Britain + Christmas = Lunacy

Picture Munich on December 23rd. The Germans know what snow is about. They know that if it snows you put chains on your tyres and drive normally, you won't crash and die. They know that the shops close for a single day, and that it makes no difference to their lives. They know to do their Christmas shopping before the last weekend when the shops generally have sod all inside them.

Now picture London. None of the above applies because us Brits are not quite as sensible as the Germans.

What makes me say this? Well today I decided to venture to Tesco today to pick up a few bits and pieces. Holy hell was that a mistake. Not only did it take me 15 minutes to get into the Tesco complex, but then I should've really attached ice skates to the wheels of my car to deal with the car park. Somehow I managed to pirouette the car into a space and walked inside Tesco.

You know the scenes in Africa when a UN truck draws up with food and drink etc. whereby thousands of hands grab at whatever they can get? Tesco looked like this. It was absolute chaos. The humble shopping trolley turned into a fairground bumper car. The PA system kept telling everyone in the most patronising voice possible that 'Tesco would be closed on Christmas Day'.

And didn't the shoppers just know it.

From the way people were throwing stuff in their trolley with such delirious abandonment, you'd have thought they were stocking up to survive some kind of Nuclear War. It was absolutely mental. And what with the snow, people could have been snowed in (you can't tell but I'm writing this in a slightly sarcastic tone, just a small heads up) and wouldn't have been able to go to the shops for TWO DAYS. As my slightly mentally retarded friend from Uni would say: 'Ludicrous'

Oh and a quick mention about the Mark Hughes sacking, I thought it was probably the right move. When you spend £200m and can't win, your head's on the line. And did anyone else think the phrase '"Sheikh Mansour and the board felt that there..."' sounds a bit 'Bond-villain' like. Maybe it's just me, but I can just imagine Mark Hughes falling through a trap door into a shark tank rather than leaving the City of Manchester Stadium.

I love my imagination sometimes...

When You Were Young.

I found a remarkable news story on the BBC's website today that has a significant importance to me. Despite coming to the end of my teens, I still look like I should be half way through them. Which is fine now that I have my ID, and at the end of day, millions of people spend billions of Pounds on looking young, so who am I to complain when I get Garnier's best face cream for absolutely sod all.

The story goes that some Danish scientist has come up with the theory that people who look young for their age live longer.

Now I'm not being ignorant here, but doesn't that kind of go without saying?

Professor Kaare Christensen's (not exactly the most stereotypical Scandinavian surname) research consisted of taking twins and seeing which one died first (nice...). The results showed that it was generally the older-looking twin that died first. Obviously the subjects were all in their twilight years (70's/80's, and no they weren't vampires/werewolves with allergic reactions to shirts).

Crude as it may sound, apparently there's some science behind this. Each human is blessed with DNA strands called telomeres, and generally, people who have younger looking faces have longer telomeres. Shorter telomeres are linked to rapid ageing and lots of diseases. Interesting stuff, indeed I for one was simply jumping around at this news. To have been born with Indiana Jones' Holy Grail (not Dan Brown's one which is just some triangles) and potentially have a longer life is nothing short of b-e-a-utiful.

Then you remember the Americans are killing the ice-caps and I probably won't reach my 50th birthday because my house will be underwater as part of some kind of 'New Atlantis'. And having a face as fresh as Joe McElderry's ain't gonna save you from Mother Nature.

An Advent-ful month

I love advent calendars. I love the audacity of them. They sit there on your kitchen table, staring at you and saying 'Yes, you may have run 10k every day and pumped iron for the last year, but let's face it, you're not getting through this month without stuffing your face full of my lovely chocolate.'

Yes, most of us buy them because of the pretty pictures on the front instead of the quality of the chocolate. I've got some Kinnerton branded rubbish simply because I get a 'Stig' keyring on Christmas morning. If Cadbury could be bothered to give us a chocolate on Christmas morning they would corner the entire advent calendar market. But no, Cadbury customers (despite enjoying a month of superior chocolate to every other advent calendar) wake up on Christmas morning very disappointed. And the people who's advent calendar is so basic it doesn't even have foil in it, well, the only thing I can suggest is a noose and a letter to your family.I suppose in a way they're some sort of preparation for the slog ahead. I mean, lets face it, apart from Christmas when else do you buy industrial amounts of Celebrations and Miniature Heroes?

Yes Christmas is a time to get the hole punch to put a new hole in your belt, the time where Nan and Grandad slave over a Christmas Dinner on Boxing Day only to have half a carrot and a bit of stuffing between them, and all the other wonderful cliches that go with this most festive season. I, personally can't wait, and expect many other Christmas-themed blogs in the coming weeks.

I just wish the Coca-Cola trucks looked like the advert in real life...

3D-lightful?

A pack of Pringles is how it all started. That's all I wanted from Sainsburys one rainy day back in November. I came out however with about 7 pairs of 3D glasses for Channel 4's 3D week hoping to watch Simon throw up on Carly's brother in 3D or maybe John Snow reporting the news with literally every wrinkle visible in the 3rd dimension. What I got however was some half-baked nonsense that was probably put together in about 14 seconds.

Not a great way to begin the 3D revolution.

What did Channel 4's 3D lineup include on its first night? Some footage from the 1950's of the Queen's Coronation and a Derren Brown programme that was so tacky it reminded me of the shit magicians on an unmade road in the Canary Islands. The fact the 1950's footage was a better 3D image than the Derren Brown show pretty much sums it up to be honest. And so after my very first experience with 3D telly, I threw all my 3D glasses in the bin.

