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.

Ejaculation denied

A collection of things have happened recently, I have learnt to juggle after 4 weeks of practice, the world has started to fall apart and fate has turned against me.

I'll start with a work story, it was a beautiful sunny Sunday lunch time and I had been baking bread, rolls, baguettes and pastries since 9 pretty much non-stop. I had just taken a batch of croissants out of the oven and put them on the rack to cool. It was at that point that a reasonably attractive woman came over with her boyfriend and asked if we had any croissants. My response was "I've just taken some out of the oven actually, how..." before I could finish she squealed with delight and full on snogged her boyfriend who seemed quite surprised by it (not that he was complaining). I was quite taken aback, at where was my thanks, I had bloody made them? Not saying I want that but why does he get all the credit? Me and my fellow bakers came up with a theory: croissant fetish, what else.

You are probably all aware that the world is falling apart, with half of the middle east rebelling against the dictators they have suffered under for years and most of pacific countries being struck by floods, earthquakes and tsunamis. However this timed we faced more, a nuclear crisis. The timing was impeccable, having just completed my section on nuclear power in physics, the crisis in Japan made perfect sense to me. Unfortunately as a scientist, my curiosity struck, part of me wanted a total meltdown or nuclear explosion, having not had a nuclear disaster in my lifetime I wanted to see what would happen. Obviously I don't want people to die or for the world to end, I just wanted an experiment. I am slightly concerned for the impact this will have on Britain's nuclear future, public opinion is at a low point and noone is going to want a nuclear power station near them. These people are morons. Nuclear is clearly the way forward, with no CO2 emissions it is by far the cleanest fuel and resources are not as limited as coal, oil or gas. As for safety, forget about it, the safety procedures and protocols are incredibly extensive, short of a natural disaster they can handle anything. Since Britain and Northern Europe are not near a tectonic plate boundary we don't have to worry about earthquakes, volcanoes or tsunamis. One last nuclear note, my utmost praise and respect goes to the engineers who have sacrificed themselves to stabilise the Fukushima Nuclear reactor, they exposed themselves to massive amounts of radiation to save their country and the future of nuclear power.

I had a bit of trouble sending my work home from school, with a virus still in the works at school I'm not putting my USB stick anywhere one of those USB ports at school without super firewall protection which I do not have (Techno STD style). Resorting to sending it home, I have to go through the long process of signing in, new message, attachments, selecting them, attaching them, typing in my own email address and sending. Thinking it had gone smoothly I turned off the computer and got on with something else. When I get home I find an email telling me it was blocked from sending due to "Sexual Content" because one of the documents contained the word "ejaculation". Firstly, I may have been using this word completely honestly, ejaculation can refer to any kind of sudden movement or outburst. Secondly I was writing a presentation on the Sympathetic and Parasympathetic nervous systems. I'm sure you are all aware that the Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) controls all of the bodily functions that require an extra bit of kick (increase in heart rate, increase in breathing rate, temporary digestive halting to conserve energy and any of the Fight or Flight mechanisms). One of the functions the SNS performs is to cause ejaculation, a perfectly reasonable thing to mention in an A2 level presentation. Stupid webmail, might not be able to finish on time now.

I recently refereed the SGS El Clasico, the monumental fixture of Brown House vs Red House (Browncelona vs Real Red House). The report in the school sports tabloid (What's The Story: Sporting Glory - WTSSG) featured my name more than any of the players, clearly I made an impact. Described as "power-hungry" after awarding a controversial penalty, "rulebook-loving" for making the players stand on the half way line for the penalty shoot-out and "the dictator himself" for showing a red card to a player for gross sporting misconduct. I thought I had an excellent performance, anyone who was present is free to comment if they felt any differently.

Now the fate thing, anyone who is bored by displays of emotion, close the window now, it is the soppy bit. There has always been an expectation to see my wonderful girlfriend once a week (excluding Tuesdays, as lovely as they are) be it half a day on Saturday or Sunday or the evening on Friday. Unfortunately in the recent few weeks this has not happened. I have joined golf club at school meaning I am unavailable on Fridays. This isn't usually a problem but when for some reason Saturday becomes unavailable we are presented with a bit of a problem. This week she was busy on Saturday so I made alternative plans for a lads night at a mate's house on Saturday night. I then tried to pencil in a leaving do for a friend at work for Sunday night, exactly when she wanted to see me. My dictator of a mother however forbade me from going out twice in a weekend so I was saved the decision between work friends and girlfriend (undoubtedly would have chosen girlfriend because I am a right sop). So here is the 2nd week in 3 that I will not be seeing my girl and I really miss her, the day night I did see her I was too drunk to register anything anyway. Nothing seems to be working for us so we need to plough on until some kinder times arrive. Moan over.

