It's Beginning To Smell A Lot Like Christmas

I'm not going to tell you it's Christmas. I don't want to ruin the surprise that the world is so amazingly hiding from you.

I'mma keep it short today - a little observation for all you people should do it, because you're all probably getting excited about bearded philanthropists flying through the sky and ceremonially stuffing dead birds into heated metal boxes and generally not caring what I have to say.

Don't worry, we all do. The birds I mean, not apathetic attitude towards me.

Now I don't know whether you've heard about this thing called television, but when it comes to the Holiday period, a time of being together and giving and socialising, it's a bit of a growing hobby to tell everybody to shut up and watch the flickering metal box in the corner, convinced that we're all going to be thoroughly entertained whilst the bird continues to burn and your Grandmother rots in the corner.

Over the past years of my sentience however, it seems that around this time of year I've been phenomenally unobservant, as its only this year that I noticed two rather curious things:
1) Why is the baby Jesus in my nativity set born with a full head of John Lennon-esque locks?
2) What the f*ck is up with all these perfume adverts?

Christmas is of course, a time of being together and giving gifts, and so obviously products that are almost completely shunned for the rest of the year are going to want to advertise like hell, reminding you that the woman in your life wants to smell pretty as well, even if it costs you a fortune. 

All that bit makes sense - it's the perfume adverts themselves that confuse me. The dilemma of how to advertise a smell is obviously a tricky one, and one that media moguls have had a pretty good go at - but some of the ideas they're running to nowadays are getting a bit absurd.

It's seemingly getting further and further away from describing a smell as possible - do you want to smell like a runaway Italian sweetheart? Or maybe you're after a beige-obsessed Natalie Portman? No, you're definitely a race-car driving prostitute.

Do you know what any of those smell like? I certainly don't.

Surely selling perfumes should be about how nice they smell, as opposed to how well-lit your models are. How about a bloke in a suit, on a chair, in a white room, describing a scent? Or am I just going crazy?

However insane the advertising techniques will get, the sentiment of buying perfume for your lady friend is still a beautiful thing. What do you get a girl who has everything? How about the one sense still uncaptured by technology, the one thing you can't fathomably make, a smell, captured, in a bottle.

But do you know what the laydeez do like? Clothes. So whether you are a man with a crush, a woman with a wardrobe, or a man who is sick of wearing jeans and a shirt, the beautiful people at www.risingtaste.com and myself are giving you a 5% discount on ANYTHING you order from them. Yeah, anything. Just enter in the coupon "blogspot2011" at the checkout and say goodbye to a portion of the price.

You don't even have to get me anything. Well you could. These are nice. I'm a size 8.5. Just saying.

Merry Christmas chaps,

-Lewis

Three Tips: A Tourist's Guide to Landaan

Over the past month and a bit, I've been to London and back four times, for various reasons - theatre performances, KFC, museums, Comic-Con, and most recently a nerd gathering.

Yesterday I went all the way to Hyde Park, with a hangover and the flu, having not eaten anything for twelve hours, to socialise with other nerds, who are - by definition - terrible at socialising. Amongst the singing acoustic Rebecca Black/Nyan Cat medleys, lime gifting (Including giving a lime to ex-Big Brother contestant Sam Pepper) and getting featured in as many YouTube videos as humanly possible, I also managed to make friends with a tiny asian girl who, due to her lack of conversational skills, introduced herself by stroking faces and announcing:

'I have come to socialise'.

So after attending the capital city so many times in such a short period (I mean, Jesus, why hasn't Boris Johnson ceremonially gifted me with an Oyster Card yet?) I thought that I would be a generous soul and pass along some of my well-found knowledge, what with London being both a tourist destination and impossible place to understand.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present you with my:
Three Tips: A Tourist's Guide to Landaan

1. Fit in - as it is such a worldwide tourist trap, London is full of rapists, muggers, and street performers who lay in wait for those who look like they have no idea what they're doing.

Asians in waterproof jackets with digital cameras, I am talking directly to you here.

Obviously then, the most important thing to make sure of whilst you're in London is to fit in. There are three main ways you can do this; firstly, pronounce it 'Landaan' (Draw out the second vowel as long as possible) in a loud screeching Cockney accent, secondly, try and fit in as much Cockney rhyming slang as possible (Apples and Pears: Stairs, Barney Rubble: Trouble, Laugh: Giraffe) even if it doesn't make sense, and finally, ask strangers to take photos of you and your friends in front of iconic monuments - this is a common past-time of all Londoners.

2. Get around - famed for it's nightmarish and insanely complicated public transport systems, you probably won't be in London long enough to come to terms with using them (Most people tend to get lost in the Underground for at least three months on their first go) so here are two very valuable slices of information pie.

Firstly, air travel - despite it's carbon heavy reputation, air travel is a very popular option. As well as the popular, quick and cheap option of negating  between London's five airports, you can easily buy an umbrella from a street vendor for a reasonable price and fly around upon a whimsical gust of wind, not unlike the method portrayed in Mary Poppins, but with far more Cockneys and dance routines.

My second tip for public transport in London is a well known secret to Londoners - bus jumping. To enforce order, the government has spent years spreading the myth that you have to be at a Bus Stop to get on one of London's famous red double deckers. This is, obviously, a myth - to get on a bus you can simply jump in front of one and it will stop - just give it about 20 yards, the brakes are surprisingly powerful.

3. Pay up - in these hard economic times, the faithful and strong-willed people and government of London have taken it upon themselves to make you pay for everything you would normally perceive to be a human right. Toilets in Waterloo station cost 30p in exact change (A fiver to the attendant if you don't want firecrackers thrown into your cubicle), buskers, upon discovering copyright law, can now press charges if you look at them or hear their music and not tip them at least a pound, even muggers are now charging fuel surcharges and expecting tips, so make sure you bring plenty of pocket money with you.

On the bright side, it is London, so you can always break into any highstreet shop and loot them if you feel out of pocket - the people of London will be happy to clear up after you, and the recession has triggered a neighbourly sense of 'It's okay, just steal my hard earned possessions, you're a friend' (Just make sure you fit in, see point 1).

So there you have it - three indispensable tips for surviving in the world's safest city. Part of the fun of London is working it all out for yourself without any help from others whatsoever, so make sure to try out things that maybe aren't on my list. If you'd like more helpful information about the world around you, and for more hilariously written bits and bobs from the talented bloggers of the Interwebz, you can buy my book at - www.thethoughtreportofficial.blogspot.com - it's for charity!

Happy Travels!
-Lewis

You Philanthropic Bastards

Hello there, you ugly, ugly people.

As for the recent assault on your self-esteems the only real explanation for it that I can comes in three points:

a) I'm feeling rather satirical of recent,

b) It's a pretty good way of getting your attention and,

c) You're all horrible, disgusting, sinful people. Probably.

I should probably think more about my target audience. Wait. No. Damn you media course, getting me to think like a businessman...

For the sake of structure and what not, today's post comes to you in two parts, the first being an alluded and slightly ironic attempt to beg you and the second being a criticism of some of the behaviour of a certain number of charities nowadays.

First part! So for a while I've not been updating my blog posts much under the reasoning of me having a super secret amazing project that I couldn't tell you about, but now I can! 

So over the summer I spent a lot of my time blogging or looking through blogs and reading blogs and looking at the history of blogging, how it relates to other forms of writing, wondering profusely what people did before blogging, that sort of thing, and something occurred to me.

On the 'blogosphere' there are a ton of amazingly talented people - whether they are not far off of being able to write professionally or whether they found that they are better at something else and just never got round to it. So what was stopping these people from using their powers for good, writing a book, helping charities? I'm kind of pointing rather obliquely towards my point here but anyway - I wanted to use as little of everybody's time as possible to unleash the power of the blogosphere, and do some amazing work for charity.

