the sound of silence ..

I walked back through the pouring rain by Hyde Park corner this afternoon in a semi-hungover state when a gust of wind blew something into my eye. My initial thought was the classic 'oh shit, there's something in my eye, I'll rub it for a while and blink ferociously and it will go away and be fine'.

This however was no ordinary thing, and it had no intention of leaving anytime soon. It seemed in fact to be making a little fort under my eyelid, complete with turrets. The amount of tears that were streaming at this point gave it it's own little moat as well. It's was then also that the feeling of 'darn, I look a retard' was kicking in, especially as Hyde Park corner is in full view of every bus, car and pedestrian for about 50 metres in 4 directions, and crying and semi-flailing seems to attract attention.

I managed to amble to one side of the road near the giant billboards. Whatever was in my eye had crawled into the top, under the lid. It was obviously trying to get into my brain to lay its eggs.

After a short while I literally just stuck my thumb into my eye into a place I didn't think was physically possible and managed to coax a tiny speck of nothing out of my eye. I don't know what the hell it was, but it looks like I'm able to take part in staring competitions again. It was a fairly traumatic experience. Nobody even stopped to help; that poor kid stumbling about with his finger jammed in his eye socket.

Reading that account back, it becomes clear not only that I need to start wearing goggles, but to try and stop using the word 'retard' in all it's shapes and forms. This is annoying however, as it's a very handy word/phrase for a plethora of everyday situations, such as 'that's retarded'. I still can't decide though whether or not to keep using it and incur the wrath of the political correctness Nazis outright, or try and be tactful and risk potentially more wrath.

I could try such alternatives as 'That's mentally slow' or 'that's partially paralysed from the neck down' or maybe 'that's so easily amused by things like biscuits and scared of loud noises'.

Hit me, bartender.

Billie Jean is not my lover,
She's just a girl who claims that I am the one,
But the kid is not my son ..

The last of the exams have been done, meaning that I can now devote less posts to updating you with exam related stresses. We were at the pub last night in celebration - I drank to the health of the non-sentient being that I mentioned in one of my last posts, the one who helped me through exams. I have another night out coming up shortly, and theres a couple more lined up for friday and saturday. January will probably prove to be an expensive month. Our behaviour yesterday - frequently checking our watches to see if it was 11am yet and that the bar would thus be serving proper drinks - seems to herald an early descent into alcoholism. Huzzah!

Epische Fehler.

So what do you say?
You can't give me the dreams that are mine anyway,
You're half the world away ..
Half the world away ..

I had my third and penultimate exam today and Christ almighty, this one pretty much kicked me in the balls and walked off. Looking back, there was an ungodly amount of material that I don't recall ever learning, let alone revising. There was also the question of why this particular module is assessed in German rather than English like the others. That would have probably helped, especially when that sinking feeling sinks in after only reading the questions, none of which I understood. Barring revision, it's actually been a while since I actually did any proper German practice, neither speaking nor writing, and although I could visualise and rationalise this exam in my head, in terms of actual application, this foray back into the thick of it wasn't a promising messenger of hope for the future.

Once I'd decided on a question there remained the minor point often encountered during exams of getting your shit together and scrawling some coherent answer. Uninspiringly, my writing was legible almost to the point of being neat and tidy, which suggests I sat for long periods inbetween writing slowly. The question was something about the 'new' Berlin. I honestly couldn't tell you more than that, even after writing an answer on it. After translating some of the question words online this afternoon, I was still unsure as to what the question had asked, but I'm fairly confident that it sure as hell wasn't what I was waffling about. My confidence sinks and bursts into flames, like the Hindenburg. I sense August resits.

Language degree? Oh the humanity.

In non-exam related events that can only warrant curiosity, an assault rifle arrived for me in the post yesterday, an order from a couple of months or so back which I thought had been cancelled due to some mixup with money in my account and whatnot. It seems not, so my loss was their loss. Ha. It's only a bb gun, but for the somewhat low price I paid for it (£25-30 I believe) the thing is fucking powerful. I'm sporting two bruises, one slightly bloody, through my 'testing' of the weapon. So yeah, that was unexpected.

