Pre-Christmas findings

I like Christmas, it is time off school and everyone is very happy, this obviously being a good thing. Has not stopped me finding little niggles and annoyances in it all though. I'm not going to rant about the commercialisation of Christmas, my hatred for the use of "Xmas", the horrible bright lights and tacky decorations or having to kiss so many old people I am apparently related to. I could do this but there is not enough space, even online and I wouldn't want to bore you too much.

What really irritates me is the food. People drastically change their eating habits just because it is what one does. Michael McIntyre did a stand up on this very topic and rather annoyingly took a lot of my ideas and made it about ten times funnier, probably due to his camp actions and variety of hilarious voices. As a talentless person I have to write mine down, removing the funny voices and actions, you can add them in yourself if you like. He mentioned how turkey is a less good chicken, sprouts are fat grenades, bread sauce is just ridiculous and how it must all go in a sandwich an hour or so after the main meals.

My focus will be cranberries. Apparently good for the metabolism, cranberry juice is popular amongst dieting women but apart from this, cranberries are not eaten again throughout the entire year, except at Christmas. A lot of the places I like to buy lunch have introduced special edition Christmas sandwiches to take advantage of the change in food preference between mid-November to early-January. These include Turkey and stuffing, chicken and stuffing, bacon and stuffing, brie and cranberry sauce and many more. As a hater of sweet main courses, sandwiches and such I immediately steered clear of the brie and cranberry sauce. Thinking the others would be safe I aimed for chicken and stuffing (I love stuffing, it doesn't get nearly enough credit or air time as it deserves) only to find the bastards had smothered it in cranberry sauce and only written it in the tiny box at the bottom. Thoroughly disappointed I checked the turkey and stuffing, oh cranberries, bacon and stuffing - yeah, cranberries again. Sulkily I decided to go for an all year round sandwich - chicken and bacon, a good, standard meaty sandwich. I picked it up, almost allowing myself a smile, before discovering that they had decided to give it a Christmassy twist and add an extra ingredient. FUCKING CRANBERRIES! Come on Greggs, I can't eat a sausage roll every day, I have my heart to think of.

Being always up to date with the latest fads and excitements I this week signed up to eBay, it is so much fun! The tension, the thrill of competition and the joy of victory (I am aware I sound like a Sontaron but bear with me). What is less fun is the agonising wait in the last minute, desperately hoping the item in question will be yours, thanks to some bloke up north who got too fat for his clothes, a desperate student in need of some cash or a housewife who has cleared the attic. Ebay is in fact the reason I am writing this blog post, I am preparing to snipe on an absolute bargain, it is nerve-racking stuff. I had my first positive feedback the other day, it was beautiful, I was so happy: "Thank you for an easy, pleasant transaction. Excellent buyer. A++++++" What a lovely man!

Have a great, eBay-filled, cranberryless Christmas readers.

The Raise in Tuition Fees - Why everyone should shut the hell up and get on with life

As you are probably aware tuition fees were raised to a minimum of £3000pa with a £9000pa cap. This has obviously caused a lot of controversy, rioting, complaining and abuse of the Tory/Lib Dem government by ignorant, narrow minded people. I'll accept that I am not in a fantastic position to judge because I will not be affected by the rise and neither will anyone already at university or applying for 2011 entry. You could say I have dodged a bullet, but you would be wrong, I have merely dodged a paintball for whilst the increase in fees is going to hurt, it is not the end of the world.

Student loans are a glorious invention, they accumulate virtually no interest, you are not required to pay them back until you earn more than £21000pa, the debt is wiped if you do not earn more than £21000pa for 30 years or live abroad for 30 years. If you are from a poor family then there is no interest on them whatsoever.

This rise is annoying and everyone who will be applying for 2012 entry or later has the right to be annoyed but this was inevitable and the Con/Lib coalition is being used as a scapegoat. Universities do not have enough money and without the increase in fees England will not be able to maintain its status as one of the world's leading providers of further education. The Russell Group (the top universities in the UK) have praised this increase and said it is absolutely necessary and fair. Some say this isolates students from poorer families but it really doesn't, government subsidies, lower loan repayments and cheaper living costs compensate for the expense. The alternative of course is to cut the number of courses or the number of places available on courses. The former may prevent people from being able to study an obscure course they need for a specific occupation, limiting the number of people in a particular profession. The latter will mean only the top students in the country can go to university, isolating those in the middle ground.

Those who are specifically blaming the Tories or Lib Dems need to open their eyes and join the real world, the EXACT same thing would have happened under Labour and the Lib Dems' promise not to raise fees and even to abolish them was a naive policy that would have bankrupted the country and had a secondary function of getting them plenty of votes.

As a student who wishes to pursue a career in science it is absolutely necessary for me to go to university and get a science degree but this is not the case for everyone. People incorrectly view university as a necessity, you could not be further from the truth, the majority of professions do not require a degree, you can go straight into office or retail work, become an apprentice for a builder/electrician/plumber etc (plumbers earn stupidly high wages), start a business or work for almost any company in the world. These fees will only deter the people who want to go to university solely for the social side of things and frankly, they shouldn't be going anyway, it is a place of learning with socialising on the side, don't drag people down because you don't care about studies, university is not just an expensive 3-year piss up.

Finally, the majority of people enjoy 14 years of virtually free education, is 3 years paid education really that bad?

Keep Calm and Carry On.

(n.b. pa = per annum)

UCAS and such

Getting into university is stressful at the best of times, this year it is more competitive than it has ever been and probably will be for the next 10 years. With fees going up, everyone who has been considering it for a few years has applied, noone with an iota of common sense is considering taking a gap year and university funding has dropped so less places are available. Great.

We all get the pleasure of applying through the middleman that is UCAS, I can't be bothered to look up what it stands for, if you want to know I recommend Googling it. For a middleman UCAS are great and receive an awful lot of abuse. Some is deserved, some is not. For example, for our personal statements you are allowed 4000 characters and 47 lines. Seems fair, 47 is a slightly strange number but alright. How is it that a statement can be way under the character limit but go over the line limit. There is nothing more frustrating than finally finishing the personal statement, proof reading, and finalising before uploading it to see that stupid bit of red writing that says "2 lines over the 47 line limit." AHHHHHHHHHH, *throw computer through window* bloody UCAS! I sorted that though.

The worst part is the agonising waiting process, first the 3 weeks for my form tutor to write my reference, the quick 2 days for the Head of Sixth Form to process and then the hard part, waiting for offers. I went through the first week telling myself it was too early for a decision but the second week was less pleasant. With every email my pulse raced, could it be an offer? Nope, another email about volunteering/amazon recommends/teamsheet, oh well. What was even more horrible was when I did get an email from UCAS, nervously I opened it to find "Would you like to take part in a survey to rate UCAS?" How disappointing, I can't face a survey right now, I'll just stare at this wall contemplating my university-free failure of a life. We all talked about timings and teachers recalled cases of excellent students having no offers until suddenly getting five in January. After nearly two weeks I had set myself for this horrible future, despite the fact that offers in the first two weeks is very unlikely.

