Things that I like
February 7th, 2007 at 03:06

They say that everyone’s a critic. I don’t think that’s necessarily true, as I once knew a woman who never once expressed an opinion. The closest she came to manoeuvring her facial features into anything other than a blank indifference was an emotionless wide eyed stare. I think her favourite colour would have been grey, if she’d had dared to pick and admit to having a favourite.

As an interesting contrast: I have opinions! Exciting opinions, on things that you too can purchase and enjoy. Here are some things that I have enjoyed recently, where you can witness my incredible descriptive powers and reviewing skillz: which is basically a list of synonyms for “excellent”.

24 (Sky One, Sundays)

As I’ve explained in previous blog entries, 24 is my favourite TV show. Its full of fast paced shooting, political intrigue and mental plot twists. I think in a lot of ways, I live a similar life to Jack Bauer: I’m a westernised, heterosexual male and I live my life according to a 24 hour clock. Basically the only difference is that I sleep more.

Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe (BBC Four, Mondays)

Actually, 24 isn’t my favourite TV show. Well, maybe it is. I don’t know any more. But anyway, a new series of this has just started and I was crying with laughter throughout. Basically, I’d like to emulate this guys career in its entirety. I just tried to look for a clip of this on YouTube in order to illustrate my point about how brilliant it is, but I ended up spending an hour watching the clips myself.

Capdown’s New Album (Wind Up Toys)

As long term readers might have guessed, I like Capdown. They’ve released a new album, finally, after approximately a billion years. Unlike their older stuff, its a lot more polished, I think. It’s dead good, though – I’m going to listen to it constantly in preparation for going to see them again next week.

Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii)

I should probably point out that I’m not listing these things in the order of which I like most- otherwise Zelda would be at the top. I’m currently 35 hours into the game, and have maybe one or two dungeons to go, and it is without a doubt one of the best games I’ve ever played. I’ve been playing it especially heavily over the past couple of weeks, to the point where I’m now expecting objects appear with a Z-target arrow over them, and I’m expecting everyone I talk to to drop subtle hints at what I should do next by highlighting key words in red. I also expect to be able to solve any problem that confronts me by solving a logic puzzle- by pushing blocks or shooting arrows, that sort of thing. I’d be lying if I said that whilst I was being nearly mugged yesterday that my brain didn’t briefly consider the situation in terms of Zelda combat.

Everything about it so excellently perfect. The thing that I really like is that there is so much freedom, so many things to do, so many places to go in such a vast world- ’sandbox’ games like Grand Theft Auto have nothing on Zelda. You should buy a Wii so that you can play this game. It’s depressing to think that in maybe a few days or weeks time it’ll all be over, and I’ll have to wait another five years for the next one.

Mark Steel’s Vive La Revolution (it’s a book)

Stand up comedian Mark Steel has written a history of the French revolution, and it’s good because it does it with laughs. It was interesting to see that he recycles some of the jokes from his stand-up (and TV) material in it – this proves that you can become successful by repeatedly peddling your old material. I’ll be taking this advice on board.

The book’s good though, and yes, I would recommend it to a friend. It was especially good that when it name-dropped people like Kant, it felt like it was relevant to my course, making reading it seem like less of a waste of time, than reading, say, the, er, ‘laugh-a-minute’ guide to Neoliberalism: Power and Interdependence: World Politics in Transition (Keohane and Nye).

So yeah, that was a list of things I like. Why not go and buy the same things as what I own, and should we ever meet, we can express our mutual enjoyment of aforementioned things and avoid having to admit we have nothing else in common to talk about.

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Intellectual Limits
January 11th, 2007 at 03:24

I think one of my biggest fears in life is reaching my intellectual limits. My other biggest fear is being stabbed up by the homeless.

I’d hate to one day come to the realisation that I simply cannot understand something, and that any attempt to learn something would ultimately end in failure. And the worst thing is that I can already see this happening.

I’m terrible at the sciences. Sure, I got an A at GCSE Science, but I think that must have been my limit: I got an E at AS level Physics and promptly dropped it and resigned myself to a life of staring slack-jawed in wonder at lightbulbs and stumbling around the town centre, hunched over with a coat covering my head, cowering, occasionally glancing upwards, terrified that the sky is going to fall on top of me.

Since I stopped having science lessons nearly four years ago now, I seem to have become unable to comprehend anything that requires more than a balloon-based analogy to understand. At the New Years Eve party I was at a few weeks ago, one of my old science teachers was there (don’t ask), as well as a number of my friends who are studying science subjects at university, and the conversation turned to the sciences. My best contribution to the conversation was asking them what they’d do if a terminator had eczema.