Final point:- "Robogeisha" has been licensed for a US release, which should mean its making it's way over here shortly after. To this I say 'God help us all'. YouTube it. It's the first result. Does one laugh .. or cry?

Hugging babies, party policies and other recent occurences.

And as time goes by,
I will always be in a club with you
in 1973 ..
Singing here we go again ..

David Cameron has rekindled his annoying habit of talking about happy happy families, in all his Tory smarmyness. Annoyingly, so has Nick Clegg, the Lib-Dem leader with some good policies but a lost cause. Even more annoyingly, these new developments are making them slightly harder to tell apart: two southern blokes, similarly aged, expensively educated, and seemingly both in touch with their feminine side; that is, the one that likes hugging babies.

Please, call me Tony.

In this sense they are becoming unwitting heirs of Tony Blair, who, in a move never really seen before, swept into Downing Street in 1997 to display his family to all. Before that, feminine sides had never really been on the political agenda. Churchill, Thatcher - a feminine side? Gordon Brown has a kid as well but everything about his public appearances and general demeanour just kinda scream that he is a pre-Blair dad, a pre-Blair politician. He is doubtless a caring father, but unfortunately he's fallen into that slot of 'classic Prime Minister' role, the one where Prime Ministers aren't real people but names in well cut blue suits. Leader's inability to pass themselves off as human beings is much more of a problem these days than before.

One is an ordinary chap.

So yes, Nick Clegg has been hugging babies and talking about hugging babies, which, given the Lib Dems record may as well end up as official party policy for all the difference it will make. He seems quickly to be jumping onto the David Cameron bandwagon, which places family values smack bang in the middle of everything, though he'd be unlikely to use the word smack himself. There was a classic Cameron quote recently from BBC news - "What matters most to a child's life chances is not the wealth of their upbringing but the warmth of their parenting". Nice one Dave, but wealth does help though, eh mate? This could have been a pretty effective policy pronouncement if Cameron hadn't been to Eton and be one of the smarmiest guys alive. That, and if we knew what the fuck he actually meant. What is "life chances"? If it implied emotional wellbeing, that would work and be a nice message, but it's fairly clear that it's about educational, financial and career success. Basically, a return of the old Tory sentiment 'the better off are better placed'.

I declare babies!

Government intervention in family life is only gonna stick around I reckon. It's pretty cocky to presume that you need a politician to tell you how to bring up your children, or use them as political weapons to gain votes. But, since the economy's still going to pot and touchy-feely political correctness has become a big part of politics, it seems as though the family is here to stay as part of our political battlefield. Joy.

Shit, shit, shit ..

Rant finished, there isn't a great deal of source material under the 'other recent occurences' heading. I've only been working this weekend, which mainly involved dropping glasses and doing sweeps behind the sofas in the bar to see if customers had dropped any money. I'm oh so poor. I'm also filled with dread and a weird sense of pre-determined failure for the upcoming tuesday exam, which will ask me about the German political system in German of all languages, in response to which I will probably cry and slam my fists on my tiny exam table. They say its unhealthy to go in feeling negative, but fuck, it'll take more than the classic 'n'awwww, it'll be fine, people always think they're gonna fail but never do' to convince me. Ruddy German. It's far easier to rant about the British political system than it is to blag an essay about the German one.

2 down.

And do you believe in rock and roll?
Can music save your mortal soul?
Can you teach me how to dance real slow?

Blitzed my second German exam at 2pm today with all the force and vigour of Jabba the Hutt on ecstasy. I managed a good 3 pages on Metropolis, hopefully without inventing any scenes, but lost a bit of altitude when faced with analysing references to Freud in Kafka's literature. I can't help but thinking, when sitting in lectures and seminars and listening to many weird and wondrous interpretations of literature and film, that some of the material discussed simply cannot have been going through the mind of it's creator.