After a hilarious shift at work, much racing and Bond-style fighting with my colleague (friend) I got home to find two emails from UCAS. Both said "Your UCAS status has changed." Cue quick pulse, sharp breaths and excited quivers. Being on my ipod touch I quickly went onto my UCAS app, oh yes, and logged in (knowing my 10-digit code off by heart of course) to find an offer of ABB from Cardiff. Not only this but an offer of ABB from my favourite, and top choice Nottingham. What a day. Conditional is such a beautiful word. If I ever see the word Unconditional on my application I will drop out of school and work full time, think of the money! So I am happy, sorry for the lack of moaning and paintball action. See you next time.

Jumping on the paintball bandwagon

Paintball seems to be an excellent blogging topic, two of my friends have given their comments on the spectacle already (mylifeisdaverage.blogspot.com and strevssundays.blogspot.com) and have probably done a better job than I will do. Until now I have refused to mention names other than my own in this blog but for ease of writing and reading I will just bite the paintball, pardon the pun, and use the names of my friends. We embarked on a trip to Whyteleafe in a jovial mood, we were going to be shooting people in a fun yet painful way, the ultimate lads day out. There was quite a walk from the station, up a massive hill, and after such an early start, this was not the ideal start for such frail teenage bodies on such a crisp and damp Saturday morning. The hill conquered we were well and truly in the mood for war.

I'm going to quickly open the racist door, gathered outside the "warzone" was a group of 15 or so Japanese people, cue paint-related Hiroshima jokes. All these jokes were trumped by the suggestion of Adam Russell: "you know how in war soldiers carry a knife for killing up close? Do you reckon in paintball you could carry a paintbrush?" With all of us kitted up it came to the point of being put into teams. Unable to fairly split ourselves we left it up to the highly fair and intelligent minds of the paintball marshals. Shockingly they didn't split us as evenly as we'd hoped. One one team they put Paul "Psycho with a face mask" Wallace, Ally "the destroyer" Marsh, Tom "In homeland we use real guns" Diver and David "I can't wait to shoot Dave" Streather and on the other team was me, Dave "COD" Williams and Adam "hallo" Russell. It did not look hopeful.

After a safety briefing we went to war, given a quick insight into course strategy we gave our battle-cry, it was quite pathetic really, far too many grammar schoolboys, midlife crisis men and hungover stag-doers for an inspiring rally. Seeing myself as superior in the speed department to my comrades I took it upon myself to sprint off to the vantage point in the form of a massive tree. I made it safely and proceeded to coordinate an attack with total strangers. It did not go well. I do not have the tactical mind needed to orchestrate successful military operations.

Several games later my lack of tactical knowledge combined with the intricate workings of Dave William's battle-ready brain. Having realised he did not have the body to match his mind, and my mind not living up to my body we teamed up. At first it was not successful, a collection of fluke shots took me out in our first two attempts at teamwork, leaving Dave to fend for himself (something he did shockingly well at) but our finest hour came in the final game. Capture the flag, sounds simple enough. But wait, the flag is situated just outside a heavily defended fortress, full of testosterone-fuelled alpha males, this would take an expert military mind and a body of military perfection. Step forward Dave and Joe. In the valuable seconds before hell was unleashed he planned our safest and quickest route to the flag. The plan fresh in my mind I burst from cover on the starting whistle and dived behind his barricade of choice. Under my covering fire, Dave made his run and landed alongside me. This was repeated another two times, leaving us just metres away from the flag, victory was in sight but alas fate is a cruel mistress. As Dave threw himself towards the final barricade in true commando style, as he landed he threw up his arm for a fraction of a second to steady himself and screamed in pain. Thinking he had landed awkwardly I said "Nice one Dave, great work". He stared into my eyes, or at least near them, our masks had fogged up, before revealing his paint splattered hand. He was hit, my comrade, my team-mate but most of all, my friend had fallen in our final battle, I was devastated, I wasn't sure if I could go on. I could hear his voice in my head, urging me on "Go on Joe, forget about me, you have to capture the flag!" In a fit of blind rage I broke from cover and grabbed the flag, with a final rush of adrenaline I sprinted back to base, flag in hand, eyes streaming with the thought of my loss. Back to base I let out a victory cry, a lion would have cowarded in fear at my show of masculinity. That was for you Dave, that was for you.

Dear Liver, fire up the hepatocytes, I'm legal!

You may not have heard from or seen me in the last week, there is a valid explanation. I turned 18 last Monday you see, my time and money has been frittering away in various public houses in the local area and a lot of time wasted recovering.

I have done a lot with my week, Monday saw an assessed A-level Chemistry practical based around activation energy and the Arrhenius equation, quite the birthday present, thanks Chemistry department. I got 12 out of 14 though, not a complete waste of birthday. That out of the way meant pub time so off I went with two close friends for my first legal pint. Got home to pizza and then to the pub with my dad and his friends. I was served by the most miserable pig I've ever seen who looked like she would rather we had walked past the door, foolish considering we made up more than half the custom that night...cow.

The week could quite easily have been described as gig-tastic, Wednesday saw me take a trip to Camden to see the Mystery Jets at the Roundhouse, it was honestly my favourite thing ever, well done to my girlfriend for buying me tickets to it. Sadly she could not attend, had to make a fool of herself on a stage in front of her whole year and their parents instead. I somehow ended up right at the front with a small friend of mine and as an 18-year old male felt particularly responsible for supporting crowd surfers and such.

The next day brought a foals gig, I knew it would never live up to the night before but also knew my girlfriend loves them. In an effort to make the night more enjoyable and to keep my jealous alter-ego down I spent the majority of the afternoon in he pub drinking and drinking, including a drink ironically named "Green-Eyed Monster". A lot of money went that day, didn't eat dinner either so it had the desired affect. I had to meet my best mate in Herne Hill, a place I have never been, on a train I've never been on and in a delirious state, it was destined for disaster. I defied logic and made it alive, he then got me to Brixton. Is it a good idea to dance to street music in Brixton? Obviously not but apparently drunk Joe thinks that would be an excellent plan, so I did. I ran up steps, fell down steps, sang, danced and all while my friend grew more and more ashamed of me. The gig did not start well, about 20 seconds into the first song I got a killer cramp in my hamstring. Best friend was in a fit of hysterics, girlfriend didn't even notice. I'm glad I surround myself with such caring people. In their defence, Foals performed an average catalogue of music fairly well and I quite like it, the fastest song Cassius was awesome, the slow songs were a bit dull but I was having a party in my own head and nothing could stop me.

My journey home was not good, getting separated from my friends, an encounter with a scumbag local at the station and a killer stomach ache all the way home but it could have been worse. I survived my trip to Brixton.

I'm not going to mention my party because I can't remember a lot of it but strevssunday.blogspot.com sums it up fairly well. I remember a mankini, a hat, and my pathetic attempt at giving an impromptu speech. I was given a mug which I opened the next day. It was from my cousin's girlfriend and it is quite possibly the best mug in the entire world, it is covered in useful information. Have you got a mug that tells you that Pi = 3.14159265, the speed of sound is 343m/s, the NATO phonetic alphabet, how to spell unnecessary and about everything under the sun? No you don't.