I think the problem is not that I’m stupid- nor that I’m uninterested in the sciences (see various uninformed tirades about evolution or my trip to the space centre), I think I’m just lazy. Unlike politics and history, where you can get away with firing off baseless accusations and warped interpretations of the facts, you actually have to make an effort with science, as unlike artsy subjects where they’ll say “there’s not a right or a wrong answer”, with science there is a right and a wrong answer- and usually the right answer is hideously complex and involves balancing chemical equations, the emission of electrons after absorbing electro-magnetic radiation or playing the gravity of the earth and the moon off against each other.

This means that I can’t just tell my opponent to shut the fuck up and claim that a classical realist would interpret it differently, before making up a fake statistic to back up my assertion.

Is the fact that I’m too lazy to learn about the sciences merely confirming my fears about reaching my intellectual limit? How much higher up in the field of, say, International Relations and Globalisation, can I go before I’m punched in the face by the fist of apathy, and not be willing to argue the toss with its use of knuckle dusters?

I can see it starting to happen too. I’ve reached a level in education where I might have to read say, The Prince, The Communist Manifesto, The Rights of Man, The Road to Serfdom, The Wealth of Nations, The Gospel According to Chris Moyles, and so on… and I can’t be bothered. I’ll read a bullet pointed list, if that’ll earn me any bonus points, but I don’t feel too compelled to read some old-timey bloke tell me old-timey opinions about things that no longer reflect the modern day status-quo, using analogies involving the Holy Roman Empire, or whatever.

I’m terrified that one day I’ll reach a point where I’ll decide to watch a heart-warming ITV premier starring Martin Clunes or Pauline Quirk rather than something that might actually expand my mind.

Another sign this is happening: I’m not sure why point I’m trying to make here.

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Tillmonkey Reviews
May 12th, 2006 at 22:51

I’ve spent today mostly at home and slacking on the internet. No surprises there, then. I did spend some time coding some PHP- both directly useful PHP (ie: for my Pokémon website) and one of those pie-in-the-sky ideas I have every-so-often and then give up on because I realise they’re too difficult (in this case, a last.fm/amazon mashup that would link you, loyal readers, to buy music I listen to, giving me some commission).

I also spent some time in the garden, but gave up when I realised it was too bright, and I couldn’t really see my laptop’s screen.

But, yesterday! Now there was a day! I went to some shops for the first time in ages, and being a veteran of the retail industry, I’ve decided to review the tillmonkeys.

The Railway Station

He didn’t ask to see my railcard when I said that I had one- this was good as it demonstrates a degree of trust. No banter, as such, but very functional and polite. 8/10

Waterstones

For the first time in a few months, I bought some new books- a Chomsky and something or other about the Middle East. I based my purchases entirely on the cover designs, so they may well be rubbish.

The Tillmonkey was awful. I thought with it being a bookshop, the middle-aged, grey-haired, jumper-wearing shopkeeper would be up for a bit of a chat. He’d be the friendly sort of chap who’d be passionate and enthusiastic about books, and would have read the vast majority of the books on sale himself. Perhaps when he saw what I was buying he’d exclaim with delight “Wow! I loved this book, it was really insightful!”, or perhaps “You’ll love the bit where Noam Chomsky insults American foreign policy”, and maybe even offer a frank review of my purchases, telling me that he’s not sure I’d like one of them, and go on to recommend a better one that he’d make less money on- because he loves books.

Alas, I was wrong.

“Do you do student discounts?”, “No, not anymore”. I thought I’d try and expand this exchange into banter. “Ah, I guess you get a lot of students in here”, I said, knowingly, before adding “…so it’d wouldn’t be profitable”, to justify my assumption and the fact I was apparently thinking aloud to the tillmonkey. Rather than get a lamenting, yet friendly comment about the cutthroat nature of modern business, harking back to the “good old days”, followed by an upbeat “Oh well, I guess that’s the way of the world”, to leave the conversation on an upbeat note, I got a dirty look and a scowl. He literally lowered his eyebrows, opened his mouth whilst leaving his teeth closed, and glared at me.

He did bag the books for me, though. 2/10.

WH Smith

This tillmonkey was excellent- when I got to till I spotted the “half price Galaxy when you buy any newspaper or magazine”. Despite having already scanned my goods, she didn’t mind cancelling the till, and she didn’t expect me to put back the now redundant bag of malteasers. 9/10.

The Train Back Home

This bloke wasn’t strictly a tillmonkey, but the ticket man annoyed me. He waved his hand in a sarcastic way (yes, a sarcastic wave) across my field of vision to get my attention, and then proceeded to act a bit shirty. I produced my “RTN” ticket from my wallet, and he stamped it, but then reached across and pulled my “OUT” ticket directly out of my wallet- essentially putting his hand all over my property without asking permission. He then demanded to see my railcard, to prove I got the discount tickets. Clearly he thought I was the next Great Train Robber and was robbing Midland Mainline’s excellent services. This completely eroded the trust that had built up between me and the tillmonkey back at the station.

