Sun, Sex and One Very Annoying Parent

In a move that has surprised even myself, I have found myself glued to BBC3 every Monday night. Well, not quite. Such is the unique way that a student house operates our TV signal is about as good as what you'd expect to find in the middle of the Sahara desert using a cardboard box and a coat hanger. Praise the Lord then for BBC's iPlayer, a service with such swagger even it's name suggests it's made by the self-proclaimed rulers of the free world at Apple.

So every Tuesday, I sit down at my computer with a hot chocolate and a pack of digestives like a woman who's been recently dumped and sit back and watch British teens making complete tits of themselves as they galavant and vomit all over European holiday destinations. Well I say 'holiday destinations', they're more like parallel universes where society is just a crazy idea and they're run by people like Lady GaGa and The Mad Hatter. Yes gentlemen and ladies, this is Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents.

The program plays out like an Essex-version of The Truman Show. British teens set out on their first holiday away from the parents, hoping for a week of exactly what the title suggests. However, mum and dad (or for some of the more broken families, mum and a 'family friend') get to watch the whole thing, either from a TV monitor or through a set of binoculars. Cue scenes of parents tutting, teens revealing they 'haven't seen Dad as much as they'd have liked' and then everyone learning more about each other and it all ends happily ever after. Nonsense, I'm waiting for the episode where the teen comes back with so many STIs that they have to quarantine him on the Isle of Man.

One of many drinking games, this one entitled 'are you fucking starting?'

If you've been on a holiday with your friends it's brilliant. As I sat there watching Mr. and Mrs. Daddy's Little Princess watch their little angel investigating what every guy in Malia's throat tastes like, it did make me think what my parents would have said when I decided some toilets in Zante could have done with a new lick of paint. Well not paint, more like sick. Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen would have gushed at my efforts.

The episode I watched yesterday though had me shouting at the telly like a mental person playing along to You Say, We Pay. An 18 girl from Nottingham was the unfortunate offspring of a man named Chris.

Chris is a huge twat.

"I'm not strict," says Chris, as he trawls through a list of rules ranging from 'no boys' to 'no drinking'. That was it, first blood vessel had gone. The man is insane.

Such was the medieval view of life that this brain-dead Midlander had that he spent most of the time watching his daughter complaining about what she was wearing. "She's in for a bollocking!" he spluttered as he saw his daughter at a foam party in a bikini. Second blood vessel exploded. Thanks Chris, now I need an ambulance.

I get the idea of strict parents; I hardly have Pete Doherty for a Dad, but at least he lives in the real world. 'Chris' (whether that is his real name or if it's just code for 'Stalin') had his head so far up his own arse he could taste his own stomach acid. The poor girl wasn't even allowed to bring home a guy or have a boyfriend. Chris' big realisation at the end was that "she'll have to get a boyfriend at some point." Well done sir, unless you've raised your child to be a nun or a raving homosexual.

The man had Daily Mail written all over him, the sort of man that chortles rather than laughs, smirks rather than smiles, and writes a letter of complaint rather than manning the fuck up. I've got no qualms about a decent upbringing and a few rules, otherwise literally every corner of Britain would look like the Ayia Napa strip. A funny sounding idea yes, but you'd get tired of some Liverpudlian flogging you cocktails for 40p before you've even agreed to going into whatever piss-poorly named landfill-site of a bar. But, there's a limit. Chris, who I might name Britain's Worst Parent after Karen Matthews and Elton John, has taken this parenting thing a bit too far, like he's in command of a tank regiment, not an 18 year-old girl.

I'd like to think I could find the right balance between strict and liberal as a parent. I'm not about to turn this into a 'how to' guide, but I'd like to think watching Chris I could avoid turning myself into Colonel Twat and make a good hash of raising a child properly. But that's not for another few years yet, I should probably make sure I can look after myself before I think about a little sprog.

Bite Me

In my quest for world domination, it is imperative that I am at one with the most popular things in life. Whether it be One Direction-like boots (apologies to those XFactor haters out there); saying the word 'procrastination' or knowing all the words to Mr. Brightside, if I am indeed to lead to human race, I have to be at one with these things. It was these thoughts that not only led me to download the current Twilight films, but also set aside an entire afternoon to watch them. With my vagina nicely placed on my lap, I hit the play button and let the mental torture begin.

Unless you've been living in a cave with Bin Laden n' co., you'll know that the books are about a teenage girl named Bella Swan falling in love with vampire Edward Cullen. From then on, creator Stephenie Meyer managed to stretch this excruciatingly-taxing romance across four books and so far, three films. I've never understood the fascination with these books. If you want teenage love, then there are plenty of other places you can go. If you want vampires battling werewolves, again there are so many better sources to satisfy your animalistic fetish (I'd start with the film 'Underworld'. Vampires against werewolves, but Kate Beckinsale as a vampire with semi-automatic pistols. Makes this Twilight nonsense look like Twishite).

