The Royal Wedding

It is time for me to face my decision on the Royal Wedding, I can be cynical and hate everything about it, lap up every little detail and make it the focal point of my life for this week or go in between and enjoy my day off, wave my patriotic flag and be glad to witness such a historic day. Naturally I have gone for the latter. The night before I'm going to a Royalty themed party and as I always do I'm dressing as gay-ly as I possibly can. I looked for little loopholes in the theme and decided the way to go would be Freddie Mercury (lead singer of Queen) before his death in the 80s. Here is a picture of the dress rehearsal, moustache will feature on the night: http://twitpic.com/4q7h21 .

With my decision to passively enjoy the Royal Wedding my mind (and others') began to wander and wonder. What would happen if the Queen died? or Prince William or Kate got cold feet and didn't show up or one of them fell ill or it was revealed that one of them was having an affair? There would be uproar, chaos and devastation across the world.

I suppose an affair could be covered up by a super-injunction, which I find just ridiculous, how can famous people have the right to cover these affairs up but not the average Joe? I reckon that if you have an affair then you have to deal with the consequences, be it an extremely angry partner and/or a tabloid thunderstorm. If footballers can no longer control where they stick their willy then they should have to endure all the publicity and shame that it entails. If Prince William or Kate had an affair it would need more than just a super-injunction, it would need a hyper-mega-uber-super-injunction.

Sorry it's a short one, revision beckons.

Double standards

I should be revising, don't tell my mum. I know, I'm 18 and still scared of my mum, you would be too, she is terrifying and runs a dictatorship whenever it comes to exams. Unfortunately this has a negative effect, I do my absolute best not to revise to spite her, bit silly really.

I recently stumbled across a website after hearing about it on the radio. The idea of the website is for women to take pictures of men on the tube sneakily and post them on the site for other women to comment on, have a look - http://www.tubecrush.net/ . This is an interesting idea, not as good as a feature in the now deceased London Paper in which men and women would write love messages to people they had made eye contact with on public transport in London, often inviting them for drinks or dinner. I read this feature every day in Summer 2009 while working in Canary Wharf because I found it hilarious and secretly hoped one would refer to me. One day I broke the unspoken rule of London and spoke to someone, it was pouring with rain and the roof in London Bridge station was leaking. The trains were ridiculously delayed because of so much water so I was sat on a crowded rush hour train that wasn't going anywhere. A young woman (I would guess at about 25) was obviously not happy and without thinking I made a humorous comment about something. She giggled like a schoolgirl before we resumed the norm and ignored each other but kept smiling until the train was eventually cancelled and we were all forced to get home another way. I rang my dad and moaned, he instructed me home somehow. The next Monday I was reading the London Paper and eventually came across my guilty pleasure, the lovestruck bit. After reading a couple I got onto one that said "To the young looking guy in the purple tie on the cancelled 18:19 to Dorking from LBr, you made me smile on a day noone else could, drink?" My immediate reaction was that it must be someone else but then I began to break it up: young looking - I was 16 so young looking, made me smile - I did that to someone, cancelled 18:19 - I was on that, purple tie - I only had 3 ties, one of which was purple. How could it not be me? I didn't follow it up, the T&Cs said you had to be 18, it would never go anywhere, it was cheesy and would be so inappropriate. I met my girlfriend 3 days later on Epsom Downs anyway so I really didn't miss out.

Anyway, this website, in principal it is mildly amusing but a technique I learnt in (sigh) critical thinking is to reverse the situation and this reveals a terrible truth. Say there was a website of pictures of women on the tube that men had sneakily taken without the women knowing. There would be uproar, people would get in serious trouble, heads would roll and the stories would be endless. With this in mind why is it acceptable for women to take photos of men they don't know and submit them to a website for public judgement? Comments include "How fabulous! The new Victoria Line trains come with matching hotties. We'd wondered why ticket prices had gone up!" So I'm playing the double standards card that I so often play when it comes to advertising, either I want this website gone or I want one that works in the opposite way. And no I'm not bitter that noone has put a picture of me up, anyway I haven't taken the tube for months so one day I might be secretly snapped.

Back to revision, chromatography and sprectroscopy await.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Back in the good old days I used to look forward to school holidays, I would watch television all day, watch videos (remember them), play in the park/garden and play games with my brother. I then got older and would go out with my friends during the day. I then got older again and started going out in the evening and sleeping throughout the day. HOWEVER, these holidays I don't go out during the day, I occasionally venture out in the evening but my holidays are for one purpose only: revision. I get up at 9, start working at 10, lunch 1-1.30 and finish at 4. Depression usually sets in at around 11 and suicidal thoughts tend to creep in at around 2.30. I prefer the old school holidays, when can I have them again?

I had a revelation recently (I have them quite often but very rarely act upon them) about breakfast. It has become clear to me that porridge is the key to a long, happy and successful life. For this reason I went out and bought a kilogram bag of porridge oats (which should last about 3 weeks) from Waitrose for about £1. Porridge and strawberry jam every morning gets me to lunchtime without getting hungry and is easy to make and cheap and variable. If porridge was a woman, it would be the greatest woman alive (assuming she wasn't pale and gloopy like porridge is).