One quick moan: why are we all ignorant enough to believe that Christmas is here because a massive corporate business has told us so. An advert does not mean Christmas has arrived. This is exactly the way Christmas has moved away from a religious festival to a day about gifts. Bloody Coca Cola.

*hepatocytes - liver cells responsible for breaking down toxins eg. alcohol

X-factor revealed

Dear all, I am sorry for my long absence but nothing got me sufficiently riled up to put my mountains of work to one side to write something. This was until last night, I was at my cousin's birthday, she was 8 or 9ish I think, and whilst eating dinner (a particularly delicious jambalaya) the decision was made that the X factor should be put on. I was not in favour of this, I much preferred the socialising of the family event, talking to other people is enjoyable...sometimes.

To be fair, as the show was starting they mentioned that Bon Jovi would be performing, maybe this won't be so bad after all, so were Jamiroquai and Rihanna but I was too excited about Bon Jovi to care. Show starts, Bon Jovi perform, the whole room sings along, it was beautiful, Bon Jovi are amazing. Then the contestants came out and sang along. Piss off! I don't want the musical legends that are Bon Jovi drowned out by the screeches from these wanabees. Frankly it ruined it for me.

It was about half way through the program that a thought occurred to me: X-factor represents almost everything that is wrong with this country. The only way it could be everything was if it somehow got us to purchase things we can't afford with the promise of not having to pay for 18 months.

Firstly, it reinforces the view in our minds that being famous is more important than anything else. Being raised on celebrities is to blame for the casual-sex and binge-alcohol culture of teenagers, anorexia and bolemia, views on personal appearance and poor values in relationships.

Secondly, it gives the impression that you only get one shot to make your life count. Life is all about progress and adapting, working hard to get further and further in career, love, family and knowledge. You are not a failure if you get voted off a talent show. You are just a loser.

Furthermore, it represents laziness, the music industry is hard work, dog eat dog and requires years of hard work and patience before a big break, the x-factor is just a fast track into the music industry, no performing in small venues, noone letting you down, no bad reviews, no songwriting, the company just do everything for you.

It has taken away our sense of perspective. Simon Cowell has somehow managed to make half the nation think that what happens on his show is the most important thing in the world. "What bomb scares, which dead soldiers abroad, what political scandal? I'm too depressed to care, Belle Amie went out!" It is pathetic that more people voted in the x-factor semi-final in 2007 than in the last general election. People die fighting for the right to vote, and we don't even bother doing so? It seems far more sensible to spend 25p on a vote that won't affect your life at all than to vote for free to decide the future of the country. The television talent show is dying and I will dance on its grave.

On a further note I don't often find myself cheering on poisonous animals but apparently Jedward are in "I'm a Celebrity, Get me out of here!" this year so go Red Back Spider, go Tiger Snake, go go go!!!

10 Reasons I'm a Complete Arse

1. I am very quick to judge complete strangers - I often watch people out and about, on the bus/train, on escalators, all over the place and make up my mind about them instantly. I often find myself looking at a total stranger and thinking to myself "well you are clearly a scumbag, if I was in charge I would have you sterilised."

2. I am overly competitive - whether it be running for a bus, walking down the road or anything, I just have to do it first/best. There is a guy who gets off the bus for school at the same stop as me and I HAVE to get into school before him so I walk at full pace just to get to the door before him. This has been noticed by my friends who have now coined the phrase "Joe always wins."

3. I correct people's grammar, but only some times - If I am in a good mood I will let it slide but if anything bad or minorly annoying has happened I will take it out on people by correcting their grammar (or spelling if over the internet). I do it without thinking, it is not good, especially since I HATE it when people do it to me.

4. I can dish out abuse that I very clearly don't believe in a sincere way that cuts deep - A friend of mine kicked the back of my foot in an attempt to trip me up and I delivered him a little speech on what a twat he is and how I would dance on his grave. He was shocked and apparently it made him think hard that night before finding out I had done it purely in jest. (He also writes a blog that is quite frankly excellent: http://mylifeisdaverage.blogspot.com but I had a blog first so I win.)

5. The opposite - I can deliver hurtful abuse but in a way that makes it seem I am joking. That's right, insult people and get away with it because they are stupid enough to believe that I'm not being serious.

6. Believe something different to me? Ha, well you're clearly wrong! - everyone is entitled to an opinion and I try everything at least once to get a complete picture. Only once have I had my mind radically changed by trying something and that was going to church, atheist to Christian in less than three weeks. Other things have failed to sway me.

7. Extreme dislike of talented children - If I am ever watching any kind of music-related talent show I always hate the younger ones. Anyone younger than about 15 singing just annoys me. I passionately hate George Samson, there are more talented people in my school. The kids with the sob stories about being bullied at school, I can always see exactly why they are bullied and whatever characteristic they give off to the bullies annoys me just as much. Tom Daley too, he gives off a definite element of dickhead.

8. I am a massive hypocrite - I hate people who are over-competitive, stubborn about their (wrong) beliefs, correct my grammar. Previous to today I hated people who took their shirts off at parties, they are the epitome of twattish behaviour. What did I do yesterday? You guessed it, took my shirt off at a party.

9. Every now and then I am in a ridiculously jovial mood and it makes me do ridiculously annoying things - this week I had it, I put paper discs from a hole punch in my mate's bag, hid another mate's bag, filled a mate's locker with ripped up paper and tapped on people's shoulders before moving to the other side. All very irritating things.

10. I know I do all these things and wouldn't have it any other way.

Advertising

When used appropriately advertisement is a wonderful thing. One company gets its name out in the open, another company makes money and I am gently informed of an item or service I may want or need. Fine, everybody wins, but this is not how adverts work now. I can stand adverts for films or television programs, tourism adverts, all the adverts that put their best stuff on show so I may be interested and then make a decision based on how much I need/want the thing, how I will fare without it and if I can afford it. What is not alright are the adverts that carry the message "THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN POSSIBLY SURVIVE A DAY LONGER IS WITH THIS PRODUCT!!!!" The main culprit here is adverts for detergents and disinfectants.

In the least sexist way possible these adverts are aimed at stupid housewives. A recent disinfectant advert claimed that a kitchen chopping board has more bacteria living on it than a toilet seat. Shock horror, women everywhere were just about to take that evening's ingredients for dinner to the bathroom to resume chopping it up on the toilet seat. BUT WAIT, this new disinfectant can kill 99.9% of the bacteria on your chopping board making it safe for you to use it again. PHEW. Hang on, if this little fact is true then why have I not died as a result of a horrific disease caught from the bacteria on the chopping board?

