Recent updates and the last footy one.

When you're close to tears remember,
someday, it'll all be over,
One day we're gonna get so high ..

England played Germany today.

Thank fuck we can take solace in the fact that we won the war. My god, we were a shambles. Not even our one goal was impressive; if you watch the replays, the ball sort of bounces aimlessly off Matthew Upson's face into the net. Compared to Germany of course, who scored 2 goals in 3 minutes. Oh yeah, and two other ones.

Shrek and Donkey commiserate another miss.

Everything about it was shite. Terry and Upson hang around having a fag break while Germany's strikers run straight up the middle, Heskey replaced Defoe for some inane reason, and Lampard's obvious goal was denied, for all the difference it'd have made. Forget the 'spirit of 1966' that people keep mentioning; we were playing football from 1066.

Ahh, and Rooney managed to get in his customary effing and blinding piece to the ref and a little angry piece to camera at half time. Just beautiful.


Enough footy.


I've officially moved out of my Leeds house, which means I'm back home with a shitload of stuff I never knew I had, which needs sorting tomorrow, joy. This also means I'll be travelling near and far to find friends (Southern people take note: I'll be a-knocking end of July/early August) and forms of entertainment outside of a small village.

Moving out has meant sorting out a whole host of needlessly pointless stuff, like taking pictures of the gas and water meters for a final record, sending Virgin Media their balls internet equipment back and trying not to incur charges from our landlords, which begin at £15 per tenant at the cheapest, all the way up to £250 for a range of increasingly petty obligations. Hopefully this will all be finished painlessly.

I'm also getting more letters from Germany, which is exciting. The school that they want me to go be an assistant at has offered me an apartment and a bunch of other paperworky bits and pieces that I wish I could read more easily.


Anyway, I'm off to Newquay soon, to sit in a tent and wrestle with cooking equipment, driving down in a car that will probably be pulled over at least once. My money's either on no MOT, expired tax disc, or wheel missing. Guy, make me proud mate.

Vuvezelas

When our souls were introduced,
No one of us could ever know,
What we will be going through,
Feeling high, feeling low ..

England beat Slovenia!

Sadly I missed the match itself as I was cavorting around my home village with the penis pirate and his wench (goddamn, you two know who you are) at the time, though I did catch a couple of minutes on the telly at Shepley co-op during a prolonged ice cream choosing session.

So yeah, 1-nil to us. Well, what can you expect against a country whose currency is probably vegetables?

Also, credit to John Terry for that block-dive thing that wasn't quite so. Never mind mate, it looked good in slow-mo even if it didn't prevent anything.

Another footy one ..

You might think I'm crazy, but I don't even care,
Because I can tell what's going on ..
It's hip to be square ..

It's wednesday today, which means that at 3pm, England will kick off against Slovenia in the morose, lip-bitingly tense party that is World Cup 2010. This entry has been brought on partially by a growing number of facebook status updates in support of England, and partly because I fear that today will be another all-too-familiar replay of bygone matches. Grim, grim.

If this is the case, then the inevitable pre-match build-up will be all but destroyed long before half time.

We can hope however, that England fare better against Slovenia than they did Algeria; the latter country is just a desert for Christ's sake. Improvements for our team would include, but are not limited to:

• No more Hair-raising 'passes' back to the goalie
• Fewer crap punches from said goalie.
  
• Less dismal, aimless long balls to the opposing defenders/midfielders
• Heskey not falling over
• Rooney getting more than 2 touches of the ball per match
• Lampard aiming for the goal and/or not fumbling the ball at every opportunity
• Capello not hopping round on the sidelines like an angry granny at bingo
• Gerrard shooting for the goal when he's open and clear instead of misguidedly passing it back

But - we shall see.

Loneliness and football punditry

Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose,

Nothin' ain't worth nothin' but it's free ..

The Leeds era is coming to an end; 6 of my 7 housemates have now moved back down southward, meaning that I can finally wander round the house naked, bb gun slung round my neck, flaming torch in hand, screaming profanity to the world.

Or something like that.

North Korea are playing in the World Cup again today. I speculated the other day over the fate of the team that played last week; are they the same ones playing today, or are they already doing hard labour in a gulag somewhere? We may never know. All that's certain is that being a football pundit for North Korea must be the most nerve-racking job in the world ..


"..Weather lovely in South Africa, tiny island off coast of glorious Democratic People Republic of North Korea. Floor in South Africa so dirty that people must eat and sleep in buildings. Poverty so great that people must travel in cars. Here for covering of World Cup football, game invented by glorious leader KIM JONG-IL, exported recently to rest of world.

Today we play Portugal, inferior country who must be bricking it. Match will not be broadcast live, but with 24 hour delay, for reasons entirely uninvolving CAPITALIST RUMOURS that time for photoshopping face of DEAR LEADER onto head of goal-scoring player needed."

DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE REPUBLIC goalie reprimand for checking out arse of glorious midfield!

"Prepare to see DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE REPUBLIC players rice and dust-based diet and whip and execution training superiority over rest of world! For now, witness footage of cheering DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE crowds with their capitalist vuvezelas!"



I feel for that team. I really do.

I'm gonna prepare the flaming torch now and chill out in my empty house.

Deutschland-bound.

Buffalo soldier, dreadlock rasta,
There was a buffalo soldier in the heart of America,
Stolen from Africa, brought to America,
Fighting on arrival, fighting for survival ..

Well, after ages of waiting, a letter came for me yesterday with details of the school that I'm meant to be an assistant at in Germany next year. Place itself is called Neuerburg, google images tells me that it's one of those very pretty German cities, with castles and forests and whatnot, which is nice.

Now theres only the prospect of filling out all my forms and then it's official and real. This is a little nerve-racking.

Banzai!

When that cloud arrives we'll live on Ocean Drive ..

Don't know why you're so blue,
Sun's gonna shine on everything you do ..

This is a big one.

I've done a fair amount of flying over the past god knows how many hours.

It remains a complete mindfuck, this timezone/travel business. Flying from Japan to Manchester via the Middle East will screw with your mind in the worst way, as well as allowing you to set off at any hour, fly for 10 hours or so, and arrive at the next destination only 3 hours after you left the last place .. the previous day.

But here's a breakdown, some bits more detailed than others, of a week with the Japanese.

JOURNEY

The flight's a transfer one: from Manchester, it's 6/7 hours to Dubai, then 10 hours from there to Japan. The flight out was pretty comfy as the bloke meant to be sitting next to me didn't turn up, so I got his window seat and leg room, which was nice.


On the return journey, due to either a stroke of major fortune or a bizarre admin problem, the very nice people at Emirates decided I should fly to Dubai business class. Oh well, go on then. Just this once. Remember Monsters Inc.? There was a great little short film released shortly after it came out called 'Mike's New Car'. Youtube it; watch Sully's reactions when he climbs in. Mine were pretty similar.

It was a lot like this.

