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Pop legend Madonna once sang 'we are living in a material world and I am a material girl'. Whilst I wouldn't consider myself to be a girl, the fact the Christmas sales are one of my favourite parts of the Christmas holidays is perhaps indication of my secret 'material girl' persona.

However, after my two-day binge at two different shopping centres, I'm starting to think otherwise. All I've managed to do in the last couple of days is buy stuff not in the sales, have arguments with a series of ethnic minorities, get up earlier than most postmen and knacker myself to the point of tears. Now that I've finally sat down for the first time in about 48 hours, I think it's time to reflect on the wonderful British tradition that is the Christmas sales.

Here in the May household, we take this sales business pretty seriously. Bluewater opened at 11am on Boxing Day, so naturally, we left home at quarter to Ten. Once establishing a parking space those turning up in the afternoon could only dream of, we headed to Hollister to take advantage of their world-famous sale...(yeah it doesn't actually exist). Despite being there half hour before opening, a queue had formed outside already, leaving the pretty-faced employees of the Californian boutique completely dumbfounded as to how to deal with such crowds so early. It's absolutely crazy that a shop can be so cool and fashionable yet so bloody popular. I overheard the employees saying that some had been queuing since 10am. The only thing that would explain such bonkers queuing would be for Hollister to be selling a new Harry Potter book.

We went into several other shops but I wasn't really in the mood for anything else. Bluewater was packed tighter than an IKEA wardrobe. I honestly think disabled people and pushchairs should be banned from shopping centres on days like Boxing Day. In some shops which have aisles thinner than a submarine corridor, a pushchair can often be as obstructive as a jackknifed lorry. And then some of the kids are literally like the little shits you see on Supernanny. The amount of times I had to restrain myself from shouting 'control your children or control your vagina!' was in double figures. Even in the hustle and bustle of sales shopping, that might have just got a few dodgy stares.

For the May family, one entire day of sifting through cut-priced nonsense isn't enough so my parents woke me up at 7.30 this morning to do it all over again. Because Marks & Spencer have no regard for the mental health of their staff, they opened at 7am. By the time we'd arrived at Lakeside at 8.30, the place looked like a warzone. Ironically, the whole place was populated by Arabs/Indians/Middle-Easterners, a set of people that had been surprisingly absent from yesterday's excursion to Bluewater. Now in the past when I've been shopping, I've bought quite a lot of stuff, but the amounts I have previously purchased were put in the shade by the biblical amounts Dick, Tom and Sanjeev were buying. I don't get what the fascination is with people in burkhas buying entire shops, but it was almost as though they weren't going shopping for another year. I saw one till that had clocked up £1,200. And as for Next, it looked like the Next that had been hit by the IRA bomb in Manchester in 1996. It had opened at an absolutely ridiculous 5am and judging by the state of it when I went in there later in the morning, it looked like it had been open that long. Imagine the scene in The Mummy where the scarab beetles engulf the poor Arab guide and all that's left once the little beetles scurry off is the juicy flesh. Now swap the scarab beetles for the Arab shoppers and the dead Arab for the shelves in Next and you have an idea of what the place looked like.

Shoppers of an Eastern heritage closing in on the last sales item

But going shopping in shops with sales on is fairly amateur. Instead, me and my brother ended up in shops like Cult and All Saints; shops that are more likely to take off and relocate amongst the clouds than have a sale. I have to say that All Saints is one of the gloomiest and most depressing shops on Earth; it was like going shopping with a Dementor. The remainder of my money went on items that weren't in a sale (surprise surprise) and probably wouldn't ever be in a sale. My Mum picked up a few bits and pieces that outside of Christmas sales shopping would be described as 'cheap tat'. But come December 26th and 27th, my parents let their hair down more than a newly single Katie Price. And so for the second time in just over a week, my Dad was left to play a combination of Tetris and Jenga to get all our newly acquired swag in the back of the car.

So what have I learnt from my two day struggle to save a few quid? Firstly, it's unlikely I'm going to save any money seeing as I'm quite partial to stuff that could only be cheaper if I'd stolen it. Secondly, I hate whiney little Asian children, especially at Nine in the morning. Thirdly, I hate whiney little Asian women who couldn't control their bowels, let alone their own children. Then there's my new-found opinion that All Saints is actually Azkaban. And let's not forget my final lesson that we do indeed live in a 'material world', and to save myself the hell that is sales shopping, I should probably just stay at home and do it all online. But then, you don't get to see Abu Hamza and family walk out of shops with a country's worth of clothes. And where's the fun in missing that?

The Indian Job

This is one of those posts that could go two ways. It could either be insightful and witty coverage of a recent news story that caught my attention. Or (and probably more likely) it could turn out to be a horrendously written piece with strong racial undertones and I could be shot at dawn by Gurkhas (I know they're not Indian but ignore some cultural ignorance and go along with the joke). I think my lawyer should be aware that I'm writing this before I start...

The Italian Job! Everyone's favourite British comedy crime caper set in a time where us plucky Brits felt like we could conquer the world. We'd just destroyed Germany at Wembley with Lieutenant Hurst and Corporal Moore, exported a little band called The Beatles to the world and were just generally awesome at life.

Now, the Indians want to have a crack at remaking this timeless classic in their own unique Bollywood style. Hollywood had a go a couple of years ago, and well sort of bombed it. It wasn't a bad film but to give it the same title as the 1969 masterpiece was slightly ambitious. One it wasn't set in Italy, so it should have just been called 'The Job'. And as its the Americans, they'd never do the job properly, so it should have just been called 'The'. If they'd have kept that name, much better film.

Apparently there's a sequel planned called 'The Brazilian Job'...sometimes I don't even have to try and write this.

Anyway, back to the East. I'm wondering quite how they're going to take something so quintessentially British and go all chicken korma on it. So, I'm going to try and second guess the producers and have come up with 'The Indian Job Required Factors to Make a Timeless Eastern Classic'.

1. Don't use the Minis. Please for the love of God, don't drive three Mini Coopers, new or old around some shitty slum town. It'd be like taking the Union Jack and dragging it through a load of elephant shit. Use something a bit more location friendly. I personally think a few pimped out Tuk-Tuks would be fantastic. Not sure about the luggage space for gold bullion (actually we'll come on to what they're gonna steal in a minute) but the scope for some close quarters driving is immense!

2. Location. Turin is a beautiful city with lots of awesome little features. Ideally, the Bollywood version would have to be set in Delhi. It's half posh (where they'd knick the swag from) and half shite (where they'd lose the insanely over the top Indian cops). Driving on the roofs of the slum parts might be a bit difficult as the roof would probably cave in and you'd end up with some malnourished child with a tuk-tuk on his head. And you'd be unlikely to recreate the scene where the Minis drive across the river. In Delhi you might either a) get stuck in sewage or b) drive into a dead body being sent downstream.

3. India's Culture. The local fixer/contact should definitely be a man who charms snakes. The police should definitely have swords. Somewhere in the climatic chase scene there should definiately be an elephant that gets in the way and sprays water at chasing policemen. There also maybe should be a political subplot about a tyrannical Sultan stealing from clever Indian children. The possibilities are endless.

4. A dance scene. Every Bollywood has to have a casual dance scene slap bang in the middle of the film involving every cast member and every single bloody extra. Hell, even the catering staff know the choreography. Doesn't matter if it's a film about rape or abortions, there's always room for a quick rumba or hand jive to explain the story in a more Indian way. Maybe they could steal...whatever they're going to steal in a dance routine. Would be absolutely fantastic. Throw in a bit of naan bread for a dashing of casual racism and you're onto a winner!

5. Don't steal gold. Stealing gold is not very Bollywood. Besides the tuk-tuks would have about as much chance getting up a set of stairs with a boot full of gold as a starved Indian boy dragging up an oversized bag of Bombay potatoes. If you're gonna make this film Indian style, fill it with jewels, or maybe a rare breed of snakes. Hell, make it super stylistic and have them stealing £4million worth of dreams from a sitar-playing guru. At least it's an original twist.

So there you have it folks. I've just written a very rough screenplay for what can only be described as the only casually racist Bollywood film to be nominated for an Oscar. Indian filmmakers are genuinely remaking The Italian Job, despite me not taking this at all seriously. Directors have claimed it is 'as good as the original'. Well I'm afraid unless they've incorporated all the ideas above, their claims may be a bit farfetched.