Hence - The Thought Report! I got together 12 amazing bloggers from around the world (Me included, obvsly) to pool their skills and write about what happened in the last 12 months - whether it's a satirical piece, or a serious thoughtful piece, or simply giving you some awesome facts. Then I wanted to step it up - I wanted to get all their thoughts on the past year printed, into a nicely bound book that would be sold to raise money for an amazing charity (More information on the website) when it gets sold to all our amazing minions fans who want to use some of their Christmas money to spend some holiday cheer (It's being released in December, see what I did there?). 

Glad I got that out the way. What? You mean I need to write a second part about charity? Oh ball-sacks.

So today is Children in Need day, which is a pretty big thing in Britain where everybody gets together and do stupid s**t to raise money for children... in... well, need. I guess it doesn't take much explaining. 

But the explaining isn't what I want to do, I want to strip straight through to the criticising part.

And don't worry, it's not just applicable to CIN, so put down the machete Pudsey, you fluffy yellow bastard.

Every time there's a charity event big enough to get on television, it seems that the only way that they can get you to donate your hard earned benefits is to guilt trip the absolute balls out of you. 'Yeah, we'll give you a night of entertainment, but only if you sit through slow motion pictures of sad children every ten minutes'. Yeah, that.

Maybe this is the only way for people to give money to charity, maybe we all need to be skull-f**ked with sad images to want to do something nice for the world around us, but my point is this - isn't that terrible? Isn't it bad that we can't just want to help people? Isn't that missing the point?

Whenever I give money to charity or volunteer, or run an amazing project, I don't do it because I masochistically blasted myself with videos of starving Africans, it's because I thought it was a good idea, and it helped people - and strike me down if it's strange, but I like spending my time doing that. 

When you give money to charity, or help out at a charity event, which you should do right now you greedy bastards, don't do it out of sympathy. Why? Because I told you to. Do it to do something good for the world around you, and appreciate the gesture, the power of your movements. Some people can write a book to help people, some of us just have to settle with change - but don't do it out of guilt, do it out of love.

-Lewis

Jesus Christ that sounded fucking soppy. Better bust out some well-placed swearwords to re-acclimatise you shitheads. Douche sack.

You Should Take Heroin

This is not a government approved message.


Sit up scumbags, because I'm about to ask you to use your brains, and if you don't have very good blood flow that might be hard or something... I don't know, go ask a scientist. That part of your brain, imagination, that part that's been killed by too many soap operas and conversations with your dentist, is about to get a bit of usage - don't worry, we won't be going far.

Maybe even it's debut, taking a look at you... Jesus Christ, close your mouth before start catching flies.


Imagine that you're sat on your couch, mouth drooling, TV blaring. You've just finished your 51st packet of Monster Munch in three days and so to celebrate you're watching one of the many films that you own, The 51st State. You know, that one with Robert Carlyle as a Liverpudlian and Samuel L Jackson in a kilt. Yeah, that one.

Anyway what I'm trying to say is that your life, in this 'scenario', is very boring and uneventual and your weekly outing is to the Job Centre and every night before you go to bed you cry because you're so lonely and whatnot. Like I said, not far.

What could make your life better? I mean, lets be realistic - you fail at life so you're probably not going to get a job, and if you're sitting around waiting for Mr. Opportunity to come knocking you better realise that it's a recession and he's working at McDonald's now because it pays better. What you need, is an adventure. Yeah, like on the television, but real!

Where shall your adventure start? On a road trip into the abyss! A plan ticket to a foreign land! Nope, neither of them, you're broke, remember?

What you need to do, is to go to the pub, go and sit in the corner, and wait for Shady Dave to arrive. You know, Shady Dave, the one who wears sunglasses even when he's inside and there's a power cut? Well he has this briefcase, and in that briefcase, is exactly what you need to start your adventure.

Heroin.


Ever seen Trainspotting? It's a good film. Do you know why? Because it's interesting - not like a documentary on wildlife or anything boring like that, but for one simple fact - heroin addicts have more interesting lives than you.

When you're sat at home, you have nothing to achieve except trying to get a job, which probably won't happen because it's a recession and you're virtually unemployable anyway. However, when you have a feisty heroin addiction (Which don't worry, isn't hard to get) you have something to live for, which isn't Monster Munch and Jeremy Kyle.

You wake up in the morning, and you think - holy vagina-balls! I need more smack but I'm all out of cash? I could mope around and wait for some to appear but that won't work, because if I don't feed my addiction I might die!

This might be a good time to mention that you should get all your dole scum friends to try it as well, because then you have a few partners in crime to help you!  Then it's good whole-hearted fun for all the family - apart from the family who owns the house you broke into at 3 o'clock in the afternoon and stole all the valuable possessions of, they're probably not so happy! Maybe they'll try heroin, then everyone will be happy.

Feeling un-creative? We'll see how creative you can get when you're on a cheeky three day skag binge and you run out of cash! Maybe you'll steal a television from an old peoples home or spray deep heat into the eyes of a homeless guy to mug him - it'll probably be more fun than you're having at home.

If you're not convinced, go watch Trainspotting - it's even got Robert Carlyle in it! Then you might see how attractive the career prospects of being a fully fledged crack addict really are.

-Lewis
Warning, side effects of heroin may include death, prison shower rape, the ability to travel inside toilets and Ewan McGregor.

The Legend of Eternal Flashmob Guy

One of the many joys of college life, is that there are so many people.

If you want quiet people, loud people, people with purple hair or people with bowl cuts, black people, white people, slightly unhealthy coloured people, college people has the people for you. People. 

And this variant populace, does of course have it's own characters, one of whom I am going to share with you today. 

If you watch carefully, you'll see a man walking around the college grounds. A man with cheap clothes (Normally tracksuit bottoms) a plain shirt, and a black back with a blue Puma logo. He has a little mess of black hair atop his head, and a pumpkin patch of facial hair upon his face.

He has spent time with only a select few people, and with them, shared little information. It's been a bit of a while since he has made human contact, but foggy memories recall him going by the name Ben - although that is not his more common handle. 

Some contacts remember him referring to himself as The Master of Pain, under the belief that he himself could control the pain of others.

But what we call him, is something completely different.

We call him:

Eternal Flashmob Guy.

A flashmob, for those of you who are unaware, is the instantaneous movement of a 'mob' of pre-organised movement, usually a dance or protest. People will mill around a planned area, acting as if with no purpose - a signal will be given, and it will begin. People come out of almost nowhere and all move as one.

YouTube it, fools.

But the thing is, with eternal flashmob guy, his flashmob hasn't happened yet. He walks around the grounds, maybe for years now, not going to lessons, walking back and forth, round and round, waiting for the signal, for the music to start, so he can begin. 

The other day he walked around a picnic table 34 times in quick succession.

Reactions are mixed - some people feel sorry for him, that he might be lonely. Others are scared - he's a loner and he's referred to himself as the master of pain - because that doesn't sound Columbine-ish. Some people are amused, obsessed, watching him, following him, observing, bemused.

I myself am ever so slightly fascinated, confused, sorry, disturbed. EFG is an enigma, and will no doubt stay that way. His future? No idea. He's probably just going to carry on waiting.

-Lewis

It's the 20th of October - you know what that means!

Happy International Day of the Air Traffic Controller!

I watched United '83 to celebrate. Gaddafi died. Silly dictators, always dying.


So today was pretty awesome, as it pretty much entailed me winning at life completely by accident. Don't worry, I will actually tell you. Why would I be here otherwise?