As a fairly amateur biologist I can explain everything that is wrong with this advert. Firstly if there are more bacteria on the chopping board than the toilet seat then this has been the case for many many years and is clearly the way it is meant to be, there is more bacteria on the human skin than there is on the toilet seat and the chopping board put together, quickly, disinfect you skin now to the extent it burns off horribly, but at least those bacteria are dead! Secondly, not all bacteria are bad, quite the opposite, a tiny fraction (less than 1%) of bacteria are harmful in anyway at all, obviously certain places contain a higher proportion of the bad bacteria. The toilet seat obviously has a higher proportion of bad bacteria than a chopping board or the human skin, chopping board bacteria are completely harmless. Thirdly, the only thing preventing the bad bacteria from taking 100% of the chopping board is all the space already taken up by the good bacteria. So here's an idea, spray it with a disinfectant that kills 99.9% of all bacteria. Guess what, that 0.1% is almost certainly the hardiest, roughest, toughest bad bacteria going, and now it has the whole chopping board to itself "brilliant," it must think, "that daft old tart just killed off all the competition, this chopping board belongs to me!"

My next quibble is with automatic soap dispensers. I have no problem with soap, I would be pretty unpopular if I did. This soap may be in the form of a bar or in a squirt bottle, again, no problems so far. Advertisement, here is where the problem begins. A company has developed a new bottle that dispenses liquid soap automatically when its motion detector detects that something has been put beneath it. How did they market this? "Did you know that your soap pump harbours bacteria and may have more bacteria on it than a toilet bowl? This transfers on to your hands when you press the soap pump." Right, let me break this down again. Firstly, so what? Am I not about to wash my hand with the soap that you claim kills this bacteria on my hands? Getting a little bit of extra bacteria on my hands BEFORE I wash them is going to make no difference at all. Secondly, what about the tap? Surely this has the same amount of bacteria too, and I have to touch that to turn it off and that will be after I wash my hands. Oh damn, a conundrum, I could compulsively scrub my hands repeatedly, buy a motion-sensitive tap or GET ON WITH MY LIFE BECAUSE IT DOES NOT MATTER?! It just preys upon the germophopic and the uneducated.

My final grievance is with an advert for an oven cleaner. The product's slogan was "So easy a man could do it" I'm up for a bit of casual sexism but we live in a politically correct world and how would this be treated if it was in the reverse? Can you imagine the controversy of an advert with the slogan "This car is so easy to drive a woman could do it" or "This computer is so easy to use a woman could do it"? There would be absolute uproar so why is the oven cleaner one acceptable? This got me so worked up that I..I..I..considered writing a strongly worded letter. I didn't though.

Gah, adverts!

No Extra Time

This could be a post about how I have no spare time to get anything done, I am running far too close to a deadline or I feel my time is running out. It is none of these, it is another anti-Seppitic rant at my least favourite FIFA President. The power hungry moron that is Sepp Blatter has come up with yet another game destroying idea, to get rid of extra time and go straight to penalties in the event of a draw in a cup tie. His reasoning behind this is to make cup games more interesting since it will stop teams from "parking the bus in front of the goal" or playing very defensively for those less up to speed with football terminology. On par with his usual ideas this one is just silly. (I am toning down the language after an incident involving one of my posts being published in the school sports newspaper without being edited. The Headmaster reads it, need I say more?)

Anyway, how is making a match shorter going to prevent teams playing defensively? If anything it will encourage teams to play more defensively since they have to defend for considerably less time than before. Not only this but I have never liked penalties as a way of deciding a match, the World Cup final of 2006 was a perfect example of this, the most important game in the world should not be decided by what is ultimately luck. If penalties were more skill than luck then Everton and Liverpool would undoubtedly still be in the Carling Cup. If anything Sepp, come up with a better solution than penalties, if you did I would forgive you for all of your footballing sins.

While I'm on the topic of Blatter I will pick out another of his outrageous comments. He has suggested that in Women's football they should be forced to wear tighter tops to make it more interesting to watch. Sepp you dirty old pervert, this is the 21st Century, you can't just dress women how you want and watch them run around. It's like saying newsreaders should be naked to make the news more interesting (Trevor McDonald naked, I cringe just thinking about it), or teachers to make lessons more interesting, or magazines to make the articles more...oh.

You may ask why noone stands against him in the Presidential election, he bribes the board that are in charge of voting in a subtle, clever and underhand way.

Someone stop this lunatic, dead or alive.

People - negatives

I do not love all people who have the pleasure of walking through my life. Some people really make my blood boil. If I suddenly die of a high blood pressure related illness then theses will be the people to blame.

My morning often starts with my body being filled with rage. This is due to a group of girls from the local Catholic school. This Catholic school is so local that it takes just five minutes to walk to from my bus stop. Obviously I do not have a problem with these girls using the bus if they are coming from a long distance away, that is what buses are for. What is not alright is for loads of these girls to walk out of the station (which is just opposite the bus stop) and wait for the bus. There is a group of around fifteen girls that do this (often preceded by a trip to the bakery to eat 4 danish pastries before school). It is a 5 minute walk, because of traffic the bus usually takes 2 minutes, the wait is usually 10 minutes. They take 12 minutes to do a 5 minute journey because they are so bloody lazy! What is even worse is when the bus refuses to let us on because there are too many of these girls so the three regulars who have much further to go on the bus (including myself) have to be late and the girls just take the short walk. The worst occurrence ever was when I was at the bus stop with my dad, the bus stopped and let people on, just before we were about to get on, the driver said "Sorry, no more room" and we had to wait, just for having some manners. If I ever go on a killing spree, they will be the first to go.

In Year 10, we got a new librarian at school, she was the scariest woman in the world, to the extent that I was scared to go in there. We called her the dragon, the witch, the bitch and all sorts of names. From the moment I entered the Sixth Form this instantly changed, she suddenly became the nicest woman in the world, always keen to help, recommend books, talk to you about work and future prospects, what a transformation! I happened to be working in there while she was giving an induction to the new Year 7s and she was instantly terrifying again, she must dislike children. I'm not sure why this is in negatives, she is lovely now.

Another is a fat Irishwoman who comes into work sometimes, she clears out our reduced cakes, complains about the cakes that aren't reduced and doesn't say thank you once you have served her. Once she has paid, I always pray she pays at the till and not at my bakery till, she will stand just inside the door checking her receipt. Nothing had come up before but recently she found a discrepancy and demanded a refund. She was overcharged. We were shocked. How could we have done this? We had overcharged her! BY FOUR FUCKING PENCE! It doesn't help that she is the rudest woman in the world. I was under the impression that the Irish and fat people are jolly, she should be doubly jolly!

What really kills me is people walking on the pavement antisocially. By this I mean slow walkers, people in groups that span the entire pavement, people who walk right down the middle of the pavement towards you forcing you into the road or against a wall, people who don't control their dogs and people who don't smile back. Not to worry, I have prepared a solution, The Walking License. In order to walk in public places a person must hold a Walking License which can be obtained by passing The Walking Test. Those without licenses may only walk with those who have (maximum ratio of holders:not = 1:3) and display a large L on their front and back. If anyone breaks this law they will be slapped with a fine of £100 and banned from walking between 6pm and 7am. The Walking Test is very simple, you must demonstrate your ability to follow the rules of the pavement and pedestrian etiquette. When I'm in charge, things will be different.

Ahhhhhhhhh, people.

People - positives

People, we are surrounded by them, we get to enjoy them/have to put up with them almost all the time. The bus is a particularly good source of people related entertainment, you see the regular crazies and the one of lunatics.