If you haven't flown business class before, it seems naturally to be a very expensive affair; mostly white haired brits or arabic guys, wearing pressed suits and shined shoes, with an array of newspapers in various languages. They sit with their glasses on the end of their noses and sip the complimentary champagne. They address the air hostesses in a polite, yet clipped manner. Impeccable plane behaviour.

Cue me.

Sweaty, big hair, 3 shirt buttons undone, fumbling with flight documents and dropping my passport. A friendly stewardess comes to my rescue. Looks of chagrin sweep the faces of the cabin occupants; is this unkempt bastard going to be sharing this section with us? Surely not.

But I did, and it was ruddy awesome. I tried not to take it on a personal level when the grey-haired bloke next to me pushed a button somewhere by his seat and a little wall slid out of the armrest and blocked me off from him. S'matter old timer? You don't like sharing a row with a sweaty student?

The catering gets a little more chic in business class too. Yes, gone are the days of "would you like the chicken or the fish sir?" and in it's place are multi-lingual menus offering a vast variety of dishes, all 3 courses. I had the marinated duck with fresh herb sauce. Consider that. I had duck with herb sauce on a fucking plane. It was even prepared restaurant style, with little gloops of sauce spirally dripped around artistically arranged slices of duck, each separated with a little orange segment.

Yes Chef. Good effort.

Also note the real cutlery and the tablecloth for your fold out table, which comes out of the seat; they're having none of that 'attached to the seat in front' nonsense like the rabble eating in steerage. Oh, and there's a separate tablecloth JUST FOR THE TRAY! Aah, does good service have no bounds?

JAPAN

There's an absolute shitload that I could ramble about, and each bit would probably end up with it's own blog size paragraph devoted to it. How about just some pictures? You'd like that, wouldn't you?

Yup, Japan. It's a very nice place.

There's a very quick transition, just as there was in Berlin, between me looking like a shameless tourist, and then me being a massive poser. Shamelessly, may I add. Here we go.

Me on the ferry heading out to Miyajima Island, home of the Itsukushima floating shrine. I'm looking very touristy indeed. For those of you that follow me on facebook then yes, this is the island with them cute deers.

The next photo I hope is a vision of my future which involves travelling, except with a smaller bag.

The two women on the left in this next photo couldn't believe their luck in seeing me. Their exact words were something like "My God, is that Max?". A once in a lifetime opportunity for some.

Pose! Pose like there's no tomorrow!

That's me in Osaka, in a very culturally rich district. Also, readers: If you happen to be the very pretty European-looking girl who was taking pictures on the bridge, then I feel we should have exchanged words instead of just smiling at each other. I was with the guy with the brown hair who nearly got hit by a pigeon, if you recall.

I don't think I was even posing in this next one, which means I'm more photogenic than you.

So yeah, thats just a tiny selection of photos from Japan; the rest will make it onto facebook within the week. You may applaud now.


I leave you with this parting thought, which has been bothering me since I stepped off the last flight at Manchester Airport. We all have showers/baths/both, or take care with personal hygiene, right?

But it is possible to go for a short while without the promise of a wash, under circumstances, isn't it? The thing that confuses me is that bizarre plane ritual where the stewardesses hand out hot flannels for each passenger.

If it ever happens, watch the reaction. Rarely, I'd wager, do people at home or work sit back and think 'You know what'd be awesome? A really hot, damp flannel, to caress my face and hands with'. It's just odd. But on the plane, as soon as they're out, everyone does a very heartfelt, almost exaggerated wiping of the face and hands, rubbing round the cheeks and temples, taking care to wash between each finger, with an extra final wipe on the palms. It confuses the hell out of me. It's as if everyone's suddenly been told they're covered in crap, that they were completely unaware of before. Do they feel abundantly clean and refreshed now?


Just me?

Culture shock.

'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far,

And grace will lead me home ..

Today's entry is a rather special one in two ways; the first very important reason is that I'm in a Japan, in an internet cafe, sitting in a leather recliner, with a little ramikin full of ice cream, a fairly decent development by anyone's count.

The second reason is that this goddamned keyboard has very few keys with the letters intact, half of them are in the wrong place and I periodically look up to see that the last sentence has conveniently converted itself to Japanese Kanji characters. This paragraph has taken about 15 minutes.

I've only been here a day, yet I've seen a fair amount of stuff, cool and odd and humbling. The latter point was the Hiroshima memorial, which had an impact on a par with the Berlin Holocaust memorial and increased my fear of nuclear war. Sad and scary stuff.

On a lighter note, I can now claim to having been lured to a secluded spot by a friendly Japanese couple, who wanted to show us some rocks imported to Japan from Ben Nevis for reasons unknown, before producing a small book and proclaiming themselves to be Jehovah's Witnesses and seeing if we were unhappy with the God we already have, which was nice. Other points of interest and caution are that the 'leg of pork' served in the Izakaya by Hiroshima station is in fact a pig's foot, complete with nail, fat and grisle.

God, this keyboard is more trouble than its worth.

Another thing worthy of mention is Japanese toilets. Not only is the seat heated (who says wasting energy is an issue anyway?), Japanese loos are the only ones I've seen that resemble the bridge of a spaceship; one begins to feel like Darth Vader or Spock, sitting on a seat surrounded by consoles with options including 'increase pressure' and 'temperature control'.

My favourite option by far however (ohh man, this fucking keyboard!) is the option to play a flushing noise at the touch of a button. What purpose does this serve? Playing the noise even once, let alone repeatedly, before actually flushing would surely suggest to any bystander that might be listening only that you'd done a massive shit that one flush simply couldn't handle? Is this customary in Japan, perhaps? Is it considered polite or good luck to mash the 'flush noise' button before strolling out with an air of self confidence, proud of your shit-tacular toiletary fortitude?

That, or it's simply a tool to piss off anyone desperate for the bog, to make them think you're done when you're actually not. Who knows?

This keyboard is forcing me to wrap this up. This blog weighs in at a record time of 52 minutes to write. Enjoy it you ingrates, I'll regale you with tales of my travels in the East when I find an English computer and a half decent keyboard. Peace and love, and Minna Ki Wo Tsukette.

Britains got willpower.

When you believe in things

That you don't understand,
Then you suffer,
Superstition aint the way ..

Britain's got Talent has been on for the past few weeks now, and the process of handing carte-blanche to members of the general public of varying idiocy is winding down and the more skilled performers are starting to make themselves known. Sadly though, it seems that there exist several holes in the talent-judging net, and a couple of stragglers have thus fallen through.

The prime example is from last night - this was my first time seeing this guy, I missed him during the audition phase.

His 'talent' is wood-chopping. Fair play, wood-chopping can often take some skill. But the term 'Royal Variety Performance' at least implies some sense of 'entertainment value', which is a void that wood-chopping simply cannot fill. The day that the Queen takes pleasure from watching a man in a knights crusader outfit haphazardly chopping at wood offcuts from his shed, while singing a song about chopping wood and it's delights is the day I lose the rest of my faith in humanity. Thanks mate, but no thanks.

As ever, one judge recognises shit when he sees it.