In college, there's this thing called a contract, and it's a very bad thing which you get if you suck at handing in work or you're an asshole or whatever reason, and it basically means that you have to be improved or you'll be kicked off your course or out of college.

Note: I suck at doing homework. Literally, I never ever did it in school.
On the bright side, it left more time for alcoholism.


So that was a bad habit, as was revealed by my tutor yesterday afternoon when she said that apparently I hadn't been handing in work for my Media course and that I might have to be put on contract.

Naturally, I s**t bricks and spent my entire first period today catching up, and then I saw my homework for today's lesson - Bring in a magazine. I kind of crapped myself for a second, until I realised that I'm an amazing individual and make a habit of carrying an art-house magazine about meat on my person at all times.

So I get into my lesson, and my teacher goes batsh*t crazy, and everyone who hasn't brought in a magazine to analyse has to sit in silence in another room, write an apology, get shouted at by every teacher on the media team, and do all their work. Meanwhile I get to sit in class with 4 gurlz and get one-on-one tutoring on the coursework brief that I'm choosing.

Minor fist pump.


Then my teacher see's that I've bought in an art-house magazine about meat, and she goes on a tirade about how amazing she thinks it is and how much of a good choice it was, completely oblivious to the fact that I had it on me by pure luck. She then takes it and scans it so they can use my choice as a good example.

Slightly more eccentric fist pump.


Then I had a free so I met some new people (As you do in such an amazing college as mine) who had awesome hair and we went and got donuts and Pringles and sat on a roundabout and had a picnic.

Like a boss.


Then I had film, and realised shortly before my lesson that I foolishly had forgotten to bring in the DVD that I'm doing for my coursework (American Psycho, highly recommend it). So I go into my lesson and go up to my teacher (Who bears a similarity to Peter Capaldi in both looks and voice, so it's quite scary when he gets annoyed) and look as solemn as possible and explain how I've forgotten my DVD and surprisingly, he looks up with a smile and says:
'That's okay, your 3-page plan was so in depth that you can probably write your essay without the DVD!'

Major fist pump.


And I felt really good, so I wrote 500 more words than I was supposed to, listened to some Twin Atlantic and then skipped home where I had haddock.

Omnomnomnomnom. Yellow fish.


So yeah, cool story bro. In other news, my amazing new project is almost ready to be announced, so buy some nappies or something just in case you wet the bed in excitement.

I know I will.

Hypochondria on the Brain?

"So little food for thought my f**king brain feels anorexic,

 So many typo's when I write, oh I'll claim I'm dyslexic"

Introdiction - Scroobius Pip 

When the film 'Fight Club' was adapted from the book and released in the cinema, it's a little known fact that the recipe for a homemade bomb (Which in the book is an operable manual for the activity) was modified for the film version, scrapped and made up so that it was a realistic sounding facade. Why? Because due to a few laws that may or may not exist, combined with the moral reasoning of the director, they somehow didn't want to give millions of people the know-how to blow up a small building.

Good move David Fincher, you saved the day.

Now all you people, with your clever little minds and vast libraries of knowledge, might make the assumption here that I'm going to start waxing lyrical on the promotion of guerrilla warfare. Now despite the fact that I'm a rebellious yet lovable teenager and the fact that certain Cornish towns need a communist regime, I'm going to take this rant in a different direction.

You see, David Fincher, in directing Fight Club, might have stopped a lot of banking corporations from being blown up, but there was another bit of information that he may or may not have intended to let slip.

Due to some of the themes of Fight Club, the release of the film triggered an international awareness, not just of the everyday urges to beat the living s**t out of someone, but of schizophrenia, insomnia, depression, and other mental illnesses. A lot of people see this as a good thing, and it probably is, but there is one little thing that annoys the crap out of me.

Knowing the symptoms, or what to expect of a mental illness, is a pretty useful thing - after all, knowing what to expect of cancer kind of stops us from dropping like flies and getting very confused. However, when you give someone the recipe for a bomb - they get this strange temptation to blow something up, and it's the very same with the symptoms of an illness, mental disorders being the very same.

It's a bit like dyslexia - everyone has a basic understanding that it entails you being bad at spelling, that sort of thing. So it makes complete sense, doesn't it? I mean, you find spelling a bit hard, and no, you've never seen a doctor about it, because it's so obvious! You definitely have dyslexia!

Oh, and your mood swings? Yeah, turns out they have a word for that too! It's called bi-polar disorder! And yeah, you don't have manic episodes and start smashing things, so you must just have like, a smaller version!

See? We're all completely mental! We're all so diverse and different!

Oh, oh wait, I was being sarcastic again wasn't I.... damn schizophrenia!


There might be a reason for why I get annoyed about this, it might be the prescribed medicines I had for my 'brain problems' as a kid, it might be the voluntary work I did in a mental hospital, it might be the little hipster inside of me screaming for mental illness to be less mainstream than it is now.

People keep saying 'Yeah, you say that, but before they discovered dyslexia they thought people were just stupid' - and they're just missing the point. It's not that we're unaware about these things - I mean, it's not like you've ever read a medical journal and you're an expert on ADD. It's simply that when we're given the ingredients to do something, we want to do it. Even if that means putting yourself through the 'pain' and 'suffering' of mental illness.

I'm not pointing any fingers in this post, and I'm not asking any questions - in the words of the afore-quoted Scroobius Pip, I talk about the things that a lot of people won't mention. All I ask is that you keep your fingers pointed at the keyboard, and for you to ask the questions.

Now take a bloody paracetamol and go back to bed.


-Lewis... it is Lewis, right?

A Few Facts and Lies

So I haven't blogged for a month. Shoot yourself or something, I've got excuses. Not only am I working on an amazing charity project that will more than make up for everything I haven't written on the blog, but I just started college last week (Studying Double English, Media, Film, and Sociology, if you must know) and have suddenly become involved in a million and one projects that have the potential to make me into an amazing journalist/author/late-night game show host, so it all compensates really.

Alas, I need to actually gain praise/trolls in the meantime, so I'm back here again - and I've been thinking.

I was recently talking (I say talking, I was chatting to them on Facebook, but its pretty much the same thing for me) and we somehow started talking about how we are able to express ourselves via the medium of language. I say that like it was a really intellectual conversation, but it was far from it - and that's kind of the point.

If any of you have actually had the misfortune to listen to me speak in person, you'll know that in general unrehearsed conversation, I am a bumblingly incomprehensible monotone mumble of a person, who spends more time thinking about what I'm trying to say and intermitting actual words with 'Um' and 'Ah' and the occasional swear word. Yet somehow, when I write I am able to form pretty well structured sentences and speak well - most of the time that is, I've actually used two words in this last paragraph that I made up, little game for you.

The point of this conversation was, that although we were both quite boring people to listen to, we could at least sound somewhat clever when we wrote.

This prompted another thought - a lot of the people who read this blog have never actually met me, due to them being in another country or just stumbling upon it like a deer into a bear trap. So how on earth, are people able to judge me? What do people actually know about me? Do they think I'm some sort of lyric-waxing demi-god? Because if they do, they're going to be majorly disappointed if they ever meet me.

So I thought I'd play a little game. It's a fairly simple concept - I'm going to describe my friends and family and me in general. But of course, not that simple, because this is me, and I'm still trying to maintain my facade of pseudo-intellectualism. Some of this is going to be false, and some of this is going to be fiction. Bear in mind that I live a rather strange life, and a lot of the people I associate myself with are horribly strange people. You can make guesses at which is which, but to be honest, it's more fun if you just believe all of it.