I thought this was it. Colour. LCD. HD. 3D? It was surely a natural progression for tellies. Apparently not. You see, at the moment it's just not a feasible way of watching the box. For starters, you need the technology. And paper glasses with red and blue lenses do not count as technology, seeing as how I used to get a pair free in my Coco Pops about 10 years ago. If you've been to see a 3D movie at the cinema recently, you'll notice the 3D glasses are pretty much normal classes with clear lenses, which provides a much clearer 3D image than the red/blue cardboard ones.

Then there's the TV. I imagine many people were watching the footage from 3D week on Channel 4 on their 14' CRT (the big fat tellies for you techno simpletons) portable box wondering why the 3D image was a bit naff. Even I was struggling to find a 3D image on my 26' Sony LCD. The thing is, proper 3D TV is going to come at a massive cost. Prepare to be inundated with 3D tellies next year from the big players such as Sony, Panasonic and LG, and don't expect to see the prices much below £3k.

Of course, the World Cup is to be broadcast in 3D, so I can imagine many punters will rush out like mad 3D-craving loonies just to see Cristiano Ronaldo's leg snapped quite literally in front of your face. The thing is, the first 3D TVs will have to be good, because technologies improve over their lifespan. The first HDTV's were fine because all of them were better than standard definition. The first colour TV's were fine because they had more colour than black and white TV's. But for three grand, I would want a damn sight better 3D-ness than what I witnessed from Channel 4. And then how do you improve over the next few years? I mean, there's only so far I'd want Adrian Chiles popping out of the T.V...

Cooking With Dan

Well, I've realised after a rather dull evening that I could replace Ainsley Harriott on Ready Steady Cook if this whole journalism thing goes a bit tits up. Don't believe me? Watch this:

Today Is A New Chapter In My Life

Like a movie trailer with explosions, epic operatic music and awful one liners, the title of this particular blog post suggests so much, yet is actually a bit of a disappointment.

I have a new favourite album.

No it is not Metallica.

No it is not Rage Against the Machine

It is Superunknown by Soundgarden.

I just listened to it all and wondered why I never proclaimed my love for it.

That's all changing.

I love it.

So much.

So much so it's affecting my blog formatting.

F.A.B Virgil? My wooden puppet arse...

I was reminiscing earlier about all the wonderful Christmas toys I had. One that I hold dear to my heart is Tracey Island. I remember my parents fighting through the queues of Toys'r'us to acquire the 'must-have toy' so their little son wouldn't go without. I loved Thunderbirds, and so when I watched the live-action film the other day, it made me realise how absolutely terrible this film is. Yes, this is indeed a film review:

This is what happens when Americans get hold of something beloved and oh so quintessentially British. The Thunderbirds of the 1960's are without doubt one of the finest TV series the British have put their minds to. 50 minutes of disaster filled TV with puppets whose hands would magically transform into fully fleshed mitts able to operate all kinds of futuristic leavers. The audaciousness of the plots and settings were every little boys dream. Who didn't want to turn themeself into a wooden puppet, just so they could shoot Thunderbird 1 around the globe at 15,000mph? Ok, so im getting a bit nostalgic. But, when presented with such filth, you can't help but wonder what might have been.

So basically, Alan Tracey is at high school and is nodding off (much like the reviewer). Then out of nowhere, Lady Penelope comes flying out the sky in her Ford Rolls Royce (?) and whisks him off to Tracey Island. There, Alan learns of an evil plot by Ben Kingsley and his sidekicks that are so stereotypical it's like they're deliberately mocking themeselves. This evil plan consists of robbing the Bank of England of all its money and then hoping to escape somewhere using the Thunderbird's vehicles as cover. It eventually winds up........

........yeah you get it. Typical American shit. The Americans steal our basic concept, give it a big smothering of nothing, and then steal OUR money. It enrages you further when Bill Paxton is running operations at Tracey HQ. I mean, the guy couldnt even capture the Enigma code book in U-571 without dying. I mean, its not like the Americans had anything to do with capturing that book is it....?

Back to the film. So we have an 'impressive' debut performance from Brady Corbet, who is probably about as wooden as the puppet he replaces. Every scene he has a silly gurning expression (think Jar Jar Binks) on his face which means you can't take him seriously, even when he's trying to deliver serious lines and the tried-and-tested morals of 'be yourself'.

Sophia Myles does try her hardest to resurrect this car crash of a motion picture. I'm not at all being biased because she's British, it's just she's the only one who looks comfortable in-character as the fabulous Lady P. There's an air of old-fashioned British charm about her, like the puppets themselves. Speaking of car-crashes, Ford has a substantial say in this film, with literally every frame having the Ford logo dotted around everywhere your eyes can see. With the in-film news being sponsored by Ford, a Ford FAB 1 and various other Ford logo's in virtually every close-up, I was surprised to see someone other than Ford CEO's directing this picture.

I'm also surprised this has been named Thunderbirds because there are so many things wrong with it, they might as well have called it 'Stingray'. Firstly, Alan Tracey pilots Thunderbird 3, not 4 like at the end of the film. Then there's the age of the characters, with Alan, TinTin and that Ferret kid being teenagers whereas they should be fully fledged adults (and Ferret shouldn't even exist). Finally they break the key Thunderbirds rule in this film which is never get filmed by news crews etc. In the film, Jeff Tracey simply ravishes in the limelight whereas the real Jeff Tracey should be at home coordinating all of International Rescues relations. In other words, you begin to wonder if any of the people making the film actually knew what Thunderbirds was (that includes the evil dictators from Ford)

So this film is a complete disaster. And for people who knew and loved the original TV series, watching this film is like having your heart ripped out then thrown about like an American football. It's like one of those horrible Saturday morning kids shows set in an American high school. Shallow, not funny, alienating adults and generally feeling like a complete waste of time. Of course the adolescent American audience which this film is OBVIOUSLY aimed at will love, considering their only past experience of a Thunderbird is what their grandparents used to drive. Even that's a goddamn Ford......