A Poultry Post

It's been a while since I went on a full-on, no-holds-barred rant about something. I'd like to think like a sedated pensioner, I've been fairly calm and cool about life (well, on this blog at least) for the last couple of months. Now I'm angry, and Daniel needs a target to vent his anger and frustration at. Like a very stereotypical shooting game, my crosshairs have ended up pointed at chicken.

Not just any old chicken. Chicken served in a Portuguese 'restaurant' smothered in Peri-Peri sauce.

What's known as 'cheeky advertising'...

I remember the first time I went to Nandos. It wasn't exactly like the first time I heard The Beatles, but it came fairly close. The fact there were no sodding waiters you had to empty out the coppers in your wallet just to scramble together a meaningful tip for; unlimited amount of soft drinks so you had the sugar levels of a psychotic diabetic and very nice chicken-themed food.

In the same way I practically blew my load the first time I played on a Wii, I was in love with a new place to eat. However, the Wii has been sat in the corner of the room collecting dust for months now, and like Nintendo's shiny white exercise machine, I have fallen out of love with Nandos too. Why you may ask? Well, prepare for a barrage of unsupported reasons and a shit load of unnecessary metaphors.

As far as stereotypical American university-campus cliques go, the preppies have to be the worst. Flashing cash, wearing rugby shirts when all they know of hookers is what their mother does after she's finished making dinner out of a pheasant and gold-plated potatoes. They're just god awful people. I've never come face-to-face with a hardline extremist preppy, but I've seen enough Super Sweet 16 to know they're spoilt twats with far more money than sense.

And this is what Nando's feels like. It feels preppy. But accepting preppy. Not like the Bullingdon Club at Oxford where you have to be a Tory with a chequebook bigger than Margaret Thatcher's nose. Accepting of everyone. In other words, the worst type of the worst clique going.

It's fucking KFC for fucks sake. Its taken me a few goes at Nando's to realise, but it is just essentially posh fast food. The way the waiters and waitresses glare at you if you're sat around at your table longer than is necessary to finish your over-priced chicken, the way the menu comprises of three different items, the way you're sat so close to other people you feel like a battery hen. Oh look, more fucking chicken.

The first two times I was blinded by sheer wonder and didn't really notice the prices. I callously shoved my card in the machine and that was it. The other day I had a chicken wrap (it was the size of a 50 pence piece), some chips and corn on the cob. ELEVEN POUND. For the privilege of not having wrapped in a KFC wrapper. The day I have to reach into my wallet and get more money out because a Tenner is not enough for chicken, chips and bloody sweetcorn is the day I start buying shares in poultry. The word ludicrous doesn't even come close.

And now we have all these 'wannabe-preppy' food outlets popping up all over the shop. Gourmet Burger Kitchen, or as it's more commonly known, McDonalds without the wacky colours and creepy mascot. The only time I've ever been in there was earlier this year. I sat down, observed the menu, realised chips were not included in the biblical prices and so swiftly left before the waiter could steal my entire bank account asking what we'd like to drink.

I hate these stupid sorry excuses for food outlets. I refuse to call them restaurants because they aren't. They're just fast food outlets wrapped in fancy buildings. It's like taking a teen from a council estate and chucking him through a high-class fashion chain like, I dunno, Burberry. A once-well respected fashion outlet is now as chavvy and low-rent as the Ford Escort-driving scallywags who wear it. And with Nando's it's the same. Once a very nice chicken-themed place to eat. Now a food outlet where there is just as much grease on the customers as there is on the food. All in the name of profit margins. Well done chicken men, you've sold your soul to the devil and sealed the deal with a peri-peri chicken wing.

Despite all this, my god is the food bloody tasty.

Help Me Obi-Wan Kenobi...

It's not just the fact that she's literally the only woman in Star Wars that Princess Leia is a sex symbol to thousands of people who live in their Mum's basement drinking Mountain Dew. Whilst there may be an Ewok who does the cooking and cleaning or the idea that Boba Fett might even be rocking fake eyelashes and foundation underneath the helmet, Leia is the sole piece of eye candy in the Star Wars films. And while some may find the 'croissant to each side of the head' hairstyle worthy of arming their own lightsaber, it's the fact that the girl from Alderaan can wield the odd bit of space-age tech that really sent geeks into outer space.

Whilst that first paragraph might have been an exercise in the use of Star Wars innuendos and knowledge, there is a serious point. Well, when I say serious, I meant I came up with an idea of how to start this post and now not sure if it's actually working. Lets struggle on in the same vein as Jabba the Hut getting strangled.

The point is that Leia was hot because she fired a laser and messed around with all sorts of funky technology. And while it's unlikely we're going to be able to have Leia adorned in that metal bikini in our households anytime soon, we may be seeing a bit of technology that Leia pioneered hit our lounges very soon.

People nowadays send out distress calls via a telephone, Twitter or maybe even a letter depending on whether they live in the Third World or not. But in Star Wars, Princess Leia has a little fiddle with R2-D2 and voíla, she's sent out the coolest mayday call ever. A fully formed three dimensional human being in the palm of Obi-Wan Kenobi's hand with an audio track. A hologram. And like the lightsaber or the force, something we believed was only possible in the imagination of George Lucas.

Admittedly this post is a tad biased towards though who have a slight obsession with Star Wars. I'm gonna try and bring this back to the real world.

Scientists at the Universrity of Arizona have come up with a system that enables a holographic image to display in another place and update it in real time. The image won't be the terrestrial TV-like quality of Princess Leia's message. These new realtime holographic images will be the full 1080P HD experience.

The point of this all? For starters it's seriously cool. Sod Skype, sod Facebook Chat, sod Facetime, if you could have full-on holographic conversations with someone across the other side of the world using something that resembles a handheld mirror, think of the possibilities! You could teach dancemoves, communicate while running etc. Alright so you can do all of this with technology at the moment, but you can watch TV programmes on a TV, but that doesn't stop you going out and buying a new shiny one every few years. Plus as well the scientists in Arizona think the holograms could help with 3D modelling and complex medical procedures where scientists all over the world could contribute with advice. The sort of stuff that pales into comparison of being able to teach your friend in San Francisco the Macarena in 3D...

The other reason why this is borderline the coolest thing ever is that we seem to be technologically proficient enough to start producing gadgets from film. While it'll be a while before we start travelling around in TIE Fighter, how long is it going to be before we have watch phones? Oh wait, we do. A time machine perhaps? Travel to where I live in Gillingham and you'll feel like you're in the 19th Century. The point is over the next few years we're in for some seriously cool tech and if you're dying to know what sort of stuff we're going to be getting, just head down to your local cinema. Now, where did I park my DeLorean...

Teenage Dirtbag Baby

This was the second thing that came up when I typed 'teenagers' into Google Images. I don't think I've ever seen 5 teenagers jumping on a beach like that other than on Neighbours.

Today is my last 24 hours (23 now I've finished writing) of being a teenager. And that is a really, really scary thought.

When I think of where and who I was when I hit the terrible age of 13...yeah you're right, I've barely changed.

I spent my entire childhood waiting to grow up; wanting to hit 16 so I could buy a lottery ticket, hit 17 so I could drive and hit 18 so I could get a pint in a pub. I've never bought a lottery ticket, I've passed my test and crashed my car and got drunk too many times to remember. It's weird, and now I'm on the brink of losing my status as a teenager, I just want to go back and do it all over again.

Now I'm just getting all nostalgic and it's not healthy. But seeing as it's my last day before I might have to think about growing up, I think I'm allowed to have a little self-wallow in my own past.

Would I do things differently? Of course I would. Knowing all the wonderful stuff I know now, it'd be cool to start again with the cheat codes. On the other hand, if I didn't do all the stuff I did first time round, I'd be sitting here without a clue. Swings and roundabouts I suppose.

Anyway, this lamenting is all fairly pointless because the likelihood is I'll still act like the immature little shit I am until I'm getting served stale cabbage at an old people's home. The fact I can still get away with child bus fare pretty much says it all.

I don't know, I always thought hitting 20 was the start of 'adult-life', the point where you got sensible and traded in your Playstation for loft insulation. The time I was having these thoughts was around the same time I was convinced my day job would consist of performing car chases for Hollywood action films, so looking back I can see I was mildly disillusioned on both fronts.