Adverse to my blogger picture, I actually have neck length brown locks of gorgeous brown hair - the picture I use was actually taken at a concert where I dressed up as a hipster-clown-retro bassist, with shutter shades, war paint, a red curly wig, a bow tie, and a woolly tank top that my Nan knitted me. In terms of body and fitness, I'm a kind of genetic mixup of Adonis DNA and that of a male Hollister model.

I live with my parents, whom I love so very very much.

My Mum, a strong-minded woman who takes nearly enough tramadol every day to kill a newborn child, has worked in the same shop for well over a decade now. She once washed out my mouth with soap because I swore (I maintain that it was my friend, but Mother is always right) and once threw a toy train at my brothers head when he was a baby- not a woman to be f**ked with, and I love her for it.

My Dad, an Ex-Military machine of a man currently works as an area manager for the biggest oil company in the world, where he excels in breaking pretty much every record for things that you can be good at when running a petrol station. Before he was awesome at that however, he was busy being awesome in the army, where he achieved the highest rank possible by cooking. His crowning achievement in my eyes is making a bacon sandwich whilst firing a rocket launcher at a tank. He once won a Freddy Mercury Look-A-Like competition, but now his tache makes him look a bit more like Lord Kitchener, which is a worrying parental image. YOU!

My brother, who I have chronicled previously in this post, is a trucker, a job that despite it not sounding that amazing (Bear in mind that this is England, not Iceland or Route 66 area) is something that he just decided he wanted to do one day and then did it, and fair f**king play he's good at it.

I have two people who I would consider my best friends, not that I call them that because it's about as gay as referring to them as by BFF's. I am of course referring to Brownbear (Who we call so because he's brown, and because we're racist scum) and Rick Nidgway, named so because his 'real name' is so much more boring (Points to anyone who can work out what it is).

A lot of friends go to the cinema and have sleepovers and go mountaineering, but we've found that we prefer to get drunk, abuse our bodies and generally be bad examples of human beings, we spend too much time being awesome apart from that. The only thing we do that is remotely healthy is longboarding, but I think that's frowned upon slightly by the owners of the victims cats.

I once (On my birthday) whipped my friends into paying for and carrying a mini-fridge to my house, where we installed it in my room and have since used it for ungodly purposes. For Brownbear's birthday I bought him a lighter with his name on it, and me and Brownbear have previously slept for three weeks in an abandoned bathroom in the middle of no-where in Swaziland, because we're hardcore and such.

I could go on about my life, but this has gone far enough, and I fancy a drink have homework to do.

Much love,
- Lewis

Under Orders to Blog

Yet again, I have left my blog unattended, like the ever-present confused child in the airport that you really would go over and ask if it's alright but you:

a) Don't want to risk looking like a paedophile.
b) Don't want to look like an idiot when their parent is only a few feet away and they just look that lost all the time.
c) 'Pfft, security'll find them soon enough...'

However, there was a kind of semi-decent reasoning to this. If you read this blog often, or perchance have just read the previous post, or in the unlikely event that you're omniscient, you'll know that I recently embarked on a trip to Holland, where I bought stayed in a hotel, got confused and got drunk and then came home again.

This post was entitled: World Destruction Tour - Part One. It was called that because the general plan was that not long after that we would embark on a week long trip to Portugal upon the same basis. Unfortunately, due to various technical difficulties and life being a bitch, it seems that by the time this trip actually happens, I will finally be condemned to college life and unable to make it.

But the thing is, I, like many other nerds before me, am a continuity freak.

When I buy a film, I buy the fricking boxset. When I read a book, I read the prequel, sequel, the interquel, and the parallel. And don't get me started on anime continuation.

So as you can imagine, when I realised I had a part one, and nothing to continue it with, I was a wreck.

I sat indoors all day, reading endless piles of books and staring at my laptop, willing my book to get written, maybe Facebook to do something interesting besides tell me how 'MESSY' some d**ks night out was. I would drink a two litre bottle of cherryade and throw up on the carpet, blaming it on the cat. I don't even have a cat.


So what are you reading? What am I writing? Better yet, why am I writing?

Because I was sat on Facebook, gnawing my own face off from the relentless amounts of dark self-shots with emo song lyrics from 'depressed' 13-year old's when I received this message, from the one with that blog about lemons or whatever.

So, what with her being relentlessly amazing and beautiful and talented and me being skillfully hypnotised, I decided to blog.

But what was I to blog? I had done nothing, achieved nothing save getting an imaginary cat in trouble! I'd have to do something revolutionary, something unheard of, something new.

So, I decided to make a list.

I know, I'm spoiling you.

See the thing is, if you're reading this, you've probably got nothing else to do. Either that or you rushed home and even hit a pensioner on the way when you heard I had posted again - but only cheese-boy does that. Seriously, he checks my blog at work when his boss isn't looking.

So due to you having nothing else to do I thought I'd give you a leg-up out of boredom, and give you a list of three awesome blogs to read when you're not peeling potatoes.

Three Awesome Blogs to read when you're not Peeling Potatoes

1. Lemons Don't Make Lemonade

Written by a certain Chinese ball of awesome, LDML is a contemporary zeitgeist for the sexually frustrated homeschooler. In short, desperate loner writing about penis. It's funny.

2. The Cheesecake Paradox

The Cheesecake Paradox consists of the proverbial ramblings of Sri-Lankan born Australian Ash Silva, a school computer technician and alleged mason-fetishist from Brisbane. A must read if you enjoy my writings.

3. ________

That's right, it has no name. Its no lie that I love English teachers, and the short punchy posts of pure wit, awesome poetry and unadulterated nameless-ness make 'The Secret Life of an English Teacher' one of my favourite blogs out there.

So what are you still doing here? Go! Read! Cure your boredom!

Pay me later guys.


- Lewis

Dyslexia and Pork Stuff in Holland

So I like going to different countries. It's pretty cool, because you get to see a ton of different cultures and languages and meet interesting people who aren't British every now and then. I ultimately feel sorry for Americans, due to the whole less than most people owning a passport thingy because that sucks. My life has been shaped by the different countries I've visited, or lived in, and I can't imagine never leaving one, no matter how diverse it is.

So it's a kind of unofficial challenge thingy for me to visit as many countries as I can in my lifetime, and it's going pretty well so far.

And the future's Orange bright.


My Brother's a trucker. He drives trucks. It doesn't make him a millionaire, granted, but it's pretty damn cool, because he's good at driving, and despite his constant complaining, that's all he's ever wanted to do in life - and it doesn't get much better than that.

So recently, he's been offered jobs driving abroad, delivering big boxes of stuff to places, and on Sunday, just casually, he passed me in the hallway and said 'How'd you like to go to Holland?'.
'Well gee-withers!' I exclaimed 'I've never been to Holland before! When might this momentous trip occur?'
'Uh... tomorrow.'

And so, I packed for the land of nether. And at ten o'clock bluntish, we got in a seven and a half ton truck and left for Holland.


Now, Peter hadn't left the country since he came to England at fourteen, so he was an ickle bit nervous about the whole border-crossing-language-speaking-wrong-side-of-the-road-driving bit, which I found adorable, having not left the country for a year.

We arrived in Dover, which was helpful, it being a location in my novel, and saw two hitchhikers stood outside the terminal, with a large sign saying 'PRAGUE, OR BUST'. I don't know where this Bust place is, but it seems like a nice alternative to travelers. Nevertheless I said 'That reminds me of my time in Prague', but Pete didn't get the reference and just gave me a weird look.

We got on the ferry, where we ogled duty-frees and planned what we were going to bring back, I looked at books, scoffed haughtily at some lost Northern folk, and Peter complained that he forgot to watch the complimentary Tom and Jerry DVD.