Referees (football)

After reading a post about referees written by a friend of mine I started thinking about my feuds with referees and how it highlights the fact that I am everything that I hate in others. Mild tangent - I can't stand people who think they are above certain aspects in life that everyone takes part in but I consider myself to be way above starbucks, it is a horrible place that serves horrible coffee at inflated prices to stupid people who are trying to appear like they are vaguely cultured (ie. everyone except me). Does this mean I hate myself? That is a topic for another day.

Anyway, back on track, referees. I am a referee, not only this but I am an incredibly stubborn referee, what I see is what happened and whatever I decide is obviously right. I have been qualified nearly two years, I passed a practical course so already consider myself above the traditionalist theory course-ists. Not only this, I got every single question right on the multiple choice section of the exam and passed flawlessly on my practical exam, even receiving comments such as "wow, when you put that shirt on, you just look like a referee, a proper one."

When I referee I often encounter twats who argue with my every decision, they think they know better and stop at nothing to get in my head, this of course causes me to look for every opportunity to penalise them or even punish them. I am the ref, I am in charge and that's how it is. However, when I am a player I am worse than those who argue with me because I actually know what I'm talking about, putting referees on the back foot. Quite often I am a joy to referee, if the ref is qualified and consistent (I can manage bad refereeing because we are all human but inconsistent refereeing is unforgivable) then we get on well, obviously they get things wrong but you have to accept it. My problem is with unqualified referees who referee by their own rules. An excellent source of these people are school football matches, PE teachers who think they rule the world and A-level students who can't play football but try to help out anyway. One example of this was in a school match against Christ's Hospital, the referee was a right tosser, didn't know the offside rule and couldn't keep up with play. Losing 4-2 with a few minutes left I made a perfectly timed run onto a through ball, outpacing at least 1 defender. I rounded the goalkeeper, thinking this could be my moment of glory before being felled like a mighty oak tree by the goalkeeper. He went right into my ankle with his studs, just outside the 18 yard box. The foul alone merited a caution at least, the positioning and situation demanded a red card. Here came the 'referee', the cards were out, justice would be done. Hang on, that card is yellow, what a cowardly decision! When asked for an explanation he said "he wasn't last man". When arguing against this I said he was, I was in a far better situation to see that he was, he was the only player in front of me. Secondly I was forced to explain that last man is not even the rule, the rule is "denying an obvious goalscoring opportunity" which it definitely was. He threatened to caution me. Got him back though, refused to shake his hand and I always shake hands and apologise to referees I have given a hard time. I have many more examples of poor refereeing, just ask me sometime.

Eyes and Exam results

School has been pretty fun this past week, there have been practicals, football matches and all sort of new and interesting things. My scientific highlight of the week has undoubtedly been the dissection of an eye. (On a side note I feel obliged to clear up the correct pronunciatiation of dissection, it is a word that particularly annoys my girlfriend's dad so I do all I can to spread the truth. Contrary to popular belief it is pronounced diss-ection like in disc or disband, not die-section like dye or dine. Glad I have sorted that, he would be proud of me.) If you imagine an eye I bet you think it is soft and squishy, or maybe gloopy. They are not, they are pretty damn solid and tough. First we had to cut off the muscle around the eye, exposing it completely. Next was cutting into it, although preceeded by lots of pissing about and picture taking:

What else does a teenage boy do when presented with eyes? Back to the DISSSSection, eyes are pretty round and solid. Getting the scissors into the eye was like trying to get into a gobstopper with a fork, difficult. After nearly stabbing through my hand numerous times I developed a clever securing method involving the tweezers, I wish I could show you it. Upon piercing the Sclera (outside hard bit) I was greeted by a bitty black goop from the choroid (membrane that prevents internal reflection) and further goop that was the Vitreous Humour (goop that gives the eye shape). Our quest was for the lens (which was goopy), after finding mine and attempting to look through it I came to the conclusion the the animal that had so kindly donated its eye to me needed glasses. I did manage to read newspaper through it, inspecting a match report between Newcastle and Fulham from November (which ended 0-0), using a piece of an animal eye did not make the report any more interesting. In our school noone uses gloves for dissection, we are men.

