BBC Interview
June 30th, 2006 at 15:33

I went for a job interview yesterday, at BBC Radio Leicester. I was applying to be a “web producer” on the Leicester website. Spoiler: I didn’t get it.

I think the reason the interview went a bit wrong was because I tried to use as many BBC-jokes as possible. (The lack of three years journalism experience and a degree in journalism might also have been a factor).

When I got into the interview, I remarked “I’m glad I’m not live on News 24!”, referencing Guy Goma, from a few months ago.

As part of the interview, I had to pitch an idea for the website to the editor and deputy editor. If you’ve ever seen the first series of the excellent I’m Alan Partridge, you may recall a scene where Alan pitches TV show ideas to the head of BBC Television. I had to force myself not to try and pitch Monkey Tennis as an idea.

When I ran out of the building at the interview, I refrained from shouting “SMELL MY CHEESE, YOU MOTHER”.

Oh well, at least I can get up at midday everyday and spout openly-partisan views on my blog.

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Last hour of the last day of invigilating
June 27th, 2006 at 14:26

Today was my last day invigilating- and it ended on a big one. The year 10 GCSE science exam. And it was my job to keep the no-good punk kids in order.

Before the exam started, it was my important duty to unlock the bike shed where coats and bags are stored during the exam. For 15 minutes I stood by the open shed looking important, whilst the kids dumped their bags and went off to take an exam that I got an A* in four years ago.

Eventually, there was just one girl left in the shed fumbling about with her bag- and she was already late. Her friend ran up to the shed and shouted in “fuckin’ hurry up will ya”- and I couldn’t help myself from saying to her “I’m afraid I must echo the sentiment of what your friend is saying, albeit in a more polite way”- I’m assuming that kids think that a pompous invigilator is a cool invigilator.

“What?” she grunted back. I listed a series of metaphors to illustrate my point: “Get your skates on, time is ticking, hurry up!”. “I am doing?”.

I then chose to aggrovate this already spiralling situation by asking “would tapping my watch like this make you hurry up?”, whilst tapping my watch. “No, that’d just piss me off“, she replied, throwing what I assume is a metaphor right back at me.

I then destroyed any credible authority I did have by trying to justify my attempt at light hearted banter by explaining that “I’m only saying this because I’m an authority figure”. She walked off.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about today was that I finally got to meet the infamous Riggzy. I’ve known him online for a couple of years now, but despite our paths theoretically crossing a number of times, I’ve never actually met him in person. The best thing about this was that I was invigilating him, yet I was on nickname terms with a pupil.

Invigilating’s alright. Eight on ten.

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Football Pundit
June 25th, 2006 at 18:35

Well, at the end of the day the best team won and the grass is always greener on the other side. It’s a game of two halves and they’d put all of their eggs into one basket and counted them before they’d hatched. In off the red, a stitch in time saves nine, but at the end of the day Ecuador were toast and it was a walk in the park.

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Sin City
June 25th, 2006 at 14:52

I spent yesterday evening at Fundar’s house watching Sin City with him, JD and Charlie.

I was anticipating an evening of building residential zones, placing fire stations strategically and forgetting to build any water infrastructure. As it happend, none of this occured - there wasn’t even an angry transport advisor shouting at me because I’d reduced spending on bridges to zero despite there being no bridges whatsoever.

It turns out that Sin City borrows more heavily from the ye olden days than the Maxis town building simulator Sim City. By which I mean, its mainly in black and white- like how films used to be until half way through The Wizard of Oz. (I assume that was made during the transition period).

The film itself is unusual- its split into three distinct stories, that frustratingly, don’t tie together in a really tight way, like I’d have preferred- instead they’re only losely linked. Not that the plot matters, as its very style over substance.

And it’s very, very stylish. Occasional splashes of colour, comic-style violence, 50s cars, sillohettes, and lots, and lots of gruesome deaths. A man’s head is chopped off, then a grenade is put in his mouth, so his head can be used as a bomb.

I liked this film a lot, although I wouldn’t recommend watching it if there is any women in the room, as you’re likely to hear:

• “Who’s that?”
• “What’s he/she been in before?”
• “Are they a goodie or a baddie?”
• “What’s going on?”
• “Why’s he yellow?”
• “What’s happening again?”

Nine on ten.

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Straight in, Straight Out
June 24th, 2006 at 00:21

A few days ago Charlie messaged me screaming “go and see this punk band with me!”- in other words: “Drive me to see a band”. Unable to come up with an excuse, and being a fan of punk music myself, I agreed to go.