We then drove through France for half an hour, which was hilarious, as Pete doesn't speak a word of French.
'Parlay-voo une receipt, bitte?'
We saw some fields, which was a nice alternative to buildings, and some funky bits of bridge that looked as if they came off the side of a pair of Niké trackies.

Then we went through Belgium, or the country of wars, chocolate, and incomprehensible language, as my Dad has previously handled it. It was boring, so after not being able to find a service station in the entire freaking country, I took a s**t in a field as revenge.

Then we went through a big tunnel, where we turned up the D&B and pretended we were at a rave. After a while we popped out in a place we assumed was Holland, as there didn't seem to be a sign, not that we could read anyway, as Holland is the land of dyslexia, but I'll get to that in a bit.

We stopped in a service station where a well-spoken Dutch chap asked my brother if he was the Stig, or whether his shirt was lying, almost spoiled the previous nights episode of Top Gear for us, and then condescended us for not being able to use the internet to watch it. He then disappeared to 'save stupid ladies from bad driving', whilst I ogled the bottom shelf porn magazines, next to the Donald Duck comics.

Oh Holland, you so crazy.


We asked the well spoken Dutch chap if he could point us towards a hotel, whereupon he pointed over our shoulders to a large neon sign that read 'HOTEL'.

After conversing and checking in with a Chinese-Dutch lady who couldn't comprehend what cider was, even after we had gotten the entire bar into a tri-lingual discussion about it (There was a German Dr. Kelso lookalike). We then ate what was described by the menu as 'Pork stuff', downed some cheap lager (Legal drinking age in Holland is 16) and then went to our room to watch some television.

Now you can tell a lot about a country by what it shows on television. Unless you're in Holland. What they showed on Dutch television, bar the pornographic, fast moving and incomprehensible adverts, was pretty much just English TV with nonsense subtitles. We watched Coast, University Challenge, and Master of Antiques. Seriously.

Then I came to my conclusion about Holland. It is, to an Englishman, the equivalent of being horribly dyslexic. Everybody spoke English when you spoke to them, all the TV was in English, and everything was pretty much England (But cleaner and generally more polite). The only thing different was the signage. I couldn't even pronounce half of the words. It was horrible.


The next morning we delivered our load, a portable kitchen, to an Irish bloke in the shipping yard where strange orange men in blue jumpsuits cycled around on little bicycles. And they looked at us funny.

Then we did the trip there in reverse, this time buying some crispy M&M's, some Ice Tea, having a conversation in German with a Belgian woman, buying a can of go-faster which was actually called 'Go Fast!' and purchasing a book (An awesome story called 'Narrow Dog to Carcassonne' which is by far the funniest book I've ever read) and a litre of vodka in the duty-frees.

When we arrived home, Brownbear came over, and my brother received another job to drive to Scotland and back over three days (Strangely twice as long as going to Holland?!) but I opted out because:
a) I was tired.
b) It involved me doing some work.
and c) I wanted to start on my vodka/the book.

- Lewis

Beat Poetry of the Unbeaten

Evening, I'm in the garden,
Looking up at the sun,
I feel like life is slowly ending,
When it's only just begun,
I left school, left life,
Just the pen and the paper,
The occasional friend who'll say:
'I'll see you later' but they won't,
For I bore them, strangely deranged,
Reading back through the book,
So I can write another page, but better,

Learn from mistakes, get wise,
For this time I'll rise,
From those others, two-faced,
I'm telling you-
Watch this space.

The Mother of all Cancellations

So anybody who knows me quite well will know what I do for a living, that being that I write books, run a leaflet distribution business, and work in the family bouncy castle business. Working with inflatables, to put it briefly, is as fun as it sounds. However heavy a giant piece of plastic, its blower, and industrial petrol generator are, it's totally worth having to lug them around and deal with the stupidest of the British public, just so you can bounce around for a bit.

Call me childish.


But the majority of the money made from the business is from rentals. Renting a bouncy castle entails lugging all the equipment out to a strangers house/business, setting it up for them, taking their money, and for insurances sake begging them not to blow themselves up in the process.

Recently, we took a booking from a pub in the contender-for-quaintest-town-of-the-year village Stoke Poges (Not pronounced like the Irish folk band, but literally P-O-JES.). With barely a thousand houses in the village, the idea was that we give them a bouncy castle, they say to all the people in the vicinity that they have a bouncy castle, people flock to the pub, and in the process the pub sell a ton of drinks.

It's not revolutionary, but it's business.


Now, if you've ever had the awkward yet enjoyable moment of trying to be serious, but absolutely pissing yourself laughing down the phone at someone, you'll probably have a pretty accurate idea of what the following part went like.

We got a call from the pub, them notifying us that the booking was to be cancelled, all nice and polite so that we wouldn't have to waste our time going there. Fair play, that wasn't the funny part. The laugh came when we asked them why the booking was cancelled, and the grave and deadly serious reply came down the phone-line:

"The village, is closed today."

Now whether you're a fan of 'The League of Gentlemen' or not, you'll probably recognize this bout of British quaintness to be rather hilarious - but they were deadly serious.

The village closure had come with news that there was a gypsy wedding happening the same day of rental, and to any American's reading this, or people who aren't familiar with gypsy traveler ways, this will seem like a bit of a strange reason.

The village, having barely a thousand houses and being inhabited mainly by elderly couples probably only has about two and a half thousand people living in it. The town, also being the home of the now deceased traveler,  was being closed off as a no go area due to it being the destination, for over five thousand people. Now I'm not against gypsy folk, but the fact is that they are a group of people, Nazi input or not, who steal, fight, and generally tend to clash with society.

I have nothing against gypsies, but do take this as a lesson learnt. 


They closed a village for this.


You've been warned.


-Lewis


(P.S. Please don't kill me. My Dad's a conservative it's not my fault.)

Full House (Part one of a fictional all-nighter.)

The names James and you're joining me at the brink, the start of the end at the edge of the world, it's 6.30 on a Friday night and we've been freed from the relentless shackles of employment to wreak havoc upon our surroundings, to walk the town high as kites to release the build up of five days hard work, and all in the name of alcohol consumption. Anything can happen in the next 72 hours and its likely to be messy, but first:

Bingo.

However much the myth of bingo makes it out to be the domain of old savage women and soft-core gamblers, it's a vital spot for those of us more experienced than the average pisshead. I mean, whoever expected to find oil in the driest place on earth? Same logic really.

The pack this evening is made up of Keith and Eric, both of whom work at the same place I do, not that I'll mention that. Its just not the time. The fourth item in the fantastic four is Ben, a bit of an outsider but a funny bloke, and the one who gets the first round in - such is the attractive nature of the bingo hall. The man who runs the bar seems to have no concept of an economy or profit, and hence sells cold pints for two quid, making Lady Lucks the ultimate place for pre-drinks, not to mention the chance to win a couple quid.

Three and a half rounds in we make the ever so diplomatic decision to leave, subsequent to being asked to leave, due to something in between the yelling 'bingo' three numbers in and flicking crisps at the ugliest people we can see.

And so we jumped into Eric's four-door saloon (Fiona) clocks-a-ticking, and tipsily made our way to the closest service station to get all the supplies we needed for the warm-up, a game learnt from Keith's american friend called 'Edward 40' Hands'. A fifteen pack of Carling and two rolls of duct tape was the order of the hour, and after receiving the goods from the frankly confused and slightly intimidated shop attendant we made our way to the Sports Centre car-park, a dingy flat of tarmac with three or four cars parked up.

Once there, we taped a can of Carling to each hand (Opening them first) and set about the task of drinking them both, unable to do anything apart from dance to the radio and continue the banter from the bingo hall.