Then theres the other chap, hugely talented but fucking weird, who swallows stuff and .. regurgitates it. Once again, a talent in itself but still liable to induce feelings of 'why?' over 'wow'.

Britain's got talent? Undeniably, but it also has delusions of grandeur.

The Jews strike back.

Blue are the words I say and what I think,
Blue are the feelings that live inside me ..

Oh, and Israel are having all the people they didn't manage to kill on the humanitarian aid ship deported, yay! Oh Israel. You and North Korea should get together.

Chicken broth.

Bird of Prey ..

Flying High ..
In the summer sky ..

Hot damn, I'm tired.

I've just finished a horrifically busy 10 hour shift, what with it being bank holiday and all. I like to think that a stressful weekend is God's way of telling me that by working my arse off today, then my wednesday exam and hours and hours of flying on thursday will be somewhat less painful.

And since I don't often do this on here, I'll mention something really fucking gross. In the gents toilets today, someone had made a weird kind of chicken broth poo in one of the bogs without flushing it AND left pubes on the seat. Presumably he tore them out in horror after seeing what he'd produced.

I shall leave that one there.

North Korea is looking posed to give its nuclear weapons their first run against South Korea, after it was revealed that a South Korean warship was sunk by a North Korean torpedo. What was the benefit of that move, Kim Jong-Il, you pretentious fucking moron?

I'm so ronery

Now there are near enough 1 million troops on alert at the border, and the North's batshit insane dictator who reminds me oh so much occasionally of my own boss seems set to press the button and send the warheads skyward. I imagine the US army is formulating some very 'diplomatic' plans to resolve this one.

In lighter news, this year's Honley Show has rabbit jumping! Yeah! Like horse jumping, but with a rabbit on a leash! Woo! Enough to raise such questions as "what the hell is wrong with this country?"!

The World asks 'Why?'

I'm watching a film now called 'The Visitor' which is one of those slow-moving, uplifting ones which are meant to incur some feeling of hope, but this one's actually pretty good. It's a bit of a detour from my usual filmic palate, but apparently I have a penchant for slow films about budding relationships between aging middle-class American lecturers and illegal immigrants in post 9-11 New York. Who'd have thunk it?

Now there's a film on called 'Corky Romano', which looks like it's from the other end of the spectrum. Its really crap. Like chickeny broth.

Procrastination

I don't want to waste my time
become another casualty of society.
I'll never fall in line ..

I feel that, what with the decline of the sunny weather and my upcoming exam, a productive way of spending time would be sitting in my living room in a den made of sofas and blankets.

I shall now test this theory.

Barbecues, Japan and offensive coins.

How many roads must a man walk down
Before they call him a man?
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?

What a lot of things have happened this week. One seems to get a lot more done when you aren't being nocturnal; there are a suspicious amount of daylight hours with which to work, which is nice.

Well, all the essays have been handed in, leaving only one exam on the 2nd June. These pesky elective courses are more work than all the German combined.

The weather is outdoing itself at the moment, which means that the shorts and sandals have been broken out for use, and sainsburys is running out of disposable barbecues. It's worth mentioning that I've had two pretty epic barbecues recently, one courtesy of all the folks studying German (credit to Dave for being a great host) and the other one with the old flatmates who I sadly don't see a great deal of recently.

To them I say only this: Sam, we still have each others sunglasses; Pye, good luck with your work related carryonsky and I love your face; Alia, I hope to God you didn't get raped by the giant black man who asked you about Tequila.

Before I forget, I'll let you all know that I'm going to Japan for a bit. I guess it's best to put it here on a public domain seeing as I've been getting a lot of stick about it recently, to the tune of "Why have you not said anything about this venture of yours before, Max?". Sue me you ingrates! I don't have to explain my exotic travelling schedule to the likes of you!

But seriously, it just never came up in conversation.

I had an interesting train experience the other day, in which I missed Huddersfield on my way home (ironically, the only time when I was disappointed that I had done) and was woken up by the sound of a plane and an automated voice telling me that I was at manchester airport. If I'd had a bit of cash and a little more time I might have been tempted to hop on the next flight and see where the world took me, but this wasn't the case, and I was left with less of a feeling of 'potential freedom' than 'Oh balls, I'm meant to be at work'.

But the day was not entirely fruitless as I ultimately got to experience a Russian wedding at work, which was a bit fucking weird by all counts. But they didn't drink any vodka which leads me to believe they weren't actually Russian.

Oh, and I also found a 10p with 'tits' written on it.

It's kind of ambiguous actually, maybe the person writing it was in a hurry. It might say 'tit 5' for all I know.

This coin has made me much happier than it probably should have done, but what with all the other less entertaining coins in my wallet, this qualifies as a very special one. I'm debating whether or not to spend it and pass the legacy on.

Return to Ev.

And this house just ain't no home,
Anytime she goes away ..

Panini.

Hot Chocolate.

Coffee Ev.

Life is perfect.

3 and a half down.

Saturday I'm running wild,
And all the lights are changing red to green,
Moving through the crowd I'm pushing,
Chemicals all rushing through my bloodstream ..

It is 6:58am. As of today, which I think is wednesday, I am officially nocturnal.

I put my nocturnality-ness down to a massive lack of motivation during the day, whereas the night is dull and has less distractions, or so I hoped.

I've actually got a hell of a lot done, but what with the internet and all its tempting wondrous, the allure of work isn't always the one that wins. In the past 12 hours I've written 1 and a half essays, alongside watching Never Mind the Buzzcocks on youtube and drawing a nice picture of the hyenas from The Lion King in Paint, which I'm quite proud of.

I also re-discovered David Gray, who is occasionally depressing but always easy listening, explaining this morning's intro lyrics. But the man pales in comparison to a comedy great who I've also rekindled my love for recently and would like to share this work of his with you - even if you've heard it listen to it again. If it's a new one for you, give it a go. It's just beautiful



The intro bits pretty funny, but if you're impatient for the actual song as you should be after hearing it once, then it kicks in at 1:15

Peace and Love.

Library open 8am to 2am.

When the road looks rough ahead,
And you're miles and miles from your nice warm bed,
Just remember what your old pal said,
Boy, you've got a friend in me ..

I'm in that really balls transitional period between finishing lectures and seminars and sifting through a pinch of reading, a sprinkling of revision and a shitload of essay.

This week I am finishing off a combined total of 12,000 words spread across 4 essays (well, 5, but one's only 500 words so it doesn't really count) which means I am going to be holed up in my room like a GIANT RECLUSIVE UNSOCIABLE BASTARD. On the plus side, I can now bore you to shitting tears by telling you all about every conceivable IQ test ever created and how they ultimately aren't effective. This essay has cost me sleep and good moods.


Do drop by, your distraction will be most appreciated. For maximum effect, turn up unannounced.

The last politics-related one.

Nants ingonyama Bagithi Baba ..

Sithu uhm ingonyama ..

For those of you not in the know, that's the opening song to the Lion King, which some kind person taught me the words to at primary school. I still bum it to this day.