But that's the weird thing. I had all these preconceptions about hitting 20 and now I'm here, it's sort of disappointing in a way. I'm halfway to my midlife crisis and yet I still look like I should be in a nativity play.

I probably didn't have the standard teenage life to be honest. I never sat in a park and drunk Strongbow till I needed my mum to come and pick my sorry drunken state up; was never in a band (particularly gutted about that one) and didn't spend my entire teenage years chasing after girls...

Take note of this. It's about as personal as I'm ever gonna get on here.

Quite frankly this is fairly silly. I doubt I'm going to start wearing suit and tie everyday after my birthday, I'm not going to go to bed at 9:13 every night and I sure as hell am not going to have an ounce of responsibility. When people ask my age, I might just lie through my teeth and say 16 just to see if they've got the bottle to question it. Or just say Twenteen and skip off into the sunset.

Either way, I'm going to stop this nonsense, put on 'Teenage Dirtbag' and have one more day of being hated by everyone who reads the Daily Mail. Then maybe find a park...

Straight Outta' Brompton

I've not been tortured before. I didn't think it wise to get involved in international espionage and ask megalomaniac villains if I was 'expected to talk' while waiting for a space-age laser to cut me in two. So it's not often I've experienced pain as excruciating as the pain I'm feeling at the moment. Because out of the window of my new house, I can see the road that leads out of Medway.

When I went and visited Alcatraz Prison in San Francisco, a lot of people asked why they put a prison on an island. The obvious reason being that it's virtually impossible to escape (and so it proved despite a few urban legends), but the other reason was that so prisoners could see civilisation just through the bars in their windows, making Alcatraz not only escape proof, but also torture for the inmates.

Pretty much exactly how I feel.

This was meant to be a nice cheery little post about my new house and the first few weeks back at Uni. I've kinda started it in the most mellow and downbeat way possible. Some gratuitous swearing should get this train back on the rails.

So fuck me it's been a while. There's a lovely gap where September should have been. It wasn't even as though I was doing anything special. Just taking a break from writing totally irreverent and nonsensical shit on here to be honest. But now we're back with a brand new rap, in a new set of lodgings!

Whilst a number of people have moved into a fairly sensible house for their second year of university, we decided moving in above a kebab shop would be the best thing for our health for the next year. But I'm loving the new gaffe/crib/abode (delete appropriate depending on your social class). We've been here for 3 weeks and it's almost to the point of perfect student household. Large TV, Xbox with FIFA always in the disc tray, Sky Sports (albeit streamed through the Xbox), a freezer stocked with chicken nuggets and potato waffles and the ironing board still in it's original position. It's a far cry from Liberty Quays last year where I was awake more often during the early hours of the morning than a postman thanks to those wonderful fire alarms.

Whilst the first year of uni is all about moving away from home, being in an environment such as student halls still has you under the wrath of accommodation managers. Hell, I even wrote about the place on here (it was one of my earlier blog posts so it reads a bit like a small child moaning) and got called into the Liberty Quays office. Well, I say called, they actually stopped my key fob from working so I was forced to go down reception and meet Darth Vader himself. My point is that even during the first year at uni you're still subject to ruling by iron fist.

In a house? Not so much. Not so much at all. Answer a few questions for the landlord/landlady and Bob's your uncle. Wandering around the house half naked feels like a breath of fresh air after a year of wondering what security guard at Liberty might stumble into your room to tell you to 'turn the noise down'.

I love the house. It's got it's little faults like the mouse traps scattered all over the place and the tiniest most pathetic sink in the downstairs bathroom or the fact there's a set of stairs to climb everytime we want to come back home. It's like trying to conquer the travelator at the end of Gladiators after a night out. But I don't mind. The lounge was big enough to take my drum kit, and that my friends, is the most important thing.

N.B. While not strictly relevant to anything, I thought I'd share this with you all. It's a comment from my Sky blog and seeing as I've barely looked at it, didn't stumble upon this gem till the other day. A man/boy/invalid named Ryan decided he didn't agree with me and so published this. Enjoy!

'Enjoy making fun of the poor, do you?

I couldn’t help but notice your comment “It made me realise… how doing journalism is such a great excuse to be nosey and find out stories from the scum of the Earth without being beaten to death.”. Journalism needs intelligent, thoughtful people if it is to become a respected profession again, not cocky little gobshites like you.

If your team’s documentary – which was rubbish, by the way – had shown any insight into why Merthyr is so economically deprived and why a culture of hopelessness pervades the town then you might actually have learned something rather than pushing the same, tired “oh, aren’t those poor people rubbish” angle. Your tawdry documentary was one-sided and ignorant of the economic regeneration that is occurring in the town.

It appears that the money you are spending in fees learning journalism are not money well spent. Whether this is a reflection on you or the quality of the institution you are attending remains to be seen.'

Whole Lotta' Merde

Mont Blanc!

I'd like to think that on the 7th day, God created holiday destinations. Whilst chilling with a Sunday Roast, it'd be nice to think that the big man upstairs dropped a bit of pixie dust on Disneyland and sprinkled a bit of magic on the Great Barrier Reef.

In the same swift set of actions, he probably took a shit all over France.

I admit this might be a tad controversial, but I've been on holiday to France every year for about 5 or 6 years. It's even a fairly touristy area of France; a little village just outside of the town of Cognac, where the alcoholic beverage of Cognac is made. And when I say little village, I actually mean a collection of about 3 houses. Which means the nearest bit of life as we know it, is feckin' miles away.

France is apparently the most popular holiday destination on Earth. One question. How? I don't get it. I don't get why more people on Earth would choose to come to this country than anywhere else. Have you ever heard of Las Vegas?!?

It's these next few reasons that leave me in utter disbelief. They're a mixture of my own experiences and sweeping generalisations.

• The whole place looks like the Germans just left. Honestly, every village I've ever been too just looks bombed. Roof tiles are missing, hell, even some of the walls are missing. If it wasn't for the fact I had an iPhone in my pocket at the time, I could have sworn it was 1940 and Krauts were swarming the surrounding fields.
• Everyone looks miserable and depressed. The last time I saw such a set of sombre faces, I was in Gillingham. Everytime we drive through a village of some kind, there is always an old man sitting outside the bakery with a baguette in one hand and the most glum expression on his face. It's almost as though they see the British number plate on the front of our car and think: 'Eeengleesh? Ze last time zey were 'ere, we were et war wiz ze Germanz'. And then of course, with that thought, they get very suspicious. And give you dodgy looks.
• Everywhere shuts at lunchtime. Why? You're a business, you're meant to making money. If my old business teacher saw ol' Pierre and Christine (horribly stereotypical French names, no one in particular) shutting up shop for lunch at midday, he'd have a fit. It's almost like the French want to fail, no other set of people would close for an hour so they can spread Camambert over their perfectly made baguettes. Mind you, these are the same sort of people that would probably go on strike even if they were on the dole.
• Style. I'll admit, I'm not in Paris at the moment. More like 600miles away. But still, the French dress like they're 600 years behind. The kick-ass combo of flip-flops and socks adorns every other French man, and the women look like they've been dropkicked through a charity shop specialising in antique curtains. I'm no Alexander McQueen (well no one is anymore...) but still, I know (roughly) what works and what doesn't. Unfortunately, Pierre and co. are in the 'doesn't' section.
• Where are the kids? In the many times and thousands of miles I've been across Francais, I've only ever seen about 3 schools. That fact seems worrying, but when you can't even see any kids, you wonder how they might fill these 3 schools up. I'm no fan of 'yoofs' hanging around on the streets back in England, but at least that way you know a social demographic below the pension age exists. In France, the only kids you ever see are the ones riding around on dirt bikes or mopeds. But that's it. It's almost like the Child Catcher relocated to France and had a little bit more success than he did in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

So, a few reasons why I dislike France. The holidays are nice, so please don't mistake me for a spoilt child. But sacrebleu is this place miserable. I don't get why anyone would want to voluntarily come here unless you're over 95 and you like your peace and quiet up to the standards of a morgue. Plus I haven't seen a Starbucks outside Paris, a true measure of how little civilisation exists outside of the Champs Elysees. No wonder the Germans were so quick to leave in 1945.