You may have noticed that another change may be taking place next month. We are having a referendum (oooooooohhhhh I hear you say) on the current voting system. This was David Cameron's way to get the Lib Dems to surrender everything they stand for and form a coalition. Clegg has got it alright though, if I had the chance to change the voting system to one in which I do better off then I would do it. This new system is Alternative Voting (AV), possibly replacing First Past The Post (FPTP). The no to AV party have worked out that it is possible for the party finishing 3rd in total votes can come 1st overall thanks to some complicated votes ranking and redistributing, I'm not here to explain, look it up if you care about it that much, but as an Arsenal fan I'd be happy for AV to be incorporated into the Premier League. However I don't reckon it's right for politics, I won't try to persuade you, my audience is intelligent to make it's own mind up (I assume you spotted that "it's" should have had no apostrophe - that was to prove your intelligence) but make sure you have done your research and don't blindly vote to change for the sake of it or keep it the same because it's tradition. I have done my research and my opinion is No to AV. I even get to vote this year which is very exciting, put my cross in the boxes for AV referendum and council people followed by fish and chips.

You have trusted me with recommendations in the past so go on http://www.richardstheone.org.uk/ for a lot of interesting opinions and insights into current affairs and things general (a lot like I do but slightly more eloquently).

New Experiences

A lot of things have happened for the first time recently. Obviously most of them mentioned here will be about me so I'll start with something that isn't. If you are a seasoned reader you will know I complain a lot about advertising, well the advertising world has got minorly better recently as the people in charge of advertising are now regulating online adverts. Unfortunately I will no longer be able to fraudulently claim to have free holidays, cheap viagra, a scent that makes you irresistible to the opposite sex or branded clothes at primark prices to boost my hits as the advertising authorities will get me, which noone wants.

As for me, I had my first trip to hospital a couple of weeks ago, it all started on the football pitch. David Streather pulled out of playing in football because he had a cough or something so I split the responsibility of filling in as goalkeeper with Danny Watts. We both warmed up in goal, him with green/blue house (our team) and me with brown house. Rather foolishly I chose to punch away one of the shots, it hurt like hell. Here I was presented with two options: pull out for the good of my wrist, or man up, keep calm and carry on. I chose the latter. First half I was playing centre back, this not being particularly strenuous on the wrist I had no problems, dealt with their pacey striker with ease (he wasn't particularly bright) and we went into half time at 1-1. Now it was time to pull on the gloves. The opposition really came at us second half but with not much end-product I didn't have too much to do. I made the routine stops from the torrent of corners and made a couple of saves (one involved diving in front of a striker and blocking the ball with my knees). With a minute left to play they came streaming down the right (my right), I hovered at the front post awaiting the cross, it came in and

went way over my head. I sprinted across the goal to cover the other post to be greeted by a stinging shot on my right. I parried it out into the area with my hurting hand, right towards another opposition player, he delayed slightly before volleying to my right. I threw myself across the goal making an expert stop that was cleared for a corner (it was described as Gordon Banks-esque and "the best save I've ever seen") In all honesty I got quite lucky, I am very good at diving to my right, if it had been on my other side I would have fallen over vaguely near it. They then scored from the resulting corner. When I was back in the changing room I noticed my wrist a little more - swollen, slightly purple and hurting a lot. The next day I took myself to A&E, I was X-rayed from every conceivable angle before being told I had broken my wrist and put in a cast (a purple one). I couldn't sit exams on my own, eat, write, play sport or juggle. I had another appointment one week later in which I was told I had not broken my wrist, simply sprained it, great, missed playing in the best football match of the year and had a scribe for exams for nothing. The cast was removed with a circular saw, a terrifying experience.

I mentioned the best football match of the year, this is the school vs Old Sutts annual game followed by drinks and curry. I went along to watch my team, who despite being without their influential captain marched on to win 2-1, the only school victory of the day. I decided that being in a cast would not inconvenience me enough to miss the drinks and curry. Free drinks had a bad affect on me leading to another first experience. A bottle of wine and countless beers led to a very drunk Joe. I have almost no recollection of the night past a point whatsoever, other than having hiccups on the way home. I was helped to bed and slept with the light on, practically sat up. I felt terrible in the morning (just before having my cast off), struggled with breakfast before showering. I finished my cup of tea and that's when it hit me that something wasn't quite right. I made it to the toilet before losing my chunder virginity, 10 months into my binge drinking career, my defining point was lost. I proceeded to chunder again later that morning before turning up at the hospital practically dead. I struggled through school with lucozade and a massive bottle of water. Five days later I still can't stand the taste of alcohol, especially wine.

For any homeless people reading this I have a suggestion for you, invest in bubble wrap. I went to a hobo-themed party wrapped in bubble wrap and I have never been so warm and cosy. It also provides excellent entertainment for yourself and others, I had guys and girls

popping my bubbles all night (pictured is my girlfriend in a stylish bin bag dress and me in bubble wrap and a friend's cowboy hat.)

Have a good Easter, mine will be spent revising all day and night.