I sat til 6 o'clock this morning watching the live feed about the election. If I'd known that the answer they were tentatively giving about a hung parliament would turn out to be the actual answer, I'd probably have gone to bed a long time before.

So, presumably because a shitload of people didn't get to vote, the Tories have gained more seats than the others, but not quite enough for a majority. It's looking like Cameron will form a minority government, as Clegg doesn't seem to want to form a coalition with Labour, which is a big shame.

Sadly, a Labour-Lib Dem pact still wouldn't form a majority government, again a bit of a sad development. As we heard in the debates, Gordon 'agrees with Nick' which might have meant some policies would be passed this year. And a Labour-Tory pact is never gonna happen, lets face it. The only chance of the formation of a majority government is a Tory-Lib Dem pact - I believe Cameron's already extended the offer to Clegg. If this happens, then Clegg will be able to push for electoral reform, one of the Lib-Dem's core goals, and which is badly needed after this years voting shambles.


Credit to David Dimbleby, who made it through the entire night, which must have got pretty fucking boring, and as always to Jeremy Paxman who administered some of his righteous verbal smackdown and slaughtered everyone like the BBC's own Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I wouldn't want to be an MP. Or the prime minister, it looks stressful. Watching them all flapping around answering questions on important stuff and having to take in all that moaning from people. Must get annoying. Sure, they're all a bit corrupt, but whenever I think my day's going a bit crap, I imagine Gordon Brown trying to solve huge lists of deficit fuck-ups and I feel a bit better. That, or I watch that video of the monkey scratching its arse then sniffing it and falling out of its tree.


Oh and Lembit Opik lost his seat. He lost his seat AND got dumped by one of the cheeky girls. What a balls turnout for the Lib-Dems.

"Yes, you could say I have a name like a Scandinavian boy band".

Nick Clegg for pope.

You better keep movin',

Or you'll be left behind ..

Today is officially thursday, which means that at some point in the next 20 hours we'll be casting votes. A lot of people around me are still undecided about their choice, which gives me this time now to encourage them not to let Dave and his army of toffs win, please?

Naturally there's been a great deal of political activity of late and politicians are doing some crazy stuff, some of it beneficial, some a bit poorly thought-through, but today - dare I say it - my praise goes to a BNP candidate who attacked some guys who spat at him while he was out canvassing. Now, I'm all against what the BNP stand for, and beating the crap out of asian guys rarely makes my daily agenda, but seriously, hats off to this bloke. Their policies may be highly questionable, but you gotta admire the violent passion. That was nearly as cool as seeing John Prescott punch the guy who egged him.

Find it on YouTube. You will never see a faster left hook than this one.

It dearly makes me wish Gordon Brown had just given his infamous 'bigot' woman a few seconds silence and a deadpan stare before face-planting her into the bonnet of his car. I find something really liberating about seeing politicians get angry after being provoked, and today, oddly, its the BNP who have my praise. Just beautiful.


And now I guess I'll sit back and wait for the torrent of 'omg u support bnp??' bullshit that I get whenever I make a point like this. Anyone pedantic enough to be offended, sue me.


Oh yeah, and Nick Clegg for pope.

Another vaguely political one

The city lights, the pretty lights,

they can warm the coldest nights,
all the people going places,
smiling with electric faces ..

And lo, he returned like the Messiah to address the masses.

And the people did gather at a place they called Birmingham

And he had a message for them, and it was this: That the one they call Gordon Brown had been a failure, and the one known as Dave Cameron was a smarmy tit.

And then he spoke cheerily to his disciples at the Lib-Dem party conference.

And we saw that it was good.

And then he was gone.


Yup, final leaders debate was the other day, with Clegg back on top form, though with Gordon Brown not far behind I reckoned. But, I think we all know now that Labour has lost a wheel and can't find a spare tyre after Gordon Brown's recent cock-up with that woman in Rochdale, an event they're now wittily branding 'Bigotgate', which sounds more like a Teesside shopping centre than a political scandal.

I feel sorry for the poor bloke; he's not the first, nor will he be the last politician to be caught out by a microphone left on. You may have seen him doing a radio apology afterwards, which if you haven't seen, is painful to watch. Brown goes through the whole 'it was a misunderstanding' bit very well, and then Jeremy Vine comes in with something like "I've just been handed the audio from that day, shall we listen?". And as they play it, Brown just slumps back in the seat for a second in a way that just moans 'Oh, fuck'. And then he slumps forward with his head in his hands. Poor bloke.

"No, I was misunderstood. What I meant was 'fuck off and see if you can fix immigration problems, you stupid woman'."

So yeah, fun times for all.

Other recent updates; those of you who know me on facebook may have seen this: the news that Phillipa Stroud, some woman who's responsible for a load of current Tory policies has been running weird, strangely American-esque evangelical church services to 'cure' gay people, driving out their 'inner demons' in the name of Jesus. What a bitch. What a fucking nazi. That may as well be a BNP policy.

In other Conservative happenings, there are possibilities that future students studying scientific subjects such as medicine at University could face fees of £6-14,000 per year. Given that Medicine and other science courses last round about 6 years or so, that's looking at a leaving debt of £36,000 at the least. Good plan, in the midst of Britain facing a shortage of doctors and nurses. But who can afford this masterplan, we ask? Why, it's the Tories, and any suck-ups they've drawn in from along the way. Here's looking at you Oxford.

What a pisstake.

Now I simply must be off to ask mother if I can have another pony, and if father can spare me another grand for my gap yah.






Did I mention I'm not voting Conservative on Thursday?

"Talk to the hands, baby. I can't hear you over the sound of how awesome I am."

The return of Lego

And here's to you, Mrs. Robinson,
Jesus loves you more than you will know .. woah woah woah ..
God bless you please, Mrs. Robinson,
Heaven holds a place for those who pray ..

Oh man, a lot's happened in the past few days and I am righteously knackered. Monday heralded a potentially worrying yet still humblingly blissful realisation: I am but a child at heart. It saw me returning into the fray of primary school as I rekindled my role as a classroom assistant for hire. Once again though, in-keeping with a rising tradition of 'Max signs up for all the right days', we went to the Legoland Discovery Centre in Manchester.

I imagine that very few readers will be aware that I used to bum lego like a plastic religious deity, and that our arrival at the centre found me suppressing urges to push aside 7 year old schoolkids and make a break for one of those little plastic construction tables.

The day was marketed as 'educational' which in real terms was a bit like listing Dachau as a Butlins holiday centre. No, the day was purely fun, with one of those big play areas with tunnels and net walls and slides and shit, and a section for building lego racers and racing them, and bits for building very tall towers and destroying them. There was also a ride where you hit CG lego targets with little laser guns from a little moving cart. I'm a modest person, but seriously, I fucking thrashed those kids at it. Top kids score? Shading 2000. Max's score? Powering ahead with 9000+. YES.

Our fucking rubbish internet and the silly flashy website means that I can't give you a picture, so start with this picture and build up your own vision.