"When Kafka wrote his nightmarish short story, Ein Landarzt, the raping of the maid is a clear reference to the doctors subconscious will to have sex with her! Because she's a maid, she encapsulates motherly aspects such as looking after him, so its a nod to the Oedipus complex! It all makes sense now!"

It's a bit of a mindfuck.

No! He was just writing a weird story! I don't want to appear closed-minded at this point, as I quite enjoy Kafka, but the ungodly amount of stuff that we're forced to infer really gets on my tits. Having said that, I could have down with some more of it today, as I only managed about 2 pages on him. And this time, I remembered to scribble out my essay plan and crappy jottings, so I don't get marked down for senseless illegibility, like I probably will for the one yesterday. Ho hum.

But yeah, its the language exams next week, so wish me luck.

Ich habe super-fantastisch!

Are you lonesome tonight?
Do you miss me tonight?
Are you sorry we drifted apart?

The first exam has been done, which means 3 more to go. It wasn't as bad as it could have been, which I'm grateful for, but it was one of those questions that you have all the knowledge to answer, but with one of those really awkward spins on it that makes you freeze up for a few moments every time you think of the question before starting a new sentence.

I have similar confidence for my next one on thursday, but the following two involve a godawful amount of written German, which they tell me has to be grammatically correct, apparently. Inventing words in German is much easier when talking at speed with a bit of mumbling than it is when its written clearly on a computer. Fuck.

I also did a couple of hours of clothes shopping after the exam, under that special guise of 'winding down, having a break' post-exam, but which was in fact just a barely hidden excuse to avoid the revision. For those who don't know me, I'm not a shopping person and my shopping trips are virtually always out of necessity than pleasure, but when faced with the prospect of re-reading a text in German that you hated and didn't understand the first time, anything looks fun. Hell, I'd attempt a DIY job on our shitty toilet if it meant that Nietzsche and Freud would fuck off for a day or two.

So yes, I bought a nice pair of those fingerless gloves which are being revised from Hobo must-have's to items of indy fashion. I'm into these things in a big way; my hands are warm - but I can still get cash out of my wallet and stuff? Thankyou, topman. Other than that, I continue in my mission of being the flagboy of H&M and Primark. How I love you both with your cheap cheap clothes. I have a new long sleeve T-shirt which is a rather epic shade of blue, and I'm wearing them all now. Huzzah.

Anyway I'll round off this rather gay sounding post (oooh, look at me and me new clothes) and go and eat something. And then maybe revise. If I survive all these exams, I'll buy whatever helped me through it a pint. If it's a non sentient thing, then I'll drink the pint myself, just out of respect.

We need more anti shit-smeller.

All along the watchtower,
Princes kept the view,
While all the woman came and went,
Barefoot servants too ..

Our toilet and shower are buggered again. The brown stuff is seeping ever closer to the seat and to the edge of the shower rim, and the basement smells like an open sewer. Also, we forgot to ring the landlord again.

Its time for pasta.

Bugger

Now this looks like a job for me
So everybody just follow me,
'Cause we need a little controversy,
'Cause it feels so empty without me ..

A happy happy virus has hijacked my search engines, just in time for revision and essay time. Now everytime I need to find something that could save me when i'm sitting in an exam room in 3 weeks time, I'm redirected to some business site. I'm in the process of downloading some stuff that should help to rectify the situation, which took a while to find given that all search engines are down. Windows Vista is also offering another of its classic helping hands by turning off my firewall and not letting me boot it up again. Fuck you, vista; you're the bane of my life. The fact that Eminem was todays current 'what Max is listening to as he writes' only helps to demonstrate the desperation of this carryonsky.

Tastelessness of a whole new level

Somewhere, beyond the sea,
Somewhere, waiting for me,
My lover stands on golden sands
And watches the ships that go sailing ..