Having finished the can taped to my left hand, I was halfway through my right when - somewhere between the macarena and drunkenly attempting to take a leak - I passed out for the first time that night.

Worlds Weirdest Coincidence

So here's how it works. I live with my parents. It's a fairly big house, three bedrooms, three bathrooms (Originally two and one, but my Dad is addicted to extensions) and as of recent events, my thirty-something brother is living with us. This is all well and good, seeing as I never really grew up with my brother and I really enjoy being with him, but there's a catch.

There's always a catch.


Two days a week, normally Friday and Saturday, the kids come.


There's two of them, Finley: Born 2003, now seven years old, a four-eyed bookworm who during his first year or two everyone thought was a clone of me at that age, and Lola: Born 2007, now four, the noisiest little girl you'll ever meet with the funniest array of faces you'll ever see.

Now my book collection, in it's current state, is in three sections:
1. The books I don't want any-more and am selling to make space for new books.
2. The overflow of books (Mainly ones I haven't read for years) outside my room on the landing.
3. My actual bookshelf, which I'm in the process of cleaning and re-arranging.
I, like most people, happen to have a couple of editions of the Guinness Book of World Records, bought for me as desperate attempts at Christmas presents by distant relatives, that I've flicked through, laughed at, and then condemned to the shelf.

So when I woke up this morning to find the kids clawing through my overflow of books, I didn't mind them sitting there and pawing through the World Records books, except for the fact that for the rest of the morning, all I could hear was the Lords name in vain as they sighted the extremes of life itself.

But it's not what they saw, or the pictures in the book that struck me, it's something that took me a few minutes to realise. I've only got two editions of the record books, one from 2003, and one from 2007. One from the year Finley was born, which he was reading, and one from the year Lola was born, which she was reading.

And that was really weird.

Try as I might to wax lyrical about some far-out metaphor completely made up to tie this all together, I really can't. I just thought it was really quite peculiar.

-Lewis

The Wombles of Wimbledon Common Are We

So I said to a few people (Enough to start a military coup if it got out of hand. Maybe.) that when my blog got to a thousand views I would post something about my book. A book, may I add, that is coming along slower than a snail that's been caught in traffic due to an untimely road-traffic-accident involving a large heavy, hard to move object, but it is somewhat moving.


So, not wanting to cause any kind of coup d'etat, I shall indulge you.


Having been in this glorious country (England) for quite a while now, and having my (To say the least) interesting hobby of people watching, you seem to notice that the people of this nation are somewhat - insane.

Whether its dressing up as batman and chaining themselves to the Queens residence, or dressing up in a pink tutu and nothing else, despite being a 40 year old man, the British public have never ceased to amaze in everything that is weird, mad, bad, and completely ludicrous.

And for what reason? Because life's too boring. Douglas Adams did it best when he chronicled an Englishman going into space in his night-clothes, and queuing and complaining at every given obstacle, because that's what Englishmen do. They get sick at life, but they carry on.

And so, the aptly named 'Sick.' chronicles the people of England, in a variety of short stories. The accidents, the inconveniences, the inevitabilities, and the humour behind it all, that stops us from dying off and/or topping ourselves.

This all came to mind, in a small example, as I was sent an article, aptly entitled 'Glastonbury boss Michael Eavis regrets Wombles booking'. If you don't find that funny enough as it is, or don't know what Glastonbury is or what the Wombles are, I suggest you click here to read the article.

'Sick' should be available around October time, with free yet awful postal services and the neat-o price of £7.00 sterling ($11.60).


-Lewis

How to Lose Friends (And Gain Better Ones)

Granted, I've never been exceptional at making friends.

Although I'm quite good at losing them.

And so, going into my teens with a great want for company and people to talk to, I rushed to what seemed like the most obvious option - Facebook. Looking back, Facebook is now less of a friend-making facility, but more of a good way to communicate with friends you already have, as well as being a socially acceptable addiction.

But it wasn't really enough.

I have my friends, and they're all awesome and good for me in their different special ways, whether it's providing hugs and sympathy when I'm being pathetic, or providing fellowship and arguments when I'm drunk, but I'm guilty of wanting different people. There was a type missing.

I read a lot of books, and learn lots of clever stuff from the internet, stuff that I sometimes feel like I have to pack up all the smart stuff in a little mental box and keep it until I get to snooty English discussions at University.

Then I blogged.


And although it's not as if I was instantaneously surrounded by part-time librarians, I now know more people, interesting people, and to put it in context, I'm going to have tea and scones with the rather beautiful blogger Tegan on Toast and her boyfriend tomorrow.

How did I get this subject? Why am I posting twice in one day?!
In short, I was shown this video by my bi-curious-ginger-friend, and although you might not make the connection, it made me think of you guys.


(And before sexually confused people ask, yes, I'm bisexual, and yes, those dudes are attractive.)


Thanks Everyone!
-Lewis

Notes to Self (Should be actually noted and followed)

Today's post is brought to you by my strange aptitude for not being able to follow my own advice.

Some of you might remember that my first post on this collection of rambles and thoughts was a smallish piece from one of my notebooks on me attempting to gain inspiration for writing by going out side (See 'A Reason For Not Leaving the House').

Now today, struck with the good luck (Yet minor inconvenience, my calendar being empty as always) of being free from the bounds of school, I could stay at home and eat and read and generally do whatever I like, which is the ideal way for any teenage nerd to spend his life (And on days like this I really do). But today, I pushed myself to attempt to do something productive.

As you probably know (Seeing as I don't ever shut up about the damn thing) my book is being released in October, and seeing that I have to finish writing it, edit it, make a final edition and get it printed, I have quite a bit of work to get done. So, I thought, in order to get some writing done instead of writing a paragraph and getting distracted by fore-mentioned and dreaded funny cat videos I ventured forth from the house, portfolio folder in hand to venture off somewhere silent to get some writing done.

Oh, foolish young Lewis. You've made this mistake before lad.


I did consider going to the library, a place sort of intended to be, silent, easy to work in, full of good literature, and of course away from the internet, but I, being the lazy teenager that I am, couldn't be bothered to walk into town, and so made my way to a field.

Why?! What? Are you mental?!


And so I sat there, trying (And ultimately failing) to write, and in all of a couple minutes, I found myself covered in bugs, squinting massively at the white paper, and beginning to break out in a sweat under the sun.

So I went home.

And wrote this.

Don't be surprised if this book is late in coming.

- Lewis

I Ought To Be Sleeping

Its about ten past midnight on the 26th of May, and I should be asleep. Either that or burning the midnight oil, revising for one of the many upcoming exams that I seem to be facing with my relatively non-nonchalant nature. Now what was it that I said in my last post... I can't remember. (It was so far ago now, wasn't it...).

So why, you may ask, am I up at this absurd time in the morning? Ate too much? Nope. Badly timed programmes? Nope. Drinking away your problems? Nope (My mini-fridge is empty).

I am in fact, working.
Working?! (The audience gasp, gripped by their false thoughts of Lewis being that loaded type of rich bloke who has no need or inclination to work). How? WHY?

Don't fret. It's not actual work. I'm writing.

Writing? For what? An article in a magazine? A eulogy for the poet laureate? Nope, better! I'm writing a book! That's right! An actual book! One that you can buy and read and lick and use to prop up picture frames, a real book!

Basically, it's going to be called 'SICK.' and you'll be able to buy it online around September/October. Stay tuned, because I'll be posting an extract and possibly the cover very shortly!