In short, it was pretty epic. I ran around like a big kid and built stuff and bought a lego keyring (Shamelessly, may I add; Lego stormtrooper motherfucker!) and generally had fun times whilst trying to be an adult and sensible and things. Oh, and if you happen to be the bloke who played 'the professor' in that psychedelic Willy-Wonka-esque factory section, then mate, that was just odd. What the hell was your PhD in?

Screw you, polls.

O green world,
Don't desert me now,
Bring me back to fallen town
Where someone is still alive ..

Well, we just had the second leaders debate with Neck Clegg back on top form. This time round we saw less of the "I agree with Nick" that seemed to hang over the last one like a little plague, but we did see Cameron say "I agree with Gordon" which not even he expected. But yes, Nick Clegg was the best again, mostly because all the points he made were reinforced a second later by Cameron who seemed to unknowingly repeat them.

I like Gordon Brown. Sure, he sent the country a little tits up but for the amount of shit he must put up with everyday, along with his sort of lost dog persona, I do quite like him. In the last debate, he got the "best line winner" with his remark "you can't airbrush your policies like you do to your posters" to David Cameron. That was pure gold.

This week he takes it again, though I'm not quite sure with which one. His first one was something to the tune of "You two remind me of my little boys squabbling at bathtime" to the other two, which made me laugh, but I think the best one must have been, on the subject of Trident missiles I believe, simply "Nick. Get real". Just brilliant.

Imma goin' to Germany

Let's go fishing for a dream,
Let's find some place new,
Somewhere we can be ourselves,
Some of the time ..

I read the other day that the above song is one of David Tennant's favourites. I enjoy it too, so in my eyes that makes me 'next doctor' material. Just saying.

I feel like absolute shite today. I'm somewhere in that purgatory-esque transitional period between normal health and full blown stay-in-bed illness, where you just have a headache and want to puke all the time and your temperatures all fucked up and goes between red hot and freezing in a matter of minutes. Luckily though, I have the support of my housemates, the nicest gesture of friendliness being "Max, stay the fuck away from me." So I'm holed up in my room with chocolate and a pile of essays.

I got an email from the British Council the other day (see my earlier post here) and it seems that in September I'm Rheinland-bound. For those of you not in the know, this is in South-West Germany and involves castles and rivers and forests and Germans, as far as I'm aware. Dishearteningly, I know no-one else going to Rheinland - all other friends managed somehow to stay in a big group in Nordrhein-Westphalia. Admittedly its right above the Rheinland-Palatinate where I am, but its gonna seem a million miles when I'm struggling on in a German state I apparently have all to myself. In another display of kindness, my housemates did their best to dispel my loneliness anxieties:

Me, worried - "Do you guys know anyone going to Rheinland?"

Dora, in all sincerity - "Yeah, you."

Ta for that.

I'm in the introduction to a 6000 word essay (230 words in) entitled "Critically evaluate the use of children’s drawings as a research tool." If anyone can help with this in any way, shape or form then facebook me and bestow your wisdom upon me. I've got a wicked intro on the go, and now I'm stuck for ideas.

S*x and Sh*t

Over the sea and far away,
She's waiting like an Iceberg,
Waiting to change ..

This is brilliant. I've just been browsing some stuff on the net and come across this, a DVD player with a built-in child friendly filter thing.

This bit comes straight from the website.

Our ClearPlay DVD Player FILTERS OUT all UNWANTED CONTENT
across 14 separate categories:

• Strong Action Violence: Removes excessive violence, including fantasy violence.
• Gory/Brutal Violence: Removes brutal and graphic violent scenes.
• Disturbing Images: Removes gruesome and other disturbing images.
• Sensual Content: Removes highly suggestive and provocative situations and dialogue.
• Crude S*xual Content: Removes crude s*xual language and gestures.
• N*dity: Removes n*dity, including partial and risque art n*dity.
• Explicit S*xual Situations: Removes explicit s*xual dialogue, sound and activity.
• Vain Reference to Deity: Removes vain or irreverent reference to God or a deity.
• Crude Language and Humor: Removes crude language and bodily humor.
• Ethnic and Social Slurs: Removes ethnically or socially offensive insults.
• Cursing: Removes profane uses of "h*ll" and "d*mn."
• Strong Profanity: Removes swear-words, including strong profanities such as "a**" and "s***".
• Graphic Vulgarity: Removes graphic vulgarities, including "f***."
• Explicit Drug Use: Removes vivid scenes of illegal drug use.

I love the way that even on the website, any words that could be construed as potentially offensive have been asterisk-ed out.

What does it mean ' "strong profanities such as "ass"? Since when has ass ever really been a word that falls into some crudely offensive category? And in a film as well? Some poor sod could just be discussing his donkey.

So this invention basically means that outside of Disney films and The Sound of Music, the film world is a closed door. That list pretty much boycotts Hollywood as we know it.


"Yeah, I watched Lord of the Rings, Kill Bill, Trainspotting, and American History X this weekend. Great films but they only lasted 2 minutes each."

Arnie vs. Nature.

When you smoke all my weed man,

You gotta call the Green man,
So I can get mine and you get yours ..

Another template change! Yes, this one's a winner. Hopefully this one doesn't contrast too much with any other webpages you might be looking at and hurting your eyes.

So whats with this Icelandic cloud eh? They've said it could be a another 4 or 5 days before European and Scandinavian airspaces become clear again and its relatively safe to fly again. I think this would make a great premise for an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, where he fights Iceland (The country and the volcano, not Kerry Katona, because that would be shit). It would probably involve him eating the evil, plane destroying ash with his bare teeth, and there'd be lots of old school Arnie violence, where people are killed for the sake of being killed.

Arnie and his friends arrive at Reykjavik

He'd get his own share of decent one-liners too, as ever. After killing everyone in Iceland, he'd dive into the live volcano from above and say something like "Sorry for dropping in". And then kill everyone in the volcano. Except in Arnold voice, which is hard to imitate in a font. And the penultimate scene would probably have him ending with a line such as "Try disrupting THIS airspace!" and destroying the volcano with a grenade that had the pin pulled with his teeth. Then he'd blow away all the ash onto a crap country like Krgyzstan or Kuwait or North Korea. And the final final line would be corny and inspirational: "You could say that no more jet planes will be destroyed by this volcanic ash, and you would be correct in doing so! Hasta la Vista, baby."

Arnie prepares to face the volcano.

Helmed by Ridley Scott, this will be a great film.

I'd also like to draw attention to another blog, as it already contains some nice stuff, and will probably increase over coming weeks. This girl is excellent and no mistake.

http://hayleylouisesmith.blogspot.com/

Changes ..

Who are we,

A State of Mind,
Funky with the rhymes and positively inclined ..

Brief, fairly self explanatory update for you! The blog is now blue, at the request of Ruthy, to save your eyes from the harsh contrast of the previous template as you flicked between this and facebook. There were a couple of other templates with better colours but they all had some major flaw, like putting all the info on the left or in a weird font or some other silly drawback. So its the same template, but blue. Accept it you ingrates.