A Man and His Mop

No I have not suddenly become emotionally attached to any cleaning equipment or anything else with handles (i.e. THAT broom I once danced with at a party whilst under the influence).

It's been about 3 months since I last had my haircut. I can see most of you going 'big deal, I haven't had mine cut in years'. I'm really happy for you, but I've never had my hair long. Ever. It's always been rather short. Not bald short, but kind of like a garden lawn thats cut every week by someone who probably cares more about their lawn than they do their own appearance. And now the person who cuts his lawn has died. The garden is out of control. There are weeds everywhere and even the odd mole burrowing all over the lawn.

If that natural analogy hasn't worked, then basically, my hair's got long. The sides are all fuzzy, the back is about as organised as Wigan's defence and it's becoming annoying all round. I look at it in the morning with some 'VO5 Texturising Gum' and look stumped. 'How the hell am I meant to make this look presentable?'

Nevertheless, I am going to soldier on. The likelihood is it's not going to get cut for another month (unless it turns into Devil's Snare and starts attacking me) so I have no option but to keep it. It's kind of like a puppy in some ways. It shits on everything and makes things look a mess, but at the end of the day, it's yours, and for that, you can't help but love it.

Tactical Nuclear Blog

With Christmas and New Year coming up, I'm always left wondering a) what do I want for Christmas? and b) how do I get unbelievably drunk on New Year? Well, some Scottish folks may have just answered both of my conundrums.

You see, a brewery in Fraserburgh in Scotland named BrewDog have come up with a beer that has an alcohol content of 32%. The beer is stored for a year and a half and then chilled at -4 degrees celsius for about 48 hours and voila, a world-record breaking beer. So, what did these Scot's decide to name their sophisticated concoction?

Tactical Nuclear Penguin.

That's more like it. In a world of red tape and health and safety officers who've got a phD in 'being a dick', it's nice to know there's a company out there with a sense of humour. Hell, even the label is brilliant: 'This is an extremely strong beer; it should be enjoyed in small servings and with an air of aristocratic nonchalance'. And to top it off, BrewDog revealed their 'Nuclear' beverage to the world on the same day the Scottish parliament were discussing minimum prices on alcohol. Perfect time.

In other news, I now have Xbox Live set up in my room at Uni. I'm now currently waving my degree goodbye like passengers on the Titanic waving at the people left in Southampton's docks. Ah bliss.

Spleen Eggs and Jam

If you click on this blog half as much as you do on the Facebook link which is most likely to be saved under the 'Bookmark' (or Obsession) tab, you'll realise there is a rather large gap between this blog and my last. When you're faced with the prospect of a mountain of university work, Call of Duty and sleep, blogging just seemed to pass me by...

Which is why I am returning (not with a Vengence like in Die Hard, or Reloaded like in that crazy film franchise about who could wear the longest leather jacket) with a bang -albeit muted one seeing as it's nearly 2am and I have nearly as much alcohol in me as a date-rape victim.

A mixture of things have happened since my last blog. I've turned 19 (although still retained my 12 year-old face), seen the mighty Gillingham F.C play, sh*t my pants for the first time since I was 4 watching Paranormal Activity, annoyed the people who run my uni accommodation, done 2 large assessed pieces of journalism work, seen numerous amounts of old friends and so forth. Like I said, haven't exactly been sitting on my arse these last few weeks.

The point of this blog you may ask? Well, I'm feeling pretty angry at the fact I currently have army-themed face paint on that refuses to come off, to the point of convincing me to purchase a series of tools from B&Q in order to remove the damn things before lectures commence tomorrow. I'm also pretty annoyed at how Facebook has just become a competition to join the most pointless groups possible. I don't really care that everyone has joined 'Jedward hate groups', I already get a sh*t load of weekly updates about their progress every Sunday. But as far as groups go, this one has to be my favourite, for the sheer audacity and originality: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=338479045264&ref=search&sid=1100452792.2420460539..1

Over and out xD

MacLovin'

With the release of Windows 7 this week, Microsoft finally admitted that Vista was a complete disaster. Bill Gates and co. seemed to think the idea of 'bigger is better' was never going to end. What they ended up with was a bloated operating system that severely handicapped any computer without tip-top specs. I remember reading some of the horror stories of people upgrading their 3-year old XP computer to Vista. It sounded as though changing sex would be less painful.

Where am I going with this? Well, I can't believe it's taken me 18 years to turn the Mac side. Even when using my KidTech laptop which had 'Snake' on it when I was about 2, I always had a funny feeling that grass was greener with Apple. So I've been using my Mac for nearly 2 months, and where I expected to be bogged down in an alien operating system for a few months, I'm now flying round Snow Leopard with consummate ease.

My MacBook Pro wasn't preloaded with Snow Leopard, but it might as well have been considering the ease of upgrade. Whack the disc in, an hour and a computer restart later, and I was away. None of this horrendous Windows nonsense that 7 has provided to some poor customers.

So how is my MacBook Pro and Snow Leopard? Brilliant. Honestly, it may only be the base model, but it's lightning quick. 0-Facebook takes quite literally 30 seconds, and it's not crashed once in 2 months (A PC user would give his right testicle for stats like that). The iLife software that everyone raves about is as good as it sounds. I was banned from using GarageBand in an audio project because apparently, 'it gave me an advantage over everyone using [Adobe] Audition'. My point exactly. I'm looking forward to giving everyone a royal pasting with iMovie for video.