It was at a venue I’d never been to before. (That’s “The Shed”, in Leicester, tedious detail fans!) When we got there, it was a little, shall we, say… unusual? Walking in I noticed a number of posters featuring rainbow clipart with the word “PRIDE” in a large font. On paying to get in (£5 each) we were handed our tickets as well as a funny look by the ticket man. I looked down at the ticket and it hit me: Charlie had bought me to a gay pride event.

And this created a massive moral dialemma that tested my liberal credentials. If I was as left-thinking as I thought I was, I would stay and enjoy the music… surely?

We left approximately thirty seconds after clocking that it was a gay pride event. Presumably because I’m a massive homophobe. £5 down the drain. To be fair, the hints wern’t that obvious- there were no massive banners outside saying “GAYS –>”, and the men there wern’t wearing rubber clothing (as Little Britain would have me think).

This annoys me, because I don’t consider myself homophobic. As an awful politician might say “I’ve got many gay friends”. I think what caused me to leave was that I didn’t feel comfortable with the connotations that attending an event of this nature might carry. That’s the official line.

After all of this, we went to the pub where I attempted to re-assert my heterosexuality by watching a football match. The blue team won. I think.

I think it would have been better if Charlie was a lesbian. At least then I could have justified being there by saying that I was accompanying my friend.

It does make me wonder though- if I attended, for example, the MOBO awards and then realised everyone there was black, would I have left? Probably not. Then why would a gay event be any different?

Am I the world’s most awful person?

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Window Cleaners
June 21st, 2006 at 15:38

I hate window cleaners. I’ve had a run in with them before, but they keep on irritating me.

I don’t have a problem with the noble profession of applying soapy water, and then watery water to glass per se, I think I just dislike the individual “pond life” who woke me up this morning.

I was having a reasonably pleasant night’s sleep. I was dreaming about saving the world from nuclear holocaust- the dastardly Russians had stationed some mid-range nuclear weapons in Cuba, and I had to sort out a naval blockade, act macho, and then conceed pulling my own nuclear weapons out of Turkey on the sly.

Just as I was in the oval office, looking over the spy plane photos, two loutish generals in the corner of the room (does an oval have corners?) started talking about a football match that happend 44 years later. I suddenly woke up confused- there wasn’t a nuclear button in sight, and all I could hear was talking and squeaking, alarmingly close to my head. It was two window cleaners, standing on the roof of the garage, that shoots out a bit further than my house itself (if you can picture that).

In a way, it’s probably a good thing that I was woken up- had I remained sleeping any longer, I’d probably have been shot by a nutter from a book depository a year later.

I’m not sure if the window cleaners realised that I was only a few metres in front of them- after I realised what was happening, for some reason, I pretended that I was sleeping. I’m not entirely sure why I did this. I think my logic was “being asleep makes this slightly less embarassing”.

After a few minutes of hearing ladders clattering against the sides of my house, and window cleaners faffing about, things suddenly went silent. I creeped up to my bedroom window and slowly pulled apart two of the strips on the blind to see if they were still there- and there was no sign of them. The strange thing was that the windows still appear to be dirty- they clearly havn’t done a good job… or they were actually trying to burglarise me, but then aborted after seeing me.

Mind you, this this isn’t half as bad as last time they came and “washed” the windows- I’d just got out of the shower, and was wearing only a towel- when I was getting some socks out of a drawer by the window, I just saw a man peering down at me. Terrified, I ran to the otherside of the house, only to see the other window cleaner now cleaning the bathroom windows. Trapped, I ended up spending what felt like a life-time sitting on the landing with all of the doors to rooms closed so that I could hide from the windows, worrying.

I hate window cleaners.

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A Cracking Bloke
June 20th, 2006 at 21:31

I met Red Dwarf’s Craig Charles a couple of years ago. Why is this relevant? He’s having a spot of bother at the moment.

He was a friendly bloke- really happy and seemingly high on life… and probably Cocaine, in retrospect.

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I demand RESULTS.
June 20th, 2006 at 13:39

At ten o’clock this morning, I should have been able to log on to the University website to get my end of year results. Unfortunately, the “managed learning environment” has gone down, meaning that I am instead sat here, getting more and more worked up about it.

I didn’t think I was that worried about it- I’ve barely thought about it until today. Clearly my subconcious is having different ideas. I had the most awful dream last night. The following happend:

• I had to go and collect my uni results
• …from a small room at the train station
• …and the results were cut into lumps of coal the size of bricks
• …and the bricks were stacked up like a brick wall
• …and an old French teacher from my old school was the dealing with handing out the, erm, lumps of coal
• …and I only got 30%- 10% under the vital 40% I need to pass the year.

