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.