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.

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!