Needless to say that judging by this dream, I think I’m a bit mental. At least the walls wern’t closing in around me. I “remember” being a bit pissed off with my low grade, and this French teacher seemed to take great delight in telling me that I’d failed.

To make matters worse, I woke up immediately after this dream at 9:50am… ten minutes before I was expecting to recieve my real results.

I hate dreams.

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Capdown
June 18th, 2006 at 15:13

I’ve just got back from seeing Capdown live in Milton Keynes. To give you a sense of just how immediately afterwards I’m writing this: my ears are still ringing and I can only here noises that occur in a very narrow band of frequencies.

I went with Matt and Bouff, and to get there, we had to go down six junctions on the M1, which was a new experience to say the least. Despite the speed limit being 70mph, every other car around me was doing perhaps 100, so I felt obliged to break the speed limit “occasionally”. To end this tedious paragraph about driving: we got there an astounding forty minutes early- which I think is vaguely impressive when you consider that I when I went to see Spunge, I arrived over an hour after I planned to get there.

One of the first things we noticed when waiting outside was just how many kids were there. It turns out it was a “14+” gig, so perhaps unfortunately, the three of us were probably some of the oldest there. There was literally four cars in the car park, yet an audience of a few hundred people. At the end we watched them all wait for their parents to pick them up, and laughed with contempt. It was a very emo group of kids too- they all looked as if they spend their evenings crying of desperate loneliness about how no-one understands them and how their lives are awful… despite living in a middle-class family in the developed world in the 21st century.

When we were eventually let into the venue, I told the people on the door that I’d ordered tickets online and gave them a reference number. Without cross-checking this, or looking as if they gave a damn if I’d actually paid or not, they stamped my hand and we were in.

In the foyer, we saw the Capdown’s bassist using the Coke machine… not an unusual thing to do, but considering he’s in a band called “Capitalist Downfall”, it strikes me as slightly ironic. The stage crew were also drinking bottled Evian water- the ultimate in the commercialisation of a utility. It’s slightly comforting to know that my favourite musicians will “sell out” as easily as I will though. I just hope they enjoy thought of a Columbian trade unionist being killed everytime they drink a coke as much as I do.

As we were waiting for the first band to come on, Bouff gave me some helpful advice, as he’s a more seasoned concert-goer than I am: “If a kid comes near you… push him”. Taking this cue, I pushed the kid standing about a foot in front of me as hard as I could. He jolted forwards, and then spun around and glared at me, as if he was transmitting the initials “WTF?” with this eyes.

We had to endure three support bands before we got what we wanted to see.

The first band came on- presumably a local band, as some friends of theirs were harassing us to buy their CD(R) outside (I refused on the grounds that they wern’t declaring tax). I’d like to say they were alright, but the lead singer was a bit… full of himself. Bouff suggested that he was acting like he was really famous- which couldn’t have been more apt. “Make some noise!”, “Let me see you clapping”, “Give me some attention”, was the gist of his audience patter.

Before the second band started, we moved to the front of the room- I was standing right in front of the barriers and would have been in chatting-range of the band, had they not been playing music at the time. They were much more hardcore than the first band, and were quite good.

I can’t remember much about the third band on, because most of the time was spent avoiding crowd surfers, who on their journey to the front of the crowd all seemed to go directly over my head and nearly kicking me in the face every time.

When Capdown eventually came on stage, the audience suddenly became more lively- and they all gravitated towards the stage, crushing me against the railings at the front. Every few bars (assuming punk can be written as sheet music), I was pushed by a surging crowd into the metal railings… not that I minded this. The pain was offset by the enjoyment of the music.

Excellently, Bouff managed to get a copy of the setlist, so I can excitingly give all of you non-Capdown fans reading a list of Capdown songs you’ve never heard of… in the order that they were played!

1. Punk and Roll
2. Cousin Cleotis
3. Metal Ska
4. MV4
5. Drum and Bass
6. Act Your Rage
7. Big Rock
8. An A-Political Stance of Reasons
9. Headstrong
10. Keepin’ Up
11. Ragga
12. Bitches and Nike Shoes (as part of the encore)
13. Ska Wars (again, in the encore)

(Hat-tip: Bouff)

It was perhaps a bit dissappointing the number of the new songs that they played (1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10 and 11), as the audience atmosphere wasn’t as great as when they played the classics- I think everyone was shouting “ACT, YOUR, RAGE!”, during the chorus of the song of the same name. The Neverlution would have been nice. And looking at the set list: no Civil Disobedients? WTF?!