And, while browsing the 'settings' tab, I managed to fix the godawful time settings of the blog, so I can now post all entries in GMT UK immediately, as opposed to having to go back afterwards to alter the 'time of post', which had been set as 'GMT Pacific Island' or something like that. Hurray.

Whats that? Llamas doing it?

Politics and potential con-men.

Oh the Dashboard melted,
but we still have the radio ..

Oh man, exciting updates today! What a lot of things have happened.

Thankyou all firstly for the feedback for the last post. Judging by the responses of at least 10 of you, I should stop starting arguments on the Internet with myself. Noted.

Ok, so what's happened today? Well, for the last few weeks we've had notices plastered to our front door with masking tape heralding the bankruptcy of our landlords and the consequent imminent passing of landlordial powers to a group called Countrywide Managing Agents. It seems very swish and professional, but we're now becoming more and more skeptical. When I went to see our current landlords, they didn't give anything away in the arena of 'we have no money left, why are you still here?', but maybe thats just that. Either way, we have skepticism and will do our best not to be scammed. Is it normal practise for a new landlord to ask the occupants of a house how many kitchens and bathrooms they have? Surely that information would be available from the previous landlords?

Such are the pitfalls of student living.

Another area of today that seems to be attracting me some negative feedback (the crowning comment currently being "bad max!!! BAD!!!") was my meeting with the Prime Minister. We met for lunch to discuss the economy and play some Call of Duty together.

Thats not true. No, there was a small crowd and a gathering of onlookers by the Radisson hotel in Leeds, alongside an ungodly police presence. So I stood and watched for a bit, and then a very smart car pulled up with a grey 4x4, and would you know it? Out of the hotel came Gordon Brown.

He turned towards the little group where I was standing, smiled for some cameras, and I suddenly realised that lots of people around me were screaming for his attention and thrusting their hands forwards. And so, in-keeping with my herd mentality complex, to the friendly hollers of "The public doesn't want you!" by some bloke standing at the back .. I stuck my hand out. And he shook it, and smiled at me. And, under the watchful eye of an armed guard, I suppressed all racing thoughts of 'but .. but .. you ballsed up our economy ..' and smiled back. And that was it. Max's political adventure 2010.

Armed guards? What would be the point of assassinating Gordon Brown? You only have to stick it out for less than a month and he'll be gone. That confused me.

I like to imagine that the first idea I suggested might one day come true. The one where I meet with Gordon Brown in person to play Modern Warfare online with him. It would probably be in London, maybe even at Downing Street. I'd wager he gets very good internet there. He'd probably have his own mini-bar, too.

Me: Hey Gordon, do you want a shot?

Gordon: That sounds excellent! A great idea in the stressful run-up to the election.

Me: Yeah, well, start up Call of Duty while I get us a drink.

Gordon: Gotcha.

I move behind the mini-bar.

Me: So Gordon, whats the deal with fixing the economy? That went tits up, right? You admit that?

I return with 4 shots of Tequila

Gordon: Oh come on! I tried to regulate the banks.

We drink

Gordon: Its not my fault that they all wanted to be free of regulation. Silly fuckers.

Me: Language, Gordon. But come on, some of it was your fault, right?

Gordon: Fine, yes. Yes it was.

We play.

Me: Ahh, I knew it. And you're going to stop blaming 3rd parties, like US regulators and international watchdogs for our failed economy?

Gordon (sullen, grumpy): Yeah, I guess so.

Me: And you admit tha- ooh, good shot! - you admit that the scrapping of the 10p tax was a pretty crap move as well, yeah?

Gordon: Yeah, whatevs.

Me: Good lad. Any other new developments? Y'know, the family? 'Hug a hoodie' and all that jazz?

Gordon: Dude, seriously. That's Cameron's gig.

A few moments silence. We continue to play.

Me: You realise you probably won't win the next election and you're legacy is how balls the UK has become, just like Tony Blair?

Gordon: Jesus, get me another drink.



This may or may not be a fictional occurence.

Streams of thought.

Lay down your head,
And show me if you like it,
Lend me your ears,
And read me like a book ..

The news has really been kicking off this week, which is nice. For starters, we have the general election coming up on the 6th, the day where the Tories will most likely re-take power after 25 years. I expect we'll see a marked rise in the number of photos of politicians hugging babies over the next few weeks.

Oh, and everyones started killing each other in Kyrgyzstan.

Where, sorry?

Yeah, I've no idea either.

One of those crap former Soviet Bloc countries?

Yeah, it'll be one of them.

Where they kill each other.

I think I'm spewing this entry out to try and avoid doing my pile of essays. I've been sat looking at this "New Post" page for about 20 minutes, to no avail. A mental block has hit me.

I'm considering getting a haircut again. I seem to be having quite a lot more than usual recently.

Theres always a bit of trepidation about going to the hairdressers. They can ruin your day. Hell, they can ruin your week.

What with their razors, if they so please, they can ruin the next few months for you. So, the next time you hear someone say "Hairdressers? What can they possibly do? They're hairdressers", you can respond with "Mate, those guys have power. They have razors. They can ruin your entire week."

I'm gonna try and drag this out as long as I can.

I'm beginning to think I should have trusted my trusty instinct.

Don't blog, Max. You have things to do.

End it now, just click 'publish post' and be done with it.

Is it even worth it this time round?

Post it, it's just your fucking blog! Stupid and pointless.

Okay, maybe not stupid. Pointless perhaps. Humorous occasionally?

Yeah, but not this post.

Well, thats the issue. Should I post this?

Do it! No-one gives a toss if you do or not!

Yeah, but if its a really balls entry, then people looking at this for the first time will be put off. Hell, I might even lose one of my 4 followers.

Jesus, push the fucking button.

Do I curse too much on here? I curse quite a bit in real life, is this a proportional online reflection?

I don't know where my rise in cursing has come from. I never used to be this curseful. My old flatmate cursed a lot. I love you, Sam. I guess my parents don't curse a great deal. My dad does, occasionally, maybe its that. It seems an odd influence though seeing as its not a frequent occurence.

I blame you, University. I blame you for my profanity.

Ok, you should really stop now. You're beginning to sound silly. People reading this are gonna be really confused and might judge you for it.

Yeah, but this is only a blog. If people judge you for stuff you put online, thats retarded.

Right, now that is offensive. You said in a previous entry that you were cutting down on that word. Once is forgivable, after that people will start thinking its mean.

What about saying 'special needs' then?

That would probably make people feel uncomfortable.

Makes people uncomfortable? That's just gay. Why would people with special needs be avid readers of my blog anyway?

Ok, now thats doubly offensive. We're shading homophobia now as well.

Should I get rid of that bit?

Yes, definitely.

Nah, fuck it. No-ones gonna have read this far, certainly not someone retarded with a short attention span.

Mate, seriously.

I don't know anyone with special needs anyway, it's fine. And if I did that wouldn't make them eligible for a complimentary mention in this blog.