Inceptional

It’s been 10 years since writer/director Christopher Nolan burst onto the Hollywood scene with the superbly crafted Memento. Streamlining a short story written by his brother Jonathan, Nolan constructed a mentally satisfying film whilst always appearing in control of the film’s tricky plot. Whereas the Wachowski Brothers seemed to lose scope on the narrative of the Matrix trilogy and threw in a few fancy action sequences to keep the sci-fi trilogy from turning into a pile of cyber-shit, Nolan has always had the ability to weave popcorn-pleasing moments of cinema with a story that never leaves you wanting more. His second picture, Insomnia, perhaps proved the most tricky, with the interesting idea of living as an insomniac sidelined for a more straight-up detective narrative. But with Inception, Nolan has arguably made his best film, and certainly an early contender for film of the year .

Outlining the plot in a written review would not do it any justice whatsoever. In it’s most basic form, Inception is a heist movie. But replace the bank vault with a target’s dreams, the gold bullion with secrets, and a rag-tag band of crooks with an efficient team of modern day Al Capone’s led by a swaggering Leonardo DiCaprio. Like pulling off a bank heist, you can imagine that stealing secrets through a target’s subconscious is frowned upon by the relevant authorities, and in an effort to clear his name, Dom Cobb (DiCaprio) takes on one last job (yeah that ol’ cliché still applies here). But it’s no ordinary job, and rather than stealing secrets, Cobb is hired to plant an idea into the mind of an heir to a business empire (Cillian Murphy) by his rival (Ken Watanabe). Creating an organic idea within a person’s subconscious (known as an ‘inception’) proves to be slightly tricker than simply stealing an idea and Cobb and his team are forced to explore multiple layers of their target’s mind in order to complete their mission.

But there’s so much more to the story than that brief summary. There’s all the rules of entering a dream to be explained, the idea of dreams within dreams and the mental struggle Cobb has over the death of his wife Mal (Marion Cotillard) who often materialises within Cobb’s subconscious. It’s a film full of ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ moments. Be fearful of loo breaks and distractions; missing the odd scene could result in losing a key plot element that you’ll never be able to recover from.

But Nolan also acknowledges that his audience does not want to be completely bombarded with a thesis about the behaviour of someone’s dreams. As a result, the pace of the first 90 minutes is absolutely breathless, with some stunning scenes of entire cities bending over each other, a chase sequence worthy of the Bourne trilogy through the streets of Mombassa, and a few very-pretty-but-oh-so-expensive shots of city scapes, where you sense Nolan would have loved to have plonked Batman on a few of the buildings. And none of the action feels out of place. Everything feels like it has a purpose. Even a freight train hurtling down a road in the middle of a city is explained. A fight in a hotel corridor that takes place in zero-gravity doesn’t feel like it was simply placed there as a way of spending film studio’s dollars. I could explain to you quite easily why both of these things happened in Inception, but I could never fully understand why there was a bloody-great freeway chase in the middle of The Matrix Reloaded. It once again demonstrates the grip Nolan holds his (forgive the pun) mind-boggling narrative and why he is one of the brightest talents in Hollywood.

The one problem with this however is Nolan is in danger of becoming a great showman more than a great director. While he has assembled one of the greatest casts in a movie this year, none of them ever really seem to get out of second gear. Don’t get me wrong, everyone in the film puts in a solid performance and you’d be hard pressed to fault the way in which they tackle their characters. It’s just they always seem to play second fiddle to the ideas in Nolan’s head. DiCaprio never reaches the giddy heights of his performances in The Aviator nor The Departed, and whilst his mental struggle with the death of his wife affects the plot’s narrative, you never really sense he’s mentally troubled man. Cobb is a very clinical thief, lamenting on simple mistakes, and this is mirrored in DiCaprio’s performance. Very clinical, hard to criticize, but nothing that makes you sit back on go ‘wow’. The supporting cast do a good job of moving the story along. Particularly impressive were Tom Hardy (Bronson) and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (500 Days of Summer) who both stood out as functional yet interesting characters, adding a bit of much needed humour to the piece. Other than that, it’s a list of Nolan usual suspects, with Michael Caine offering a brief cameo and Ken Watanabe getting much more screen time to exude his unnaturally creepy persona than in Batman Begins.

When I say ‘play second fiddle to Nolan’s ideas’ that is by no means a bad thing. Nolan is one of the most imaginative filmmakers of his generation, and he has insured that his vision comes across absolutely perfectly on screen. It’s easy to forget in this day and age that CGI can be done badly (I’m looking at you Clash of the Titans). But the visuals in Inception are brilliant, adding a sense of awe when needed, and when a feeling of isolation is required, the visuals appear right on cue in all their pixelated glory. Following on from The Dark Knight, camerawork from Wally Pfister is nothing short of staggering. There are a great range of long steady shots to mad handheld shots to keep the film moving.

It’s just a shame Inception loses a bit of momentum towards the end. As Cobb and co. advance through dreams within dreams, we are told time is extended in proportion (10 seconds on the first level is 3 minutes on the second and 60 minutes on the third etc.). It just feels the end is prolonged just that bit too long in order to wrap up every loose end. Nevertheless, Nolan ends the film with his usual little twist, executed in with the panache other filmmakers could only dream of. Too often I’ve sat and watched a film and been totally underwhelmed. With Inception, Nolan has created a film clever enough to keep even the biggest cinema buff on their toes, whilst entertaining enough to draw in the punters; a balance he first got right with The Dark Knight. But Inception is so much better than Nolan’s second Batman. We don’t need heroic (excuse the pun once again) performances from the leads to drag us through a bog-standard plot. Here, Nolan uses all his craft and guile to lead us on an adventure that’s both original and utterly compelling. A must watch for all.

But Miss, I have an excuse this time!

Sky Sports News building. I will venture in there one day when Georgie Thompson is on air.

'No excuses'. That's the same tried'n'tested bullshit all teachers pull out if your late to lesson, not done your homework, or tried to explain why you threw a pencil in their direction. But this time Miss Blog Maintenance, Daniel has a reason as to why this blog will particularly sparse over the next few weeks.

It's because I'm taking my keyboard tapping fingers somewhere else. To Wordpress. To document my four-week work placement at Sky.

If you're thinking, 'oh my word, no more Daniel for a month', then click that link and you'll be treated to me every day!

I'm trying to be a bit more professional with this blog. It won't be quite as irreverent and pointless as this blog, and dare I say it, I will actually be writing some quite serious shit.

So yeah, check it out. I'm shacked up in some B&B in Hounslow so I don't have much to do of evening, which means I should be able to update it pretty much every evening (providing I have a nice fruitful day).

Flaggots

Warning: this post contains an unhealthy amount of metaphors.

It's difficult being English. I sat down today and watched the film Eurotrip for the first time. Like every other comedy I've been meaning to see, it was absolutely awful (when a comedy fails to make you laugh or give a monkeys what happens to the main characters you know you're in trouble). But, it did highlight a good ol' English trait: 'soccer hooligans'.

In the film, two American teens travelling from America wind up with a rag-tag bunch of East London thugs who, of course, like everyone else from England, support their local team Manchester United. The gang, led - in an Oscar worthy performance...- by Vinnie Jones, tear round Europe callously punching Frenchmen and even assaulting the Papal escorts in the Vatican City (yep, this film really is terrible).

So it explains how the rest of the world sees us. A bunch of beer-fuelled louts who are incredibly passionate about football, so much so that we're ready to assault random strangers in the name of a victory.

So what a fucking disgrace it is, to see 11 Englishman tip-toe off the pitch in Bloemfontein after being outclassed, outgunned, and out-committed by a battle-hardened set of Germans.

There's no point in analysing what went wrong. There's no point pondering why Lampard and Gerrard still refuse to work together as though they are water and electricity respectively. There's no point discussing if Fabio Capello wasn't to wear 3D glasses to every England game, maybe he'd realise they were shit and not 'geeveeng a guud pairformence'.

The fact of the matter is we were terrible from day one. 'Oooooh we played well in the qualifiers' cried most people, giving their reasons why England might win the tournament. Unfortunately, these very naïve, mentally retarded people forgot that we played Kazakhstan and Andorra, two nations who probably have more dodos in their country than proper footballers.