I am disappointed. 3/10.

Overall, a mixed bag. The bag contains four tillmonkeys of varying quality.

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Nutter of the week #2
October 18th, 2005 at 19:08

In between lectures today I went into “town” with Michael, or “Mickey”, as I’m attempting to nickname him. Three pictures say more than hundreds of words ever could:

We first came across this shop – “Why spend more, when you can spend less?” was the slogan (I’ve fixed up the grammar. It’s just… stating the obvious… and rubbish.

I spotted this hilarious sign outside one shop- two hats for £4. The sign, in keeping with the Leicestershire accent, is written “Two ‘ats”, which I think is brilliant. I especially like how they’ve added an apostrophy, rather than just ommitted a letter. Maybe they should have shortened it to “Tw”ats”?

I’m afraid to say that I’ve got another “Nutter of the week” – I think I was tempting fate by hoping in an earlier blog entry that it wouldn’t be a regular feature.

When in town, this bloke in a bright orange coat approached us, and had a slow, calm voice of Kofi Annan-proporitions. He explained in an annoyingly slow way how he was a monk (despite not looking like one) and was doing charity work. Then, of course, “would you like to make a donation?”

Mike, not being as street-smart as me immediately offered up FOUR ENGLISH POUNDS as a “donation”. He’d just given £4.00 aka: 4 litres of Coca-Cola, to a nutter!

To be fair to the nutter, though, he did insist that Michael take a “free” book about being a monk or whatever. For some reason, Mike used this opportunity to ask a horribly open-ended question… could he explain what both book choices were about?

So he made his sales pitch- this bloke compared what I assume to be his equvilent of The Bible to Lord of the Rings, claiming it was full of monsters and wizards- and taught lessons along the way! I don’t know what sort of religion you have to be to compare your holy work of fiction to the novelisation of a popular film (I know, I know), but it’s not like… good for credibility? Surely?

I don’t know. After making a swift exit from the monks field of vision- Mike still clutching his free £4 book, we continued on our way- including a stop at WH Smith to see how much The Beano is these days. It’s 80p!

Mike spent some time reading his book, as he’s into extremeist politics and ideas. Here’s a picture of him ruminating over the meaning of life:

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Smoking is cool!
October 9th, 2005 at 18:13

I’ve just finished the book I’ve been reading for the past couple of weeks- the same book that I’ve made a point of name-dropping into multiple blog updates. BBC World Affairs Editor John Simpson’s The Wars Against Saddam: The Hard Road to Baghdad, was excellent.

Essentially, the book is, unsurprisingly, about all the wars Saddam Hussein has been involved in- Iran/Iraq war and the two Gulf Wars- they tell the tale of how John covered them, and how they all happend and that. Dead interesting stuff.

The best bit is probably getting to “hear” John swearing- after his convoy is missiled by the Americans, he phones up the BBC and shouts, “Get me on the fucking air!”- not only are we seeing someone unexpectedly swear, but it really emphasises and exaggerates the point he’s trying to make!

As it’s easier to criticise than be nice about something, here are the bad points about the book:

John (we’re on first name terms) expresses opinions! I’m aware it’s not published by BBC Books, but surely he should uphold the whole impartiality thing? Having a guess at where he is politically, dare I suggest he’s more conservative (small C?) than I’d have hoped? He seems to hate Bill Clinton and the most liberal man in the (first) Bush Jr administration, Colin Powell. They’ve apparently fucked up Iraq bad.

He also seems to apologise somewhat for the Bush administration, but not too much- “there were WMD”, “Saddam was awful”. Maybe I’m reading into this too much?

He also seems to repeat himself once or twice, and I’ve felt like I’m reading the same descriptions and stuff, although this may be because I’ve skipped about in reading the book, although he might just forget what he’s written. It wouldn’t surprise me- I’m always repeating myself, including the same puns and so on. Just ask Heather. It’s worse when I’m parroting a blog entry that I know she’s read.

The other thing is, that I’m sort of disappointed with him. There’s many references to him smoking cigars- when I first read it, I thought it might just be because he was offered one at a hotel in Arbil, but I think he does actually smoke. I mean, yes, it’s hardly CELEBRITY CAUGHT IN SMOKING SHOCKA, but being straight-edge in all but name myself means I have a certain dislike for smoking.

The worst part of being in “pubs”, like I’ve done a few times recently, is ending up stinking of smoke, even if you havn’t been near any. John must smell like this, all the time.

In fact, I try to make a point of saying, “you shouldn’t smoke, it’s bad for you” when I see people that I know smoking- much to their annoyance. Maybe this is one of the reasons why Kayleigh dislikes me so intensely?

And now here’s John Simpson, a man who I admire for being on the telly, smoking like the oil wells that have been set-alight around him. He even tells an anecdote where he shares a cigar with Feargal Keane, who’s another BBC correspondent.