So I sat there, concentrating as hard as possible, determined to know the ins and outs so I could partake in conversations about said topic. I admit, it's not often I find myself in a Team Edward vs. Team Jacob deathmatch, but it's nice to be prepared. Unfortunately, these films are absolutely rife with boredom. Honestly, the last time I sat through something this uneventful was when I watched Manchester City play away from home. The highlight of the first film was a baseball game. A baseball game, set to 'Supermassive Black Hole', which was totally out of place from the rest of the film. For about an hour you're subjected to more frowns than a bombing in Baghdad and music so poignant and gothic you'd be forgiven for locking yourself in a bathroom with a My Chemical Romance CD and a flick-knife. And then all of a sudden, BASEBALL AND HAPPY-GO-LUCKY MUSE SONGS! Talk about a shift in tone. No matter, things are back to bleak within a matter of minutes. Then nothing happens, apart from they burn a bad vampire. Oh the humanity...

I was on the verge of tears when the universally slated New Moon failed to play properly. The sound was up the shit and if I couldn't hear the dialogue then all I was left with was pale people frowning; something I experience every morning when I wake up and look in the mirror. So after hearing that the series continues in the same vein with the second film in the sense that absolutely nothing happens, I skipped onto the third film, Eclipse. According to critics and fans of this extravagant nonsense, this is meant to be the best of the series, so I approached it with an air of optimism, hoping there'd be some serious developments in Bella and Edward's relationship and maybe, just maybe, something worth watching. My optimism was completely shattered within the first few scenes. First of all, a totally random human is attacked by über-baddie Victoria and turned into a vampire. There's no explanation as to why this particular human is chosen, but in a recruitment diversity-policy that would put Abercrombie & Fitch to shame, this human is vaguely good looking, and so, some form of story is moulded around him. Then we see incessant love-birds Bella and Edward rolling around in a field of pretty flowers in what is meant to be the bleakest and most depressing town in America. The first film showcases the effects sunlight has on vampires like Edward. Do these effects appear in the third film? Are you nuts? There's a sickening romance to concentrate on! There's no time for such minor details. Anyway, the entire film is a combination of flashbacks explaining the backstory of this shitstorm of a series (which should have been in the first film to give us a chance to know what the fuck is going on) and 'romantic' scenes between Bells and Ed that are so devoid of any emotion it's like watching two mimes try and get it on.

After building up to an 'incredible' fight scene which is over in around two minutes after a combination of vampire and the biggest fecking dogs I've ever seen rip the living shit out of a rebel clan of vampires, I was beginning to see the pattern of these films. The fact the film ended with Bella and Edward rolling around in another field of pretty flowers just confirmed it. Absolutely nothing happens in these films. There's absolutely zero development in the way of characters and everyone is as lifeless as a vampire, regardless of whether they actually are mini-Draculas or not.

Phwoar Jacob...am I saying that right?

All Jacob does is wonder around with his top of lamenting about how he loves Bella so much. Seriously, you're a werewolf, just go and howl and eat something. I can see how the filmmakers of this series have tried to inject his character with a bit of life and humour, but Taylor Lautner struggles to portray even the most basic of human emotions, and such complicated tasks as smiling are way beyond his acting talents. And when he does smile, his teeth are so white they make Edward's skin look tanned (boom, a seriously in-depth joke right there).

All Bella does is look glumly into the camera, as though the crew behind the camera are holding a cute puppy at gunpoint. It's fortunate that her two love interests are very difficult to kill because her indecision is enough to drive anyone else to the point of putting a wooden stake through their own heart. It's a shame because Kristen Stewart is a genuinely talented actress but the only requirements she has in these films is sulk, sulk, and then sulk some more. Oh and both her Mum and Dad are played by villains from the TV show 24, and as a result, cannot be trusted to raise a child.

During the first film, I found myself shouting at the telly for Bella and Edward to fucking get on with it. It's like putting Romeo & Juliet together then throwing obstacles at their relationship; unless you're completely mentally retarded, you know they're still gonna be together at the end of it. Every scene in Eclipse highlights a different reason why she shouldn't marry Edward, yet still ends up rolling around in the daffodils with the blood-sucking moron come the credits, rendering the entire film a totally pointless exercise. Never have I ever seen such a more loved film that is so terrible. Not only is it bad, it's incredibly frustrating. For a film series that's meant to portray the angst of being different and finding love, it alienates itself from the crowd with it's lack of heart and general lack of anything.

Drunken rant over.