During long periods of sifting through the incomprehensible amount of crap that exist on the Internet, I discovered something so poorly thought through it was almost untrue. Ladies and gents, I give you the T-shirt of the 21st century:

People who wear shirts like this, or ones such as "I survived the blackout of 2003" which I don't have a picture of unfortunately, are typically the ones who shouldn't have survived it. Someone please explain the mentality behind this. Especially the one pictured above. I'd imagine if you go for a walk in New York today, you're very likely to run into someone who has a friend or relative who didn't survive 9/11. This is nothing though compared to the aforementioned 'blackout' T-shirts. Considering that only 11 or so people died in the blackout, the only serious ones fire related, it clearly wasn't the toughest thing to survive. I'm going to start wearing a shirt that says "I went 24 hours without power and bitched about it afterwards".

These items of clothing extend further to hats with stuff like "Ground Zero." on them. Why the fuck would you want to wear a hat endorsing a place where 3,000 people were murdered? Are hats that say "Pentagon" or "Field by a wood in Pennsylvania." in production yet or what? Maybe theres a market in Germany or Israel for hats with "I survived Auschwitz." Fucks sake. Its worrying to think what the 9/11 memorial will actually turn into. 9/11 itself is already a product. It's been used to sell everything from t-shirts and hats, all the way to a full scale war with a country that had nothing to do with it. Nothing sells like national tragedy it seems.

HAPPY NEW YEAR.

Avatar; Max's review

Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.
Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

May contain spoilers!

In two words, the thing was darn good. Given that the original thought processes for the film first came about about 14 years ago it could hardly have been an epic flop. Being headed by James Cameron is always a plus, and the $310m budget probably helped it along too. I had the pleasure also of seeing it in 3d at the IMAX cinema (for the clarity of those not in the know, IMAX is a cinema with a screen the height of a 9-storey building; lots of people have just gazed at me blankly when I've mentioned it in the past). The combination of a world that stretches into your peripheral vision with lots of flying 3d things at 10 in the morning is possibly the worst hangover cure in existence. Its a credit to the film that I still enjoyed it so much.



The plot: The year is 2154 and humans are building a heavily armed mining colony on a planet called Pandora, presumably lightyears away. They face resistance from the humanoid natives, the Navi, who are the blue guys from the trailers and posters. The story follows Jake Sully, who's name for me is sadly still synonymous with the big blue guy from Monsters, Inc, which can be offputting at times. He's a paraplegic ex-marine who takes the place of his dead twin brother on the Avatar programme, which places a human mind into a Navi body, allowing them to make contact with the natives and try and win hearts and minds. Unfortunately for the humans, Sully goes rogue after being rescued by a native called Neytiri, and he goes under her wing to learn the ways of the natives, in kind of neo-Tarzan-and-Jane-esque sequences that were one of my only very minor criticisms. She is also weirdly attractive given that she's effectively a combination of Pocahontas and Jar Jar Binks.

On the left, for sexually ambiguous clarification

That's a pretty major point actually. Nothing in the trailers gave away the fact that the Navi are much, much bigger than the humans, yet again tall and ridiculously skinny to the point of appearing anorexic occasionally. Why are we still glorifying aliens who are tall and skinny; the plotline could have had a huge amount of comedy value added if they were a race of short, fat lumbering things. They'll probably make it onto the cover of Vanity Fair with their current appearance. So they're the good guys. The bad guys are first and foremost the humans; more specifically, the military, whose believeable portrayal ought to have a few resounding effects among military circles. The soldiers are led by the batshit crazy Colonel Quaritch, who looks and acts like a psychotic GI Joe doll, and the twattish bureaucratic corporation leader played brilliantly by Giovanni Ribisi, who was such a villainous bastard that you just want to slam his head into a desk over and over.

Gunships and floating mountains. Sweet.