There’s also an anecdote where John explains how he hadn’t changed his clothes or washed in five days- this coupled with the evils of smoking, I bet he was really pleasant to be around!

Unfortunately, I think all of my favourite celebrities smoke- Andrew Marr’s book, My Trade, which admittedly, I’ve only read the preface of so far, includes Andy (we’re also on first name terms) admitting to being able to smoke sixty cigarettes a day.

Then lets think about the bands I like- all punk and pro-drugs and all sorts- I’d wager that with the exception of Anti-Flag (they’re “straightedge”), most of them smoke like chimneys and make it look like the best thing ever.

I believe even Charles Kennedy, leader of the party I’m a member of, has admitted to having the “occasional” cigarette.

If all these people are smoking, then surely it’s cool? Surely I can be better than them by imitating them as closely as possible? Maybe I should take up smoking? It’d go against everything I’ve been taught until now, but if everyone else is doing it, why shouldn’t I?

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Lots to report
July 16th, 2005 at 20:37

A fair bit has happend since I last updated. None of it is that exciting though- although this ISN’T an invitation to close the browser and not lavish praise on me via the comments system.

On Friday evening, Heggs held a party at his house. I’m afraid it’s yet another “party blog”. As always, a lovely time was had by all- the added erm… “bonus” this time was at around midnight, everyone walked down to Ottakars for the launch of the new Harry Potter book.

Now, I’m not a fan of Harry Potter. In fact, I’m making a point of disliking it, as I want that to be the quirk in my character that gets me recognised. I want to be the one person who doesn’t like Harry Potter, so I can be highlighted, and become the centre of attention in conversations. A bit like the person who doesn’t like The Matrix or James O’Malley.

The second film was the worst three hours of my life. If I could be bothered to use a printer, get an envelope and so on, I’d write to Warner Brothers and demand those three hours of my life back, and a Harry Potter goodie bag. Sending an e-mail would be silly, as navigating the presumably flash website would lead me to the privacy policy, which would have an obscure 10px e-mail link that would go to the “nobody cares” department.

The new book is apparently the penultimate. It say “apparently”, because I will put money on “Harry Potter: the College Years” as soon as JK needs to pay for a new boat. Even if Harry is killed off, she’ll find a way to bring him back. Even if she has to used a concept as foreign to the Potter series as magic.

Now, I’m not going to RONing the ending by telling who DIES. But I might post a fake spoiler or two.

The walk down to the town was unusual for me. Unlike the millions of people my age who regularly go out on a Friday night to a pub, and proceed to get drunk, I rarely leave my house after dark. It’s a push to get me to leave during daylight hours too. I don’t drink, either- not because I’m “straight edge“, I’m just damn cool. I was quite nervous, to tell the truth- I hadn’t been in town at this hour before, I didn’t know whether to expect gang warfare or gang rape. Thankfully, both happend in the very most minimal quantities. Heggs helpfully profiled each group of people, or person we passed in a military fashion, so we knew what threats there were. “White male aged 16-23. Alone. Walking with arrogance, but has nothing to prove”.

Tonight was different- I was a part of a drunken rabble. I was walking through town with some drunks, in fact. I was expecting it to be only slightly rawkus, when in fact it turned into quite a fracas. In fact, Tilley (no picture link, I’m afraid) put Scot’s shoe on top of a road sign (a really awful picture link, I’m afraid). This happend minutes after they abandoned an attempt to steal a traffic cone. No, really.

It’s a shame that my drunken “crew” wasn’t more drunken. I’d love to see the Harborough Mail have the headline “DRUNKEN YOBS SPOIL POTTER BOOK LAUNCH”. It wouldn’t even had been too difficult for the drunken yobs to spoil- all they’d have to do is upset the children… perhaps steal the horse that someone had dressed as what I assume was a Harry Potter characters (seriously).

I was tempted to go in there, fully sober, as I was, and buy a different book. An old book. A really old book. Perhaps the Bible. “Cor! I’ve finally got it after all of this waiting!”.

Why was there a horse there? You’re probably still asking yourself this. The queue was ridiculous. Midnight on a Friday, there was a queue coming out of a book shop (NOT a brothel) stretching about 50m back to opposite the Carphone Warehouse- if you live in Harborough, you’ll know that’s quite a long way. The stoned drug users I was expecting to encounter in town had been replaced with eight year olds running about on the World War monument. The only thing they were high on was Harry Potter, and presumably the free samples of ecstacy the dealers give out to gain new customers (“grow the market”, as such).

When I went home at 0030, as I had work today, the queue hadn’t shortened much. I sort of feel sorry for the tillmonkeys who were earning triple time, as it must be especially dull selling the same thing over and over.

RON DIES.

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