And the laptop itself? Beautiful. From the jizz-enducing LED screen to the orgasm-initiating backlit keyboard, it looks the absolute sh*t. Plus it's built like a Polish man's chin (it's strong if you didn't get the comparison).

There's very little I can fault about my Mac. Perhaps the only thing is the lack of compatibility for some of my favourite programs (Windows Messenger for Mac is pretty shocking). But that's not Apple's fault. Microsoft is jealous, so it deliberately makes it's programs for Mac as crap as possible in order to somehow taint the amazingness of Mac's. Well thats my theory anyway. PC bummers, try a Mac. I once thought Mac's were all flash and no substance, but sir, they ain't no more. Over and out xD

Reaction to Question Time and the BNP

It was pretty much compulsory for me to watch Question Time yesterday. Little did I realise that it would be like watching a man get stoned (not getting high haha) to death in the Middle East. Question Time turned into a coliseum, as an audience of crazed members of the public applauded everytime a blow was dealt to Nick Griffin, and quite literally, egged each other on to attack Griffin even further.

Now this may sound like I am defending Griffin and the BNP, but believe me, the last thing we need is a party with the potential to quite literally start a civil war between races, to be prominent in British politics. I just thought the way the people on the show conducted themselves was a bit, well, sh*t really.

Jack Straw used the whole thing to try and dump the massive pile of sh*t that's currently sitting on top of the Labour Party onto the BNP. He nearly cleared all the manure when he was asked about how Labour's immigration policy could have led to the rise of the BNP. He twisted and squirmed and didn't really give an answer. Let's get the shovel and put the sh*t back where it came from...

Then there was the audience. Rather than see what Griffin's views on postal strike/economy/other current issues, we got an entire hour dedicated to Griffin's shady past. By all means, interrogate him in to why he can feasibly think the Holocaust didn't exist, ask why he believes Britain should be 'colourless like the South Pole'. But then move on. All these people who are moaning today about how giving Griffin the limelight was a bad idea. Well, if maybe you hadn't dedicated the ENTIRE program to him like some kind of memorial, we may have come away from Question Time with something other than the image of the weird looking face of Griffin.

Now, I hate protestors at the best of times. I have absolutely no sympathy with any of them if they get hurt or injured by the police. But yesterday, to protest against a 'violent and racist organisation' with, ermmm, remind me again, oh yeah, VIOLENCE. Injuring policeman and creating scenes that look more like the battles in Lord of the Rings. Well done. I hope all you slacking hippies get thrown into some fascist-flavoured shark-infested water.

And now the big man himself, Mr. Griffin. Didn't do himself LOADS of favours yesterday. He mostly sat there whilst everyone around him just shouted stuff. I imagine he probably just turned his ears off after a while; I would have. There was something troubling though about Griffin's performance. He kept a fairly low profile, didn't say much, and the things he did say was to try and worm his way out of his previous actions. It was almost as though he was temporarily hiding his racist ways, like when a child cleans his room and just stuffs all his toys in the cupboards. His mum's always going to find the mess, and it may even be worse when she finds it. That's probably the worst analogy I could have come up with, but still. Who knows, but the backlash from yesterdays Question Time will be massive. Over and out xD

Sh*t It's Nearly Been A Week...

...since last post. Been a bit busy if I'm honest (blame Mr. Luckhurst and his team for throwing work at us left, right and centre) and just found a few spare moments to update you with stuff.

There seems to be a new act of public indecency on the rise, one which I've noticed a lot more at Uni. It courses horrific pain to the victim, and extreme pleasure for the criminal.

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I am of course talking about, the horror that is, the Facebook Rape.

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So far, homosexual activity on my account has risen tenfold. I have had 3 different male relationships in a week (probably how Steven Gaitley's ex is 'grieving'), told many different, newly acquired, female friends that 'I am horny for them' and how 'I jizzed myself' over one of their pictures, and changed my political stance from Conservative to 'Nazi'. Ha ha f*cking ha.

I actually enjoy this activity (not being a Nazi, don't worry), as it has given us 'chief rapers' (sounds like some kind of Red Indian sex offender) a sense of competition. Who can rape who the hardest...? I'll be honest, I've got some pretty sick ideas running around my head, all I need is access to their Facebook account...

In other news, despite having a 2,500 History of Journalism essay to start, I've found a few hours to be bored enough to Google my lecturers. Turns out they're a pretty talented bunch. But that still doesn't make them b*stards for swamping me with all this reading and work. Damn you BAFTA-winning, Scotsman editing, Guardian leader-ing lecturers...Over and out xD

The Greedy Bastards

It was announced today that the head of the CWU was angry at Royal Mail's decision to hire 30,000 temporary staff to cover the backlog of mail that is likely to build up thanks to the planned postal strikes.

The cheek.

Billy Hayes sat on Andrew Marr's couch this morning and spouted a load of nonsense about

how it'll 'devalue' the postal strike. Good, I hope it does. The only people who want it are a few

thousand posties and I think the majority of people in Britain are showing no sympathy

towards this strike whatsoever. I hope the Royal Mail get wise and get rid of the lot of them.

And why the hell are they angry? Angry that someone will actually deliver kid's christmas presents? Angry that people will work without asking for a f*cking pay rise and better conditions, IN A RECESSION? I mean you get up early but finish work at lunchtime. Plenty of time to go and get revenge on dog's who've eaten your hand or pay the woman who collected her parcel in her nightie a visit.

Angry that someone else is doing your work? Well go and do it your f*cking self then you lazy sh*ts. Over and out xD

Battle of the Smartphones begins...?