Now off to bed...
-Lewis

How to Misjudge Life (In Two Easy Modules)

Now, as a very sociable person of many varied friendships, over the some might say small amount of years that I have spent on this fair planet I have accumulated a fair amount of off-the-wall relationships, with friends of all sorts of ages from all sorts of places, the majority of whom have never met, never talked, and probably never will, and if you asked me why this is the case, I could easily reply in two ways.

Firstly, I could reply with the answer that my pretentious, out-of-body ego would revel in, informing you that I've got such an exotic fruit-bowl of friends due to the fact that I'm an eccentric socialite who connects with people on a different level to most people, or that I choose my friends to spiritually enhance my lifestyle and meta-harmoniously expand my social horizons, or some such post-graduate bull$h!7.

Or, I could reply honestly, with the simple fact that I know so many different people because I'm a lucky sod who's been to a few too many social gatherings.

But the fact is, this blog has attracted people from all areas of my life to my writings, people who I never expected are reading every post and enjoying it as much as I enjoy writing them, and it's such a disproportionate matrimony of cross-Atlantic acquaintances, people whom I've bonded with in once of a lifetime trips or performances or simply people who I talk to everyday, that I thought I should dedicate this post to... a small and restricted scope of my audience.

I'm doing my GCSE's at the moment, an educational toil that my star-spangled readers may or may not be familiar with, and to be quite frank, should probably be quite thankful for that. Although this isn't for them, I know that quite a few of my readers are approaching their exams at the moment, and are all (Or at least a few) are working their absolute socks off in lieu of the ever-increasing threat of unemployment, poverty and eventual death by previous points.

Fact is, I am not wise. I am young, stupid, not a mystic, genius, or particularly talented or clever in any useful region, so before you accuse me of over-speaking myself that is, but this is my blog, so I'm going to say what I'm thinking. These exams aren't the be all and end all. A million and one people have done averagely on their GCSE's and not done horribly out of them, and from my experience, if you can get a decent job at our age (Believe me, me and quite a few others have) then you can surely survive with C's?

Don't fail your exams, that might suck emotionally, but for the same reasons, don't over-stress yourself. Wouldn't you rather chill and get a B than over revise and cram yourself and go mental when you only get a B+? Is it really worth it for a piece of paper that will swiftly become irrelevant when fate comes to put you in the most obscure job possible?

If you have a 25% chance of being homeless, and 25% of being a millionaire, wouldn't you much rather be in with the happy 50%? I don't know, it kind of depends on your outlook.

Just don't die, you're not even 18.

- Lewis

People Should Smile More

It’s back!

After much deliberation, writers block and hangovers, Stuff What I Wrote has returned. And as for my disappearance in the first place, it’s not that I didn’t love you (As I did and still do, very much), just that I didn’t want to spout utter rubbish on here. I do love the accomplishment of publishing a very meaningful and well written piece of writing, and wouldn’t have liked my little corner of the internets to be spoilt by un-thoughtful trash.

And so, I return.

Now today, I’m… elsewhere. For the past half week (It’s Wednesday, and I’m here till Friday) I’ve taken a week’s holiday in the rather pleasant Devon countryside, to visit my Uncle Matt’s farm (Well, I say it’s his but it’s still owned by his wife’s parents, but I digress). It’s all very lovely and he has pigs (Which taste lush by the way) and chickens, cows, sheep, a dog, and a family of very intrusive ducks, who seem to think they’re human.

But much as I’d like to sing his praises, I come to you with a bit of a message, as the past day or two seems to have had a bit of a theme, from my perspective anyway.

First of all, an article in a skateboarding magazine which I read yesterday seemed to focus on a matter which I know annoys quite a lot of kids of my age, and that is of course, being stereotyped. Now due to the beyond necessary efforts of the Guardian newspapers, closet racists and bespectacled corner-shop owners, the youth of our country seem to have been blanketed in negative media, forcing the population to generally be quite scared, or even sometimes quite aggressive towards people of our age. I know I’m hardly the most friendly figure to see on the street, at six foot something and dressed in a hoodie, but I find it rather frustrating when I look up to smile customarily at someone who is crossing my path and they are crossing the road to get away from me. It kind of makes me want to wear a big neon sign saying ‘I’M NOT GOING TO MURDER, RAPE OR ROB YOU’.

Now another thing that occurred today seems to relate to the overall topic of this article. As I woke up this morning and went into the front room for breakfast, I noticed someone blabbering, as they do, on the morning news. The topic was happiness, and the subject seemed to be represented by a certain ‘Student of Happiness’. Now, being the person that I am in the mornings (Incredibly groggy) I wasn’t quite sure whether they were actually holding a degree in the subject of eating chocolate, or whether they were a member of some bizarre new cult, but the idea to me seemed rather silly – have people forgotten how to be happy?

So what do I have to say about it? Well I could write lists, pages of advice on how to make the world a better place and generally improve the image of our generation but instead, I will leave you with a song, one that has a clear message, clear instruction, and one that pops up on my shuffle a lot. It’s by a man called Newton Faulkner, and shares the title of this article. Listen to it.

Thank me later Mr. Faulkner.

- Lewis

Second Hand Victims

So as I sat down to watch the evening news tonight, (This time without moustachioed conservative father, who was out, doing something, presumably) I paused over my pasta (Assonance, for all you English nerds) to wonder what on Earth had been happening in the big wide world outside my little bubble.

Murders! I thought. Kidnaps, rapes, robbery, madness and mischief! And then, the calming voice of an journalist narrating a rather innocent vegetable patch at a local school interrupted my to do list.

But among the homely local articles on projects and charities that very usually inhabited the local news there was also the ghostly presence of another similar item. I know I've mentioned it in a previous article (See 'What's New about the news?')  but the way that the local news holds us the prisoner of local issues is something I dislike, to say the very least. But today's post follows a different line of thought.

Take this hypothetical scenario for example. John Smith, happily married to a beautiful women with two kids and not a care in the world disregarding the junk mail that comes through his letterbox. John Smith then decides to get involved with the local organised crime community, and commits several murders for them. The wife, who later finds out hands in her husband to the police. And so, with the information that the news would have reported, I ask you a 'simple' moral question. Who was the victim?

Was it the people killed? Perhaps they took an involvement with the group and took the consequences? Maybe Mr. Smith who suffered in prison for the rest of his days? This is when I cleverly pull out the 'Trick Question' card.

Because what this non-existent news report did not actually report, was what happened to his beautiful wife and two children. They were taken away on the witness protection programme. They were taken from their home for their own good, placed in a different city far away, a different name, leaving all their friends behind to 'make new ones'. They are the second hand victims of the scenario.

Chin up Jozie-San.

-Lewis

One Sprog Every Minute

The other day, I was wandering along, minding my own business, when I heard the high-pitched voice of one teen-socialite uttering words that flicked my mind from the thoughts of what I was going to have for dinner to something that deeply disturbed me. This girl was about fourteen or fifteen, elbow pinning Hollister back to her side and free hand waving about whenever she spoke, so I guess I wasn’t too surprised (Mostly confused) when she uttered the words:
“I really want a baby.”

 Now I can slightly see why someone might want a sprog. Sure they’re cute, there are thousands of videos on You-Tube to prove that much, and sure, there’s the whole ‘Gift of Life’ thing, but overall, the disadvantages weigh out the benefits.

If you thought having one stomach to fill throughout your life wasn’t enough of a challenge, sure, you might want to advise in one of these screaming little upgrades, that instead of a stomach ache, will give you tantrums, screaming, possible property damage and deep moral scarring if you don’t feed it enough of what it demands! Or if you thought you had much too much money to spend on yourself (Which judging by the Hollister bag you might just) you can have one of these cute little things, to demand toys, food, clothes, and as they grow older the more powerful sedatives known as games consoles.