The final third of the film is taken up pretty much entirely by a single action sequence, much like District 9, except with less fookin' prawns and more dragony creatures. The big mech suits are still there though. Ultimately, the whole thing is very effective; not only is it a great finishing sequence, but you don't find yourself wondering when the hell its going to end. Everything that appeared previously in the film - vehicles, plants, animals- all come out and display their wondrous capabilities. The latter 2 are cool because they seem carefully considered - nothing feels weird for weirds sake, like the Star Wars cantina. Being James Cameron, theres inevitably forbidden love, but not even that bothered me, because this time around its weird and beautiful - its not dictated by time difference like in Terminator, or by class like Titanic. Its inter-dimensional love and it makes you fuzzy inside.



Its well worth seeing. The posters may look like a live action Ferngully, but its actually very, very good. Get down to your nearest IMAX.

Recent Terrorism

Because you're mine,

I walk the Line ..

It struck me recently how international terrorism is going down the tubes since the 9/11, bar the London bombings. I say this in light of the failed bombing of the Amsterdam-Detroit flight on Christmas day, by some Nigerian bloke, who also happens to be the son of some major Nigerian banking figure; probably the one who keeps emailing me for my sort code and PIN number so my money can be more secure. This guy seems to be the latest of these Al-Qaeda wannabes - we started out with a bunch of hardline Islamists, preaching in the name of Allah, gradually descending into people seemingly just jumping on the 'blowing stuff the fuck up' bandwagon.

Yeah! Jihad and hijacking and .. stuff .. Allahu Akbar?

The difference is, the amateurs are shit. There were those 2 blokes with the jeep and the butane can and their miserable attempt to bomb Glasgow airport, ultimately ending up being beaten up by the Scots while on fire, followed by the story of the poor sod who walked into a coffee shop in England somewhere (was it Guildford? I forget), went into the toilet to prepare his nail bomb .. and then accidentally shredded his leg with it. Ha. And now there's this guy, explosives cunningly stitched into his underpants by someone from the Al-Qaeda tailoring department in Yemen, who was beaten down by passengers and crew, much like that guy with the shoe bomb a few years back. You've lost your touch boys. Let's keep it that way.

Post-christmas euphoria

Hast du Etwas Zeit fur mich?
Dann singe ich ein Lied fur dich
Von 99 Luftballons,
Auf ihrem Weg zum Horizant ..

It's been a while since I updated this, and have recently been facing criticism on many fronts concerning my poor punctuality. Thus, this entry will try and encapsulate the major things that are/have been going on that you've had the misfortune of missing. This blog also has PICTURES. That's one for you, Daniel; I shan't be outdone on the internet.

As you can see the mood is appropriately German after my short break in Berlin, a trip that can only have affected my liver, kidneys and cholesterol levels over my language skills. The thing to say first and foremost is that it was FUCKING AWESOME. The whole mini-holiday can only have been heightened by the distinct lack of being searched at every public building, airport, and train station that we went into; vast improvements from Russia 2008. Apparently I no longer have that "Chechen Rebel" look that I was described as having a year ago. So - heres a mini breakdown of 4 days with the Germans.

It should be noted at this point that it was ruddy freezing the whole week, though inevitably the snow only really kicked in once it was too late to really appreciate. Some of us still enjoyed it when it first started though. Well done, Kellie. Well done indeed.


Its also worth me passing on an important piece of advice that I failed to heed this time round - no matter how many pairs of socks you're wearing, do not wear converse in the snow. Jazz, I'm sorry mate. You even texted me to tell me that. I'm sorry I didn't listen.

It seems the Germans have come across ingenious ways of doing food, ones that seem to take conventional European light snacks and say "fuck that, lets try it this way". Ladies and gents, I give you the coveted Bratwurst. Like a hotdog, but epic and half a foot long. Damn I miss those things. The other culinary wonder was deep fried potato, in a pancake shape .. with sugar? It sounds weird, but they were oh so tasty. I forget what the Germans call them.

One of the more general things that struck me was the similarity between Berlin and St. Petersburg and Moscow. Us being in East Berlin, crappy former communist haven of the Gods, a lot of the architecture was very similar. The main difference was that it had the vibrancy of a city like London, which makes for a strange combination, a very subtle contrast of European dynamism in depressing Commie surroundings. Having said that, some places we went look like the shit bits of Huddersfield or Wakefield except with more tram lines.