You really must stop now. Look, theres a 6000 word essay waving at you from the corner.

Tell it to go fuck itself. I'll be with it when I have a minute.

Peace out.

Burnt mouths and crap magazines.

All the souvenirs

In my memories
Got me ruining my soul ..

I reckon I burn my mouth about twice a week. I'm a fucking idiot. Last night I did it twice. First on Chinese food, then on a kebab (I'm really healthy). It's a pretty annoying trait, as other people around me will be eating piping hot stuff, and I know I'm gonna get burned, but I don't want to sit there and look a tit so I eat it to try and prove how manly I am, and then my mouth is scorched.

I honestly do this on a regular basis. And all of a sudden, in the aftermath, my wise inner self kicks in to scold me. "Whoa! Burned the mouth, huh?" And sadly I reply to my inner self "Yes. Again." And then my inner self lays down the law. "Stop eating such hot food. You are obviously a dick and can't handle your food temperature."

We were in Huddersfield last night, which is where most of the mouth-burning took place. I'm also unnecessarily knackered today because we did a 9 mile trek home through the countryside in the small hours of the morning, as opposed to taking the road route and cutting out about 2 hours. Courtesy of Alex Johnson.

This boy's sense of direction is rubbish.

I was in a pub toilet last night, and there was a magazine on the floor which piqued my curiosity. I forget which one it was, something like OK or Hello! but even shitter. A lot of the content and headlines got me thinking though. If I'd had less to drink, I could have given you the real content and probably remembered a lot more important facts, but I can't, so you'll have to use your imagination.

The front page was about a celebrity - my gut feeling tells me it was Kate Winslet, but I can't be sure - with a picture of a young boy, with a headline something like 'giving kids a normal life amongst fame - exclusive'. I can't remember.

Interestingly though, it seems phase 1 of giving your famous-by-association child a normal life is by having their face plastered across the front of a national publication. Smart move. If this poor kid continues down the route of many before him, it'll be a case of 'lets remove any hint of normalcy from this child's life so that 30 years from now they can write a heartfelt autobiography showcasing the achievements of their now frail and incompetent parent(s).'

Oh, the joys of fame.

But, the magazine got even better! Further on there was the agony aunt section, with some classics. The message that I remember was from some girl somewhere in the world, to the effect of 'my boyfriend wants me to give him oral sex, but I don't like doing it. He says this shows I don't love him. What should I do?'.

The response was naturally pretty logical. You know the ones - you are your own woman, no-one can tell you what you should or shouldn't do. I thought that was a nice sentiment. And then, over the page, an article to the tune of '10 ways to suck off your man so he'll never leave you'. Classic.

Martyrdom

Oh, I've seen fire and I've seen rain,
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end,
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend,
But I always thought that I'd see you again ..

So it turns out that the two Moscow Suicide bombers were two upstanding young women whose relatives were recently killed by the Russian armed forces. Yes, they were a bit messed up but my question today is this: We all know that your classic suicide bomber is promised 72 virgins when he blows himself up, but what are female suicide bombers promised? Yeah, they'll get the martyr status and all, but what else can they expect from the afterlife? A load of guy virgins hardly has the same appeal. Nerdy high school kids eagerly waiting their arrival? At least a calendar with some sexy firemen, right?

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Stupid terrorists.

There was also this in the news recently .. "Professor James Lovelock, the man who achieved global fame for his theory that the whole earth is a single organism, has said it is too late to try and save the planet."

No shit Sherlock. And on the same intellectual level, I predict that there will be a marked rise in Christmas Tree sales in December. Idiot.

And would you know it? Panda's shagging!

Egyptian Day

They would not listen,
they did not know how,
perhaps they'll listen now ..

Earlier today, I was standing in a room. Sometimes I do that. All of a sudden I felt my phone start to vibrate in my right front pocket. I reached into the pocket to answer it. The pocket isn't large, so it didn't take long to realize I had no phone on my person. 'Twas in my bag. I am randomly vibrating. Perhaps I should see a doctor.

This week I am a classroom assistant, in preparation for what will be expected of me in Germany come September. This means that I get to sit with small children of varying degrees of likability and prove to both them and myself that they're better at maths and science than I am. Not english though; any kid that tries to outdo me on that will be slaughtered. Not literally of course, but some form of verbal smackdown will be delivered.

Today however was exempt from lessons and teaching, because it was EGYPTIAN DAY. Yeah! So we did Egyptian themed stuff, which included me wearing a rubber turban and one of those middle eastern man-dress tunic things, which must have been nice for all the members of staff who'd never met me before. I'll put a picture up when I can be arsed. I was told I looked quite Egyptian indeed. I feel I looked more like a Sikh suicide bomber.

Back on track - today we made paper mache Egyptian mummies and clay 'tomb treasures' and sugar cube pyramids (children are easily amused, it seems) and little models of Ancient Egyptian water-carrying things called something like a Skidu or a Snafu or something like that. I can't remember. Oh and then we had pyramid biscuits and milk.

When the kids had gone and we'd finished clearing up all the crap they'd left lying around, I had the biggest blast from the past in a long time. Anyone remember the Magic Key books? Biff and Chip and Kipper and Floppy the dog? No? Well, I read them all again today. And it was awesome. And then I tried to log onto facebook on the classroom computer, and was met with the infamous "This site has been blocked. Please speak to an Administrator" that I thought I'd seen the back off when I left 6th form.

Oh, the nostalgia.

And finally, my thoughts go out to all those caught up in the bombings in Moscow today. These terrorists are scum.

The Midlands have exotic animals too

Travelling swallowing Dramamine,
Feeling spaced breathing out Listerine ..

I'm in Birmingham at the moment, for the first time ever. I'm feeling rather sedate, which is odd given that I'm here with the old housemates and Uni's all finished for Easter and whatnot, but hopefully I can recount recent events and happenings with an appropriate degree of enthusiasm. After a drive involving traffic jams, pick 'n' mix, road rage and stops at service stations because Dora needed another wee, we made it to Solihull, "the posh bit".

I've kipped in 2 houses and met a multitude of housemate relatives and can say with conviction that Birmingham is a safe place to visit. It doesn't seem to have the same plethora of weirdo's that I've encountered in the North, nor does it have the wondrous yet confusingly dangerous Tube system of the South.

This may be just me, but personal experience of the Tube has been less than peachy.

Our craving for fun today led us to a garden centre-y thing that sold interesting things like Coi carp and reptiles and other strange animals. Depressingly, having given a lot of thought to visiting exotic places and seeing the wildlife, the place that I first saw a real chameleon eat a live locust with its tongue was in a Birmingham garden centre. It didn't really detract from the experience, I just didn't expect to see it while standing with a brummy bloke in a polo shirt with a garden centre logo. I also didn't think the chameleon would appear from a glass box with "Not for sale, the manager's pet" daubed on it.

There were also some fuck-off spiders in tubs, which gave me more of a reaction of "oh shit" as opposed to "yay" like the over-enthusiastic kid who was also having a gander.