Now I'm a bit of a techno geek (no not music, gadgets and shizz), and since I've had my iPhone 3G for about a year now, I can tell you honestly, that I've never owned a piece of technology that has changed my life so much. People still ogle at it (admirers and chavs alike), I'm still finding weird and wonderful little things it does and normal phones with buttons and no touchscreen just seem "so last century".

And so when Rory Cellan-Jones proclaims a new battle is about to commence within the smartphone world. I say, no there bloody well isn't. The Palm Pre? Well only 8gb of memory, a shite keypad and this so called WebOS sounds good on paper, but the reality is open more than one application at a time and it'll kill the phone. The Blackberry Storm II? Well it does have the name 'Blackberry' in front of it, and RIM look as though they've managed to expand into the teenage market (because they're always receiving emails, mind you Blackberry's have even made receiving a spam email cool) But the iPhone's got the x-factor, everyone knows what it is, and all other phones just feel like in someway they were influenced by the grandaddy.

Nokia N96, the HTC Android phones, Samsung Tocco, all of these phones have tried and failed to claim the crown of the iPhone. The app store and the simplicity means there's nothing out there that can dethrone the grand master. Maybe the Storm II might pose a bit of a threat, but there's a difference between a threat and a contender. The battle was won way before it even began. Over and out xD

What's Happened to the Boy Band?

After reflecting on the untimely death of Stephen Gately and how his bandmates were out in Majorca quicker than an X Factor winner getting the boot from the record label, it made me wonder what ever happened to the good ol' fashioned boy bands of the '90's? These bands were essentially my childhood and although I didn't have my walls adorned with pictures of them, I still worshipped these guys as sort of role models.....(I did not just admit I'm gay).

Boyzone, Take That, Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC (the stupidest punctuation of any proper noun EVER), Westlife. These were the kings of the '90's. While girls had their own little musical 'revolution' with the Spice Girls, us lil' guys gazed at these plastic and mainly manufactured bunch of males in awe. Even our mum's got involved with the worshipping, and most went a lot further than just singing along to a few hits. Virtually every single Top of the Pops had at least one of these boy bands on, and you could see that the crowd went mental, even when they were just miming like puppets on a string (I refer to *NSYNC's first album).

So despite their epic popularity in the '90's, why do virtually no boy band's exist today? I think I know the answer. See bands like Franz Ferdinand, Kaiser Chiefs, Muse etc. are basically modern-day boy bands. But they have talent. They can play instruments. They write their own music. They probably formed in a cafe rather than being told by Simon Cowell that the random bloke in the studio was your new bandmate. Nowadays, everyone is a critic (hell, they've even got Amanda Holden judging talent), and the old school boy bands where a career was handed to them on a plate and all they had to do was smile for Smash Hits magazine, are now pretty much ridiculed for having no artistic credibility. Even the old past-timers like Take That have had to break out the piano or dare I say, an acoustic guitar on the odd occasion to make them appear as though they have talent.

So there we are. Snobbery and ridicule has killed off the boy band and now we're left with rap music. Oh f*cking dear. Over and out xD

Look what £100 a week gets you...

'Liberty Quays provides students with excellent quality, campus accommodation in a highly secure and comfortable environment.' *COUGH* BULLSH*T *COUGH*

So it's been about 3 weeks living in this so-called 'palace' that the brochure seems to be suggesting my student accommodation is. And in my short time here, I have assembled a small list of faults that I have found with the place. Make yourself comfortable...

-Fire alarms. Now we all like to be ready for a fire, but a fire does not occur EVERY 5 MINUTES! I mean every time the managers have a bit of spare time (and believe me, the way they sit on their arse it's almost as though they're on constant break) they think: 'You know how kids love fire drills.....*slams fire alarm button*' I'm not lucky enough to have had the 4am fire alarm yet, but when I get it, boy am I not going to be moving anywhere...

-Chavs. I refer of course to the 'secure environment', and how LQ (Liberty Quays) think one exists in Gillingham. Every night, Hell's Angels (bandits in trackies and pushbikes) assemble outside Tesco and 'put down' (am I saying that right?) anyone who looks like they remotely have some kind of education. How hard is it for LQ or the fuzz to get a broom out and shoo these rodents back into the sewers/Gillingham?

-Staff. The other week, all the plug sockets in our kitchen were not working. The problem? A simple tripped fuse that could be reset simply by opening the fuse box and flicking a switch. Who had the key to the fusebox? Management. How long would it take them to send someone up the stairs to our room and flick a switch? 2 days. 2 WHOLE DAYS WITHOUT POWER IN OUR KITCHEN. If w

e had burnt down the kitchen, then I could accept that two days is a reasonable amount of time to rebuild the thing. But to flick a switch? I wouldn't have cared if I'd gone down there and got the key myself. But ooooh noooooo, you can't trust a teenager with electrical items; he won't know what he's doing...

This is a reasonable response from LQ staff compared to some of the stuff I've heard from colleagues. Lazy gits.

-Comfortable surroundings. Smashed windows, emergency services/boy racers in Japanese washing machines flying past my window every 5 minutes, a pile of BLOOD outside the door of block 4? If I had lived in East London all my life, then yes I'd agree that this sounds pretty 'cushty'.

Value for money. Don't worry, I'm not going to do a Watchdog-style analysis on this. But for £100 a week, I'd was expecting a few more luxuries. Want decent broadband? Oooh you'll have to pay extra. Want clean and dry washing? Oooh that's gonna cost you. Make a mark on the walls? Oooh thanks for the £200 deposit, that'll pay for the alcohol at the Liberty Quays staff christmas party. Anyone going to come round and tidy up i.e. a bit of housekeeping? Are you insane, we've given you a vacuum cleaner! (I don't rate vacuums that have smiley faces on them). TV license? You're on your own there buddy. As I recall it, a hotel pays for one TV license for all the rooms and TV's. But because we've been given a loan, the greedy bastards think students are rolling in money, so much so that we can all afford to fork out £142. I know this isn't directly to do with LQ, but still, I need SOMEONE to point the finger at.