One of my favourite regulars is a man who gets on the bus towards the end of my journey to school, presumably going to work since he is so regular. He is ALWAYS wearing shorts, from the hottest day in Summer to the snowy days in Winter, he will be wearing shorts. These aren't just shorts, these shorts are the liveliest, most colourful and exciting shorts in the history of mankind, they make my flambouyant shirts look quite modest. It is part of my daily routine to check his shorts and they brighten me up. What I have failed to mention is that he is the least interesting looking man you will ever see. Bald, short and stout, his shorts are so out of character that they define him! One day he was wearing trousers, I was distraught. I'm not going to lie, I considered suicide that morning.

Another of my favourite bus people I see less often is in fact a bus driver. He has the most amazing hair: big, blond and curly. When driving the bus he squashes it all down beneath a little blue cap. When I get on the bus in the morning and say "Morning" in my usual upbeat way, he tips his cap and says "morning" right back. He was already quite high up in my legend charts but today skyrocketed him to the top. When at my stop he took out the change tray from its slot and filled it up with Peanut M&Ms and then put it back. He has a food stash in his driver cabin!

I have saved my two favourite people for last. They are the husband and wife that own my local dry cleaners. Every time I walk past they will wave and say hello, if they are working on something they will drop everything to wave at me. When I am in less of a rush I stand and chat to them and the man goes "Hello there Mr Robinson, how is school?" They asked about my grades on results day and are interested in what I hope to do. One of the best things he has ever said is "I am going to be very sad when you go to University and you do not walk past everyday."

I love people.

Family Holiday #2

Just nine days after returning from the ordeals already described my family embarked upon another. This one was a venture to the Loir Valley near Le Mans in central France with my mum's family, consisting of 3 of her brothers and their wives and children, a sister-in-law with husband and children, one of my cousin's girlfriend and a friend of my uncle. In all, 25 of us. This is a lot of people to have in one house, which is the exact reason we didn't stay in a house, we stayed in a Chateaus that used to be a monastery. This place was owned by a man called Claude, what else? He was quite possibly the Frenchest man in the world, his dog was called Fifi.

The house was a typical horror film location, caves underneath, a massive woods, dark hallways, bats and secret passageways. The house maintained by a team of zombie like people, led by the one we nicknamed Igor. We even considered making a Blair Witch Project.

I was in a room with my three oldest cousins and my brother, it was a great laugh, the lights were on a bare cable so we did tricks that made it spark. The room had the noisiest door known to man so if anyone used the door the whole room would be woken up. This however was nothing compared to the dog, it was a very clever dog but did not manage to grasp the fact that the alternate door was locked. It would throw itself up against it repeatedly in an attempt to get in, scaring the hell out of all of us, especially since it would grab the handle and we could see the handle turning. I hate dogs. The cat I preferred, it would get in through the window and pad around the room before snuggling up to one of us in bed and purring. It would switch beds quite often and was lovely (must not make a pussy joke).

My memory of the week is somewhat impaired by the fact I spent the majority of the time drinking. What I remember vividly is the cooking, it takes a lot of time and manpower to feed 25 people all at once. The system was that each individual family was responsible for one meal and anyone else could chip in. My family did meatball, hand made. In all we made 211 meatballs, made gallons of delicious sauce and served up lashing of spaghetti. The meal lasted us 3 days, meatballs for dinner, meatball subs the next day and the remaining sauce used to add taste to the youngest children's dinner the next day. Due to my skills I was put in charge of subs, I made 25 meatball subs in under an hour, who says I learn nothing at work?

We decided to take a guided tour of the caves from Claude, it was unbelievably fascinating. He showed us the burial sites for Monks who had lived there, the places where French people had taken cover from bombs in World War Two and where Jews were hidden from the Nazis. He then went on to describe the religious experiences he had had whilst down there, involving a secret room that only the enlightened could find, a massive, multiple headed moving statue and all sorts of weird stories. I'm a religious man but I didn't quite believe him, he was a massive stoner! He would quite often disappear up to his room with his girlfriend and they would both come down looking flushed and completely out of it.

After this one week I could happily never eat another croissant or baguette in my life.

Family Holiday #1

In my family we make an annual trip to West Wittering beach and stay in some cottages in Apuldram/Appledram/Apaldrum (it is spelt three different ways). This isn't just with my immediate family, this is with grandparents, auntie, uncle and cousin. I love my family but they are very hard to put up with.

I will start with Auntie Boob-job, she went from very flat-chested to ridiculously gifted in the boob department, doesn't help that she wears the lowest cut tops known to man and a very small bikini on the beach. To be fair it is very entertaining to throw ice cubes down her cleavage when we go out for a meal, my brother and I compete against each other. All this considered, the negatives outweigh the benefits...unless you ask my uncle.

I will now move on to my demon cousin, she is a nightmare, she screams and runs about shouting although this is actually when she is at her most bearable. What is horrible is when she hits me, repeatedly, obviously I can't hit back...despite the constant urge to knock her unconscious. Since she is "a little princess" she does what she likes including trying to drive me insane. It's not even like she doesn't understand that she is driving me mad, I had the following conversation with her:

"Doe (Joe), can I annoy you please?"
"No"

"Well I'm going to."

Little devil, she can say her J's, she just calls me Doe to annoy me. I tried restraining her, politely asking her to stop and finally shouting at her. None of this worked, her parents very rarely stepped in so I took a gamble with another tactic. I played dead. At first this seemed like a bad move, she continued to hit and scratch and move ever closer to my breaking point. Somehow This method prevailed, she very quickly got bored and wandered off, perhaps to play in some traffic. Another small child successfully outsmarted.

Last but not least is Mad Nanny, this may sound quite flippant and cruel but her dementia has got to a stage where all we can do is laugh to stop it getting us down. She has even developed a hatred for my mum (her daughter-in-law) which may have developed recently or been hidden for many years. What makes it even worse is one of her safe-objects (something that helps her remember things) is her cat. It had to be put down while we were away because of bladder cancer. My dad even managed to make a joke of this by pretending to ring my granddad at 1 in the morning and saying "Meow...I've not been feeling too good today" in a very high pitched and cattish voice.

We went to the beach and as usual we built elaborate and enormous sand castles in the vain hope of beating the incoming tide and having a strong enough structure to survive the sea. The usual procedure is some sort of tall structure in the middle surrounded by a very high wall. This is all perfectly logical. What makes no sense is building a moat. This makes the walls more structurally unsound and provides the sea with a quicker way to penetrate other parts of the castle. It makes no sense.

Unfortunately our first castle, complete with walls, central structure, sand-tanks and a sand-dalek was destroyed by the demon cousin before the sea had a chance. My dad, granddad, uncle, friend and I (the architects and builders) were devastated. My half-serious-half-joking idea to fill tomorrow's castle with sharp stones and broken glass was actually considered.

Well that was 4 days in Wittering with my Dad's family, bring on a week in France with my Mum's family

"The man"

Recently it has dawned upon me that I must be getting older, not just this but looking older as well. This is mainly due to the frequency of how often I am referred to as "the man". At work, hardly a shift goes by without a mother saying to their child "give your money to the man" or "say thank you to the man". I am quite often travelling on a train when a parent will say to her children "mind the man" or "quiet down, you will disturb the man".