I have some exam results tomorrow, needless to say I am quite nervous. It is quite odd being nervous about results, the part to be nervous about is surely the testing itself. Nervousness is a mechanism developed evolutionarily to help us perform better in high stress situations. To start with this hardly helps with academic thinky things as it is more about muscles and can actually be a bad thing in exams. I am hardly going to need all the extra adrenaline, strength and energy to pick up and open an envelope, unless of course they have included a detailed analysis of my mistakes, making it very heavy or have used extra thick envelopes with super strength glue. I, like many of my school comrades am facing a problem tomorrow. The results become available at 7:45am, I have a double free period meaning not arriving at school until 10:11am. Do I pick the results up as early as possible or turn up at 10 and grab them before double biology? A friend of mine will be picking his up as early as possible whereas another will be leaving it until the end of the day. It was only a few minutes ago that I realised that contrary to popular belief, the results will not change depending on when they are picked up. With this in mind I'll take the extra sleep and grab them around 10, unless of course I am too tense to sleep.

Good luck to all those collecting results (even though you needed the luck back in January and need very little luck to successfully open an envelope).

My Assorted Antics of Half Term

Half term is a glorious thing, especially February half term in year 13, it is the last chance to relax properly with little/no work to do, the best kind of relaxation. Obviously I had a little bit of work and I went through the motions of motivation appearing and disappearing very quickly. I did myself proud and did my physics homework on the Tuesday and finished it off on Wednesday. I then turned my sights to chemistry only to find I had left my text book at school, what a calamity! This put me off doing any work at all and as a result Sunday evening was spent frantically doing horrifically difficult biology homework. Not my best idea of the week. If you want a more detailed insight into the physics of procrastination read the blog of my friend (and comerade) Dave: mylifeisdaverage.blogspot.com the post called something to do with Winnie the Pooh.

This week featured a landmark in my growing up, I lost my clubbing virginity. It started at a mates house for the pre-lash (and the lash-lash for the under 18s amongst my friends). This consisted of a great deal of beer and playing on the wii. We played Just Dance 2, a game I had brought along which involves dancing in sync with the on-screen avatar. I am absolutely terrible at it but really enjoy it, and so did everyone else so I'm glad I did so. What I lack in dancing skills I more than make up for in virtual driving skills, MarioKart time. First I combined with everyone's favourite Diversity Kid lookalike, James Prince, to form team Joe James (we kept it simple) and blitzed the competition. Then came the Grand Prix, four novices were chosen as captains and they picked their teams. In a team of 3 and as Seed 1 I raced in the First and the Final (4th) races. I destroyed the field in the first race, finishing miles ahead of all my competitors. In the final race I was less lucky, caught in a fierce rivalry with Dan Watts I found myself at the back of the pack. My skillful driving and unparalleled knowledge of the game ensured I was back in front with one lap to go. A stroke of luck on Dan's behalf led to me being hit by a shell on the final stretch allowing him to take first place. With the superior team, the points favoured my team and we came top of the pile. The everything changed, I was made a captain and given last pick. Obviously I made Dave Williams mine, we have an unexplainably good chemistry and link perfectly in competition. Spurring each other on and advising on each race we both turned dire positions into prosperous ones, once again controlling the Grand Prix.

Back on track, clubbing. We went out in Kingston, our night coinciding with Frankie and the Heartstrings performing, luckily I quite like them so in a not very crowded club venue made my way to the front and being as drunk as I was I made myself seem like their biggest fan alongside Stephen Richer. High fived the lead singer twice and the drummer once, and managed to get hold of the set list, a successful night and only two hours into it. Then came the clubbing bit, expensive drinks and loud music, ideally I would have liked it more crowded so the atmosphere was right but had a laugh anyway, Indie and Alternative night ensured the music was brilliant. On the way home I bought a kebab and walked 4 miles before getting to Matt's house at 4 for a cup of tea before sharing his double bed (James got the spare bed and I hate the floor). He got cramp and kicked me at one point.

The next day was tough, I went to see my sister's dancing show with my equally tired girlfriend. It was a two hour show in which my sister featured for about 4 minutes but it was very good and we both enjoyed it. I am a bit OCD about syncronisation and timing so dancing shows exhibit this, easing my crazy mind. We then went back to mine to watch a film, and when I say watch a film I actually mean watch a film, we watched Goodnight Mr Tom, a film I love. Under normal circumstances it gets me a bit teary but in my fragile and unstable state it had me crying twice, oh dear.

The day did not end on a high, I got an email telling me Bristol University had rejected my application to study there, I was not happy, although I didn't particularly want to go there, the feeling of rejection is still pretty horrible, especially since they made an offer to someone I know for the course I wanted who is about as dim as a broken streetlight. Oh well, as my nan always says "their loss dear".