To be brutally honest, I could go on all night with this. It is the most cynical I've been in a while, but the fact about half of the driers were out of order when I went to do my washing tipped me over the edge. Give me a spade and cement, and I'll build a better student accommodation. In fact, give me a spoon and some manure, and I'll make a better living quaters than LQ. I don't know, maybe I'm not giving the place a chance. Only time will tell. Over and out xD

Pixar Continues It's Up-ward Trend...

The conversation in which John Lasseter managed to convince the head honchos at Disney to back Pixar's latest film, Up, must have been an interesting one. "We're going to have miscarriages, widowers, dysfunctional families, and an old man is going to drag a house around a jungle whilst getting chased by talking dogs." So then, just the usual kid-friendly Disney schmuck...

Not quite Disney, but more significantly Disney Pixar, and the magical 'P' word always means there'll be a special kind of magic when it comes to a new animated film. Pixar has a habit of making a kid's films that often strike the chords of their parents more than it does their children. This was true with Wall-E, and given some of the really deep and dark themes explored in Up, it's even more apparent here.

In a nutshell, Carl Fredricksen, a 78 year old man decides to attach 1,000's of balloons to his house in order to travel to South America in order to fulfil the last wishes of his recently deceased wife, Ellie. Carl discovers a young boy scout Russell, has accidentally come along for the ride. As they land in South America, they discover that Carl's childhood hero, explorer Charles Muntz is looking to kidnap a rare bird named Kevin (don't laugh at ME, it was the kid that gave it that name). And so it's up to Carl and Russell to, yep you guessed it, save the day, all done with a house attached to Carl's back....

I'll admit, it does sound farfetched, even for animation, but the inclusion of themes such as miscarriage and death mean that this is the most human story and film that Pixar has created. Within the first magical five minutes (along with the historical montage at the beginning of Watchmen is one of the most beautifully crafted openings in film this year), I had already formed a tight connection between Carl and myself. I don't think I've ever had the same sense of emotion and thought for characters within the first few moments of any film.

The gorgeous animation and colour palette that looks like a Crayola factory on steroids mean that the backgrounds quite literally pop-out (this is especially true if you're watching the 3D version) and the animation emphasises how far the studio has come since the days of Buzz and Woody. The voice acting is also suitably Pixar, with plenty of emotion and relative unknowns pulling out stellar performances. Edward Asner gives Carl a real 'gruffness' in a sarcastic and comic kind of way (think of Carl as an computer generated Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino). Jordan Nagai manages to make Russell a comedic and cute character, but not in the usual children's film manner. Instead he is cute because he has a personality, and it's nice in the youth-obsessed market that is Hollywood, the old guy's are smarter than the damn kids.

If I'm being picky, Charles Muntz is one of the weakest villains in Disney history and he almost seems to be an afterthought as he is given no screentime alone, and we never really get any backstory on him like we do with the other two main characters. There isn't as much subtle adult humour, and most of the laughs come from pretty basic slapstick. But that's not necessarily a bad thing, because I was so wrapped up in the characters stories and the some of the brilliantly crafted action scenes that I wasn't too worried that I wasn't laughing hysterically every 5 minutes.

VERDICT: Does Up reach the dizzy heights of the Toy Story films? No. But this is the closest Pixar has come to reaching the stratospheric heights of it's best two films. Never before has there been an animated film that pulls on the heartstrings as much as this (yes Mufasa, your death is no longer the saddest thing in Disney, try harder next time) and it continues Pixar's tradition for making films that will appeal to absolutely everyone. Brilliant. Over and out xD

Is this Strictly necessary?

It's pretty obvious now that red taped bureaucracy has ruined our lives. Children can't feed bread to ducks without filling out an absurd number of forms just so the child's parent can't sue the population of ducks for potentially biting their child. We now have to go through once over in our head what we say next just incase we say something 'offensive'. And slips of tongue are now treated with the same severity as full on insults. Obviously none of these examples are 100% true, but it certainly is going that way...

I am of course referring to the pathetic race row that has emerged on Strictly Come Prancing. Anton du Beke (who is renown for his brilliant 'off the cuff' remarks) is currently in the firing line for remarking that his partner looked like a 'Paki' after a spray tan. Where is the harm in that? Did he insinuate she was a 'Paki' (OK, so she is from a Muslim background, but when did it become wrong to state fact?) Did he make a racist joke? Did he say anything derogatory about the Pakistani race? No. No. No. But of course, meddling uniformed members of the public jumped on the 'lets take every race-related comment way too seriously' bandwagon, and now this whole thing has been blown so far out of proportion it may well be residing on Saturn's new ring. I'm glad in a time where we are all 'meant' to have freedom of speech, a childish little remark backstage manages to get to the stage where someone is potentially getting fired. Absolutely f*cking scandalous. Over and out xD

Why Everyone Hates Alex Ferguson.

Firstly because he's Scottish. I mean anyone who hails from north of Hadrians Wall is automatically considered a bit suspicious by us fayre English types.

But secondly and on a more serious note, because the guy cannot respect a referee. As a referee myself, I was disgusted to see the comments he made about Alan Wiley, where he bought the referee's fitness into question. Now we can all see on Match of the Day that Wiley is not the most perfectly built human being on Earth, but nevertheless, he still manages to run about the field for 90 minutes. Ferguson must also be aware of the rigorous fitness schemes the FA impose on their referees and if Wiley had not been fit enough to pass these tests, he would not have been officiating on Saturday. Simple as.