Then Capello decided he would pick his team based on form rather than general class. You forget the wise old proverb - like many such proverbs, probably originated from a Marvel comic somewhere - 'Form is temporary, class is permanent'. Take for example, two of the goalscorers from German team. Miroslav Klose has scored three times in the last Bundesliga season, yet has scored just one shy of that total on the big stage in South Africa. Same with Lukas Podolski, who has netted the same number of goals all season for FC Köln. So here we are, getting spanked by a team made up of 'out of form' players. Players, whom had Capello been managing, probably would have been left at home to tend to their frankfurter farms (surely one exists SOMEWHERE).

But oh no! Capello was not to pick from class, as he decided to bring Emile Heskey, who is just about as useful as a hitchhiker with no thumbs. Or a vampire who lives in a curtain-less house. Or Scooby Doo without Velma. The only reason we took Emile Heskey was to show the poor South African children who live on the outskirts of District 9 (it is real, honest) that 'hey, life could be worse'. The wise ol' prophet Alan Shearer has always maintained that 'Heskey makes players around him play better'. Correction. Emile Heskey is SO BAD, he makes the players around him LOOK better. Hell, he could happily slot into the Dog and Duck FC and make the 40-year old striker with a pacemaker and a wooden leg look like Pele.

But, lets not shoot the largest target. It's easy to blame Capello. This is the man after all, who has won everything wherever he has been. Unfortunately as England manager, he has been lumped with a team of individuals who get bigger stage fright than a 6-year old child playing Joseph at the Christmas nativity play. Bar David James and Ashley Cole, the 21 other England players have been nothing short of diabolical. These (as one woman from Essex described them) ''undred faasend paand supastarz' have been quite simply, outplayed. Whether it was by the Americans, who were confused by the concept of a ball game played with the feet; the Algerians, who now have to go back home and sell camels to make ends meet; or the Slovenians, who are still fighting some kind of race war with men with names like Milsoveic.

And to top England's big pile of shit of with a sparkler you see in a tacky cocktail, there are the idiots at home who go St. George crazy, or as I like to call them, Flaggots. These are the people that, would it not be health hazardous when eating their half-time kebab, would paint red crosses on their teeth. Houses adorned with tacky red paint, flags attached to cars like they are ambassadors on foreign soil. Don't get me wrong, there's being patriotic and that, but when it's so obvious we're terrible, the jingoistic attitude displayed by many mentally inept England fans was a little bit embarrassing. It's like turning up to a swimming gala with the tightest Speedos and the most orange goggles, and then getting beat in the breastroke by a man with one leg who got the bus to the pool. We shouted, we painted and we believed. All we did was waste our breath, paint and mental activity.

So there we are, why it's difficult to be English. Because when the chips are down, we only ever have ourselves to blame. Oh and maybe Sepp Blatter, whose refusal to adopt goaline technology is frighteningly similar to when my granddad thought adopting the internet in his home would be like letting Satan into his front door. Now the old man never leaves eBay. Call me a traitor, but I just didn't care about this World Cup as much as I did before. I tried to hope. But the thing was, I just didn't believe. And that's probably what the 11 players who walked out to face the Germans today thought. It would explain why they played like a team of Stevie Wonder's...

'How can I be lost, if I've got nowhere to go?'

The little note I hid for next years resident :)

Warning: Daniel is away, Gay Daniel will be writing this post (hence why it's so emotional and down-right philosophical)

It is, in reality, a long way from Kent to Essex. It's taken me a good 6 hours to move back the contents of my uni shoebox to mi casa in lovely sunny Essex. While it may be my little uni shoebox, I'm gonna miss that little Alcatraz-like room.

It was the 20th September 2009 that I slapped my speakers (a sign I've moved anywhere) on the desk of room 412D in Liberty Quays. There was a chair, a mattress that Indian children in the slums of Delhi would have complained about, some shelves, a nicely finished en-suite and carpet made out of either tumbleweed or pubes. But, after whacking a few of my things in there, it became my little university retreat. A slice of independence away from sheltered life back in Essex.

Miss (I hope it's still 'Miss) Fox and the Metallica guys adorned the walls, Angus Young guarded the bathroom door, and pictures of friends stared back at me every time I sat on my computer. Then there was all the little random things on my pin board that I'd assembled from uni. Stupid little drawings and letters that when I took them down, really hit me that I'd finished my first year of Uni. Hell, once my walls were bare, I just wanted to give the keys back and be done with it, because 412D was no longer my little piece of heaven.

I wouldn't say my emotions were running high after I'd packed up and put the last stray bottle cap in the bin. Even if I was, the man-sized tissues were deep in the boot of my dad's car so there would have been no hope anyway.

I couldn't quite believe the amount of stuff that had come of the room. Watching my parents remove contents of drawers, shelves and stuff hidden under my bed was like watching a child play with a Russian doll. Then my dad proved his prowess at Tetris by somehow slotting it all into two cars. And then working out where it all fit back in my room. I don't believe in magic, but wondering how all the stuff fit in the shoebox and not my room at home had me questioning whether some form of witchcraft was at hand.

So it's Southend for the summer, highlighting why the location of my university lodgings is so shit. Even from my own window, I get to admire the 'shanty town' of Gillingham. And it wouldn't let me leave without giving it's own goodbye. 3am last night, two drunk guys across the road hugging, when all of a sudden one hits the guy round the face. Cue clichéd drunken conversation such as 'I thought you loved me man' and 'mi casa es mi casa' (the cultural ignorance there is nothing short of astounding).

It's only once I think back to all these little things that I realise I am going to miss that room. The little things that have made me laugh, cry, smile. It's been an awesome first year at Uni, and after all the shenanigans that went down, I knew I had a place to rest my head (unlike Jesus).

R.I.P 412D

For Arguments Sake

I have a huge amount of respect for my colleagues at Uni. Especially the foreign ones. Not only have they had to learn the lingo, but also learn it to the point where they're pretty much better at English than me.

It was even one of the 'aliens' who inspired me to start this blog. Sara Malm's blog is a feminists dream and one that makes me laugh quite a bit.

BUT

I can't help but thoroughly disagree with the post on the Harry Potter themepark in Orlando Florida.

I get the argument. The Wizarding World of Harry Potter is a new themed area in Universal's Islands of Adventure, a theme park that opened in 1999 and has since had absolutely nothing done to it. The same rides have sat there for a decade and there has been very little in updates or new rides.

So they went a bit mental, and decided to recreate JK Rowling's imagination into an area tucked away at the back of the park. Well, as tucked away as much as you can when you've got roller coasters, Hogwarts Castle and the village of Hogsmeade to accommodate.

Anyway, the argument is that Harry Potter is British. Quintessentially. In the same way as tea and scones is British. In the same way Churchill is British. And the same way football hooliganism is very British. So, why is this theme park 3,000 miles away from where many Brits think it should be?

The Americans know how to do a themepark. Look how many Brits, every year, escape the mundane nonsense of Britain and head to Disney World, Universal, SeaWorld and Busch Gardens in Florida and Disneyland, Universal and Six Flags in California. The Yanks take care with their parks. The scenery is beautifully done, parking is organised, and there is a real sense of occasion everytime you set foot in an American themepark. Parades, characters in suits, a clean environment. A British themepark has none of these things. Parades? Only the queue to get a refund on horribly overpriced tickets. Characters in suits? I suppose you could class the teenagers who are working for the summer as characters. A clean environment? I've walked round Thorpe Park before and was convinced I was actually in a landfill site.

The second thing the Americans have is imagination. Some of the rides at Universal are pioneers in ride technology. And the reports coming from Orlando about the 'top-secret' Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride have only reaffirmed this notion that the Yanks but far more grey matter into coming up with ride ideas. When we make a ride, we take the American idea, and make it slightly worse, simply because we can't be bothered to invest the same amount of money or effort into making these rides (compare the stats of Thorpe Park's 'Stealth' and the original design of Cedar Point's 'Top Thrill Dragster').

Now for a little history lesson for my final point. In the mid '80's, the Walt Disney Company were drawing up plans to bring their themepark to Europe and had a number of sites which could potentially locate 'EuroDisney'. One site was East London, more specifically, Barking and Dagenham. Yes, the old derelict crumbling Ford plant was put forward (more out of wild hope than expectation) as a potential site for Disney's park. Fortunately for the good of mankind, Disney realised that Disneyland Paris had a slightly better ring to it than 'Disneyland Dagenham' and placed their park at the heart of Europe in a picturesque setting of the Parisian outskirts.