And last but certainly not least, I have one more point. Vaginas. Yeah, I’m not an expert, but that birth thing looks PAINFUL.

So before you go around stating how much you’d like a screaming, pooping, eating, drain on resources and energy and money, take a thought for your dear sweet mother, who deformed herself for you, stayed up for hours for you, spent all the money she could’ve spent on herself on designer sedatives, only to get pubescent remarks about how much you’d like to go through the same punishment, maybe just think the comment through.

- Lewis

Belieb it or not, you have 'Bieber Fever'

Now, I’m as sick of teen-pop-sensation Justin Bieber as the next guy, but as the cloned opinion goes, probably for different reasons. But it was when my three-year-old niece was dancing round the living room singing ‘Baby’ that I stopped myself from cursing internally, and asked myself – what exactly is ‘Bieber fever’?

Well after a quick Google search and swift look around You-Tube, I gathered that to have ‘Bieber Fever’ as it were, is to be obsessed with him. Most people who suffer from this supposed ‘illness’ (?) seem to be young girls like my niece, all the way up to teenagers of about my age. But the way I look at it, a large majority of his ‘haters’ seem to have the condition as well.

As a certain American businessman by the name of Phineas Taylor Barnum once said:

 “Any publicity is good publicity”

And this certainly has worked for Bieber. After a 2010 ploy to make his video for ‘Baby’ the most disliked video on You-Tube, a dedicated group of Justin Bieber haters (Only a word away from dedicated Justin Bieber fans) managed to get it to 1.1 million dislikes. However with all the people watching to dislike and checking how many it has, this plan backfired, giving Bieber almost 500,000,000 views.

But this illogical bout of dislike is not the only thing that gets on my nerves about this kid. It’s the fact that on almost every single music video on You-Tube, even as far out as classical music, there will undoubtedly be a moronic comment about how ‘Justin Bieber could never do this’ or ‘Justin Bieber sucks in comparison’, which, in turn, spreads the word of who Bieber is, and gives him even more publicity.

So the next time you think, ‘I hate Justin Bieber with all of my heart’, remember, you are just as sad as his fans.

-Lewis

Meditation and Shotguns

Now, I was queried by a certain person about my mental health today, so if I could quote the ever elegant Marshall Mathers on the case, I could describe the subject in two lines:

"Yeah, I probably got a couple of screws up in my head loose
But no worse, than what's going on in your parents' bedrooms" 

However, I don't think that this applies to how amazingly paranoid I get when I read an article entitled '10 Year-old's legally issued Shotguns'. Now it might be a bit of a secret to some people, but the state of arms (Both legal and illegal) in this country is very cleverly covered up by the media. Considering we're just across the pond from America, where its a man's constitutional right to be able to own a firearm, it does seem a miraculously easy job to make us look safe, when it's quite the opposite.

From what I gleamed from the article, I learned that just over 7000 gun licenses were issued to under-18's (Including children as young as seven) for activities such as competitive shooting and 'farm-based duties'. Now this doesn't seem overtly bad, when presented with the fact that under 15's must be supervised with them, and the lack of age restriction is due to the varying amounts of maturity and responsibilities (Which seems fair), but combined with the large amount of illegal weaponry in the country, and the fact that we're facing an age of depression and possible rebellion due to oil-prices and other reasons found in the book '101 Reasons why we're all Screwed', I can see this turning ugly rather easily.

So you can imagine, that as I lay there listening to the Lancashire-tinged whispers of my R.E. teacher during our later meditation session (Yeah, I chose good options), that my mind wasn't exactly at rest, as I pictured 10 year old's with shotguns rebelling against the fact that previous generations have really screwed us over.

- Lewis

 

I Resent those who Present Me

I've got a confession to make. Nothing sordid (Or stationary related for that matter), just a little confession to something that's probably not too healthy. I spend far too much time on You-Tube. Whether it's clicking through the 'related videos' list until my eyes bleed from funny videos of cats, or watching 15 minute physics lectures with Carl Sagan, there always seems to be something on that damned site that catches my fancy (And usually keeps me from working).

But the other day, I spotted something on You-Tube that really got my metaphorical goat.

Now, I'm (Admittedly a very open minded) Christian, but my ever philosophical eyes are always hypothetically maced when they see the words Westboro, Baptist, and Church waved in front of them in like a brightly coloured attention seeking banner.

In case you were blissfully unaware, the Westboro Baptist Church is an 'organisation', run by the ever backwards and narrow-minded inhabitants of the Bible-bashing Southern States of America. These public condemning country-folk have found their way to the title of 'Most Hated Family in America' by foolishly misinterpreting religious texts, picketing the funerals of dead servicemen, and mocking the very country that willingly defends them.

But believe it or not, its not their out-of-line attention seeking that gets me, not even the self-deprecating manner in which their government deals with them. Its how people put two and two together and get six, assuming that somehow, due to these moronic inbred's calling themselves Christians, that I yield the same opinions that they do.

Now if you hold the same amount of brain-cells as some of these block headed Atheists, you might be shocked to discover that, being a bisexual myself, I don't share the opinion that 'God Hates Fags', and coming from a long line of soldiers, I don't believe that 'A dead soldier is a good soldier'. So, 'XxxMaggotxForeverxxX', when you quite obtusely state that 'all religious nut-jobs should be shot', I think I'm  fully in my right to tell you to go and shove your opinions, up your anus.

- Lewis

(Yet another extract from the rambling book)

What's 'new' about the News?

As an educated and participating member of society (Whatever the hell that is) it seems to almost be my duty (Alongside the fact that I have nothing better to do) to sit down after my dinner and watch the evening news and to discuss it with my overtly Conservative and moustachioed Father.

Due to recent events, the National news seems to do its regular charade of babbling about how doomed things are and generally not doing much to help the cause, but around one centrally related topic - Japan. Now I'm all for helping poor countries (After all I did spend three weeks in Africa doing just so last Summer) but when I sit down to watch the news I almost haphazardly assume that it's, you know, new?

So, foolishly, I turned to the local news for a dosage of factual enlightenment. Now the local news isn't as bad as the National, particularly after a natural disaster, as it habitually shuts out current events in an 'ignorance is bliss' kind of manner, but in a way, what they do is much much worse.

It seems that everyday around here there's a new murder, missing person, rape, or paedophile ring, anyone would think it was becoming fashionable to be a criminal. And so, charismatic presenter Fred Dimbleby, with his bumbling chuckle and warm smile turns stone-faced and serious, bringing the fear, just that step closer, to home.

- Lewis

(Yet another extract from the rambling book)

A Reason (For not leaving the house)

Quite a number of times (Namely when I'm sat unmotivated in my dim hovel of an office) I find myself yearning for the creative juices that lay dormant and tormenting in my veins to flow. I ask myself - what do I have to do for inspiration? I read books, listen to music, watch films, all sorts of supposedly enriching activities, and yet still my hands float poised above the keyboard, half-written novel looking at me like an unfed dog on screen, and my mind sits stiller than frozen pond-water.

Yet there is always one thing that I beg myself to do in the hope that it will provoke some untouched nerve of creativity that I am yet to discover. I am speaking of course, of the final frontier for any and all cupboard dwellers - going outside.

So after much deliberation and hesitant opening and swift closure of the blackout blinds I finally find myself here (Admittedly against my own will and due to the sadistic requests of my P.E. teacher) with the sun blinding me, black school jumper making me sweat like a Nike manufacturer, and the occasional 'thrill' of having a ball kicked at my non-participating and therefore lazy head. In short, I have less creativity than Mick Jagger has blood in his arthritic little arms.

-Lewis

(Extract from my rambling book)