And then for Ferguson to have the cheek to complain about the 'lack' of time added on at the end, knowing full well his team have benefitted from 'phantom' added time many times in the past, most recently against Manchester City. When I read that I was absolutely disgusted by the sheer lack of any kind of moral code. Ex-players (who despite their general lack of any kind of intelligence tend to express quite a strong -and sh*t- opinion) always bang on about how football is a passionate game and people say things they don't mean in the heat of the moment. ABSOLUTE HORSESH*T. Ferguson has lambasted referees from day one, despite saying how 'they have the hardest job in football'. They do indeed Alex, trying to put up with you for 90 minutes. Over and out xD

N.B. Going to see Up in 3-D tomorrow which I am really looking forward to. Look out for a (hopefully positive) review tomorrow.

My 10 Favourite Movie Quotes

As an absolute movie junkie, I always have random quotes from films wondering around my head. Some I use in everyday life (using 'yippee ki-yay motherf*cker' as a substitute for 'yes' gets you so much street cred :-P ) and so I thought seeing as not TOO much is going down in the world of news, I'd celebrate the quotes that make

me laugh, fill me with emotion, and others that are just downright awesome. No order, just a list.

'Madness? THIS, IS, SPARTAAAAAAA!!!' (from '300') The epitome of the word 'epic'.

'Chickens go in, pies come out' 'What kind of pies?' 'Apple' 'Ooooh ma favourite' CHICKEN, you great lummox' (from 'Chicken Run') A British film done properly, the quote is definitely one of the comedy highlights of the film.

'No Luke, I AM YOUR FATHER.' (from 'The Empire Strikes Back') The line that gave a sh*t load of nerds a hard-on =)

'My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next.' (from 'Gladiator') Combined with the epic soundtrack, this line hits home like a gladiator's mace to the crown jewels...

‘I feel the need, THE NEED FOR SPEED!’ (Top Gun) Ultimate man film, ultimate kick-ass music

(Highwayyyy tooooo the Danger Zone) and a pretty awesome quote to go with it.

'Brad, I'm his father. You're the guy f*cking his mom' (from 'Thank You For Smoking') A film that I bet hardly anyone's seen, but this remains Aaron Eckhart's finest performance and this line is just one of many superb quotes.

'He insist we not fly in case the Jews repeated their attack of 9/11.' (from 'Borat') The one bit in Borat that made me literally cry with laughter, the audaciousness and brilliance of the quote, combined with Cohen's hilarious accent make this the funniest quote on my list.

'I know what you're thinking. "Did he fire six shots or only five?" Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most

powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?’ (Dirty Harry) Along with the quote from Gladiator, this little monologue makes Russian Roulette sound fun…

‘You just killed a helicopter with a car!’ ‘I was out of bullets’ (Die Hard 4.0) The second coolest quote form the Die Hard series. And John McClane with no hair is after AIDS, the scariest thing on Earth.

‘Surely you can’t be serious?’ ‘I am serious…and don’t call me Shirley.’ (Airplane) In a film where wordplay is exhibited at its finest, this quote is the jewel in a very funny crown.

So there we are. Agree? Disagree? Whatever. These are awesome quotes regardless and nobody can deny that. Over and out xD

The Joys of Journalism

A week and a bit has passed since I officially started my journalism course and it's not quite what I expected. When they said you'd have a lot of reading, I imagined picking up the day's papers and skimming through the leader columns and all that jazz. But did I think I'd be back and forth to the library like a pensioner taking out books and slowly accumulating a shelf full of what can only best be described as history textbooks? No I certainly did not. After every History of Journalism lecture where a new book is added to the list of things unlikely to get read by yours truly, a small race breaks out to get one of the twenty copies of a book. Who'd have thought history textbooks and the Dewey system could be so much fun?

The lecturers have given us all a new toy too (I know what you're thinking when the word 'toy' is used so lets not even go there). They've entrusted us all with £300 microphones which instead of being used to record the voices of the general public in interviews (well they were initially) are now being used to record jamming sessions with me and 3 other guys on guitar. Multi-talented journalists? I think so. Andrew Marr has far too few skills. Who knows? Maybe I'll be required to strum a few chords if I ever get onto Newsnight. That's me see. Always thinking ahead. Over and out xD

We Are Doomed...

Why in the name of all that's Holy can you have tomato ketchup on a roast dinner. Now I have watched my brother do this for about 10 years thinking he was a one-off anomaly of the human race. But then I discover to my horror there are other freaks who also conduct this sadistic ritual of garnishing a perfectly made roast dinner with tomato ketchup. I now feel surrounded by some satanic cult who go out of their way to destroy Sunday Lunch. The world is no longer safe whilst tomato ketchup is allowed to make it's way onto Yorkshire Puddings. Over and out xD

Sunday Bloody Sunday

So this weekend's been a bit hectic and you'll probably notice a big hole on the blog from Saturday 3rd. This is probably due to a) laziness (I warned you) and b) my trial shift at Subway. Not meaning to sound big headed but I thought I did well. Only thing that really pissed me off was a 5 year-old kid ordering sweetcorn and then changing his mind. And at Subway, we always value the customers wishes, and so I had to pick the f*cking pieces of sweetcorn out. The joys of potentially working for a big company with stupid flaming policies.

And so another day, another big f*ckup for Labour, this time Harriet Harman deciding she would have a car accident and drive off, with no insurance or registration details left apparently shouting "I'm Harriet Harman...you know where you can get me". I imagine the victim of the accident is probably standing outside Arkham Asylum, banging on the door furiously asking where Ms. Harman is. However, the Tories thought they'd go one better with acts of shamelessness, with David Amess (my local MP in Southend) proclaiming to check-in staff that 'Bin Laden packed his bags' and was then violently ill on the plane, AND YET, had the cheek to write a letter of complaint to Virgin. Do MP's deliberately try and act like total pricks, because 2009 certainly hasn't been a year in which any of the public would want to even look at one of the bastards.