See, its a very very nice place.

The photos show a gradual change from 'British students on cultural journey around Berlin' to 'generic group of British tourists'.

Us storming the Bahnhof at Alexanderplatz. Note Dora (right) failing at the "East side" hand gesture and looking more like a mong than anything else.

Undoubtedly one of the coolest parts was the East side gallery; a preserved part of the Berlin wall where all the old artwork has been repainted. Its a fantastic thing to see.

The wall stretches away on the left hand side.

One of the crapper aspects of the trip was the journey back. It took the Germans 2 hours to realise that lots of snow makes a plane all icy and unflyable and shit. So we waited another half an hour to taxi about and be de-iced, and played 20 questions with a south african bloke, which was nice. The flight was spent mainly avoiding Pippa and Dora flailing, before we got woken up by earache coming to land at Stansted. Stansted reminded us of the reasons that Ryanair is cheap; it seems you don't get one of those fancy extending tunnels going from the door of the plane into the terminal. No, you taxi to about 100 metres from the terminal entrance, so we had to run through the sideways flying snow, past those diddy little trucks that carry all your luggage into passport control, flanked as ever by a pair of psychotic bastards with the rifles. There would be another picture, but experience has taught me that men with guns don't like this.

The return from Berlin heralded the return to long hours at work, where the hours are long and the tips can be shit. Christmas Eve was one of the most balls nights of the year. We worked flat to the boards, the place absolutely rammed for 6 hours and we had £3.50 in tips to show for it at the end. Having said that, most pints are in excess of £3 themselves, so a tip on top of a round of drinks at the Woodman Inn would probably put you out of pocket for the next 6 months. The monetary problems will no doubt be rectified with hours of Modern Warfare 2 or Nazi Zombies, geek that I can be, as they are the most frustrating and fun filled hours outside being back in Leeds without uni. Speaking of which, I have impending exams which I really ought to be working towards.

No resolution for crap .

I hear Jerusalem bells are ringing,
Roman cavalry choirs are singing,
Be my mirror, my sword, my shield,
My missionaries in a foreign field ..

Fuck bureaucracy.

It seems new developments are afoot in the ongoing saga of Max's financial crusades. We've already established the current money situation, or lack thereof, and yesterday provided another kick in the teeth for the whole situation. It seems that Leeds University require a £25 fee for not being able to take my tuition payment on the day that they'd have liked. "Why was the money not in your account on said day?", I hear you cry! Because it wasn't ready, was it Leeds? Remember, like I told you it wouldn't be? When I trecked down to and navigated the E.C.Stoner building, labyrinthine hellhole of the Gods, to find your office and tell you that my money would be unavailable on this date? Did this slip your mind? You bastards.

So now I'm forking out another weeks worth of money, which will probably end up in the pocket of the pencilpushers who drafted the scattershot money rules. Another condition of the first rule is that if I don't pay the original £25 fee, I get charged the same amount again. I've spent last night and today thinking about how I can turn this completely negative situation into something that slightly less resembles anal rape, but no luck as of yet. Open to suggestion. Email me.

Christmas is also steadily approaching, or has already arrived if you're unlucky enough to live in one of those places that sells christmas cards from mid-September onwards. Another ceremony to the plastic machinations of our consumer economy, which continues its spiralling journey downward ever more. God bless the ravenous devouring of unabashed shit and marked-down prices on plastic stuff that cost pennies, if not less, to make and import. So, will we all get what we asked for? Crappy miscellanea, that will blink and serve standalone functions, all of which perform at lesser quality than a multiple function item of the same purpose? I try my best not to be "Ebenezer Martin", in the words of a great friend, during this time. Maybe its just the money situation, or the fact that the weather is shite, or that there's yet more German to do. Modern Warfare 2, never have you looked so tempting as you do now.

I have another lecture at 4.00. Thankfully not more German, but my policing module. Interesting stuff, I'll tell you about it one day. One day.