Dara O'Briain did a terrific stand up routine on being used as a threat by other people. When a mother says to her noisy child "quiet down, you are disturbing the man" he should perhaps glare at the child, if the threat is used again he should perhaps growl and on a third time get up and bash the child around shouting "you were warned, the man is disturbed and now you must pay for I, am the man." Obviously this is probably not what I would do, as "the man", if I were to be disturbed. When I am at work, I work on the bakery and patisserie so have a lot of mothers and children so a lot of "the man" takes place. At first I would look puzzled at being referred to as the man because in my own head I am about 14 so still very much not the man. Now it has become commonplace so I am used to it, but I still feel I have to live up to the title so puff out my chest and speak in a very deep voice "thank you for this money in exchange for your gingerbread man, here is your change, I am the man". I don't really, but in my head I do.

One thing I forgot to mention about where I work is how freaked out I get when strangers call me by my name. When they say thank you it is often accompanied by my name. I get a lot of this but have still not got used to all the "Thank you Joe"s. Every now and then it occurs to me that I am wearing a name-badge, I am still suspicious of them all.

Madness!

Yesterday I went to see Madness play at Epsom Downs after the racing with three of my friends. We had a pretty fun hour or so betting with each other on the horses, out of three races, I managed to pick the winner just once, I managed to make a profit of just £1.

Onto the main event, I took us over to the stage a bit early so we could get a good spot, near the front, almost in the middle. When they got on to stage, the crowd went crazy, middle aged men and women jumped up and down, danced crazily, just like they were teenagers again. We did the same, still being teenagers of course. They started with One Step Beyond, a real party starter, it was immense, lots of jumping, shouting and laughing.

My dad had told me to look after myself because Madness usually attract a fairly rowdy crowd, I dismissed this fairly quickly thinking I would be with a load of smartly dressed businessmen and sophisticated women. I was half right. They were all there, just near the back or in the stands. Near the front were the hardcore Madness fans. After just a couple of songs the real Madness began. Moshing, fighting and shoving, security was slow to react but took no prisoners once they got involved, one twat decided he would fight one of these massive security guards from G4S, a foolish move, not only could the guy have kicked his arse on his own but they work as a bit of a team and as he tried to get away he was grabbed round the neck and hauled over a fence by another security guy and restrained completely. I hope the idiot got what he deserved.

Sometimes people take the law into their own hands, I was stood next to a particularly large, relatively young girl who was clearly a big fan, when this idiot who challenged security shoved her she nearly killed him, being stood next to her I was quite worried he would lash out and I'd be down for the count. He did not, I kept myself looking vaguely calm and stood my ground (while my friends cowered behind me, in their defense, two of them are quite small). The two that were causing most trouble were two of the fattest people you will see on their feet (fatter people you may see completely bed-bound), they were bashing into each other and other people causing absolute chaos. Security held back slightly on these two, probably because an elephant tranquilizer dart would be the only way to take these two down and if they put up a fight, it would have decimated the crowd. On a side note I would like to point out the correct meaning of decimate. It does not mean to completely destroy or to kill the majority. It means kill one in ten of a population. Get this wrong with me around and I will be forced to hit you followed by a long explanation of why you are a moron, just a warning. There were some points in the evening when I was being consistently battered by the crowd while desperately trying to prevent the smaller of my friends from being killed. My other friend will tell you he was doing the same but I didn't see him take any of the hits.

Eventually Madness got on to the main songs that everyone knows, we sang and danced so loudly, Baggy Trousers, Our House, It Must Be Love, House of Fun, we did them all, it was amazing.

Madness are like a fine wine, they just get better with age, it was a really good night and despite fearing for my life I loved every minute. Well done boys.

Working on a food counter

I started working for a supermarket recently and had my first days in the shop this week. I am behind the food counter in my lovely apron and stylish hat. It is a lot of fun but there are so many little procedures to remember. The bakery and patisserie is the hardest place to work, some of the items sold are on the till, some are on a bar code sheet and some are on the scales and require a sticker to be printed. You can guarantee that whatever item I am trying to find will be listed in the last place I try.

What I really enjoy is the bitching. Whenever a fatty walks in we make little comments to each other: "fire up the oven, big order coming" "shit, we only have 19 muffins left!" This is always very funny especially since one of the guys I work with used to work for McDonalds so has an endless supply of fat jokes. This was not nearly as hilarious as what happened yesterday. I group of about 6 men came in to the store and were instantly drawn to the pastries and cakes, me looking all young and innocent and smiling sweetly probably helped too. They were staring at the counter for ages and saying "oooh, it would be so naughty" "They look so pretty" "Oh wow, it all looks sooooooo good" "Ooooh, yes please" I saw my opportunity for sales and I jumped in with a big smile and a "Hi there, can I help you?" They began to walk away but their leader said "Oh don't you worry, we'll be back" They went off and looked at some wine while I got on with cleaning something behind the counter. They chose some wine and went over to the tills to pay and I caught the eye of one of them, I flashed a cheeky smile and I swear to god he bit his bottom lip. I just hope it was because he wanted some cake. Would you believe it they didn't buy anything, I was so sure they would, I must work on my charm.

What I dislike is how much we have to throw away, so much that the Assistant Manager requested we slash the prices from about 7.30pm. A note to everyone: come in store at about 9.30pm and the prices will be down really low. I also hate the freezer, I had to spend two hours in there sorting it out, it was horrible, cramped, slippery and strangely, really really cold.

I love working there really.

Driving Test

Today I had my driving test, I don't think I have ever been more nervous. I slept so badly the night before, kept waking up with visions of failure, visions of success and visions of any possible outcome. I woke up at about 6.30 and had to read a book to calm my nerves, I rewoke at 8 when the good luck texts began flooding in. My instructor picked me up at 10 and we went over everything I could get in the test for an hour. My confidence grew, I made no mistakes and everything seemed to be going alright.

I parked myself in a bay near the test centre before popping into Burger King to go to the toilet. We both went into the test centre waiting room, over the next 10 minutes 3 other people joined us, they all had their instructors going over things to do, what not to do and such, mine sat there reading a car magazine, he was apparently that confident in me. All four learners sat there, feet tapping, quick breathing, awkward smiles. Eventually the examiners came to get us. Mine was called Paul, according to the doorman he is the strictest.

We got in the car, did the Show Me/Tell Me questions, I got one about rear foglights and one about the anti-lock braking system, good start! We drove off and headed for Rose Hill, at the massive junction in Sutton I came up against my first challenge, an ambulance, I pulled over for it. I hit the kerb. Disaster! It is over! I've failed in just 5 minutes! I kept going, put it out of my head. Rather annoyingly I was taken on an unfamiliar route around Rose Hill, I would have been amazing on the Cheam route.