And Liverpool fans reading this, all I can say is, ahem (clears throat) TWO NIL. And you were sh*t.

Oh and news on the degree front. My flatmate has recently invested in Beatles Rock Band and Guitar Hero 5. And with a press of the green and red buttons, I bid farewell to any chance of getting that degree. Do I even need one though? All I need is love... Over and out xD

This Is A Sadder Day Than When Diana Died...

...Because Frankie Boyle has announced he is not going to return for the next series of Mock The Week. If you saw the last episode of MTW, you'll realise how unfunny the show is without it's dark, horrendously funny Scotsman. To celebrate his time on the show, I found two videos of some of his funniest stuff. Enjoy :'-(

Obey Your MASTER, MASTER...

I read an interesting article on the Guardian's website today about what music the troops in Afghanistan are listening to whilst out on patrol and in camp in general. Apparently, the large majority of troops are listening to heavy metal such as Metallica and Slayer, with Eminem also a favourite amongst soldiers. Now this struck me a little bit. I can imagine Metallica being good whilst out out on patrol, gunning down Taliban soldiers (the thought of 'Enter Sandman', explosions, blood and dead Arabs is making me go all gooey inside in a kind of Jerry Bruckheimer kind of way), but many of these guys are playing this really heavy stuff whilst sleeping. The report also suggests that some songs like Welcome Home (Sanitarium) (for those of you who haven't heard it, it's a Metallica song about being trapped in a mental asylum) are actually having some serious psychological affect on them, and, I quote: 'turning them into monsters, making them inhuman so they can do inhuman acts'. That is some seriously deep stuff, and I imagine many sceptics in America will be rubbing their hands together with the view that aggressive music is bringing up a generation of psychos. But hold the burning torches citizens of Obamaland, because other soldiers have expressed that heavy metal is virtually the only kind of therapy these guys are getting and is keeping them pumped and 'on their toes' in times of battle. So there we are, don't go and see a psychiatrist, put on Master of Puppets...Over and out xD

Goodnight Sweet Prince...

After reading The Sun today, I think it's safe to say the last of many nails in Gordon Brown's coffin has been hammered in. Whatever glimmer of hope Labour had conjured up in Brighton in the last week has been pretty much vanquished by The Sun's front page this morning. With Mandelson's 'Hitler-like' speech (watch the way he gets more and more animated towards the end of sentences like Hitler used to) and Sarah Brown commenting on Gordon's 'hero-like' persona (the woman HAS to be on medication), Labour seemed to be going in the right direction. However like everything Brown has done for Labour, something 10x worse always follows a bit of good news. In some ways I feel sorry for the guy, but then you realise that it's Gordon Brown and you just have to laugh...

In other, more light-hearted news, an estate agent has been criticized for failing to mention the fact one of their properties has a 'nuclear reactor' on it's doorstep. What sane estate agent would say that? "And instead of a sea-view, you are more likely to gain three arms and turn green thanks to the proximity of a nuclear plant." Honestly... Over and Out xD

The End of Summer Movies

Well it's nearly the end of September and I thought it'd be a good time to reflect on this year's summer blockbusters. I have seen 4 films this summer (I'm a poor unemployed student without an Orange phone :[ ) and I have to say I've been kind of disappointed with the films that have been released. Compared to last year with The Dark Knight and Tropic Thunder, this summer hasn't been THAT great.

I'll admit I enjoyed the mindrape that was Transformers 2. Two and a half hours of switching my brain into 'Michael Bay Mode' (i.e. off) was one of the best moments of cinema this year. It got absolutely annihilated by critics and I can see why. The dialogue was pretty bad, LaBeouf and Fox both seem to have forgotten how to act and some of the robots (namely those two jive-talking muppets) made Jar-Jar Binks look like an intelligent character. BUT, it was so much fun. Who wouldn't want to see machines tear through the Pyramids? Who wouldn't want to see Megan Fox straddling a motorbike? That's what cinema is about my friends. Robots + Explosions + Hot Girls = FUN

I'm going to keep it brief with Final Destination 4. It would appear that Hollywood has run out of ideas on how to kill teenagers. They started well with Scream! in the '80's, and it looks like with this pile of 3-D sh*t that they can no longer come up with inventive ways of killing people. Shame really.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince was errr...terrible. If I wanted to watch angry hormonal teenagers with wands in their hands I'd have watched Skins (yeah I'm not talking about magic wands). It's as though Warner Bros. read the book and went "That's good, but our Harry Potter should be nothing like this". I mean, it's not like the book is any good or anything...

Fortunately, Summer 2009 was saved by Mr. Tarantino and WW2. Inglorious Basterds has to be one of the finest movies I've seen in a while. The dialogue is sharp, Brad Pitt and Christopher Waltz are on epic form, and the tension and suspense built up by QT's script is scintillating stuff. If your a QT fan or a fan of good movies in general, you have to see this film. Over and out xD

Welcome!

Ok so welcome to my blog. Yeah. I never was any good at 'hello'.

Basically on here I'll be rambling about almost anything and I'll try and keep it entertaining (hence the title). Obviously as a journalist-in-training I'll be putting up stuff about current affairs and giving my (hopefully) unique spin on stories. I might also shove a few reviews on here as well. This entire blog is really going to be governed by whether I can be arsed or not. I should hope I'll give it a jolly good go. Over and out xD