And this all means what exactly? Essentially, having a Harry Potter themepark in Britain would be like building the worlds most powerful car and then attaching one wheel to it. We'd ruin it. We'd take it for granted, build a castle, fill it with a few portraits and then accountants would step in and we'd have to leave it at that. Who would come to it anyway? Britain's tourism is dire in comparison to that of American or France. No one would come and then Hogwarts really would look like ruins (small in-joke for die-hard Pottermaniacs). When I was in Orlando last year, they'd nearly finished building Hogwarts castle and it looked fantastic. The American's have taken our baby and treated it with care. The amount of money and research that has gone into it is nothing short of staggering. Both JK Rowling and Stuart Craig (production designer on all the Potter films) have both been heavily consulted every step of the way.

Like everything good on Earth, it's a British idea that's taken forward by the Americans. Lets not forget, the Potter films are all made by American companies. Can you imagine a Potter film made by the BBC? It'd be downright shit and you'd inevitably have Graham Norton as Dumbledore.

And besides, Orlando has sunshine. Who looks out of their window on a rainy day and thinks 'fucking prime themepark weather'?.

Case closed.

Losing My Revision, by R.E.M

A scene in the film Jarhead if you will digress. Anthony Swofford played by Jake Gyllenhaal forces Fergus (played by...someone) to construct and deconstruct his rifle at gunpoint. To the point where Swofford cocks his rifle, points it at Fergus' head, resulting Fergus breaking down into tears at the fact meaningless repetition of this simple military task is going to get him killed.

I am, at this very moment in time, 'doing a Fergus'. Simple, meaningless, repetitive task.

Look at lecture notes.

Take pen.

Note down lecture notes.

Add colour to add emotional depth.

Attempt to learn.

Next set of lecture notes.

If Jake Gyllenhaal is indeed reading this and is free at the moment, please, feel free to stop by with your M16 rifle and point it at my head. That way, at least I'll be slightly motivated. Learn about the Crimean War, or a nice little bullet knocking on my cranium. Decisions...

In my ongoing and (at the moment successful) quest to categorically fail theses exams, I have embarked on a number of other ventures that are not very 'revision-based'. First off, my room has been tidied to the point of obsessive compulsive. Staring at my desk blankly made me realise how many stray biro marks had vandalised the natural wood finish (as natural and as wood as you can get from MFI). As a result, Lord Hawhaw and his Germanic propaganda was momentarily suspended in the name of cloth, water and a good scrubbin'.

Elsewhere, the entire Sky Movies schedule for the past two days has been covered. Gran Torino was a particular highlight, with Clint Eastwood's feelings towards 'gooks' and 'chinks' in the film mirroring that of my feelings towards generally working. 'Fucking gooks'.

Me and my brother have used pretty much every team in the 2010 Fifa World Cup game for the Xbox. Using the Japanese team against Brazil was a particular highlight, discovering that it is only for England that the team from the East decide to use kamikaze tactics and put the ball into their own net. Honestly, it didn't work in World War 2, and it won't work in the World Cup. Someone needs to remove Emperor Hirohito from his post as Japanese National Coach and turn him to something more useful, like attacking an American port.

As you can tell by the historic ramblings present in this nonchalant post, my brain has been fried more effectively than a death row prisoner on the electric chair. The only thing that has been absorbed by the pink mush upstairs is the lyrics of songs that have been going while trying to revise. So if I see the question 'Describe the censorship of the press in WW2' and I answer with 'Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me', I won't be at all surprised.

A depressed, Amaretto-fuelled blog post. Bought to you by Dan.

23:59:59

It was the moment I'd been dreading since the year 2001. I was 11 years old and it was about 8.58pm when a programme on BBC2 had finished. All of a sudden, the screen crackled and hissed and a single number appeared:

24

'The following takes place between 12am and 1am. Events occur in real-time'. My 11 year old brain was thinking, 'how the fuck is this going to work?'

It is (I've got to start saying 'was', I'm living in denial that it's still going) a simple set up. Each episode is an hour long. 24 episodes in a season (or day). Voíla. TV. To be honest you could fill it with anything. A bunch of whiney, moaning American brats going on a 24 hour spending spree? A hospital drama showcasing a 24 hour brain transplant? All very good ideas, but no. The incredible team of writers came up with an action/thriller/drama/shockathon hybrid that gives (dammit 'GAVE') you a similar problem to one of Derren Brown's illusions i.e. being surgically stuck in your sofa.

When the final credits rolled on episode 192, the final episode in the last series, there was (I admit) a tear in my eye. Not because it was a sad ending (it was a great ending, I wasn't sitting there thinking I'd got lost in a Nuclear Fission lecture like many Lost viewers), it was just because it was the end of an era. I grew up with Jack Bauer like he was my TV dad (oh I wish). It's like the man who got me through dull days just so I could see him in the evening has passed on (yes I am aware this does sound a little rapey). 9 years of my life are over. My life, in the same way as Christ himself, has been segmented as B.B and A.J (Before Bauer & After Jack).

It was hard enough having to wait nearly 2 years when the Writers Strike postponed series 7 by 2 years. I now have an awful conundrum of not knowing what to watch. I tried Prison Break, which as massively addictive and amazing as it's 4 seasons were, it ran out of steam a bit after they'd broken out of prison, which unfortunately was season 1. I've been recommended other programmes like Dexter and House, but the problem is I don't feel like I can move on.

Think of it as a 9 year relationship. After 192 dates, she's finally moved on, leaving me alone in a room with damp eyes (which was exactly how it was, which is slightly sad). I've been told by friends to move on to others and let it go. The thing is I know that deep down this was 'the one' and nothing again will ever be as good. I'll always be comparing anything else to 24.

The fact I've managed to quite convincingly compare a TV programme to a serious relationship shows how dangerously addicted to this show I have been. Taking it away from me is like Josef Fritzl moving to a high-rise block of flats. I'll pretty much never be the same again.

If you haven't watched it, I'm not going to even try to convince you to watch it. I'm so bias it's not even funny. I literally stumbled across this show and I think it's the best way to watch something like this, rather than be force fed it like a sufragette. All I can say is, if you do start watching it, take your diary/calendar and rip it to pieces. Because for the months after you begin to watch 24, you won't want/physically be able to do anything else.

Shovel, Spade and a Hand Grenade

Friday Nights on BBC1. 7.30pm was Top of the Pops. 8pm was Eastenders. And from 8.30 was Ground Force. 90 minutes of TV brilliance, topped off by Alan Titchmarsh sneaking into someones garden and letting Charlie Dimmock and Hagrid's older brother loose on the weeds. I'm sure it was meant to appeal to older people just settling into bed with a digestive and a brew, but I was hooked. God knows why. I think I was waiting for an episode where they built a rollercoaster in a pensioners garden. It never happened.

Today Daniel had to endure his own little episode of Ground Force, except this was no surprise. No old lady coming back to find her neglected pile of mud behind her house had been transformed into the gardens at Windsor Castle. Just me, Dad and a crack team of gardeners. Well, when I say crack, it was more like crackpot. There was no Tommy Walsh or that ginger lesbian. It was a 62 year old guy from Ireland and a lexically challenged teenage oaf.

Now I'm not one for manual labour. It's what slaves and criminals on community service do. I consider myself to be neither, therefore I refuse to pick up any kind of DIY item. However, this time was different. There was my Dad's sanity at stake. Mum guilt tripped me into helping Dad before 'he got tired, miserable, grumpy and probably topped himself'. At that point I was thinking how to spend the inevitable inheritance and decided my efforts would be better spent doing fuck all. But then a bottle of Disaronno was bought to the negotiating table, and that just made the deal, quite literally, a little bit sweeter.

So, donned in a pair of wellies and some old clothes that were clearly bought in my 'unfashionable phase', I rocked up onto the set of Ground Force to find the rest of my garden crew were stuttering to the point of collapse. They had after all been working since 8am and it was now 2 in the afternoon. The teenage oaf was callously shovelling dirt into a wheelbarrow (probably the most mentally taxing task he'd undertaken since trying to remove a lid from a can of spray paint). The Irish man was talking in totally inaudible mumbles. I thought for a moment he'd got a bit too into the Avatar spirit and had learnt Na'vi. Then I realised he just wanted a cup of tea and was speaking Irish. Some people... My poor old Dad was there as well, looking well and truly shattered. No matter, Daniel stepped in to help his poor old man...