It was fantastic though really. I’d say they were better than [spunge], although this may be because I was right at the front, and knew most of the songs. I even found myself sort of joining in with the enthusiasm of the crowd at some points. Not as much as Matt mind- when someone pushed him, he went mental, and barged into the “mosh pit” behind us, and kicked some arse.

My one complaint about the whole thing was just how fucking hot it was. By the time Capdown came on stage, my hands were shriveled as if I’d spent a decade in a bath- although the reality was like completely the opposite. Like everyone else, I was covered in sweat, and probably smelt worse than a decaying corpse covered in dog poo. I thought I was going to dehydrate at one point, but I somehow managed to win a “swig” of the bouncer at the front’s water.

Going into An A-Political Stance of Reasons, the lead singer tried to explain the song, saying that he wasn’t going to go into a political rant, but that he doesn’t identify with any political party at the moment. Unfortunately, rather than going into a political rant, he started singing. Zach de la Rocha, he ain’t.

As I’ve been writing this surprisingly lengthly review of a gig that most of you readers won’t care about, I’ve been listening to Capdown’s Live in M.K CD, which was recorded at the same venue as last night (The Pitz), but about 18 months earlier. It appears that the Capdown audience banter doesn’t change much- I’ve just heard a recording of the singer explaining that they want a “circle pit” created, and that the audience should pick up anyone who falls down… exactly like what happend last night. It’s weird- like when you hear a stand-up comedian repeat a joke that you thought was spontaneous.

Oh well. Capdown were bloody brilliant. They’re on again tonight, and I’d go again given half the chance.

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Fashion (non)sense
June 16th, 2006 at 22:58

I’ve spent the last week working hard invigilating GCSE and A-level exams at my old school. As you might have guessed, or even assumed, it’s a bit tedious. There’s times when I’ve sat there, and been quite concious of the fact that I’m not really doing enough to justify the money I’m earning. I’ve tried moving around the room, to attempt to look busy- although it’s plainly obvious that I’m just doing nothing, but in a slightly different location.

Yesterday I spent about twenty-five minutes reading the invigilator’s handbook, which is on the desk at the front of the room, and contains all of the rules and regulations from the exam board. It turns out that you can’t take an exam at a different time to everyone else (give or take upto thirty minutes either side of the start time), unless you’re competing in a sport at an international level. I’m glad I’m not one of those annoying child prodigies that you get on Newsround, who’s really good at horse riding, and is competing in the all important national championships, and has to miss exams- I’d certainly get on my high horse about exam rules then! (That’s a brilliant pun).

I was reading the handbook until I reached the line that explained that invigilators shouldn’t do anything else during the examination “including marking or reading“.

So not only was I barely not doing anything atall… but I was doing it badly.

One thing I hadn’t expected when I started in this invigilating game, aside from the distance between save points and dodgy object clipping, was how much attention the kids would pay to what I was wearing. It never occured to me before that there would be occasions where a couple of hundred kids waiting for time to elapse, would have nothing better to do than stare at me, their invigilator, standing at the front of the hall.
There’s a couple of year 11s who have been closely following my excellent fashion sense. If you know me in real life, then you’ll know that the Jamesomalley uniform consists primarily of a black t-shirt, with a clever slogan or logo on, and a dull-coloured pair of combat-esque trousers (ie: they have pockets on the upper-legs). In a bid to appear to be smartly dressed for my important job, I’ve had to select the least-loud t-shirts to wear, as I’ll be damned if I’m wearing a shirt.

Turning up to invigilate some kids with a t-shirt that says “HATED BY THE DAILY MAIL”, or “RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE” in large letters on the front would be inappropiate because in all likelyhood, the other invigilators are Daily Mail readers, and much to my conflicted morals, I am the machine now.

So I’ve opted for my B3ta logo t-shirt, and a parody of the iPod adverts that is a sillohette of the iconic Saddam statue, captioned “iRaq”.
These year 11s have given me a bit of a stigma about what I wear- they even made a fuss when I had the audacity to wear some new shoes. Why the hell have they been looking at my feet?! They even called over a friend of theirs who I’d never seen before in my life, and she validated their opinions by claiming that I always wear the “same” thing. Of course, they’re all wrong, as I wear lots of different things, they just look the same, because I’m like a cartoon character. Much like how I have a catchphrase and backstory that is only sufficient to push the plot forward a bit. And I only have two dimensions of movement.

Every day when I’ve had to go to work, I’ve worried about what I should wear- I imagine this is what it feels like to be a woman everyday. I haven’t started holding grudges for extended periods of time or saying one thing whilst thinking another, though.

More invigilating excitement in a about ten days! Stay tuned, kids.

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