I was given the manoeuvres Reverse Left and Parallel Park, my reverse left was alright but my parallel park was the best I have ever done. After spluttering through 40 minutes of assessed, silent driving (he did not respond to my humorous comments at all). We pulled up in a road and he looked at me. "You have passed" he said. My heart leapt, I almost replied "really? are you sure?" He took me through my minor faults (all 8 of them). My instructor took me back to school since I am no longer covered by his insurance. My girlfriend phoned me up, I do love her. I text my parents, they spread the word to the whole family. I wandered into school having missed a morning of Challenge of Management, wandered into the study room to find two groups doing a careerstart course, they all looked at me. I said "I only went and passed!" and they cheered and applauded, everyone made me feel so good.

Now I just need a car.

Goal line technology

As some of you may know I am a referee, I tend to go on about it a bit. I have my opinions on football and when voicing them I often say "trust me, I'm a referee." Today I had one of my best and longest rants concerning football and refereeing and for once I got the general agreement of those around me. I am talking about goal line technology.

What sparked this was the failure for the officials to notice that Frank Lampard's shot against Germany had crossed the line. I am not going to rant on about how it cost England the game or anything because frankly it is a scapegoat, we were comprehensively beaten by an obviously superior team. What I will complain about is the fact that Sepp Blatter (the FIFA president) is denying the use of goal line technology throughout the world but especially in the World Cup, the most prestigious and exciting sporting event in the world. His reasoning for not introducing it is that it will create a gap between the professional and amateur sides of football since lower levels of football will not have access to this technology. His way to beat this was to introduce two additional assistants to stand on the goal line to assess goal and penalty decisions. To put it bluntly, this is bollocks. As a referee in amateur football I know that it is often difficult to find two willing parents or spectators to take on the role of assistant referee, to find four would be near impossible. I have quite often had to referee games without assistants which is quite a challenge.

Technology has been introduced into the professional side of other sports for ages now. Rugby and cricket to name the biggest two. Amateur cricket and rugby still takes place all across the country with just the human officials and everything is fine.

Football is a billion pound industry, millions and millions can rest on one decision, the decision of three men who cannot possibly be everywhere. Any industry where this much money is dependent on people cannot possibly deny the need for technology.

I am not saying goal line technology would have saved England, I am saying it would save blushes, it would save the footballing world, it would save injustices and it would save angering an entire nation.

I hope you are reading this Sepp Blatter, you arrogant, self-involved, ignorant moron.

Special Bumper Edition

As I have not blogged for a few days now my biggest fan (follower) asked for a bumper edition, so be prepared for many of the rants and thoughts that have been building up in my head for the past few days.

I will start with one of the top news in the world of irritatingness, you guessed it, Vuvuzelas. Whatever moron thought it would be a good idea to bring them to football matches is in great need of a Vuvuzela up his backside, you may have noticed that they are excellently designed for this punishment - long, straight and broadening. They make a horrible noise and it is a constant monotonous drone before the match, during the match and after the match, there is no change in atmosphere when a goal is scored, a decision is made or any kind of scoring chance, it just stays as that horrible noise. FIFA have said they will ban them if one of them gets thrown onto the pitch. I have decided I am willing to travel to South Africa, buy a Vuvuzela, throw it at the referee, possibly getting banned from any football match or even killed just to shut them up, I will be a martyr. A number of people have commented upon them. Chris Evans got in a bit of trouble for retweeting a so called "distasteful" joke. I found it quite funny - "Honestly, you give Africans £2 a month and they go and buy a bloody trumpet." Boris Johnson also made his opinion clear, claiming they were tremendous fun and easy to use but "not for the Olympics I think."

This week I noticed the change in emotions as we get further away from the England vs USA match. I walked home with a friend and the whole country was depressed. I had a flag with me and before the game I had been passionately waving it, after it drooped down by my side. As the week went on people had ranted about Robert Green and then pretty much forgotten. I know that I have been getting happier all week which I am sure will be topped by spending tomorrow evening with my lovely girlfriend who I have not seen for AGES.

There was one exception to my happiness-time increase. This was Wednesday night. On Wednesday night I was trying to come up with a prefect timetable for next Tuesday. This is not easy on the best of days. This one was particularly difficult because I will not be there and neither will seven of my usual prefects, we are off to help on the Year 7 Challenge Day in London. This is also taking place on Monday so a few of Monday's prefects are away then. I am covering for another Senior prefect on Monday and he is covering for me on Tuesday. So far not too difficult. Problems started arising when I realised I was missing seven of my prefects and in their place I had been given two. This stress-fest caused a minor meltdown, oh the trials of responsibility.

Today at lunch I was once again called into duty (not on my duty day!) after a Year 10 was mugged right outside school. All Senior Prefects were mobilised (in my head by walkie-talkie "This is mother-goose, all SPs mobilise, repeat, all SPs mobilise, over" but in reality just by a teacher saying "I need to speak to all SPs") We were sent to stand on street corners, ushering students back into school whilst on the lookout for "a white man in his twenties, wearing a hoodie and sunglasses," one of the most vague descriptions ever. I loved the power though, I am like a grown up.

Yesterday I went to get my uniform fitted for work. I had given my measurement and was sent to the Gents with a shirt and trousers. Once I had changed and had a look in the mirror I was struck by the conundrum about whether to parade in front of the fitter and recruitment team. After much thinking I decided that I was not out shopping with my mum and that I am old enough to make a decision on my own. You should see the hat, I look great.

This took me ages, are you happy now?

Insects

I have nothing against insects, they don't freak me out or scare me but sometimes they really do irritate me. I was walking home with a friend from an end of exam celebration the other night and the amount of mindless creatures about was astonishing.

I will start with snails, has there ever been a more irritating creature, it is ugly, slimy and eats your plants? It was a fairly damp night and these little wastes of an animal had decided to crawl enmasse across the paths. All. The. Way. Home. Obviously I did not want to tread on these dimwitted molluscs (it would ruin my shoes) so I took extra care to navigate around them, not particularly easy when as inebriated as my companion and I were. Naturally there were some snail casualties, a loud crunch accompanied by a groan of irritation from one of us. Over the 20 minute walk I was responsible for the death of five to my companion's three. I must have bigger feet.

The other insect that irritates me is any little bastard that bites me and tries to suck my blood. Personally I am quite fond of my blood and I would prefer that it stays inside my body, I am not partial to the sharing of bodily fluids. I am aware I have quite a lot of blood and they only want to take a little bit but I disagree with this way of life. Would I kill a healthy individual to save the lives of many others with the healthy man's organs? No I would not so stop sucking my blood you little demons. I am prepared to give these insects one warning, if i feel a small pain in any part of my body that feels like an insect I will take a light swipe at that part of my body. If this does not deter the insects they will be immediatly destroyed, most likely by splattering, no messing about. One particular beast that tried sucking blood from my neck was thrown into the sink and drowned.

Irritating little buggers

The Final Stretch

Tomorrow I have my last two exams of the year. I can sense the freedom, no more slaving at my desk over notes, attempting practice papers or flicking through text books. No more facebook panic, totally unprepared people broadcasting their terror over the internet in an attempt for sympathy. The obvious solution is get off the computer and work or is there a new technique I am not yet aware of?