Frowned Upon

A lot of things in this world are not allowed, murder, theft, rape etc. all pretty nasty things but with laws help to prevent people doing this and punish those who do. Everything that is not against the law must therefore be considered doable, people can go by doing these law-abiding activities and noone is bothered. Unfortunately this is not the case and there is a very large grey area in between, this area contains many activities and things that are perfectly legal but seen as the wrong thing to be doing. This grey area can be named "The Frowned Upon Zone". Not illegal but not appreciated either. Naturally The Frowned Upon Zone contains a variety of things, from the should-be-illegal playing shit music out loud in public, using a seat for your bag on the bus or fat people wearing promiscuous clothing/being topless to the London-etiquette such as talking to people you don't know, wearing tracksuits out to dinner and eating food from one shop while in another. One that usually divides opinion is pissing in the shower, think about that one.

One particular thing that is frowned upon greatly is public flatulence, obviously it is rather unpleasant but it should be acceptable, the passing of gas is perfectly natural and everyone does it, even the Royal Family. Not only this but it is not healthy to hold it in, trapped gas is incredibly painful and if it diffuses into cells or the bloodstream it cocks up the pH (another Beaumontism) causing pain and problems, after being around any female (especially my girlfriend) for a lengthy period of time I am in horrific pain for a couple of hours while everything sorts itself out inside me. A country in Africa is even considering making public flatulence illegal! Madness! Not only a ridiculous law but pretty difficult to enforce. The police will have to resort to "he who smelt it, dealt it" or "he who denied it, supplied it". And for those of us that blush very easily, we are in serious trouble, facing lengthy sentences for farts that were not ours.

I am going to start being more literal in life and surveying the general public, standing somewhere and frowning at those who perform an action deemed within "The Frowning Zone", perhaps even encourage others to join me.

Blogging Scrapbook

I have been collecting dribs and drabs that would make up something to write about but nothing really substantial came up so I'm going to collect all of my little snapshots of interestingness and stick it together in this scrapbook of a post. Enjoy my rough, untidy patchiness, after all, a scrapbook should never be neat and organised.

Let me start by say welcome my Labels and Jellyspoons. I may sound mad but this is what is known in my school as a Beaumontism, a phrase used and made famous by my slightly eccentric but infinitely brilliant chemistry teacher Mr Beaumont. He has lots of little phrases that are commonplace in lessons but if used in an exam would leave the examiner thinking you are a dribbling fool or escaped lunatic (Mr Beaumont is neither). An extremely popular one is "it will just sit there and smile at you" meaning "it won't react" not to mention "this is going to kick some arse" which naturally means "it is very reactive". I have had a sudden mind blank of the other good ones so any readers who have been taught by Mr B, feel free to add some in the comments box.

Next little scrap for the book - Valentine's Day, believe it or not, I am not a fan of February 14th. I sometimes abandon my usual conservative views in favour of radical socialist views (just ask me my opinion on starbucks) and Valentine's Day is one of these times. Why do I need to spend an enormous amount of money on my girlfriend, just to prove that I quite like her? I prefer to spread my heart out, spontaneous flowers in mid-June, just because I happened to walk past some flowers with a bit of spare change, out to dinner at the beginning of October, because I feel like a treat or a hand written letter at the end of March, just because I'm in the mood for it. Unfortunately the corporate dogs in all their money grabbing wisdom, made a day in which it is customary, almost obligatory to treat your other half (my better half). To take it further, restaurants, supermarkets, card makers, chocolatiers and just about every feasible activity double-treble their prices to milk as much money out of men desperate to buy their way into their spouses knickers later that night. Men judge each other on their plans for the Mrs, looking down on those who are planning "a quiet night in" instead of a romantic cruise on the river or dinner and fireworks at sunset on the hill where we shared our first kiss, ruthless competition between males drives them further to prove they can treat their woman better than the next guy. The world needs more spontaneity, not ruthlessly organised gift buying. Having said all this I did fork out for a rose, champagne, dinner and a card. Why? Because it is the rules, obviously my girlfriend is great and deserves the best treatment I can possibly give but why does it have to be scheduled by the retail calendar? Then there is the even worse side to Valentine's day, single people feel terrible, another year with no plans, I'll just sit at home, watch a film, eat chocolate and feel sorry for myself. If treating her was spontaneous then desperately lonely people would cry themselves to sleep one night less each year.

If you ever find yourself walking down Sutton high street on a Sunday evening you will be struck by how desolate it is, I felt like I was walking through a post-apocalyptic world, shops all shut, completely deserted, rain falling and the only sounds being my footprints and the rain on my umbrella.

When I go to work, I get the bus to Cheam to meet up with my beautiful girlfriend before going to work. It is these frequent journeys to Cheam from Sutton that has led me to alter one of the worlds oldest sayings: "There are only two certainties in life: death and taxes" ~Ben Franklin but was misheard in London and converted to "death and taxis". I realised this is wrong, the two things in life you can be absolutely certain of are death and 213 buses.

Four scraps - more of a scrapbooklet than a scrapbook, oh well, happy scrapping.