The real issue

Quando sono sola
sogno all'orizzonte
e mancan le parole,
si lo so che non c'è luce
in una stanza quando manca il sole,
se non ci sei tu con me, con me ..

Recently I've been waking up and going to bed nearly every night wondering, "What if I'm making an academic mistake that will cost me £3000+ per semester? This follows on to "What if this is my rational foresight kicking in that I've since masked due to bravado and pride that was falsely created when I was deemed 'special' by means of selection?"

Could it be that my non-emotional side, free of the shackles created by the subtle and overt feeling that's accompanied me every time "further education" is mentioned, has spotted the obvious on the horizon and thus begun slipping in the warning bells, the worrying and second guessing? I've always been aware of the expense issues, and have long since ambled away from the monetary concerns, but now some of these things are back, reverberating within my mind. The really worrying fact is that the good old counterpoints to the financial clusterfuck that tuition/housing presents aren't really cooing me to acceptance any longer.

"But are they not paying the majority of the lions share?"

Theoretically yes, but unfortunately it's a massive fuck-off carcass on which the lion dines. Additionally, a happy sizable portion of monies is no longer checked off and taken care of, for one simple (or more accurately, non-existent) reason - no student loan this year. I am unable to "go to plan B" as Captain Mactavish would say. The black and white perspective paints the most accurate portrait available: for 3 years of education and boarding, it will cost me about an entire years worth of earnings that a family of 5 at the poverty line earns. Worry and self doubt swells within me like a rampant venereal disease.

I also fork out £62 tomorrow for the last payment of my christmas trip, a payment frequently and confusingly referred to as a "deposit" by my high-flying housemates. The irony being that we will never, ever get it back. Our trip is to Berlin, a journey that will finally take my Western-Europe virginity, and doubtlessly have another adverse effect on my liver and cholesterol levels. Will the trip turn into the cultural and 'educational' experience that so many have tried to disguise it as, or descend, as pondered, into bratwurst-fuelled debauchery? We shall see.

Argh fuck

Psychic spies from China
Try to steal your minds elation,
Little girls from Sweden
Dream of silver screen quotations ..

Our toilet and shower are on the fritz. The shower is sitting in 3 inches of water, with cloudy black and brown crap seeping out of the plughole. The toilet bowl looks like a vapourised poo factory. We now have one shower and toilet between 8 of us, which is going to make for happy times when we all fight over it. I've binned two towels eliminating the water that keeps leaking out of the pipes.

At the risk of sounding closed minded, I don't like Twilight. Too many people I know went along to the midnight screenings of New Moon for my liking. I recently read the plot(s) for the first time, and some extracts from it, to try and get an idea of what the hell all the hype's about. There is some godawful crap in there.

"Even more, I had never meant to love him. One thing I truly knew - knew it in the pit of my stomach, in the centre of my bones, knew it from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet, knew it in my empty chest - was how love gave someone the power to break you. I'd been broken beyond repair." - from New Moon

Seriously?

Twilight: New Moon - One girl's choice between Necrophilia and Bestiality.

Could this be another literary revolution? The beginning of a beautiful partnership between sun-fearing creatures of legend and the moronic whims of high school girls? Quite possibly - but wait. These are unconventional vampires. They go out in the daytime, they drink from animals and garlic and crosses mean fuck all. Is this where are the interest stems from? A quote on the subject of the Twilight vampires:- "Some vampires have no special abilities, and instead have a prominent personality or physical trait from their human life magnified." What does that encapsulate? Bipolar disorder? The ability to solve rubix cubes quickly?

We've all seen the hordes of screaming teens and their long-suffering mothers whenever Robert Pattinson makes an appearance - a new age freak show, where a delusional crowd flails for their Edward. Having taken a gander at the deep 'subject matter', I can only wonder why. "AAAAH" They write in their diaries, "WHY CAN'T I HAVE A BOYFRIEND LIKE EDWARD?". Ah, maturity.