I will miss the CGP revision guides, they inject that little smile into revision. There was a little speech in the AS-Level chemistry book encouraging me not to give in to the dark side, may sound crap but I loved it. "Don't give up now. Only as a fully-trained Chemistry Jedi, with the force as your ally, can you take on the Examiner. If you quit now, if you choose the easy path as Vador did, all the marks you've fought for will be lost. Be strong. Don't give in to hate - that leads to the dark side." What other books would give a motivational speech?

Despite having two pretty horrible exams left I am feeling happy, my biology today went well and it has resulted in me being very happy, noticabely so. Just imagine how I will be tomorrow!

Good luck to anyone still going.

Voice Control

I was in the garden today with my headphones in, listening to my ipod. My ipod has a voice control feature, I can tell it to play a certain song, artist or album or tell it to tell me what song I am listening too. This sounds extremely impressive at first but once you have used it once or twice it becomes a pain.

The first problem is the recognition, you have to speak in a robotic voice, speaking phonetically so it can pick up every word. I said "play songs by The Buzzcocks" the ipod beeped before replying with "now playing songs by Foals". It doesn't take a linguist to realise that The Buzzcocks and Foals could not sound more different. After another unsuccessful attempt, I took the ipod out of my pocket and selected songs manually. This took less time and was much easier.

The second problem is how ridiculous I would look talking to my ipod in public, saying "Who sings this?" or robotically demanding that songs by Queen are played next into the tiny microphone attached to the headphone makes me look like an escaped lunatic. This is alright in private but I use my headphones predominantly in public, crowded buses and trains especially. I have no desire for strangers to think I am mad, I have to see a lot of them every day. Again, in this situation I just take the ipod out and do everything manually.

Obviously this technology needs to go through these stages in order to progress but it should not be advertised as the best thing since sliced bread at these early stages. Come back to me when I can tell my oven what I want for dinner.

Getting the train

Yesterday involved a lot of train travel, lots of changes and lots of encounters with the lovely and not so lovely people you find dotted around London.





I will start with a lovely encounter. It started as one of those awkward moments when you realise a baby is looking at you and making noises to get your attention. I smiled at this baby and received a massive grin in response. This is just the first stage of baby-adult interaction. I then completely subconsciously began to pull funny faces, again to the great amusement of the baby. I stuck my tongue out, darted my eyes about and many peculiar shapes with my mouth. The response was laughter and what looked like an attempt to imitate my lunacy. It was then that I caught the eye of the baby's dad, including an embarrassed smile that said "Yes I am pulling faces at your child, is that a problem?" When they both got off the train it occurred to me how socially unnacceptable it is to pull faces at people on the train but how normal it seems to do it to a baby. I would love to be able to catch the eye of a man in a suit, a woman with her shopping etc and start pulling faces with them, it would make train journeys so much happier.

When getting off a train I placed myself next to the door-opening button. As we approached the station a few people gathered behind me to get off with me. It then dawned on me that I was in a position of power, and with great power comes great responsibility, every one of them now expects and trusts me to open the door when the train comes to a standstill, it was now my duty to open the door and allow these people to get on with their lives. Only once have I seen a man fail at this mighty duty, he was stood by the only button and failed to respond to the orange lights flashing. You could feel the tension around him, he just stood there. After several nervous seconds I brought it upon myself to relieve him of his power and leant past him to press his button. He was very apologetic and I banished him from my door opening kingdom
(in my head) before getting off myself.

You get much less likeable people on public transport, earlier this week I had my back stroked by a rather drunk and scruffy man while getting on a tube train, I was not too worried though, I could have " 'ad 'im" and I was surrounded by friends to back me up. The tube seems to be a breeding ground for miserable people, I get irritated with a lot of things in life but never enough to shout at a stranger. At Waterloo station a man failed to get off the train in the unspoken agreed getting off time and as people started getting on he said in a quiet but incredibly angry voice "Let passengers off first please!" A woman immediatly responded with the piercing, witty comeback of "You don't have to be so rude to my face!" I however took the true Londoner approach and silently said "dickhead" under my breath. I was relieved at the fact that despite me getting irritated at little things, I will never be angry or horrible enough to shout at a stranger.

I love the train.

World Cup Fever

With the World Cup in South Africa just over a week away World Cup fever is gripping the country. You cannot enter a shop without being bombarded with England merchandise to hang out of your window, stick on your wall, paint on your face, display on your car or just about any other possibility conceivable. I cannot tell you how much I love this, the arguments with my friends about how the referee "handed Chelsea the win" or "totally screwed Arsenal over" will come to an end, for once all fans are united together to support the national team. We share the joy of that last minute goal, multiply the anger towards "that outrageous decision" and shed a national tear when England are inevitably knocked out.

Not only does the World Cup bring football fans together, it pulls in all the borderline fans and even those who aren't remotely interested in football. They don't quite share the full emotion of the event but they are still happy when England win, annoyed at the opposition player who dives and sad when things go wrong. My sister for one enjoys the atmosphere, she will undoubtedly have a St George's Cross painted on her face at some point in the next month.

All year I have been saying I won't get to into this World Cup to save myself from the heartbreak when the worst happens, but just yesterday I found myself purchasing an England top (not a replica shirt - I'm not a millionaire) to wear to show my support. I have been completely sucked in, even the con that is the Panini World Cup sticker album has got me. I am 17 years old and as soon as a World Cup comes along I am back to being a child: collecting stickers, putting on my new shirt for every England match, hugging my dad/brother/friends when England win, making excuses when something goes wrong and violently kicking an inanimate object when England lose, followed by wimpering about my sore foot for the rest of the day.

Thinking about it, however England do I will enjoy the next month, I can share emotions, swap my sticker doubles, cheer on my sweepstake team (Denmark) and act like a child. My hopes aren't high but COME ON ENGLAND!!

Twitter Abuse

I use Twitter, you could say I am a twitterer, a twit or even a twat, this does not bother me. I find it useful for keeping up with my favourite comedians and musicians, not to mention sharing jokes with friends in no more than 140 characters.

A lot of people call me a loser or sad git because of my allegiance to twitter but I don't mind, one of my close friends who led the charge in declaring me as as a twit/twat signed up and frequently uses twitter himself.

It was today I realised I can not quite vent my petty furies with the world in just 140 characters, no matter how hard I try which is why I am writing this.

There is a function on twitter known as the "Retweet" (known as an RT to those who understand twitter jargon). People can "RT" what other people have said if they find it interesting, enlightening, humerous or just agree with it to allow a wider audience to view it. It was today that a celebrity tweeted a little fact about patterns in time and date that will occur this year. This tweet was RTed by hundreds of dedicated followers so inevitably I eventually stumbled upon it. Within seconds of reading it I had found two major errors in his little "fact". I pointed this out to the friend of mine who had retweeted it and she was surprised to realise how foolish both mistakes were. Mistakes are irritating, people foolishly believing them without thinking is so much worse.

It then dawned upon me why people view twitter in such a negative light, the majority of people using it just mindlessly accept, obey and pass on whatever a vaguely famous person has said. I will be taking extra care to read through whatever I retweet in future.

This absence of independent thought is destroying the youth 140 characters at a time, this is truly, abuse of twitter.


N.B. I apologise for the lack of structure, as my address shows these are Irritated Mutterings, just snippets of anger from my head.