...for about 3 and a half minutes, before I remembered I am in fact me, and cannot stand gardening or physical movement at weekends. I honestly don't know what the appeal is with a garden. My parents say 'ooooh you'll appreciate a nice garden with a few plants when you're older and greyer'. Fair enough, but this doesn't sound very much like me. There's not even a water feature in my garden, and you could tell it was going to be a good episode of Ground Force when the designers threw in a waterfall or fish pond for good measure. Unfortunately, the Irish man nor the teenage oaf had come to install water features, instead, they'd come to dig up the grass and relay some better grass.

At that point I gave up caring. The amount of mess everywhere (quite how Titchmarsh et ál manage to clear up in the 7 days too, which makes me seriously doubt the integrity of this pledge that they actually manage to finish in 7 days) for a simple replacement of grass. Honestly, I could have cleared the garden a damn sight quicker with a bottle of Smirnoff and a box of matches. Oh and what's the bane of any Ground Force episode? Rain. And boy did it rain today. It did the lovely topsoil no good whatsoever.

From today then, I've learnt several important lessons. The first is never ever attempt gardening. Just send a tape with a sob story to Alan Titchmarsh and pray. I know Ground Force isn't on anymore but I don't think Dimmock and Walsh are turning down work at the moment. The second rule is don't accept deals on the backing of free alcohol. No amount of Italian liqueur is going to make up for a day of chronic back ache and ruined hands.

And the final rule, never think you can emulate a TV programme. It's all witchcraft. Now, let's have a go at making my car a bit chavvier...

Daydream Believer

I'm sitting here in a quiet house. Parents have got to that stage where they're in bed earlier than most newborn children. Brother has college. It's just me, Macbook, and MTV Classic.

I really just feel like writing something. I don't know whether it's the sound of the keys pattering up and down that's therapeutic. I don't know whether it's because I'm not vein enough to say 'I love the sound of my own voice', therefore, I just transfer everything I feel I want to say onto this little blog.

MTV Classic. Schedule from 11pm to 1am on Wednesday night is Top 20 Monsters of Rock. I'm sitting here thinking, 'I wish I had a time machine'. Number 11 on the list is a live version of The Who's 'Wont Get Fooled Again'. It's not fair. I'd give up everything just to go back to the '70's to see them live. Hell, anyone want a kidney? Liver? Just take it all, as long as I can watch Daltrey and co. smash shit up.

And then Kurt appeared. I can't quite remember how I was before I'd heard 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'. Obviously I was half the human being who'd heard Nirvana. It makes me wonder what'd it would have been like to have been an angry teen living in the Seattle area at the beginning of the Nineties. I make no bones about it, grunge music from that era is my all-time favourite type of music, I just wished I could have been around to see bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Smashing Pumpkins etc. in their prime.

I do honestly believe I was born in the wrong country at the wrong time. Watching Britain go through an awful state of music. We're relying on one-hit grimey rappers, a woman named after a Queen song who'd think a plant pot would make a good dress, half-cocked Indie bands and a random singer '+ David Guetta' to fill up our charts. I've given up all hope. If only I'd been an American teen on the West Coast in the nineties. Then I wouldn't have to write this incredibly boring blog post with just me wallowing in self pity. About music. Powerful thing this MTV...

Oh, I've written most of this listening to the Glee Soundtrack. The word hypocrite comes to mind.

You Heard It Here First

It's that time of the year again, where miscreants come from all over Britain to stand in front of Simon Cowell and be told 'you're a talentless idiot, but we're going to let you humiliate yourself in the name of ratings and a nice sponsorship deal with Dominoes Pizza.'

Yes Britain's Got Talent is back on the box. Its ITV's way of making people feel just that little bit better about themselves, by throwing goblins and all sorts of other creatures on stage while Ant & Dec prance around backstage like hyperactive children after a bag of Tangfastics. It's such shite telly. It's as predictable and clichéd as a romcom and in the end, no ones a winner, because all their money goes towards Amanda Holden's new nose (I swear she's got so many they must be interchangeable).

But not so fast. And the end of this gloriously shallow and hate-filled tunnel, there is a light at the end. Granted, it's just light coming through some cracks in the ceiling of the tunnel, but it's light nevertheless. I hate the fact the winners of this damn show have been singer, dancer, dance troupe. Piers Morgan constantly witters on about finding 'variety', and yet all the good acts never make it. In the first series, my favourite act was this guy. When he petered out in the semi-finals, I was devastated.

I love how everyone always says 'it's always been my dream to perform at the Royal Variety, since I was a kid...' I don't know about you, but I'd never heard of this magical show till I was about 13. What 6 year old didn't want to be a Power Ranger, and instead, wanted to run around on stage in front of Queen Lizzy? Exactly, no one.

Now I'll be honest, I've hardly watched the damn programme this year. I know shock horror, send me to the gallows. But, I did have a little gander last Saturday, and I'm sorry, but if this act doesn't make it to the final, I'll have lost all faith in humanity.

Fatherhood & Pitchforks

I returned home on Saturday afternoon hoping for a nice relaxing two weeks of the Lord's finest 'sweet f.a.' Not much to ask seeing as how I haven't really had a break since Christmas; I'm starting to think this 'work' lark is getting too much for my lil' head to deal with.

Now I know what you're thinking, the word 'hoping' clearly signifies that Daniel's two weeks will NOT be relaxing. And you'd be one hundred percent correct. I returned home to find my Dad had become the middle-class freedom fighter equivalent of Joanna Lumley.

Quite a lot gets my Dad riled. Being bought up in the East End of London for starters can't have inspired much faith in humanity. I've lost count how many times he's told me about how he used to be 'the angel child' while his younger sister skipped school and his younger brother held lifelong ambitions to be 'a dustman, because you don't start work till the afternoon'.

He also has the most pessimistic job in the world. A risk assessor for an insurance firm. To you and me, all he does all day is sit and think 'what could go wrong'. And when you work for an insurance company that deals in everything from the British Airways fleet to mineshafts in America, that's a lot stuff to 'go wrong'.

It's not so much a 'glass half empty' philosophy that my Dad holds, more like a glass shattered into a million pieces with the contents all over the coffee table.

So, you can imagine he wasn't best pleased when the council (Rochford Council in Essex for all you aliens) decided to submit plans to build about 100 cheap houses in the lovely green belt land opposite our house. Our house which my Dad has spent about a year decorating and getting it to his worryingly high standards after we bought it. And the one condition we bought the house on? That no development would ever take place on that land...

In some ways it's a kind of laughable series of events, but then again it's also quite worrying. These plans are the first steps in an absolutely massive property development scheme to take place over the next 10/15 years in Rochford and Ashingdon. The likelihood is much of the green space that my Dad loves (and hence why we bought a house here) is going to be filled with shite low-rent housing. Essentially, it'll be like having legal travellers.

So. What does this have to do with my 2 week break? Well, my Dad (after owning a councillor at a recent planning meeting) has been 'elected' by the residents on my road (possibly the most casual elections ever) to lead this campaign against the council. Brilliant, now I have Nelson Mandela for a father, leading some middle class 'rebels' against the council to keep them from building on areas where pheasants congregate.

This morning then, I've had to deliver lots of lovely leaflets through people's letterboxes (because people are so happy to see strangers knocking at their door asking for support at the moment) and it reminded me why I never wanted to be a paperboy. People can't buy normal letterboxes anymore, where it's one flap and you just whack the paper in and walk off. Nope, people seem to be buying the shark equivalent of letterboxes. I had more scratches and cuts on my hand than a reclusive teenager. And then the dogs. One letterbox was on the floor practically, so their sorry excuse for a dog (it was basically a fluffy rat) could have a go at postman. Honestly, buy a real pet and use the shitty little dog as a toy or a doorstop.

No pitchforks, no burning torches, no effigies on fire. Just some middle class residents expressing their anger through leaflets and expressing displeasure across the trellised fences. But my god I hope the campaign works. The last thing I need when I come home from Medway in Kent is to find more kids attired in stuff from JD Sports' bargain bin on my driveway...