In non vampire-related news, Modern Warfare 2 is amazingly amazing, if a little disturbing occasionally. Incredibly realistic in the sense that the Russians are killing everyone and everything, the Americans kill the Brits, the Brits are single handedly saving the world, and the French are nowehere to be seen. If you haven't bought it yet, then try and pawn your Twilight tickets on eBay and save up for the game. Chasing Russians on snowmobiles is more fun than chasing the love of a fictional vampire.

Whoops

And if she asks you why,
You can tell her that I told you,
that I'm tired of Castles in the Air ..

I've started seeing more of these handy 'suggestions' for want of a better word, in the top left corner of facebook, encouraging one to 'reconnect' with those I have no desire to be reconnected with. What's its goal? To help you seek out people you couldn't be arsed to keep up with in the first place?

Its November (No, its not christmas yet dearies) which heralds the arrival of the German Kristkindelmarkt in Millenium Square, which a few of my housemates are off to. If the past 2 days and nights hadn't already been filled with more German than you could shake a stick at, I'd be well up for the idea of walking around in the cold of a city centre to look at frankfurters and giant pretzels in their quaint flat-packable stalls. I fear that yet more exposure to German culture in its most distilled form could induce some unconditional Tim-Kretschmer-esque spree, and that might put a strain on my close relations.

I went to a screening of a German film this evening for one of my modules; rather, I went along and slept through 70% of it. Theres a faint biro outline of a cock on my forehead, apparently Max sleeping was a chance that just couldn't be passed up. The film was 'Der Blaue Engel', the film that apparently boosted Marlene Dietrich to global stardom overnight. I tried really hard to appreciate it in the first 20 minutes I was awake for, but couldn't. If you ever have trouble sleeping, tune in to german radio. Its the most sleep-inducing language I've come across.


The brunt of the German work seems to finally be coming to some sort of conclusive end, after a 53 hour-straight work bender. There are still things outstanding, but I have no choice but to sweep them under the rug. Sadly, the oustanding things include grammar, a subject which I've been severely lacking in since post GCSE-euphoria. If only I could inspire myself to learn it.

I feel a bit bad, having devoted so much time to mouthing off about it and then dropping it all of a sudden, but such is life. All things are transient, and so we too must be, lest we become stagnant.

Hence my current hairstyle, which should come to fruition soon.

Pastures new

If I told you things I did before,
told you how I used to be,
Would you go along with someone like me ..?

So, a new blog.

If we're lucky, this one will reach the magnitude of my old myspace one.

Starting a new blog is an idea that was suggested to me by a few people a couple of months back, but it's taken me a while to actually grasp the initiative and start doing it. I guess the main reason for this is the transition from '4 months of nothing' to '2nd year of language degree course', a change that I'm still only getting used to. The second very good reason is that I forgot. The latter reason works for numerous handy things, such as not doing important seminar work and missing out that oh so boring social event that you're expected to go to out of politeness.

I didn't actually plan on kicking off an opening entry with any kind of 'post' as such, but I've spent so much time faffing about over it it seems stupid to leave it just floating in the ether now. That and it's just gone 5am. I have a lecture at 10. Sleep is not an option.

I have a strange inkling that these sleepless work benders are going to become more and more common as the year heads on. I've just finished an essay on globalisation, a topic that quite frankly can find a hole and drown in it. The fact that it was in German hardly helped the general feelings towards it. That has to be submitted tomorrow, god help me if the printers go on one of their 'lets fuck up at the most inconvenient time humanely possible' rampages.

A final item worthy of ironic mention is the stuff thats popping up on and around my facebook page. Not only are there now sexy singles in the Leeds area, I also have 3 friend requests. It seems I've either become insanely attractive to 20-something American women, or I'm being spammed. Me being a scruffy waste of face, i'm settling for the latter. And theres also one of the most wonderful updates I've seen in a while, so without mentioning any names: "[insert name here] feels like shite so im gunna get in bed n watch a nice dvd after iv had a wee." If you're reading this, you know who you are. You make me sob.