Young man, you're celebrating the presence of an 8 legged hairy thing that could kill you with a bite and would turn a lot of people in this room, myself included, into absolute wrecks. Save your enthusiasm for elsewhere. Go and look at the tropical fish section. Also, Kellie? If you're reading this mate, then this garden centre is a no-go for you. Oh, and that thing I said about big spiders in Bordeaux was a lie. I'm sorry.

Tea is being prepared now. My offers to help have been turned down on a basis that wasn't really explained to me, which I still don't really understand myelf. I wasn't even allowed to help chop the carrots for Christ's sake.

Your feeble skills are no match for the power of the Vatican

Jambo!
Jambo bwana!
Habari gani?
Mzuri sana ..

A small number of tests undertaken recently have led me to believe that it's physically impossible to listen to that song and feel unhappy. It's a Kenyan song that they seem to enjoy, and it stirs up all the memories of June 2009 and makes me fuzzy inside.

Praise fortuitous circumstance! The sun's come back! After god knows how long of having snow, rain, and that half-arsed mix of the two that didn't really know what it wanted to be, there is now sun again. Not even misleading sun, even. Like the one that appears and makes it look nice and warm when it is in fact still really bastard cold. This means that the often-considered-but never-used idea of thermal underwear can be sent back to the drawing board. The reason for the idea of thermals was that regular pants just don't cut it. The cold spell we've just had had a crafty habit of sneaking right up your leg and grabbing at your balls. Jack Frost is a fucking pervert.

We had a good debate a short while ago about which people in my house would be the best Pope. We concurred ultimately that none of us are cut out for the job, as none of us have unhealthy attractions to choir boys and the whole 'sex before marriage is a mortal sin' aspect hasn't really worked out so far. Oh yeah, and the whole atheism thing. But, I'd still like one of them pope-mobiles. Who cares anyway? I mean, the Pope? Pure comedy gold. I'd like to shake the hand of the caveman who came up with that one.

I have the approval of the Elders.

They tried to make me go to rehab,
I said no, no, no ..

Yes, another (brief) update! Two entries in as many hours, you cry? No-one can live at that speed!

It seems the British Council, who I like to imagine as a group of people sitting round a very big round table wearing a variety of ludicrous outfits and monocles, all smoking, have approved my application to be a language assistant in Germany, come September.

"Fuck me!" I cried to the world, "I have achieved something!"

Whether or not it goes ahead is unknown, but if all alse fails, I'm at least guaranteed a place on a waiting list. So go me.

Droooool.

We only said good-bye with words,
I died a hundred times,
You go back to her
And I go back to black ..

Oh man, I'm tired now. It was our presentation at 9am this morning, the one we've been pushing back for the best part of 4 weeks that we only started a couple of days ago. I'd kill for a nap right now. But then I'd probably feel all guilty for killing someone for something as simple as a nap, and it would probably stop me sleeping. Plus I'm not sure killing anyone would ever result in getting a nap. You couldn't kill someone and get sleep. Well, you could kill someone and then go to sleep, but you wouldn't sleep comfortably. You could get an iPod from killing someone, but not sleep. You could get a bed and a pillow from the person you just killed as well I guess but the actual act of sleep would not be gotten from killing anyone. Am I making myself clear?

So yeah, don't kill someone and try to get a nap from them. Just take their iPod and phone.

Just in-keeping with the steady stream of internet crap that so often makes my day, have any of you seen an advert on facebook, its in there with the Mafia Wars adverts and stuff. I think they're for some kind of law firm. I forget, I've only seen it once. It has a picture of a baby on it and it says, "We fight for kids with brain damage." The baby in the picture is this little black kid with drool coming out of its mouth. Anyone else seen it? I assume drool is the first symptom of brain damage. That and googly eyes.

Anyhoo, the other day it appeared for the first time on my profile and I just happened to glance at it very quickly, not really taking it in, and thought it said "We fight kids with brain damage". I got a big chuckle out of that one. I'm still suppressing the disturbing image of a bunch of lawyers laying into a brain damaged child and beating the drool out of him.

As an endnote and a barely disguised bit of advertising/suggestion, I've just rediscovered the filmic gems that are 28 Days/28 Weeks Later. Especially the 2nd one, as I haven't seen that one as much. Watch them both. Very good material for potential drinking games before a night out. Drink every time you think to yourself 'Wow, this is one of the best pieces of cinema ever made'. Contrastingly, you could watch Snakes on a Plane and drink each time you wonder 'Why the fuck did they ever make this?'. On both counts, you'll be pissed in under 10 minutes.

Desert elephants

Where do we go, nobody knows,
I've gotta say I'm on my way down,
God give me style and give me grace,
God put a smile upon my face ..

I was at home again this weekend, having worked mothers day. It seemed a fairyly uneventful shift, which is strange for such a busy occasion, but that might have been because I was so god-damned tired. I forget how many hours I'd been awake for, but it was certainly well over 24. I was probably just nodding off a lot and missing important things, but I was split into the tips so I managed to do something right.

Hmmm. I thought I had more to say in this entry. I'll reach for things.

One of the weirder things about being really tired and sleeping at home after weeks in Leeds was the dreams I had. Probably because I'm over there so often, being in a different bed, even at home, feels kinda weird. You know when you sleep in a room or a bed other than your usual one, when you wake up without provocation, look around, wonder where the hell you are and hope to God your pants are still on? Yeah, it was like that.

In the first dream I was moving to Saudi Arabia, for reasons unknown, and was asking a travel agent what to do about a group of elephants in the desert. Y'know, desert elephants? The second, very nerve-racking one I recall, saw me in the aftermath of breaking one of the faces on Mt. Rushmore, and me being very worried about it. I've been striving all day to remember how I did it and which president it was, to no avail.

I also got another cracking spam email today, definitely up there in the top 10, alongside the blood clots and erectile dysfunction ones. This one was some corrupt online personals site, and the email contained what I assume was an example profile, which was a girl with a photo of her in a wedding dress. The description was "Don't be fooled by the dress! I just think I look good in that photo. (The marriage was a disaster!)"

So you have no better photos than of one from your failed wedding day? How about one of you at your gynaecologist's? Maybe one of you being given an ASBO? One of you at the park with your 11 year old daughter? A publicity photo from the Jeremy Kyle show - "I'm Not Your Baby's Father; Paternity Tests Revealed" perhaps?

I'll stop there.

I passed through Huddersfield today on my journey back to Leeds. There were people near the station handing out leaflets - "Stop the Suffering: Save Haiti." They're having some kind of meeting apparently; in the girls own words "It's going to be historic." Maybe so, and I'm all about preventing earthquakes, but I'm trying to get to Leeds! Don't kill my buzz, hippie! A woman near me however mentioned that the meeting sounded quite an interesting idea, but her boyfriend commented that he didn't want to save the Haitians on a Monday afternoon. The girl and I both agreed; mondays are the beginnings of busy weeks.

I'll save the world at the weekend.