Braindead *Insert Witty Title Here*

Guess who's back with a brand new rap?

Well, not really new. But just back, after what can only be described as the busiest most hectic few weeks of my life. Uni work, uni work, uni work, work experience, social life. I've been busier than a man using Photoshop charged with making the new Tory campaign posters look pretty.

So yeah work experience. I've been at the Kent Messenger newspaper for a week now and it has absolutely flown by. Took me a few days to get the hang of things (picking up the phone for the first time saying 'Kent Messenger, good morning' was a terrifying and surreal experience) and it doesn't help I've been spoilt by Uni. Nice new computers, decent camera equipment, reasonable deadlines...I'm not going to complain ever again. For a newspaper that covers the whole of Kent, I was a little surprised to find only 4 reporters, 2 news editors and an editor. The amount of work these people is unreasonable to say the least. I've gone through more press releases than a shredder, trying to get 200 words into 20. It's been chaos.

But fun. Very good fun. Day one was spent at an old people's home, where the smell followed me all day. We were doing a voxpop on the election, finding out which political party had amassed the 'grey vote' as the sub editors politely put in the headline. I was at my happiest when a dotty old lady told me 'the first person to kick out all the immigrants, I'll vote for'. It was like looking at a more cenial, older and feminine version of myself.

Tuesday was rather boring. Found out about a 16-year old yoof from Maidstone who'd uploaded a video showing how to kick a football which had attracted 1,000's of views (the internet is FULL of any old shit that people will watch). I think it's the first time a story has appeared in a Kent newspaper about a 16-year old that hasn't mentioned the words: 'sambuca', 'fire', 'rape' or 'Walther PPK', so it's a nice little bit of publicity for all.

Spent Wednesday morning at a sleepy little village just outside Maidstone. Gordon Brown was there the week before, Liam Fox (Shadow Defence Secretary) was there Tuesday to announce to Tory manifesto, and then lil' ol' me showed up the day after. I'd hoped to strut around the pubs, saying 'Daniel May, Kent Messenger' and return to the office with a notebook full of quotes and stun the editors with an article (the word 'twat' comes to mind...). Unfortunately, nobody told me they were shooting a sequel to '28 Days Later' in Aylesford (the little village). Because that's what it was. Empty. As fuck. No matter, got some quotes. Then in the afternoon, Maidstone had a powercut. So I ran around the town centre finding out what had happened (the response 'the lights have gone out' made my day) and managed to get a story on the website. Things were going well.

Thursday was a little more subdued. I logged onto Facebook for the first time that week in the office. Just to check I hadn't missed anything. In the afternoon I went to a fashion show (I know, 'bout time my area of expertise was recognised). It was once again full of old girls (I swear they're following me) and most of the models were shop employees (i.e. more old women). But it was great fun. I got free flapjack so I wasn't complaining.

So yeah, there's a little chronological report into my week. Hopefully next week I'll get to go to a car crash or house fire or something. I won't leave the office until I've had to give an eyewitness testimony to the police.

Leader's debate yesterday. I shuffled my rear into the perfectly formed ass-groove on my chair and stuffed my face with chicken as the leaders had a good ol' fashioned scuffle. Clegg did very well, but then no one's really paid much attention to him before. It's like a novelty at the moment. He out-Cameroned Cameron, in the sense he was big, confident and very well spoken. Gordon Brown just looked a creature from the cantina scene in Star Wars. His attempts at jokes were dire, the man has about as much comic timing as roadkill.It'll be interesting to see how Clegg stands up in the debate over foreign policy, seeing as his credentials in this area are way behind those possessed by Cameron and Brown. For these two, last night was a warmup. Get through debate numero uno without any hiccups and get a feel for how it's going to go down. It'll be an interesting few weeks.

And finally, quick update on my Créme Egg count. I started with 138, I've had a bloody good munch on them. I'll count them later. Don't expect there to be more than 60 left.

I 'Aint Gonna Work On Maggie's Farm No More

I spend an unholy amount of time on Facebook. In someways I feel ashamed, but then I look out onto the streets of Gillingham and think: 'apart from mugging old women, there's not much else to do out there'. So I 'like' another set of stupid photos and waste away my evenings achieving nothing but turning my eyes slowly more square.

I suppose the other thing I could be doing (work doesn't count) is playing video games. And sorry for stating the obvio

us, but my they've changed. Not just graphically o

r how many different plastic instruments you can flog to the masses, but how we play video games. In some ways, I bet everyone thought we could get away with simply making games prettier and prettier and all would be well. Clearly not. I'm going to head back to Facebook to explain why.

If you replied to the question 'What did you do at the weekend?' with 'Instead of going out I watered some carrots and sheered some sheep', people would have thought you were some backwards inbred recluse. Unfortunately, around 80 million people worldwide give this same response, and they don't even have to break out the chequered wellies to have this riveting weekend.

Yes, FarmVille. God knows how Zynga (the publisher and developer of the game) thought that by letting people having their own 16x16 grid where they could plant fruit and veg, it'd turn a massive proportion of web users into something equivalent to a violent heroin addict.

The thing is though, this unbelievably simple game has got a bigger audience than Twitter. And most of the players are not just casual, half-interested folk. The nature of the way FarmVille is played means that people keep going back to it like a prostitute will keep going back to Soho. I (ashamedly) use to play FarmVille, way back in June last year when it was a fairly new and novel idea. Unfortunately, if you wanted to progress anywhere in the game, you had to structure your life around it. Crops would harvest and die in realtime, and as a result, if you were out when your lovely new pumpkins had grown, the likelihood was by the time you sat back down at your computer, they would have wilted and died. Because of this 'harvest or die' style, it led to conversations where a friend would say 'we have to leave by *insert time here* otherwise my wheat'll die and then I would have wasted 4 days growing them'.

I don't really know why I'm bothering to explain the concept of FarmVille because by the sounds of it, anyone with an internet connection has harvested some virtual crops. The thing that's interesting though, that whilst games developers pour millions of Pounds into creating super complex and pretty games for the home consoles, a game that looks like it was created in a time when dinosaurs roamed the Earth is the one that has pulled in the most players. It's not clever, it's simple gameplay and it's graphically very poor. Yet somehow, it has caused my sodding Facebook 'news feed' to become full of FarmVille updates, and I'm not impressed.

It has also meant that I receive a ludicrous amount of gifts to accept on Facebook. I keep getting offered a free chicken for the farm I don't even have by some girl. I think it would be nicer if the girl got off Facebook, got a real chicken and cooked it, then offered to me. I'd be much happier then.

Do You Want Fries With That Qualification?

Ladies and gentlemen. Tonight is a night to celebrate. Tonight, we honour the commitment and hard work that your sons and daughters have put in over the past two weeks. We've had nothing but praise for them, and I like them all to come up to the stage one by one to collect their awards. Without further or do, I'd like to present all of these wonderful boys and girls, their Level 2 BTEC in working at McDonalds.

In my head, this is roughly how I'd think an award ceremony would go at a particularly shit school where kids are awarded for not setting the teacher alight every term. Well, now these miscreants have the chance to leave with maybe the odd-qualification, as ol' Ronald McDonald has stepped into the British education system armed with a hamburger and a shit-load of easy qualifications.

You see, in exchange for working for 10 days at a McDonalds restaraunt, teenagers can now get a level 2 BTEC qualification in 'Work Skills'. Essentially, it's the equivalent of a B or C at GCSE, or what I used to call 'hard work'.

According to Edexcel (the exam board who run the qualification), the experience will help to build 'team working skills' and improve teenagers communication. N0w I don't know another generation who can chat quite as much as ours. The last thing a teenager who spends all day on their phone, Facebook and MSN is to be taught how to communicate at work. And what team working skills can you possibly hope to achieve from working behind the counter at McDonalds? The only thing I can possibly think of is which nationality of employee is on fries duty and which is on adding human fluids to the burgers.

I am not at all impressed by this. I worked bloody hard for my GCSEs and for exam boards to be handing them out like fucking Happy Meal toys is taking the piss. What happened to a bit of social elitism i.e. the people that work the hardest get the rewards. Lets face it, the kids who are going to be taking this qualification are going to be the ones flipping burgers anyway, so essentially these 2 weeks are just practice. I'm waiting for the day when AQA start giving out A-Levels to people who busk...